4/10/11 Kevin's 5-6 day on Packet Inn

Thursday night we anchored off Buck Island north of Albermarle sound a little ways. We dragged anchor and had to put out the big anchor eventually and then settled down to a nice evening, including a nice look over by a V22 Osprey.

Friday we started up and headed on into Coinjock, which is supposed to be an Indian name for the mulberry bush it turns out. Stopped at the marina there and fueled up and had a nice lunch, then got under way again headed north up the Virginia cut.

There were some interesting zigs and zags around various places and under some bridges and some of the area was very pretty. But some of those zigs and zags had Tom working pretty hard to stay in the channel. I took all the straight parts. :-)  As the afternoon wore on, we were working to make several different bridge openings and did what we wanted to which was to get as far as Great Bridge. We passed through the bridge at it's last opening of the day and tied up at a free dock between the bridge and the lock.

At the swing bridge before that, we were passing by a naval air station off to one side of the canal, and were treated to the sight of a jet coming in and then coming to a hover, and descending behind the trees. It was apparently shooting landings or doing some sort of test because it kept coming back every 10 minutes or so, sometimes hovering again and going out of sight, and sometimes speeding back up and zooming away like some sort of missed approach. I think it might have been the new F35, but it looked to me a lot like an F18. I did see on some of the pictures a panel behind the cockpit opened up for the air intake.

After tying up at Great Bridge, we hiked a little south to a nice Italian restaurant and had a good dinner and a glass of wine. Deb woke the place up when she rang my phone to ask about the APRS tracking . I had set my phone with the loudest ring I could so I could hear it on the boat over the engine, or when I had it on the charger and not in my pocket. Every head in the place turned when it went off! I turned it to vibrate only after that (and missed a call from Connie today when it was on the charger because I didn't hear it. I can't win).

As we tied up at Great Bridge, everything finally snapped into focus.

I had thought this was the route Lee and Kevin and I had trekked going south, but it didn't look all that familiar. But the bridge was unique and I immediately recognized it, and then the town around it. This was the same place we stopped for lunch one day going down, except we tied up at the yacht basin below and got fuel and walked out a block below where we were tied up last night.

It got pretty cool overnight, and we slept in a bit to charge our batteries since Saturday was going to be a slow day with an early morning. Today all we really did was walk further into town to get a decent breakfast, buy some supplies at the local stores and then head north for Norfolk about 10 miles away. We had to pass another couple of timed bridges, but did those in good order and made our way to Tidewater Marina where we're tied up till midnight.

Tom got some maps and more local knowledge and checked the weather and tide tables. They gave him a heavy roll of paper maps some other boater abandoned at the shop (100 foot boat, gone electronic charts).

We haven't opened them up to see what goodies are contained, but Tom gave me the overview of our path for the next day or so in more detail so I have a clue.

The weather is supposed to clear and the tides will be going out starting around midnight. We need to leave then to have a favorable current with them. It will take us about 4 hours to get out on the Atlantic and turn north for Cape May. Then we will have about 30 hours of travel to our next planned anchorage. The winds are supposed to swing around to the south and southwest and push us along with 10-20kt winds and waves up to 3 feet or so. We'll see. It's pretty chilly now, and will be worse at midnight. Coveralls again.

We went out for a walk to a recommended pizza joint and got good pizza and bad mexican music rather  too loud. We did see the lightship Portsmouth as we walked back and also a paddle wheeler that does tours around the harbor. It was obviously a fake paddle wheel though, just spinning for show.

Tom's had on some good music to clear his musical palate after the restaurant music, and I'm web surfing while we have the net and getting ready to go shower and shave. Then we're going to nap for 4 hours and get up and leave on the tide as they say.

If we're not too far off shore, I hope to have some sort of internet for the next 30 hours, but it may be spotty. If that doesn't work out, the next report will be from Cape May sometime mid day Monday if all goes as planned. Haven't downloaded any pics yet from the days so I won't send them till later.

If you are interested in tracking our progress, I'm running an Automatic Position Reporting System program on my droidx. It's based on my radio callsign, wb2ems-8. If you just google that or google map that it should take you to this page http://aprs.fi/?call=a%2FWB2EMS-8 which should show our recent progress and current location. I'm asking it to drop a breadcrumb on the map every 10 minutes, but depending on cell coverage at that moment, it may or may not make it into the system. I've done this with ham radio gear in the past, this time I'm trying it with the cell system. We'll see how it compares.

Till later

Kevin

4/9/2011 Kevin Feeney crews on Packet Inn

Day 1 and 2 were pretty uneventful. After arriving at New Bern on Sunday, I took a taxi out to Oriental and met Tom at the Marina where he'd taken a slip for a couple of days.  We weren't at the town docks (towndock.net), so we couldn't be seen on the webcam, but just a bit to the left of them (east side of the inlet) at the Marina. Tom had a nice table at the Toucan grill waiting for me when I arrived and I got a great burger there, which was needed after a half a day of air travel and no airline food.

Tom  had lost his head stay the previous week and had to make repairs by replacing the furler. Unfortunately the new furler didn't fit his main head sail, the big Genoa. He called ahead and made arrangements to drop it off Sunday in Oriental and it was done mid day Monday. We got it mounted, but then had to wait out Tuesday because of a big front coming through and the storms associated with it. By Monday night it was blowing over 25 mph, and that continued well into Tuesday with rain and some thunderstorm activity.

Monday was spent with a walk up to the Marine consignment store, where you can buy all kinds of cool used boating goodies, and then over to West Marine, for new marine goodies. At the consignment shop, we found a very lightweight (12 lb) outboard motor for Tom's dinghy that was purported to have some issues that are likely easily solved. Tom also found a nice orange mustang survival suit - a well thought out pair of warm coveralls with flotation gear built in. He had been wanting some warmer clothes all trip, and these were a screaming deal and in good shape. I found a safety harness with lanyard to wear under a life vest.

We went up to West Marine and I checked out inflatable life vests with harnesses, but decided to go with the passive vest and harness till I see a better deal. We did stop by the grocery store between the two and load up two backpacks of food to take back to the boat. I think I got all the cans in my backpack. :-)

In the morning, we had started the day at The Bean, the gathering spot for townspeople and boaters. It's directly across the street from the town dock and marina and a natural spot for everyone with any nautical interest to gather. Tom was in and out making phone calls about the sail and others stuff, and at one point most of the seats were taken and a nice gentleman named Bert who turned out to be a really interesting character. He was a veteran, and involved with the honor flight group and doing some political organizing around getting a message to Washington that folks have had about enough.

  His idea is that folks should take an empty plastic milk or water jug and write a message on it and mail it to themselves via general delivery in Washington DC, with a return address of back home. That way it's your property and they can't just toss it easy. He's talked to the post office about it, and even did a test mailing of 3000 jugs, on his nickle!  He was very interesting to talk to and we spent about

3 hours with him. I think he said he was 81 years old, and was clearly known by everyone in town and everyone was coming up and saying hi. A few other folks came and sat with us because of him and we got to meet several more folks that way and have a nice chat. It was *very* welcoming and pleasant.

I awoke Tuesday to Tom racing onto the boat in the storm, grabbing his foulies, and saying there's a woman in trouble at the next marina.

Took me a minute to find some clothes and get running so I got there a bit after the most of the excitement but Victoria on Malia was in a berth and with the water having done down in the storm (the wind blows the water out the mouth of the sound and it drops nearly a foot) he boat had settled and slid under the dock and was being beaten against the underside of it by the wave action in the storm. Tom had already horsed the boat clear before I found them, but I got to help a bit with getting the ropes rearranged so that the boat was more securely held in place and couldn't get in trouble again. Victoria invited us in out of the rain for coffee and turned out to be a fascinating person. Professor, sailor, writer, etc who has sailed to and lived in Hawaii, sailed to New Zealand, and up and down the east coast and Caribbean, We enjoyed talking to her for about an hour. Her boat was a Cape Dory 36 and very nice inside and fixed up very practically. She had a nice little black and white cat who was very friendly and took to Tom right away sitting in his lap while we both petted her.

After  leaving Victoria, we headed back to the boat to do mundane things to get ready for the next days leaving, like laundry. I spent some more time at The Bean, drinking coffee, resisting the ice cream, web surfing, and people watching .

That evening, we decided to wander around and find a different restaurant to eat dinner at, but ended up at M&M's where we'd had lunch. We did invite Victoria to eat with us and had a nice time talking to her about sailing and the pacific, writing and how to market it (she's got several books written but not published yet)  and then she and Tom finished up with a discussion on refrigeration with Tom recommending a water cooled system as being more reliable than the two air cooled systems she's been through in the last 6 years.  We had a great meal and talked till the place closed.

Wednesday we got up and set sail out of Oriental east into Palmlico sound. We had to go pretty far east, then bend around north and west to stay in deep enough water. It's amazing how large many of the bodies of water are, but without enough depth to let a 4 foot draft boat pass. We probably added 3-4 miles to our route to stay in 10 foot water. Weather was good, fairly sunny but a little chill at 40 and windy. Later on in the day it got somewhat better, but then chilled down again as we approached sunset.

I brought along my Icom 703 (Ham Radio) and some antenna bits and a battery and set them up on the stern rail and tuned around. All the bands including ten meters were open and ten was hot! I worked a station in Oklahoma that was jealous of our boating, then a station in Munich, and one in Costa Rica. Later in the day I worked another in Texas, and he asked me to reduce power to 5 watts (from 10). I did and he still had us at s6, so I reduced it to 1 watt and were were still s3. In the evening I used the whole coil on the buddistick and 75 meters tuned in fine and I heard K1KBW, and W2DTC 40 over and fell asleep listening to them.

As sunset approached, we had left the sound and were north bound in the alligator river. It's a pretty desolate area, sort of like parts of the erie canal, but with less population around. Most of it looks like no one has been there in a long time, because the area on either side of the canal is mostly swamp land. Every once in a while you see a nice big dock and a house or compound with lots of lawn and open space, but I bet we saw only a half dozen the whole length of the place.

In the sound, the red and green buoys were red on right, green on left. Someplace up the river, they apparently switched, but with no notice and we couldn't figure out why. All we saw was after no buoys for several miles, the next green one we saw was waaaay over on the right. There was just enough room on the right for a couple of boats to pass, but it looked really funky. It didn't show on the chartplotter which has all our navigation information.  It wasn't clear if the markers had flipped sides, or if we were supposed to squeeze through on the right side near the bank. The Erie canal has a couple of places where you do squeeze through like that, so we could go either way. I was driving and slowed way down and pointed right at the buoy so we could go either way, and Tom went forward to read the water. He decided at the last moment to point me to the right, so that's the way I went. We immediately ran aground! Fortunately it was fairly soft mud, and we were going slow, so we were able to back off and go around on the left side of the buoy without incident. Not even a whole day and I'd already run us aground once, albeit at Tom's direction.

We tried to anchor just as the sun went down at a spot the guidebook recommended by a bridge, but it turned into a minor disaster. First we nosed into the canal they recommended, but it was too tight and too shallow. As we backed out and drifted a bit downstream, the prop started hitting something and thumping terribly. I tried to put it in neutral right away, but for whatever reason,  that didn't seem to work. I ended up shutting off the engine after a moment, leaving us dead in the water and drifting near the shore. Tom took over and got us free, but now it was rapidly starting to get darker and we still needed to anchor. We tried several more places, both sides of the river. We got a tree stuck on the anchor on one trial that took both of us to get up and free, and kept running into soft bottom on other attempts. We finally gave up and decided to continue motoring down the river in the dark, following the chart plotter, until something better presented itself. We ended up motoring on for two more hours all down the length of the river until we came to the opening into the Albermarle sound and found anchoring there in a recommended location.

Tom was steering the boat, glued to the chart plotter display following the purple line, while I sat in the bow with a powerful flashlight, looking for snags and trying to keep my night vision well enough to see where we were in the canal. Fortunately it was a beautiful night, a setting crescent moon, and lots of stars and once my night vision got adjusted and we turned some lights off ,I was able to keep track of our position in case the chart plotter didn't run us exactly where needed. It was tiring, but we made it. We anchored behind a channel marker as suggested, and saw a white LED light that looked to be an obstruction marker of some kind. In the morning, we couldn't see anything around that would be holding up a light like that. We now think it was another boat anchored in the same area and was it's anchor light.  We went to bed around 11 pm and were both asleep shortly.

Today we got up at a bit before 8 and got underway. We had some fun in the early part of the day when we were under the flight path of a variety of jet fighters going east to play tag with each other. They kept circling around and making passes over and near us as we transited the area. I'm sure they have fun doing that. One made an afterburner pass almost directly overhead and then pulled up and did a loop as he got out over the edge of the sound, and his buddy followed suit minus the AB on the next pass. Fun! Made me wistful though, wishing I could be up there. But being down here was good too.

We went up one part of the sound to the alligator river bridge, a turning bridge and passed through there just a bit after noon.

Unfortunately, north of that, the chart plotter led us astray and aground. The preferred channel shown on the plot that Tom was following didn't correspond very well with our current reality and we drove into a sandbar at 6 kts and got well and truly hung up. You know you are in trouble when you can feel the boat going up and down over a couple of humps. before it slides to a stop. We tried rocking and moving weight and putting up sails but to no avail. Fortunately there was cell service on Tom's phone and he called Tow Boat. They were two hours away and had just gotten back to the barn after pulling another sailboat boat out of the same area an hour before. Several other boats called on the radio to check on us and comiiserated about their groundings nearby recently as well. Apparently this area is subject to a lot of shifting shoals, and in fact a jet drive USGS survey boat was mapping the shoal and channel to the west of us, talking to us on the radio and making mutliple passes back and forth and turning around as they hit the mud (said they could 4 wheel drive with the best of them with the tunnel drive). It was interesting to watch while waiting for tow boat. Also much activity in the air with various helicopters flying about.

They came out and gave us a slow and careful tow. Instead of having two big outboards on the back as the one on our lake does, they had a small boat that I think had a jet drive. They spoke of washing away the sand and mud and as they took us under tow, it was clear that there was a lot of stuff being blown up in the water as the gently blasted a path for us and led us to deeper water. It only took about a half hour for them to free us. All in all we lost about 2.5 hours to the grounding, but don't seem to have suffered any damage, except to our pride.

We continued on across the open part of the Albermarle sound towards

the Virginia cut   Tom came down the dismal swamp route southbound and

wanted to see the other route and it's a bit shorter and the tow boat folks said it was less hazardous for shallows and such as well and recommended it as the better way to Norfolk. So instead of heading to Elizabeth city, we headed more northerly. As we got to the far side, we encountered a tug and barge and did circles while he passed by so we wouldn't hold him up in the narrow channel to Coinjock. He was very appreciative and gave us a number of good pointers about nearby anchorages, and we took his advice instead of heading into Coinjock and are now anchored off buck island just outside the channel. It's pretty quiet and pleasant but we can hear the fighter jets zooming by and a little earlier we had a visit from a V22 Osprey that came out in the dark, circled around us, and then went back the way it came. It was interesting trying to figure out what it was. It was wide and had lights, but was coming very slowly and didn't have the usual helicopter whop whop whop sound.  As it got closer I got a better look at it, and guessed what it was. Then took a look with the binoculars as it passed by and was able to get a better view of it from behind.

Very cool!

It's 9 pm and we're both beat. It's April 7 and I have a sunburn! I suspect I'll be asleep in a half hour. We have cell service and can uplink this tonight but sometime after noon tomorrow will be heading into the trackless swampland and will probably be out of touch for two days.

Well, now it's 9:42 and we've had 3 anchor alarms and drug anchor to within a 100 feet of the island as the wind swung about and piped up.

Just went through the exercise of pulling in the smaller 'lunch hook'

anchor, and "dropping the big one". :-)  Hopefully that will be the end of the days excitement.

Starting back to the North 3/24/2011

My daughter, Amanda, came to see me and spend a week with me in South Miami.  She arrived very late on February 25th.  We got in a sail on George's new boat, a 37 foot Tayana cutter.  And we spent a day utilizing the Metro System to get to South Beach and then back to the boat.  There were several nights out at local restaurants and still time to just sit around on the boat and enjoy each others company.  But heavy winds ruled out additional sailing.  In fact, the winds created a few uncomfortable nights at anchor on the edge of Biscayne Bay near Dinner Key Marina.  Several boats broke free and drifted around freely until finally grounding themselves on the near by island.  Amanda left for home on March 4th. 

George, in his boat, and I, in my boat left the anchorage the following day to start our trip back north.  But, it just wasn't to be.  George's boat stirred up sediment in the fuel tank shutting down his engine about a mile out in the Atlantic.  Several attempts to get it running again failed as the boat continued to drift toward shallow water forcing George to deploy his anchor.  He called Towboat, a truly wonderful service, to tow his boat in for repairs.  I continued to circle around him until Towboat arrived.  But he couldn't retrieve his anchor and he had to fender it off.  Once Towboat got him safely in a port for repairs, he hired them to go back out and retrieve his anchor, 300 feet of anchor chain and 150 feet of nylon anchor line (GPS coordinates are a wonderful thing).  Towboat got everything back for him but the anchor was bent to badly to ever be used again.  Mean time, I returned to my previous anchor location until George called and said to start back without him and he would try to catch up later.

I headed back the following morning leaving at about 3:20 am for the Atlantic.  The winds were stiff but fair and I had a wonderful sail.  I had hoped to make it to Hillsboro Inlet, Florida but my speed was such that I sailed by Hillsboro at about 1:00 pm and continued all the way to Lake Worth Inlet, Florida before re-entering the ICW.  I anchored in Lake Worth for the night.  

Lake Worth is a small body of water but a strong weather front moving through whipped up waves and tossed my boat around all night.  In the morning, I pulled anchor and headed up the ICW as an outside sail was out of the question.  I heard on the VHF radio that water spouts had been seen on Lake Worth the previous evening.  I made it up to Hobe Sound, Florida and went back into Loblolly Marina.  And, I'm glad I did!  Wind gusts topped 60 miles an hour for the next two days with substained winds in the forties.

The time at Loblolly gave George a chance to get his repairs completed and so I waited for him at Peck Lake the following day.  We continued on the inside up the ICW until we arrived at Vero Beach Mooring Field for a night and on to Waterline Marina in Melbourne, Florida on March 13th.  Chuck drove down from New York State to join me for 2 weeks. 

On March 14th, we motor sailed to New Smyrna, Florida with George close behind, and found an anchorage for the night.  It was a good day on the water but news of Deb's father's death came as a shock and I wasn't anywhere that she could pick me up on the way to his house in Palm Bay.  She suggested that I stay with the boat and continue the trip home. 

The following day, Chuck and I motored slowly up the ICW waiting for George to catch up.  He was well behind us as he had run aground while following another boat through a bridge opening and locating a submerged sand bar on the other side.  We dropped the hook in Jacksonville, Florida for the night and George caught up with us there.

The next morning, both boats were pointed toward the Atlantic again and then north.  George turned in to Brunswick that evening.  Chuck and I continued through the night reaching Savannah Harbor entrance just before daybreak.  With the Garmin GPS and lots of Coast Guard placed aids to navigation, we steered into Savannah and back into the ICW.  Chuck and I had alternated watches through the night and had each gotten some rest.  So, we continued until reaching a spot to anchor about 10 miles from Charleston Bay, South Carolina.  George opted to put his boat in a marina in Brunswick and return to New York for a couple of weeks.

After a good nights rest, Chuck and I continued up the ICW.  Two hours later, we entered Charleston harbor against very strong winds and waves that all but stopped our forward progress at times.  We passed by historic Fort Sumter and turned back into the ICW to find that the Ben Sawyer Bridge was closed due to high winds.  We dropped anchor about a 1/2 miles from the bridge and waited until 4:00 pm for the bridge to reopen and allow us through.  Continuing on up the ICW, we dropped the hook about 10 miles from Georgetown Harbor.  We spent the night there.

We left early the next morning attempting to put as much water under the keel as we could.  But shortly into our travels, the headstay on the boat failed and the headsail and roller furling collapsed along the port side of the boat.  Chuck was quick to secure the sail and furler, lashing it to the port side rail.  Calling ahead, we found that we could put the boat in at Georgetown Landing Marina and get assistance from a local rigger named Kurt Russel.  All we had to do was to get across Georgetown Bay.  It was very choppy and slow going but we made it across.

Well, We're sitting here in Georgetown, South Carolina as I write this.  We're waiting for parts, very expensive parts, to be shipped in and rigged in place.  We're told that it may be about a week for everything.  Chuck and I had some very nice, fast but nice, sailing on the Atlantic and also on the ICW.  But he came down here to sail for 2 weeks.  After just 1 week, the rigging failed and he is content to help me get things done while we wait. 

So many things worked out better than they might have.  The rigging failed while on inland waters and not out on the Atlantic Ocean.  The rigging failed while I had Chuck on board with me and not while I single handed the boat.  It happened when Chuck was along to quickly secure everything before sails and hardware could get caught in the prop.  And it happened in a location where a repair rigger was available and not someplace where we were put on a waiting list before getting help.

And so the adventure continues!  Hopefully, I be getting back on my way home early to mid next week!  I can't wait to see everyone at home once again.  I miss my wife!  I miss my kids and my grandchildren!  I miss my dogs and horses!  And, I miss my friends!

January updates from Tom

January 11, 2011

I met George and Lucy at 4:00 am.  It has been so, so good to be home with the family for the holidays; and, its hard to believe that I’m leaving again.  But the adventure continues and we’re going back to the boat.

January 12, 2011

We drove to Lumberton, NC where we stopped for the night at an OK, Super 8 motel.  Winter ice and snow has slowed the return south and there are signs of a wreck a mile along I-95.

January 13, 2011

We finished the drive south the Hobe Sound and Loblolly Marina to fine the boat doing just fine under the watchful eyes of the marina Dockmasters.  We’ll stay here until we can get a break in the weather and a window for the Gulf Stream crossing.  George and I figure the we can do it in around 12 hours.  It will be just the two of us on board for the crossing.

January 16, 2011

The weather forecast looks good for the next three days so George and I are leaving Loblolly Marina, going north for three miles to St. Lucy Inlet and then sailing south to Lake Worth Inlet near Palm Beach, Florida where we can rest for the night.  It is about 34 miles from our slip in Loblolly to the anchorage in Lake Worth Inlet but it will give us a better angle and shorter distance for the crossing.  We were surprised by the number of boats anchored in Lake Worth Inlet.  There had to be 60 - 70 south of the bridge and about 25 north of the bridge where we anchored.  The plan is to leave at 4:00 am thinking that will get us across in the day light.

January 17, 2011

Mother nature surprised us with a sudden storm coming up off the west tip of Florida.  Hard rain, winds in the 20’s with much higher gusts and frequent lightning are predicted.  NO CROSSING today.  May be tomorrow!

January 18, 2011

Up at 4:00am.  We didn’t sleep well but the weather has turned around.  We had coffee and tea before weighing anchor and motoring out Lake Worth Inlet.  We struggle a little setting the sails in the dark but were finally under sail.  The beauty of the city lights behind us were staggering and the quiet wind in our sails was a true delight.

At about the time we made our first course correction, we heard a hale on the radio, thinking that the call was for us.  It was a sea going tug and a large barge heading north in the gulf stream.  They had picked up a sailboat on their radar.  He told us that they would be on top of us in about 8 minutes unless we made a course correction.  But, we couldn’t see any ships at all so the tug shined a large, bright light at the vessel on his scope.  It wasn’t us and we continued on the same heading.

We entered the Gulf Stream about nine (9) miles from the coast of Florida.  It was no where near as bad as we had heard.  The waves started at 1 - 3 feet and built to 2 - 4 feet for the most part.  Winds started at about 12 miles an hour and built to about 20 before falling of to 6 - 8 by mid afternoon.  In the late afternoon, we started the motor to recharge the batteries and we continued running it the rest of the way across.  We did hit one area where the seas were confused and rollers in the 6 - 8, even 10 foot range were occurring but only for a little while.

I got to see my first “flying fish” at about 20 miles off the Florida coast.  And, we saw one, very black fin slicing through the water at about ½ way.  We spotted a bunch of little silver flying fish, 3 - 4 inches long a little while later.

We dropped the sails about a mile from Old Bahamas Bay West Bank and motored into the marina at 4:32pm.  We called the marina on the VHF radio and they directed  us to slip C23.  An attendant helped us tie up and provided “all the paperwork required to clear Customs”.  Everyone is very courteous and helpful but the forms are a lot to handle when you are ½ brain dead from the crossing.  Customs people are very put

I got the slip for two nights and then George and I went out for dinner.  Four people can eat large meals in the states for what it cost two people to eat small meals in the Bahamas. . . But everything is imported.

IT TOOK THREE (3) MONTHS AND EIGHT (8) DAYS SINCE LEAVING ITHACA, NEW YORK; BUT WE FINALLY DID IT AND WE ARE FINALLY HERE IN PARADISE.

January 20, 2011

We left Old Bahamas Bay at 10:00am and headed east arriving at Mangrove Cay at 3:30pm.  We set the anchor for the night and sat back to relax.  There isn’t another sole around!

We a lue in the water today for the first time on this whole trip.  We caught 2 fish, barracuda 10-12 inches long on a lure almost as big.  Its not super but catching anything at 5 knots felt very good.  The weather was beautiful and the water flat.  We had the sails up for a short time of very nice sailing before the wind abated.

January 21, 11

We left Mangrove Cay at first light.  A small Canadian sailboat had entered the anchorage just before dark.  anchor south - west of us; apparently having drug anchor in the stiff winds over night.  We remained where we were all through the night with our good anchor set.

We made our way 1.5 km north to our #83 waypoint and turned east toward Great Sail Cay.  Running the motor for the first half hour or so to recharge the batteries; we set the jib in 25 knot winds.  An hour later, the winds dropped to the teens and we set the mainsail for a 6+ knot ride.  We arrived at Great Sail Cay at 10:30 am.  We were greeted by a pod of 6 - 8 dolphins playing all around the boat for about a half mile.  Great Sail Cay is uninhabited as it is barely out of the sea.  Thick brush and a few trees carpet the surface.  The water is as beautiful as we had heard!

January 22, 11 

We sailed from Great Sail Cay this morning after experiencing rain, thunder and lightning during the night like we had never seen before.  We’re headed for Foxtown; some 26+ miles away.  We set sail under very stiff winds and continued a fast sail until we reached the Foxtown waypoint.  The winds were getting almost too much for us to handle as we took down the sails.  Motoring in to the harbor, a cold front moving in from Florida churned the waters into 6 - 8 foot waves that pounded the boat beam.  But, the Garmin Chart Plotter provided a route line to the anchorage point and we followed the rout as closely as possible.  There was a partially submerged reef about 200 feet off our starboard side and very large rocks about 300 feet off our port side.  George left out about 100 feet of anchor chain and we got a good set.

Another boat, Aces Wild, anchored about a ¼ mile away at yet another anchor spot.  We spoke with them on the radio for a little while and got a weather up-date.  It wasn’t good!  George or I sat up on anchor watch all night.  If we got a total of 4 hours of sleep between us, we got a lot.  The temperature dropped another 16 degrees during the night forcing us to wear winter coats and hats.  Winds substained the 40 knot range with gusts in the 50’s.  The boat shuttered and groaned against the winds.  It began to calm just before daybreak and the waters smoothed out a lot.   

January 23, 11

We left the anchorage at daylight and headed east against a north wind.  Every other day, since leaving Florida, we’ve been on a starboard tack.  Today, however, we’re on a port tack.  After making our way to the Foxtown waypoint and turning east, we first set the staysail against a strong wind.  Then we set the mainsail and the jib.  We traveled the 35+ miles from Foxtown to Manjack Cay, leaving at 6:30 am and arriving at 1:00 pm.  It is definitely one of the best days of sailing that I have ever experienced on this boat.  The other boat from last nights anchorage, Aces Wild, a forty-six footer, was traveling along several miles behind; unable to close the gap between us.

With the hook down and a little chow in our tummies, George and I rowed the dinghy to shore to do a little exploring.  We were dumb!  We walked all the way across the island barefooted.  Ouch!  Ouch! Damn it!  Ouch!  But we made it to the far side and an ocean side beach about a mile long.  No one there thought!  It is just beautiful.  We crossed back to the side where our boat is anchored and met the only, year round inhabitants of the island.  Bill and his family welcome visitors to enjoy their property with trails cut through to anywhere you might want to go.  There are six other boats in this same anchorage with several others up the coast a little bit farther.

January 24, 11

We left our hook spot and are going several miles to Green Turtle Cay for a night at a slip to sit out what could be a very bad storm.  Also, George desperately needs internet and cell service.

We’re here at Green Turtle Cay.  Its sad to see, that with the economic downturn, the marina is only a ¼ full.  These people make their living from the tourist trade and without it, they’re not making much!  The accommodations are good. . . But very expensive. . . $20 a night for electrical power; $15 a day to use their showers; $5.84 per gallon of diesel and $0.20 a gallon for fresh water to replenish the tanks on the boat; plus a slip rental by the day.  Its also very shallow coming into the harbor and the deeper draft boats must wait to high tide or chance running aground. 

It was a $225 stay for a day counting out meals but it was very nice to be back in communication with the world.  We even got to watch the Presidential State of the Union Address of the flat screen TV in their lobby.  It is amazing how the Canadians follow USA politics.  Any they mostly love our President!

January 25, 11

Aces Wild advised us of a good weather window for going to Treasure Cay so we’re headed there.  The sail this morning, on a starboard tack, is like something out of a novel.  High 5’s to mid 6’s all the way to Treasure Cay with only an occasional gust.  We had left about a hour behind Aces Wild but they had saved a spot to anchor about 500 feet in front of them.  Ace and Suzie are such nice and interesting people.  Ace is an x fighter pilot (F4 Phantoms from the nom war), turned commercial pilot, turned retired and enjoying 1ife.  They have the 46 footer and they know how to use it!  

We had a drink at the marina bar after rowing….and rowing….and rowing the dinghy to the dock.  Ace and Suzy offered to tow us back to our boat to have dinner, spaghetti, w th them on their boat later.

Dinner was great as was the conversation with our new friends.  George, admittedly, drank a little too much Scotch.  As punishment for his over indulgence, I appointed him “Captain” for the next week.  I am sure that I can find something to complain about in that amount of time.

January 26, 11

We got up this morning; and now a little bit wiser, we put the motor on the dinghy and headed to the dock.  We had a sweet breakfast (cookies and a cinnamon bun) and tea and coffee.  We walked around the small village and then to the beach.  What a beach!  Its 3 ½ miles of the nicest, cleanest, softest sand I have ever seen.  We’ve done alittle grocery shopping and are headed back to the boat for a while.

I worked on the blog for a couple of hours.  George and I returned to the beach.  I walked in the water and laid around on a beach chair while George ran a total of 3 miles up and down the beach.  It was a very good day.  Tomorrow, we head to Hope Town.

Loblolly Marina 12/16/2010

Today was a lazy day all the way around as there was no sailing, no motoring, no cleaning the boat or doing laundry. Just a nice relaxing day. I took a few picture of Loblolly Marina while the crew went to the beach. With the weather having been as cold as it has been, today's warm up to the mid, may be even high, 70's was a very welcome change.

Schools of bait fish swam close to the surface to gather warmth from the sun while some bigger fish floated upside down or on their side unable to cope with the recent cold. This is a small marina that by design is usually quiet, however; the cold weather has kept the regulars inside their condos and near their heat pumps. But today's warmth brought out a few boaters and fishermen. Several nice fish were carried back as today's catch because the fishermen are out again and the fish are biting.

Several manatee swam through today. Two stayed a fair distance away but a third one surfaced next to the board walk, cleared the water from its nostrils and looked straight at me as I stop to see it. They're so ugly, they're cute! And there are birds too. I can't begin to say how many different kinds there are except to say mmmmmany!

There are at least two full time captains here and the mega yachts they tend to are spectacular. Each day, the captains wash and shine the boats waiting for the owners to come here for a sail or to direct them elsewhere for a meeting and sail there. So much money out there! I have to wonder where it all comes from. The one yacht, Harvest Moon, is over 70 feet long (see the picture) and the captain has been with the boat for more than three years. The channel coming into the marina is barely wide enough to accommodate the boats here but the water is deep and the condos and trees provide a great deal of protection from storms.

Yeah. . . . today was a lazy day. Maybe I'll do something tomorrow. . . or not!

Packet Inn In Florida 12/13/1010

After spending time in Melborne, we thought that we could get across the gulf stream but the weather has been very unusual for Florida at this time of the year. Temperatures have been unusually cool, the winds coming from the north against the gulf stream creating high waves and very poor sailing conditions to be far out at sea. So, we decided to head further south looking for warmer weather.

We continued down the ICW passing through Malabar, Sebastian, Wabasso, Winter Beach, Vero Beach, Oslo, Fort Pierce, Jensen Beach, St. Lucie, Hobe Sound, Jupiter Inlet, Riviera Beach, West Palm Bay, Lake Worth, Boyton Beach, Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale and on to Miami with numerous anchorages along the way.

While in Miami, we took an afternoon to look at the boat that George wants to buy. The next morning, we headed further south to Pumpkin Key. It wasn't really Florida warm but it was comfortable. And, then we head to Key Largo and Gilberts Marina. George had been to Key Largo before and remembered the resort from his prior trip there. Food at the Tiki bar was as great as George had described and there is a small private beach close by.

The following morning, we left for Duck Key when we discovered an error in the navigation charts for Blackwater Sound. Where there was suppose to be 6 and 7 feet of water, according to the charts, but there was only about a foot and we ran hard aground in 20 knot winds. After trying every trick in the book, we called for Tow Boat to come and get us moving again at high tide the following morning. We were having alternator problems at the same but resolved that issue after finding a broken wire. A new terminal end in place on the wire and a less than gentle tug from the Tow Boat and all was well.

We continued on down to Duck Key and Marathon Key through a concentration of pods for crab or lobster traps like I've never seen before. Even though we had planned to go on Key West, we decided to turn around and head back to Key Largo for fuel, a good nights sleep and relief from the attack of the pods.

Following our adventure in the Keys, we crossed Card Sound again and entered Biscayne Bay to anchor with Miami skyline for our evening view once again. Leaving Miami, we tried to head out into the Atlantic through the Port of Miami but quick found out that the Dade County Police preferred that we not do that. Something about getting too close to all of the cruise ships makes the police a little bit cranky.

Going on north on the ICW to Fort Lauderdale, we left the ICW for the Atlantic where we had a very nice sail up to Hillsboro Inlet in 2 to 4 foot swells and a gentle reaching wind. Winds were building and small craft warnings were being issued toward evening hours and so we headed back north on the ICW. We finally pulled into Sailfish Marina for the night near Riviera Beach. The winds had to increase to 60, maybe even 70 miles an hour that night. We found it necessary to adjust our lines several times because of stress on the lines and changing tide levels.

The forecast was for more of the same the next day and we decided that we didn't want to spend another night where we were so we headed north again. After about 30 miles or so, we found a small, nice, secluded and protected marina in Hobe Sound, Loplolly Marina. That's where we are as I write this.

Passing through Bascule Bridges, bridges that hinge on each side and open in the middle, is a way of life when traveling on the ICW. The bridges have operators, "Bridge Masters", that can be helpful.....or not. Some Bridge Masters open the bridges according to the time schedule for that bridge; 1)on the hour or half hour, or 2)on the 1/4 hour and 3/4 hour, or 3)on demand pending traffic. However; other Bridge Masters seem to like watching boaters fight the wind and strong currents of the ICW. Even though we had more good Bridge Masters than not, it is the other ones that we are sure to remember.

Something else that I'm sure we will all remember is all of the wrecked and sunken boats along the way. We saw masts sticking out the water, mostly submerged, some with sails still in the raised position. Others boats were upside down on shore and still others were in the trees well back from the shoreline. It makes me realize why there are some 20,000 Canadian boats and an undetermined number of US boats that make this journey ever year. They know better than to be here in hurricane season! You can be sure that we'll be out of here before that season rolls around!

We have seen thousands of other boats and ships. Some are much smaller than our vessel with the other extreme being the large mega yachts. Still larger are all the cruise ships and container vessels. But as far as sailboats, we're probably about average in size. Some, maybe even a lot of the boats, have been all over the world. This one will not be! This has be a challenge and an adventure that we have enjoyed and struggled through. And we are only a third of the time through it. But, it has been everything and more that we've expected it to be.

After some much needed R&R in Melbourne Florida the crew of the Packet Inn moved south. As the weird weather continues they were still confined to the ICW.
Tom, George and Lucy anchored in Biscayne Bay (outside of Miami, FL) last night and will be taking a leisurely sail down to the Keys today since the weather in the ocean will be rough with a nor-easter. Once they have a window they will be heading to the Bahamas.