Larry Sherman and Linda Westbrook on s/v Enchantress: Lots of news! (Posted 7/12/2012)

Since the last posting in June we have some news to report. We left Bradenton Beach and had a great sail across the mouth of Tampa Bay and up to Reddington Shores. After arriving there in a nicely protected cove and spending a few calm days at anchor, we heard that a tropical storm was brewing in the Gulf. It took its sweet time getting organized and slowly headed up the Gulf. Predictions were all over the board with landfalls from Brownsville, Texas or even Mexico all the way around the Gulf coast to New Orleans or to the Tampa area (where we were!). Well.....it just kept coming and finally turned and set its sights on Florida. Although we were well away from the center we were on the windy and rainy side of the storm which was huge. We had sustained tropical force winds of 40 mph for two full days and nights with gusts one night of 50 mph and higher gusts at times of 60+ mph. NOT what you want when at anchor! The concern is that the anchor will drag and you will end up on the shore or against a concrete seawall! But the anchor held and we were thankful to be in a cove where it only had choppy small waves. We watched as the storm surge went over the seawall at the park, over the dinghy dock where we usually went ashore, flooded the road, and covered the yards of the houses around the cove and up to their back doors and sliding glass doors, no doubt flooding them. We were thankful to be floating instead!

I admit to complaining about the wind and whining a bit during the storm. :-( Linda was better about it and only began to be worn down by the second day! :-) During the storm I checked YouTube on the internet and saw that people had posted videos of the sailboats we knew that were anchored in our "summer home" anchorage in Bradenton Beach that we had left that were crashing into the pier and on the rocks and sinking! And more boats washed ashore in Sarasota where we sometimes anchor. We were glad were were not there (although I would have never stayed there in a Tropical Storm anyway!). After the storm was over we got ready to leave the cove and head down to Gulfport. As we went down the waterway we saw that at the first anchorage we came to that a number of boats were washed ashore or were sunk since it was not a protected anchorage like we had been in. When we got to Gulfport we saw more boats there that had drug anchor and were on the beach.

We went into the Gulfport Marina to get Enchantress ready to leave her so that we could fly out to Arizona. We flew out of Tampa on June 30th to Phoenix and met Amy, Mark, Olivia and Laura who had flown in from Connecticut. We drove up to Camp Verde where my sister Linda lives. We took the granddaughters up to see the Grand Canyon, saw the Indian cliff dwellings at Montezuma's Castle, toured the "Red Rock" area in Sedona, spent a day at a wildlife park/safari, a dinner and show at a cowboy ranch, and saw nephews and relatives some of whom I hadn't seen in 45 years!! We had a great time!

I took well over 200 photos and can only post a few here on the blog:

Here is a photo of the Indian cliff dwellings. They had ladders to get up there. NOT housing for anyone afraid of heights! BUT if you pull up the ladders your enemies can't get to you!