A Bad Day, a Worse Day, and a Great Day walk into a bar

Last time I blogged, we were anchored near Alligator Harbor.  The next morning, we woke up at 4:40, listened to the forecast, and went back to bed.  It did not sound like something we wanted to even try.  Sleeping in until 8 was really nice.  Then we had a fairly lazy day.  The waves picked up a little throughout the day, but we didn't think much of it.  Until we went to bed.  The waves were just big enough to yank us around and knock our boats into each other. We had the fenders out, so there was no real risk for damage, but we could not sleep.  We got up around 1:00 to see if adjusting the anchor line would help. Apparently, Dad thought the same thing because he was out adjusting his line 10 minutes later.  Adjusting the lines didn't help. Dad pulled his anchor up, hoping we would swing around on ours and get a better position into the wind.  We didn't budge.  So the waves still knocked us around.  Since we were leaving in 3 hours anyway, we said "Let's just go."  So we went.  Full dark.
And it was gorgeous out there!  So many stars overhead.  I even saw some shooting stars.  And looking beside the boat into our wake, I could see the bioluminescence we stirred up.  Really awesome!  So we were in pretty good spirits.  Hey, we were going to get to Steinhatchee 3 hours earlier than we expected.  The waves got a little bigger, but we were still doing okay.  Then the engine chugged.  Uh oh.  It did this the other day.  Then it chugged, chugged, sputtered and died.  Oh crap.  It restarted easily enough, but we called off that attempt to go.  We turned around and headed back to Alligator Harbor to anchor for a few hours and maybe get some rest.
Not much sleep was attained.  We were probably a little too wired to sleep.  So we got up and headed out before the sun came up, when there was just enough light to see the waves coming at us.  The engine sputtered a couple of times, and died once.  But we headed on, thinking maybe it just had some crud it needed to cough out.  Just as we were nearing the point of turned east to Steinhatchee, the motor started giving us more trouble again.  We decided to aim for St. Marks, which was 30 miles away, instead attempting the 60 miles to Steinhatchee.  The waves got bigger and bigger, and the motor got grumpier and grumpier.  Died several times, but we managed to restart it.  For a while.  It took 2 attempts to get it started, and it didn't stay on for long.  We had already called TowBoatUS to get them moving toward us because we knew the motor wouldn't make it 30 miles.  So when the engine died the final time, we dropped anchor.  It was tricky, though, because we were in 35 feet of water, and our anchor line was only 100' long.  So we tied our old anchor line to the end of the new one to give us 200' to work with.  Trevor showed masterful seamanship in getting us anchored in those conditions!  Then we hunkered down and waited.  We were rocked and rolled like crazy, never in danger, but in lots of discomfort.  My stomach was uneasy, but the ginger kept it from losing control.  Didn't want to be leaning over the side of the boat in those conditions. 
Finally, the towboat showed up.  Trevor had to pull up the 150 feet of anchor line he'd let out.  And with waves buffeting us in all directions.  He was awesome!  Heaved that anchor up (yes, heaved), secured it, and then got the towline attached.  Being towed is an adventure in itself.  Normally, our boat doesn't go more than 6 or 7 mph.  We've been up to 8, but with a current.  The guy was towing us at 8.5 mph.  I now understand why sailboats can't exceed their hull speed.  At this speed, we were making a wake (we don't make a wake, ever) that was high enough to come halfway up our transom (back end of the boat).  This was a problem.  Why?  We have holes back there, drain holes for the cockpit.  So water flowed in through these holes into the cockpit. 

Water in the cockpit

Our view of the towboat

You can see we had several inches of water in the cockpit.  It was like that the entire tow, which took about 4 hours.  Every once in a while, we'd ask the driver to slow down so the water would drain out.  After about an hour, we started to relax.  I tossed out a fishing line.  Didn't catch anything except the attention of a few seagulls. 
But then we got dolphins!  Several of them!  And they stayed with us for quite a while, jumping right next to the boat or riding in our wakes.  I took lots of pictures, even a video. 

Those were dolphins jumping our wake.  The one below is right next to the boat!  So awesome!

So the day was crappy, but the dolphins were amazing.
Finally we made it up the St. Mark's River to the Shields Marina.  A mechanic came to look at our motor and found the problem instantly.  We had water in our fuel.  And a dirty primary fuel filter.  The fuel filter was my fault.  It's in a place that's really hard to get to, so I hadn't changed it.  Ever.  But the mechanic was awesome and showed us how to check it and change it.  He explained everything we needed to know about how much diesel engines hate water.  He even reassured us about the slow starting on cold mornings (spraying WD-40 in there is okay, yay!) and how the engine is burning oil.  So we felt better, the engine is fixed and happy, and now we know what to do if the problem occurs again.  We were worried we'd have to replace the thing, and that's where the big money comes in.  So we were relieved, to say the least.
The forecast for yesterday was awesome.  But it had been awesome the last several days, and we'd had rough seas.  So we gambled and tried again.  We figured if the water was rough, we could turn around and spend a few days in St. Marks.  Bad weather was coming, and we had only the one nice day left before getting socked in. 
We left yesterday as the sun was coming up.  Dodged crab pots in the river.  When we got to the Gulf, the water was pretty smooth.  So we raised our genoa and motorsailed for a while.  We ran a few miles off shore, and there were crab pots everywhere!  Crab pots are not something you want to tangle with.  They'll wrap around the propeller and shut down a motor.  So we dodged them all day.  But the water was smooth.  Glassy at points.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day!  There were times where we could hardly tell where the water stopped and the sky began.

Is this the same Gulf of Mexico that's been beating the devil out of us for so long?  Amazing!  The biggest tragedy of the day came when my fishing hook broke.  Just snapped in two as I was getting ready to start trolling.  I was heartbroken.  I was going to catch fish, for sure!  But if that was the worst thing to happen, we were having a great day.
And then came the sunset.  Oh, the sunset.  We were still out on the water while the sun was going down.  And we ended up coming into the river and the marina in the dark.  It was a little tricky.  But with Trevor navigating and me driving, we got in with no problems.  Because we're awesome like that. 
And we are so glad to be here.  The rained moved through this morning, and now the wind is howling.  They're calling for possible gale force winds, and we are tied up tight.  Trevor's been wind-proofing the boat.  Took down our radar reflector, genoa, and tied down the bimini.  I think we're about as ready as we can be.  And for your viewing pleasure, yesterday's sunset.