Scary Day

Yesterday we went to the National Naval Aviation Museum here in Pensacola. It is definitely a "don't miss" place. We pretty much spent all day and still didn't see and do it all. Other than a few simulator rides and the IMax theater that shows four different films throughout the day, it is all free. I have some pictures that I'll share in the next day or so but for now I'm going to jump to today's excitement. We had to return our rental car at noon today so we hurried around and got some last minute shopping done. Went back to the tackle store to get a few more things, stopped by Joe Patti's to buy some more fresh fish and shrimp and stopped by the marina office to pick up the water maker and some other packages. Briefly on Joe Patti's... If you are ever in Pensacola, Joe Patti's fish market is both an experience and a great place to buy fresh fish and shrimp. Car returned to Enterprise. Never knew how Enterprise got its name. The owner of Enterprise flew jets off the USS Enterprise. Besides naming his car rental company after the Enterprise he has donated more than $3 million to the Naval Aviation Museum in order to have several exhibits built, including the one of the USS Enterprise. Besides that, they'll pick you up. And they did. So we loaded our goodies on the boat, filled up with fresh water, stopped by the fuel dock to pump out and we were on our way for our short trip to where we were going to anchor tonight. From then on things didn't go so well. As can happen, in a blink of an eye a strong thunderstorm built up and headed our way. We were pretty much in the middle of Pensacola Bay when it hit us. We were motoring and I was going slow but keeping the bow pointed into the wind. The wind was blowing about 40 knots and then all of a sudden it changed direction and came from the starboard side at about 50 kts. I couldn't get pointed into the wind fast enough and the wind pushed us over at about a 45 degree angle. There wasn't much for us to do but hold on and watch the wind rip our bimini in several places. Lightning strikes were all around us and very close. At one point I lost all my electronics except the radio, not that I could hear anything anyway. To say we were scared would be an understatement. The entire storm probably didn't last more than 30 minutes with the worse part being only 10 but it felt like hours. Once the worst was over we looked back and saw we were dragging our dinghy upside down. Somewhere in the worst of the wind it flipped over. For the longest time we thought the outboard motor was gone, at the bottom of the bay, but when we finally were able to regroup we saw it was still attached to the dinghy. It probably spent an hour upside down and under water before we got the dinghy flipped back over. We took the outboard off the dinghy and put it on the mount on the boat, gave it a fresh water shower under the cowling, filled the crankcase with as much oil as it would hold, took the sparkplugs out and filled the cylinders with WD40, Hopefully that will save the engine from any saltwater that did get in. To be honest, I'm not sure any water got in the motor but I don't see how it couldn't have. The very good news is we are fine. The good news is the boat is fine and didn't fail us in our hour of need. The fact that we need some outboard motor and canvas repair is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Oh, we did also lose the dinghy gas tank. Once all was taken care of we grilled shrimp on the barby for dinner. The sunset wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. That's it for now. Take care. Brian