Monday December 14, 2015
The day started out cloudy with intermitent light rain. The wind was blowing from the south.
In a nutshell, Jim was day dreaming/ not paying attention/ forgetting that we had the mast up again as he approached our 5th bridge of the day. The Hatchett Creek Bridge is a draw bridge that opens every 15 minutes on request. Jim suddenly swore something and put the boat in reverse. I jumped in and took over the helm, completing the turn Jim had started. By the time we were out of danger, my heart was racing! Close call. I don’t want to think about how bad it would have been if we had slammed into a 30′ bridge with our 50′ mast.
We anchored in Lemon Bay for the night. It occurred to me that I should look up where Martin, Jen, and Kaylee were. We had travelled with them from Hoppies on the Mississippi to Green Turtle Bay. Martin was running a small marina in the Ft Meyers area. I looked it up and was surprised to find that they were only two miles from where we were anchored! I called them and made plans to meet the next day.