January 30, 2022….the Big Day!
I am writing about this day two months later as it turned out to be the most harrowing experience we have ever encountered.
We woke up to a beautiful sunrise and fairly calm seas. We had planned and prepared for this trip for many months. We left our anchorage at Panama City Beach around 7:00 am. We cruised about four miles off the coast for a while. The waves were about 1 foot high, but not bad at all for us. We were running about 9-10 mph. Once we got to where we could barely see the shore, the waves increased a little. As the day went on, the waves got bigger. Although all the weather forecasts showed 1-2 foot waves, we were in 3-5 foot waves all day long. The waves were coming at us from the side and causing chaos inside the boat. At times, we couldn’t even stand up or walk inside the boat. My sister (Shelia) was really scared and starting to get seasick. We kept the girls updated with our satellite Spot X and we were able to even text them throughout the day to let them know we were still on course and doing okay. I think the last update I sent out was around 8:30 pm. Brittany was updating all our friends and family on our FB group.
This is the last live FB video while we still had cell signal:
If you can’t access the link, you will need to request to join our FB group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/286588983450147
Around 10:00 pm is when our real nightmare began. This is the post I made the next morning…
First, thank you all for your prayers! We definitely experienced our scariest night ever. We had really rough seas all day yesterday (all weather forecasts predicted 1-2’ waves; however, we had 3-5’ waves hitting us on the side all day and night) and we had furniture turning over, food and drinks coming out of the refrigerator, and everything was falling off shelves, etc. Around 9:30 pm, Shelia and I went downstairs to lay down for a little while. Around 10:00 pm, I went to my bedroom and there was 1-2 inches of water in our floor. James was trying to pump it out while I drove. He came upstairs and said one of the bilge pumps had quit working and we were going to have to send out SOS. Shelia had already been seasick from all the waves and had taken medication for nausea and anxiety, so she was knocked out when we found out about the water. We were about halfway to Clearwater (100 miles out) with water depths over 100’ when this all happened. I tried to text our kids to let them know what was going on, but the Spot X Satellite was not working and I couldn’t type anything on it. I had several predefined messages so I sent the one that said “Need assistance, not life threatening, send help to these coordinates.” But I didn’t know if the message went out or not (turns out they didn’t get the text.. Once I sent the SOS, we couldn’t do anything else with the Spot X. We kept calling “Mayday” on the radio, but no one could hear us. I kept driving and James kept trying to get the water out. I think this went on for about 2 hours….out in the middle of the dark Gulf.
Finally, another vessel heard our call and used his satellite phone to contact the Coast Guard. We were relieved to know that the Coast Guard knew we were in distress and were on their way, but it seemed to take forever for them to get there. We didn’t know it at the time, but once we sent the SOS, the satellite company contacted Brianna and she was able to send them the float plan (basically a plan of our itinerary and information about the boat and passengers in the event of an emergency.) They alerted the Coast Guard and they were able to track our location through the Spot X until the Coast Guard reached us. I was never so happy to see those helicopter lights as they came toward us. They arrived around 12:30 am. At this point, I went to wake Shelia up because I knew she would panic if she heard and saw the helicopter. I had to drive the boat (maintaining our 7 mph speed) while the Coast Guard lowered their guy down to our boat and James had to be on bow of the boat to grab the line (all this in hurricane force winds.) Shelia actually got video of some of this and we will post it later. They lowered a gas-powered water pump that pumps 150 gallons a minute. The Coast Guard guy helped James to pump most of the water out. They left the pump on the boat with us so James could keep pumping at intervals. We asked him to text our girls to let them know we were okay. At this point, we didn’t know if they had received our text or even knew what was going on. I was so nervous and upset I couldn’t even write Brittany’s phone number down, so Shelia wrote Chris’ number. I knew he would answer the phone in the middle of the night. The guy told us they had our float plan, so that let us know the girls knew what was going on. The helicopter stayed with us until the USCG boat reached us. They all kept checking in with us to make sure we were still doing okay. We are so thankful for these men and women! It was a true heroic rescue for us and I don’t even want to think about what could have happened if they weren’t there for us. They stayed with us for 8 hours until we were docked in Clearwater.
We don’t know what happened or where the water is coming from. It is in the Aft (Master) Bedroom and James thinks it could be coming in from around the rudders. We are trying to find a marina that can pull our boat and get this fixed ASAP. We are just really exhausted, mentally and physically. We were up at 5 am yesterday and drove for 25.5 hours with no sleep. We will try to respond to all your texts and posts as soon as we can. Again, thank you so much for your prayers!! And thank you Jeff Beck for helping my girls!
At this point, we don’t really know what is next. But we need to get our boat fixed before we can even think about continuing our journey.
This is the link to the live FB video we did the next day:
Our beautiful sunrise that morning...me driving in the Gulf for the first time ever...Shelia and I hanging in there on the bridge that day
Brittany's posting our messages and coordinates. The last photo is around where we sent out the SOS, I think
Shelia taking her meds...furniture turned over in salon, kitchen drawer fell out and busted, trash compactor flew out....it was like a tornado had come through!
Sunset before the storm
The water blew the flooring up and this is where most of the water was coming up. The other picture shows the USCG pump that we used to pump all the water out. My bedroom was a disaster and everything had to be cleaned from top to bottom.
