Blowin' Sugar Sand

    Preparations are underway for our spring beach clean up/camp out on Little St. George Island. In years past the group of folks I go with--co workers of Native Nurseries, went to different venues around the big bend but of late we’ve focused our attention on barrier island camping.     Barrier Islands are special places. They have a character all their own, part low desert and part tropical hammock. It’s a harsh place for animals and plants to make a living, and their struggle for space and water gives the place that kind of severe beauty one will find in western parks and national monuments. Adding that the entire Island is constantly being moved around and stretched by shifting currents, storms and blowing sand the features you encounter reinforce a pervading sense of change. 
   
    Growing up in Miami it never occurred to me that our beaches were not so much sand as they were pulverized shell dredged up to keep the hotels from sliding into the Gulf Stream. On the gulf coast of North Florida its sand, and in particular sugar sand--the very fine grain that gets up and moves around in the wind and makes the squeak squeak squeak when you walk on it; that’s what locals take pride in. This material creates some amazing land features that truthfully I’ve not spent enough time appreciating. We’re all familiar with the successive ridges paralleling the beaches, but on the Big Bend dunes accumulate blowing sand building into huge promontories that offer some great views, as well as large dunes fields I would best describe as moguls. These are some strange features to get out in the middle of, and the battles waging between the plants and shifting sand are remarkable. “You gotta come see this” is often heard when we transect a dune field, probably something to do with a tree mostly drowning in sand or an oddly shaped plant that has self pruned to correspond to dune that’s no longer there.

   I can attest to the mobility of sugar sand. Jody and I camped out on West Pass, the very western point of St. George Island across from St. Vincent Island. It was a gusty night and our tent flapped endlessly. Jody fussed with whatever it was that the wind was picking at, but we couldn’t understand this shower of sand raining down in little puffs. Finally we decided it was the wind blasting the finest particles up the tent side, up under the rain fly, through the fine mesh mosquito net at the peak, to pepper our bags all night. Covering one’s head was the only solution. At least it was cold. The thing about camping in sand....you get tired of sand, although there are some protocols that one can follow to keep the tent and gear clear of it; mainly no shoes in the tent. To enter you sit just inside with your feet sticking out to put on and take off shoes, and keep a brush to sweep the entrance and whatever gear comes in. We discovered the perfect brush for the purpose purely by accident.

    So West Pass....it’s a wild and lovely place. As mentioned it cuts between St. Vincent and Little St. George Island and leads into the western section of Apalachicola Bay, re-known for it’s oyster fishery, which takes place principally on St. Vincent Bar just north of our camping spot on the point of Little St. George. West Pass has given me a couple of hard lessons on boatman ship, which I only seem to internalize experientially, as opposed to book learning. And even if I did have a vast mental library I don’t think I’d have a corresponding retrieval mechanism to quickly call up a piece of boating knowledge that might keep me out of trouble. I need experiences to dig a deep groove of situational know how, and as that groove is still being worn I’m happy to say my boat seems to be holding up pretty well.

Jody doing what he does best-working around a campfire.

   
    Apalachicola Bay is shallow principally, but between the islands where the tide comes in and out it cuts a deep channel. The chart shows 18’ deep off the point of our camp site at West Pass, which is where we anchor our boats. Out in the middle of the channel it goes much deeper. The exact spot we choose is influenced by where it seems most sensible to anchor, which is a tricky question as what looks like a calm safe spot may not be later when the conditions change. We opted for a spot towards the inside of the bay and off loaded our gear. Jody then stripped down to his shorts in a cold wind and demonstrated how one anchors off a beach. He spent considerable time rowing around and setting the anchor making sure he had enough line payed out to maintain proper scope, as a boat bobbing over a taunt anchor line will have the anchor out of the bottom in no time, yet Jody was careful not to let out so much line that the boat ended up on the beach if the wind changed. Performed perfectly the boat is the exact distance so when it swings around it’s just outside the breakers, yet hopefully not so far that you have to swim once you pull the boat over with the shore line. He spent a long time out there setting the boat to rights in preparation for the night, then jumped in with line in hand to be staked off with a long spike deep in the sand. Later as we watched it out there riding at anchor from our cozy camp site Jody mentioned the anchor watch. “It’s not the best night’s sleep. You should check the boat several times a night,” he said. “ You never know what it’s going to do.” After some thought he added  “It’s why nobody beach camps.” “What do they do?” I’m sure I asked, at least it sounds like something I would ask. “They camp on their boats.” was Jody’s natural reply.

True to the event, that's me out there trying to re-attach my rudder when I missed the lower gudgeon with the peg or 'pintil'. Meanwhile the boat was swirling around dangerously in gusty winds while the current was whisking her away. A terrible place to try and learn basic sailing. Jody snapped the photo I used for reference.

    So at this point I had only sailed the boat maybe three or four times, and never soloed. After five years of planning and construction and an addition couple months after her first launch I was dying to sail her needless to say. That morning the weather had not improved, it was drizzling and cold and the wind was variable and gusting. But sail I did, and as a first solo it was not an auspicious start. I was so green that I needed to have demonstrated to me the fact that tides and currents have a very important effect on a sailboat! That despite years of enjoying Patrick O’Brian stories where fleets of trading vessels are bottled up in harbors waiting for winds and tides to change, I was amazed to find I could not even hold my position relative to the campsite, and ended up walking her back up to the camp in the shallows. Writing that amazes me to this day but it’s true. I somehow became so entranced by the narrative of this sailboat design and focused on her construction, I hadn’t come to grips with what would happen when she interacted with the wind and currents-namely her function. No doubt someone who had a sailed a lick would never experience this dissonance. 
    
     As for the anchoring, I bungled it. The boat played around out there the whole rest of the day with no troubles, but the next morning we awoke to her listing on the beach awash with seawater and gallons of sand. An ugly sight. All the work Jody put into the anchoring on the front end I had to put in on the back times ten. It took forever to bail out the water and pitch the sand, not mention another anchoring episode, which at least was only temporary as we were leaving that day. It took lots of digging to free the rudder which should have been removed during the anchoring, something I never fail to do now. I was lucky it wasn’t damaged or torn off the stern altogether.

    At least Jody had some coffee on when I returned to our tent shivering and cold. (I actually got a cold from all exertion and exposure on this trip.) The weather cleared as we made our way North East towards the bridge at Apalachicola, and the wind clocked around to the North perfectly posted to make our passage back a long and arduous row. People who live on the water and on their boats watch the traffic come and go out of the city docks and a few came over to visit with us once we made the ramp. “We watched you guys out there forever, why don’t you come over to the dark side and getcha a little kicker?” One man asked. I did just that a month or so later when we made the trip again, this time with two boats and a larger crew. I borrowed a friend’s 4 hp outboard which sounds small but not on my boat. It brought the opposite comment from someone else at the same ramp. “You’ll be throwin’ up a rooster tail with that thing.” He growled. He was right. Two trips to West Pass in as many months was unusual, but we did it because we had some folks who missed the first trip, and things just lined up that way. Of course that led to a new and even harder lesson, but that’ll have to wait till the next post.

This campsite is nothing if not exposed. We set up against the dunes to create some measure of protection against the elements.

    But hold on there, I wanted to say something else.....
Florida’s not so much a sailing culture (although you see a sailboat in any sign or poster dealing with the ocean). It’s more a center console fishing boat culture, but there are a enthusiasts of small sailboats in Apalachicola. There’s even the Apalachicola Maritime Museum which features a 58’Herreshoff-designed ketch named Quark and various other craft. If you join with a family membership you can go out on day trips in the Quark. Apalachicola is a lovely little town and still supports a real fishing industry including a small fleet of active shrimp boats, some still made of wood. It’s small gem on the northern gulf and worth a visit if you’re in the area.

So that’s it. From the rail, I say thanks for stopping by and here’s to you!