Adventure of a Lifetime

Two weeks ago today, we left our dock in Annapolis as snowbirds. It seems like ages ago. And, our marriage survived another test - cooped up in a boat for 14 days and still getting along! Last evening, as we left our marina to go to dinner, we saw this guy on a dock line. Why not?  We knew today was our longest travel day of the entire trip, so we were up bright and early and caught the 6:30 a.m. bridge opening at the Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine and headed to sea.  The forecast called for 2-3 foot waves on our beam, but that was wrong. It was more like 5 foot seas on our front quarter. So it was rougher than what we were prepared for, but at least it was only for about 11 hours. We were treated to a spectacular sunrise, as usual on the ocean. We passed the first few hours watching the Ravens vs. Bengals game from last night at the helm. When you're in the open ocean, and there is nobody around, it's okay to just look up every few minutes. Check the surroundings, look at th

We just arrived in St. Augustine.  Yesterday, we traveled from an anchorage halfway between Hilton Head and Fernandina Beach. I would have blogged, but we were distraught about nation happenings, and I was not in the mood to blog. We sailed through Georgia on the intercostal, something I never thought I would do, and while it was not as easy as ocean sailing, it was at times peaceful and serene. Some of the bridges are really cool. Ann saw a bald eagle on our way, perhaps a sign that America will survive, as it always has. Or maybe it was just a bird on a red day marker. The marina at Fernandina Beach was as easy as they come in terms of docking. Just pulled right up to the floating dock. We had great views of the ICW in both directions. We walked into town on Amelia Island to a recommended restaurant and had great tapas. As if we needed a reminder of the hazards of the ICW, there are many derelict, abandoned and beached boats along the way. Perhaps this boat anchored at high tide with

Before we left Annapolis, I adamantly stated to Ann that I will not take the ICW in South Carolina or Georgia. I heard and read too many horror stories about the shallow trouble spots there, and while the ocean can be uncomfortable, it is so much easier than dealing with other boats, shallow areas, logs, barges, bridges, wakes, etc.  So, today we cruised in the ICW in South Carolina and Georgia.  And it was spectacular.  What changed? The ocean is rough and will be bad all week, and we are not prepared to delay our arrival in Stuart by a week. Also, Ann and I spent significant time studying the tide charts and the route, and we determined that with proper planning, this was doable and safe. Not only that, this particular stretch of ICW was special. We saw dolphins all day, and the landscape (waterscape?) was stunning.  We had an exact departure time to time the tides, and it was raining when we pulled off the dock. The upside of the weather was that a dolphin photobombed my rainbow pic

Our first day off on this trip was in Charleston, and we began our day, of course, at the pickleball courts near our marina. The folks there were unbelievably friendly, and we had some very nice games. Ann about to hit a winner! The convenient store outside the marina had a cleat for tying up your dog while you shop. The seas were rough out, and so despite my reluctance to run in the intercostal waterway (ICW), we studied the tide tables and woke up extremely early yesterday (assisted by the extra hour from falling back), and we were off the dock in the dark at 5:40 a.m. There was this amazing 180 foot sailboat in our marina with cool lights on the mast, and I got this photo just as we were about to pull out. It was very windy, and there was a strong current, as we pulled out, with one boat 8 feet in front of us, and another about 5 feet behind. Needless to say, it was scary, and we were both relieved that nothing was hit and nobody was hurt (my standard for success in boating) as we h

I didn't blog yesterday because I was too exhausted, and really nothing too interesting happened, which is great on a boat trip like this. We had an "interesting" experience getting out of Georgetown that I'll get to in a minute. Southport marina as we get ready to leave yesterday At Southport we took the nearby inlet to the ocean for our second ocean leg of about 7 hours. The waves were at our port side bow, not on our beam as had been forecast. We both felt a bit nauseous most of the way, but that ended for me as soon as we were secure. We anchored near a busy channel leading into the ocean. We haven't often used our zero speed stabilizer, but I ran it yesterday, and it did a great job of countering the non-stop wakes as boats went by. As we prepared for bed, there was less traffic, and so I turned off the stabilizer, and we had a quiet night without the generator or air conditioning running. This morning, we saw that the forecast was for slightly worse waves th