Fishing in the Gulf

There really is something special about sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, out where the water is that indescribably pretty shade of deep clear green, or even further out, where the deep water is that perfect inky blue. One of my design goals with Slider was that she should be able to go out safely into the ocean in settled weather.

Sunday the New Orleans Saints were on their bye week, so it was not as vitally important as it usually is for me to monitor the television all day. Nancy and I decided we’d take a short trip outside, and see if we could snag some of the mackerel that, during the season, are usually a reliable catch off Destin.

Unfortunately, my fumbly fingers betrayed me, and while I was hanking on the jib, I dropped a shackle pin into the deep ooze at the bottom of Slider’s slip. When that happens, you just have to let it go, because it’s gone.

I wasted 45 minutes searching for the spare shackle I know I have, before admitting defeat and making a run to the store. When I got back, Nancy had the boat all loaded up, but by that time it was 11 a.m. and we were about to miss the tide.

Out on the bay, the winds were very light and dead out of the ENE, throwing yet another wrench into the works. We made one long tack north toward Shalimar, and then were able to turn for Destin Bridge. The wind did back slightly to the north as we crossed the bay, gurgling along at 2 or 3 knots, which allowed us to make the bridge in a single tack. As we reached the Coast Guard station, while crossing a flat with a comfortable depth of a couple of feet, we had a decision to make. We could either short-tack up the channel by the bridge, or we could try to sail across Crab Island. We chose the island.

It’s not an actual island, though I think it was one once upon a time. A hurricane diminished it to a shallow sandflat many years ago, and it’s now famous for being a boater’s hangout. Literally hundreds of boats anchor and socialize here on summer weekends. It’s a colorful gathering, with a beer barge, music being played at high volume from dozens of competing stereos, and, it’s rumored, the occasional skinnydipper. On the first Sunday in November, there wasn’t a single boat there.

I love fall.

Crossing Crab Island I had to pull up the daggerboard, so we made a little more leeway. The rudders kicked back as we crossed the shallowest part of the flat, where the water was so clear it looked ankle-deep. The helm gets a lot heavier, as this greatly diminishes even the modest leverage of the short tillers, but I recently added a 2 to 1 purchase to the steering, which makes it much easier to control when the rudders are up.

As soon as we reached the deeper water by the bridge channel, it was the work of a moment to yank on the rudder lanyards and return them to their proper position.

Fortunately, though we arrived at the bridge a couple hours after low tide, there wasn’t any significant current yet. Such a current might have kept us from passing through the bridge if it was at all fierce. Here along this part of the Gulf, our tides are strange but puny. We have only one high and low tide, most days, and the range is in inches. However in some places, like narrow passes to the Gulf, the currents can be strong enough to pose a problem.

One day last spring my son John and I were intending to take Slider out into the Gulf. A strong outgoing tide caught us at the same time the wind fell light, and we were almost swept out into a line of breakers across the pass, which had not been visible until we’d been carried under the bridge. Destin’s East Pass is often spoken of as the most dangerous pass on the Gulf, because deep water comes close inshore, which evidently can result in the sudden eruption of breakers even when the local weather is fine. That day an onshore wind had combined with an outgoing tide to raise the breakers.

We got over to a patch of sand and got an anchor set, right before we were swept out past the stone jetties into the breakers, but it was a somewhat scary experience.

Sunday we sailed easily under the bridge, and the pass looked flat as a pool table.

There was blessedly little traffic. Traffic is the biggest problem associated with using this pass in the summer. Between the Destin charter fleet, the hundreds of private boats, and the swarms of jet skis, the situation is anything but comfortable for an engineless sailboat. As we passed out from between the jetties, we streamed the lines and close-reached to the SE. The wind had again picked up a little, and there was a leftover swell and chop from stronger winds the night before. We zoomed over the waves at 5.5 to 6 knots, catching a little spray on the back of the center deck, but mostly just enjoying the ride, despite the occasional jolt.

The wind was only 7 to 10 knots– the NOAA broadcast said winds were at 8 in Destin while we were out. But that was enough for a sail that seemed fast and exciting in the moderately bouncy conditions.

Because we had gotten such a late start, we couldn’t be out for long. We sailed across the Gulf toward Tampa for an hour, then back to the jetties. The fish seemed at first to have outsmarted us; we didn’t get a single hit.

Just before we reached the jetties, we passed through a boiling school of bonito. Unfortunately we didn’t have anything out that they wanted. I’ve been wanting to smoke a bonito on the grill. Around here, they are regarded as trash fish, fit only for shark bait, but rumor has it they are excellent when smoked. I was trailing a big bucktail jig on a heavy outfit for any king mackerel that might still be around, and had a mackerel tree and Clark spoon on a light outfit, for any Spanish that might still be lurking outside the pass. No mackerel, but just as we came inside the jetties, we cut through a school of bluefish, and hooked a couple of snapper blues on the mackerel tree. Bluefish are really tasty when smoked, and this past spring I got a lot of use out of the smoker grill when bluefish were hitting all over the bay. I make a great smoked bluefish spread, with cream cheese and horseradish.

We probably could have filled both of our limits, had we been willing to sail back and forth through the school, but the sun was getting pretty low on the horizon, and I wanted to get through the bridge into the wide-open bay before dark.

The wind fell light again as dusk approached, and the current was fairly strong in the pass, the buoys bent over and trailing big wakes. Unfortunately, I discovered that the current swept NE, carrying us at an angle to the channel under the main span, which runs north and south. Nancy and I unshipped the paddles and flailed ourselves over to the channel. Slider’s mast is short enough that she could pass under several of the other spans, but anglers were dropping lines off the bridge, everywhere but over the main channel and we didn’t want to get hooked. It’s fortunate that a couple of worried sailors can move Slider pretty well with paddles. We made it across the current and into the bay just as the sun was touching the horizon.

The wind had dropped to a barely perceptible zephyr, and we realized that we were in for a long night sail on the bay. The sun set in a blaze of pink and purple glory, and the flats were full of pelicans feeding on bait boils all around us.

We drifted at 1 to 2 knots, watched the pelicans flying in the sunset, had a snack. I sailed north first, to clear the sailing line of the Intracoastal, which runs from a flasher at the northernmost point of Destin SW to the buoy line that leads to Brooks Bridge in Fort Walton Beach. Once we were well out of the track of any commercial traffic, we turned west toward home.

At the end of twilight, we were surrounded by a ring of porpoises, which might have been herding mullet. Looking toward the lights of Fort Walton Beach, we could see the porpoises breaking the glassy water, hear them breathing, and smell their fishy breath when they happened to surface directly upwind.

We spent the next couple of hours sailing very slowly through the night. There was a bright crescent moon so the bay never really seemed that dark. There was almost no boat traffic, and none came close to us. I really enjoy sailing at night. That night we had the sounds of the boat passing through the water, the soft clean air, the beauty of the starry sky, the lights along the far shore, sparkling across the smooth water. In the light air, the boat required very little attention, holding course for minutes unattended, so that we could pay attention to each other and to all the wonderful sensations of being out on the water. We were comfortable and relaxed, there were fish in the cooler, and we felt that satisfaction that comes from having just had a small adventure.

Life can be very good for the small boat sailor.

By the way, we took some video.