I shall do my best to recall the last 3 days, but I think my fatigued brain may have already erased some of the darker moments.
As the autopilot worked fine all day on the 12th, I elected to angle offshore from Tampa toward Apalachicola, saving many coastal miles up in Florida’s “elbow.” This would have been a wise plan had the treacherous autopilot continued to function, but as soon as I got about 30 mile off, it gave up the ghost. Instead of reading and napping, I was now relegated to the helm around the clock. I steered and steered until I was incapable of focusing on the compass, then finally hove to for a short nap.
After another entire day of steering by hand, I finally threw up my hands and again attempted to get the autopilot squared away. At around 10:00 at night, I stripped down to my skivvies, being(out of disposable coveralls, removed the hydraulic ram and worked on it in Alana’s galley, using a large plastic lid as a tray to catch the escaping fluid. I removed the solenoid, cleaned out the accumulated gunk and cycled it a bunch of times at a 12V source. I next reassembled everything, tested it with excellent results and again set sail. The autopilot did its duty for maybe twenty minutes before again letting me down. I was so angry and discouraged that I just went to sleep. I just didn’t have the energy to press on at that point. I think that the ram just needs to be completely disassembled and cleaned, but that is more of a project than I cared to undertake on a rocking and rolling boat.
After about 3 hours of sleep I awoke and pressed on, motor-sailing through fog and light winds. I had originally planned to anchor in Apalachicola Bay on Monday morning, but my slow progress meant that I would have had to transit the treacherous looking Government Cut at night, something I was not eager to do, so I altered course a little to port and steered instead for Panama City. Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg was good enough to relay a message to my dad, so those that had been expecting a cellular phone call were not unduly worried when I was unable to call, and I settled back for another long night at the wheel.
As luck would have it, Panama City was completely fogged in when I arrived. Based on the amount of radio traffic I could hear on the radio, I chose not to enter port in the fog. Instead, I dropped the hook just west of the west jetty and settled down for a nap. I awoke from my nap to find the fog entirely gone, so quickly weighed anchor and moved inside to St. Andrew Bay. That is where I now find myself preparing dinner and looking forward to the first good night’s sleep in 4 days. I plan to sail tomorrow before sunset so as to finally arrive in Pensacola around 9:00 Thursday morning.
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