December 2015 Before Christmas

As I write this we are in Marsh Harbour in the Abacos, but let me back up……

We stayed at the Fort Pierce City Marina for the first time.  I have to say that I prefer it over Harbour Town Marina for may reasons.  Nicer docks (floating vs fixed), nicer laundry with better machines and better shower facilities.  It is also in “downtown” Fort Pierce with its wonderful shops, restaurants and the Farmers Market on Wednesdays & Saturdays.  It is too far to walk to the grocery though! 











                                      Pelican by Harbour Town Marina                     

We spent some time with Pete & Jane and that is always fun.  After 2 days in the marina it was time to go over to the anchorage in Faber Cove across from the marina. 

As we pulled out an alarm went off.  I won’t go into details but we had to order up a new alternator.  Since we could not charge the batteries by running the engine we were dependent on the solar panels & wind generator.  The only problem was that it was cloudy with little wind!  Pete brought us the new alternator & took us to have the old one tested.  To our surprise there was nothing wrong with it.  The man said even the brushes looked brand new.  If that was the case…. What was the problem????  Rob started checking all possibilities and found a wire that had lost its protective coating.  This was due to the excessive vibrations we have had with the new Beta.  He managed to fix it without having to buy a whole new wiring harness but now we are the proud owners of a $400.00 alternator we do not need!  We only hope that we are able to cruise long enough that it will be needed!

We finally got all of that sorted out & decided to head down towards Lake Worth and possibly West Palm Beach too.  We went towards Hobe Sound & were called on the VHF by Rich on Chris-Lea who we had met last summer at Cobb’s Marina.  It was great to see him & catch up. 

Lighthouse @ Jupiter Inlet                                                                  Rich on Chris-Lea

We got to see Pete one more time as he brought our mail down to Lake Worth (getting the mail is a whole other story! geeezze) and we had a nice lunch at Duffy’s, picked up that last minute stuff at Publix, Trader’s & Carmines and moved the next afternoon down to the Lake Worth Inlet.

We decided to move late in the afternoon and as we were preparing to drop the hook the bottom fell out!  We got the dink emptied out, the motor onboard and the dink on deck and decided to leave at first light. 

We normally will cross overnight and continue on to either Great Sale or Crab Cays.  During Hurricane Joaquin a loaded containership, El Faro, sunk off of Long Island in the Bahamas and just a week or so prior an ocean tug/barge lost 25 containers overboard.  These containers do not always sink.  They may hover just a few feet under the water making them extremely hard to see.  In fact, there were jugs of Tide laundry soap, vacuum sealed bags of coffee, 3 roll packages of paper towels and lots & lots of Capri Sun fruit drinks being picked up by many boats.  Of course all we saw were the paper towels and once they are soaked in salt water….well, no.  However, given the heightened risk of containers we decided to cross in daylight as when it would get dark we should be on the banks and out of the ‘drift’ of the containers.

It was a fabulous crossing!  We actually were able to turn the engine off and sail part of the time.   The stars were out and the seas were low.  Fantastic!  Rob Darling, you should have called us back – it would have been a perfect crossing for you.

We passed Great Sale Cay bout 3am and had already made the decision to carry on to Green Turtle where our good friends Bobby & Francie of Barefootin’ were.  We arrived about 2:30pm and they took us to shore to clear in so we did not have to mess with our dink.



There was a cold front on the way and from all accounts it would be strong so we all decided to transit “The Whale” the next day.  The Barefootin’s went on to Hope Town while we decided to stop at Great Guana cay for our usual stop at Nippers.  It was a great time as usual but they have really raised the prices!  A “Nipper” was $7.00 last year but is now $10.00!  Even the Kalik’s have gone from $5.00 to $6.50.  Probably won’t be having lunch there again any time soon!

Friday the 18th brought us into Marsh Harbour where we have not yet gotten off the boat.  Its very windy.  We were putting in 11+ amps with our wind generator this morning!  We will go to town tomorrow to pick up last minute items for Christmas dinner.  Our plans are to head to Hope Town on Wed. 12/23 and have Christmas dinner with the Barefootin’s.

May each & everyone of you have a safe and blessed Christmas Day and year ahead.  God has truly blessed us all and in our day to day lives it is easy to lose sight of His grace, His glory and His mercy.  Let us also remember that Christmas is not about the tree, gifts, food and parties but is truly about the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior.

Merry Christmas to all and in the word of Tiny Tim…… “God bless us every one”"!”  Holly


                                                                



                                                                

End of November 2015

It seems that no matter how much I say I will keep up with the blog, I never do!  Its hard to imagine that November is over!    We had a great couple of days with Rob Ball in Jax.  My Rob had a scare when he opened the box with the autopilot.  It had the instructions for a “compact” unit.  Not what we had!  They did not offer this size when we bought it & since it was also a Saturday so there was no calling Garmin either!  As it turned out, they had the right unit with the wrong instructions!  All's well that ends well! 

On Friday night the 3 of us did our regular oyster feast!  Billy’s Boat House at the marina did a fine job of getting us our fill!  Saturday, I had Rob’s truck & went off to provision, CVS, West Marine & post office.  It turned out to be a longer day than expected!  Rob Ball had said that he was hoping Rob would cook at his house for Saturday night rather than going out again.  Rob knows how well my Rob cooks!  We decided to surprise Rob B with a prime rib and boy, I found a beauty……  I dropped off meats, veggies & dairy at Rob’s house & put the meats in his freezer to extend their life onboard.  Then it was off to West Marine with a list & Trader Joe’s where we had placed a wine order.  Now it figures that the last stop would be Traders, close to the marina and that since I left the phone in the truck that would be when not just Wells Fargo but Sea West would both decide it was time for a fraud alert and not honor the cards!  How embarrassing!  Of course the store was packed.  I got it straight and picked up the order but did not get to the boat till after 5:30 and we still had to unload everything and get to Rob B’s house.  Well, it was way after 6pm and when we got there.  While on the boat Rob S & I discussed the fact that it would be very late by the time hunk o’beef was done & perhaps a pizza was in order so imagine the surprise when we got to Rob’s house & he said the same thing.  The pizza was great, the company even better and we had prime rib on the boat for about 4 meals!  We always have a great time with Rob & stopping to see him is a highlight of the trip!  Oh yeah, we met his new pup Lena and she is great.  We all miss Teva, but Lena is great too.

There was a quick stop at Pine Island and then we were on to St. Augustine to see more friends, Paul & Dawn.  We anchored in St. Augustine for many years but a few years back the City put in a mooring field in conjunction with the City Marina.  We had been advised to call ahead for a reservation and were glad we did. 

Our first night in we went to a local pub, The White Lion.  As English as the name sounds, it wasn’t!  But it did have a great happy hour and really good wings!  The next night we were to have dinner at Paul & Dawn’s house before we went to a lecture at the College regarding climate change & sea level rise in Bermuda.  That morning Rob & I decided to go to a shipping place as I had to mail some Rhum Cakes to some of my favorite folks, the gang at Cobb’s Marina and my friend Laura’s mom Rose.  We walked, stopped in a toy shop on US 1 and the lady said there was a UPS store in the shopping center with the Publix.  We said “Where the West Marine is”  “Oh yes” she replied.  NOT!  That was a Winn Dixie with the West so we kept walking & walking and then we walked some more.  Finally we asked the phone and saw it was only another .7 miles so off we went.  It was partly cloudy but very humid & we were dragging when we got there.  The nice young lady could not believe that we had walked all the way from the Bridge of Lions and offered us a ride back.  She needed to go to the post office anyway so she dropped us off there & we decided to walk around the pedestrian touristy part of the Old City.  Well it was lunch time & we were hungry and after being tempted with some pizza street side & then getting a 10% coupon it was off to The Chianti Room for us.  Now we knew we were to have dinner with Paul & Dawn that night so we thought we were being good when I ordered a lunch salad w/chicken & Rob ordered a lunch portion of tortellini w/chicken.  We were wrong!  We went back to the boat and met Paul & Dawn as agreed but we were still stuffed.  We both felt horrible that Dawn had prepped all of this food and everything looked so good but Dawn suggested that perhaps after the lecture we would feel like a meal.  The lecture was very interesting but there was still no way we could have eaten a meal.  I hope we did not disappoint Dawn too much and if you read this Dawn….. Please Forgive Us.   

We talked about staying for the illumination on Saturday but the moorings had all been reserved so of we went in the rain on Thursday.

                                      Sights in St Augustine

We stopped in Daytona after a long couple of days and had planned to go to shore but the weather was not cooperating so we went on towards Titusville.

The first photo is of Fort Matanzas, and the 2nd is of pilings on a road bridge in Daytona.  I think it is pretty cool that they do this!

We called our friends in Titusville when we arrived only to find out that they were going to be out of town for a couple of days.  They were going south by car & we by boat so we made arrangements to get together in Cocoa Village sometime Sunday.  Again the weather was not in our favor so we stayed onboard.  It has been a very, very, very wet trip south this year.  The winds picked up so we moved away from Titusville & a bit south and tucked in on the northeast side of the NASA Causeway bridge. 

Sunday 11/22/15 found us in Cocoa with plans to get together with our friend Gary at 5pm.  Early afternoon, our Titusville friends, Steve & Aggie called and we made arrangements to meet them at the dinghy landing.  It looked like the bottom was going to drop out (again!) so we went into Ryan’s Pizza.  They had moved from the old part of cocoa Village into a new place and it was packed.  We had a wonderful visit with Steve & Aggie for the afternoon and as I looked at Rob next to me I noticed a couple at the next table.  It turned out to be folks we had spent a great deal of time with on Long Island (Bahamas) last season.  Talk about a small world! 

We got together with Gary & Delores that night and again had a great time!  Gary always takes good care of us in Cocoa and again, took us wherever we needed to go!  Thanks Gary!

Gary also arranged a get together at a The Island for a whole bunch of us.  I think there were 12 total including Bob & Kathy Milliken who we met several years ago through Gary and have become fast friends with.

I forgot to mention that while we were underway another friend and “Brother” called Rob and asked what we were doing for Thanksgiving.  He was bringing his boat from Solomon's Island MD to Florida and they would be at their Coco Beach condo for turkey day and would we like to join them?  What a great time!  We met all sorts of new folks & found out that we even had friends in common.  John’s sister was a riot, his daughter smart, beautiful and just delightful and his 91 year old Dad fantastic!  Since they were heading back to Maryland in a few days everyone was sent home with lots of fantastic leftovers too.  Thank you both John & Monica, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Off to Dragon Point we went.  Many years ago there was a Dragon sculpture at Dragon Point but time and storms have reduced it to rubble and mangled the home as well.  We learned this trip that the land has been sold, the home to be demolished & rebuild along with a new Dragon!  We will have to wait & see. 

Sailing, Kayaking & SUP!  All in a days vacation I guess!

Just another sight on the ICW!..

We are now in Ft. Pierce & will take a marina for Friday & Saturday night so we can do laundry, fill water tanks, scrub the boat & visit with even more friends Pete & Jane. 

That about does it for November of 2015. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End of November 2015

It seems that no matter how much I say I will keep up with the blog, I never do!  Its hard to imagine that November is over!    We had a great couple of days with Rob Ball in Jax.  My Rob had a scare when he opened the box with the autopilot.  It had the instructions for a “compact” unit.  Not what we had!  They did not offer this size when we bought it & since it was also a Saturday so there was no calling Garmin either!  As it turned out, they had the right unit with the wrong instructions!  All's well that ends well! 

On Friday night the 3 of us did our regular oyster feast!  Billy’s Boat House at the marina did a fine job of getting us our fill!  Saturday, I had Rob’s truck & went off to provision, CVS, West Marine & post office.  It turned out to be a longer day than expected!  Rob Ball had said that he was hoping Rob would cook at his house for Saturday night rather than going out again.  Rob knows how well my Rob cooks!  We decided to surprise Rob B with a prime rib and boy, I found a beauty……  I dropped off meats, veggies & dairy at Rob’s house & put the meats in his freezer to extend their life onboard.  Then it was off to West Marine with a list & Trader Joe’s where we had placed a wine order.  Now it figures that the last stop would be Traders, close to the marina and that since I left the phone in the truck that would be when not just Wells Fargo but Sea West would both decide it was time for a fraud alert and not honor the cards!  How embarrassing!  Of course the store was packed.  I got it straight and picked up the order but did not get to the boat till after 5:30 and we still had to unload everything and get to Rob B’s house.  Well, it was way after 6pm and when we got there.  While on the boat Rob S & I discussed the fact that it would be very late by the time hunk o’beef was done & perhaps a pizza was in order so imagine the surprise when we got to Rob’s house & he said the same thing.  The pizza was great, the company even better and we had prime rib on the boat for about 4 meals!  We always have a great time with Rob & stopping to see him is a highlight of the trip!  Oh yeah, we met his new pup Lena and she is great.  We all miss Teva, but Lena is great too.

There was a quick stop at Pine Island and then we were on to St. Augustine to see more friends, Paul & Dawn.  We anchored in St. Augustine for many years but a few years back the City put in a mooring field in conjunction with the City Marina.  We had been advised to call ahead for a reservation and were glad we did. 

Our first night in we went to a local pub, The White Lion.  As English as the name sounds, it wasn’t!  But it did have a great happy hour and really good wings!  The next night we were to have dinner at Paul & Dawn’s house before we went to a lecture at the College regarding climate change & sea level rise in Bermuda.  That morning Rob & I decided to go to a shipping place as I had to mail some Rhum Cakes to some of my favorite folks, the gang at Cobb’s Marina and my friend Laura’s mom Rose.  We walked, stopped in a toy shop on US 1 and the lady said there was a UPS store in the shopping center with the Publix.  We said “Where the West Marine is”  “Oh yes” she replied.  NOT!  That was a Winn Dixie with the West so we kept walking & walking and then we walked some more.  Finally we asked the phone and saw it was only another .7 miles so off we went.  It was partly cloudy but very humid & we were dragging when we got there.  The nice young lady could not believe that we had walked all the way from the Bridge of Lions and offered us a ride back.  She needed to go to the post office anyway so she dropped us off there & we decided to walk around the pedestrian touristy part of the Old City.  Well it was lunch time & we were hungry and after being tempted with some pizza street side & then getting a 10% coupon it was off to The Chianti Room for us.  Now we knew we were to have dinner with Paul & Dawn that night so we thought we were being good when I ordered a lunch salad w/chicken & Rob ordered a lunch portion of tortellini w/chicken.  We were wrong!  We went back to the boat and met Paul & Dawn as agreed but we were still stuffed.  We both felt horrible that Dawn had prepped all of this food and everything looked so good but Dawn suggested that perhaps after the lecture we would feel like a meal.  The lecture was very interesting but there was still no way we could have eaten a meal.  I hope we did not disappoint Dawn too much and if you read this Dawn….. Please Forgive Us.   

We talked about staying for the illumination on Saturday but the moorings had all been reserved so of we went in the rain on Thursday.

                                      Sights in St Augustine

We stopped in Daytona after a long couple of days and had planned to go to shore but the weather was not cooperating so we went on towards Titusville.

The first photo is of Fort Matanzas, and the 2nd is of pilings on a road bridge in Daytona.  I think it is pretty cool that they do this!

We called our friends in Titusville when we arrived only to find out that they were going to be out of town for a couple of days.  They were going south by car & we by boat so we made arrangements to get together in Cocoa Village sometime Sunday.  Again the weather was not in our favor so we stayed onboard.  It has been a very, very, very wet trip south this year.  The winds picked up so we moved away from Titusville & a bit south and tucked in on the northeast side of the NASA Causeway bridge. 

Sunday 11/22/15 found us in Cocoa with plans to get together with our friend Gary at 5pm.  Early afternoon, our Titusville friends, Steve & Aggie called and we made arrangements to meet them at the dinghy landing.  It looked like the bottom was going to drop out (again!) so we went into Ryan’s Pizza.  They had moved from the old part of cocoa Village into a new place and it was packed.  We had a wonderful visit with Steve & Aggie for the afternoon and as I looked at Rob next to me I noticed a couple at the next table.  It turned out to be folks we had spent a great deal of time with on Long Island (Bahamas) last season.  Talk about a small world! 

We got together with Gary & Delores that night and again had a great time!  Gary always takes good care of us in Cocoa and again, took us wherever we needed to go!  Thanks Gary!

Gary also arranged a get together at a The Island for a whole bunch of us.  I think there were 12 total including Bob & Kathy Milliken who we met several years ago through Gary and have become fast friends with.

I forgot to mention that while we were underway another friend and “Brother” called Rob and asked what we were doing for Thanksgiving.  He was bringing his boat from Solomon's Island MD to Florida and they would be at their Coco Beach condo for turkey day and would we like to join them?  What a great time!  We met all sorts of new folks & found out that we even had friends in common.  John’s sister was a riot, his daughter smart, beautiful and just delightful and his 91 year old Dad fantastic!  Since they were heading back to Maryland in a few days everyone was sent home with lots of fantastic leftovers too.  Thank you both John & Monica, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Off to Dragon Point we went.  Many years ago there was a Dragon sculpture at Dragon Point but time and storms have reduced it to rubble and mangled the home as well.  We learned this trip that the land has been sold, the home to be demolished & rebuild along with a new Dragon!  We will have to wait & see. 

Sailing, Kayaking & SUP!  All in a days vacation I guess!

Just another sight on the ICW!..

We are now in Ft. Pierce & will take a marina for Friday & Saturday night so we can do laundry, fill water tanks, scrub the boat & visit with even more friends Pete & Jane. 

That about does it for November of 2015. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting on the Autopilot part 1

We got the autopilot off to Garmin while in Savannah and decided to have the replacement sent to our friend’s house in Jacksonville.  We left Savannah with plans to meander slowly down the ICW as we had no idea how long this repair/replacement would take.  A few days later found us in the Frederica River off of the fort where we have anchored before.

As the cruising guide says: “Had the battle gone differently, we may all be speaking Spanish today!”  It was lovely as usual but we decided to head to Cumberland Island because in years past when we went there I was unable to walk for long periods. 

We had a hitch hiker on the way!  Even though  land was very close, this bird was unafraid of us and even posed for pictures!

 

There are may wild horses on the island that are descendants of the Spanish ponies from various shipwrecks like the ones on Chincoteague, Corolla and Beaufort. 

The first day Rob & I went to shore and as we were walking a trail 2 horses appeared from the woods and walked right past us, less than 2 feet away!  These are wild horses so it isn’t very smart to try to pet or feed them.  Being kicked by a horse is painful as I know from my younger days!  We did not have the camera at the ready so this was the pic we got!  Oh well!

We were in for a treat as our cruising friends Terry & Jeanette that we met in Cat Island last year live in Fernandina Beach and came by for the day in their boat.  We had a blast and made plans to get together when we arrived there.

That night we had a pizza and waited for our friend Bill to catch us on his Pearson 365 Long Winded, a sister ship to us.

As you can see the horse & the dog were very interested in each other.

Cumberland Island has a wonderful history including a Carnegie Mansion that burned in the 50’s named Dungeness.

Amazing!  Check out the history of Cumberland, its very interesting.

 

Waiting on the Autopilot part 2

Bill took off for points south the next morning & Rob & I decided to head to St. Mary’s Georgia for a few days.  We dropped the hook and went to town & had a wonderful time.  Of course I forgot the camera but it was grand.  They now have internet in the harbor and we discovered that the autopilot had been received by Garmin!  Yeah!  No word on what/when anything was happening but good news nonetheless!

We were beginning to wonder if the clouds & rain were ever going to give us a break when it cleared!  After 2 days in St. Mary’s it was time to move on.

Friday 11/6/15 found us in Fernandina.  We spoke with Terry & Jeanette but they were working on some issues and said they would call us later so off we went to shore.  Paid for the dink dock and started to walk into town and there they were!  Terry & Jeanette!  We had a great afternoon, nosed around some shops, went to lunch and they took us to Publix.  For those of you not familiar, it is a great grocery store.  We made arrangements for dinner that night and returned to the boat to put away the groceries.

We had access to the internet so imagine our surprise when we found out that our autopilot had been shipped!  We followed the link to UPS but no tracking number was in the system.  We did a copy/paste as well as typing the number so imagine our surprise when we got a call from Rob, our Jacksonville friend that the autopilot had been delivered! 

We went to a great place on the Atlantic side of Fernandina called Sandy Bottoms were we were met by their friends Eric & Kim, great folks and a wonderful evening.

Terry & Jeanette each had an obligation for Saturday morning so Rob & I made our way to the Farmers Market just a few blocks from the waterfront.  Tomatoes, pole beans, green beans, okra, olives, black-eyed peas, all sorts of other veggies and fresh shrimp! 

There were many, many auxiliary police in town so we asked what was going on & discovered there was a Veteran's Day Parade scheduled for 11am.  Back to the boat, put all away, grab camera, PARADE TIME!

Here are a few you don’t see too often…. Daughters of the American Revolution and Son’s of the Confederacy!

It was a great time.  They weather was not looking very good for the exposed anchorage in Fernandina so we made plans to get underway in the morning.   We did and only went a few miles until we found a comfortable place to just pull to the side. 

We have a reservation for the 13th/14th at Beach Marine In Jacksonville to see Rob & pickup the autopilot.  The last few years we have passed through the area during the week which makes it hard to “play” so we are sticking to our weekend in Jax plans!

We dropped the hook in the Ft. George River today off of the Kingsley Plantation and will take the dink in to look around tomorrow.

The Kingsley Plantation on the Ft. George River is really interesting!  The plantation house is currently being renovated so we were unable to tour but the rest of it, the barns and slave quarters were open.  Sea Island cotton & Indigo were major cash crops.  It was an interesting afternoon including meeting the nice folks, Dottie & Mike on Cool Beans a 36ft Katy Krogen Manatee.  They invited us over for Happy Hour and a tour of their boat.  It was very well laid out and comfortable.  Hummmm, maybe when we go to the “dark side”!

Tomorrow we will head to Beach Marine and Jacksonville to see Rob Ball and meet his new pup! 

Later.