Tall Masts, Low Bridges, on the Okeechobee Intercoastal Waterway

Okeechobee Waterway

Making a passage through the Okeechobee Intercoastal waterway with a sailboat is a very interesting and challenging voyage.   The long duration and beauty of back country of Florida is relaxing as well.

See this link for map of the Waterway:
http://w3.saj.usace.army.mil/h2o/cameras.htm

The St. Lucie Lock on the Okeechobee Waterway

The first thing you want to look at as a sailor is what are the heights of the bridges.  With some 26 bridges to pass under, you certainly do not want to hang your mast on the bottom of a bridge.  People have, indeed, made errors on this matter.  Not knowing your mast height can be troublesome!

One lady, manning the helm (lady-ing the helm?);  going under a bridge, accidently hit it;  -and the boat mast hung up in the bridge.

 The boat turned sideways under the bridge, the strong current pulled it under the bridge sideways, and

the boat heeled over 50 degrees.  Unfortunately the boat filled with water due to the port windows not being closed prior to going through the bridge.  She panicked,  grabbed a life vest, and jumped off

of her boat into a two knot current on a rising tide, which swiftly took her down stream away from the bridge and the boat.  

With her boat getting hung up under the bridge, the mast can withstand so much pressure.

It snapped in two and the boat started floating with the current from under the bridge.  She could not swim back to the boat, but, fortunately, a jetski came up beside her, heaved her onto the back seat and took her to her half-sunken  demasted boat.

So, I measured my mast just to be sure.  Twice!  Once from the bottom up.  And then I climbed to the top of the mast and measured from the top down. I have never been accused of not being anal enough!    :)

The lowest fixed bridge on the Okeechobee intercoastal waterway is:  49 feet, 3 inches.  The RR bridge at Mayaca lock used to open up to 52 feet.  But now, it is so old, it sticks at 49 feet, 3 inches to 50 feet, 6 inches depending on rainfall.  For some reason or other, it has not been fixed.

There are about 10 bridges that are swing bridges or bascule bridges, which open completely for passage.  So, there is no worry there.  You just radio the bridge master on channel 9 and they open on-demand most of the time.

If your mast is higher than 49 feet, it does not mean that you may not get through.  There are a number of options.  You can swing out your boom  90 degrees, and put about 400 lbs on a block and tackle tied to the boom's end, (like a fiberglass dinghy and motor). to tilt the mast enough to get under it, but that is a precarious exercise, and should be practiced before doing it the first time.  You certainly do not want oncoming traffic with the boom sticking out to the side 25 feet into the oncoming boat's path.  You could lose the dinghy and the boat, and get a lawsuit.

I understand that there is a company that will come and load one side (starboard) or the other side (port) of the boat with drums full of water, in order to tilt the boat enough, so that it will heel 15 degrees to safely pass under the bridge with a 54 or 55 foot mast,  if you took our 10th grade geometry class, it  would be a handy class to remember at this point.

Since my mast measured 6 feet from the water level at midship to the bottom of the mast, then 10 feet up to a scratch on the mast, and then 25 feet more above the scratch to the masthead where the 25 foot tape measure got stuck to the halyard pulley at the masthead,  I add up the 6+12+25+3= 46.  I need to add about three more feet for the radio antenna, and lighting deflector array.  Whether the lightning deflector really works or not is for the physics professors

to debate.

Masthead Array

So, a 46 foot height at the highest point leaves me with a 3 foot  3 inch clearance.   Wow, that seems like  a lot!  But, distance is deceiving when looking up at a 46 ft mast and going under a 65 foot bridge.  It looks like

I only have about 5 feet of clearance from my vantage point (with a 46 foot mast) from behind the helm looking up through the strato glass of the bimini.

Knowing that I am only going to have only three feet of clearance gives me a little anxiety still.   The anchor light on top cost $500, the wind direction and wind speed indicator cost $1500, and then, the mast itself with rigging, and 

stainless steel cables (shrouds), turnbuckles, and chainplates,  is more than I want to think about repairing.   So, it behooves the captain to know his boat's vertical dimensions.

After climbing to the top of the mast, tonight, and loosening the spinnaker halyard, and taking my tape measure, I determined that, my height was exactly 47.5 feet.

And,  according to the new website I found at www.southwindsmagazine.com, I found that the bridge height is now 50 feet and 3 inches with the added rainfall.   Wow, at least two feet of clearance!  Now, I KNOW for certain that I can breathe easier, going under the Mayaca Bridge.

Three Bridges at once at Stuart, FL. on the St Lucie River

I am good to go.

So much for mast heights! Its time to get to bed and continue the journey at 0630!

Two Coconuts and a Castle: An Adventure

TWO COCONUTS AND A CASTLE 

                                                              (Wednesday)  April 16, 2014

Today turned into quite an adventure and discovery day.  As, I had mentioned the day before, that If you want to get to know something about Bahama history, life, and culture, you would want to get the book, “Out-Island Doctor,” by Evans Cottman, I little imagined the events that would unfold.

Last night as we sat in the cockpit of Morning Grace, the anchor lights of all the sailboats began to switch on, as that is the rule when anchored in a harbor.  

We were scanning the darkening skies over the small town of Marsh Harbor

that bordered us on all sides of the bay.   AS I looked to the Southeast, I saw a large building illuminated toward the Southeast portion of the bay and remarked, " That looks like some kind of a castle."  Julie commented, "Oh,  that is the castle that the Out - Island Doctor built, himself.

I had not read that far into the book yet, and Julie had finished it while I was out in the town getting things done.  She said that he had built it, as it was one of his dreams, along with moving out of Indiana in 1937, to come to the Bahamas in order to provide medical assistance to the inhabitants of the Bahamian out-islands.

I mentioned that I would like to try to walk up there tomorrow.

After making some delicious banana pancakes for breakfast, we began our search for the castle.   Since there is just basically one road connecting the town as it surrounds the bay around Marsh Harbor, we set off to the East along the coconut palms dotting the turquoise coast.

The road is presently getting an upgrade of new asphault which is quite a nice addition to the town considering the road's totally depleted, and pot-holed state.  

Julie went off to the side of the road to hunt some coconuts to take back to the boat for milk and meat later.  We shook them to listen for the milk slosh to insure that they had not rotted and tucked them into my backpack.

We trekked along the road for about a mile and a half until we gradually turned toward the South around the other side of the town on the opposite side of the bay and surprisingly we could not find the castle.  Julie said it is up on a hill,  -the only hill on the island, so that should not be too hard to find.

After going into the John Bull gift shop which was a bit pricey; -it  sported Leo DiCaprio’s wristwatch campaign that helps the green alternative effort along with trying on a few Panama Jack hats, we set off to find the castle.  We also looked at conch pearls.  Did you know that sometimes conchs make pearls?

We were also just walking to walk off the banana pancakes I had made on the kettle grill in the cockpit on the boat, prior to our leaving.

Then, just at the right moment we came across a large sign about 4 by 7 which was a map of the island that told us right where we were and where we might go, to find the Doctor’s castle.

Terrain navigation helped us to sort out where to go from the “you are here” point on the sign, and we set off again.  It was tough resisiting the urge to buy an ice cream just after eating those banana pancakes, but I succeeded.

We eventually happened upon the right road after several false leads that started dogs barking and ended us up on dead ends.  We were a little confused that there would be no signs showing us the way to the castle that said:  "Doctor’s Castle,"  -pointing this way.

We took the road that looked like it would go higher than the others, and finally saw the upper half of the castle.     

Our first sighting of the castle did not get us there though.  We were on the wrong road again, to approach it.  So, we back tracked again.

This time, our efforts met with success, as we trudged up the hill.

As we rounded the approach road, we finally came up close to the castle.  It looked much bigger from the boat, I thought, but nevertheless, it certainly was a castle-structured home, three stories high, and painted yellow.

"There it is!”   It was kind of exciting, since Julie and I had lived in a 17th century Castle, in Hurlach, in Bavaria in Germany for three and a half years when we worked in Youth With a Mission, and our son, Lukas, was born while we lived there. We had seen hundreds of castles throughout our travels in Germany, Austria, England, Holland, France, Spain and Ireland when we live in Europe over 14 years.  Castles just have a mystique and magnificence that excites the imagination.

                                                                    "There it is!"

 The book said that it had been a restaurant at one time,  after the Doctor died, in order to help keep up the maintenance on the castle, but that it had closed in 1998, giving no reason why.  The Doctor had died in 1989 from a massive heart attack, leaving it to his daughter, Faith Gayle,  to inherit.

As we stood there gazing at the castle, a lady walked by, through the yard.   Julie asked:
   "Are you part of the castle family?"

She said politely,
   “No, I am just a guest,” and walked on, as if she did not want to stop and chat.

We took a few pictures of the castle, turned and left, walking a different road away from the castle straight toward the beach.  

As we descended the hill, we saw a black Bahamian man cropping bushes with his machetti on a beautiful tropical property.

I asked him if he might cut the matted bark off of the coconut for me, and he smilingly oblidged.  He made short order of the job.

So, I asked if I paid him, if he would do another.  "Yes-suh," he smiled widely.  He gladly extended his hand for the second coconut and trimmed it down to the nut.  I handed him two Bahamian dollars, and he happily took the money and spoke with us a few moments.  The mixture of his British accent, Bahamian slang and American lingo was quite difficult to understand, but he said:  He told us he had been to the states, and after some small talk, said:  "Have a nice day.”

We discovered that the further we went away from the castle, that it was the wrong way back to the boat.  We could see the Man of War Cay and Dickys Cay across the Sea of Abaco directly in front of us, it was so beautiful.  But,  I said,  "Let's turn around, we are getting further away from the castle."

I was contemplating writing an article about our journey to the castle, but nothing eventful had yet presented itself to write about.   Then, the idea struck me, that I ought to write a story about two coconuts and a castle, and that I will need to get a picture of the castle in the background with me holding the two coconuts. 

So, Julie and I turned around to walk back to the castle to make the picture.

                                "Two Coconuts and a Castle"

When we returned, Julie warned me not to get too close to the dog that was there behind me, inside the fence, on the Castle property and she took a few shots of me holding the coconuts with the Castle in the background.

Just then, a white-haired lady walked by, - carrying a load of laundry out to a shed where she must have had a clothes dryer.

Julie asked her, "Are you family of the castle?"

She responded,  "Yes,” - with a smile and a nod.  

 “Oh,"  Julie said, surprised, "Are you Gayle?"

 and she said, “Yes, I am.”

We felt very privileged meeting the daughter of the doctor, whom we had had so much fun reading about together.  Meeting Gayle was way more than we expected for the day.

We started discussing some of the stories from the book with her, and asked her if the 31 foot sailboat that was built for Dr. Cottman was still here. 

She said.  “Well, it had been sold to two or three different owners, over time, but that

in 2004, she heard that a hurricane took it and tossed it into some mangroves, and that it probably was sitting atop some mangroves rotting out.

The news was saddening.

We asked her if she had taken trips with him to the Out-Islands, as a young girl, and she said

mentioned that she had gone with him several times.

We asked her if she minded us getting a picture taken with her, and she suggested getting a selfy of all three of us.  She was quite kind to us.

                                                         Faith Gayle Cottman

Then, she said,  "But the dinghy. (A dinghy is the small survival boat you pull along behind you in, to tender you into shore, and for emergency survival if needed.)   The dinghy is in Green Turtle Cay,  -somebody bought it and turned it into a table in a restaurant!"  -she smiled.

 “Well," we said,  “we are interested in getting a book from you, if you have any.  We are reading one that was loaned to us by a friend.”

She said,  “Actually, there are two books, the “Out - Island Doctor,”  and “The Castle in the Air.  The second book tells of what it took to build the castle over the seven years."

We asked her if she had any books and that we would like to buy a copy of both, and she said, “Come on up into the castle, and I will get them for you."  Plus, she gave us wholesale price!   They sell in Nassau, in Freeport, in Great Guana Cay Gift Shops, and throughout the Abaco Islands.

We were amazed and grateful to walk into the castle inner court veranda of the castle and absorb its breathtaking view.  We beheld the best and highest view of the Sea of Abaco in the whole town of Marsh Harbor, and saw the vast expanse of waters to the other surrounding islands.  It is spectacular.

Julie asked Gayle if she would sign the books, and she gladly did and handed them to us.

As we left to leave I noticed two women in one of the rooms of the castle wondering if they were daughters of hers.

Julie and I walked down the road away from the castle.  I noticed that there was a road sign that said “Castle Road” and Julie and I remarked how appropriate the sign was.  We had not seen it on the walk up.

Shortly after we had departed, I told Julie after walking a distance, that I wanted to go back and take a picture of the "Castle Road" sign.

As I was attempting to take a picture of the sign (my camera died before I made the shot), but, the two ladies (mother and daughter) passed me.  They were the ones that I had seen in the room at the castle.

We greeted each other, and I found that Laurie and her daughter, Caushara, were staying in a room at the castle and that they were staying there a few weeks while her husband

sailed some boy scouts out to some surrounding islands.  They had friends who knew Gayle and had gotten the connection through them for their stay in the castle.

So, I guess, that you can rent a room at the castle for a time, through people who know the family.

The four of us walked the mile and a half back to the Jib Room Restaurant/Marina where they said they were going to eat.  Their family presently lives on a 39 foot catamaran.  The have been cruising for 6 years and Cashara was graduating this year and going back to the states to start college.  Her mom had home-schooled her aboard the boat.

We parted, giving them our boat card and inviting them to drop by our home if they needed a place to stay while hunting for colleges.  We returned to our dinghy at the Jib Room Restaurant/Marina dinghy dock and went back to our boat.

This day was quite fulfilling in getting to meet the daughter of the author of the book we were reading.  It is amazing what happens when you want to write a story about two coconuts and a castle.   It all just seemed to fall together.

                                    Julie enjoys the coconut milk from one of the coconuts

From reading the book, we discovered that Faith Gayle was the reason that  the doctor never returned to the states to get his full four year M.D. degree.

The Doctor's wife, who was a lifetime resident of Marsh Harbor, and a British descendent of the loyalists, had gotten pregnant with Gayle, and the couple decided not to go back to the states for the four years it would take to get the degree because his wife's resident family would have missed the birth and her first 3 years of life.