00:00
Good evening.
00:01
This is Captain Tinsley, Salty Abandon with the first Salty podcast.
00:06
Before we get to our guests, I want to take care of two things.
00:10
First thing is I want to recognize tonight's sponsor, which is me.
00:16
In case you didn't know, I'm Tinsley Myrick.
00:18
Broker associate of RE/MAX of Orange Beach.
00:21
I sell Gulf properties in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Alabama, as well as Pernito Key, Florida.
00:27
So if you're interested, you can e-mail me at tinsley@tinsleymyrick.com.
00:32
One more thing, please smash that like button on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
00:37
Okay, Captain Ralph is somebody I've known since 2015.
00:41
I took sailing lessons from him and I took a captain's class and then upgraded the captain's class.
00:47
And I know his wife, who's also a sailor.
00:50
Shout out to Kathleen.
00:52
Let me just read this this sentence here about him, and we'll bring him in.
00:56
Captain Ralph Bush is from Punta Gorda, Florida.
00:59
He is a sailor, captain's school instructor, boat broker, and former ASA instructor.
01:05
Hey, did you connect the phone?
01:06
No.
01:06
OK.
01:07
Welcome.
01:07
OK.
01:07
All right.
01:09
We're here.
01:09
Welcome, Captain Ralph.
01:11
OK, so.
01:12
I just, I just told him a little bit about you.
01:15
And what I'd like to do is before the before you were a broker, before you were a Captain School instructor, before you were an ASA instructor, just briefly, what did you do before that?
01:27
We want to I know your back story.
01:29
Well, I know some of it anyway.
01:30
What what did you do before that?
01:32
I spent most of my adult life in the newspaper business.
01:36
um Mostly management of newspaper groups.
01:40
Towards the end of my career, it was primarily troubled newspaper groups, which towards the end of my career was pretty much mostly newspaper groups.
01:47
Um But lived most of my life in Florida, but I've lived all over.
01:52
We lived in Missouri for years.
01:54
That's actually where I learned to sail was living in Missouri.
01:58
Sailing on a lake in Oklahoma.
01:59
Yes, there are lakes in Oklahoma.
02:01
And we lived in Tennessee for a while.
02:04
We lived in Maryland for a while and always kind of looped the back of Florida.
02:09
So came back here.
02:10
OK.
02:11
So where were you when you started Salem?
02:15
I'm sorry, say again.
02:16
How old were you when you started sailing?
02:19
I was old.
02:20
I wasn't one of those people that started as a kid.
02:23
Um I think I was in my late 30s when I started sailing.
02:28
I've been around the water my whole life, but had been primarily a powerboater, water skied and you know, we had, we scuba dived and a lot of things, but I used to see the sailboats out on the water and and really just intrigued me and just decidedOne day I'm going to do this.
02:47
And so I did.
02:48
I actually went and bought a boat at an auction for $275 and it had three holes in the bottom of it and it was really rough shape and decided if I was going to fix it, I probably needed to learn a little bit about sailboats.
03:04
So took an ASA class and just kind of went from there.
03:09
Okay.
03:09
Well,So did you meet?
03:12
You met your wife, Kathleen, in Missouri, right?
03:15
That's right.
03:16
Yes.
03:17
Yeah.
03:17
We lived in Missouri at the time.
03:18
She had met.
03:19
Yeah.
03:20
She grew up in a little town in South Central Missouri.
03:22
She had never sailed until we got married.
03:27
OK.
03:28
OKSo I remember you telling me that you saw the writing on the wall with the newspaper business.
03:33
So you decided to exit that, like newspapers were kind of coming to an end, right?
03:40
And so how did you get to being a ASA instructor?
03:46
So I don't know what happens in between then.
03:49
Well, I had had my captain had gotten my captain's license already and kind of played around with the idea.
03:57
And my son, who is a captain, actually had started and and he's not particularly a sailor, but he had actually started teaching sailing for Amaro Coast Sailing in Pensacola.
04:10
And when I decided, we were in Maryland at the time, and I agreed to stay there three years, which I did.
04:19
And And I'm a Southern boy, in case you can't tell by the way I talk.
04:24
And it gets cold in Maryland, for those of you that don't know that.
04:27
And I couldn't take Maryland anymore and was not having a whole lot of fun in in the newspaper business there.
04:32
So we moved back to Pensacola and I contacted Rick and Peggy at Emerald Coast.
04:38
UmYeah, yeahTalk to them about teaching sailing there.
04:45
And so jumped in and taught there for several years and taught captain school classes there as well.
04:52
And didn't Kathleen say she'd go to Maryland if you could, if she just had to stay like a short time or something, then you get her back to warm weather.
04:59
Wasn't it something about?
05:00
Well, yeah, we knew when we were going up there that it was a it was a limited time and and you know, I came home.
05:07
It was a tough time in the industry and it was tough for us being away and being up there was cold.
05:12
And I I agreed to stay three years and I came home after three years um one night and I said it is time to go home.
05:20
And she looked at me like only your wife can look at you and said what took you so long?
05:26
So at that time all of our kids were in Pensacola, so we came back to Pensacola.
05:32
And your son's in the Coast Guard.
05:34
My my oldest son.
05:36
Yeah, my oldest son was in the Coast Guard.
05:38
He is not anymore.
05:40
He's a professional captain and worked several different jobs.
05:44
My youngest son is in the Navy and my grandson is now in the Coast Guard.
05:49
He's active duty in the Coast Guard.
05:51
So yeah, a lot of connections there.
05:53
So, so I met you.
05:56
I had already taken ASA 101 and 103 by a different instructor, but then I I found you a couple years later.
06:03
At Emerald Coast and took ASA 104.
06:07
And then I bought your wife's Catalina 25, the one that she said she wasn't gonna sell.
06:16
And that was the perfect first boat for me.
06:18
That was, I sailed it for about a whopping 10 months before I upgraded.
06:23
And you guys helped me find that boat.
06:25
Yeah, yeah, yeahThe first one.
06:29
Yeah, yes.
06:31
And so.
06:32
Then one day you were gone.
06:35
You left.
06:36
You left Pensacola.
06:37
Yeah, we came down to South Florida.
06:41
It was Kapolein.
06:44
Too cold.
06:46
I know people laugh but yeah, we just we we had lived down here before.
06:54
I had managed some newspapers down here and so we had lived down here before.
06:57
We still had friends down here and we just decided we wanted to move.
07:00
And by that time our kids had pretty much all scattered.
07:02
So and so we moved down here and I I was a broker with Edward Yacht Sales when we were in Pensacola and I moved down here and.
07:12
Which worked with Pier 1 yacht sales down here and still up in Pensacola every five or six weeks teaching classes up there and then so brokering boats and teaching classes.
07:26
So before we I know you left being an ASA instructor you know for sailing before we leave that can you tell the importance kind of tell us the importance.
07:39
I know how important it was to me or it still is.
07:42
I still remember some things you told me and they just come to my mind.
07:46
Tell me the importance of taking lessons.
07:49
I was.
07:49
I was like you.
07:50
I mean, I didn't.
07:51
I'd never sailed.
07:51
I mean, I've ridden on a couple of sailboats maybe two times.
07:54
I'd never sail.
07:55
People say, oh, you've been doing this your life.
07:57
No, in my 40s, you know, that's when I started.
08:01
So tell the if you recommend people taking sailing lessons and getting certifications.
08:08
I don't know how to emphasize that enough.
08:12
I mean, you can teach yourself to sail and there's nothing wrong with getting out and learning things on your own, but there's, it's really important.
08:22
I'm not one of those people that thinks there's only one way to do things and that's my way.
08:27
Um I'm just not.
08:28
But there is a difference between safe and unsafe ways to do things.
08:33
And so it's really important safety is just,so important and it's important to learn the safe way to do things.
08:40
And And it makes a huge difference in your learning curve as far as having somebody that can help you through that.
08:50
And you know, I tell this all the time.
08:53
In class, you you see this point where people reach and they can, they understand the points of sale.
09:00
They understand, you know, they can put a boat on a beam reach.
09:03
They can, you know, they can go close hauled.
09:05
But when you say, okay, see that point over there, take me there, that's a whole different thing because then you have to factor in what direction the wind's blowing and all the things that are happening to you and and you get this funny look, they get this funny look on their face because you can't go from here to there.
09:24
Well, in a sailboat, you can't always do that, as you know.
09:28
And so, it's a whole different dimension and and it's it's important that you do that.
09:34
With somebody that can help you through that.
09:37
The other thing is in class, you know, it was always tough when you had really bad weather days.
09:43
But the good thing about having bad weather when you have an instructor on board is it's not scary because you have somebody there that knows how to handle this and how to get you through it, so.
09:53
You almost welcome those days where the wind really comes up unexpectedly or you have bad weather because that's an opportunity.
10:00
It's a teaching opportunity.
10:01
It's an opportunity for students to feel safe with that.
10:03
Or if they're out there by themselves and that happens to them, it's not necessarily a safe learning opportunity.
10:11
Well, what about, you know, like around off the Gulf Coast, there's ICW.
10:15
How important is it to learn the rules of the road?
10:18
Oh my gosh.
10:22
OhhYou're trying to get me in trouble.
10:24
I don't think I'm never short on his opinions, but you know.
10:32
I have plenty.
10:33
I've had a lot of gripes.
10:36
Power boaters don't know the rules of the road and they don't care.
10:40
I mean, and I don't mean that debt for many.
10:42
I don't mean that bad against power boaters.
10:43
They just don't.
10:45
Sailors, and I I heard this from the time I first started learning to sail.
10:50
Sailboats have the right of way over everything, and I heard sailboats say that over and over and over and over, and it's not true.
10:58
It is wrong on so many levels, but most sailors don't understand that, and it's really important that you do understand.
11:08
There's no such thing as right of way for sailboats, and right of way implies I can go do whatever I want and you have to move, and and that's not the case, and and it's dangerous for you to not understand that.
11:20
And probably most people listening to this know what we're talking about, but if you're if I have the engine running, I'm a powerboat.
11:28
I have to follow powerboat rules, right?
11:30
Well, let me clarify that engine.
11:33
It's not necessarily just the engine running.
11:35
If you have the engine, the propeller is engaged and you're using the engine to move the boat.
11:41
So, so I can be charging my batteries while I'm sailing, but as long as the propeller's not engaged.
11:48
then I'm still a sailboat.
11:50
But if I engage the propeller, then I become a powerboat, and I have to act accordingly.
11:55
Now, let me add to that, um court cases have actually shown, in cases where a sailboat had an engine and could have used that engine to avoid a collision and did not, they were found to be partially at fault.
12:12
So even at the time, and and almost every maritime court case,It's it's I've never seen one that was 100%.
12:20
It's 80207030 when they assigned blame.
12:23
And so sailboats have been assigned blame because they could have used their engine to avoid a collision and they did not.
12:32
Well, one of the things that I remember quite a few things that you taught me.
12:35
They just like, I've told you this when I'm coming in like to the dock and you said don't look at what you don't want to hit.
12:42
That's one of my favorites.
12:43
That's classic Ralph over there.
12:47
Look where you wanna go.
12:49
Yeah.
12:50
Look at the number in the back of the slip.
12:52
Also show intention.
12:53
Like if you're you're coming up to a a barge or something.
12:58
And I remember you saying, you know, you need to kind of go this way.
13:01
And I said, oh, I'm not gonna hit him.
13:03
And you said he needs to know that you're not gonna hit him.
13:06
And that was just that's that's that's some wisdom right there.
13:10
Make your intentions clear.
13:13
Don't make a small...
13:14
And the rules even say a series of small course changes should be avoided.
13:18
So, make a big change, even if you just hold it for a minute, because that acknowledges, Hey, I know I'm the giveaway boat, and and this is what I'm going to do.
13:27
I'm going to give way.
13:28
So, make your intentions clear.
13:30
And what's your Ralphism for remembering which side the red is in the ICW?
13:39
Red Rite returning to Texas.
13:40
Is that what you're?
13:41
Red Rite returning all the way to Texas.
13:43
Yeah, yeah, yeahRed Rite didn't seem to remember that better.
13:48
So yeah, I never forgot it.
13:50
I've heard other ones.
13:51
I said, well, the one I know is this, you know, some say on the land.
13:55
It's not about the land, whatever.
13:58
Anything else?
13:59
Anything else perhaps that you've seen out there that you see a lot of people making mistakes?
14:06
I mean, I see it all the time.
14:07
I'm traveling on my boat right now.
14:09
So it's just I have, I could make a huge list.
14:12
You know, I got one for you.
14:14
What is the rule?
14:15
Like, you know, going West Coast of Florida, I'm going through a lot of drawbridges and you know, I've got it all down.
14:22
Of course I've done it so many times, but I was going through and the bridge tender said, OK, you go, you know, so Salty Vantage and all of a sudden this big power boat and I don't, it was bigger than mine.
14:34
I have a 32 foot boat.
14:35
All of a sudden he squeezes in there, laying away, you know, plunging through.
14:40
And the wife was on the back videoing me.
14:44
And so she got me going.
14:48
What are you doing?
14:49
You know, he went straight.
14:51
He squeezed through there.
14:52
Is that legal?
14:55
No.
14:57
But, and I revert back to what I said a while ago, power voters don't know the rules of the road and they don't care.
15:04
um So, no, it's not.
15:07
And And he's responsible for that and he's responsible for his wake.
15:11
But he's in a hurry and he's assuming that your sailboat is going to be moving slower than him.
15:16
And so he's going to go around.
15:18
What about that 48 foot mast up there that can hit the...
15:22
Yeah.
15:23
YeahYou know, the safest thing you can do out there is assume that nobody else out there knows the rules and and act accordingly.
15:31
And it's really tricky becauseI'll give you an example.
15:35
I was bringing a boat up through the Miserable Mile.
15:37
You know where that is coming out of Fort Myers, heading up the the intercoastal.
15:40
A lot of people don't know that.
15:41
But if you turn north off the Caloosahatchee coming up through there and there's a big powerboat and he's coming towards me and it he's getting set by the wind.
15:52
So he is now over on my side of the channel.
15:55
UmAnd I'm in a small sailboat heading north, and there is no room to get out of the channel there.
16:02
It's really shallow and you've got to stay in the channel.
16:05
And he's on my side.
16:06
So the point of this is, if I swerve over to his side, to where he should be, and he suddenly comes out of his coma and goes back to the correct side of the channel, and he hits me, I'm now the one that's at fault.
16:21
Because I'm the one that I I had to go to the wrong side of the channel to miss him.
16:27
But and so the the question is, you know, what do you do?
16:32
I mean, he's on the wrong side of the channel.
16:33
How do you avoid him now?
16:34
I eased out of the channel.
16:36
So if he was gonna hit me, he had to come completely out of his channel and I actually hid behind a marker.
16:41
You know, Kathleen gets attached.
16:42
My wife gets attached to both.
16:44
I don't.
16:45
So if he hit me.
16:47
Oh, well, but he was going to have to hit the marker first before he hit me, which can be a clear indication he was on the wrong side of the road.
16:54
But the point is, assume that they don't know.
16:58
And because it's usually a pretty safe assumption.
17:01
Most of the people out there don't, right?
17:05
I could go on and on about these kind of stories, but we'll move on.
17:09
And I I'm going to encourage there are people commenting up.
17:13
I'm hiding them from you so you don't get distracted, OK.
17:17
And then and then we'll have a Q&A afterwards.
17:23
Now I forgot where I was going.
17:25
OK, so all right.
17:29
So you gave that up and I guess you just got tired of it.
17:31
Is that right?
17:33
What's that teaching family?
17:36
Oh, I I do still very, very occasionally.
17:39
I still have all my certifications to teach it.
17:42
I just I I don't I and.
17:47
you know, the only school that I've actually really been affiliated with has been Emerald Coast and Pensacola.
17:54
And so for ASA, you actually have to go through a school.
17:58
So I I still am certified to to teach.
18:01
I just haven't.
18:02
There's not time to do everything and still have time to actually fail.
18:07
Sure.
18:07
Yeah.
18:08
Okay.
18:09
So you went to Punta Gorda, you're already a broker.
18:13
You're already a Captain School instructor, so let's let's talk about Captain School.
18:18
OK.
18:19
So I'm really grateful that you do come back to Pensacola.
18:22
That's where I jumped in there.
18:24
And I I know you offer it online.
18:26
Oh, let me show you.
18:29
So here is the website, Safe Passage Maritime.
18:34
And you can get your USCG captain's license.
18:38
And so you can sign up there.
18:41
That he has an online version and he has an in-person version.
18:43
But I I think that when you're learning the charting, I think it's important to do it in person.
18:51
I I I I own the school.
18:53
I wrote the course material.
18:54
I am the worst salesman in the world for online OUPB.
19:00
I I just am.
19:02
I I think the to be able to work with an instructor and to be in a classroom where you have interaction with the other students.
19:10
um I think just makes a huge, huge difference.
19:12
It works really well for people like they've had their captain's license in the past, they let it lapse, and now they're trying to renew it.
19:19
It works really well for people that have the experience, but it is really, really tough to learn the the plotting and to learn the rules of the road online.
19:30
And you may be the exception to that, but it's really tough.
19:34
And we get a lot of people that sign up for the online class, usually because they're in a hurry.
19:38
They don't want to wait for our next class.
19:40
I'm in a hurry.
19:40
I want to get this.
19:41
And then six months or eight months later they call me and say, you know, obviously I'm never going to get through this online.
19:48
Can I come and do this in the class and we'll we'll squeeze them into the next class.
19:52
And and I will say that class was a lot of fun.
19:55
People were fun.
19:56
You were fun.
19:57
When I was taking the the four tests at the end, I was so stressed out and you were laughing at me and but you really made it easy to understand, enjoyable and really, really know your.
20:08
It is a lot of it is a lot of information.
20:14
It is a very intense class, but it can still be fun.
20:18
Um You'll learn a lot.
20:19
Some of it will stick with you, some of it won't, but some of it will stick with you.
20:24
Some of it will come to you even though you don't remember it.
20:26
It'll come to you when you don't think it's there.
20:29
But yeah, it's a lot of information.
20:31
And it's well, I've sent you a text on my in-reach exploring from the middle of Florida Bay.
20:35
I forgot what lights to turn on.
20:37
That was my first time.
20:39
Yeah So yeah, I appreciate you always being available.
20:44
It's a great way to learn the rules of the road.
20:46
It's a great way, I think one of the most important things out of the class is learning aids to navigation.
20:53
I have a lot of people in class that they've been on the water their whole life, and they know in the area that they're in what to do with the red and green markers, but if you pick them up and transplanted them somewhere else,They have no clue how to read those and and you know, I mean you go to strange areas and especially at dusk or at night and you got lots of different flashing lights and no, if you have no idea how to read those, it's intimidating and and I know this will come as a surprise to most people, but your GPS.
21:24
Will lie to you.
21:26
Yes, it will not.
21:27
Or it will fail you.
21:29
And and you need to know.
21:31
You need to know what to do when you're coming up to that marker.
21:33
You need to know how to react to it.
21:35
It's important.
21:36
Sometimes those markers are missing.
21:38
Yeah, you know, there's some still out there right now from Idalia.
21:43
I brought a boat across Stewart in in a little harbor there in Stewart, and it's a small area, but a lot of markers in there and a lot of channels coming out of there.
21:53
And I brought a boat across there I had just bought and was bringing it across the Okeechobee waterway.
21:58
Had a GPS literally hot-wired into the battery, um and and it tried two different times coming through Stewart to take me on the wrong side of a preferred channel marker.
22:09
And and it's it's tough to look at that marker and look at your GPS and go a different way than what your GPS is telling you.
22:16
But I I just, I knew that it was wrong and sometimes it just happens.
22:21
Well, that happened to me when I went into Redfish Pass and I tried to follow my old, all my old tracks, remember?
22:27
Yeah, they had moved.
22:29
They had moved the markers and I didn't.
22:31
I was like, no, no, that's not it.
22:33
And so I ran aground and I had to.
22:36
Here comes.
22:37
I have seat tow and Towboat US just for that reason.
22:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahAnd have seat tow and Towboat US.
22:50
Most people think having a boat towed is like having a car towed.
22:52
You can have a car towed and it might cost you 50 or 100 bucks.
22:55
If they hook up a tow line to your boat, it's going to cost you $1000.
22:58
I mean, and that's if they aren't towing you very far.
23:02
It is very, very expensive.
23:05
I had one for 11 hours one time.
23:08
Cost me nothing.
23:09
I paid that $190.00 a year for SETO.
23:12
That would have been how much?
23:12
$20,000?
23:13
I don't know.
23:15
Oh, who knows?
23:16
I had some people.
23:17
I had some people that I brokered their boat.
23:19
They ran aground in Stunt Pass, and they called me and Stunt Pass.
23:25
Don't.
23:26
It is not a place you want to take a sailboat under any circumstances.
23:30
But and and they they were finally able to get the boat off, but they told them that they were probably gonna have to deploy flotation.
23:38
And if they did, the minimum charge was $15,000.
23:40
So did they just walk away from the boat?
23:45
We'll just leave it.
23:47
Yeah.
23:48
Done.
23:49
Yeah, it's expensive.
23:51
OK, so so tell us the the, theI know you said you're not a good salesperson, but.
23:57
The importance, I've I've heard you in class, you you tell us the importance of all these things, the importance of captain school.
24:03
Like what kind of people take it?
24:07
I get a mix.
24:08
A lot of people that come through the class are people that want to use it.
24:11
They're going to do, they want to be a charter captain and they're going to do fishing charters.
24:15
And then the other is people that just want to learn.
24:20
You may, you're going to learn.
24:21
Yeah.
24:22
And honestly, that's how I started when I first took my my first captain class.
24:27
I had no intention of really doing anything with it.
24:30
Even if you're you learn how to plot, you learn how to plot on paper charts, you learn how to do set and drift.
24:35
You'll learn a lot of things even if even if you never do those.
24:39
Once you get out of class, you may never do another set and drift problem, but it will change your perspective.
24:46
Even if you all you ever use from then on is GPS, you have a better understanding of your GPS and of latitude and longitude and how to do navigation.
24:56
It really changes your perspective because you understand it better.
25:01
So there's just a lot of information in there.
25:04
We talked about rules of the road, and even if you take an ASA class, they talk about rules of the road and how it applies to sailboats, so very, very limited exposure to rules of the road, butThere's a lot of stuff out there, and and so you'll learn it.
25:21
Aids to navigation, again, that's that's another one.
25:24
We go through, you know, basic understanding of weather, and I always tell my students, I'm not gonna spend an hour in class on weather and make you an expert when people with postgraduate degrees still can't, you know, get it right half the time.
25:40
But if you understand the physics of what's happening as weather changes,It will give you an understanding of what's gonna happen.
25:49
You may not know exactly when it's gonna rain.
25:52
I remember you covering a lot of weather.
25:54
Yeah, yeahAnd we talk about a lot of the physics of it.
25:58
Yeah, the physics of what is going to happen when a low pressure system comes in, when a cold front comes in, the physics of what's gonna happen.
26:04
Now, is it gonna get here at 9:52 or 3:52 this afternoon?
26:09
Who knows, but when it gets here, we know what's gonna happen.
26:13
So just a lot of information out there.
26:17
Yeah.
26:18
OK.
26:20
Is there anything else you'd like to say about Catholic school?
26:22
There's so much more to say, but what do you think is important?
26:27
I think it's a I I am an advocate of motor licensing.
26:32
I think every boater on the water should have to have some level of license.
26:36
And Florida kind of has that.
26:40
um But I I think even if you never intend to operate as a captain, I think it's it's a great opportunity to learn things that will benefit you out on the water.
26:53
So I think it's a great educational experience.
26:59
Oh, there's a question.
27:01
Okay, what is this?
27:03
You may have already covered this.
27:05
But sailboats always have uh oh, yeah, we did cover that, but they don't.
27:11
They do not absolutely have the right of way.
27:14
And and in fact, and I'll talk about this just since somebody asked, there is only one case where the rules of the road use the phrase right of way.
27:23
Right of way implies I can do whatever I want and everybody else has to move.
27:26
That's not even a real thing.
27:29
That's not even a real thing right away.
27:31
There is only one case in the rule where they use the phrase right away.
27:35
And right away has nothing to do with sailboats.
27:38
Right away has to do with limited maneuverability caused by a downbound current versus an upbound.
27:46
So really what they're talking about is barges on the Mississippi River.
27:51
And it has nothing to do with sailboats.
27:53
Sailboats absolutely do not always have right-of-way.
27:58
And in fact, in some specific cases are told specifically not to interfere with other vessels.
28:06
Yeah, yeahAnd Marion, we were talking before you came on that when, and I oversimplified it, but when I when a sailboat has the motor on, if they're running the motor.
28:19
Right.
28:19
If they're being propelled by the motor, by the motor, they have to follow powerboat rules.
28:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was the case.
28:29
I used that.
28:30
I use that to my advantage because people don't know.
28:32
They get out of my way.
28:33
I'm not going to tell them.
28:36
There was a case, and it's actually been a couple years ago now, and it it was kind of a spinoff of the Everglades Challenge, the small sailboat race.
28:46
But anyway, there was somebody in a small sailboat and he was tacking back and forth down the intracoastal waterway and he was actually ticketed.
28:54
And what happened, and and it just blew up on the forums because you know all the rules experts who have never read the rules and learned them from the guy down the dock who's never read the rules, were just incensed by the fact that they had ticketed the sailboat because the sailboat has a right of way over everything.
29:12
Well now, sailboats are specifically told not to impede the passage of a vessel in a narrow channel or fairway.
29:18
So this guy was tacking back and forth down the intracoastal and he had been warned onceYou can't do this.
29:25
And he kept doing it and they picketed him, and rightfully so, because he had reached the point he was flagrant about it.
29:32
But yeah, you can't.
29:34
You cannot.
29:36
So power boaters aren't the only ones that get a little rude.
29:43
Yeah, well, sailboats, sailors think they know the rules, but they've never read 'em, and they learn them, like I said, from the guy down the dock who's never read 'em, and they get these things in their head, and and they will vehemently defend it, and and it's not true.
30:01
Yeah, sailboats do not have the right of way under sail.
30:05
There's a pecking order, and in that pecking order, sailboats are actuallyThe sailboats are close to the bottom, and in open water, not in any kind of a channel, not with any kind of impingement or or anything to impede you, in open water, sailboats are stand-on over powerboats, and powerboats-- Do you see this comment here?
30:31
I know.
30:31
Do you see that one?
30:34
I know, yeah.
30:38
Yeah, and-- It's in a shipping channel.
30:41
Yeah, and you're absolutely not.
30:43
You you you can get in an argument, but you're going to lose that.
30:48
No mentor minds.
30:49
It's like fighting with a skunk.
30:51
Even if you win, you lose.
30:53
You know, I mean, that is a no win situation.
30:58
So you don't want to tangle with that.
31:01
No, no, you don't.
31:03
I also heard a nasty rumor about sailors that we don't tip.
31:09
What?
31:11
No, we don't tip.
31:12
Ohh Well.
31:15
Shocked.
31:17
Yeah, well, sailors have a tendency to be a little frugal.
31:21
And so, yeah.
31:24
And a lot of marinas really don't like to see sailors come in because they would much rather see a powerboat that comes in that's going to buy a thousand or $2,000 worth of fuel as opposed to...
31:36
They're bringing money.
31:38
Yeah.
31:39
As opposed to a sailor that's going to come in and buy, you know, 8 gallons of fuel and what they're holding pumped out and they're going to take on water and they're going to tie up the fuel dock all the time when they're doing that.
31:49
And then they're going to tie, they're going to tip the the guy on the on the dock, they're going to tip him $5.
31:55
So yeah, yeah, I asked the dock hand over at Safe Harbor in Bradenton, I said, is that true?
32:05
And he said, well.
32:08
He goes sometimes.
32:10
Yeah, that's why I'm here to change that rumor.
32:14
So I'm go out to my fellow sailors.
32:17
When you come in, I mean 20 bucks if someone helps you tie up.
32:20
What do you think?
32:22
Oh, for tipping.
32:23
Yeah, most most sailors aren't going to tip them anything.
32:28
They'll thank them and they aren't going to tip them anything.
32:31
So.
32:31
Yeah.
32:32
OK.
32:32
I I want to shame all the sailors out there.
32:36
I'm not.
32:37
I can't support all of you on tips.
32:41
OK.
32:41
Yeah.
32:43
All right.
32:43
So we got that straight.
32:45
OK.
32:46
How about the boat broker?
32:48
So how long have you been a boat broker?
32:49
You said it's been a while.
32:51
Yeah.
32:51
I've had my license about 15 years.
32:55
And a lot of that time I was, you know, I had my license when I was teaching sailing and.
33:00
So I wasn't real active with it.
33:03
And then probably the last seven or eight years I've been active with it, very active in it.
33:09
And so do you think your teaching, your sailing instructing and your Catholic school that helps you help help your clients find the right boat?
33:18
Oh yeah, yeah, I think so.
33:20
I I enjoy helping people find the right boat.
33:24
I'm not in it to just try and cram a boat down their throat, you know, buy this boat so I can go on to do something else.
33:30
I really enjoy helping people find a boat that really is what they're looking for.
33:36
Well, there's probably somebody on here that needs to take lessons and needs to get their captain's license and buy a boat by a guy that's going to help them.
33:45
And that's actually why I went ahead and got my broker's license, because I was teaching sailing.
33:49
And and you know, people would get through the class and they'd say, you know, we really love this.
33:55
We think we want to go buy a boat.
33:57
And I get tired of sending them.
33:58
Well, as a matter of fact, I can help you with that.
34:01
Yeah.
34:02
So I get tired of sending them on to somebody else to to find a boat for.
34:07
Yeah, it's a it is fun.
34:08
I enjoy that.
34:10
Well, I I read BYOB Caribbean Island Hopping.
34:13
Do you know that book?
34:15
He is Captain John, I think.
34:18
And it's all about don't buy, don't buy a bigger boat than you need.
34:24
Don't buy.
34:25
I mean, the bigger the boat, the more expensive everything is.
34:28
The rigging, the sails, the dock fees, the the bottom jobs, everything.
34:33
And so that's really why I kind of went towards the island pack at 27 because and then, you know, I did go to the 3:20, but people, oh, you should get an island pack at 35.
34:44
No, I don't think I need that, you know?
34:47
Am I going to day sail an island packet 35 by myself?
34:51
Probably not.
34:52
What do you think?
34:54
The The rule is the bigger the boat, the less it goes out.
34:57
And you walk into any any marina and and the smaller boats are getting used and the bigger boats are not.
35:06
People buy the big boat, they sail it a few times, they realize it's a lot of work and it requires crew.
35:12
And there are exceptions to always to that kind of thing.
35:16
And there's always those people out there that, you know, they're gonna go day sail their 45 foot boat.
35:20
But the general rule is the bigger the boat, the less it's gonna go out.
35:25
And then COVID, you know, COVID, everything went crazy.
35:28
People were buying boats like crazy and everybody wanted big boats.
35:31
You could not give away a boat in the 30 foot range.
35:35
Everybody wanted 40 foot or bigger and a lot of them wanted 50 foot.
35:40
And I had and this is the first time and I've been doing this a while.
35:43
This is the first time I've ever had this happen.
35:45
People were coming back and saying my insurance company told me I can't buy a boat that big.
35:50
Well, first of all, your insurance company shouldn't be the one to have to tell you that.
35:53
You should have known that you have no experience and no ability to operate a 50 foot boat.
35:58
But that happened and it's because people wanted really big boats and and they did not want small stuff.
36:06
Now we're starting to see that turn back around, so.
36:09
Well, I've been on the dock somewhere like Key West or something.
36:12
And you know how people come by and go, oh, I love your boat.
36:15
We're thinking about doing it.
36:17
I was like, oh, really?
36:18
Well, how big of a boat are you?
36:20
Oh, 50 foot.
36:21
They've never sailed before.
36:22
So you might want to start a little.
36:24
You might want to read this book.
36:26
BYOB crew.
36:29
And it said, you know, the book also says you don't have to spend $1,000,000.
36:33
You don't have to.
36:34
You can get it like you did.
36:35
You bought a boat for 250.
36:37
And and and if you can fix it up, if you have that skill, you can save a lot of money.
36:42
I don't have that skill and and that's OK.
36:46
You know it.
36:46
I enjoyed fixing it.
36:48
I enjoyed working on it and I still work on it.
36:50
I still buy and sell a lot of boats.
36:52
I enjoy working on it.
36:53
But we always have a boat that that we can go get on and go sail a lot.
36:56
You know, I also hear stories about people that spend 5-10 years restoring a boat and then they never get to sail it because they spend all their time fixing it.
37:06
So, you know, you got to have some balance there.
37:10
You got to be able to go out and have some fun.
37:12
Don't forget why you're doing it.
37:14
But yeah, you don't have to have the most expensive boat in the world.
37:18
And you're going to have more fun on a boat that you can handle than you are on a boat that you're either afraid to take out or you're unable to take out because it requires lots of crew that you don't have.
37:31
So get a boat you can go sail and have fun on.
37:34
Go small, go now.
37:36
Exactly.
37:37
Yeah.
37:38
YeahAnd I and when I was taking lessons, when I took all the the three courses that I took, ASA courses, I made sure that I was being taught how to do this by myself because I didn't want to.
37:51
Although Scott, Salty Scotty comes with me.
37:53
I think he's watching.
37:55
I I asked him to come on.
37:58
Yeah, Scott, comment.
37:59
Scott, people have been asking for you.
38:01
They, you know, on this trip.
38:04
I didn't want to have to wait for somebody to be in the mood to go or they're working or whatever.
38:09
I wanted to be able to.
38:10
Now it is much easier when you know on a windy day when Scott is with me and he kicks me off the dock and then he can jump on.
38:16
But I I wanted to learn how to do it myself because there's not always going to be somebody there when I'm coming into the dock and there's not going to always be somewhere when I need to leave.
38:24
the duck.
38:25
So and you were good about about helping me with that you know learning how to do it myself how to how because I see a lot of people taking lessons they take it as couples and that's fine and one person does the helm and one person handles the lines.
38:41
Do you see a lot of that?
38:43
There's There's a lot of there's a lot of people that start out sailing as couples and end up not sailing as couples because they don't they don't handle that well.
38:53
There's a really good book out there, and and you may have read this, I don't know.
38:58
It's called It's Your Boat, Too.
39:02
um And I used to push that a lot for couples when I was teaching sailing, and and the the book was written years ago, and just kind of the story behind it.
39:09
We were at a boat show, and Kathleen went to one of the the seminars at the boat show, and it was the author of this book that had this, and it it was a woman who was teaching it,And it was a woman that wrote the book, and the book was primarily to women, and and her message was, It's your boat too.
39:30
And she actually got out of that, and she came and got me, and she said, You need to come watch this.
39:35
And I was teaching sailing at that time, and I was the only man in the in the tent where they were doing the seminar.
39:41
But, and I actually, I talked to him, and it was really good.
39:46
She and her husband both sailed, and they were both retired Navy, if I remember correctly,And they were going cruising and and the message that she was trying to get out to women is it's your boat and you need to take responsibility on the boat.
40:04
And they had a system where they alternated doing things on the boat.
40:10
Now they and she acknowledged that they both had things that they were better at than the other, but they both knew.
40:18
How to do everything on the boat.
40:21
And she talked about that kind of an aha moment that she had where her husband, they were not cruising yet, they were both still working, but they're actively sailing the boat and her husband had to go somewhere, had to travel for work and he was gone for a period of time and she was talking to him on the phone and said.
40:42
Ohio really missed sailing.
40:43
And he said, you know, go get some of your friends and go take the boat out.
40:47
And she was reluctant to do that, but she did.
40:50
Well, when they, when she and her husband sailed together and and I'm bad about this, I do this, they get the boat all put away and they'd start back for the car and he'd go, oh, I need to go check one more thing and you do things.
41:04
So much you can't remember.
41:06
Did I did I close the companion way?
41:07
Did I tie up that one extra dock line?
41:09
You know, all those things, that ritual that you do when you get back to the dock, making sure that you did it.
41:14
And I'm bad about you've done it so many times, you can't remember if you do it.
41:18
And he used to do that.
41:19
And she said it really irritated her because they'd be almost back to the car and he'd have to go back and check that one more thing.
41:26
She took the boat out with her friends.
41:28
They went out, they went sailing, they did their thing, they came back in, she was almost to the car, and she went, oh, did I?
41:36
And And she said she turned around to go back to do that, and that's when it hit her, that she had been dumping all that responsibility onto him, the ultimate responsibility for making sure that everything was done, instead of splitting that.
41:49
And she said, you need to split that, and it needs to be equal responsibility.
41:55
um And again, you're gonna have things, each of you are gonna have things that you're better at than the other.
42:00
But it's really important that you both take responsibility.
42:03
My wife is an active sailor, very capable sailor.
42:06
We've had his and her boats, that's a whole different story, but we have his and her boats.
42:11
And when I'm on her boat, we sail it her way.
42:15
But that's something that when we're going out, we establish, okay, you're gonna be the one responsible today, you're gonna be the skipper today.
42:23
And I'm perfectly happy being crew, or I'm perfectly happy being skipper, but we take that responsibility and we share it.
42:31
Well, that book that I was talking about, BYOB, has a chapter about marriages and the problems that it causes.
42:37
And it's usually the man barking at the woman, making her mad.
42:43
And the book talks about the importance of her going and taking her own lessons, get her own instructor, and and learning what to do.
42:52
And you told me one time, you know, tell tell your husband, I just fell off the boat.
42:58
What are you going to do?
43:01
And you said, Don't tell him I told you that.
43:05
Sorry, Scott.
43:06
Well, it's important.
43:07
It's important that everybody knows.
43:09
And if you follow sailing news, you'll see those stories from time to time where one of them fell off the boat and the other one had absolutely no idea what to do.
43:16
My wife had never sailed when we got married.
43:19
And I'm a smart enough guy to know, even though I'm a sailing instructor, I am not the guy to teach my wife.
43:24
And so, yeah, she went to a sailing class with a friend and and she learned.
43:31
She went to a a basic keel boat class and she learned.
43:35
So you can just sit in a in a marina for five or 10 minutes and see the the couples coming in and out and see the friction.
43:44
I taught, I taught a lot of couples and there was a lot of times and I'd always try and start out and kind of making a joke of it where the husband is going to get a little heated and he's going to tell her how to do it.
43:58
And and I, you know, you always kind of keep it lighthearted.
44:00
So it's like, hey, let's pretend I'm the instructor and I'm going to teach both of you, you know?
44:05
But there's times, there's times where I'd really have to put the hammer down.
44:10
But, and I got to tell on myself, we were, Kathleen and I were out sailing doing something and I don't remember what it was.
44:17
And I spoke a little too sharply and my wife is, she's a Missouri girl.
44:23
She is a very strong-willed, very hard-headed, very kind, compassionate person.
44:30
Now she's working.
44:31
But when she was mad, she sheShe can let you have it.
44:36
And she turned around and looked at me and she said, You would never talk to a student like that.
44:41
And that was kind of one of those, yeah, one of those, Wow, you are absolutely right.
44:46
And I I said, You're absolutely right.
44:48
Now, on the other hand, you speak to me sometimes the way you would never speak to an instructor.
44:53
And And we talked that through.
44:55
We said, Okay.
44:57
I'll talk to you like a student if you'll talk to me like an instructor.
45:01
And there's times when she'll say, you know, you know I don't remember how to do this.
45:06
How do we do that?
45:07
And I say, okay, let's do that like a student instructor.
45:09
So, you know, we're gonna go over how to heave too.
45:13
And so, you know, we'll go through that.
45:16
But, yeah, it's, it's it can be a marriage breakerBut it can be a marriage builder.
45:24
And I, you know, I've had a lot of guys tell me you're a very lucky guy because your wife will go sailing with you.
45:30
Well, she will and and I am, don't misunderstand me, but part of that is because we resolved a lot of that years ago and and I'm not saying we're perfect.
45:41
It's, you know, marriage is is a learning experience and always will be.
45:45
But, you know, I treat her as an equal on the boat.
45:48
I'm not barking at her, so.
45:51
I had somebody years ago when I was sailing on the lake.
45:55
I used to race back then.
45:56
I don't race much anymore.
45:58
But I I had, it was a husband and wife that raced the Catalina 22 and she came to me and said, will you race with Jim?
46:06
And I said, well, I thought you were crewing for him.
46:08
She said, yeah, but I'm not crewing for him.
46:10
He yells at me and he'll yell at you.
46:12
And I said he'll only yell at me once.
46:15
And so I I cried for for him on the, and and he turned around, we tacked the boat and he, right after we tacked the boat, he turned around and he started clapping his hands and he said, Housekeeping, housekeeping, housekeeping.
46:29
And I said, Don't ever speak to me like that again.
46:32
And he was very surprised.
46:34
And I said, I know how to clean up the boat after attack.
46:37
And he was just completely taken back and he he did not realize that he had done that.
46:42
And so, but that's the way he'd been doing with his wife.
46:45
Well, don't do me like that.
46:46
And so after the race, she came up and she said, how'd it go?
46:50
I said, it went fine.
46:51
She said, did he yell at you?
46:52
I said, only once.
46:54
Did he get better after that with his wife?
46:56
He got better with me.
46:57
I don't know if he got better with his wife.
47:03
Ohh OK, so I'm going to put up your your website forThere he is.
47:10
Meet Captain Ralph Bush.
47:11
Pier one yacht sales.
47:14
And and then here's the bottom part of that.
47:18
And here's your bio.
47:20
And so if you guys are looking for some help and correct me if I'm wrong, but you do know a little thing about island packets, don't you?
47:28
Oh, yes.
47:29
Yeah, I just looked at an island packet pack.
47:31
Yeah, I sold a bunch of them and sailed.
47:34
I sailed an island pack at 38.
47:39
With external chain plates.
47:43
Uh oh, that's a little controversial.
47:45
Yeah, yeah, kick the kick the Hornet's nest there.
47:48
But yeah, I'd sailed on Salty Abandon on the the original Salty Abandon before it was ever the Salty Abandon.
47:55
So yeah, that's right before when it was Island Sun.
48:00
Yeah, we attempted the first Pensacola La Habana race on the on that on that boat.
48:05
Yeah, tell that story.
48:06
It was on my 19.
48:08
Well, it wasn't mine yet.
48:09
1988 Island package 27.
48:12
And the guy that owned it, his name was Gene.
48:14
The guy I bought it from and he got you guys.
48:17
Oh, I'm telling the story.
48:18
You go ahead.
48:19
Well, no, actually he didn't get.
48:20
I got him.
48:22
We wanted.
48:23
We didn't really care about the race.
48:24
We just wanted to go to.
48:26
Cuba.
48:26
Oh, and so that was the whole, well, in order to go to Cuba, you got to have some reason to go.
48:32
So we got into the race as a reason to go to Cuba.
48:36
And he needed a crew, a qualified crew.
48:39
Well, yeah, no, it was the other way.
48:41
It was Kathleen and I wanted to go to Cuba.
48:42
So we talked Gene into it and we got him to bring his boat into the deal.
48:47
So we talked him into it and he was a willing participant.
48:50
And but yeah, it was the three of us.
48:54
We were by 10 foot the smallest boat in the race.
48:56
Everybody else was at least 10 foot bigger.
48:59
People lost mast in that.
49:00
Oh ohh yeah, boats got dismasted, and there was a couple of boats, one boat that made it in, diverted into Tampa sinking, and at that point they lost electrical and they were bailing by hand.
49:13
So, yeah, it was really, really rough weather out in the Gulf, and big seas for the Gulf, and if you sail in the Gulf,You know, 8-9 foot in the Gulf with really short periods.
49:26
And as you know, the island packet 27 is a great boat, but they're really beamy, really short boats.
49:33
And so they really have a tendency to hobby horse.
49:35
They they buck a lot.
49:38
And so we were, we were just pounding into the seas.
49:43
And so, and I think it was you that decided, like Gene said, oh, I would have kept going, but.
49:48
Captain Ralph decided to turn around.
49:51
Well, 24 hours out, we looked and and by that time we had already decided we take the penalty, so we were running our motor and we were just we were just pounding into the seas.
50:01
And so our- That's my boat that you were doing.
50:03
Yeah, I know, I knowOur speed over ground over an extent, I don't remember, but it was like over 12 hours had been one knot.
50:17
We were just not making headway.
50:19
And so you know, and to go into Cuba, you you're permitted for a period of time.
50:24
You can't get there before a certain time and you can't enter after a certain time.
50:28
We wouldn't have at that rate, we would not have made it.
50:30
We we wouldn't have made it to Cuba in time.
50:32
We would have got there and had to.
50:34
You were right just to to give up on that whole thing and just and to clarify that was the the first time they had had that race in.
50:42
50 years or something.
50:44
Yeah.
50:44
And and at the skippers meeting the night before, the Weather Service, the weather routing service that they hired and and I'm not talking about, you know, they went under the Weather Channel or windfinder.com.
50:54
They actually have a weather routing service where they have a meteorologist who is assigned specifically to your.
51:02
And and that meteorologist said, you need to delay the start of the race for 48 hours because the weather is too bad.
51:08
And they didn't.
51:09
No, they didn't.
51:10
They didn't.
51:11
They didn't.
51:12
No, they started the boat.
51:13
They started the race on time.
51:14
So anyway, it was a fun experience.
51:16
It was a really fast trip home.
51:20
Oh yeah, you were going right into the into the Yeah, the wind was right.
51:23
Yeah, the wind was right out of the South and even the fastest boats.
51:26
I think Bob Kriegel's the one that won that year and I think Kriegel was even almost 48 hours late because they covered a lot of the Gulf packing back and forth and the wind, the weather was really bad in the western Gulf.
51:40
So anyway, it was a fun experience.
51:42
That doesn't sound fun.
51:44
It's one of those typical settling experience.
51:46
It's more fun the farther away you get from the time.
51:50
It wasn't all that much fun.
51:51
Oh, yeah.
51:52
Now looking back, we'll save that.
51:54
Well, I'll have to have Kathleen on to tell to tell the story about us crossing and we lost power.
51:59
But that's for another day.
52:00
You know, we've been on here for, I'm not rushing or anything, but an hour and 19 minutes.
52:05
So I want to encourage, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring you in so you can see the questions.
52:10
Let me see if I can do that.
52:16
Yes.
52:16
OK.
52:17
All right.
52:18
Nobody's asking anything right now, but I want to encourage it right now.
52:22
Go.
52:23
Because there's like, there's like 9 people right now watching.
52:28
There's two on Facebook and seven on on YouTube.
52:34
And there'll be a lot of people that watch afterwards, of course.
52:37
But OK, you guys, the people that are watching, ask a question, go.
52:41
You should be able to see the comments now.
52:42
Can you see them?
52:45
If you look over to your right, it might be like a box that says comments.
52:50
I've got it set on full screen for me.
52:52
So maybe that I need to change that.
52:54
Let's see.
52:55
Exit full screen should be like on the right hand side.
53:00
But so it's OK.
53:03
There we go.
53:04
Comments.
53:07
Yeah.
53:07
Come on, you guys.
53:08
Oh, now there's 12 people watching.
53:09
Ask a question.
53:12
Captain Ralph, ask a question or me.
53:16
Ask me a question.
53:20
I guess nobody's curious.
53:22
Well, is there anything else that you'd like to say?
53:27
I had that.
53:29
Oh, Key West.
53:30
John wanted to know.
53:35
He's watching.
53:36
I think he says he wanted me to ask you this.
53:40
OK.
53:41
If anchoring and light wins, oh, oh wait, oh wait, somebody asked a question.
53:47
Do you see it?
53:49
How much sailing did you do in Oklahoma?
53:51
A lot.
53:52
A lot.
53:53
There's a very active sailing club in Grove, Oklahoma.
53:56
And so there are a lot.
53:58
Yeah, Grand Lake Sailing Club, sailing on Grand Lake.
54:02
I actually, I learned to sail on Lake Oulaga at an ASA school there and then sailed all the time.
54:09
I was down there all the time.
54:11
It's just shocking.
54:12
Oh, I learned to sail in Oklahoma.
54:15
I know.
54:15
And people ask all the time.
54:17
Really, there's lakes in Oklahoma?
54:19
Yeah, there really are lakes in Oklahoma.
54:21
So yeah.
54:22
David, are you from Oklahoma?
54:23
Let's see if he'll answer.
54:26
And while we're waiting on that, I'm going to ask Key West Johns.
54:30
He's my weather advisor.
54:31
He was Key West John is somebody I met on my first trip to Key West back in 2016.
54:38
And he was, he flew with Southwest for 25 years as a pilot, as a captain and he's a lifetime sailor.
54:43
So and he has a retirement job where he flies to 737 in his retirement job.
54:49
The man knows weather.
54:51
So I often concur.
54:53
I'll say I think I should cross on this day.
54:55
Do you concur?
54:56
And he'll he'll offer me advice and kind of watch out for me and everything.
55:01
So he wants to know.
55:03
Got a good question for the podcast.
55:05
If anchoring in light winds and you don't want to have your anchor rode wrap around your keel when you have a current changing during the night from one direction to the opposite, then what is the best position to set a stern anchor should you set so the current comes bow uh for some time and then stern, or should you set set so the current is from one side for a while and then opposite side?
55:27
I kind of prefer the bow and stern current rather than sides.
55:29
Do you know what that means?
55:32
I'm not sure that I followed all of that.
55:36
I remember that he anchored at Pavilion Key down off Everglades City and he he got all tangled up in the middle of the night.
55:45
Yeah.
55:45
And that can happen if you got real light wind and not a lot of current and the boat just kind of meanders and so around over the top of your anchor.
55:55
And So what happened is.
55:58
Yeah, you can get the anchor Rd.
56:00
wrapped around the the keel.
56:02
And you know, wing keels are real popular now.
56:05
So if you've got a wing keel and you get the anchor Rd.
56:07
wrapped around it, it it becomes a real problem.
56:10
I think that's what, yeah, yeah, it becomes a real problem.
56:13
Like 30 or something.
56:15
Yeah, yeahSo yeah, that's really a problem with the wing keel.
56:18
So you definitely want to put a second anchor down.
56:22
Yeah, you can do balance stern, you can do just two anchors, 45 off, and you're not going to swing.
56:28
But if you've got light wind like that and you know, really almost no current, it really doesn't.
56:34
It doesn't matter.
56:35
Just get a second anchor down so you're not going to meander over the top of your anchor.
56:39
I have a place on my bassprit for another anchor.
56:42
I never.
56:43
I never know for a second anchor, I never know how to do that.
56:48
You know, does one go this way and one goes this way?
56:52
Well, kind of, yeah.
56:53
I mean, you can set two anchors 45 off, just 45 degrees apart.
56:58
You're gonna set the first one with the boat and you'll set the second one with the dinghy.
57:03
And the bad thing is you won't swing.
57:06
And a funny story about that, I.
57:08
Years and years ago, I went with some friends.
57:12
It was the first trip I'd first charter I'd done down in the Caribbean.
57:14
It was the first time I'd ever been to Saint Barts and good friends.
57:18
And we sailed together.
57:19
And you know, a few months after the trip, we became friends again.
57:23
But just kidding.
57:24
But anyway, we got into Gustavia and we were anchoring in the outer harbor in Gustavia and Ken, the one who had put the whole charter together, he was the one that that had made all the arrangements and so to the charter company, he was the skipper and he took that just a little too seriously.
57:41
And we got into Gustavia and he was just adamant that we needed to put two anchors down and andIt is a very active anchorage, but we really had almost 200 feet of same.
57:54
Well, that was that was our point is we're not going to swing and and so you get 5 sailors together and you're going to get six different opinions on what to do because one won't even be able to make up their own minds.
58:06
What about the instructor in the crowd?
58:09
I wasn't an instructor at that time.
58:11
I wasn't an instructor.
58:12
So we did.
58:13
We put a second anchor down because I wanted a beer and a shower and to get a shore.
58:20
And not in that order.
58:21
I wanted to go ashore and get a shower, 'cause they had public showers in Gustavia, and and I wanted to be-- So you just wanted to get off the boat.
58:28
Yeah, fine.
58:29
So two o'clock in the morning, somebody is beating on the hull of our boat, and I jumped up and ran out there, and yeah, everybody else in the anchorage had swung, and we did not swing.
58:41
And so there was another sailboat that had swung into us, and that poor guy was out there.
58:47
in French, calling us all kinds of things with his feet, using his feet to hold his boat off of our boat.
58:53
Oh my god.
58:54
Yeah, Yeah we had to get out at two o'clock in the morning and go pick up the second anchor.
59:00
It's a shame back in, we hung him that night from the yard arm.
59:03
Oh my gosh, he's kidding.
59:10
So that's really only good if you're in not a crowded anchorage.
59:15
The anchoring etiquette is you anchor the same way as everybody else does, and if you're not, go anchor somewhere else.
59:22
And we violated that.
59:24
And so, everybody else is out there with a single bow anchor and we were.
59:27
Well, if I know that, that doesn't make sense, you know, if you're in a crowded anchorage, I mean.
59:30
Yeah, yeahIt didn't make sense to us either, but we gave in.
59:35
It didn't work out.
59:37
Okay, so this, David says, My best friend used to sail in Oklahoma on Amelgis.
59:42
Is that how you say that too?
59:44
Yeah, on Amelgis.
59:45
Do you know where he sailed that at?
59:48
Do you sail out of Grand Lake Sailing Club or over by Tulsa, or any race to CMC on the Gulf Coast for years?
59:58
So, David, so Captain Ralph's saying where in Oklahoma, is that what you're saying?
60:04
Yeah, there's there's a there's actually a pretty active racing group in in Oklahoma on Grand Lake.
60:14
And in fact at one point their their claim to to fame, the Grand Lake Sailing Club where we used to where is the sail had the first and only long distance inland race.
60:27
They had an endurance race that was a 50 and 100 mile race.
60:33
And Grand Lake is like 12 miles long, so you're you're like sailing laps around the race, but it went it went for 50 years.
60:42
So David said, sorry, we asked him a question.
60:46
He wanted to know where in Oklahoma he was sailing in Melgus.
60:50
Yeah, where he sailed the Melgus out of.
60:53
Melgus.
60:55
Come on, David.
60:55
All right, he's thinking.
61:01
And and then this was the other comment.
61:04
You had always raced there, moved to Louisiana in the 70s, raced to CNC 35 on the Gulf Coast for years.
61:10
That sounds more like it on the Gulf Coast.
61:11
Yeah.
61:14
CNCs are great boats.
61:15
Yeah.
61:17
You know what all these are.
61:19
Oh, yeah.
61:19
YeahIt's also CNCs.
61:21
Oh, Key West, John.
61:23
Go ahead.
61:24
Go ahead.
61:24
No.
61:25
Go ahead.
61:25
QS John replied on my text, on my phone.
61:28
He heard us talk.
61:30
He said, Yep, that's me, wind kill, and it ain't fun when ride gets wrapped.
61:34
When road gets wrapped.
61:36
Somebody's getting wet.
61:37
Somebody's going swimming.
61:39
Well, he did.
61:40
He had to jump in with his mask and everything.
61:43
And this was where, down in Everglades City?
61:46
Well, you know, there's a little island called Pavilion Key.
61:50
And I actually went to it 'cause he he would always talk about it and I go, I gotta see this place.
61:54
You look at it on Google Maps, it looks beautiful.
61:56
It looks like, and you're still in, you know, in cell phone service.
62:00
You know, it's right outside off the coast of Emerald, of Everglades City.
62:05
And he has, I have the Starlink now, so I was able to, I didn't stay when I came through there because it was too rough.
62:14
So I went ahead and went into Everglades City again.
62:17
But yeah, it's like this little, I think it's a state park, so there's nothing on it.
62:22
You should go down there.
62:24
The Everglades Challenge goes through there.
62:26
There's nothing down there except alligators, pythons.
62:30
Oh yeah.
62:30
That's the Everglades, that's serious Everglades.
62:33
It probably didn't make it in the news up there, but there was a, it's probably been a year ago now, maybe more, I don't know.
62:38
I met that guy.
62:40
I know what you're going to say.
62:42
The guy that anchored down in Everglades City and came back to Naples and found a python in there.
62:48
He came back to Marco and they made him leave.
62:51
Yeah I met him in Gulfport.
62:54
He told me the story and then I was like, I wonder if that was real.
62:57
And they had just bought that boat like over on the Miami area or Fort Lauderdale or something.
63:02
Yeah.
63:03
Oh, here he answered.
63:04
And And they were brand new.
63:07
Yeah.
63:08
Yeah, OK.
63:09
They were brand new and they went into what's that river?
63:13
Yeah.
63:13
And I've been there now.
63:14
Shark River.
63:15
Shark River.
63:17
Yeah.
63:18
And they got to, I think they went to Rose Marina and found a little surprise in their bed.
63:23
It was a Python or and which is pretty horrific.
63:27
And then I went online and found a local news story about it and they showed it wrapped around.
63:32
You got it.
63:33
And law enforcement, I don't know who it was.
63:35
They came and got it off and then they made them leave in case there were more that Marco keep on.
63:41
I'd have burned that boat to the water line.
63:43
I'd have burned it to the water line.
63:44
I'd have gotten off, set it on fire.
63:46
And yeah, I don't.
63:48
Well, I interviewed him.
63:49
I didn't get that story on on camera, but he said there was one window, one porthole that didn't have a screen.
63:56
And he thinks it came through there.
63:58
Yeah.
64:02
But I went there on this trip and man, as soon as the sun starts going down, the no-see-ums are fierce.
64:09
Yeah, yeah, I was trying to take a picture of the sunset.
64:13
There's no way you have to hurry up and get in and take a dive in.
64:20
Yeah, pavilion keys.
64:20
You got to check that out.
64:22
Okeechobee's like that, if you come across the Okeechobee waterway.
64:25
You've made that trip across the Okeechobee waterway?
64:27
I haven't.
64:28
I'm scared to do it by myself because of the lots and the tying up.
64:34
It's a fun trip to do about every 10 years.
64:37
I've done it more than that, but it ceases to be fun if you're doing it more than that.
64:40
But it is fun and and one of the the former owners of Pier 1, you say everything you need to know about navigating and running a boat in Florida, you learn on thethe Okeechobee waterway because you have to learn navigation going across Okeechobee because if you go across the lake, there's no, there's a marker in the middle and you gotta hit it.
65:02
You learn how to do locks, how to do bridges, and but coming across into Clewiston, you're still actually a mile or two miles out and you're into a channel which has got sawgrass on both sides.
65:21
And I was coming through there and it was dark.
65:23
It was getting dark.
65:24
And the mosquitoes, I I really thought it was the Blue Angels coming in behind me.
65:31
Oh, I've heard about it, like a big cloud.
65:33
Yeah, it was mosquitoes.
65:35
And I I dove down below and grabbed the spray and sprayed me and the boat and put the screens in and and sprayed the screens and sprayed everything.
65:44
Yeah, then you got to get them out of inside.
65:46
Yeah, yeah, you don't want to be out there after dark.
65:49
And then they they're there in the morning too until the sun comes up.
65:52
Oh my God.
65:53
And it was like that in Everglades City too.
65:57
But I on this trip I got to see Goodland and I got to see Everglades City and QS John was down there.
66:03
You know he came up from QS and I got local knowledge before going back there.
66:08
You know from a Marco captain.
66:10
He had me go take a shortcut that I would have never done.
66:12
But he said no, you can get in there if you go at high tide and that often.
66:18
That's really important.
66:19
Let's talk about local knowledge.
66:22
I'm a big believer.
66:24
There was something recently I asked when I was leaving Tampa Bay and I I was enraged and I said, do you think I could squeeze out that little side there?
66:31
He goes, no, no, no, no, noBut it looks like I could.
66:35
And he goes, I wouldn't know.
66:36
I said, OK, I'll take your word for it.
66:40
You know what I'm talking about, that little shortcut through the main channel of Tampa Bay?
66:46
Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
66:48
Yeah.
66:49
Have you ever done it?
66:52
The The average ice challenge starts right there.
66:54
I've done it in small boats, but yeah, we used to sail up there all the time, but yeah, you don't want to do that.
67:00
You can You can hit it just right if you've got maybe a swing keel and real shallow draft boat, you can do that.
67:08
But now, are you talking about the one going south or are you talking about the little...
67:12
There's a little channel that goes, if you're turning north.
67:15
It's on the north end of that main channel.
67:19
Oh yeah.
67:20
I think there's even some markers, aren't there?
67:22
Yeah, Yeah I've done that.
67:24
I wouldn't recommend it, but yeah, I've done it.
67:26
It was really rough offshore.
67:28
Jean and I were bringing that Albin Vega 27 down, and we had just gotten the stuffing kicked out of this, and we we went in at John's Pass.
67:38
And we went back out to try and get back out and we got back out and we decided we're not doing this.
67:43
And so, yeah, there's a little swash channel that comes in right here.
67:48
And so we went through it.
67:49
But that's a fairly shallow draft boat, small boat.
67:52
And yeah, we came back in through there.
67:54
Yeah, mine's 4.25.
67:55
I thought I could...
67:56
Yeah.
67:57
But the captain and Marco, instead of going around Cape Sable, is it?
68:03
Marco, yeah.
68:05
What's that big shallow area you got to go around?
68:09
Instead of going around that, he said I could go in that path and it's got a kind of a funky name and I can't think of it right now.
68:17
It took me forever to learn how to say it.
68:18
Now I can't remember it.
68:20
He said you can get in there.
68:21
And I was like, that saves a lot of hours.
68:24
And I did.
68:26
And that's what that's the benefit of local knowledge.
68:29
And so local knowledge is important.
68:31
Don't hesitate to ask the locals and and then when you ask them and you get the advice, follow it.
68:37
Yeah, yeahAnd there's just so many boat captains out there, the boat community, they're so helpful, you know, and say, hey, I need some local knowledge and they perk up.
68:46
They, you know, everybody likes to be asked a little of their expertise, right?
68:50
Yeah.
68:51
Oh yeah, yeahWell, I guess we've been on here for an hour and 38 minutes.
68:57
Can you believe that?
68:58
Wow.
69:00
Well, people like long content these days.
69:03
I always like long content.
69:04
So I think we've covered some really stuff that good stuff.
69:07
There's not any fluff in here.
69:10
You have such a wealth of knowledge and maybe we'll do it again.
69:15
Yeah, you got a couple more coming up.
69:17
So I'll give you a chance to plug.
69:19
You got some more coming up.
69:19
You have some other people that you're going to do this, right?
69:22
Oh, yeah.
69:22
YeahGreat idea.
69:23
Thanks.
69:24
OK.
69:24
So Cecilia Potts, I don't know if you know her.
69:27
She did a survey.
69:28
So, yeah, for me.
69:30
Yeah.
69:30
There's not too many women surveyors, are there?
69:33
Are there?
69:34
No, there's not.
69:36
There's not.
69:37
She she is so good.
69:38
Like she she was recommended by Hayden Cochran, who is like.
69:43
The head chief, head big cheese of the island packet community and he's a broker and he kind of he's special.
69:50
You know him.
69:52
Yeah.
69:52
And he specializes and he's he's on.
69:55
He's now gone now and on his boat until May and I'll be interviewing him.
70:01
But he I said who should I use?
70:03
And he said, oh, Cecilia, they call her, they call her Cece, I think Potts.
70:07
And she did the boat that I looked at in Fort Pierce.
70:11
And I didn't even have her.
70:13
She's expensive.
70:14
I mean, I don't know, 100 bucks an hour.
70:16
And that's to do the actual survey and also do the paperwork, you know, the actual report.
70:21
And we stopped in the middle of the report after I could see where we were going with the report.
70:27
It wasn't looking good.
70:29
And she said, do you want me to stop?
70:30
I said, yeah.
70:31
And then the next week I went to Palmetto to the Regatta Safe Harbor Regatta Marina, and that's where I found the boat that I'm on right now.
70:40
And I told the guy within 10 minutes I was writing an offer and I want to close in two weeks.
70:45
He goes, well, surveyors are, they're like 3 weeks out, four weeks out.
70:49
I said I got one that could do it next week.
70:51
So she traveled around the whole state, you know, and he goes, oh, really?
70:55
Well, they don't climb up the mast anymore.
70:57
I go, mine does.
70:58
Yeah, she does.
70:59
I was impressed with that.
71:00
Yeah, yeah, I was.
71:03
I was impressed with that because most of most surveyors will not climb the mast.
71:07
And they just say I cannot believe that.
71:09
How do you?
71:10
How can you buy a sailboat without someone going up?
71:12
Especially doing the kind of stuff I'm doing.
71:15
Yeah, Yeah they'll they'll recommend having a rigging inspection.
71:19
But you know, some of it is controlled by liability and most, even if you have a rigger come in and do a rigging inspection, no matter what he finds, he's gonna tell you if the rig hasn't been replaced within, standing rigging hasn't been replaced within, some of them it's five years, but certainly 10 years he's gonna tell you, you you need to have-- Now Cecile did recommend an independentdiesel inspection.
71:41
And so I did get that.
71:42
Yeah.
71:44
And so, and he was, you know, he he was happy with what he found.
71:49
It's so clean down there.
71:51
So yeah, I definitely recommend her.
71:53
She She said she's getting all her podcast stuff.
71:56
She wants to wait till she gets all her, you know, equipment for me to interview her.
72:01
But I think she is just so impressive.
72:04
And I've had her, I don't know if you know this, Cap'n Ralph, but you know, I bought the boat andOctober 2020, I closed a month after the hurricane that I lost the other one.
72:16
So I didn't, it was a month, right?
72:18
And I've had her do 2 addendums to the survey and since to increase the value because of all the stuff I had held up.
72:27
Yeah.
72:28
So she came out a few months after and did a added, we added, you know, like 20 grand and then.
72:35
Just a couple months ago I was passing through Bradenton and she came and she got another one.
72:38
I got it and my insurance took it.
72:40
I called them.
72:41
You have to there's there's a time limit that you can put an addendum to in a survey and they made it.
72:48
They made it a an exception to do this one.
72:53
This last one they got permission and and then they increased my coverage.
72:56
And so that's a lesson I learned on my first vote.
72:59
I never upped the insurance and so I learned a good lesson on that.
73:05
So now I've got, you know, oh, Key West Johnson's Cape Romano.
73:10
Romano.
73:13
Romano.
73:14
Yeah.
73:15
Cape Romano Shoals.
73:16
Yeah.
73:18
Shout out to Key West John.
73:21
You know, he stayed on the on text with us when Scott and I were on the boat during Hurricane Sally.
73:28
We didn't mean to do that, by the way.
73:31
Yeah.
73:32
So.
73:33
So were we, because I remember Kathleen texting you, begging you to get off the boat and leave it.
73:41
I thought you were saying you were on your boat.
73:44
Oh, no, no I remember Kathleen was texting you to get off the boat during Sally and and leave it.
73:52
He He has access to all the airports.
73:56
Because, you know, he's a pilot.
73:57
So he's he when it started really ramping up, he goes, oh, they just got a gust of 70 mile or knot wind gust at Pensacola Airport or Pensacola NAS.
74:08
And I'm telling, I think it got up to 110, but I think 105 something.
74:14
It's a whole different story on a boat.
74:16
Yeah, I remember pulling the companionway back and going, Oh my God, I've been through hurricanes, but it's a whole different story on a boat.
74:26
Yeah, it's different when you're hunkered down in the house.
74:29
Yeah, it's different.
74:31
All right.
74:32
Well, I guess this is a good place to to end it.
74:36
Give yourself a plug.
74:37
You know, if anything you want to say about your your various talents here, we got the, we got the the website for to get to sign up for and you do it and you do those classes in Pensacola and Hunted Gordon.
74:52
Yes.
74:52
Is that right?
74:54
Yep, that's correct.
74:56
And so I it was like 6 days, right?
74:59
Seven.
75:00
Yep.
75:01
OK.
75:02
And I also, I see over here you got sale endorsement.
75:06
I got that too.
75:07
So and then here's the contact information.
75:12
Want to buy a boat?
75:13
Hitting old Captain Ralph up.
75:15
Yeah.
75:17
And that's it.
75:17
So.
75:18
All right.
75:19
Thanks for putting this together.
75:21
Yeah, this is a lot.
75:23
This is great.
75:24
You are the perfect first person because you are so easy going.
75:28
I'm like, I'm like, hey, I'm going to do an interview and I'm kind of, you know, stressed about it.
75:32
Not really, but you're like, OK, nobody wants to watch that, but OK.
75:35
And then I was like, oh, we're going to go live.
75:37
OK, You're just so nothing rattles you.
75:42
I've embarrassed myself in public before, so it's nothing new.
75:47
Well, here, let's just give my plug one more time.
75:49
If you're ready for Gulf front property or Bayfront property, even non waterfront property in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, AL or Perdido Key, Florida, please contact me, Tinsley Myrick.
76:00
And there's my e-mail address.
76:01
All right, shameless plug.
76:03
All right, shall we?
76:06
I do have an exit, an exit.
76:11
Is it on here?
76:11
OK, here we go.
76:12
So we're going to go out now and thank you so much.
76:16
And we'll see you again and tell Kathleen I'd like to interview her.
76:20
I will tell her, tell Scott I said hello.
76:22
Okay, do you think she'll do it?
76:24
I don't know if she will, but I said I'd tell her, I didn't say she'd do it.
76:29
Okay, all right.
76:30
She might, she might.
76:31
All right, thanks, bye.
76:33
All right, bye bye.