After a few days of blue water wave riding and wild dolphin sighting, we ran into one thing we just didn’t expect to happen: the wind just died.

The Gulf of Mexico, the Great Washing Machine, was totally dormant.

Without any wind, we trudged on with that old Yanmar 3QM at a modest 1400 rpm to save on fuel. Compounded by the fact that we just can’t seem to get away from trouble with this ancient hunk of diesel chugging iron, we just couldn’t lose that engine.

Then again, we were on a sailboat with 400w in solar panels and provisions for at least a couple of weeks. Not to mention we didn’t have anywhere to be any time soon. Screw it, we could have drifted around for a week waiting for wind if we’d wanted to.

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Well, then again again, we had ice cold beer and red hot bikini-clad women to track down on a white sandy beach somewhere.  As it works out, though, if that wind didn’t pick back up, we barely had enough fuel to make it to the Dry Tortugas. If we didn’t catch some wind soon, we wouldn’t have enough fuel to make the following leg from the DTs to Key West. So, we decided to give it another twelve hours or so of motor sailing and see if anything changed.

Something did change. The wind started breezing from the SE, right where we wanted to go, and we didn’t have a chance of motoring our way all the way there if the wind didn’t swing back around the other side. Without the patience to spend an extra few days tacking around in superlight wind, we decided to hang a hard left and motor for Florida’s nearest coast around Venice.

We arrived in port just in time to crush a few brews and find a good spot in an anchorage just around the corner. Adam was already passed out down below, so staggering from port to starboard we two salty sailors found a great wide open spot in the middle of the anchorage.

We woke up a few hours later, anchored in the same spot, but by now the anchor was irrelevant. [Sorry about the music Mom! I couldn’t help it…]

Apparently, we pulled into Venice during the peak of a rare 3.5 foot tide change. We were hard aground and leaning harder by the moment as the water swept out toward the Gulf and the Moon in the dark night sky above. By 7:00am, we were truly laying sideways in the middle of a dredge shoal.

I freaked out for a minute, realize there was no immediate danger (or anything we could do anyway), poured a round or two of Espolon tequila shots [whats up Harrison’s Landing peeps hanging out after work!!], and we all hunkered down for a slightly sideways night.

While we cruised through about 8 episodes of the Sopranos laying on the wall/floor, I made sure to document as much as possible.

After two separate attempts from the great people at TowBoat US, we stuck around in Venice and waited for the heavy clouds to clear our way back South. Apparently, Fort Myers Beach is pretty cool… Looks like the Dry Tortugas will have to wait…