Marathon

We are in Boot Key Harbor. The "city" of Marathon in the Florida Keys.

We arrived Christmas Day after a part way inside passage from Tarpon Basin, Key Largo. We went through Channel Five back into the ocean where we had a nice sail to Boot Key Harbor. We picked up a city marina mooring and we'll stay here for about a month.

We've been to Key West by bus where, besides shopping, we met with friends who moor near us in Mystic. Another couple near us in Mystic are here on a mooring in our same harbor. Lisa volunteers in the local Turtle Hospital/Sanctuary and we visited there Wed. Very interesting.

Heather has been with us for a week but heads to Miami for a flight home to Brooklyn with Luca. Luca loved the boat but our cat, Cleo, does not love having another cat in her territory.

Weather has been cool and windy but is now warming up again. Of course getting down to 50 at night is not quite the same as a 10 degree blizzard at home ;>)

Oh, nothing has broken down for a week. That's news.

Fort Lauderdale

I tried several times to post a blog with my video of the Fort Pierce Holiday display. Trust me, it's great. But it won't upload. This blog is being writen on my phone so no photos either. I'll add some later when I edit this entry from our laptop.

Anyway... We are now in Fort Lauderdale. Sunday 19 December. Had some cold mornings in Fort Pierce the last two weeks (near freezing) but the days were never lower than 55. Usually mid-60s.

With Carol still off at work I left Fort Pierce with Mike Guay and his friend Ted aboard. We motored to Stuart by way of the ICW so I could get generator work completed. While there a leaking exhaust riser was discovered so we are short one engine. We went offshore from St Lucie (Stuart) to Lake Worth which is the Palm Beach area. Big mistake. Head wind a seas and only one operating engine make for a long semi-miserable day. Arrived safely and my crew went home and Carol came home to the boat to rejoin the cruise.

We had a nice, fast, if somewhat boisterous sail to Fort Lauderdale. Boat speeds nearly got to 11 kts at times.

We are anchored in Lake Sylvia, Fort Lauderdale which is just a basin among the canals and expensive homes in the area. Pretty and protected. Tomorrow we head to Miami (offshore again) or really to the Key Biscayne - Dinner Key area. We'll wait there for Heather and Luca to join us for the holidays.

The key thing, no pun intended... No, really, is the word Key in our destinations or stops. As in THE Keys. We have arrived! Or will tomorrow.

It's going to be cool, only in the mid-70s, for a few days but with blue skies and bluer water.

Although we plan to go a little way up the west coast of Fla in January the Keys were our real destination and we are just 20 or so miles away. Just a few hours unless the other engine quits.

Can't wait.

Fort Pierce

We arrived in Fort Pierce Florida two days after Thanksgiving. We had a long day of travelling on Thanksgiving as many do but ours was a little different. At the end of the day we had stuffing, creamed onions, peas and pumpkin pie. All the good stuff with out murdering any over bred birds.

Black Friday wasn't that great for us. Another long day but along an uninteresting section of the ICW. Strong winds and currents slowed us down and the weather was threatening most of the day but...

Saturday got us to Ft. Pierce where we"ll stay for a while. Carol has to go off to work next week. Again. But on the positive side we are now in an area with tropical, clear, green water and we have good friends here on shore that we'll visit with and do stuff with. The only down side is tropical weather. Muggy and unstable. Afternoon showers and thunder storms are always a possibility.

But, on the other hand, it is in the high 70s - low 80s every day.

Fernandina Beach. Our first Florida sunrise.

More dolphin stories?

Sick of dolphin stories yet?

While we were in the dinghy heading to the marina a pair of dolphin came at us at a right angle, right at our beam. They came up to breathe and saw they were very close to us. They dove deeper and I could see them pass under the dink, make a right turn while still submerged and head aft. Then about ten feet back one leapt out of the water, twisting so he (she?) was facing in our direction so it could get a good look at us. Very awesome! It had no reason to do this except to check us out.

Early Saturday morning, the 20th, we headed out of Charleston Harbor for an overnight bluewater passage to Florida. First time that far off shore (about 40nm) and first time overnight at sea. About a 150nm trip.

While on this passage dolphin would come zooming towards us then turn to ride our bow wave. They would ride with their tails just under the bows of our boat. They would also look back and up at us. We could even hear them clicking and whistling.

This trip was motorsailing during the day before the wind shifted to our nose and then faded. It was a calm, moonlit night with 4 foot swells and at the end we were in Florida. Fernandina Beach.

Two days later we are at St Augustine. The ICW from Jacksonville to St Auggie is very pretty and we also saw a pair of Bald Eagles mating on a daymark. Haven't seen birds mating since our time in the Galapagos Islands.

One more thing: now we have dolphin photos.

Dolphins

Still in Charleston but blogging on request. Who??? You may ask. Well, let's just say more than one person has asked but will remain unknown to prevent embarassment.

We've been anchored for more than a week and have another week to go since Carol is heading off to Dallas soon. After a couple of days we set a stern anchor to attempt to keep us lined up with the current in the Ashley River. This kept us from swinging 4 times a day and over-running the rode (anchor line). It was noisy and nerve wracking at night. Sleeping better since then. Bahamian anchoring doesn't work as well when you have two bows. There is a downside. The stern anchor rode sticks out off the back and can be snagged by a boat if it comes too close. 10 feet being too close. Today a sailboat caught on it and then yelled at me for not anchoring according to his standards. Him coming within a boat length was, of course, not the cause. They were (French) Canadian. No other explanation needed.

On a more pleasant note we have seen quite a few dolphin. We had one in the marina near us when we were in the dinghy returning to the boat. Today we had one swim by the bow very close. Didn't see it (not looking) until we heard him (her) breathe. Dolphin are very common here but I hope we never get used to it.

Next up is seeing a whale from our own boat. Could happen off Cape Cod but hasn't yet. Could happen here if we went offshore. There are Right Whales in this area and down to Georgia.

Weather's been good for over a week so when it's time to it will likely be worse. We need to push to get into Florida before Carol has to work again.

Charleston

We got to Charleston on 1 November. Saw Ft. Sumter from our own deck. More dolphins, of course. And the Ravenell Bridge with the Yorktown near it. 

We stayed two nights at the City Marina but we'll move to a nearby anchorage for a few weeks. Shopping, laundry, sightseeing. A lot of sightseeing. Oh, and boat repair, maintenance, etc.

When we started this cruise from Mystic I thought I would photograph all the bridges we went under or through. Took photos in NYC and the C&D Canal but after that we stopped, except for the Wilkerson on the ICW which was only 64ft above the water. Turns out that most of the bridges after NYC were boring highway bridges, one uglier than the last. The swing and bascule bridges were more interesting but we are too busy when we go through those. So the bridge photos have stopped. Maybe to the relief of friends and family.

All Hallows Eve

The miles are melting away even though we stopped for two days this past week.

We started in North and ended in South Carolina. Sunday we left Belhaven, NC and traversed the Pungo River, the Pamlico and the Neuse River. Pamlico has the potential to be bad but wasn't. We anchored in Cedar Creek off of Adam's Creek which is the ICW. Found this spot on our although we were not alone.

Monday we got to Beaufort early and took a slip in a marina. Getting into a slip with this boat is a challenge. Just after we were scraping the rubber sides of the dock Carol says to turn to starboard. Hmmmm. No problem, the rubber scrubbed off. We stayed two nights and did laundry, shopping and sightseeing. Nice town.

Wed. we left and ended up in a little creek somewhere near Topsail Inlet. We were underway more than 10 hours and covered about 60 miles. During the passage we were buzzed repeatedly by Marine Corp Harrier jets. No more than 500 ft above us. We watched them do vertical take off and landings.

Thursday we went to Wrightsville Beach. We started late due to rain and thunderstorms and stopped early for the same reason.

Friday as we left Wrightsville we went aground in the channel that would take us back to the ICW. We were in the channel but "someone" didn't follow instructions or go out the way we came in. 30 minute delay. We ended up at Calabash creek very late due to current and bridge delays. This place is just over the South Carolina border.

Saturday we overslept and didn't get underway until almost 0800. We made up for it by stopping early (1500, that's 3pm) behind a little island near Wacca Wache. You cannot make this up.

As I write this we have transitted the Waccamaw and the Great Pee Dee Rivers and are back into the Ditch. Don't know what was so great about the Pee Dee.

Monday or Tuesday we will be in Charleston and will stay for about 3 weeks as Carol goes off to work.

Complaints about the lack of photos will be addressed when we have Wi-Fi ashore. Photos are on the laptop not my phone which I'm using to write this blog.

They are now on Picassa. Request the link if you want to see them.