M/V Live Wire II

The Ancient City of St. Augustine

2011-12-19T10:42:00.000-05:00

The City of St Augustine is the oldest continuouslyinhabited European settlement in the United States; older than the settlementsin either Jamestown or Plymouth Rock and is known as the “Ancient City” or “OldTown”. Historic St. Augustine hasrenovated and maintains many of the original Spanish and British structures.While many of the “ancient” buildings have been converted into museums othershouse quaint cafes, bars, shops and B&B inns.

Although this is one of our favorite places to stop, wehaven’t taken the time to do so during our last several trips up or down theICW. This year, with time on our hands, wedecided to stop and spend a couple of days. Our primary objectives were to see the Holiday Festival of Lights and totour the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Bothwere accomplished.

Every year, St. Augustine decorates the historic downtownneighborhoods for the holidays. Horsedrawn carriages and trolleys offer nightly tours while locals and touristsalike stroll throughout the district. During our stay, the evening temps, although abit chilly seemed to entice people to visit the area. Although the stores and gift shops werecrowded, it didn’t appear that most folks were departing with packages in hand. On the other hand the bars, cafes, ice cream andrestaurants were doing a great a great business. The lights were impressive; almost everybuilding was outlined in strings of twinkling white lights.

We caught a ride across the Bridge of Lions to AnastasiaIsland; toured the beach district and ultimately ended up at the St. AugustineLighthouse. The lighthouse and itssurrounding buildings have a long history of paranormal activity. Visitors and workers say they have seen movingshadows and heard voices along with unexplained sounds; others claim they heardsomeone climbing the tower steps, but the footfalls fade away and no one isever there at the top of the tower. There is also said to be a little girl wholikes to play pranks residing in the keeper’s house, a tall man in the basementand a spirit who likes to play with the merchandise in the gift shop. Several havereportedly seen a hazy male figure walking through the lighthouse. Footstepsfrom an unseen presence can be heard shuffling on the gravel and the stepsoutside the lighthouse. Other reports are of a woman seen on the lighthousestairway or walking in the yard outside the buildings.

Those of you who watch the SciFi channel on cable TV mayrecall seeing an episode of Ghost Huntersfilmed at the St. Augustine Lighthouse. The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) wasattempting to prove or disprove the various stories of hauntings. During theepisode, they caught a few interesting things on both video and audio. Therewas a female voice that seemed to say “help me” a few times on the audiorecording. The video camera captured a dark figure moving really quickly up thecircular staircase and then stopping to look over the railing down at thecamera crew from the top floor. The figure then disappeared. When the TAPS guyswent to investigate, they realized the door at the top which would be the onlyexit was padlocked from the inside. There was also a motion detection lightthat never came on until the TAPS guys got up there. Overall, with the evidencethey captured, TAPS determined that they really couldn’t prove the place wasn’thaunted.

Although the lighthouses that line the Atlantic coast arealways of interest to us, the St. Augustine Lighthouse was of particularinterest primarily due to the episode of GhostHunters that we’ve seen a couple of times over the years. Unlike TAPS, we didn’t conduct a scientificinvestigation nor did we visit the place at night, but we did find a couple ofsurprising things on our photos. Lookclosely – maybe you can see what we saw. Could this be evidence of paranormalactivity OR did Corey get a little creative with Photoshop?

Hint: Is someone sitting in the arm chair?

Hint: What's that at the bottom of the lighthouse stairs (yes, all 219 of them?)

Jacksonville Sabbatical

2011-12-15T09:34:00.000-05:00

After arriving in Florida sooner than expected and with noplans to go to the Bahamas this winter, we decided to head to Jacksonville fora while. We last cruised this area andthe St. John’s River several years ago and thought it would be a great place torevisit. So, we took a right on the St.John’s River after leaving Fernandina and fought the outgoing current up theriver to Jacksonville Landing.

The St John’s River leads to the Port of Jacksonville –cargo ships, car carriers, cruise ships and pleasure craft of all shapes andsizes travel up and down the river. Our AISdisplayed a long list of vessels - many on the move, others moored to one ofthe many terminals. Although notdisplayed, the many small local shrimp boats were also out and about pullingtheir nets attracting a following of gulls and pelicans hoping for leftoversdiscarded from the nets.

The city of Jacksonville offers free dockage for 72-hoursimmediately in front of Jacksonville Landing, home to a number of bars,restaurants and small shops. They sponsora Farmers’ Market at the Landing every Friday and a second larger market underthe I-95 bridge about a mile or so up the River. We explored the city by foot trekking a mileor so down river as far as the waterfront boardwalk allowed, then a mile or so upriver to the Farmer’s Market , then across the Main Street Bridge to theopposite side of the river and, finally, inland several square blocks. Unfortunately, there are no opportunities toprovision without a great deal of walking either directly from the Landing orfrom one of a number of bus stops.

You’ve got to give the City a great deal of credit fordoing what they can to “beautify” the downtown area. All of the bridges and Jacksonville Landingare beautifully lit at night – this likely goes a long way to attractconvention attendees, tourists and local residents to venture into the city fordinner.

Unlike out last visit, the face dock in front ofJacksonville Landing was virtually empty – likely the time of year. The “rules” state that when the docks arefull, all boats must accepting rafting of up to 5 across. We figure this situation likely occurs in thesummer time or when the Jaguars (the local football team) are playing at thearena just downriver of the Landing. Although open until midnight or 2 AM everynight, the bars emptied out around 9-10 PM on week days. But, the weekends were a bit livelier. Live music entertained the many restaurantand bar patrons seated outdoors while the volume seemed to get louder andlouder as the liquor tabs got more and more expensive. Or….are we just getting old?

After using our ‘free’ 72-hours, we moved further upriver to the Ortega Landing Marina where we had reserved a slip for amonth. Thankfully the weather remainedcomfortable during the month at the dock and allowed us to complete quite anumber of boat projects, visit family north of Tampa and generally just relax.

But, after a month tied to a dock we find ourselves antsyto get moving. So, as they say….we’re onthe road again!

Heading South into South Carolina

2011-10-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

Here it is almost Halloween and almost a month since we lastadded a posting to our blog. To behonest, we haven’t moved much further south despite our best attempts. After leaving the Pamlico River and headinginto Pamlico Sound we continued south with overcast skies, drizzle and temps inthe lower 60’s. Recall…only a few monthsago we were experiencing extremely high & humid temps in the samearea! What a difference a few monthsmake.

In early October, we were well ahead of the ‘snow birds’. There were a few boats heading south, but thevast majority is still a couple of weeks behind us. Many of our friends aren’t planning ondeparting the Chesapeake until after the Annapolis Boat Shows – maybe even lateOctober. It’s nice to have our choice ofspots in our favorite anchorages.

But, once again business opportunities call. Linda was asked to assist with a projectthat required a trip to New Jersey. So,we opted for Barefoot Resort Marina in North Myrtle Beach. They offered slips that are, for the mostpart, protected from the wakes of the various boats running up & down theriver, was removed from the foot traffic so prevalent across the river at theBarefoot Landing docks (where we normally stay) and, best of all, far more reasonablypriced for an extended stay. We arrivedon Saturday and Linda flew out of the next morning from Myrtle BeachInternational Airport to Newark for what was originally to be a 5-day longstay. But, the 5-days were extended into10-days all of which were 10-hour days or more – even the weekend. Despite the long days, she saw the fallcolors become more brilliant with each passing day and, best of all, got out oftown before the nor’easter hit the East Coast the following weekend dumping 10inches (more or less) on the town.

We’re now, again heading south and are just north ofCharleston, SC. The southern migrationhas begun - the ICW traffic has picked up and the VHF is busy withchatter. But, there’s still a largenumber who are still in or have just made it out of the Chesapeake. The tempsare still chilly with highs in the mid-60’s and lows…well; Connecticut hadwarmer temps this morning than we did at 32 degrees. With overnight temps inside getting into the50’s, we finally gave in & got out the down comforter which makes sleepingwarm & toasty. But, dressing inlayers throughout the day until the sun warms the interior up is getting alittle old. What happened to shortsweather?

The "Original" Washington

2011-10-09T11:30:00.001-04:00

We decided to forego visiting the town of Belhaven, NC, onthis trip south electing to revisit “Little” Washington up the PamlicoRiver. We cruised there several yearsago and thoroughly enjoyed this side trip. An added benefit is that the City offers 48-hours of free dockage. No water or power is available, but the docksare in great shape and located right on the waterfront.

The cruise up the river was uneventful and we were welcomedby the Town’s dock master shortly after tying up to a T-head across thesidewalk from the Pirates Pub and Grill. With a welcome bag full of goodies and discount offers from the localmerchants we spent a leisurely afternoon enjoying some warmer temps and sunnyskies.

Washington, North Carolina, located at the northern mostreaches of the Pamlico River, was laid out in 1776 and was the first town to benamed after George Washington and known locally as “Little Washington” or the “OriginalWashington”.

Today, the town is an active farming and industrial area buttourism is quickly becoming a driving force. The waterfront has been completely restored and as with most small townsalong the waterways the ‘historic’ downtown architecture is reminiscent ofearlier times. There are a fewrestaurants, gift shops, jewelry store and a few very upscale antique stores, but,most appear to be struggling to survive. Many storefronts are vacant with “for sale”, “for lease” or “for rent”signs in the windows – some windows have been boarded up and a few buildingshave been condemned. The development of luxurycondos, inns and hotels planned for the some of the largest “historic” waterfrontbuildings appear to have come to a halt with their artist renderings yellowingin the front windows.

We arrived on Thursday and intended to depart Saturday aftervisiting the weekly Farmer’s Market. But,when we stopped by the Market there were only a handful of vendors – and nofresh fruits or vegetables to be found; there wasn’t even a bakery inattendance. Either there’s a severe lackof interest in the Market or it’s so late in the growing season – but, regardlessof the reason, we were really disappointed especially since there’s no grocerystore within walking distance of the waterfront. Despite this and the fact the Pirate’s Pubentertained us until the wee hours of the morning with rowdy customers on theiroutside deck and extremely loud (and pretty bad) music we enjoyed wanderingthrough the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods.

It’s Time to Head South

2011-10-04T09:49:00.003-04:00

Since our ultimate destination is Florida for the winter, wedidn’t want to work our way too far north up the Bay, to only turn around aback track south. It’s time to head beginour trip south.

After a few days of R&R in San Domingo Creek we pulledanchor and began our migration. The Baywas a little rough with 2-3 foot chop on our stern. But, Live Wire II handles following seasexceptionally well – and the route southwest to the western shore of the Baywas quite comfortable. We tried a coupleof new anchorages; one near Reedville and another just off the York River. The weather forecast included isolatedshowers and thunderstorms for several days. And, although we saw building storm clouds, heard thunder and saw a fewbolts of lightning the strong storms stayed away. A soothing rain provided the back drop for aquiet night at anchor – it even washed the Bay salt and grime off the boat.

But, the temps are dropping at night and the geese are practicingtheir flying formations before beginning their migration south. After pulling out jeans and fleece out of thelockers and deciding that it’s far too early to get out the down comforter wethink warmer weather might be found further south. So, we’re continued heading south.

As usual Elizabeth River through Norfolk was busy with tugs,dredges, freighters and cargo ships. Military vessels of all shapes and sizes line the eastern shore. Our chart plotter showed dozens of AIS hitsall within several miles of us. But,with an incoming current we made good time up the river to discover that theGilmerton Bridge, which for years would open upon request, is now opening onceper hour. Having missed the 11:30 AMopening we decided to stop and take on some fuel and missed the 12:30 PMopening. Oh well…what’s the rush?

The Great Bridge free docks, with no power or water, aregenerally a destination for us – there are actually two docks available; onenorth of the Great Bridge bridge and one south. There is enough room for 8-10 boats to tie up to a bulk head or a fixeddock. A large number of stores,including a grocery store and plenty of restaurants are within walkingdistance. But, this year one of the docks was closedbecause the town is building a Visitor’s Center nearby. So, all of the cruising boats are confined tothe bulkhead on the north side of the bridge. We arrived at approximately 3PM and luckily got the last spot. The tempsare still dropping significantly at night – maybe the down comforter will needto get pulled out of storage.

Another one of our favorite stops – actually it’s one ofCorey’s favorite stops – is Coinjock Marina. There is nothing here except the adjoining restaurant which serves someof the best prime rib we’ve had. Thereis frequently enough leftover to get 1-2 additional dinners making the cost (whichis not outrageous to begin with) very reasonable.

Quick Trip North

2011-10-02T09:17:00.000-04:00

With a haul out scheduled for mid-September at Solomons, MDwe departed North Carolina working our way toward the Chesapeake Bay. The weather remained hot and muggy the entiretrip. Even the Chesapeake Bay area wasmuggy. Having arrived a few days priorto our haul out date, we decided to revisit St. Mary’s River and exploreHistoric St. Mary’s City and St. Mary’ s College. The college, with an undergraduate populationof approximately 2000, is an exclusive State “honors” college; all students areenrolled in honors level classes. Thecampus is located on the shores of the St. Mary’s River – a beautiful settingsituated amongst 200+ year old homes and Historic St. Mary’s City.

In 1634, two small ships, the Ark and the Dove, sailedup the St. Mary’s River bringing with them approximately 200 settlers. A site was picked about 5 miles upriver tobecome the home of the first settlement in colony of Maryland- St. Mary’s City. Although never really a ‘city’, it was theprovince’s first capital. The ‘city’thrived and grew until 1695 when the capital was moved to Annapolis. Abandoned for the most part, St. Mary’s Citysank back into the soil from which it had arisen and by the time of theAmerican Revolution, little was left but memories of its former importance. Early in the 20th century, interest in theancient city revived and historical research and archaeological excavationsbegan to uncover the 17th-century settlement. Because the old city had remainedrelatively undisturbed over the years, the area is one of the finest17th-century colonial archaeology sites in the nation. St. Mary's City has beenrecognized as a National Historic Landmark since 1969; “Historic St. Mary’sCity” is now a living-museum open to the public. Many of the original buildings – the StateHouse, print shop, the inn, the tavern, the churches, barns, etc. have beenreconstructed and can be explored. Areplica of the 65-foot schooner, the Dove,was docked at the pier and open for tours.

After a couple of days anchored off St. Mary’s City, wemoved to the boatyard to prepare for our haul out. The temps dropped and the humidity broke aftera cold front moved through, the rain stayed away for most of the week and wewere able to get all of our work done without any delays! Seven days after we were hauled out – we wererelaunched! Right on schedule.

Not wanting to head south too early, we decided to take afew days and revisit St. Michaels, on Maryland’s eastern shore. The forecast included a couple of days ofrainy weather which suited us just fine – we needed a little R&R. So, we left Solomons under overcast skies andheaded northeast across the Bay to San Domingo creek. The skies eventually cleared, we finallylaunched the dinghy and went to town.

St. Michaels was founded in 1670 and became a ship buildingcenter with about 25 boatyards in business by the time of the AmericanRevolution. During the War of 1812, locallybuilt privateers and gunboats routinely interfered with British shipping. The British finally decided they had had enoughand shelled the town in an attempt to destroy the shipyards. They weren’t successful. Most of the shipyards are now gone; the mainindustry is seafood. Today, St. Michaelsis famous for its yacht harbor, its maritime museum, its crab and seafoodrestaurants and its old homes, some dating back 200 years or more.

Although we knew that St. Michaels is a popular cruisingdestination, we were surprised to see 9 good size sailboats arrive and anchorin the creek on the Thursday before our planned departure. We expected boats to arrive for the weekend,but not on Thursday evening. Theanchorage wasn’t crowded – there was plenty of room, but the local crab boats didhave quite an obstacle course to navigate in dark of the predawn hours sincemany of the boats didn’t display any sort of anchor light. What were they thinking?

Hurricane Irene Visits New Bern

2011-08-31T07:35:00.001-04:00

While Linda was in New Jersey working on an audit, Hurricane Irene was advancing toward Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. It looked as if she might make landfall somewhere along the Florida east coast or even veer northeast and back out to sea. But, as she made her way through the Bahamas the certainty of landfall along the US east coast became obvious. But, where?

Daily phone calls home centered on the critical issue: Hurricane Irene. What is the current projected path? Will it be downgraded? Are the forecasters overhyping the storm? Will we have to leave the Marina? If so, where could we go? On Tuesday, while Irene was still working her way up the Bahamas chain, it looked as if her path was moving further & further east. Would she miss the NC Outer Banks completely? Would we get only rain and some higher winds?

Fortunately, the audit was concluded earlier than originally thought and Linda was able to get back on Wednesday evening. At that time, it looked as if Irene was going to make landfall that coming Saturday somewhere between beautiful Cape Lookout and Morehead City, NC as a Category 2 hurricane. New Bern is approximately 40 miles north/northwest from Cape Lookout – a little too close to make no hurricane preparations, whatsoever. The biggest question was “do we get off the docks and go anchor somewhere to sit out the storm”. We were concerned that the floating docks may float off the pilings with storm surge, that the cleats on the dock may not hold our 50K pound boat, that we could be exposed to a great deal of flying debris from shore or that the docks could collapse if only one boat broke loose. By Thursday, our “do we stay or do we leave” decision was made for us. The Marina staff were making their own hurricane preparations and asking (aka telling) all boats to leave the docks. Having scoped out the charts ahead of time, we departed heading as far up the Trent River as we could. But, when we attempted to start the main engine we discovered that the start battery was ‘dead’. A quick switch to Emergency Parallel allowed us to get underway, but now we needed to make arrangements to replace a battery.

For years, we’ve discussed what we would do if we had to sit out a hurricane. After all, with our cruising speed we’re not likely to out run it. We’ve got storm lines with chafe gear and extra anchors on board. So, we picked our spot in 14 feet of water, set ourselves on two anchors, let out 200 feet of scope and began breaking down anything that could blow away, tear apart or create unnecessary windage. Then we watched the weather forecasts and waited. Since our “spot” was up river past a high rise bridge with limited clearance, the only sail boats we saw were those that were able to clear the bridge. But, a number of power boats came upriver to anchor and sit out the storm. Fortunately, none of them chose to anchor too close and all were planning on staying on board.

The winds started picking up late Friday evening and continued building through the night into morning. By Saturday morning there was heavy rain and sustained winds of approximately 30 knots (35 mph). Then Hurricane Irene, now a category 1 storm, made landfall. The winds continued building sustained between 45-50 knots (52-58 mph) with frequent higher gusts. The highest we saw was 69 knots (80 mph). The fetch wasn’t bad so we didn’t see swells much higher than 1 foot. The ride was comfortable even though the noise was disconcerting. Best of all….we didn’t budge during the entire storm; our anchors ended in the same spot they started.

The homes and small boats along the river’s edge didn’t fare quite so well. There were many downed tree branches, some uprooted trees, roof damage and blown out window awnings. I don’t think one house got away unscathed. Most of the fixed docks were buckled, broken or dismantled by the 6-8 foot storm surge. Many of the small boats on lifts floated off their lift or the lift, itself, collapsed during the storm dropping its boat nose or engine first into the river.

On Sunday, we decided to head back to the marina. We learned though, when we finally got through, that most of the town was without power and our Marina had sustained enough damage that they weren’t sure when they would be able to accommodate us. Had we not had to replace the main Start battery, we would’ve kept on heading down river. So, we called another Marina, determined that they made it through the storm with no damage and, even better, was able to accommodate us.

All in all, we and most importantly, Live Wire II, survived Hurricane Irene completely unscathed. She did require a good soap & water scrubbing after the storm – you would think that 12 inches of driving rain would’ve been enough. The community of New Bern and towns up & down the east coast weren’t quite so fortunate.

Even worse, the damage to the out islands of the Bahamas is catastrophic. We’ve visited and blogged about many of these islands….Cat Island, Acklins and Crooked Island, Rum Cay, Eleuthera, to name only a few. It will take years for them to rebuild and some may never be the same!

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway

2011-08-20T15:52:00.000-04:00

The Parkway, a two-lane winding road, offered vistas around every corner. Overlooks with pull-outs for cars are frequent – many had picnic tables where one could take a break for lunch or a snack. All had impressive views of the mountains and valleys in either direction. Even with the rain and its associated overcast skies the views were breathtaking. One could only imagine what it would look like on a clear day, later in the year with the fall colors or in the winter with snow on the ground.

One 7-mile portion of the Parkway was left unfinished for 20-years while they tried to determine the best way to connect the two ‘finished’ ends without blasting through the mountain and damaging the scenic, fragile environment on the slopes of Grandfather Mountain. Finished in 1987, the Linn Cove Viaduct snakes around the mountain and is, reportedly, the most complicated concrete bridge ever built. Unfortunately, we were prohibited from walking on the bridge and the guardrails were right at eye level, while driving, so we couldn’t really get a full appreciation of the view.

The highlight of the trip was Grandfather Mountain named because, from many angles, one can “see” the profile of an old man with a long beard and strong nose taking a snooze with his head tilted back. Privately owned for a number of years, the land was purchased several years ago by the State of North Carolina and designated a State Park. Grandfather Mountain is the highest peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains with some of the oldest rock formations in the world. On a clear day one can see the city of Charlotte 80 miles away but, it’s said, that’s very unusual.

Once the admission fee is paid you’re handed a CD that provides informative historical and other facts about each of the key stops along the trip to the top of the mountain & back. There are overlooks, picnicking areas, and miles of hiking trails, most of which are rated ‘moderate to strenuous’ but all require good walking / hiking shoes. At the main visitor’s center there was even a “zoo” – well, not really a zoo but a small protected sanctuary where injured or abandoned animals, that are native to the area, are kept. There were a couple of black bears (NC State Animal) who just couldn’t keep themselves in the woods and away from people. Deer and mountain lions that had been struck and injured along the road by cars were cared for until ready to return to the wild. Bald Eagles with broken or injured wings had been brought here from as far as the west coast for medical care and a “safe” place to recover. Many of the animals had found a nice cool spot, in their cement caves, to take a little siesta during the heat of the day and weren’t out, but we did see quite a few.

At the top of the mountain, we were really glad that we packed our sturdy sneakers as many others we encountered, along the trails, were wearing flip-flops while trying to climb up/down rocks, trying to keep their balance on slippery paths that were, at times, running precariously close to the edge of a cliff with nothing much but air below them. At the top of Grandfather Mountain is the Mile High Swinging Bridge which spans two mountain peaks. Although it’s only 80-feet above the ground it is one-mile above sea level and, with a breeze, one can actually feel the bridge swaying.

The mountains offer an entirely different ecosystem than the coastline and islands that we’ve explored over the last few years. Wildflowers, that don’t like or need a ‘salty’ environment bloom, at all times of the year. We actually saw some azaleas and magnolia bushes still in bloom – several varieties found only in NC.

Our long weekend ended too quickly. We were glad, though, that we decided to explore only a limited area. After all…we didn’t get much of a chance to explore the side roads off the Parkway or any of the little towns scattered about the foothills. I guess we’ll just have to come back.

The Blue Ridge Parkway

2011-08-07T14:31:00.001-04:00

In an attempt to get away from the extreme heat and humidity that has been plaguing much the nation, we decided to rent a car and go for a road trip. But where could we go to get away from these high temps? Well of course – duh – the mountains. So, we began researching and decided on exploring a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

A scenic highway, the Blue Ridge Parkway, has been designated a National Park and connects the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in NC and TN. The entire parkway runs approximately 469 miles, but we decided to limit our exploration to the section between Mile Marker 252, a little northwest of Wilkesboro, NC to Mile Marker 320, Linville Falls – a total of 68 miles. We found a reasonably priced hotel in Boone, NC approx 7 miles west of Mile Marker 290. Boone is home to the Appalachian State University a growing school of approx 17,000 students that has been ranked as one of the best colleges in the US. But despite the growth in the area, we found everyone – and I mean everyone – we came into contact with to be sincerely friendly and helpful – small town America is alive & well in Boone, NC.

After spending years at or a little above sea level, we were thrilled to begin seeing evidence of the mountains – if you can call rolling hills mountains – as we traveled further and further west. These mountains were named “Blue Ridge” because they appeared blue when viewed from a distance. And, they were aptly named. At times it was difficult to discern, from a distance, the clouds from the mountains. It’s said that over the last 60 years air pollution has decreased viewing opportunities along the Parkway, up to 80% in the summer months, making things appear more washed out, but we still found the vistas impressive.

The Parkway, speed limit 45 mph, is a two-lane road that winds its way through the forests and further and further up the mountains. And, although we never made it to an elevation greater than 5800 feet – we could feel ourselves getting winded due to the thinner air at that altitude. Some of the surrounding land has been cultivated and provides the majority of the Christmas Trees that are sold throughout the country. A few Ski Resorts attract a large number of people in the winter; while RV parks attract those in the summer. Descendants of some of the earliest settlers from Scotland still call the Blue Ridge Mountains their home and every year the area hosts Highland Games that attract competitors from around the country. Beautiful Appalachian art can be purchased at “Trading Posts” aka Visitor’s Centers every 50 miles or so along the Parkway. What an impressive selection of unique artwork – hand crafted wood carvings, jewelry, pottery, quilts, woven goods, paintings, stain glass – oh, if we only had a house to decorate. There’s not enough room on the boat or money in the pocketbook for everything I would’ve wanted.

New Bern Forecast: Hot & Humid

2011-07-30T10:42:00.000-04:00

We determined that anchoring out in the “heat wave” that has settled along the East Coast is not conducive to doing much of anything – we don’t have the energy to go exploring by foot or dinghy, there’s very little breeze to move the hot air around and it’s too hot on board to do finish up any of the “to do” list and, since we’re under water conservation mode, cold showers are kept to “Navy” standards (as in very short). So, we decided to find someplace to tie up and plug in – to get access to AC.

Still hoping to find the weather to explore the Abermarle and Pamlico Sounds, we decided to head up the Neuse River to New Bern, NC. New Bern was founded in 1710 by a Baron from Bern, Switzerland. The word ‘bern’ is loosely translated to mean bear and in honor of their 300^th anniversary, New Bern businesses placed 50 hand painted fiberglass bear sculptures all around the town. Some are whimsical, others clearly identify its’ sponsor but all are beautifully done.

Interestingly, New Bern is the birthplace of “Pepsi”. History says that a late 1800’s pharmacist, Caleb Bradham, invented “Brad’s Drink” at his pharmacy lunch counter. He later patented the drink as “Pepsi- Cola” and, as they say, the rest is history. But, Brad’s Pharmacy still stands and Pepsi souvenirs are available, of course.

Nestled in the middle of the historic district is Mitchell Hardware which has been in business for a hundred years or so. Not only is it a tourist attraction for anyone visiting the area you can find just about anything you’re looking for as well as a bunch of stuff you never even knew existed that you absolutely can’t live without.

Unfortunately the hot & humid temps have not been conducive to getting out & exploring much. There are several walking tours through the historic district that we had planned to do by now…but, they’ll have to wait until the temps drop a bit. But, these same weather conditions are encouraging us to do quite a bit of work inside. Corey has been redesigning the helm station, rebuilding various pumps, troubleshooting generator issues and generally getting stuff organized. Linda fabricated a new bow cover to help shade the master stateroom from direct sun, shampooed the settees, cleaned up old paperwork and generally helped get stuff organized.

The air conditioning units are getting a work out and up until this past week they have worked like a charm. Then….this past Wednesday, we noticed the AC that cools the master stateroom wasn’t cooling. Recall we replaced the condensing unit last summer on the same unit! Fortunately, we were able to get an AC technician to stop by on his way home to take a look at it. But, no diagnosis yet. It may be that we need to recharge the refrigerant, evacuate and clean the lines OR replace the condensing unit. He’ll be back on Monday to see if we can’t get a clearer diagnosis. In the meantime, we’re sleeping on the floor in the salon – not the most comfortable but the salon AC is working.

South River off the Neuse

2011-07-12T11:04:00.000-04:00

Deciding to take advantage of relatively calm offshore conditions we departed Cape Lookout Bight and returned to the ICW via the Beaufort Inlet. With the forecast of continued extremely hot and humid weather, we decided to head to the South River across from Oriental, NC on the Neuse River. There must be wild fires raging in several areas of North Carolina as we repeatedly encounter smoke so dense that it appears as if we are entering a fog bank. And, depending on the wind direction we can pick up the strong odor of smoke and, occasionally, a smoke haze.

This time we anchored off Lukens Cemetery in order to give us a place to go ashore. According to our Google search, the town of Lukens took its name from a Philadelphia businessman who came to the area in the 1810’s. He operated a logging operation that involved both sides of the South River. A town developed and eventually grew to approximately 300 residents. But by the mid-20^th century, Lukens was no more, thanks to both the forces of nature and the pull of the wider world. The town’s demise started with a hurricane in 1933 which took out half of the homes. Young men left to fight in WWII and never returned when they discovered a world beyond their hometown. Families with young children moved when the School System decided that they would no longer supply a teacher. After being further assaulted with several other severe storms during the 1940’s the town finally ‘died’. A number of families moved out of Lukens to higher ground. Some literally took their homes with them; others made their homes into temporary houseboats and floated away; while still others dismantled their homes in Lukens and later reassembled them in their new place. The school, post office, general store and church are long gone. The cemetery is all that remains. Yet, descendants of the original families continue to be buried there. Since Lukens is inaccessible by any public roads – a local barge provides transportation for the funeral party.

The town of Lukens and its former residents are honored and remembered by many of their descendants during an annual ‘reunion’. The barge transports family members to the cemetery which is probably why the grounds are so well maintained. Vases of flowers adorn many of the gravesites. The grass and weeds have not overtaken the area and a small dock provides access. As one wanders through the cemetery you can’t help but wonder what the town looked like in its heyday.

Cape Lookout Bight

2011-07-11T08:59:00.000-04:00

Cape Lookout National Seashore is approximately 4 miles from the Beaufort (NC) Inlet. It has long been recognized as one of the finest harbors on the NC coast and has been used for centuries as a harbor of refuge. Spanish privateers used the bight as a hiding place in the 1740’s and, during the Revolutionary War, a group of French volunteers constructed a fort on the Cape naming it in honor of John Hancock. Fort Hancock was garrisoned for two-years but nothing remains of it today. In 1880, a Lifesaving Station was established on Cape Lookout and continued in operation until 1982. The Lighthouse, itself, was manned by a Light keeper until 1950 when it was automated. Cape Lookout Village was, at one time, the home of Coast Guard and Lifesaving Station families as well as summer vacationers. But, very little remains today except for abandoned structures, dilapidated docks and the rusting carcasses of a few motor vehicles. What does remain though are beautiful sand dunes, fantastic shelling along the ocean side beaches and birds of all types. It’s not unusual to see loggerhead turtles, dolphins and a shark or two in the anchorage.

This part of the North Carolina coast is often referred to as the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’. Cape Lookout, at the southern tip of the Outer Banks, and its associated shoals have been as treacherous to passing ships as the more famous Diamond Shoals and Cape Hatteras area located 70 miles to the north. Compounding the danger of the shoals was the lack of any landmark that could be used for easy identification of the area. The land was so low that even in the best weather a ship might be on the shoals before the captain realized that they were dangerously close to land. These dangers prompted the construction of Cape Lookout Lighthouse in 1812. When mariners complained that the tower, at 107 feet, was too short and the beacon too unreliable a second, much taller, lighthouse was built in 1857 to replace the first one. Not much remains of the original lighthouse or the original Light keeper’s Quarters except for a few of the bricks used in the foundation.

Cape Lookout is now part of the National Park Service and a couple of Rangers reside on premises. The historic Assistant Light keeper’s Quarters is now a museum and open to the public. A dock has been constructed to allow local tour boats from Beaufort and surrounding towns to drop off Park visitors. A boardwalk with several informational boards provides easy access to the ocean side beaches. The Lighthouse is open to the public 3 days a week (Friday, Saturday & Sunday), but due to the 4^th of July crowds in the Bight we chose to avoid the Lighthouse area until after the holiday…and, missed the opportunity to climb the 200+ stairs to the top.

With the extremely high temps and humidity, it isn’t surprising that the Bight attracted a large number of local boaters to the sand dunes and beaches. Combined with the 4^th of July holiday weekend, the waters of the Cape were busy with power boats of all sizes. Some arrived and anchored out for the weekend; while others arrived first thing each morning and stayed the day. Many set up tents and camped out for the weekend. Kids chased the birds, played in the surf and built sand castles while the adults sat back and relaxed or spent the day fishing. But, despite the large number of boats and people the Cape didn’t feel crowded – one could generally find a long stretch of empty beach to hike.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we were too far from civilization to see the 4^th of July fireworks display originating from the Morehead City/Beaufort area. But, many of the overnight campers brought their fireworks with them and put on a display for those of us remaining in the bight.

Our detour to Cape Lookout was well worth it. We will return and continue our exploration of the area.

Myrtle Beach to Wrightsville Beach

2011-07-07T12:17:00.000-04:00

After getting Corey’s parents to the ‘huge’ 6-gate Myrtle Beach International Airport to catch their flight back home, we stopped off at the grocery store to do some quick provisioning and spent the rest of the day working on the boat. The temperatures remained above normal and extremely humid – where is the breeze when you want it? With relative humidity in excess of 70% the daily forecasts always include “isolated and scattered showers or thunderstorms” but, since we’ve been in the area we’ve seen very little rain. In fact, the local residents are complaining of drought conditions.

We departed Barefoot Landing Marina early enough to catch the outgoing current and was able to take advantage of the push until Little River Inlet. Fortunately, it switched shortly after we cruised past the inlet and we continued getting assistance from Mother Nature. Corey determined that as long as we made it to and through the Cape Fear River before 4 PM we could ‘ride the current’ clear to Wrightsville Beach. And, that is exactly what happened – there was an incoming 2 knot current in the Cape Fear River pushing us up the river – it’s great traveling at 9+ knots!

Since the ICW has been dredged between Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach, the trip is far less stressful but it seemed that every person with a boat in the area was out on the water. In this heat, I guess it’s far more comfortable with the wind in your face. But, the boats zipped back & forth in front of us, behind us and around us running at 15 knots for faster. It’s amazing how much wake they create – doesn’t anyone look behind them to see what their wake is doing to other boats, the beach or the shoreline? No wonder folks with waterfront property complain about erosion!

Over the years, the only time we’ve stopped in Wrightsville Beach was in the late fall or early spring. Since the town is essentially a ‘summer playground’ most of the island businesses were closed for the season when we stopped and it was too cold or too windy to explore the beach. But, it’s now mid-summer so, we decided to stay a while – maybe through the 4^th of July. We decided to anchor off the bridge and try to get out of the main boat traffic pattern as much as possible.

The beach town was crowded and in full swing. Folks hiked across the bridge from Wilmington to the beach to avoid paying $12/day for parking. We heard mothers of young kids complaining of spending $65 on hermit crab paraphernalia expressing the hope that the crab they plannned to take home would survive a month. All of the hotels we saw had vacancies but the streets and beaches were busy. Most of the rental property appeared to be occupied. One can rent just about any water toy that’s made – kayaks, paddle boards, sail boats, power boats, pontoons, jet skis, etc. But, the privately owned waterfront property – we couldn’t tell if they were single family homes or condos – was quite impressive.

Most every home had a dock out front with a power boat (or two) of various shapes and sizes. We learned that come daylight most of these power boats are on the move – some go fishing off shore, others just fish in the harbor while the remaining speed boats spend the day entertaining their kids. These folks pull their kids on water skis, knee boards and inflatables toys round and round in circles – and, it seemed always around us!

With each pass, we get rolled back & forth; dishes & glasses slide off the table and sometimes it’s enough to make you slightly seasick. But, we now have a solution – a flopper stopper! Having only been recently installed, this gave us an excellent opportunity to see how it works and we’ve got to say it works great! A very worthwhile investment!

But, much to our surprise Wrightsville Beach had no July 4^th parade or fireworks planned. So, we decided to continue our trek north and visit Cape Lookout – another place we’ve only visited in the ‘off season’.

Exploring the Waccamaw River

2011-06-26T07:19:00.000-04:00

The Waccamaw River is reportedly one of the most scenic parts of the ICW. It reminds one of an earlier era with its moss-draped cypresses that extend to the waters’ edge. As it winds its way through South Carolina one can see turtles sunning themselves, osprey nests in almost every dead cypress tree and an occasional alligator. This year, much to the delight of the local residents, dolphins were regularly seen as far north as Myrtle Beach. We were informed by the local dock staff that, due to drought conditions, the river was getting more salt water coming in from the inlets encouraging the dolphins to explore further inland for food.

Since Corey needed to make a trip home to Connecticut in March and because we had a two page project and maintenance list to tackle, we decided to get a slip at Osprey Marina for a month. Because we were staying on board, Osprey Marina put us on a T-head in the back corner of their basin. A relatively short walk to the office & ship’s store, but so well protected that we couldn’t get any of the cooling breezes and during an entire month of above average temps and extremely high humidity we found ourselves relying on the AC far more than we would’ve liked. We discovered that this back corner was home to two or three alligators, beavers, turtles, bull frogs, barred owls, woodpeckers and an occasional wild pig. Fortunately, despite the heat, we were able to get through a good portion of the to-do list – stripped and varnished the cap rail, polished and waxed the hull and installed a flopper stopper to name a few of the major projects. We even had the opportunity to explore the area – Murrell’s Inlet, Pawley’s Island and the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach – which, by the way, is way too touristy for our liking!

Corey’s parents scheduled a visit and arrived on our last day at the marina. Even though they have visited multiple times over the years, we have never had the opportunity to actually go for a cruise with them. The Waccamaw River proved to be the perfect setting for giving them a ‘taste’ of our life. We stopped at Georgetown, toured the Hobcaw Barony Plantation, anchored off Thoroughfare and Bull Creek then visited Barefoot Landing and the Myrtle Beach Outlet Malls before putting them back on the plane to return home. Their stay would’ve been even better if only the temps were ‘normal’ but, from the weather reports it seems that the entire east coast is experiencing a prolonged heat wave.

So, now we’re ‘back on the road again’ – there must be cooler weather somewhere north of us!

Fernandina Beach Offshore to Charleston

2011-06-24T07:05:00.000-04:00

We frequently stop at Fernandina Beach, just south of the Florida – Georgia border on our cruise south or north but haven’t spent several days there in years. This year, we decided to take a mooring and explore a little. We’re hoping to get a weather window to allow us to go offshore around the shallow and winding path of the Georgia ICW…so, we’re keeping an eye on the Buoyweather and crossing our fingers.

Fernandina Beach is a small but bustling port – containerships and freighters frequent the commercial docks. It is ‘home’ for a fleet of shrimp boats and a number of paper mills. One can see the white discharge from the paper mills and trucks carrying logs head to the mills all day long. You have to wonder where these logs come from and when the supply will be depleted. Fortunately, the wind blew the distinct smell of the paper mills away from town during our stay, but we found that we could still smell the mills. Since they operate 24-hours a day you can never completely get away from the lights, the sounds or the smell.

But despite this, Fernandina Beach is a thriving community. The downtown historical district attracts locals as well as tourists for shopping, dining and just wandering around. And, since there are more upscale stores than touristy souvenir shops it’s interesting to window shop and just plain explore. But, there isn’t a grocery store for interim provisioning within walking distance and finding a gallon of milk proved to be a challenge although we were able to purchase some fresh Fernandina shrimp.

After a few days on the mooring, we finally got our weather window and headed out the St. Mary’s River past Fort Clinch State Park into the Atlanta Ocean. Since there’s always a chance that the NOAA forecasts will be wrong, we had identified a number of ‘bail out’ opportunities along our route, but fortunately we didn’t have to use them.

The overnight trip was uneventful – a pod of 15-20 dolphins joined us around midnight. They jumped and played in our bow wake for 10-15 minutes before disappearing in the dark blue waters of the Gulf. It’s always a treat to see these creatures and especially in such large groups. At around 8 AM we entered Charleston Harbor after a 24-hour cruise. Since the sun was up, we were both wide awake and we had an incoming current to help us along we decided to continue north for a couple of hours more eventually calling it a long day at Five Fathom Creek.

Return to Florida

2011-04-30T14:35:00.000-04:00

Finding a good weather window is the key to making a comfortable trip across the Gulf Stream. The general rule is to never cross with a northerly wind – a north wind against a 2 knot current from the south creates uncomfortable waves. Waiting for an acceptable window is a test of one’s patience and, at times, the pocketbook. Paying, day after day, for a slip to wait for good weather can get quite expensive. While we sat out the passing of a cold front tied to the dock in Bimini we kept our eyes on the weather and the long term forecast. Seeing an immediate ‘acceptable’ window with questionable, at best weather following it, we decided to head out across the Gulf Stream back to Florida.

We departed the marina at o’dark thirty and followed our ‘bread crumb’ trail, which we left on the trip in, out of the harbor. It seems that it’s always darkest right before dawn and this morning was no exception. Despite this, we found the navigational aids and avoided the shoals at the mouth of the harbor finally getting ourselves set on our route in the deep water of the Atlantic Ocean headed for home. We set out the fishing line hoping to snag one last Mahi during our trip back – after all we have plenty of space in the freezer. Our destination – Lake Worth.

The crossing was uneventful and, yes, NOAA was wrong again. The southerly forecasted winds switched to the north far earlier than predicted (about 36 hours earlier) and were stronger than predicted. The ‘general rule’ held true. The seas quickly built up to 3-5 foot which we took on the starboard bow during the last half of the trip. Not dangerous – just sloppy and, at times, uncomfortable. But, it forced us to give up on fishing – we hadn’t had a hit anyway – with these seas what would we do if we caught one? We took down the Bahamas courtesy flag and hoisted the yellow quarantine flag, entered US waters (for the first time in 5 months), contacted US Customs & Immigration (or is it called Homeland Security now) and was able to clear in with just a phone call. We decided to stay in Lake Worth for a couple of days until the seas settled down then make the cruise up to Ft. Pierce on the outside avoiding several bridges, shallow water and anchorages that are known to be “party central” on the weekends.

During the Selene Rendezvous, we won a gift certificate for a two-night stay at Harbor Isles Marina on Hutchinson Island just south of Ft Pierce. Since we had returned to the US earlier than planned and thinking that it would be a great opportunity to give the boat a good soap & water bath – especially after taking a lot of spray during the crossing from Bimini – we decided to stop at Harbor Isle before heading north. As we were entering the Marina and a small boat was heading out. All we heard was “Is that Corey?” Dick and Damien (formerly of S/V Kittian who we first met at Spicer’s Marina in Noank, CT) were out cruising and just happened to be in the area. They turned around and returned to the Marina giving us a chance to visit for a while. What a surprise – we never expected to see them and are so glad we did!

One benefit of carrying almost 1000 gals of fuel is the ability to ‘shop around’ for the best price. There are websites who report on fuel prices every week. It’s a great resource and saves a lot of time making phone calls. As a general rule, fuel is far less expensive north of Florida – but, fuel prices are sky rocketing everywhere. Would we be better off taking on 500-600 gals in Florida at the best price we could find OR take a chance that the prices will stabilize (maybe, heaven forbid drop) and still be less than Florida is now when we get to South Carolina in a month. With the approach of summer travel season and with everything going on in the Mideast we decided that we should get it now rather than waiting so we topped off the tanks….ouch!

After a thorough boat bath and with full fuel tanks we headed to Vero Beach (aka Velcro Beach) for a week or so to reprovision, run errands, mail off our taxes and other items that need repair. The marina and mooring field was surprisingly empty. As usual we helped support the local economy – they make it all too easy for us to stay. While in Vero, we learned that the Shuttle Endeavour was scheduled to be launched on Friday, April 29. This is the last launch for Endeavour and the second to last shuttle launch. After watching the last (ever) night time launch off the NASA Causeway Bridge in the Indian River, we really wanted to see the upcoming launch. With a couple of days to spare, we left Vero and headed north up the Intracoastal Waterway.

We arrived at Addison Point and picked our spot on the north side of the NASA Causeway Bridge getting fantastic protection from the 20+ knot southerly winds. It was difficult to find the Endeavour launching pad due to smoke from a wild fire but we finally recognized it. What a great spot to watch a launch. Mother Nature also put forth quite a show! On Thursday evening, a front came through with extremely dark rolling clouds, thunder, lightening, strong winds and rain. When the winds shifted from south to north (Friday morning) we found ourselves on the wrong side of the bridge in 2 foot swells (not comfortable) so we pulled anchor and moved to the relative calm conditions on the south side of the bridge – along with 12 other boats. We’ve anchored here (on one side of the bridge or the other) and have NEVER seen so many others – what a crowd!

Among the various power & sail boats arriving through the day, Bud & Pat (who just sold their Selene 43 ‘Almost Perfect’ and are now the proud owners of a 48’ Krogen NorthSea also named ‘Almost Perfect’) pulled into the anchorage. We first met Bud & Pat in Venice, FL when they were returning from their shakedown cruise to the Bahamas with the first ‘Almost Perfect’ and have encountered them several times up and down the East Coast. They are headed up to Maine for the summer – the Krogen NorthSea is truly a beautiful vessel. It’s our ‘next’ boat…..yea, right…in our dreams!

Unfortunately the launch was scrubbed about 3 hours before take-off due to issues with the APU heater. At the earliest, it will launch in 48-hours on Sunday, May 1. Not willing to sit for another two days we decided to leave and continue our trek north. We’re looking for a good weather window to go outside around Georgia to avoid the shoals, shallows and zigzagging required by the GA ICW….will we get it?

Bimini and Neighboring Cays

2011-04-17T09:25:00.003-04:00

After a calm day of cruising from Nassau to Chubb Cay and with a continued forecast of calm seas, we decided to continue on to Cat Cay. This would be a 20 hour trip – so, we anchored off Chubb Cay for several hours and fixed hamburgers for dinner (we finally had our “cheeseburger in paradise”) and departed at sunset. This leg of the trip took us across the Bahama Banks which can be quite shallow, but we’re told that if you follow the ‘magenta’ line on the charts you’ll never see less than 10-12 feet of water and no obstructions such as coral heads. And, doing an overnighter sure beats anchoring on the Banks! Although many people have and regularly anchor on the Banks…we tried it once and would never recommend it! We even know quite a few people who agree with us and will say “oh, yea…we’ve anchored on the banks….once…we’ll never do it again”.

Cat Cay - Kitten Rocks

We had an uneventful trip – encountered no traffic – and arrived at Cat Cay just after day break. Cat Cay is approximately 12 miles south of Bimini. It was purchased in 1931 by an American who spent close to $1 million to develop an extremely exclusive resort and marina with an airstrip – one couldn’t set foot in the island without an engraved invitation from one of the club’s members. The resort and marina was leveled by Hurricane Betsy in 1962 and subsequently purchased by a group of American businessmen. It has since been rebuilt and reopened, but is still an exclusive and private island. As a ‘transient’ boater, one can get a slip at the marina but will not be allowed to leave the premises or explore the island.

We explored by dinghy and snorkeled on the coral reefs at the base of Kitten Cays. Although the water was a little murky due to silt, the reef was swarming with fish! Unfortunately, we anchored on the ‘approach’ to the marina and, it seems, it was a challenge to all incoming boats to see who could rock & roll us the most. Why can’t boats look behind them, occasionally, to see how much wake their creating?But, after 36 hours of having to keep things secured as if we were on passage, we decided to move to another anchorage with less boat traffic.

At one time, the Royal Bahamas Defense Force manned Gun Cay Light at the south end of the cay. It was demolished when Hurricane Andrew came through the area in 1992. Although the light, itself, is still operational there is nothing left but ruins.

After spending several quiet days, at anchor, off Gun Cay we decided to move further north. We moved up to Turtle Rocks planning to snorkel the 'Sapona' a wreck located a mile or so from the cay. In 1995, we visited this area on a liveaboard dive boat and one of the sites we dove was the 'Sapona'. We wanted to revisit the wreck to see how much had changed. The Sapona was a 2700 ton rock carrier in WWI and ran aground between So Bimini and Gun Cay in 1929. The hull served as a bootleg liquor warehouse during the American prohibition years and during the WWII years it was a bombing target for filiers. In 1995, Corey found several spent ammunition shells in the sand. Since we last saw the wreck, the stern has broken off and the hull continues to rust through. But, fish swarm the area - including the more and more often seen invasive lionfish.

As delightful as the Bimini area is to explore the holding is questionable. The seabed is mostly grass and we were able to get an acceptable set there, but the sandy patches were a thin layer of sand over rock and we weren't able to get a set at all. The weather forecast included possible squalls with winds of 30 knots +/- and we weren't, at all comfortable, with our hold if the squalls did come through as forecasted. So, we decided to get a slip at Blue Water Marina in Alice Town in North Bimini for a couple of days. This would give us the chance to wander the town and see how things have changed since we were last here in 1995.

Most of the marinas along the waterfront appears to have renovated their docks over the years. The 'old' Immigration & Customs office has been relocated and rebuilt. For those movie buffs...unfortunately, the phone booth where Hannibal Lector made his last call in "Silence of the Lambs" has been removed. And, Guy Harvey has purchased and renovated the Bimini Big Game Club.

But despite this....the area is depressed. 'The Complete Angler' restaurant and lodge, visited and made famous by Ernest Hemingway, burned down in 2005 and has never been rebuilt. The ruins of, what appears to have been, a small resort demolished (we assume) by one or more hurricanes remain on the western shore as well as the wreck of a small freighter.

Exploring Nassau

2011-04-15T07:35:00.002-04:00

We arrived at New Providence Island after a “trawler” day of travel from Highborne Cay. The seas were almost flat calm, the winds light and the skies clear. Cruising through the Yellow Banks and identifying (avoiding) the coral heads was easy. We anchored off Rose Island to get protection from the forecasted NE winds, but…the forecast proved to be slightly off – we got ESE to SSE winds instead. Although they weren’t strong, the swells they generated had hundreds of miles to build and we found ourselves getting rolled far more than we enjoy! Next year we’ll have ‘flopper stoppers’ to deal with this!

So, we decided to go into a marina in Nassau Harbor. This would give us the chance to do some provisioning (we won’t be returning the States for a while), some sightseeing and search for that ever elusive bottle of ‘perfect’ sipping rum. We haven’t been into a marina since we cleared into the Bahamas at Port Lucaya the middle of December – we would also be able to give the boat a soap/water bath for the first time in months! Nassau Harbor is busy with pleasure boats of all shapes and sizes. Among the sailboats, trawlers, motor and mega yachts are all the boats that offer things for the tourist to do including snorkeling, diving, fishing and booze cruises. Then there are the large ferries and mail/freight boats departing for and arriving from the out islands. Fishing boats from Eleuthera, Spanish Wells and New Providence return to port after weeks at sea to sell their catch at Potter’s Cay.

On top of that….it’s not unusual to have 3-4 Cruise ships in port. While we were here, Disney’s “Dream” was berthed next to Celebrity’s “Destiny”. She made the Celebrity ship look small. AIS showed that Disney’s Dream is 1115 feet long – she has at least 12 levels.

The cruise ship terminal and surrounding downtown area offer a plethora of souvenir shops, bars, restaurants and cigar shops including the infamous straw market. One can find practically anything at the duty free shops – liquor, jewelry, cameras, perfume, expensive leather goods, watches, etc – since import duty is about 35% that can be quite a savings.

Although we strolled through the area we resisted the urge to buy something that we really didn’t need – and, by the way, never did find that ‘perfect’ bottle of sipping rum! We did, though, explore the Bahamas Historical Museum; wander through Parliament Square which houses the House of Assembly, Senate and Supreme Court and the Public Library which was once the city jail. Getting off the main drag we found Fort Fincastle, a ship-shaped Fort built in 1793 to protect Nassau Harbor and the city’s first Water Tower built in 1928. The ‘market’ at the base of the water tower is not quite up to downtown’s Straw Market but contains many of the same items – it’s amazing what sells!

Since it’s been 10 years or so since we last visited Paradise Island or the Atlantis complex, we decided to hike across the bridge at Potter’s Cay and see how things have changed. Atlantis is essentially off limits for anyone who doesn’t possess a room key, so we were limited as to where we could visit. But, we did learn that the bridge type structure connecting the two Atlantis towers is actually a hotel room. The room rents for $25K (that’s $25,000) per night with a 4-night minimum. Celebrities such as Tiger Woods have stayed there – we wondered why he didn’t stay on his 155' mega yacht “Privacy”. By the way..."Privacy" - a wedding present to Tiger Wood's wife - is now for sale for a paltry $25 mil..if anyone is interested.

But, there’s only so much civilization that one can deal with so we departed Nassau Harbor Friday morning, April 8 heading for Chubb Cay or Frazier Hog – we’ll either pick up a mooring or anchor out depending on the weather. It’s back to the slow pace of the out islands for us!

Dealing with Westerlies in the Exumas – Hawksbill Cay to Nassau

2011-04-15T07:02:00.000-04:00

View from Russell Ruins

The prevailing winter winds in the Bahamas are out of the NE; the prevailing winds in the summer are out of the SE. It is generally not difficult to find an anchorage with easterly protection since the majority of the cays in the Bahamas lie on a somewhat north-west orientation. But when a cold front threatens, winds can clock 360 degrees from the prevailing easterly. Cold fronts during the winter months are generally more frequent than in Summer and occur far more often north of Nassau (in the Abacos) than further south. Because of this, many people start their cruising season heading south into the Exumas or beyond and end their season heading north by way of Eleuthera and the Abacos.

When a cold front is able to work its way south of Nassau…it can be quite severe and often is accompanied by squalls. The winds may be 25-30 knots (30-35 mph) but the squalls can have winds of 40 knots (approx 50 mph) or greater. Fortunately, these fronts are rare and adequately forecasted. The ‘typical’ cold in the Exumas involve winds of around 15 knots clocking from northeast to south through west with the winds picking up as they clock. When the winds get back to N-NE the cold front is past and things will eventually get back to normal. This clocking of the winds during the passage of the front is what causes every boater grief – oh, and did I say, the ‘typical’ cold front always comes through during the dark of night?

Once a cold front is predicted, boaters will scramble to find a place to anchor that gives them adequate protection through the westerly wind components. Some will ‘sit it out’; others find their safe harbor in one of the few marinas. But, the marinas aren’t always the best place to go – Staniel Cay Yacht Club will not allow boats on their docks when there are strong NW winds because it gets too rough due to the waves and chop. Many of the moorings aren’t an option either since, except for the Park, most are secured to an ‘old’ engine block or cement slab which can’t be trusted not to drag in strong winds.

Stone Wall Russell Ruins

Wall of Home Ruins

Now back to our journey…. We departed Norman’s Cay aware that a front was likely to transit the area in a few days but with a weather forecast for the immediate future of light SE winds prior to the front. We decided to head to Hawksbill Cay and take advantage of the light winds to explore the cay, the Russell family ruins dating from the late 1800’s and do some snorkeling. The ‘ruins’ once included 10 houses and a number of outbuildings dating from the Loyalist period (1780’s to 1830’s). In 1785, the Crown gave a grant to the Russell family to settle here and the cay remained occupied until about 1900. There is very little remaining of the homes but one can still see the stone walls of many buildings, the beehive oven which was used for cooking and piles of discarded conch shells. It’s hard to imagine people living in these surroundings; there is very little cultivable soil – the cay is primarily rock. Sisal, buttonwood and tamarind were the major crops – pigs and chickens could be raised and, of course, there is always fishing, but water was (and is) scarce. Living quarters were constructed on the hilltops to get the most of the cooling ocean breezes (and a breathtaking view was a secondary benefit), but the climb from the beach to the hilltop must have kept the folks in shape.

Path to Exuma Sound

After several calm balmy days at Hawksbill Cay, the winds began to clock to the south just as forecasted. The anchorage provided less than ideal protection from the building southerly swells so we decided to move to the north end of Highborne Cay to sit out the southerly and westerly winds. Highborne Cay is a private island and access to shore is restricted. This anchorage, located in a half moon shaped cove, provided great protection until the front finally moved through and the winds clocked to the north.

Determining that we were considerably closer to Nassau than to Georgetown, we decided to continue heading north instead of returning to the southern Exumas or Georgetown. We need to be north of the FL/GA border by June 1st and out of the Bahamas by May 15th. So, we decided to begin our ‘return’ leg of our Bahamas cruise and head to Nassau. From there, we’ll decide what to do – after all we’ve still got time left on our cruising permit – why rush back to the States?

Norman's Cay

2011-04-07T08:36:00.001-04:00

We left White Point heading back to Staniel Cay to do some quick provisioning before continuing our journey north while the others were preparing to head south and east to the out islands. Much to our surprise Big Major’s Spot was not as full as we expected and the conditions were quite calm. We arrived on mail boat day….was saw that the boat was as at the government dock and off loading…the stores should be restocked by lunchtime. With the calm conditions, we were able to complete our provisioning that afternoon and depart the following morning.

With the predicted calm weather conditions we decided to start our exploration of the northern Exumas at Norman’s Cay then work our way back south when the winds picked up. Norman’s Cay was the home of Carl Lehder, a renowned Columbian drug lord, in the 1980’s. He virtually took over the island and the upscale Norman’s Cay Beach Club - local law enforcement ignored the drug trafficking stating that it was a U.S. problem not of Bahamian concern. The northern end of the island has attracted many wealthy expats and 2nd home owners but, the southern end of the island – the home of Carl Lehder’s gang – has never recovered from this era despite the beautiful views from the now defunct Norman’s Cay Beach Club. There is, though, a small ‘reopened’ 3-villa Norman’s Cay Beach Club on the western shore of the cay – across the island from the ruins of the original Beach Club. MacDuff’s, the restaurant, is known throughout the Exumas for their food and many small private planes land every day (there’s a 3000 foot runway) for lunch or dinner.

Ruins of Club Beach Bar

Shortly after leaving Big Major’s Spot we got a hail from Chris and Joyce, MV Celebrate. They had just dropped their mooring at Warderick Wells and were heading north. Darn…missed them again - we were heading into the Park for the night. The next day we thought we saw them moored off Shroud Cay and tried unsuccessfully to hail them on the VHF - we decided that either it wasn’t them or they had the radio off.

Customs & Immigration Ruins

The following morning we took a shot at raising Chris and Joyce again. This time we got an answer – they had just turned on the radio and were getting underway heading for Nassau. We attempted to entice them to stop at Norman’s with beachcombing, snorkeling, conching and dinghy exploration – all to no avail…for maybe 10 minutes. But, they finally succumbed and arrived an hour or so later. We spent a very enjoyable day with them exploring the eastern shore of the cay and finally had the opportunity to catch up on everything since we really didn’t have a chance during the Rendezvous.

1980's Beach Club Menu

And, yes we finally went to MacDuff’s for their $18 cheese burger. Not quite the “Cheeseburger in Paradise” we were hoping for but probably the best we’ve had in the Bahamas yet.

Next stop, Hawsbill Cay in the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park.

2011 Selene Exuma Rendezvous

2011-03-26T09:48:00.009-04:00

Even though the official start date of the Rendezvous was Sunday, March 13, Big Major's anchorage started filling up with Selenes days ahead. Each day a Selene or two arrived dropping their hook and settling in - even more were heard on the VHF. Wayne & Sharon, M/V My Sharona, did a fantastic job organizing this event. What, I assume, started out as a "let's meet up in the Exumas" for the Selenes who normally spend the winter in the Bahamas (5-6) and subsequently grew into a full-fledged rendezvous of most of the Selenes on the East Coast became, at times, overwhelming. But, Wayne and Sharon recruited sponsors, discounts from various marinas & marine businesses, support from Selene Annapolis and Selene Florida. They were even able to get financial support from Jet Tern, the builder of the Selene line of trawlers.

Amazingly there were 16 (some said 18) Selenes attending the Rendezvous - ranging in size from 43' feet to 62'. Three of the original Solos (the boats that became the Selene line) participated and many of the attendees were visiting the Exumas for the first time. Just seeing these vessels all together in one place were impressive but, having the opportunity to actually meet the owners (who we have only heard about, follow their blogs or recognized from the Selene Owners website) was something we wouldn't have missed for anything.

The Rendezvous began at Big Major's Spot anchorage off Staniel Cay with a happy hour bonfire on the beach. From there, the fleet moved to Compass Cay Marina for a couple of days then to Sampson Cay Marina for the final group dinner on Thursday, March 17, St Patrick's Day. Although officially over, the majority of the vessels met at Blackpoint Settlement - Lorraine's Café agreed to do a buffet dinner for the group Saturday night which…by the way was Wayne's birthday. From there, a few struck out on their own but several (us included) moved to White Point, a beautiful anchorage with a long white sand beach on the lee shore of Great Guana Cay to sit out a couple of days of predicted strong winds. The two sail boats in the anchorage left within a day of our arrival - I wonder why!?

Compass Cay Marina

After sitting out the winds, we had one final bon voyage bonfire on the beach since everyone was pulling anchor the following morning heading someplace else. We had decided earlier that we would slowly work our way north after the Rendezvous - we're hoping to have the weather to spend some time in The Berry Islands and/or Bimini. The remaining Selenes headed off shore to Conception Cay and then onto Rum Cay. They will eventually return to Georgetown for the Out Family Islands Regatta - an event that shouldn't be missed if one is in the area.

Selenes in Formation

Thompson Bay to Staniel Cay

2011-03-23T10:43:00.000-04:00

We spent a couple of days at Thompson Bay to provision (the pickings were slim), catch up on email (and meet up with friends at Island Breeze) and top off the fuel tanks with a couple hundred gallons of diesel (with the way the fuel prices are rising in the US what we paid may be considered cheap in mi-May when we return to the states). With the Selene Rendezvous scheduled to begin March 13, we were keeping an eye on the weather for a window to cross back from Long Island to the Exuma chain.

Fortunately, our window of 'trawler' weather occurred relatively quickly. So, we finished up what we needed to and moved further north on Long Island anchoring for the night off Hog Cay. The cloudless sunny day ended with a star filled night sky. The thousands of stars that are visible in a clear night sky when there is no light pollution from neighboring cities still amazes us even after all these months in the islands. We departed the next morning for a 9-10 hour cruise to Farmers Cay in the Exumas. The seas were flat calm - an absolutely beautiful day to be cruising the indigo blue waters of Exuma Sound. But, the winds were predicted to pickup - somewhere from late afternoon to just after dark. Our ETA had us getting through the cut onto the Exuma Banks mid-afternoon a couple of hours before high tide. Perfect timing, we thought, to beat the increasing wind velocities, building seas and the shallow channel we intended to travel on our way to our anchorage. Mother Nature, though, decided to deliver the strong winds a little earlier than the weather forecasters predicted. By mid-morning the winds had increased from practically nothing to 15 knots - not a problem….then by lunch time the winds had increased to 20 knots and the seas to 3-5 feet - a little uncomfortable since they were hitting us on the forward quarter…by the time we were contemplating our approach to the cut we were getting a little concerned about what Plan B would be if the cut was impassable. Fortunately, we didn't have to put Plan B into action -which was to divert to Georgetown - the cut was passable and as soon as we got through the seas settled right down. We made it to our selected anchorage and dropped the hook - glad that the day was done and that we were securely anchored for what was forecast to be several days of brisk winds.

Shortly after we anchored, we noticed a trawler heading north on the banks a mile or so behind us - it looked like a Krogen. Taking a chance that it was Phyllis and Tom off Cocoon Too we gave them a hail on VHF. Sure enough it was. They had spent a couple of beautiful days at Conception Island and were headed back to the Exuma chain to sit out the strong winds for a few days. They, like us, had encountered the earlier than forecasted strong winds and building seas - a generally sloppy ride. Since they had guests on board, they were headed for Big Major's Spot off Staniel Cay a very popular anchorage in the area.

With the strong winds we weren't able to drop the dinghy so we found ourselves boat bound for several days. It doesn't take long for 'cabin' fever to set in so we took advantage of the first nice day to move to Big Major's Spot. The Selene Rendezvous is scheduled to start in about a week and with the migration of boats heading north and the boats arriving for the rendezvous we wanted to get to the anchorage and pick our spot. We were pleased to see that Cocoon Too was still in the area - we'll now have a chance to visit for a while instead of just waving as one or the other motors by.

During the week at Big Major's we took advantage of down time to clean the boat, inside & out, varnish the signboards, polish the stainless, do some minor repairs and explore the area by dinghy and by foot. We even made it over to the beach to see the swimming pigs! It's nice to sit and relax for a while - especially in such a beautiful place.

Updated via SSB

Return to Thompson Bay

2011-02-27T08:22:00.000-05:00

The winds finally let up, after 10 days, at Hog Cay allowing us and many others to make a break for another anchorage. Because of the forecast of E-ESE winds we decided to go to Double Breasted Cay. Although the area looks small on the charts - it actually can hold quite a few boats. We were the second to arrive and after a day or so…there were at least six boats in the anchorage and more on their way. As with most of the other cays there are paths cutting across the island to the ocean side and fire pits built for evening bonfires (i.e. trash burns). The paths in the less frequented areas aren't as creatively marked - flip flops are the flotsam of choice when other more artistic items are lacking. We really wonder where all of the flip flops, sandals, sneakers, etc come from - there are enough washed up on shore to shoe an entire nation! But, as with most of the other cays this one is no less beautiful. The shoreline along the ocean is sand and rock…the swells coming in from the ocean due to the days of higher winds were huge - not quite surf board waves but enough to be impressive. But, one can stay only as long as the wind is out of the right direction and, after a couple of days, the winds switched encouraging us to move across to Raccoon Cay.

Raccoon Cay is approximately 3 miles in length…it can hold a lot of boats. When we arrived there were 4 others - all spread out - plenty of room. So, we picked our spot and settled in for a few days. We explored a trail that we partially followed earlier this season, discovered a blue hole that we didn't know was there and got some swimming/snorkeling time in.

When the forecast had the winds clocking a little more we decided to head to Buena Vista Cay for a couple of days. The last time we were here we anchored off the south end to sit out a strong northerly wind and its swells. But, this time the weather was with us so we decided to stay a while. Buena Vista Cay is reputed to have one of the prettiest beaches in the Jumentos and the guide books aren't too far off. Upon approaching the western length of the cay, one immediately notices a home under construction not far off the beach. But, it seems to be abandoned. It is obvious that some progress had been made - there is a small kitchen with refrigerator, chest freezer, some jars of food, a bunk bed with mattress and pillow, building supplies, lantern and a few books including an anthology of world literature. The land immediately surrounding the 'home' has been cleared and a couple of pens, we assume for chickens and goats, had been constructed. You have to wonder what happened -it looks like the 'owner' left to go to the store and never returned.

Since we need to be at Staniel Cay in the Exumas around the middle of March for a Selene Rendezvous, we are leisurely working our way back north. Several of the legs of the journey require decent weather so we're back to looking for those ideal 'trawler' days to make the trip from the Jumentos to Long Island and then from Long Island to the Exumas. And…we have to do some reprovisioning. So, after a couple of days at Buena Vista we decided to make the jump north and to do it in one day - one long day! We pulled anchor, in Buena Vista, just as it was getting light and set the anchor in Thompson Bay, just as it was getting dark. A couple glasses of wine and a plate of reheated (from scratch "thanks, Corey") macaroni and cheese we watched an episode of CSI and called it a night.

There are really only two places in the Exumas with markets that have enough to resupply basic needs - Exuma Markets in Georgetown and the two markets in Salt Pond/Thompson Bay. Georgetown is out of the question since the annual Cruiser's Sailing Regatta is underway - there are reportedly 350+ boats in the anchorage. So, the next best option is Salt Pond. What you can't find at one store, you can generally find at the other. Although Staniel Cay has a couple of markets - The Blue Store, The Pink Store and Isles General - their supplies are limited and they are generally gone if you don't get there within a day or so of the mail/freight boat. Since we're getting into Salt Pond and leaving with the next 'trawler' weather window - all before the arrival of the weekly mail/freight boat - we're keeping our fingers crossed that there hasn't been a run on supplies at either of the two markets.

Updated via SSB

Valentine's Day on Hog Cay

2011-02-18T11:31:00.025-05:00

We left Thompson Bay, Long Island, in flat calm conditions - truly a 'trawler day'. The shallow channel running along the south side of Little Exuma Island didn't even have a wind ripple. One could see the grass growing in the sand and star fish every few feet - even a few barracuda hunting in the shallows. It was a beautiful day to cruise the crystal clear blue waters of the Great Bahama Bank. We decided to stay overnight at Flamingo Cay - where we had the entire anchorage to ourselves. Sometime during the night the winds picked up and the anchorage got a little rolly, but since we weren't planning on stay longer than just the night we didn't bother rigging a side bridle. We departed the next morning, right after listening to the weather on the SSB, heading south further into the Ragged Islands.

During the trip south, we didn't see a soul at Jamaica Cay or Buena Vista Cay, but there were 6-7 boats at Raccoon Cay. Listening to the VHF radio we learned that one of the boats had taken their dog to shore for a run along the beach. Apparently the dog saw one of the island wild goats and took off after it and never made it back home. As of the date of this blog, the dog hasn't been found despite numerous and continuous search parties - the owners departed Raccoon Cay this morning heading north. It must have been a terribly difficult decision to 'give up' and head for home.

Since arriving, we've been anchored at Hog Cay. We originally decided to stop here so that we could attend the3rd annual Valentine's Day Picnic put on by Maxine (the owner of the local grocery) for the cruisers and any Duncan Towners who wanted to attend. We missed it on our first trip here two years ago…rumor had it that about a dozen boats showed up. The 2nd year (last year) about 24 boats showed up and this year…there were 35. Maxine's sister lives in Nassau and between the two of them they put on quite a party. Maxine supplied the turkey, ham, chicken, grilled fish and, something they called, curried mutton (it was actually goat) as well as a local delicacy called 'sous' (kind of a soup or thin stew). The cruisers brought appetizers, side dishes and desert. Junkanoo costumes and drums were brought in from Nassau on the mail boat - of course, there weren't enough people for all of the costumes so several of the cruisers were 'enlisted' to help with the entertainment. The school kids (all eleven of them) showed up with Robert, their teacher. An auction (of surplus marine junk) and a raffle was held to help raise money for the school's field trip later this year to Disney World. Can you imagine the culture shock these kids will have going from a town of less than 100 to Disney World? Fun was had by all. Even Sheila, an octogenarian got into the spirit, and put on one of the Junkanoo costumes to join in the dance.

Although, the Hog Cay anchorage is large enough to accommodate 35 boats - it seems as if it is becoming a small Georgetown. We came here, as did many others, for the secluded quiet anchorages amidst the uninhabited cays. Twenty to thirty boats don't make a secluded anchorage, but with the N to NE winds - day after day after day - of around 20 knots (24 mph) sustained it is well protected from both the wind and the swell that come in between the cays from the ocean. So, we stay put. Some of the boats have been here for months and plan to stay the season. Others came planning on staying for a week or two and are now into their 4th or 5th week. They provisioned for a short stay but weather has been making it difficult to head north, so they are running low on everything including water, fuel, food, clean clothes, beer, etc. Most of the guide books stress the need to be self-sufficient if you come down here….and they are absolutely correct since getting the essentials, although possible, is difficult.

The winds are making snorkeling and swimming difficult, but Hog Cay has a plethora of paths and trails that crisscross the island. These probably started out as goat paths and later used by the local folks when hunting. The boaters have collected various flotsams off the beach to mark most of the paths. So, by following the buoys, fenders, flip flops, bottles, rope, stuffed animals and dolls you can eventually find your way to the end of the trail.

We've been finding and exploring (numerous times) every trail there is on the cay - I think we could probably walk them in our sleep. Unless we can move soon…we may be taking our machete in with us on our next trip and cutting a 'new' trail.

Can this be a form of 'cabin fever'?

Updated via SSB

Clearing Customs - Conclusion of the Inverter/Charger Saga

2011-02-08T16:24:00.001-05:00

The Georgetown International Airport is midway between the settlement of Georgetown and Emerald Bay Resort (recently taken over by Sandals Resort). Emerald Bay Marina was built to be a world class facility - and it most definitely is - but, business has been slow. A day pass to Sandals Resort is $180 per person and other than that…there really isn't much to do. There is a grocery store and liquor store within walking distance, but no restaurants or bars other than at Sandals - for $180 per person. Approximately half of the slips don't have power available yet, so the Marina offers non-service slips for $1/foot. This is real bargain since the regular slips are $2.50 foot plus $.85 kwh for power and $.40/gal for water. We decided to stay on the non-service docks, rent a car (about the same cost as a taxi) for the day to pick up the inverter from Customs at the airport AND do some sightseeing.

The car was delivered to the Marina from the airport - very convenient - but, the steering wheel was on the right hand side, you drive on the left and the speedometer showed our speed in kilometers while the road signs were in MPH. Rather confusing but, Corey managed it all with no 'oops' we're on the wrong side of the road near misses and only a few times did the wheels end up on the shoulder when we approached on-coming traffic on a curve. Unfortunately, he didn't have the chance to do much sightseeing since keeping us on the correct side of the road and not inadvertently turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal required all of his concentration. Thankfully, the car had an automatic transmission - can you imagine throwing a standard transmission into this mix?

We picked up the car and headed to the Airport first thing. Reggie's Express, the agent we used to ship our inverter/charger, has an office at the Airport but, we had to ask for directions since there was no signage on the storefront AND they operated out of a combined convenience/liquor store/bar. But, with directions we found Reggie's Express and Dewan, their agent. He took us over to Bahamas Customs right next door - found our box and the necessary paperwork - inspected it and cleared it through Customs. Normally, there is a 35% duty assessed on all imports into the Bahamas except for 'essential boat parts' imported with a Cruisers' Permit. What 'essential' means is up for interpretation but, the Customs agent cleared us with no additional fees except a $10 stamp tax and a $30 agent fee. Dewan escorted us back to his office (?) - had Corey sign a couple of blank forms and said he would take care of the rest. We got in and out in less than 20 minutes - what happened we haven't a clue, not sure exactly what we signed or why - but, since we had our part we weren't about to start asking too many questions. For a very small fee we didn't have to spend the day driving back and forth to Georgetown to complete all of the paperwork. Working with the agent was definitely the right thing to do.

After finishing up at Customs, we decided to head to Georgetown to see what was going on. The settlement is directly across the harbor from Stocking Island where most of the cruising boats anchor. The Cruisers' Sailing Regatta will be held sometime the end of February or early March. This event typically attracts 300-400 boats every year and it looks as if this year will be no different. As of the middle of January there were 175 boats in the harbor and it looked as if that number had grown to 200 or more when we went to town. Georgetown is far easier to get around on foot than in a car - we wanted to check out the grocery store for fresh produce and the liquor store for Corey's favorite rum (we learned it's been discontinued - no wonder we haven't been able to find it anywhere) but finding a parking space was difficult - car and foot traffic was overwhelming. After dealing with crowds and seeing the congestion in the anchorage we were glad we decided to splurge and stay at Emerald Bay.

There really wasn't a lot of sightseeing opportunities between the Airport and Georgetown, the side roads on the map led nowhere so we decided to head to the northern point of Great Exuma Island. There are a number of very small settlements there that we've read about but haven't been able to access due to very shallow waters immediately offshore. Many of these towns were originally settled by Loyalists from the States; farming and fishing their primary livelihood. But, as in most of the Bahamas farming is no longer viable, most of the areas are fished out and the small mom and pop stores are out of business or barely hanging on. There are few employment opportunities in this area except for tourism and even tourism has its ups and downs. When they opened several years ago the Emerald Bay Resort brought in hundreds of people to work in the Marina, resort shops and restaurants -small businesses opened up nearby. Many people, originally from Great Exuma, quit their jobs in Nassau and Freeport to work at Emerald Bay because it allowed them to return home - to be close to family and relatives. But now that Sandals, an all-inclusive resort, has opened it seems that most of the small business endeavors have failed, many of the locals are out work and the homes they purchased when they returned are up for sale. But, despite all this we have found the local Bahamians that we have come into contact with to be most friendly, welcoming and helpful. They seem to be sincerely glad that you are there.

Corey installed the inverter in not much more than an hour - essentially plug and play. We are now charging our batteries at up to 4-5 times the rate we were with the 'original' charger and we have the inverter to run the coffee maker, computers, fans, etc. What a convenience - one we now really appreciate! So, after enjoying an extra day at Emerald Bay Marina we returned to Thompson Bay on Long Island and are now heading back to the Jumentos and Ragged Islands. If the weather holds out we'll be enjoying Maxine's Valentine's Day Cruisers Picnic and the crystal clear waters of the southern Bahamas for the rest of the month!

Updated via SSB

The Jumentos and Ragged Island – Part #3

2011-02-04T18:06:00.001-05:00

After ordering and arranging the shipment of the replacement inverter/charger, we were now able to relax and enjoy the cays. We departed Southside Bay on the southern end of Ragged Island after a couple hikes into Duncan Town. Duncan Town is the home of fewer than 100 residents, most of whom are descendents of the original settlers – Loyalists – who discovered the island in the early 18th century. From the abolish of slavery by the Bahamas in the 1800’s and up until the 1960’s, Ragged Island relied heavily on the salt trade with Cuba and Haiti – trading for fruit, vegetables and other goods they could not produce locally. After Castro came to power the salt industry collapsed – now there is no production except for personal use and even then fewer and fewer residents go to the trouble. But, Duncan Town is being pushed or pulled into the 21st century. Just within the past year or so, the Bahamas government has undertaken paving the roads, laying down a pipeline to provide all residents with RO water (eliminating the need to rely on rain water and cisterns), building an airport, building a dock for the freight boat, erecting a tower for phone service and providing free internet. Ragged Islanders are working to attract more tourism and cruising yachts which they feel will provide a financial boom and revitalize the area. Only time will tell if this will occur, but despite all of this, we and many other cruising yachts come to the Ragged Islands not for the typical tourist attractions but for the seclusion, pristine clean clear waters, white sand beaches, star filled skies and some of the most friendly people you could meet.

Because of uncomfortable northeast swells in Southside Bay, we decided to move to Hog Cay, just north of Ragged Island, where we could get good protection from the prevailing winds. Since we knew that S/V Plan Sea was already there, we called ahead to determine if there was any room left for us. There was – and oh…by the way… “Be sure to attend happy hour on the beach at 4:30 PM”. Over the years, the visiting cruising boats have created a number of paths or trails from the western shore of Hog Cay to the eastern shore. Some follow the low lying ground, some follow the higher ground and all of them end up at some beautiful white sand beach protected by a coral reef. By straying off the beaten path, one can uncover stone walls, stone foundations and other ruins of a bygone era. We hiked every path we could find and some that others hadn’t even imagined. From every angle, the sights were breathtaking – we wanted to see more.

Since we had to make our way back toward Georgetown to pick up our alternator, after a couple of days we said our good-byes to friends , pulled anchor and headed a little further north to Raccoon Cay. We had hoped to take our time heading north instead of running – if one can call cruising at 6.5 knots ‘running’ north to Georgetown. Raccoon Cay is a little over 3 miles in length and is home to a maze of stone pasture walls and a few herds of goats – who are hunted by the folks out of Duncan Town. It was once worked for salt and the remains of an ‘old’ salt pond can be explored. We were once again rewarded with beautiful almost flat calm conditions for a couple of days. Jim & Loretta (S/V Plan Sea) accompanied us on an exploration of the cay – interior and from north to south along the shore line. After starting at the north end at 10 AM, we found a beautiful beach just on the inside of a cut filled with coral heads where we spent the afternoon snorkeling. Much to our surprise, when heading back to our anchorage we discovered that the wind had picked up out of the northwest – not a good direction for any of the cays in the area. But, the forecast had it clocking to the northeast relatively quickly and the predicted velocity wasn’t to exceed 10-12 knots. Boy, were they wrong. Since we were planning on departing in the morning anyway, we immediately started working to raise the dinghy. Shortly after that job was completed, the winds picked up more– eventually topping out at 20-25 knots. The wind, itself, wasn’t really a concern but the swells coming in from the Banks were 2-3 feet. We felt like we were on a bucking bronco – not only that…our stern was facing the shoreline. About an hour or so before dark we knew we had to make a decision – move to another anchorage or deal with it….ALL NIGHT LONG. So, we pulled anchor and headed to Buena Vista Cay. What a difference – like night and day! When we pulled into the anchorage – there was not only enough room for both Live Wire II and Plan Sea - the anchorage was well protected. We slept soundly all night – something we wouldn’t have been able to do at the anchorage off Raccoon Cay.

Mother Nature was very generous to us during our stay in The Jumentos – we had several weeks of almost perfect weather. Unfortunately, our lucky streak quickly came to end that night and for two more days we traveling in sloppy seas with 3-5 foot swells taking spray over the bow until we made it back to Thompson Bay off Salt Pond, Long Island.

Next stop…Georgetown International Airport – a date with the agent from Reggie’s Express and Bahamas Customs to pick up our inverter.

The Jumentos Part 2 – Dealing with the Inverter/Charger

2011-02-02T16:42:00.001-05:00

With the forecast of stronger northwesterly winds, we decided to seek protection in Southwest Bay at the south end of Ragged Island; a full day’s run from Flamingo Cay. The Jumentos Cays offer very limited protection from south to north winds – if a strong front comes through the area with its associated clocking winds there are places to ‘hide’ but the anchoring space is limited. Although the stronger winds weren’t expected for several days, we thought that we would get to the anchorage first and ‘pick’ our spot before anyone else got there. What a surprise to round the point and see eight other boats already there. Two years ago when we were this far south – we were one of no more than six boats in the entire region. This year, there must have been 30-40 boats down here! When the weather is good – these boats are generally all spread out but, when the forecast include westerly winds the protected anchorages fill up and can get crowded.

We’re finding that life without the inverter, although inconvenient, is possible…but, life without the battery charger is downright next to impossible. Our ‘original’ 30-amp battery charger just isn’t cutting it. It takes 3 times longer to charge the house batteries requiring us to run it longer than we would like and even then it never gets the batteries fully charged. If we lost only the inverter we could deal with it…but, we need to replace our charger. So we began researching what to replace it with, investigating if the installation of a new one would require a great deal of work, whether or not it would function with the other parts of the charging system we’re using, etc. All this required internet and email as well as cell phone access and Southwest Bay offered that – although internet was a 30-minute hike into town.

Internet has been available at Ragged Island, a settlement of less than 100 people, for a year or so. The Government Administration office, the school and the police station have set up unsecured networks and have made them available to the residents and cruisers. But, the signal is not strong – one can’t access it even with an amplifier and strong antennae. In fact, when we used it we had a very weak signal the entire time and we were, maybe, 200 feet away from the router. But, it’s available and functional – most of the time – and allowed us to come up with a plan in the beautiful, remote surroundings of the Jumentos without running back to Georgetown. After a few days of research and phone calls – we ordered a replacement from Defender in Waterford, CT. It will be shipped to Ft Lauderdale, FL where it will be put on a small plane operated by Reggie’s Express and flown to Georgetown, Great Exuma Island, Bahamas where we can pick it up at the Custom’s office. Now, we’ll wait and see if everything works as smooth as it should – after all ‘you’re in the Bahamas, mon’ and ‘don’t worry…maybe tomorrow’ is a common response.

So, after sitting at anchor in Southside Bay through the windy weather and until we solved our inverter/charger issue…we decide to relax and enjoy the beautiful Jumentos Cays and the warm, sunny weather. After all, most of the US is dealing with extreme weather, record amounts of snow, freezing rain, etc. We are fortunate to be here.

The Jumentos and the Ragged Islands - Part 1

2011-01-29T14:13:00.053-05:00

First stop…Water Cay. On our last trip to the Jumentos two years ago, we skipped Water Cay going both north & south. This time, we wanted to stop and linger awhile at several of the cays on our journey to Ragged Island. For most of our trip from Long Island to Water Cay the seas were lumpy - the swells coming from a different direction than the wind. This makes a lot of the cays in the Jumentos uncomfortable when anchoring since the boat will want to sit with the wind, but the swells come from an entirely different direction - causing an annoying rolling motion. We had hoped that the anchorage in Water Cay would deflect the swells and make for a comfortable stay. Apparently we weren't the only ones taking advantage of the nice weather window to head south. When we arrived two others were anchored - in the best spots - leaving us exposed to the swell and the associated roll. Corey rigged up a side bridle to pull our bow into the swells which smoothed things out considerably. We stayed a couple of days in Water Cay and explored the area with Jim & Loretta off S/V Plan Sea. We found a few paths to the ocean side of the cay - made a few of our own and attempted to find (possibly dive) the blue holes that have been discovered in the area. Although we did find one of the blue holes it was too deep to dive so we scouted around for shallow coral reefs to snorkel. These were in abundance! One day for land and sea exploration just wasn't enough - we'll be back.

Second stop…Flamingo Cay. Approximately 12 miles south of Water Cay is Flamingo Cay - another popular stop over. The most popular and protected spot along the leeward side is a little cove called Two Palms Beach- named because (surprise) there are two, very easy to spot from the water, palm trees just off the beach. This is also where the small commercial boats from Spanish Wells and Thompson Bay, Long Island stay when out fishing. While here, they clean their catch attracting sharks which really discourages swimming off the back end of the boat. But despite this, the cay is beautiful.

We hiked up to the solar powered (but not operational) Navigational Light on the tallest hill and were rewarded with a breathtaking view of the surrounding waters. Local knowledge said that there ruins of a home, a dry well and a small cemetery within walking distance of the anchorage; we found poisonwood trees but no ruins.

Just south of the anchorage we explored a cave that you could drive the dinghy into with 'windows' or openings in the roof and the sides. Most of these cays are limestone with cliffs along the water's edge; the erosion from the surf and the waves have, over the years, uncut the stone creating huge overhangs that makes you wonder why there aren't more cave ins and collapses. Another boater pointed us to a beautiful snorkeling spot at a small cut between the Banks and the Ocean.

This spot was actively policed by a pair of osprey who had built their nest and was raising their young atop a large boulder.

After a wonderful couple of days exploring, hiking, snorkeling and beach combing, S/V Plan Sea coordinated a beach bonfire for all of the folks in the anchorage to watch the sun set and the full moon rise. Unfortunately, when we returned back to M/V Live Wire II to start cooking dinner - we discovered that the inverter/charger had shorted out! No way to repair it underway - it can be sent somewhere to be repaired (not in the Bahamas) or it can be replaced (no spare inverter/charger on board). We can live without the use of home appliances (which run off the inverter) when we aren't running the generator but, the generator charges the batteries at 1/3 the rate that the inverter/charger did.

Can we deal with that until we get back to the States? Stay tuned.

Updated via SSB

Thompson Bay on Long Island, The Bahamas

2011-01-15T12:59:00.004-05:00

We took advantage of calmer conditions to head south from Cat Island to Long Island. The 25-30 mile stretch across the North Atlantic can be rather rough especially if the winds are up and there is a swell coming in from further east. Despite minimal wind, we did encounter 3-5 foot seas on the beam - rather choppy but not extremely uncomfortable with the stabilizers. The seas gradually abated as we got further south diminishing completely once we got into the lee of Long Island. We had considered anchoring at a couple of sites we've not been to before, but they were both far enough north

that they were exposed to the surge and swell coming in from Exuma Sound.

Long Island, itself, is 76 miles long and stretches from the Southern Exumas to the Crooked Island Passage. At its widest point it is approximately 4 miles wide. Along its eastern shore lies the Atlantic Ocean with beautiful beaches, some with pink sand, known for beach combing and shelling. On the western shore lie the shallow waters of the Great Bahama Bank. Long Island was the 3rd stop for Christopher Columbus (after San Salvador and Rum Cay) - in fact, his flagship, the Santa Maria, went aground on a reef off the northern tip of the island earning that area the name "Cape Santa Maria". There are approximately 40 communities along its length - more than any other island in the Bahamas chain - with over 3500 residents.
We finally decided to head into Thompson Bay on the shores of Salt Pond. (23 degrees 21.41N, 75 degrees 08.11W) This area provides a very secure anchorage with great protection from almost any direction. Since it's so early in the season we expected the anchorage to be almost empty…boy, were we surprised to see 15-20 boats in the bay when we arrived. Apparently we weren't the only ones attempting to take advantage of good travel days. The VHF was busy with calls back and forth between the vessels…Club Thompson Bay (a restaurant and bar) was offering a happy hour that evening, a group was meeting for lunch at a resort on Sunday and the boats in the anchorage were setting up a group buffet dinner on Monday.

Most services are available within walking or dinghy distance - groceries, fresh produce, internet, laundry, the beach, trash disposal, hardware, fuel, etc. A small resort opened several years ago near the government docks and has successfully attracted the boaters to their facility. Among other things, they offer Wifi (free) but unfortunately when we were there it wasn't stable enough to allow us to do anything 'fast' - we repeatedly had to log off and back into their network and redo whatever we were working on at the time. It took 3-4 attempts to schedule an electronic payment to our credit card. Needless to say…we didn't have the patience to add the 'where are we now' map or pictures to our blog even though we had several all picked out.

The livelihood of many local residents is dependent on fishing. When in port, they have moorings in or anchor at the southern end of Thompson Bay. None of these fishing boats are 'big' vessels - the largest is probably 40' feet or so. But, they go out for about a week- returning with their catch of lobster, conch or (this last time) cod. An announcement is made on the VHF that the fishing boats are in and fresh fish is available; the bars offer conch fritters with their happy hour drinks and the restaurants offer specials that include seafood. Attempts to catch a fish to supplement our provisions have been unsuccessful this entire trip although the one bite we did get swam off with our lure after putting up quite a fight. It's too calm or too rough - maybe it's the lure… then again maybe it's the fisher 'person'. So, we're actually paying for 'fish' and taking full advantage of the fresh conch available locally.

We're looking for a good long weather window to head further south into the Ragged Islands and the Jumentos Cays, a croissant shaped chain of small islands approximately 110 miles long - the southernmost cay is Little Ragged Island and is about 60 miles from Cuba. The only settlement in this chain is Duncan Town on Ragged Island just north of Little Ragged Island - with fewer than 100 residents. This next week looks good and, if our weather guru's forecast holds, there may not be a cold front (with its associated westerly winds) for at least a week.

Our next blog, hopefully, will be from someplace in the Jumentos and Ragged Islands.

Updated via SSB

Cat Island - One of the Bahama's Out Islands

2011-01-09T13:40:00.005-05:00

At one time, the Exumas Cays were considered remote - only a few dared venture into the area. Today, cruising the Exumas is no longer considered 'daring' -many cruisers make the Exumas their winter destination. Although the majority is sail boats there are an increasing number of power boats, primarily trawlers, and 100+ foot motor yachts that arrive in early winter and stay until spring. Many of the cays have businesses that cater to the boating community. And, an increasing number of American and Canadians have 2nd homes in the islands resulting in small communities of ex-pats. This makes staying in the Exumas quite comfortable - as long as you know the mail/freight boat's schedule and get to the market within a day or so, you can provision when necessary. Weather forecasts and local 'happenings' are broadcast daily on VHF and, if you are within range, you hear radio chatter all day long. Assistance is generally available within your anchorage or only a short distance away. Secluded anchorages are hard to find; your only hope is that a mega yacht with all of the water toys, such as higher speed tenders and jet skis, don't decide to spend the day in the spot you've selected.

When many others were taking advantage of good weather days to head to Georgetown, we decided to head almost due east to Cat Island - one of the larger Out Islands. Cruisers generally stop at Cat Island later in the season as they work their way north, so we were the only vessel anchored off New Bight at the foot of the Batelco tower and Como Hill, the heightest point in the Bahamas at 206'. Cat Island is approximately 45 miles long and averages 4 miles across. The western shore abuts up to Exuma Sound while the eastern shore, lined with coral reef, meets the North Atlantic Ocean. There are approximately 1600 full-time and a large number of part-time residents including 2nd home owners. Cat Island tourism seems to focus primarily on those interested in deep sea fishing, bone fishing or just relaxing in an area that could be described as "old Bahamas". Cat is (or was) one of the finest agricultural producers in the Bahamas and although we didn't see any large farms, we saw several great examples of small personal gardens along the back roads and in people's front yards growing cabbage, tomatoes, corn and okra. Mango and coconut palms were practically everywhere.

Cat is also the home of Mt. Alvernia, otherwise known as "The Hermitage" a miniature replica of a European Franciscan Monastery built by Father Jerome on top of Como Hill in the 1930's following his retirement. Early local custom on Cat Island required that the family home be abandoned and left for the 'spirits' when the last of a generation passed away - the surviving family members would collect stones from the original home and build a 'new' home frequently on the same piece of land. As we explored the area, it wasn't uncommon to see three or more homes on one lot with all but one in some stage of ruin.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant near the Police and Government Center right on the main road - a place that we visited several times three years ago when we visited Cat Island. The daily special was 'baked chicken' or 'steamed fish' - the same 'special' that was offered three years ago. Since we've never seen a menu - we're beginning to think that is the ONLY thing that the restaurant offers. Despite that…the food was good and the beer cold. The owner asked us to sign her guest book when she found out we were visitors to the island - the date prior to ours was May 2008. Has no one stopped for lunch since 2008?

During our stay, Cat Island was extremely quiet; we heard absolutely NO radio chatter, no police sirens, no horns honking, no trains, no planes, no NOISE! Our anchorage was also quite secluded - there were no other cruising vessels or even small boat traffic and no Rake n' Scrape music emanated from The Sailing Club, a local night spot, along the waters edge of New Bight. The water is crystal clear - you can see the sand ripples, starfish and other fish in depths of 20-25 feet. There is no city glow to interfere with star gazing and one wakens to the sounds of roosters crowing and dogs barking instead of the alarm clock. During the day, the sounds of children can be heard from the local primary school that is also situated along the water's edge. The down side of Cat Island and many of the other Out Islands is that it offers no anchorages protected from the westerly winds associated with cold fronts that frequent the Central Bahamas every 5 days or so. If the cold front is weak one can safely sit it out albeit uncomfortably. But, if the front is strong or accompanied by squalls it can be very uncomfortable and not very safe. The other disadvantage is no wifi or internet access which is why all of our blog updates, since arriving in the Bahamas, have been done via the single side band (SSB). Although we have photos, galore, we aren't able to add any of them to the blog via the SSB. But, we'll try to supplement some of our earlier blogs with photos when we next have a good, fast internet connection.

Next stop….Long Island.

Updated via SSB

New Years at Black Point, Exumas

2011-01-02T09:03:00.000-05:00

While sitting in Cambridge Cay, we began having problems with our water maker -water production was down by almost 50% and a hose blew out due to high pressure. Corey looked at a number of things, but couldn't determine the cause of the problem. Shortly after arriving in the Exumas, we heard a cruiser announce on the VHF that he was a 'roving technician' for one of the big water maker manufacturers and was available to help resolve any water maker issues someone may have. Fortunately, we remembered his name and were able to reach him on the VHF. After some discussion, he began pointing Corey in a number of directions to investigate; the most likely culprit was some kind of resistance - somewhere in the system. So, a slow process of elimination began. Various things were removed and tested - then replaced if they passed the test. After several days of testing, Corey thought he found the 'culprit' - a diverter valve in the electronic control box. This valve electronically diverts the RO water overboard if it is 'bad' and to the water tank if it's 'good'. After removing the unit from the system it appeared that the valve wasn't opening completely. We could operate the water maker without this diverter box by manually turning the valve to send the water overboard or to the tank or we could order the part (of course we didn't have a spare) and have it shipped to the Bahamas. Instead, Corey decided he would open the box to see what it looked like and….surprise, he was able to fix it! So, it was put back in service and works like a charm - no more high pressure problems. But, we still had somewhat reduced production - could there be two separate problems? Once again a search began. Corey found an intake hose that was partially crushed which might cause a reduction in the production so he replaced it and although production isn't as 'advertised' it is acceptable.

We learned that the 'roving technician' was headed to Black Point for a few days and because we wanted to have access, physical as well as by VHF, to his expertise we decided to head there ourselves. Black Point is very cruiser friendly and about as non-touristy as one can get around here. There are no resorts, hotels, rental cars or souvenir shops. It's 'old' Bahamas at its best. They do have a couple of restaurants - Lorraine's Café offers free wifi, burgers and beer and her 'mum' sells some of the best fresh baked bread in the islands. Unfortunately, most of the residents and their families go to Nassau for the holidays and the cay becomes a ghost town. But, there's plenty of hiking opportunities, beautiful beaches to wander and the café remains open for wifi.

We celebrated New Years Eve with two other boats - with dinner, champagne, sparkling wine a lot of good stories and laughs. Because most of us are up with first light and to sleep shortly after dark we decided to bring in the New Year using Greenwich Mean Time. So, when Great Britain celebrated the arrival of 2011 - so did we!

Another good weather window should be arriving in the next day or so…we're hoping to head 60 miles across Exuma Sound to Cat Island. Another out island that we last explored 3 years ago and are looking forward to revisiting.

So to all who read this - we wish you all a happy and prosperous 2011.

Updated via SSB

Christmas at Cambridge Cay

2010-12-30T08:18:00.001-05:00

After arriving in the Exumas we anchored behind a tiny cay to gain protection from potential northwest swells; protection from the wind wasn't possible since the cay is not much more than 10 feet above sea level. The sunset was breathtaking with various shades of pinks and oranges - but no green flash. We rocked gently all night and awoke to bright skies.

But in the early morning, the winds and swells started picking up making the anchorage increasingly uncomfortable. With a forecast of an approaching cold front accompanied by a day of strong southwest winds followed by several days of strong northwest winds, we decided to seek the protection of Cambridge Cay in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. The Exuma chain of cays offers hundreds of beautiful anchoring spots with great protection from the prevailing winds, but spots with SW and NW protection are scarce. Cambridge Cay is one area that offers adequate protection during the passage of a cold front. So, we pulled anchor and headed back out onto the Banks. The Banks had already gotten choppy; we took more sea spray over the bow during the 2 hour trip to Cambridge Cay than we did during our 13-hour cruise from Florida to Grand Bahama AND the 30 hour cruise from Grand Bahama to the Exumas.

Having arrived at Cambridge Cay a day or so before the arrival of the cold front, we had the opportunity to explore the area by dinghy. The temps were a little chilly for swimming or snorkeling. During our exploration we saw a beautiful 130 foot yacht anchored off Halls Pond Cay. It resembled a 1930's-1940's style steamship with double masts and lots of teak - a classy beautiful yacht. We learned from neighboring cruisers that the yacht and the island are owned by Johnny Depp. The colors of the water continues to amaze us - it transitions from white to light blue to aquamarine to turquoise to sapphire and then to indigo. Photos just don't do it justice.

Having purchased a Bahamas phone upon our arrival in Grand Bahama and finding that we were able to get a signal from our isolated anchorage off Pipe Cay (probably from the phone tower in Staniel Cay) we discovered that we weren't able to get a signal from Cambridge Cay unless 1) we climbed a large hill until we were able to see the Staniel Cay phone tower or 2) from the pilot house roof. But, although not extremely strong or stable we were able to call family on Christmas Day.

Christmas Day was the one calm day during our stay at Cambridge Cay. A pot luck Christmas dinner was served on the beach and attended by all of the cruisers in the anchorage. Everyone brought a dish and their favorite beverage. Since we had our holiday dinner on Christmas Eve we actually enjoyed two holiday dinners - the leftovers from Christmas Eve which we had planned on having on Christmas Day were kept for another day.

Our Christmas was quiet and peaceful - we hope that all of our family and friends also had a restful, relaxing and wonderful holiday!

Updated via SSB

The Exumas in Time for Christmas

2010-12-22T14:46:00.001-05:00

Although we thoroughly enjoyed the stay at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club at Port Lucaya, it was just too 'American' for our tastes. It's the home of many hotels, condos, townhomes, marinas and the Port Lucaya Marketplace - a bar, restaurant, shopping area primarily focused on tourists and cruise boat traffic. On our last day, one of the Security Guards from the Marina offered to drive us downtown (approx 10 miles from the Marina) to buy fresh conch and we got a chance to do a quick tour of downtown. We were told that following the 2004 Hurricane the Port Authority, who runs Freeport, closed the downtown hotels and casino. This has severely hurt the small businesses in the International Bazaar and the adjoining Straw Market. When we drove through it appeared that almost 50% of the store fronts were for sale or lease - the only buildings still open for business were the government services. But, Linda got a great price for her conch which should last until Corey can start diving for them!

We decided to take advantage of a mild weather window to head further south. A weak cold front was expected to go through the NW Bahamas (which includes Grand Bahama) on Thursday night followed by a much stronger front on Christmas Day. The winds were predicted to be less than 10 knots from the NW to NE direction which is great for traveling south across the NW Providence Channel dividing Grand Bahama toward New Providence Island. But, a huge weather system in the mid-Atlantic with 50 knot plus winds has been really kicking up the swells out of the NE which is not so comfortable in the NE Providence Channel just north of Nassau. Since there was to be very little wind the swell period was forecasted to be 10-12 seconds. This would make them just big rollers - not bad for traveling.

So we paid our bill Tuesday AM and departed for the beginning of a 30+ hour trip from Port Lucaya along the eastern shores of the Berry Islands to the western end of New Providence Island down the Tongue of the Ocean where we would take a left into the Decca Channel. This channel with prominent navigational markers stretch 36 nautical miles from the Tongue of the Ocean across the Exuma Banks to the closed and abandoned US Navy Decca Station on the west side of Pipe Cay. The channel is maintained and is a reliable route across the shallow banks day or night.

The trip was better than we had expected and although the NE swells were large they were widely spaced and it was like riding on a flying carpet. The only sense of motion was visual as you saw the bow rise and fall with the swells. With a full moon the entire night you could actually see land 4 miles away at 8 PM. The Tongue of the Ocean is up to 45,000 feet deep - at sunrise we pulled out the fishing rod hoping to catch a mahi, but it was just too calm to have any luck since the lure wasn't jumping around enough to attract a fish of any type. It's just amazing how crystal clear, blue and clean the water is around here. We had forgotten what it's like to see the sand ripples and sea grass at 40 feet!

This is what we missed most last year when we stayed in Florida for the winter. It's good to be back and just in time for Christmas, too!

(updated via SSB)

First Stop: Port Lucaya, Grand Bahama

2010-12-19T16:35:00.000-05:00

We arrived at Lake Worth on Thursday afternoon and anchored just inside the inlet. Before our planned departure, at around midnight that evening, we hoped to relax a bit, make sure the boat was readied for an offshore trip, have a nice dinner AND catch a nap for a couple of hours. We became a little concerned when the wind continued at 15 knots for most of the afternoon - not what was forecasted. The buoy reports from NOAA showed that the seas were still 3-4 feet although they had dropped significantly from the morning reports. Much to our relief, the winds settled down through the afternoon into the evening and by the time we were ready to leave, they were 5 knots or less - perfect!

We pulled anchor under a starlit night with a ¾ moon and headed out the inlet with 1-2 foot seas. The crossing was uneventful. Because Linda was developing a cold which was quickly catching up to her, Corey witnessed his first sunrise following an overnight passage. We entered Bell Channel at around 1:30 PM heading to Grand Bahama Yacht Club in flat calm conditions. Local boats were moored on the coral reef with snorkelers or divers in the water; a mega yacht was deploying its own private submarine; parasailing boats were dipping their passengers in the ocean surf; tourists were lounging on the beach - everyone, including us, was enjoying a 75 degree day with light southerly breezes.

It took the rest of Friday to clear Customs & Immigration. Thankfully, Linda didn't join Corey at the Customs office as there was a sign on the wall advising people that if they had a cough, sniffles, sneezes, etc. they had to go to the Dept of Health for an exam - could quarantine have been possible? The weather turned much cooler Friday evening yet we visited the pool bar for happy hour - 2 for 1 drinks and free appetizers. We were the only ones there. Lights out at 9:30 PM (7 PM for Linda) with no alarm clock for the morning!

Saturday we took the water taxi across the lagoon to Port Lucaya Marketplace - a tourist trap if we've ever seen one. It was not cruise ship day so things were really slow - many stores weren't even open. So after strolling the marketplace, the beach and the casino - we grabbed lunch and headed back to the Marina. Another hike on Sunday found us attempting to find the Winn Dixie grocery store (it's no longer there) and the Batelco (Bahamas telephone) office - also not where the local map said it was. But, despite a 3-4 mile hike we did find a large ripe coconut and was offered a ride into downtown tomorrow to buy fresh conch! Not a bad day's work.

Our reservation here is for a week, but it looks as if the seas and winds may allow us to leave a little earlier. Don't know exactly where we'll end up for Christmas - but, regardless of where it may be - there are a lot worse places to be!

Next stop - who knows

(updated via SSB)

Next Stop….The Islands of the Bahamas

2010-12-15T09:49:00.000-05:00

We arrived at Vero Beach on Sunday, November 28 with the humidity and heat. The cold weather clothing was put away and the down comforter was stored for the season. Finally, some warm weather! But, wait….hold on...within 48 hours the temps plummeted and stayed chilly – sometimes downright frigid. The local papers say that this will turn out to be the 2nd coldest December on record. Our friends have accused us of bringing this weather with us since last year the same thing happened within 48-hours of our arrival. Really…guys it ain’t us! So, the cold weather clothes came back out along with the mittens, hats and the down comforter.

After spending way too much to help support the local economy, we began looking for a good weather window to make our way across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. Unfortunately, a low pressure system sitting off northeast Canada wouldn’t budge creating strong and sustained northwest to north winds and the severe cold. We discovered that there hasn’t really been a good window since the middle of November. Cruisers, all up & down the southeast coast of Florida were waiting and waiting and waiting. Some decided that this winter was going to be like last winter and gave up trying to get across-changing their plans to head to the west instead of east.

Last week we thought that a window might become available this past weekend but the forecast was uncertain, started to deteriorate and close on both sides. As one friend so aptly put “don’t give me a weather window…I want a picture window”. So, disappointingly we made the decision to stay put and despite the fact that the boat can handle 4-6 foot confused seas we don’t have to. On the plus side, we did get the opportunity to spend time with friends sharing stories and laughs.

But, finally I think we’ve got our window. So, we fueled up yesterday and dropped off our mooring this morning heading south to Lake Worth (North Palm Beach). Assuming the weather holds, we’ll depart – along with a large number of other cruisers - for one destination or another in the Bahamas late Thursday night or really early Friday morning. It looks like another cold front is coming through the area Sunday/Monday timeframe so we’re planning on clearing in at Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama Island and spending a few days until we have the opportunity to travel further south into the Exumas.

We will continue updating this blog as we make our way through the Bahamas. Many updates will be via the SSB (single side band high frequency radio) and although this is a great way to add text to our blog it, unfortunately, will not support photos. We’ll add photos to the blogs as internet capabilities become available. So please check our site periodically to see what we’re up to.

Next Stop….The Islands of the Bahamas

Cumberland Island National Seashore

2010-11-26T12:49:00.000-05:00

The State of Georgia has not allocated the funds to maintain the ICW for years and as a result much of the waterway is seriously shoaled in. Considering that there is an 8 foot tidal range, transiting the ICW is doable, but many areas have to be done at a mid to high tide. This year high tide was in the early morning hours resulting in low tide at around lunchtime. This makes it very difficult to get a full day of travel in so, since the weather wasn’t allowing us do an offshore trip around Georgia, we decided to go with the flow and do several short days. Now…this is what cruising in a slow trawler is all about!

Cumberland Island is on the St. Mary’s River, the Georgia & Florida border, and directly across from Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. We always enjoy stopping here but haven’t had the opportunity to do so for the past several years. Either our schedule or the weather has prevented a stay, but this year the weather proved fantastic and well…our schedule – there wasn’t one.

We arrived at Cumberland Island on Monday, Nov 22, and anchored off the Sea Camp Docks (along with 15 other boats). Cumberland Island includes one of the largest undeveloped barrier islands in the world. The park is also home to one of the largest maritime forests remaining in the United States, one of the largest wilderness areas in a National Seashore on the east coast and a herd of feral, free-ranging horses. It 17.5 miles long and totals 36,415 acres of which almost half are marsh, mud flats and tidal creeks. It is well known for its sea turtles, wild turkeys, wild horses, armadillos, abundant shore birds, dune fields, maritime forests, salt marshes, and historic structures.

Cumberland Island was inhabited by Indians as far back as 4,000 years ago and more recently was the site of Spanish missions and British colonial forts. Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene purchased land on the island in 1783 and his widow, Catherine Greene, built a four-story home that she named Dungeness. In the 1880's Thomas Carnegie, brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, began building a mansion on the site of Dungeness, though he never lived to see its completion. Today, the ruins of the mansion remain on the southern end of the island.

The presence of horses on Cumberland Island can be traced back to the 1700s, although it's believed the animals likely occurred in the area even earlier, during the Spanish missionary period in the 1500s. While horses may have been on the island for centuries, the early ones were not feral. The Carnegies brought in mustangs from Arizona and released them in the 1920's, and they form the basis of the herd today.

St. Mary’s Inlet is used by Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. Tuesday morning we saw not one but two missile subs returning, under escort, to the Base.

Having t-shirts and shorts weather, for the first time in weeks, we decided to spend a couple of leisurely days here. So, we ventured ashore and explored the miles of dunes, beaches and hiking trails. Although it was a couple of days before Thanksgiving, the wild turkeys were out and about. Armadillos were abundant along the hiking trails looking for their next meal among the fallen leaves. And, practically everyplace we wandered we saw the wild horses.

One can easily envision what life might have been like at Dungeness, Carnegie’s mansion, despite the ruins seen there today.

Definitely a by-gone era.

Time Out in Beaufort, SC

2010-11-21T11:22:00.000-05:00

Beaufort (pronounced Bue –fert) rhymes with ‘beautiful’ as one local corrected us…is just that…beautiful. We spent a month at Port Royal Landing Marina during the summer of 2005 and thoroughly enjoyed the ‘low country’. Every year since, we return for several days to explore, provision, wander the historic downtown area and just relax. This year was no different except for a couple of major glitches which, as it turned out, were really relatively minor.

It seems that our trip south this year has been a shakedown cruise, of sorts. Having sat for, heaven forbid, almost 7 months at National Harbor, we didn’t use our anchor windlass or dinghy winch much and despite getting a l…o…n…g list of things accomplished both items started acting up within two weeks of departure! On the morning of the day we were to arrive at Beaufort, the windlass shut down while lifting the anchor. Fortunately we only had the last 25 feet to bring up and finishing this up by hand was not an issue. Interestingly, the windlass decided to start working 10-15 minutes later…had it overheated? Was it overworked? Figuring that it, maybe, had just overheated…we didn’t give it another thought - that is until we were dropping the hook in the anchorage field off Beaufort when it, once again, stopped working! Confident that it had not overheated and was not overworked, Corey dragged out his tool bag, put on his work jeans and dug into the windlass. The connections were good…the control box works…the solenoid works….ahh… s…t…it looks like the problem is with the motor. Next decision…repair or replace? Deciding to first explore the repair option we faced the challenge of locating a repair shop within reasonable walking distance. A cruiser we met at Port Royal in 2005, gave us a recommendation who, as it turned out, was the same shop we used in 2005 to repair our alternator. Corey hiked the 1 ½ mile trip to the repair shop with the 40# windlass motor in a backpack and the shop owner diagnosed the problem within an hour – bad brushes! So the brushes were ordered, two-day delivery was confirmed and SURPRISE…the windlass was repaired and reinstalled within 48-hours! All for less than $100 and it works better than it ever did since the shop owner determined that only 3 out of the 4 brushes were ever working on this motor – one had a burr or something that was preventing it from operating.

Now for problem #2. We use a winch to launch and retrieve our dinghy. When we launched the dinghy in order to go ashore in Beaufort, it operated v…e…r…y slowly and sounded like it was on its last legs. Since the dinghy serves as our ‘car’ when in port…it is critical that we be able to launch and retrieve it safely and quickly. Although possible, it would be difficult to launch or retrieve it by hand – it weighs close to 500#. So, the not so difficult decision was made to replace it. The original winch was made by Rule and is apparently no longer available. No alternatives were found in any of our marine catalogs. Fortunately we had great internet access and after a couple of hours researching alternatives on the web we found one and placed an order. As with the windlass, the ‘new’ winch was received and installed within 48-hours!

Thankfully, the Captain (Corey) has the knowledge and the skills to troubleshoot, diagnose and repair these kinds of things. Imagine what trouble we would be in if these systems failed out in the middle of ‘no where’!

15 Minutes Too Late and 4 Days Too Early

2010-11-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

Bridges are a way of life along the ICW – there are at least 59 opening bridges between Norfolk and the Florida Border. If running inside, the bridges dictate the day. Some open on the hour, some on the half hour, some on request – many have restricted openings during rush hour or at low tide. But, the opening bridges have slowly been replaced over the years by high-rise bridges with clearance of 65’ or more. In many cases, the high-rise bridge has been built right next to the opening bridge yet the opening bridge is still operating. We can get under bridges that have a clearance of 28’ feet or more but those with less clearance require us to arrive just shortly before the bridge opens (or wait / idle in front of the bridge until the opening) and request permission get through on the bridge tender’s opening (or request that the tender open the bridge).

The Sunset Pontoon Bridge at Mile Marker 337.9 between Southport, NC and Myrtle Beach, SC is the last remaining pontoon bridge, on the ICW. It has ZERO vertical clearance since the bridge, itself, is supported by pontoons – the pontoons are pulled to the side by underwater cables. Every boat requires an opening! And, at low tide, the bridge can’t open because there isn’t enough water to keep the pontoons afloat. But, despite the local interest in preserving this historical bridge it will soon be replaced by a high-rise bridge. The ‘new’ bridge was to be open for traffic on October 1 but the construction delays have occurred. When we arrived at the Sunset Pontoon Bridge we had missed the once an hour opening by 15 minutes (so we had to sit for 45 minutes until the next opening along with approx 12 other boats) and the official opening of the ‘new’ high-rise bridge was not for 4 days. A Captain of another vessel waiting for the opening couldn’t have said it better…”Well folks, it seems we’re 15 minutes too late and 4 days too early!”

We are still heading south – finding some warmer weather (but not yet t-shirts and shorts temps). Next stop is Beaufort, SC for a few days!

Where's the Warm Weather?

2010-11-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

Boy, were we wrong…we don’t seem to be finding warmer temps at all! In fact, the temps are only a few degrees higher than the temps at National Harbor. It’s still getting downright cold at night – the comforter keeps us cozy, but it’s been difficult to get going in the morning with temps in the stateroom in the 50’s or colder.

After departing Coinjock Marina – yes, Corey had to have his prime rib – we headed across Albemarle Sound which can be rough when the wind is out of the right direction. Our crossing was a little rough with 2 foot seas on the beam, but the stabilizers kept us comfortable. The NOAA forecast was for increasingly deteriorating conditions and because it was so chilly we decided to make a few long days. We were hoping to get through the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds before the winds really picked up which we, fortunately, were able to do.

But, cruising a few long days has had its downside. We finally caught up to the cruising boats – power and sail – half of which seem to be Canadian. All of the anchorages we’ve stopped at since Coinjock have been crowded. Yesterday afternoon we arrived at the Mile Hammock anchorage in Camp Lejeune, NC.

The ICW, through Camp Lejeune, will occasionally close for artillery, small-weapons and beach-landing exercises. There are scrap personnel carriers, tanks and jeeps abandoned along the shoreline many with obvious ‘hits’ from the various exercises. Mile Hammock, on Marine Corps property, is a small dredged basin. Cruising boats are allowed to anchor but ‘civilians’ are prohibited from going ashore. This anchorage is popular especially for those of us with slower cruising speeds. One really can’t get from Beaufort, NC to Wrightsville Beach, NC in one day when traveling at 6-8 knots.

When we arrived at 1:30 PM we were surprised to see that 10-12 boats had already settled in for the night. We found a spot – got a good set– and watched more and more boats arrive throughout the afternoon. By the time, the sun set and the stars came out there were 26 boats anchored – far more than this particular anchorage should hold. Fortunately the winds that were forecasted to be 20-25 knots didn’t happen (we never saw anything in excess of 12 knots) and everyone stayed put!

But, the temps this morning were in the mid-30’s , brrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Today, we’re heading to Wrightsville Beach or possibly Southport. Will we find warmer temps there?

On the Road Again

2010-11-04T09:03:00.006-04:00

Monday, November 1, found us up and moving about before daybreak. The 5:30 AM wakeup call was rude, needless to say, but it allowed us to get all last minute stowing of ‘stuff’ completed, top off the water tanks and get the holding tank pumped out before departing National Harbor Marina at first light for points south. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be traveling although a little on the chilly side. The Potomac was flat calm and the fall foliage glowed in the bright sunlight.

Our new ‘National Harbor’ burgee danced, lazily, in the breeze through the day, but we’ve discovered that it makes quite a racket in the middle of night when the winds are in excess of 6-7 knots. We hear it snap all night long – especially since our stateroom is in the bow. I imagine we’ll get used to it much like we’ll get used to all of the noises – creaks and groans - associated with anchoring out. But, remember we haven’t been ‘on the hook’ since mid April – not only do we need to get used the sounds of the boat, but we also need to get our sea legs back. Even the cats need to get used to being at sea again – sea sickness is not a malady unique to humans! Do they make Bonine for felines?

The tranquil seas of the Potomac on Monday became a little lumpy on Tuesday as we exited the River, entered the Chesapeake Bay and the winds picked up from the Northeast. It was gray and overcast for the two days that it took to get to Norfolk but as soon as we headed south and the seas were on the stern the ride smooth out considerably. Our new AIS is working like a charm – we found it especially helpful on the Elizabeth River with all of the tugs, ships, freighters, military ships, etc moving about.

The geese and snowbirds must have headed south, already, since we haven’t seen much of either since Monday. The only boats we’ve seen are those on ‘delivery’ to Florida – sport fish and expensive motor yachts. And, most of the customary anchorages for cruisers are virtually empty. They can’t all be ahead of us! With the cold and drizzly weather, we’re traveling longer days than first planned. After all, why get anchored early to ‘freeze’ when we can put some miles behind us and get to some warmer temps a little earlier than planned. In just three days of travel the low temps have moved from the mid-30’s to the mid-50’s. The mid-70’s can’t be too far off - maybe the comforter can soon be replaced with the quilt?

The Dog Days of Summer

2010-11-02T08:50:00.006-04:00

Like much of the country, the mid-Atlantic had a sizzling hot summer. It seemed as if we went immediately from needing to run the heat to having to run the AC. During the summer of 2010, the DC area experienced 61 days with temps above normal; 26 days in June, 24 in July and 11 in August.

Having always thought the “Dog Days” were those absolutely beautiful fall days with temps in the 70’s and no need for AC….I discovered that “Dog Days” are something entirely different. In actuality, “Dog Days” are the hottest, most sultry days of summer and, in the northern hemisphere, usually fall between early July and early September. In Ancient Rome, the “Dog Days” extended from July 24 through August 24 and were popularly believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics and frenzies."

Although the “Dog Days” kept many boaters at home, National Harbor Marina remained a destination for those willing to venture out despite the heat. We saw far more mega yachts than last year – maybe word is getting out? And, Saturday evening fireworks were quite the draw. Cirque de Soleil even came to town and we were able to get tickets – a fantastic performance! We ventured into DC as frequently as possible and continued our explorations – The National Arboretum, the Crime & Punishment Museum, the White House, the Museum of Art, the Air & Space Museum, the American Indian Museum, and the Waterfront.

But, Working in temps above 100 degrees is something one never really gets used to – the AC on Live Wire II was definitely a MUST HAVE especially for sleeping. Then…in the midst of an extended heat wave the lower unit (yes, the one in the Master Stateroom) decided it had lived out its useful life and died. After calling and waiting a week for a marine technician to troubleshoot the problem (we apparently weren’t the only ones with AC maladies) he reported that the unit was beyond repair and needed to be replaced. Two weeks later – after the “Dog Days” moved on – the AC was once again functional but not really necessary.

Surprisingly, when the “Dog Days” departed…fall (and the need for heat) arrived. I don’t think we saw but very few spring or fall days with moderate temps! And, once again the flocks of Canadian Geese and the snow birds are heading south toward warmer weather. Both groups are well ahead of us – some have even arrived at their destination. We need to get underway – I think I hear warm clear blue water calling!

Annapolis and the US Naval Academy

2010-06-24T09:09:00.016-04:00

Annapolis, with its historic charm and waterfront location, is a place that we both enjoy visiting when we get a chance. This year we chose to combine a visit to Annapolis with a tour of the US Naval Academy especially after hearing from others that the campus was worth a visit. Unfortunately, we timed our visit to occur between sessions - the seniors had already graduated, the midshipman in the upper classes were out on various ships for practical assignments and “Plebe Summer” (freshman orientation or, as it may better be described, indoctrination) had yet to begin.

But, first a little history: Founded in 1845, the Academy started out as the “Naval School” on 10 acres of land previously occupied by Fort Severn. It became known as the US Naval Academy in 1850. As the US Navy grew over the years, the Academy has also expanded. The original 10 acres has now expanded to 338 through reclamation and the student body has swelled from 55 midshipmen to a brigade of over 4,000. Impressive granite buildings have replaced the old wooden structures and, throughout the Yard, tree-shaded monuments, walk ways and buildings commemorate naval history and Academy graduates who have contributed to that history.

The Academy is also the final resting place of Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones. He’s recognized by his words: “I have not yet begun to fight” and is considered the father of the US Navy. John Paul Jones died and was originally buried in Paris, but over the years the exact location was forgotten. President Roosevelt initiated a research effort to locate his burial site and, when it was discovered and verified, he worked with the French government to transport his remains to the US to be reinterred at the Academy.

The midshipmen are required to study at the Academy for 4 years and to train aboard ships each summer. At the completion of the program, they earn a Bachelors of Science degree in one of a number of majors – ranging from Arabic and Chinese to Quantitative Economics to Naval Architecture. This education is estimated to cost approx $350K – taxpayer money. If the midshipman fails to graduate, for whatever reason, he/she must reimburse the costs of the program. In exchange for a USNA education, the student must commit to 5 years of active service and 6 years of Reserve duty. Upon graduation, the student can ‘select’ their assignment – approx 20% go into the Marines, approx 20% go on to become Navy pilots and approx 20% become submariners. But, of course the pick of the assignments go to the top ranked students – those who graduated in the lower quadrants of their class didn’t get the ‘choice’ assignments, they got what was left.
Academy students cannot marry until after graduation (the Academy Chapel will have weddings scheduled every few hours for days after graduation) and are not admitted or allowed to stay if they father or give birth to a child. Plebes aren’t allowed to drink (most are underage anyway), drive or wear civilian clothes during their first year at the Academy. Women were first accepted by the Academy as midshipmen in 1976 and now comprise about 20% of the entering Plebes (freshman). They pursue the same academic and professional training, including athletics and hand-to-hand combat training as their male classmates. The class of 2010 was the first class to allow a woman to sign up for Submarine Warfare – a female submariner (?) I guess it’s true…you’ve come a long way, baby!

Arlington National Cemetary

2010-06-04T10:27:00.020-04:00

A visit to our nation’s capital is not complete without a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. We completed a walking tour of the Cemetery which was officially designated a military cemetery in 1864. Veterans from all the nation's wars are buried here, from the American Revolution through Iraq and Afghanistan. Pre-Civil War dead were reinterred after 1900. Currently there are more than 300,000 people buried at Arlington Cemetery and the number grows daily – there are, on average, 28 funerals a day. The view is emotionally overwhelming with row upon row of identical white tombstones. There are monuments to honor just about any group (nurses, chaplains, the Rough Riders, Confederate Soldiers) or disaster (the Space Shuttle Challenger, USS Maine, Pan Am 103 flight that went down over Scotland) and every military action that the US has been involved in. The Tomb of the Unknowns, or commonly known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, is one of the more visited sites at Arlington National Cemetery. It stands atop a hill overlooking Washington DC – a breathtaking view through the Cemetery down Memorial Drive. Four unknown servicemen are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns; one from World War 1, one from WWII, one from the Korean War and one from the Vietnam War. The Vietnam Unknown has since been identified by DNA testing and reinterred at his home outside St Louis. It has been determined that the crypt at the Tomb of the Unknowns that contained the remains of the Vietnam Unknown will remain empty.

The Tomb of the Unknowns is guarded 24/7 by Tomb Guard Sentinels. The guard is changed every 30 minutes during the summer months in an elaborate ritual. These Sentinels are considered to be the best of the elite 3rd US Infantry (The Old Guard). To be accepted as a Sentinel, the soldier must be in superb physical condition, possess a spotless military record and be between 5’10” and 6’4” tall with a proportionate weight and build. During the trial period of their assignment, each must memorize 7 pages of Cemetery history which they must be able to recite, verbatim, in order to earn a ‘walk’ – the right to guard the Tomb but to actually earn the privilege of wearing the silver Tomb Guard ID Badge, they must pass a number of tests. Only 400 Tomb Guard Badges have been awarded since it was created in February 1958.

An impeccably uniformed relief commander appears on the plaza to announce the Changing of the Guard. The ‘relief’ Sentinel then arrives on the plaza and unlocks the bolt of his M-14 rifle which signals the start of the ceremony. The relief commander walks out to the Tomb and salutes, then faces the spectators and asks them to stand and stay silent during the ceremony. After a complete detailed white-glove inspection of the Sentinel’s weapon, the relief commander and the relieving Sentinel meet the retiring Sentinel at the center of the matted path in front of the Tomb. All three salute the Unknowns who have been symbolically given the Medal of Honor. The Tomb Guard marches 21 steps down a black mat in front of the Tomb, turns, faces east for 21 seconds, turns and faces north for 21 seconds then takes 21 steps down the mat and repeats the process. After the turn, the Sentinel executes a sharp "shoulder-arms" movement to place the weapon on the shoulder closest to the visitors to signify that the Sentinel stands between the Tomb and any possible threat. Twenty-one was chosen because it symbolizes the highest military honor that can be bestowed -- the 21-gun salute.

Probably the next most visited site within Arlington Cemetery is President John Kennedy’s gravesite which is marked with an eternal flame similar to the French Unknown Soldier memorial in Paris. The initial plot was 20’ by 30’ and surrounded by a white picket fence. Because of the large crowds, cemetery officials and the Kennedy family decided that a more suitable site should be constructed. The redesigned site now is paved with stones of Cape Cod granite quarried around 1817 near the site of the president’s home and selected by his family. The Eternal Flame burns from the center of a 5’ circular flat granite stone at the head of the grave. The entire site, 3.2 acres of steep hillside, has never been considered suitable for graves and will remain in its natural state. The grave site now includes two of Kennedy’s children, who predeceased him, and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis who died in 1994. Robert Kennedy is buried a little further down the hillside.

DC Cherry Blossom Festival

2010-04-25T12:13:00.008-04:00

We arrived at National Harbor Marina on April 6 a few days before the conclusion of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Much to our disappointment, we learned that the ‘peak’ bloom was about a week earlier but we thought there might be enough blossoms remaining to make it worthwhile to venture into DC before Corey started working. So, we caught the bus then the Metro and after a 45 minute trip we were hiking (along with hundreds of others) toward the Tidal Basin to spend the day among the cherry trees. Unfortunately, most of the trees had lost their blossoms, but we were able to get a hint of how really spectacular these trees could be if caught at their peak.

First a quick history lesson: The idea of planting cherry trees, in DC, along the reclaimed Potomac waterfront was first proposed by Eliza Scidmore in 1885 after returning to Washington from her first visit to Japan. Her request fell on deaf ears then and every year for the next 24-years. Finally, in 1909 Mrs. Scidmore decided to try to raise the money required to purchase the cherry trees and then donate them to the city. She sent a note outlining her plan to the new first lady, Helen Taft. Mrs. Taft had lived in Japan and was familiar with the beauty of the flowering cherry trees. Shortly later, the Japanese ambassador offered a gift of several thousand trees to Mrs. Taft. But in early 1910, to everyone's dismay, an inspection team from the Department of Agriculture discovered that the trees were infested with insects and nematodes, and were diseased. To protect American growers, the trees were destroyed. A second gift was made in 1912 to the People of the US from the People of Japan – these are the trees around the Tidal Basin today.

Interestingly, the cherry tree grove along the Arakawa River near Tokyo, containing the parent stock for Washington’s first trees, had fallen into decline during WW II and in 1952 Japan requested help to restore the grove. The US National Park Service shipped bud wood from the descendants of those same trees back to Tokyo in an effort to restore the original site.

In 1954, the Japanese Ambassador to the US presented a 300-year old Japanese Stone Lantern to the City of Washington to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first Treaty of Peace between the US and Japan signed in 1854. The National Cherry Blossom Festival officially is opened, annually, by the lighting of the Lantern.

Even though the trees were past their peak, there was quite a crowd at the Tidal Basis. The sun was out with temps in the 80’s – an absolutely gorgeous day! Dozens of paddleboats were in use on the Basin. Tulips were in full bloom and other flowering fruit trees were abundant with blooms. People were lounging on the grass just watching the world go by. “Junior Ambassadors” – kids from the local elementary schools, who had been learning about this in their classroom, were out in mass attempting to help educate the tourists on the history of the cherry trees.

We had a thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable day…but, the project and to-do lists are beckoning! The objective is to get through the “high” priority tasks before be head south in the fall - that means we’ve have GOT TO GET BUSY!

The Potomac River

2010-04-24T11:57:00.015-04:00

Cruising the 100 miles of the Potomac River from the mouth at the Chesapeake Bay to Washington, DC at our cruising speed of 6.5 knots takes a couple of days. The river is very wide almost to DC and the channel meanders from one shore to the other as you head upstream. While the channel is deep enough for tugs, barges and very large ships and motor yachts, the shoreline can be very shallow – one must watch the navigational aids and make sure that you don’t get to far into the shallows due to inattention. There are many beautiful tributaries off the lower Potomac – St. Mary’s, Smith Creek and St. Clement’s – all with anchorages that we’ve discovered and explored - places that we thoroughly enjoy returning to again and again.

The lower Potomac’s shoreline is broad and flat. Horse and small farms dominate the countryside; small crab boats ply the waters. As you head upstream, the shoreline increasingly becomes lined with cliffs and beautiful homes that must have breathtaking views.

Fort Washington, managed by the National Park Service, is visible on the Maryland shore. The original fort was too weak to withstand the British fleet that sailed up the river to Alexandria in 1814 and was subsequently rebuilt. Finished in 1824 it never was challenged again – not even in the Civil War. It was abandoned in 1874. Rounding the curve at Fort Washington by boat provides the first glimpse of Washington, DC – The Capital and the Washington Monument.
Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate, can be seen on the Virginia shore high on a cliff overlooking the Potomac. The expansive porch on the ‘front’ (i.e. shoreline) of the house gives one a glimpse at what life during Washington’s time must have been.

Despite the shoreline beauty, tranquility and history, the Potomac River, especially, the upper Potomac is – well…to be perfectly honest – filthy! Tranquil anchorages are few and far between unless you’ve got a VERY shallow draft vessel. Last year we tried anchoring in one creek that was highly recommended in the cruising guides – as much as we tried…we couldn’t get a set – the bottom was like soupy mud.

Learning from our experience last year, we decided not to try to navigate the Potomac at night. There are shoals, rock piles and trash of all shapes and sizes. This river is second only to the Susquehanna in the amount of fresh water that it sends to the Chesapeake Bay. In early spring AND following a full moon (with a higher than normal high tide) the amount of debris that heads down river is amazing! Truthfully, it’s frightening to see the huge logs, partial trees and broken off pilings floating down the river. Some of the branches are so water logged that they no longer float and hearing the thumps and bangs as you cruse along is scary. We can only wonder why there aren’t more tragic accidents on this river. There are so many power and bass boats speeding along at 25 knots or greater – so fast that the operator has barely enough time to see this floating debris; even less time to take defensive measures.

Offshore Beaufort, SC to Norfolk, VA

2010-04-05T14:38:00.010-04:00

We left Beaufort on an outgoing tide benefiting from a push down river that increased our speed a couple of knots. Shortly after leaving Port Royal Sound we encountered choppy seas, not quite the 1 foot long period swells that were forecasted, but also not extremely uncomfortable even though they were right on the bow. One thing we’ve learned while cruising is to deal with the seas more like the sail boaters do – tack one direction or the other in order to put the swells on one side of the bow or the other. This reduces the tendency for the bow to slam into the waves and smoothes out the ride.

There was a full moon several days prior to our departure, so we had bright moonlight for two nights at sea. The moon came up a couple of hours after sunset and set a couple of hours after sunrise. Having the benefit of some light during the night time hours makes running the boat much easier than when it’s pitch black. You can generally see the size and direction of the waves coming at you and being able to see the horizon helps you keep your bearings. Despite this, the night time watches seem long. Corey takes the watch from 8 PM to midnight – since Linda is generally out cold by 9 PM. During this 4 hour stint, Linda tries to nap enough to be functional at midnight when she relieves Corey until 2 AM when he takes over until 4 AM. This time between midnight and 4 AM is generally the toughest. The VHF is quiet even the normal USCG chatter ceases. The pilot house has to be kept dark in order to preserve your night vision so reading is out of the question. The radio, though, is cranked up and tuned to something other than soft rock and the windows remain open to let the cold night time air in. At 4 AM, Linda takes over – she’s the morning person – and with a fresh pot of coffee at hand, she has the privilege of watching the sun rise. The dolphins become active in the early morning hours and will generally play in the bow wake for a few minutes until “breakfast” calls them somewhere else. Several times we managed to pick up hitchhikers - how a barn swallow ended up 20+ miles offshore we'll never know. But, hopefully the little guy made it back safe and sound.

The weather was gorgeous while we made this three day trip – sunny skies, temps in the mid-60’s with calm winds and seas….that is until Friday evening. We were about 8 miles offshore from Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks of North Carolina when a fog bank rolled in and enveloped us. The fog remained until we entered the Elizabeth River heading from Hampton, VA to Norfolk, VA at 10 AM the following morning. The mouth of the Chesapeake is one of the busiest inlets in the country with commercial freighters, tankers, container ships and naval war ships coming and going at all hours of the day and night. Listening to their security calls and trying to interpret their movements without being able to see them is challenging at best. But, thanks to our New England and Long Island Sound boating experience we can understand what we’re seeing on radar and react accordingly. The only thing that would’ve helped more would’ve been AIS – oh, well …maybe next year.

But, we completed our 471 mile trip in 72 hours and after spending a day in Norfolk and getting a sound night’s sleep we are on our way up the Chesapeake Bay to National Harbor Marina where we’ll spend the summer.

Electronics Run on Smoke

2010-03-31T10:42:00.003-04:00

After a very comfortable night at anchor, we arose to 15+ knot winds and clear skies. Because of several badly shoaled and shallow spots along the Georgia ICW, we planned to have a leisurely morning and a nice breakfast then leave around noon to take advantage of the higher tides. The wind generator had been spinning all night adding a trickle charge to our batteries, but we still needed to run the main generator to top off the holding plate freezer and run the microwave / convection oven. Shortly after starting the generator, a pot of coffee and a serving of bacon, we heard a “snap, crackle & pop”. Since Rice Crispies weren’t on the menu, we quickly investigated the source of the noise.

The search led us to the desktop computer in the pilot house that runs our primary navigation software. The CPU is stored under the dash and when Corey opened the electric panel he witnessed sparks and smoke emanating from the back of the CPU. As everyone knows, electronics run on smoke - if you let the smoke out they no longer work! This apparently is exactly what happened – we let the smoke out. Now to figure out if and how to put the smoke back in! The CPU was autopsied and Corey determined that the power supply was pretty well burnt up. But, can it be fixed? A few phones calls with “experts” said that it may just be the power supply, but we could also have damaged the mother board. So, we ordered a new power supply for delivery at our next destination – Port Royal Landing Marina.

But, what caused it? That, my friends, is still up in the air. Some say that these computer power supplies can self destruct for no apparent reason and others think we may have had some type of voltage issue with the main generator. Several lengthy phone consultations with the expert from the boat yard have led us to look at several possible causes including non linear load issues with the generator and, more recently, possible issues with the inverter. With or without the proper testing meters, we may never determine exactly what happened. Replacing the generator is NOT an option!

Fortunately, we aren’t crippled and are able to continue our trek north with only a few modifications in our daily routine. We designed redundancy when we had the charging systems upgraded several years ago and we anticipated the need for a backup navigation system if our primary one failed. Our navigation software, Nobeltec, is loaded on our laptop PC and it was an easy switch from one computer to the other. The new power supply was received yesterday and installed – guess what…..IT WORKS – the smoke is now back in the computer. Do we have a computer geek on board or what?

We’ve been watching the weather for the past week and it looks as if we have a 3-4 day window with calm winds and seas for as far north as the Chesapeake Bay. So, we’ll be leaving in the next couple of hours heading out Port Royal Sound into the Atlantic. Next port of call – Norfolk, VA. This will be a trip of a little over 3 days - our longest offshore cruise yet. There’s plenty of bail out opportunities on our route north so if NOAA or Buoyweather is wrong we can head inshore.

Departing for Points North

2010-03-28T10:15:00.006-04:00

Vero Beach Municipal Marina, as always, is a very comfortable and convenient place to stay. With free bus transportation and a community that offers just about anything anyone could need, it’s easy to get comfortable and stay for a while. We scheduled our arrival to coincide with Corey’s annual trip to Connecticut to obtain required continuing education credits for his Electrician’s license. But while here, we also decided to continue our efforts to support the local economy. Lenscrafters lightened our pocketbook a bit for 3 new pairs of glasses and Wal-Mart/Sams Club lightened it a bit more as did Publix and CVS.

The main engine alternator failed while we were cruising the West Coast and needed to be repaired. Unfortunately this wasn’t the first time that we have had to have alternators repaired, but fortunately there’s a very good place in Vero to get them fixed.

The weather remained on the chilly side for most of our stay, but finally turned to “shorts” weather – at least during the day. The cold fronts and storm systems that have plagued the eastern seaboard sent a few good storms through Vero every few days. One storm in particular was quite impressive with dark ominous clouds, torrential rains and strong winds with 50 mph gusts. Sitting on a mooring in such conditions can be a little disconcerting – you don’t know how well maintained the mooring is or how much load it can really handle. But, Vero Municipal Marina’s moorings are quite sturdy – in fact they can hold up to 3 boats of our size through the worst of conditions. Rather reassuring to say the least.

But, it’s time to head north – we need to be back at National Harbor around the middle of April. After keeping an eye on the weather for a week or so while Corey was in Connecticut, it looked as if a good weather window to cruise offshore was going to open up a few days after his return. The window did open up but was forecasted for only about 48 hours. So, we decided to head out less than 24 hours after his return and go as far as the weather would allow. We had hoped to get as far as Charleston, but a storm system off the mid-Atlantic wasn’t going to allow that. Despite the fact that we were only able to get as far as Brunswick, our 33 hour trip was very pleasant with 2-3 foot seas dropping after about 8 hours to 1 foot or less. With an almost full moon and clear skies, the overnight passage was rather bright. And with dolphins playing in our wake through the night and no boat traffic to contend with it was one of our better cruises. We fortunately arrived at the Brunswick inlet just as rougher sea conditions were developing and dropped our anchor as the winds were picking up. Our 48-hour window had shut!

Abandoned Boats Along the ICW

2010-03-12T13:15:00.010-05:00

All along the waterway we see abandoned boats of all shapes and sizes. We wonder what caused these boats to be abandoned and why no one has done anything to remove their remains. Obviously, hurricanes and severe storms cause many to break their mooring, drag anchor or break their lines at the dock and the storm surge pushes them into the mangroves. When the water recedes the boat stays. Other times it appears that neglect, alone, resulted in the boat taking on water and sinking at anchor.

Why doesn’t the owner do anything? Many of these boats don’t have insurance and when an ‘accident’ occurs the owner is unable to pay for the repairs let alone get the vessel off the bottom. Since the cost of repairs is frequently more than the value of the boat, the owner abandons the boat. Even disposing of a boat that is considered a “total loss” is expensive. The responsibility to remove these derelicts is assumed by the State. If they can identify the owner through a registration number or USCG documentation number, they will go after the owner for payment of the salvage costs but many times the owner can’t be identified because the boat isn’t registered.

Our first trip down the ICW, in 2004, was on the heels of several severe hurricanes. Not only did we see homes that still needed to be repaired (blue tarps were the roof color of choice) but we saw many boats aground, sunk or sinking. Each year we see some boats that have been aground since our first trip south but, as a general rule, the States are removing these derelicts as quickly as they can with limited funds. When we were heading across Florida to cross Lake Okeechobee we saw a derelict sailboat along the shore line of the Caloosahatchee River. It was listing to port, the companionway hatch and portholes were missing, the paint peeling – all in all in a pretty dismal state. As we passed it, we saw that the boat was named “Alexandria Rose” out of New Orleans, Louisiana. The name rang a bell – Linda knew we had seen this boat on our first trip across Lake Okeechobee. Sure enough….we found a picture of S/V Alexandria Rose taken in February 2005. Look closely….you can see what time and pillaging can do!

Florida Manatees – Did you know?

2010-03-04T09:03:00.005-05:00

Manatees have inhabited the shallow bays and rivers of Florida for 15 million years. These aquatic mammals are sometimes called “sea cows” and have been mistaken for mermaids by sailors who have (obviously) been out to sea far too long. Adults average 10 feet in length and weigh in at approximately 1200 pounds – they can grow to 13 feet and 3000 pounds. They have a life span, in the wild, of around 40 years. Manatees are very slow moving and spend the majority of their waking hours feeding and resting. They are herbivores and, those in captivity, prefer romaine lettuce but in the wild they must consume aquatic plants.

In prior years, we’ve seen far more manatees than this year. The extremely cold water temperatures are to blame. Manatees seek out warm water – colder water can be fatal. This year, we’ve heard that the power plants are the ‘vacation’ homes of preference for the manatees due to the warm water discharges. Some power plants have 200 or more manatees hanging out taking advantage of the spa type conditions. Unfortunately, some aren’t quite so lucky – we’ve also heard that many have not been able to survive the cold snap especially the young ones. Manatees also much prefer ‘fresh’ water for drinking and are attracted to marinas where people are using fresh water to wash their boats and rinse off the docks. They will float for hours on their backs under the drains with their mouths open catching the fresh water.

Studies have shown that there are only about 3300 animals left and therefore they are considered endangered and are protected. Their survival is threatened by the loss of warm-water habitat and collisions with watercraft.

‘Manatee Zones’ are just about everywhere – especially around Marinas and high priced homes. Some signs are straight forward – Idle Speed Only. Others are far more complicated specifying idle speed at certain times of the year or even certain times of the day or idle speed outside the main channel (no speed limit within the channel) or idle speed within xxx feet of the shoreline or one side of the channel or the other. Apparently, the manatees can read and understand these signs – because the majority of the boaters can’t. How else would they know that, to be safe, they must stay out of the channel during specific times of the year or risk a potentially fatal collision with a boat? Or are these “manatee zones” just a politically correct way to enforce a “no wake zone”?

Rule #1 - Listen to the Weather Forecasts

2010-03-01T12:04:00.013-05:00

The guide books say that there’s an inside passage from the northern end of the 10,000 Islands area to Marco then on to Naples. This would allow us to explore the northern end of the Everglades National Park then continue our return trip north eliminating the need to go back south then west past the Cape Romano shoals before we could head back north. It looked interesting plus we would be less controlled by the forecasted sea conditions. Sounds like a good idea, right? NOT! After calling the local TowBoat operator we learned that there were a few areas that had become so shoaled in as to make it not navigable for a boat with our draft. So, back to watching weather and sea conditions.

We determined that we had a couple of days of relatively calm seas before another cold front was due to come in so, we decided to forego our exploration and head back offshore to an anchorage off Little Marco Island which would, we felt, give us adequate protection from the forecasted stronger winds. The seas were 3-4 feet when we first started out, but settled down to 2 feet or less by the time of our arrival at Capris Pass. As we got closer and closer to the inlet it began to look as if the city was slowly becoming engulfed by a haze. By the time we arrived, it had completely disappeared. Do we anchor out and wait for the fog to lift or do we rely on the radar and chart plotter and head on in? Small powerboats were exiting the inlet by the dozens and after hearing one person on the VHF say to his buddy “I’m going 15 knots and can’t even see you” we felt that we would be safer being a moving target rather than a sitting duck. So, we relied on the radar and our Long Island Sound boating experience to get us safely into the inlet which, by the way had no fog whatsoever.

Little Marco Island is one of many barrier islands along the western coast of Florida. It is accessible only by boat. The northern end is private – with a few vacation homes built along the beach. The southern end is part of Rookery Bay a state wildlife refuge. We got over to the beach and explored a little – it was absolutely empty the only signs of life were footprints in the sand. It was overcast and windy...even the ibis were having a ‘bad hair day’. Our original plan was to stay at Little Marco Island through Thursday then head north via the inside passage to Naples on Friday and then head north offshore on Saturday. But, once again the weather and TowBoat dampened our plans.

The low pressure systems and trailing cold fronts have been moving across the Gulf of Mexico with regularity all winter. These systems bring strong winds, building seas and rain – not to mention cold temps that are breaking records all over the state…but, that’s another blog! We routinely monitor several weather forecasting tools – NOAA, Intellicast and Buoyweather. Generally, they are all in sync with only minor differences, except for this past weekend. On Wednesday, NOAA was forecasting relatively benign conditions through the weekend with offshore seas of around 2 feet, but Buoyweather was forecasting a very strong cold front coming into the area on Saturday afternoon with possible gale force winds and building seas that wouldn’t subside for several days. If we listened to NOAA and left, as originally planned, we might find ourselves out in deteriorating conditions – been there done that! But, if Buoyweather was right…we had 4 hours or less to complete an 8 hour trip before the conditions went bad. Thinking that it was better to err on the side of caution, we decided to head back to the Fort Myers area a day early – which we did. If you’re wondering who was right….I would say NOAA was probably more accurate (this time).

Although we dodged any issues with the cold front this past week, there is another one approaching on Tuesday that everyone seems to agree will be STRONG. And, again we decided to err on the side of caution and head across Lake Okeechobee a day before the front in light chop rather than waiting for it to settle down later this week. This puts us a week or so ahead of our schedule, but also allows us time to stop and explore Stuart before returning to Vero to get ready to head north toward the end of March. So, we left Fort Myers Saturday AM - ahead of the cold front which was forecasted to arrive late afternoon. We were able to get a slip (one of eight) at the US Army Corp of Engineers RV/Marine Campground at the Franklin Lock on the Okeechobee Waterway. We stayed here on our first trip across and really enjoyed it. The slips seemed bigger though this time - have they expanded? The RV park was full with campers and mobile homes of all shapes and sizes. I guess RV'ing is not much different than cruising after all!

So, for those who might be wondering, yes our ‘Return Trip North’ has begun! Hopefully, seasonal temps will return before we get out of Florida – the average high temp for this time of year is 77 degrees with an average low of 56 degrees. We’ve been lucky to see the average lows as the daily high for months. Needless to say… we’re hoping not to have to experience what it’s like operating a boat in snow fall conditions while heading back to the DC area.

The Ten Thousand Islands - Everglades City

2010-02-23T12:17:00.021-05:00

Claiborne Young’s ‘Cruising Guide to Western Florida’ states that “At the turn of the century…the Ten Thousand Islands, a bewildering maze of mangroves, gave cover to fugitives, derelicts and a few harmless hermits. The seven unwritten laws of that wild country were: 1) suspect every man 2) ask no questions 3) settle your own quarrels 4) never steal from an islander 5) stick by him, even if you do not know him 6) shoot quickly, when your secret is in danger and 7) cover your kill.”

In 1922, Everglades City was ‘shoved’ into the 20th Century when Barron Collier moved to town from New York City. Collier had made his fortune manufacturing New York trolley cars and, in an attempt to live a quieter life, moved to Everglades City and purchased nearly a million acres of land. Collier started what subsequently became a huge and very successful logging business when the Tamiami Trail was opened between Miami and Everglade City in 1928. The City benefited further when the entrance to the Barron (Potato) River was dredged, enabling local fishermen to deliver their catch and sport hunting and fishing to flourish.

The Ten Thousand Islands are located within the confines of The Everglades National Park. I can’t vouch that this area actually has 10,000 islands…but, we were able to circumnavigate many of them and go ashore on several despite the fact that they are protected by shoals and very skinny water. Navigational aides are present only in the main channel leading to Everglades City, so we’re especially glad to have the chart plotter when running the ‘big’ boat and are both able to read the shallows when running the dinghy.

It’s difficult to imagine this area when it was the home of ‘fugitives, derelicts and hermit’ – now it’s a major National Park where fishing is the preferred pastime for tourists and locals, alike. Tourism is slowly developing; the Park offers tour boat rides throughout the islands; small fishing boats, kayaks and pontoons are available for rent, and 6-person air boats offered by several businesses buzz the shallow bays and shoreline. But, there’s still a group of locals who depend on the sea for their livelihood - small crab boats head out to the Gulf before day break to check their pots and don’t return until late afternoon. Remember, shallow water and crab pots extend well past the 12 mile US territorial limit.

After leaving the Little Shark River area we headed to the Ten Thousand Lakes area and picked an anchorage off Jack Daniels Key. This spot gave us dinghy access to the southern islands and beaches. No sooner had we dropped the hook – we were buzzed by several small fishing boats who, I guess, were curious about this ‘big’ boat that had ventured into the shallow regions of the island. But, as soon as the sun began to set the fishermen returned home and the anchorage quieted down. Since the Park does not use insecticides to control the mosquitoes and other bugs, it’s safest to stay indoors after dusk unless there’s a fairly brisk wind or lots of bug spray! But, despite the bugs, there’s an ethereal quality to the area when you listen to the night noises and the surf on the beach.

Surprisingly, there seems to be far more and a larger variety of birds in this area than further south. Osprey, hawks, white & brown pelicans, ibis, oyster catchers, vultures and brown boobies aren’t difficult to spot. But, the 4-footed critters are few and far between – we only spotted one raccoon fishing along the shore line.
After a couple of days exploring the southern islands, we decided to move a little further north and anchor in Russell Pass. This would give us dinghy access to another part of the Park and a little more all round protection from the wind. A secondary benefit was a very weak and unstable internet signal from Everglades City. Not strong enough to upload pictures or surf the web, but enough to get weather and email. Much to our surprise, MV Coral Bay, a beautiful 48’ Krogen who we met in the Little Shark River, motored pass us to anchor – you can run, but, I guess, you really can’t hide!

The Everglades National Park

2010-02-17T14:23:00.010-05:00

Very few people take advantage of the opportunity to visit the Everglades National Park in a cruising boat. Instead they head out of Naples or Marco or Ft Myers on a rhumb line to Key West or Marathon never taking the time to stop. There are no services for boaters – no marinas – no restaurants – no cell phone service – no wifi – no bars – no traffic of any kind. There are also no city lights to interfere with a beautiful starlit night and no traffic noises to dampen the sounds of birds, owls and the whisper of the wind in the trees.

It is just for this reason that we decided to take advantage of calm seas and head offshore to the Little Shark River portion of The Everglades National Park. After spending one evening, at anchor, in Capris Pass near Marco Island, we made the 30+ mile trip southeast. The seas were better than forecasted and the sun was shining – a gorgeous day!

But, we managed to pick up a few ‘hitchhikers’ along the way. Were they lost? Were they tired of the flying against the wind? Were they auditioning as figureheads? Were they advance scouts for their flock looking for new fishing grounds? Whatever prompted them to catch a ride – they rode along for a couple of hours.

The shoreline of the Little Shark & Big Shark Rivers hint at what the area could’ve been like thousands of years ago. It is lined with mangroves 15 feet high; their roots grow from high up on the branches pulled to earth in the search for mud and water – no wonder they’re used for erosion control. Inside the mangrove barrier, pine trees, cypress and a few hardwoods grow up to 60 feet tall. These provide ideal protection from the offshore winds.

Historically, the area had little to offer. The town of Flamingo on the tip of Cape Sable at the south end of the Park was once one of the wildest frontier towns in Florida. The early settlers, when required to name their town by the US Post Office, opted for “Flamingo” in honor of the flocks of the spectacular tropical birds that were commonly seen instead of, what some suggested, “End of the World” that more accurately reflected their society made of people who were running from something – the law, civilization or whatever. In the late 1800’s, Flamingo’s claim to fame was the wholesale slaughter of large numbers of exotic birds in order to meet the huge demand for plumage and feathers by ‘society’ ladies in the name of fashion. Egret feathers were selling for $32 an ounce – more than the price of gold. Local hunters could make a fortune! Many of the Everglades birds were pushed to the edge of extinction in only a few short years. In 1901 the State of Florida outlawed the killing of birds for their plumage and after a battle between the local game wardens and local poachers, not to mention fashion changes, the killing ceased. The demise of the tiny community of Flamingo began in 1922 when a road was constructed from Miami to Flamingo…finally people had a way to get out.

Although the birds haven’t returned in any where the same numbers as two hundred years ago…flocks of ibis, great blue herons and little blue herons call the Everglades home. Dolphin and manatees also call the rivers and streams of this area home, as do sea turtles and, of course, alligators. But, every paradise must have a flaw and the Everglades’ flaw is the no-seeums and mosquitoes. As soon as the afternoon sun starts to set or if there is little to no breeze the air becomes alive with the little critters. Our first night at our anchorage we went out to observe the shooting stars in the night sky and before we knew it, we began feeling them alighting on our skin, scalp – any exposed area. A quick dash inside saved us from donating too much blood, but didn’t eliminate their mad dash toward our salon lights! Thank goodness, we have no-see um screens for all of our portholes AND it’s not excessively warm!

Is this place worth the trip? For those who want the solitude, peace and quiet of an anchorage frequented by only a few….we would enthusiastically say “yes” but it’s definitely not the place for those who desire the hustle, bustle and glitz of the city lights.

Exploring San Carlos Bay, FL

2010-02-07T11:17:00.016-05:00

We finished the Okeechobee Waterway leg of this journey by picking up a mooring at Ft. Myers City Yacht Basin. They only have one or two moorings that can handle a boat of our weight – fortunately one was available and at approx $10 (with our BoatUS discount) and a complimentary pump out – it was well worth it. Although the Yacht Basin offers quite a bit of services for a cruising boat and it would have been interesting to explore city of Ft Myers, we decided that we would stay only one night and continue our trek west and eventually south.

The Caloosahatchee River ends at San Carlos Bay/Pine Island Sound and the beginning of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW). In 2005 we followed the GIWW north to Tampa Bay and eventually Bradenton. This time we’re planning to head south, but first we decided to sit out some rainy and unsettled weather before continuing. A favorite anchorage, from our prior trip, is at the southern end of Pine Island Sound off the eastern shore of Sanibel Island. With dinghy and kayak access to the inner waters of the J.N. ‘Ding’ Darling National Wildlife Refuge it’s fun to explore. The only drawback was that a shoal has and continues to develop just offshore making access to the enclosed Bay challenging. As we entered the cove, we noticed a sail boat that apparently dragged anchor ending up on the shoal. At low tide it was aground, but a high tide it was floating. It’s amazing the variety of water birds, the number of dolphins and the quantity of stars that can be seen so close to “civilization”.

We wanted to visit Ft Myers Beach after hearing that they are quite ‘cruiser friendly’. Like Vero Beach they offer a state approved mooring field that, essentially, eliminates anchoring. So, with a cold front moving through the area and the associated strong NW and N winds, we decided to head into Ft Myers Beach and pick up a mooring. Unfortunately, we were told that none of the moorings (or maybe none of the available ones) could handle a vessel of our weight so we decided to get a slip for a couple of days. Ft Myers Beach is very much a tourist town with bars (lots of them), t-shirt & souvenir shops, condos, B&B’s, hotels, apartments, rental cottages and RV parks. Traffic on the main drag that heads north and south along the beach is bumper to bumper – all day!

A‘trolley’ is available for $.50 a trip which extended our exploration ability and got us to the local West Marine and a grocery store. The front came through with 35 knot winds (in Estero Bay) and lots of rain, but the rain didn’t start until evening allowing us ample time to walk the beach and explore the town.

Planning around the weather systems can be challenging at time. A couple of days ago it looked as if once the front passed we would have several days of VERY calm seas and we began thinking of heading straight to the Dry Tortugas – a 19 hours trip from Ft Myers Beach. But, as the days passed this possibility became less and less attractive. Oh, well…back to Plan A. So, we began to plan our next route down to Little Shark River in the Everglades National Park. The forecast showed 5-7 foot seas on Sunday (today). We decided to leave the Marina – find a sheltered anchorage and depart tomorrow when the forecast was for 2 foot seas. But, as we headed out of the protection of Ft Myers Beach the sea conditions looked far better than forecasted so we decided to continue south. Right now as I write this…we’re getting 2 foot swells (too bad they aren’t rollers) but nothing the stabilizers can’t handle. Heck...even our ‘cruising’ kitties are napping. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the "weather Gods" don't make us regret our decision.

Cruising the Okeechobee Waterway

2010-02-03T16:00:00.021-05:00

Finally, we were able to drop the mooring lines and head south out of Vero Beach. Destination the West Coast of Florida …hopefully, the 10,000 Islands area in the Everglades. But, first we must make our way across the state. We spent a drizzly day traveling south to Peck Lake where we spent the night and a 2nd drizzly day heading west past Stuart to Indiantown Marina, a small but very busy marina and boat yard. Many cruisers, especially Canadians, keep their boats here through the summer while they return home. In the fall they return, work on their boats, launch them and go cruising. It’s inland enough to be relatively safe from hurricanes. But, when the sun sets and the wind calms down – you have to watch out for the bugs…they’ll eat you alive! We spent an enjoyable evening visiting with Scott & Patsy off of SV Rum Tot who we met through Rich & Gretti, MV Uschi and Tom & Gayle, MV Sanibel in Vero Beach.

Departing the Marina at first light in mostly cloudy and periodically rainy conditions, we started our 35-mile trek across Lake Okeechobee. Fortunately, the winds were light and kept the chop on the Lake to a minimum. Lake Okeechobee’s water level is higher than anywhere on the Atlantic or Gulf Coast. Heading east or west, one must ascend through a series of locks to Lake Okeechobee the first one, St Lucie Lock, raised us 13 feet and then descend down after you leave. In total, we had to deal with 5 locks. Although we didn’t see any, we’ve been told that it’s not unusual to lock through with a manatee or even an alligator.

Opened in 1937, the Okeechobee Waterway is an efficient route from the east coast to the west coast of Florida. It’s a faster, shorter route than the long trek south to Miami and around the Florida Keys. In addition to being shorter, the Okeechobee Waterway offers one a chance to see rural Florida at its best. Many areas look as if they haven’t moved much out of the 1960’s. Along the way we cruised past many small towns, fishing camps, RV/mobile home parks, horse farms and cattle ranches. The US Army Corp of Engineers has undertaken an initiative to eradicate the non-native Casuarinas tree. This has significantly changing the profile of the shoreline. But, water and wading birds abound including Great Blue Herons, White Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Tri-color Herons and White Pelicans.

The depth of the Okeechobee can vary widely as a result of rainfall. Due to drought conditions, the Lake water level fell to a record of low of 3.36 feet in 2007. As a result, the Lake was virtually closed to navigation and the locks were restricted to opening twice per day. Fortunately, the drought conditions no longer exist and the Lake is, once again, navigable. In fact, we never say anything less than 8 feet the whole way across the Lake. The canals and rivers on either side of the lake generally had depths of 12 feet or greater.

We last cruised the Okeechobee Waterway in early 2005. Our recollection of the area didn’t quite jive with we saw this time. The canals leading to the Lake seemed a lot more narrow back then, the depths far more shallow and the countryside far more undeveloped. Has our experience made the cruise less intimidating? Probably….But, the suburban sprawl is definitely spreading into Central Florida!

Vero Beach

2010-02-01T08:09:00.008-05:00

Vero Beach is getting far too comfortable – we need to be on our way…soon!

When we arrived the daytime temps were in the upper 70’s. The shorts & t-shirts found their way into our wardrobe, again, and the comforter found its way back into storage. The outdoor maintenance projects – waxing, cleaning, polishing – were on the top of the “to do” list. Then….a cold snap! The longest and coldest one on 20+ years. Out came the comforter and the sweatshirts, jeans and fleece. As the cold snap continued, the water temps plummeted killing fish in the Indian River and along the ocean. People said that sea turtles and juvenile manatees, both dead, were washing up ashore on the beaches. Dead fish came in with the tide and went out with the tide for days – many of them got caught in the mangroves staying putting. At first, the pelicans were enjoying a feast without having to dive headfirst into the water – all they had to do was land and gulp. But, after a few days even the pelicans didn’t want to have anything to do with the fish. The smell along the waterfront was horrendous – decaying fish. Ugh!

If you’re wondering why we stayed so long in Vero (we often asked ourselves that) it was because Linda had an opportunity to pick up a short term consulting project. It was to begin on Dec 15 and be finished by Jan 8. As it turned out, the project didn’t get started until Jan 8 – required a one week trip to Wisconsin – and was scheduled to be finished by Jan 22. Wisconsin - in January….that meant buying a winter coat. It’s not easy finding a winter coat in Florida this time of year, but she finally found one and ‘enjoyed’ 15-25 degree temps and a 6-8 inch snowfall (on top of the already present 12 inches from the last snowfall) for a week. The project was short term but very intensive requiring 10-12 hours a day / 7 days a week sitting behind the computer. It’s finished but for getting paid.

As we sat on our mooring, we watched cruising boats come & go. Some would stay a night or two then be on their way; others would arrive and stay – probably for the rest of the season. Wandering Star and Maerin (both 43’ Selenes and sisterships to ours) arrived within a day or so of each other. Jo & Ade on Wandering Star, stayed one night, departing early the following day enroute to Key West. They waved ‘hello & goodbye’ at Maerin and Live Wire II (rafted together) as they motored by. Steve & Barb on Maerin are waiting on their autopilot to be repaired & returned – Otto is an invaluable member of their crew and can’t be left behind. They also have two dogs that were very interested in our cats – once they discovered that cats were on board – it took awhile! We also discovered that Bob & Jan on SV English Rose had arrived and were sitting on a mooring at the far north end of the mooring field. We first met Bob & Jan in the Abacos several years ago at Jib Room’s Steak Night and have crossed paths with them several times over the years. It was good to have the time and opportunity to visit with everyone.

Upon the completion of Linda’s project we decided to rent a car for a weekend and do some sightseeing. We drove north to Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge (outside Titusville) and meandered our way through the refuge with the ‘new’ camera. We stayed for a month in Titusville in January 2005 and visited the Refuge several times. Despite the fact that the guidebooks said they were rare seen in this part of the state, we once again spotted Roseate Spoonbills. The weekend ended with a trip south to West Palm Beach/North Palm Beach to see how the Rich & Famous live – it also gave us a chance to pick up filters and chemicals for the water maker. It’s interesting to see the Waterway from the highway and back roads – we recognized spots where we’ve anchored – does that mean we’ve made this trip a few too many times?

Corey dove the bottom of the boat to see what vegetation had taken up residence on the hull and props (not as much as we thought) and to check the zincs. The laundry is done, the water tanks full and the provisioning complete. It’s time to be on our way!