Annapolis to Longboat Key, FL via the ICW

Annapolis to Longboat Key - October 4, 2009 - Day 1

After much preparation, we finally pulled away from our dock on Spa Creek in Annapolis at 10AM. "Twice Blessed", our 49' Beneteau was finally provisioned for the 24 day trip down to the Florida Keys and then back up the Gulf side of Florida to its new home (and ours as well) in Longboat Key, FL, which is off of Sarasota. It was a bit melancholy as we have had "Twice Blessed" slipped in Spa Creek for the past two years at a super location with a great view of Annapolis.

Vicki is still in Texas helping her daughter, Cassidie, with her first baby, so my brother, Steve, sailed with me as "first mate". He lives in Wilmington, NC. With some luck, the plan is to drop him off as we pass through Wilmington in about a week and pick up Vicki. Steve is at the helm (kindof) in this pic.

Our hope was to make it to Tangier Island, VA before the sunset, but we knew that tides, darkness, and questionable depth into Tangier channel would make this difficult, so we were going to see how things progressed before deciding on an anchorage for the evening.

It was a beautiful sunny day with a good bit of wind. We cleared the Severn River and turned south about 10:25AM, running under both power and sail. Winds were 15-25 knots out of the NW. Our speed across ground (SOG) was almost 10 knots.  

We have a Raymarine E120 chart plotter to plot course and track progress. We are off of the Thomas Point lighthouse in this shot, at the mouth of the South River. 

Winds were brisk until we were down near the Patuxent River. At this point, we were running against the tide with light winds, doing about 8 kts SOG. We dropped sails and headed on under power, arriving off of Point Lookout at the mouth of the Potomac around around 5:15PM. Local sunset is around 6:40pm. Anticipating that our arrival would be after dark, we chose what appeared to be a safe anchorage that we could reach safely after dark. Mill Creek, off of the Great Wicomico River in Reedville, VA looked like the spot. The hope was that the full moon would provide good illumination as we motored into the Great Wicomico around 7:15PM. Unfortunately, things had clouded over, so the chart plotter/GPS would hopefully get us in the last 1.5 miles in the dark. The only concern was snagging a crab pot, but luck was on our side. There were a few other anchor lights nearby, but we dropped anchor around 7:50PM and finally could start thinking about dinner. The trip for the day was about 87 nautical miles.  The anchorage is shown in the pic of the chartplotter to the right.

Steve fired up the grill and cooked a couple of steaks while I whipped up a batch of Kraft Macaroni and a salad. We crashed around 10PM.

Day 2 - Reedville, VA to Norfolk / Portsmouth, VA

Today started out beautifully. We were up with the sun, had a nice breakfast and had the anchor up and cleaned off (there was a ton of mud on it) by 8:45AM. The anchorage on Mill Creek was pristine. It really was a great way to start this journey, and encouraged us to spend more time at anchorage rather than trying to find a marina for the evening.

I have included a couple of shots.

This one is of the imminent sunrise looking off to the east and out over the Chesapeake Bay.

This is one of Steve fishing. He always has a line in the water when we are anchored or docked (more on this later).

A few other boats managed to get in here before we anchored last evening. What a beautiful and tranquil place!

As we were motoring out of Mill Creek, the Cross on the bank in the middle of nowhere just seemed appropriate as we asked the Lord to watch over us on this 1500 mile journey.

Trip to Norfolk Harbor and Hampton Roads

We arrived in the Hamtpon Roads, crossing over the Hampton Roads Tunnel, I64, at 3:48PM. We were shadowed by a USN destroyer as we motored in, and gave him plenty of ground to port. it was a bit intimidating!

After we moved into the channel we turned to port (left) and entered the channel for the Elizabeth River. We motored for about 10 miles before finally reaching downtown Norfolk and our slip for the evening at OceanMarine Marina on the west bank of the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth. 

Here is a multitude of photos as we motored down the Elizabeth River, including an aircraft carrier, E2C Hawkeye, downtown Norfolk Waterfront, and the red buoy which is Mile Marker "0" on the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway (ICW).

Once reaching the marina, we fueled, filled up our water tanks, and dumped our waste tanks before backing into a slip around 6PM. For the record, backing up in a single screw sailboat can be a difficult task. We are fortunate to have bow thrusters which makes the effort manageable in a 49' sailboat!

We made it into the ICW, by about 1 mile. Here we are in the slip. Steve is waiting for me to hope off the boat so that we can go get some dinner. 

We found a great little Italian restaurant, Amore, on High Street in Old Portsmouth. We had a good meal and then headed back to the boat and called it a night around 10PM.

Tomorrow will be our FIRST full day on the ICW..only 1087 miles to go to Miami!!!

Day 3 - Portsmouth, VA to the Albemarle Sound, NC (almost)

Today was to be our first full day on the ICW, starting at MM "1.0"  We rolled out about 6:15AM, grabbed a quick bowl of cereal, and took some time to stow all of the stuff that two guys can scatter around!

As I went topside, it was almost sunrise. I snapped this shot of the imminent sunrise looking east across the Elizabeth River. The sun was just lighting the sky behind this Aegis guided missile destroyer sitting in dry dock at the BAE Shipbuilding facility.

We pulled out into the Elizabeth River and turned south at 7:30AM. It would be a hectic morning. Today we had to deal with 11 movable bridges (swing, slide, bascule), 4 fixed 65' high bridges, and one lock. We also had to deal with 4 restricted bridges and locks. The restricted bridges were closed until 8:30AM because of rush hour traffic. The only exception would be for commercial traffic. Fortunately, I managed to tuck in behind the tugboat "Mary Hope" and managed to get through 3 of these bridges with no delay. 

The last few weeks I have been losing a lot of sleep worrying about my clearance under the 65' high bridges on the ICW. They are supposed to be 65' at mean high tide, but this is subject to wind, tidal anomalies, etc. To give me some reassurance, I had the folks at RIverside Marina measure my mast a few weeks ago...they measured 63'5" to the top of the mast, 64'7" to the top of my wind instruments (windex and anemometer), and 66'0" to the top of my flexible steel VHF whip antenna. I could afford to scrape the VHF antenna, but hitting the wind instruments would be a "bad and expensive event"! I am pretty comfortable that the mast itself will be OK.

The first fixed bridge was at MM "7.1". Actually it is a very high draw bridge that carries I64, but requires 24 hours notice to open, so for me, it is FIXED! As I passed under, I had at least 5' clearance. I was feeling a bit relieved about this and even slightly cocky..

Just past this bridge, the ICW splits. There is a route to the west and south down the Dismal Swamp which comes out at Elizabeth City. This is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. It is supposed to be very scenic, but with several locks, marginal draft, and a fair amount of debris. I decided to stay clear.

I chose to take the eastern route toward Great Bridge. This is the main ICW route. This would bring me out into the Currituck Sound, then back into a canal at Coinjock, NC, and back out into the North River before dumping me out into the Albemarle Sound. at MM "63". This route would take me through a lock at Great Bridge, and also 3 fixed bridges. 

We arrived at the Great Bridge Lock at MM "11.5" at 8:45AM. The lock was closed, but eventually opened to south bound traffic at 9:10AM. I was alone when I entered the lock, but over the next 20 minutes two power boats and another sailboat joined me. The locks finally closed and drained. We pulled out of the soutbound end at 9:50AM.

Here are a few photos of our passage through the Great Bridge Locks

 

Once out the other side, the exit of the lock was supposed to be coordinated with the raising of a draw bridge just to the south of the lock. I guess it is "island time" down here because we sat for about 15 minutes after moving about 500 yards out of the lock before this bridge finally opened.

The sailboat crossing under was a bit slower than our Beneteau, and he was out of sight in about 10 minutes. During this part of our passage we were making about 8.5 kts (about 9.8 mph). The ICW really is a dredged canal (The Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal) in this section. We spent a couple of hours here, including 30 minutes waiting for one more bridge opening (I missed it by about 1 minute). In the next .

"Bridge reality" arrived for me at MM "13" when I crossed under the Rt 168 fixed bridge. The batter boards on this bridge were showing about 64.5'. The good news is that it was higher than that. The bad news is "not by a lot!" We bent the VHF antenna over significantly. It appeared that the wind instruments cleared by about 4". This is a real adrenalin event!. I slowed down to about  1/2 knot and crept under this bridge while the antenna scraped on every piece of structural steel under the bridge....same thing happened at Pungo Ferry and Coinjock...so much for resting easy going under the bridges. The other good news is that all of these bridges were showing 64.5' All were effected by wind driven tides. At least I know what works and when I should just wait.

We finally crossed out into Currituck Sound around 12:45pm. There was some shoaling in the open water with levels dropping to 7'. "Twice Blessed" drafts 5'11" so I spent a lot of time looking at my depth gauge. There is little room for error as the channel is only about 100' wide.

This next photo is of the Currituck Light House in Corolla, NC. We are making progess!

We motored back into the Coinjock Channel around 2:30PM. Once again we scraped the antenna..adrenalin, humility, anticipation of disaster...oh well...we are still in one piece.

The last part of today's trip would take us down the North River and then up into an anchorage in Broad Creek just past MM "61". This was a pretty, but desolate stretch of country. It was also overcast and dreary. About two miles before Broad Creek, we were stopped by a northbound boat. he told us that the Alligator River (the ICW on the south side of the Ablemarle Sound) was closed due to a swing bridge that was undergoing repairs. It would be closed for another day..We can worry about this tomorrow.

The Chart Plotter photo is showing our course as up, so north is actually at the bottom of the image. The Albemarle Sound is at the top, and Broad Creek is on the right side.

The detour into Broad Creek took about 10 minutes. There was a bit of shoaling on the south side of the creek as we motored in. At one point my depth gauge said 5.4' I should have been hard aground but the bottom must have been pretty soft. We were in about 1/2 mile when we found a 9' depth and dropped anchor about 5PM. There was one other boat about 1/2 mile above us..otherwise it was pretty isolated. It was also mosquito heaven! When I realized how many of those little critters had found their way into the boat, I closed it up tight.  We heated some spaghetti sauce that I had prepared and frozen just before we left, and had spaghetti and a salad. Steve wanted to fish, but the bugs were just too intense..so we just watched some TV and finally crashed around 10PM.

Here are a few pics of our anchorage for the evening.

Tomorrow we will have to decide whether to go south on the ICW (if we can get through), or head east toward Roanoke Island and go down Pamlico Sound...we will see what the morning brings.......

Day 4 - Across the Albemarle Sound to Roanoke Island and Manteo

I was sleeping soundly when we were hit with a some severe winds around 3AM. A cold front was pushing through with strong winds straight out of the west. I had just purchased a new anchor the week before the trip. It is a "Ronca 25" and it is supposed to have great holding properties. I did not put out much anchor rode, maybe 60' because I was concerned about swinging into shallow water on a change in wind direction. I really should have let more line out, but I can report that the anchor held well, even in 35 knot winds.

With the news about the closing of the Alligator River, and my concerns over the US264 Bridge at MM "127" that is only 64' high (it is the only bridge that is not 65' due to a contractor screw up), I decided to head east across Albemarle Sound to Roanoke Island. 

Since it would only be about a 3 1/2 hour trip, we were not in a rush. I slept in this morning until 8:30. Steve decided to do some fishing. I heard him yelling that he had just caught breakfast. Here is a photo of breakfast.

We had fillet of Rockfish and scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning...not a bad start to the day!

Today's trip to Manteo (on Roanoke Island) would be a short trip, but with some rather rough seas. Last year I motored up the Chesapeake Bay in a 45 knot blow, but the boat, captain, and mate all did well. This trip was much worse!

We pulled anchor and headed out of Broad Creek around 11AM. This time, we had to cross the Albemarle Sound with 25 knots directly across our starboard beam. It was much different than the Chesapeake Bay. The shallow depth of the Sound really churns it up. Waves were 4-5 feet but with a very short period. I buried the bow of the boat at least 4 times and was taking water over both rails. It was a very tedious couple of hours.

As I exited the north River, I headed for the marker MG at Middle Ground, and from their to a red marker that started my journey around the north side of Roanoke Island. We pulled into the Manteo Waterfront Marina at 2:30PM. Dockmaster Carl met us and helped us to back into a slip for the evening. 

Once we got settled, we found out that the strong blow out of the west had blown the water from the Albemarle Sound into Roanoke Channel and Pamlico Sound. The effect was to raise the water level about 3 feet above normal. One of the reasons that we had headed this way was to cross under the US64 bridge onto Roanoke Island. It is supposed to be 65' high. We were encouraged to wait for a day when the winds would turn to the northeast and bring the water levels back down..so we decided to just take it easy until tomorrow, especially with our bridge adventures of Tuesday!

Manteo is a neat little community. Its main claim to fame is that it is the location of the "Lost Colony". Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first British settlement to land here in 1587. He returned to England for provisions with plans to return in 1588, but was delayed by the defeat of the Spanish Armada in that year. When he returned in 1589, the colony was gone, supposedly absorbed by the indigenous Indian population. BTW, Andy Griffith also lives here!

There is a museum and theater at the sight of the First Colony, as well as a recreation of the original vessel. These photos of the replica boat and of "Twice Blessed" were taken at dusk.

Once we were settled, we stopped at a local restaurant for dinner, and then took a cab to get some groceries. We finally settled in around 7PM and just vegged for a bit, turning in around 10PM

What will tomorrow bring? We will be able to get under the bridge, or have to wait until Friday..or later? Darn, I wish that this mast was just one foot shorter......

Day 5 - Under the Bridge at Manteo?

We woke this morning to a change in wind direction. It was out of the north and the water levels were slowly subsiding. While we were killing time, we decided to rent a car and head over to Nags Head. The local Manteo Ford Dealer is THE source for car rentals on Manteo. "Doc" the owner, brought us a Ford Focus. We stopped back at the dealership to sign some papers and ended up talking about his journeys on the ICW...he also does business with Quigley Motors in York. They apparently add 4-wheel drive to vans. I never knew that but intend to check them out when I get back up to York.

After a nice breakfast at the Dunes in Nags Head, we headed up to the K-mart in Kill Devil Hills. I was running out of socks and underwear (how did that ever happen?). We got back to the marina at noon time and decided to motor over to Pirates Cove, which is about a 30 minute trip. We needed to top off our fuel tanks and could also check out the water levels at the bridge. 

When we got to the bridge, it was marked  from 5' to 0'. The water level was at about 1.5'. I guess this is based on reported tides by NOAA. Today's high tide was supposed to be 0.7' and low tide at 0.1'. I assume that this meant the water level was still up about a foot above normal. Since the winds are supposed to turn back out of the southwest tomorrow, we felt like it was now or never.

We headed back to the Manteo Waterfront Marina to dump our holding tanks and top off water. Then we decided to leave at 4PM so that we could take advantage of the approaching low tide at 6PM. 

Here is THE bridge at Manteo. We are going to know soon enough whether we are going to keep our windex.

The plan was to make this a short trip, as we would not find an anchorage until we crossed about 75 miles of water to Oriental NC, just above Beaufort. We decided to lay up in the commercial fishing village of Wanchese for the evening, about 5 miles south of the bridge.

We crept under the bridge. We never scraped the VHF antenna until the very last piece of steel. We had 66' all the way. BUT, if we had tried yesterday, we would definitely have taken the windex off the mast...so the wait was worth the time!

Once under the bridge, it was a 30 minute trip into Wanchese. We tied up at Broadcreek Marina for the evening, cooked a couple of steaks, and called it an evening.

Here are a few pics of our spot for this evening in beautiful Wanchese Harbor (NOT).

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Our plan is to be underway at 7AM for the 75+ mile crossing of the Pamlico Sound over to River Dunes near Oriental NC. Let's hope that it is not as rough as our journey across Albemarle Sound!

Day 6 - The Long run across the Pamlico Sound down toward Beaufort, NC

This was a long day on the water. We got underway just as the sun came up around 7AM, motoring out of Wanchese harbor and picking up the narrow channel that the fishing boats use to get out to Oregon Inlet. As we were leaving the harbor, the fishing vessel "Vickie II" was just pulling up to the dock. Seemed appropriate somehow.

Heading south, we passed the Bodie Island Light House and then picked up the bridge over Oregon Intlet. The channel going south splits near Oregon inlet. 

We took the channel to starboard which heads SW across Pamlico Sound. From this point, the trip would be about 8 1/2 hours to the Neuse River where we planned to reconnect with the ICW around MM "173". The channel is shoaling and the day markers have been replaced with nun buoys in several spots so that they can be easily moved as the shoaling grows.

As we were negotiating around a shoaling channel, Steve took this pic of me as I was trying to avoid running aground.

 

About 5 miles SW of the channel split, we passed an island to starboard which must have been pelican utopia. I have never seen so many pelicans anywhere.

I guess there was too much excitement for the rest of the day because we did not see another thing (other than this marker) until about 3PM. In fact, this was the very first time that I have been out on the sailboat and could not see land in any direction. At this point, I think that we were about 22 miles west of Cape Hatteras. This is one big body of water.

What is really intriguing to me is the number of pelicans on this marker. They had to fly at least 22 miles to get here...why?? Guess everyone and everything needs someplace to veg once in awhile!

The winds continued to increase during the day. Around 1PM they were 17 gusting to 27. The chop got pretty serious on the Sound and we spent the next 3 hours just pounding the bow into the water. The boat is covered with salt residue. I will be glad to get into a slip in a day or so that I can wash things down.

We had made reservations to stop at the River Dunes Marina on Broad Creek (isn't it strange that this would have been the third time in 4 days that we had spent the evening in a "Broad Creek"?). However, we were passing it around 4PM as we entered the Neuse River and wanted to get a few more miles under our belt. At this point, we have reconnected with the ICW at MM "173".

 

In these chart plotter pics, we are in the Neuse River and will be turning to port (left) to enter Adams Creek shortly The ICW breaks off from the Neuse River at Adams Creek. We decided to head down this way before we finally anchored at MM "187". In the pic above, the crosshair is where we started this morning.

We dropped anchor just before 6PM. The anchorage was just off the channel in a fairly exposed spot to winds from the south and southwest, but it seemed to be the last that we would find before Beaufort. There was just not enough sunlight left to get any farther. We did about 100 statue miles today and finally reconnected with the ICW on our journey south.

The sunset was around 6:30PM. It was beautiful as it dropped across the water and behind the trees.

We are in a fairly isolated spot. Cell coverage is spotty, but the night sky is awesome tonight. It has been awhile since I have seen the Milky Way. It is just popping out of the sky this evening.

Dinner this evening was a prepackaged turkey breast that popped into the microwave. Steve and I are both pooped this evening. He is already out and I am heading to bed shortly. 

We plan to get an early start tomorrow. Our goal is to get into Wrightsville Beach. We have 15 miles into Beaufort and then the plan is to go out the inlet and head outside down the Atlantic Ocean to the inlet at Wrightsville. It is about 65 miles outside between the inlets. We hope to be out in the Atlantic by 8:30 and back in at Wrightsville Beach by 5:00PM. 

I am really excited about getting Vic on board tomorrow! We can finish this trip together.

Day 7 - North of Beaufort NC to Wilmington, NC - The FIRST trip out in the Atlantic!

We had a good blow last evening with winds approaching 30 knots. I was up every few hours, checking to see if we were dragging anchor. The good news is that the new Ronca 25 held tight. The bad news is that I never really had a good stretch of sleep.

Today turned out to be our first day over 100 miles. It was also my first time with the boat out in the Atlantic Ocean....AND, it was the first time that I had seen Vic since September 26..a good day of firsts, but a tough sail for sure.

We pulled up anchor at 7AM and headed south down Adams Creek and then into a canal that took us south about 15 miles into Beaufort NC.

As we have journeyed south, the tides have been modest, usually less than a foot. From here to Florida, they will start to become a significant part of our planning. We are arriving in Beaufort about 2 hours past low tide. The tides here are about 3 feet, increasing to 8 feet in South Carolina and Georgia, and then diminishing back to a foot or so in South Florida. Note the height of the docks as we motor south along the canal.

This part of the ICW seemed to be comfortably wide until we passed this barge traffic. This fellow was pushing a load of phosphate from a plant in  Beaufort.

We cross under a fixed bridge at MM197. Tides were down about 2 feet and the boards were showing 65.5' clearance. As we crossed under, we never touched the VHF antenna..we were breathing easy for a change.

Just before we entered the open waters north of Beaufort, we picked up a couple of visitors in our journey south. There were 3 porpoises that swam about 3 feet off our starboard sign for about 10 minutes...looked like a baby and parents..as we looked behind us, there were at least 10 more just playing in the channel.

As we entered the open waters north of Beaufort, we can see this plant as well as the next bridge to be navigated. I am guessing that this is a phosphate plant. After the last bridge, I was feeling pretty good about this next one. As we approached, it was also showing 65.5' on the boards, BUT, we only cleared the windex by about 4" (according to a passing boat) as we struck the VHF antenna at least a foot below the top.

Note the bascule bridge behind the fixed bridge. This one is usually open.

At this point, we decided to go outside, as the bridge at MM "206.7" at Morehead City is reported to be lower than published...so we turned to port and headed out the channel into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. We did this with some trepidation as seas were forecasted to be 4-6' and winds over 20 knots from the southwest. It turns out that this forecast was conservative.

Exiting through the channel, a pair of tugs were really struggling to get this barge moving, not doing more than a couple of knots.

As we passed the last buoy around 9:30AM, our path headed west (the coastline turns west here from Cape Lookout) under both power and mainsail as we worked our way down to the Wrightsville Beach / Wilmington area about 5 miles offshore. It was rough. Seas were running 6-10 feet and we spent the first hour just trying to keep from getting seasick. It would be 6PM before our arrival at Mason Inlet at Wrightsville Beach. It seemed like this day would never end.

In this pic, we are about to bury the bow for the at least the 100th time. It was just a rough ride today. About 11AM, it seemed like we would never get there, but we just kept moving forward beating a path to the southwest. Around 4PM the seas calmed to about 4 feet as the winds dropped from 25 knots to about 10 knots. By comparison, it was as if we had entered a "glass smooth" lake. We were relieved..but only until the ominous black clouds of a thunderstorm overwhelmed us. 

The rains arrived at 4:30PM. I managed to get the "connector" canvas over the cockpit of the boat to at least keep us out of the worst of the rain. It rained hard for 30 minutes. This ended up being a blessing as the boat was covered with salt spray, and needed a good bath. We were out of the weather around 5:15 with Mason Inlet on our bow. We even had a good rainbow behind us to lift our spirits after this very long day.

Twice Blessed motored past the jetty entrance to Mason Inlet at 6:05PM, and were thankful to have the rough seas and weather behind us, at least for today.

 

Wrightsville Beach has some beautiful homes as we are finally coming back in to the ICW at MM "285". We turned north on the ICW to head back to "Bridge Tender Marina". This will probably be the only time that find ourselves going northbound, at least for this trip/

 

Bridge Tender marina is on the west bank of the ICW, just past the draw bridge at MM283. Here we are tied up for the night.

As you can see, the boat needs a good bath. I will get around to it when we get to Longboat Key.

Tomorrow is going to be a layover day..a chance to do some laundry, provision for the next week, and spend time with family and friends. I am surely glad that this day is over. I am also thankful that we made Wrightsville Beach in one piece!

Day 8 - Rest and Re-provision Day - Wilmington, NC

Last night and today we stayed at my brothers home in Wilmington. After spending 7 days on the boat, everything rocked until this morning. Steve and I were both struggling with the same issue..very wierd sensation.

Today we re-provisioned the boat, cleaned things up, did laundry, and then went to a movie, Couples Retreat. It was a cute picture.

We will spend this evening with Steve and then head to the boat early tomorrow morning. We should be under way by 9AM. Now that Vic and I have reconnected, we will slow down a bit. We will try to get in to Myrtle Beach tomorrow and then just play it by ear after that. We still need to get to Longboat before the 27th, but this should not be a problem if the weather holds up.

Wilmington / Wrightsville Beach is at MM "283". Miami is at MM "1087". At 80 miles a day, we should make Miami by the 21st. Another 4 days should get us to Longboat Key. So far we have done 3 days that are close to or more than 100 miles. This is just too much in a day. it is time to slow it down a bit.

Tomorrow starts a new week and new discoveries......

Day 9 - Wilmington NC to Myrtle Beach, NC

Today Vic and I finally got to set sail together. Steve dropped us off at the boat at 8:30AM. We had a couple of loads of clean clothes, plus Vic's suitcase to get loaded and then we cast off from alongside the docks at the Bridge Tender Marina. It was just past low tide, so I was feeling rather comfortable about the the fixed bridges that I would encounter over the next 4 hours.

Unfortunately, about 10 miles south, at MM "293.5", Carolina Inlet, we ran aground right in the middle of the channel. We hit hard and the boat lurched forward to a hard stop. There was a commercial fisherman on the west bank of the ICW yelling at me. When I finally had my wits to listen, he was saying that the channel had shoaled across and I needed to go out of the channel to the east to work around...but first I would have to turn the boat around and head north for a couple hunderd yards before I could get back across the channel. This turned out to be quite a task, as I mushed my way through the bottom and got stuck twice more. I was about ready to call the Boat US Towboat when I managed to use my bow thrusters to slide sideways and finally get back up to the north a bit and take another shot. We bounced a few times, but finally got past the inlet and back into 12' of water. This all took about 20 minutes.

We were on our way once again. Shortly thereafter, the ICW cuts across to the Cape Fear RIver via Snow's Cut. We managed this transition with no problems, picked up the BIG River, and headed south.

Current was running south and we were making almost 9 knots (anything over about 8.3 knots is a gift). While motoring south, The Southport Ferry crossed our path. It is a long way back up to Wilmington and across the river, so this ferry was rather active (we saw two of them leaving the Southport terminal). 

We headed down as far as Southport, just before entering the Atlantic when we made a turn to starboard to pick up the ICW channel. Onward to Myrtle Beach!

There are some beautiful homes along the Waterway along this route. Seems as if they just got nicer as we got closer to the South Carolina line and Myrtle.

There are several ocean inlets that cut across the ICW. Shoaling is a problem at most of these. We were a bit more wary after our experience at Carolina inlet. We watched local traffic a bit more carefully at Lockwoods Folly Inlet, and Shollote River inlet, and managed to avoid running aground. We were also helped by the rising tide. Along this section of the ICW, high tide was around 4PM today. This likely kept us out of big trouble at the inlets, but as we progressed farther to the south, it made each bridge a bit more difficult.

As Twice Blessed crossed under 4 bridges, each was a bit closer to catastrophe. The last bridge at MM "333" was showing 66 feet on the boards, but we hit the VHF antenna about 1 foot down on the whip. Since we had the antenna measured at 66'0", I am becoming more and more circumspect about the accuracy of the level indicating boards on the bridges. Tomorrow I am planning to depart before low tide and let the large tide swing on this part of our journey (>5 feet), give us some cushion on the fixed bridges to come.

Birds are everywhere along the Waterway, especially cormorants and pelicans. There is always one more "bird picture" to suck me in. Here is the one for today!

The last bridge of the day was the only pontoon bridge that we will encounter in our journey southward. The Sunset Bridge won't be in service much longer asa fixed bridge is under construction just to its south. We waited about 15 minutes for this one to open around 3PM. There was a commercial "shrimper" to the south, and 2 power plus 2 sailboats to the north. Here are a few shots that Vic caught as I motored through.

About this time, the rain finally caught up with us. It was just cold and dreary and we were ready to find some place to anchor or tie up for the evening. While we were feeling sorry for ourselves as we hunkered down in the drizzle, we passed these two guys at a golf course...not sure if this is commitment or stupidity!

And for those thinking that they are having a bad day, this scene puts it all in perspective!

We ended up at Lightkeeper's Marina in a very nice manmade harbor at MM 346. We were tied up at the slip around 4PM. There are actually 3 marinas in this basin. We are about 5 miles north of Myrtle Beach in the little community of "Little River". Lightkeeper's charged us $1.25/foot to tie up, not a bad price, but an anchorage would have been preferred. There were several restaurants around the basin, but two of them were closed on a Monday evening. We ended up at the local Holiday Inn for a light dinner and then headed back to the boat in the rain.

Vic has crashed and I am shortly going to do the same. We will start this once again tomorrow.  I doubt that we will make Charleston, SC, but we should get within 20 miles. Let's hope that the rain slides out and the sunshine takes hold!

Day 10 - Myrtle Beach to 30 miles north of Charleston SC

Today was a good day, but a long one as well. We did not get underway until 8:30 this morning. There were at least 10 fixed bridges ahead of us today, including one almost as soon as we got underway. We also dealt with several swing bridges. I wanted us to get underway before the local low tide so that most of the bridges would have a bit of extra clearance. We did well, only scraping the very last bridge just before the merge of the Waccamaw River and the Great Pee Dee River (who ever came up with that name?)..Our starting point was MM "346". We finally shut it down this evening around 6:15PM at MM "430"..a good 84 miles today.

 So here are some of our bridge adventures...

Note that there is a swing bridge in the background (now why would they need two bridges this close together?).

Note the sailboat in front of us here. This is the "Southerly" from Maine. This fellow was sailing south single handed..not sure where he was ending his journey, but we have crossed paths the last few days.

 This bridge was just south of Myrtle Beach...and this next pic is what it looks like up close and personal.

 The little "V" with the arrow is the windex. The circular antenna is a broadcast TV antenna which actually sits below the top of the mast height of 63' 6". The VHF marine radio whip antenna is about to be 4" below the steel beam of this bridge. The top of the windex is 64' 7". The top of the VHF whip is 66' 0".

And here is one more swing bridge. These things are amazing!

And finally, this is a bascule bridge. The reason for two bridges here is that the bascule bridge is a train bridge. It is normally open.

Right at Myrtle Beach, there is a section of the ICW known as the "Rock Pile". Here is why.

These photos were taken at low tide. Normally, they are 2-3 feet below water, drifting toward the side of the fairly narrow channel can ruin your day! The rock pile continued about 15 miles before opening up into the Waccama River.

This is an interesting photo..so what is it??

Here is a hint..we were cruising past North Myrtle Beach Airport. For those of us who are pilots, we know this as a VOR Beacon. It transmits a signal that is encoded and can tell the pilot what direction he is from this beacon.

As we were motoring along, this just caught our attention... (you can click on this image to blow it up to full size).

New York - 657, Miami - 720. FWIW, we have at least 200 miles to go past Miami.

During the day we traversed some remote geography, including a long stretch of the Waccamaw River, the Esterville Minim Creek Canal, and portions of the North and South Santee Rivers. There were many miles of marsh and uninhabited (a least by humans) real estate.

In fact, in the last two hours of our trip today, this is the only sign of civilization that we saw until we arrived in the tiny fishing village of McCellanville, SC.

This is a two car ferry..and the only sign of a road that we saw for more than 20 miles.

Lastly, there were many bird pictures that we took today..but this one made the blog...

All in all not a bad day..only scraped one bridge, covered more than 80 miles, temperatures were in the 80s (I see that the lows are in the 30s tonight in York, PA)...no rain, and no wrong turns. 

It is 11PM and planning is done for tomorrow. Vic has crashed and I am close behind...Now all we need to day is to keep the rain at bay on Wednesday!

Day 11 - McCellanville SC to somewhere north of Savannah?

This evening finds us anchored in a creek off of MM "516" of the ICW. It is about as far away from civilization as I have been in awhile. Cell coverage is iffy, my Sprint wireless modem is iffy, the anchor holding is iffy...but at least we are out of the rain after about 88 miles...YIPPEE!

We started this morning at 7:15AM at MM '430". About 30 minutes after we got underway, the rain arrived. At first it was just an annoying drizzle, but eventually become an incessant downpour. Even though we have canvas over the cockpit of the boat, there is no getting away from the blowing rain. The charts and guidebooks got wet, as well as my camera..and ME! I had rain gear on, but after 9 hours of being in the weather, it eventually finds its way into most of the dry spots. 

This was a shame because we sailed through Isle of Palms and then Charleston Harbor around 1PM and saw enough to know that we were missing some beautiful scenery. 

One of the first things that I learned as I motored and sailed south is that there is a major difference in the tide changes as we travel through SC and GA. This evening, the tide change at our anchorage will be 7.6'. I guess folks get used to it, but it always surprises me to see things like this.

Lots of boats just end up sitting on the ground until the tide rises..just strange...

About 2 hours after we started, the ICW cut just north of Isle of Palms. From what we could see, there are some beautiful homes here. Apparently, the island was pretty much wiped clean by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, so just about everything here was rebuilt from scratch. Here are a few photos of what we saw from the banks of the ICW as we motored past.

The architecture in Charleston is always a treat with the great verandas, beautiful tree lines streets, and just a stunning location. As we sailed into the harbor, our first major event was to run aground. The coast guard was working on a marker. Unfortunately, their boat was in front of the marker. There seemed to be way more room to the right side than the left, so I went right..and ran aground in 3 feet of water. It took me a few minutes to back off and then proceed on my way, but it is always humbling..this is the 3rd or 4th time that I have run aground since we started..oh well..somebody told me a few weeks ago that if I told folks that I did not run aground on this trip, that I was a liar..looking at the places that have shoaled up, it is pretty easy..but today, it was just an old fashioned screwup!

Once out in the Harbor, the rain had picked up to the point where it was tough to see where we were going. We headed out toward Fort Sumter and then turned to starboard in the main shipping channel. Unfortunately, we headed up in the Cooper River rather than the Ashely River. It took a mile to figure this out and shift gears..

Here is Fort Sumter in the rain..and following are some pics of Charleston through the raindrops.

These guys may have had the right idea today. As we turned into the shipping channel that ran up into the Ashley River, two sailboats were anchored out..right about this time, I would have liked to have changed places...it was a miserable day today.

Once again today, there were lots of bridges, but our timing of the tides made the bridge transitions pretty easy. This is the kind of picture that I like to see as we approach a bridge.

If you look closely, the boards will show 67' clearance. This makes me smile! We crossed under 4 fixed bridges, two swing bridges, and a bascule bridge. We encountered the Ben Sawyer Memorial Swing Bridge as just west of Isle of Palms. We had to wait about 10 minutes for an opening and almost rain aground one more time as we were maneuvering against the current while waiting for the opening.

About 10 miles out of Charleston, we had a traffic jam when a tug boat pushing a couple of barges, another sailboat, and a motor trawler (and our boat) all got backed up going under a bridge.

It felt like we were trapped behind a 90 year old couple doing 25 in a 50 zone and we could not find a passing zone!..even at 8 knots, the same adrenalin flows..how sick is this:)

Even though it was raining all day, I still managed to get one bird shot..a lonely, wet pelican!

While I am sitting here writing this evening, I have been churning over whether or not we are dragging anchor. I was topside a couple of times, but it is still overcast and there is NO moonshine. My flashlight is worthless, but my cellphone has brought me a level of peace as I know that I am sitting in a creek with at least 1 knot of current as the tide runs out (not to mention the wind). Being an Iphone junkie, I have many many applications downloaded. One of the best apps for sailing is a navigation program called "Navionics". So I thought that I would track the motion of the boat in the creek as a function of wind/current and see if we were dragging anchor. Here is a poor photo of my Iphone, but it is an interesting picture.

The boat wandered around a bit with the wind change until the tide started to run out. Now it is in its present position, and has been for the last hour or so..guess the tide is running pretty aggressively.

Tomorrow, we hope to get a bit south of Savannah, GA. I don't want to push it too far as it is Vicki's birthday. She is "way younger than me" (according to her), although I suspect this trip will age here:)...I am hoping to find a nice marina and see if we can have a good meal out somewhere along the way. If you get a chance, "Text" or email Vic a happy birthday!

680 miles down, 820 to go.....

Day 12 - Somewhere north of Savannah to Thunderbolt, GA

We decided to keep the day a bit shorter than yesterday. Aside from the fact that the long day in the rain just wore us out yesterday, it turns out that Thunderbolt, GA is the last place to stop for fuel for about 100 miles. It is a suburb of Savannah, so it was also a good place to get some groceries, have dinner off the boat, do some laundry, and just get ready for a couple days out and away. 

The morning started at MM "516" and ended at MM "584. I tried to get a photo of our anchorage last evening but it was just too dark. This was taken this morning as we were pulling out of the creek where we anchored.

Way off in the distance, there is another boat still at anchor. Not sure when he arrived, but we saw his lights off in the distance.

Our journey today took us across the Ashpoo Coosaw Cut to the Coosaw River, and then into the Beaufort River, down through Beaufort, SC, then past Parris Island (a Marine Boot Camp), then we turned south west into Port Royal Sound just before entering the Atlantic Ocean. We turned to port and entered the river that runs behind Hilton Head Island, which eventually became Calibogue Sound. Once again, just before entering the Atlantic, we motored up behind Daufuskie Island via a series of rivers and cuts. This took us to the Savannah River where we crossed the shipping channel (and had a run in with a rather large inbound container ship). Finally, we entered the Wilmington River which deposited us on the transient docks at Bahia Blue Marina in Thunderbolt.

The day started cool and dreary, but eventually warmed into the mid 70s as the sun overwhelmed the clouds.

A look at this shot of the chart plotter will give an idea of the many tidal estuaries that seem to be everywhere in coastal GA and SC. 

With water comes bridges. We transited through/under 5 or 6 including this swing bridge in Beaufort SC where we had to wait 25 minutes for the opening, a fixed bridge behind Hilton Head, and this tandem bascule bridge in Thunderbolt (this is the first tandem that we have seen).

 

We had run ins with a couple of larger craft, including a tug/barge that was doing about 1 knot less than us (which made passing nearly impossible), and a large container ship coming up the Savannah River.

 

I was going to pass in front of this container ship, but the harbor pilot graciously, but firmly recommended that I sit tight as he was proceeding toward me at 14 knots...still think that I could have made it comfortably, but everyone else (habor pilot, Vic, tug captain behind me) all probably were pleased that I gave way..guess it is just my overwhelming need to tilt at windmills that makes me want to do this!

There were many "shrimpers' out today as we came out of the Beaufort River. Here are some interesting shots of them in action.

It looked like this guy was the Pied Piper of birds..from a distance, it looked like a swarm of flies.

 

As we sailed up behind Hilton Head, there were some stunning properties. Here are just a few.

 

 

And here is a shot at the southwest end of the island. Vic and I have eaten at the restaurant next to this lighthouse a couple of years ago when we stopped in the plane for fuel.

The tide change in SC and GA is unreal. I just looked at the tide tables at our location in Thunderbolt, and the tide swing this evening is OVER 10 Feet! Most of the docks are floating, but you still see some strange sites.

Obviously, this shot was taken at low tide!

We had some great bird photos today. I decided to post a couple of them this evening.

With luck tomorrow, we will try to make it to MM "670". This will put us up behind St. Simon's Island. The plan is to anchor out for the evening. Then on Saturday, we should easily cross into Florida at MM "714" and then some.

From this evening's vantage point, it appears that we will need 10 more days to make it around to Long Boat Key on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Stay tuned....more to come...

Day 13 - Thunderbolt GA to St. Simons Island GA

Our day started around 7AM with a bit of sunshine and hopes for a bright day. Last evening after my post, we had rain showers with a threat of tornadoes. I was hopeful that the rain had moved out of the area, but luck was not with us on the weather today.

We pulled away from the docks about 8AM. There was no sense in leaving any earlier because we had a drawbridge on restricted operation about 10 miles to the south. It would not open until 9AM. We arrived just at 9AM and did not have to wait for the opening on the hour. I love it when a plan comes together!

As we pulled out, I took this pic looking back at Bahia Blue Marina. This was a nice place to tie up.

For those who are interested in such stuff, we fuel up about every 20-22 hours of operation. the diesel fuel tank holds 62 gallons and during this trip, we are averaging about 2.3 gal of fuel per hour. This is running the engine at 2800RPM which seems to be a great compromise between fuel efficiency and speed. At this RPM, with no current, we will motor along at about 8.5 knots (9.7mph). Since we are inside, fuel needs really drive our schedule since the last time I set the sails was when we did a transition from Beaufort NC to Wrightsville Beach NC outside in the Atlantic. "Twice Blessed" also holds about 160 gal or water. We have two 40 gallon waste tanks. We have them pumped out each time that we stop for fuel.

Normally, if we are under sail, we can go at least 4 days before needing to pull in for water or to dump our waste tanks.

Here is our first bridge of the day..not sure why I keep taking bridge pictures, but they cause me much anxiety (either waiting for them to open, or waiting to go under one and praying for clearance)...so those reading this will just have to put up with more bridge pics!

Shortly after our bridge passage, we came across this site. Now this person REALLY had a bad day! Also after passing this mast, we had our first rain showers of the day. Fortunately they only lasted for about 10 minutes and we were hopeful that this was the last of the showers predicted to end before noon (NOT)!

As we motored along, it became incredibly calm and the water was as smooth as glass. I tried to capture that here..I know that this is not really exciting stuff (who ever takes a picture of "still" water)..but maybe we all need to find some more "still water" in our lives. This was our little patch for the day. We could have used more of this!

Also during the entire day, we had porpoises everywhere. They have become quite prolific since our first sighting north of Beaufort NC last week...no pictures today..I was just not fast enough with the camera!

Our journey today started out on the Wilmington River. We turned to starboard onto the Skidway River and motored south past "Isle of Hope" (another appropriate name). This merges into the Burnside River and then then into the Vernon River where we were anticipating our first potential trauma of the day.

This is a picture taken as we were passing through "Hell's Gate. This is purported to be the worst spot on that Atlantic ICW. It has shoaled to a point where it is virtually impassible at low tide. As we motored through, depths were about 11 feet. Since we crossed right at high tide, and there is a 10' tide here, the problem becomes obvious. Supposedly, this was dredged recently with "stimulus monies". We can see how effective this was (editorial comment..humor me). Fortunately, we timed this perfectly. Unfortuantely, we could not do the same for the next difficult stretch later in the day at the Little Mud River.

Hell's Gate dumped us out into the Ogeechee River. We then entered the "Florida passage" to the Bear River, and then into "Saint Catherines Sound.

At St. Catherines, it is an easy trip out into the Atlantic, but we turned back up into the North Newport River. This pic is looking back toward the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Once again the "Shrimpers" were out. They would be my salvation later in the day!

 

After the North Newport River, we picked up the South Newport River, and down into Sapelo Sound. This is the next place to pick up the Atlantic, although it has become seriously shoaled and is no longer marked. We headed back up the sound which is where we got hit with a hard rain that stayed with us for several hours. From here we turned to port into the Front River, then into Old Teakettle Creek, across the Carnigan River, and then into the North River to Rockdedundy River. This would eventually lead us into the Little Mud River. 

The Little Mud River is the 2nd worst spot on the ICW. It is reported to carry 4' MLW (mean low water) at the center and 2' on the edges of the markers. We were talking to someone ahead of us who said that he saw a bit more than 5', so we were hoping to slide through. It was about an hour past tide change, so I was hoping to pick up at least a foot. As we entered, I immediately ran aground in 4' of water in the center of the channel. I was able to back off. At this point I turned 90 degrees and headed across the creek looking for some deeper water. I found 6.5 feet (we draft 5'11") and turned south again. About halfway down this 5 mile stretch (which seemed like 50), we ran aground again in 3.5' of water. At this point, a commercial "Shrimper" was motoring up our port side in the opposite direction. He was about 10 feet from the shoreline. I called him on the radio and he told me that he drafted 8' and was dragging bottom, but that this was the only way through. I managed to back off again and headed over to the bank to our left. We were carrying 7' on our depth gauge. Things went well here until just before we exited out into the Buttermilk Sound. My charts show a wreck right on this side of the River. I was anxious about running into something so I wandered off the bank about 100'....and immediately ran aground for the 3rd time. This time it took me longer to get "unstuck", but eventually we did, and I headed back to the bank..and out of the Little Mud River!

Of course, it was raining cats and dogs. I had a rain slicker on, but my pants and shoes were soaked..it was cold and windy and I was whining! (Pastor Brian, I must confess). Anyway we were through and I could start thinking about an anchorage.

As we crossed out of the Sound, we entered the Mackay River which runs up behind St. Simon's Island. Just before the St. Simons Sound, We found an anchorage for the evening on Jove Creek.

So what does one do on a long day on the water?...well as the "Captain", I am at the helm...but what of the mate?..Vic has this one figured out:)..caught her trying to read through closed eyelids!

 

I almost missed this next shot...sorry that it is not cleared, but it is of two bald eagles on the bank..I haven't seen any of these in awhile.

And the rest of today's bird pics..here is a heron? just sailing across the water...

 

and I am convinced that this cormorant was just mocking me as we motored past his roost!

 

Most of the rest of the day looked something like this...only wetter!

 

The anchor hit the water in Jove Creek about 6PM. There is a lot of tidal current here, and the boat is totally exposed to the wind, but the bottom is good and our anchor is well set. 

This is where we anchored. The bridge in the distance is 5 miles ahead. We will have to wait tomorrow for the tide to drop a few feet so that we can assure a comfortable clearance under this one...which also means that we get to sleep in at least until 8AM tomorrow!

 

And this is a different shot

and this is how our day ended..and it had finally stopped raining..YIPPEE!

 

We had a couple of T-bone steaks on the grill, a salad and some Kraft Macaroni (I am glad that I bought a 12 pack of this stuff!). Vic tried her hand at some fishing (unsuccesful). I spent an hour working on the plan for tomorrow (we are hoping to make Jacksonville, FL. and we called in a night (I am finishing this up around 11PM).

The next 5 days will be sunny, and even though it has cooled off a bit, the temps will climb into the 80s as we move a bit farther south....840 down, 660 to go!

Day 14 - St. Simons GA to Jacksonville Beach, FL

Where did the warm weather go?? I know that it is cold in York, but today was just uncomfortable on the water with the temps never getting out of the 50's and 18-23 knot winds out of the NW all day long. it was a miserable day on the water.

I have an application on my Iphone for maritime navigation with charts and the internal GPS on the Iphone. It is a miniaturized version of the chart plotter on the boat. Here is a pick of what the boat did at anchor last evening. Much of the time, the wind was blowing in the opposite direction of the tidal current. The boat seemed to wander around until the current changed direction with the tide change and was in sync with the wind. Note the spike at 12 o'clock in the picture above. this probably happened sometime around 4AM. The good news here is that the anchor held well, even with 20 knot winds and a 2 knot local current. For the record, we have about a 45lb Ronca 25 Anchor that was just installed on the boat the day before our departure. We also have 25' of 3/8" high strength steel chain and about 170' of anchor line. In this pic, we were anchored in about 15' of water at high tide. We had 120' of "rode" out. I love this Iphone app as it gives me peace of mind as I try to figure out whether or not the anchor is holding! Obviously, the Ronca 25 is doing a great job!

We planned for a late start this morning. There is a fixed bridge about 3 miles south of our anchorage (look at pics from yesterday), and high tide was around 9:30AM this morning so we decided to hang out for a bit as we had concerns about having adequate clearance under the bridge until a few hours after high tide. The anchor was raised and we were underway by 10:15 AM. When we arrived at the bridge about 10:35, the boards were showing 64' (see pic below). Some bridges are conservative, but I don't have any history from which to judge, so we decided to wait for lower tide.

When we finally went under the bridge about 11:45AM, the boards were showing a "scoosh" more than 65'. I should have scraped the top foot of the VHF antenna, but we never touched it..so we could have probably slide under at 10:45...BUT, not knowing, we could have also lost the wind instruments at the mast head..decided to be conservative...Unfortunately, this put us in the dark at the other end this evening.

Here is Brunswick, Ga on our starboard side as we waited for the bridge.....

 

and St. Simons Island on our port side....

Here is the lighthouse at the south end of St. Simons Island..the Atlantic Ocean is straight out on the right side of this photo.

 

Today, our journey took "Twice Blessed" down the west side of St. Simons Island, the out into St. Simons Sound, then behind Jekyll Island via Jekyll Creek. We ran aground here at MM 683. One of the guides that we use, "Skipper Bob's", recommended bearing to the left side of the channel at this location. We found 3.5' of water even though it was several hours before low tide. It took a few minutes to back off and "feel our way" back toward the right side of the channel where we found 7.5' of water. This is about the 6th time that we have run aground in this past week. Although I have paid for a towing service through Boat US, I have not yet needed to use it. We were warned going in that Georgia would be the toughest part of this trip for shoaling and poorly maintained cuts and canals...This appears to be exactly how it has unfolded!

After we got "unstuck", our path took us out into Jekyll Sound and just out into the Atlantic ocean before we were able to turn back in and head behind Cumberland Island. This is the last landmass in Georgia.

This is the bottom end of Jekyll Island....

and the top end of Cumberland Island. These sand cliffs are stunning!

We cruised down the Cumberland River, finally dumping out into the Cumberland Sound. This is a major ship channel with some Navy installations, but we did not run into any major traffic today, just a lot of cold air and brisk winds! We did come across a major dredging operation....

 

And this strange structure at a Navy facility. I have no idea what it is..does anyone have a clue?

At 4:13PM this afternoon, we finally crossed the state line into Florida.  The sun was shining and Vic and I basked in the warmth that overwhelmed us as we crossed into "snowbird" territory....

 

Here is Vic working on her tan....

And me trying to pilot the boat into warmer waters!

 

This fort was on the Florida side of the Cumberland Sound, at the north end of Amelia Island. 

The last part of our journey took us down the Amelia River behind the town of Fernandina Beach and Amelia Island, then into Sawpitt Creek as we crossed behind Talbot Island..then into Sisters Creek where we watched the sun set.

Here is a good shot of the Jacksonville skyline while there is still some sunlight.

 

The port of Jacksonville is silhouetted by the last rays of the evening sun. It is 6:53PM and we are still 5 miles from our destination. We also still have to engage a drawbridge, cross the St. John's River (the main ship channel into Jacksonville), and cross under two fixed bridges on a rising tide...I am definitely nervous at this point.

The Sisters Creek drawbridge operator saw us coming and had the bridge up so that we did not have to slow down..then we were out into a very choppy St. John's River about 5 minutes after sunset. The wind was blowing directly down the river from the NW and it was a short but rough trip to the south side and Pablo Creek. As soon as we entered the Creek at MM741, there was a 65' fixed bridge. The boards were lighted (it was now getting rather dark), but it was fairly easy to cross underneath and see where we were going..we really could not see the top of the mast..would there be a crunch? Well we got through unscathed and then on to the next bridge at MM 743. This one showed 64' at the bridge. We really had no choice but to continue. Once again, we did not even scrape!..phew!..I was sure that this would be the one...By now it was really dark, and with no moonlight, Vic was forward holding onto the forestay with a small flashlight and trying to help me pick my way the last two miles into the marina. We made it, but just missed an unmarked wooden structure on our starboard side. We arrived at the marina at 7:40 PM, stopped at the fuel docks and topped off..then we motored down to a "T-head" and tied up for the night.

One of the deck hands recommended a little restaurant at the end of the marina, Billy's Boathouse Pub. There was good music and food. W stuck around for an hour or so and then headed back to the boat. 

I almost forgot our bird photo for the day. We found another pelican nesting ground just behind Jeykll Island.

It is 12:54AM as I am finishing this post tonight. Vic has already crashed. I would like to as well, but I have learned that if I don't get this done before I head to bed, that I will lose it tomorrow. As I wander back through some of the older posts, there really has been a lot going on. After a couple of days it just gets away from me....must be my advanced years!

Tomorrow we will try to get away early. Local high tide is around 12:30PM. We should be able to get at least 3 fixed bridges behind us before we run into any tide problems. Our hope is to get down to the MM 835 and Daytona Beach and find a good anchorage or transient slip space....now all we need is some warmer weather..but at least it is not in the 30s (although Jacksonville will see 45 tonight!).....

Day 15 - Jacksonville Beach FL to Daytona Beach FL

Who left the refrigerator door open? It is still cold down here. It was 45 when we got up his morning. After a quick shower (yes we do have hot and cold running water on the boat..AND two heads with showers), I was topside disconnecting the electric and rigging two lines so that we could cast off without getting off the boat. We pulled out of the marina at 8:30AM and headed south at MM 746. Our goal for today was to make it to Daytona Beach around MM 835. We had not gone 100 yards when we encountered our first of many bridges today. The indicator boards were showing 64', but I decided to see whether or not they were conservative. We never even scraped the antenna, so at least this one gave us 2' of grace!

It was another cold and windy day, but we spent at least part of the day in somewhat protected waters. There were many neat homes that were starting to pop up along the waterway. This was the antithesis of GA and much of SC where we so nothing for several days.

 This one was just after we got under way.

We are starting to pick up a fair amount of traffic along the way. Most of the sailboats are making at least a knot less than we are. It is one of the advantages of the length of our boat. The maximum speed of a "keeled" sailboat is known as hull speed. it is the velocity of a wave with crests that are equal to the water line length of the boat..the longer the distance between the crests, the faster the wave can travel..and the faster the hull speed of the boat. Because of the design of the Beneteau, our water line length is almost the same as the length of the boat...so our maximum speed is faster.

That is not the case for a power boat which is designed to plane up across the wave..so we got passed many times today.

Our first major waypoint today was St. Augustine, FL. We  entered under a fixed bridge. These guys were just hanging out on the boards as we crossed underneath. No sooner had we entered the inlet area then the porpoises came out to play.

 

At St. Augustine, it is necessary to head way out into the ocean inlet to avoid a major shoal. 

As we headed back in toward the "Bridge of Lions", this old Fortress was on the west side of the waterway. it is the Castillo de San Marcos, and was built by the Spanish in 1672 to protect against the British. 

Just past the Fort, we waited about 10 minutes for the scheduled 12PM  opening of the "Bridge of Lions". This apparently historic 90 year old drawbridge is being renovated (as opposed to being replaced by a fixed bridge). During the renovation, there is a temporary lift bridge in place to carry the traffic. These things are pretty neat to watch. 

In this first shot, the temporary span is down. The span across the top just maintains the structural integrity of the bridge as the entire lower span moves up and down.

 

In this second photo, taken after we crossed through, the old bridge is opening during the renovations and the temporary span is just descending

There were some stunning sights of St. Augustine as we motored past.

This is an interesting town. Sometime when we have more time, I would love to go back and spend a few days exploring here.

Here is a sign that we don't see north of Florida. Not only did we see the sign, but a couple of Manatee as well. Unfortunately, they were faster than my camera:(

Unlike our journey through Georgia, The ICW in Florida is a rather straight shot north to south. Much of the route is canal connecting between rivers. Today, most of the trip was not more than a mile off of the ocean. In some spots it was only several hundred yards. Here are just some random pictures that just asked to be taken today.

This is one weird architectural structure. It begged to be photographed!

And this is the bluest roof that I have ever seen....

This next photo just says "Florida - we have arrived!"

Is this yellow enough..it is even brighter than my "Vette"..

Is this really the "Pink Panther" on that smokestack?

I think that the price of real estate is going up....

High rise condos on the north end of Daytona Beach...

More bridges than I wanted to deal with...5 fixed spans and two draw bridges in 2 miles as we entered the Daytona Beach area from the north...BTW, there is one more that we will cross under tomorrow morning.

We finally found a spot to anchor on the east side of the ICW. It was quiet with no other boats. Maybe this is because you have to go a mile south before you can turn to the east..then run a mile back north to a nice anchorage. Here are a few photos as we were just sitting on the boat and getting ready to close up the hatch for the evening.

We are just off of the sea wall from this stunning property to the east..

This is where everyone else decided to anchor..but I have always been a bit contrarian...DUH!

And this is just after sunset, looking off to the west and the racetrack...I was distracted and just missed the sunset by a few minutes...oh well, there is always tomorrow..

Vic and I are both tied this evening. It was a "make do" night for dinner. She had a salad and I made some scrambled eggs..time to reprovision at our next stop.

The plan tomorrow is to make it to Melbourne. We have some good friends there and plan to spend the night with them. It will also be a good chance to do some laundry, get groceries, and just kick back a bit. 

Today we passed the 1000 mile mark. We are at 1003 miles give or take...500 more to go...oh, I forgot to mention that we did NOT run aground today!..maybe tomorrow:)....

Day 16 - Daytona Beach FL to Melbourne FL

This was another 90 mile day. Our plan was to leave the boat this evening and spend the night with friends, the Williammees, in Melbourne, FL. It would be our first day off the boat since we were in Wilmington, NC on Day 8.

The anchor was up and we were moving at 7:15AM..also time to get a couple of good photos of sunrise over Daytona Beach!..and it was cold..47 degrees in Daytona Beach, setting a record low for the date. The winds continue out of the north at 20+ knots..it is still just darn cold!

 

 

Ou schedule today was driven by work on this NASA railroad bascule bridge that is located on the vast grounds of Cape Canaveral. It has been under refurbishment since March, and due for completion at the end of October. It is only open from 11AM until 1PM each day. It is 45 miles from our starting point. We are averaging between 9.5 and 10 miles per hour, so a 7:15 AM departure should get us there by 12:15 PM. If we are late, we will have to hang out for another day at this location.

We made it almost exactly at 12:15PM. This was part of our long run in the expansive areas of Cape Canaveral. We passed through 4 different movable bridges in about 45 minutes, including a swing bridge that almost hit us.

This was a scary event. We were #1 with 3 other boats behind us. We were waiting for the opening. When the operator finally opened the bridge, it was quite quick. I started to go through and was almost inside of the "boards" when the operator seemed to lose control of the bridge in the wind. Instead of stopping at 90 degrees, it kept going. I was able to hit reverse and get the boat stopped about 50 feet before getting smacked! The bridge had swung almost 135 degrees before he got it under control and was able to reverse it..lesson learned..even with folks behind me, WAIT until the darn thing is stopped!

As we were headed south, I came across this great real estate opportunity..anyone interested in buying an island?

 

Heading south from Daytona, the next community that we passed was Ponce De Leon. This is the lighthouse off to our east.

 

Of course, there were a ton of bird shots. Here is one of many that I took today of pelicans....

 

And another of an osprey..I was told to expect to see more bald eagles as we got down to the Keys. I will be looking closely!

 

Most of the next two days will be spent in the Indian River..it looks just like this for miles...and miles..and miles.....actually several hundred of them.

There is very little tide change in the Indian River, typically less than 0.3 feet. Most of the change is caused by the winds. When the winds blow from the east, it drives water back into the inlets off of the Atlantic Ocean. With the north winds, the levels seem to be down about 6-9". I will take it..makes the bridges easier on my stomach!

 

During the day, the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral was within view for at least 5 hours. This is one huge building. They were supposed to move the Shuttle out of it today for the launch pad, but delayed until tomorrow..bummer!

Here it is from 3 different vantage points taken over a 5 hour stretch.

 

 

South of Titusville and Cape Canaveral, we passed by Cocoa FL...

 

About an hour before we got to Melbourne, we crossed paths with another sailboat, "Sail Mate". These folks had just picked up their boat in St. Augustine and are headed for Pensacola, FL. Supposedly, their mast height is 62.5' with stuff above it. However, they hit the mast on the bridge at Flagler Beach the day before. They apparently were at high tide when they went under. They lost their windex as well as the "Anchor Light" at the mast head...brand new boat..what a shame. However, I am inclined to think that they are taller than they think. 

We went under many bridges today, scraped most, but not by much and seem to be getting more comfortable in believing that the bridges really ARE at least 65' above MHW (mean high water).

Here we both are, sailing in to Melbourne Harbor Marina for the evening. It is about 5PM. Sail Mate plans to leave well ahead of us tomorrow as we will be leaving the boat for the night and doing some provisioning tomorrow morning before our departure.

 

Vic and I spent the evening with Nancy and John Williammee. John and I have been friends since the 80s. We are also involved in a couple of business opportunities together..seems as if neither of us has quite figured out how to retire. 

Vic started two loads of laundry, Nancy fixed a great "beef stew" for us, and we had a good chacne to catch up.

We finally ran out of steam around 11PM and called it a day.

We ended the day at MM 919. We are 1089 miles into our journey..still looking at arriving on Sunday!

Day 17 - Melbourne FL to Fort Pierce FL

Last night I decided NOT to set the alarm clock. Vic and I are both a bit tired. We are both in agreement that while this is a real adventure, it is definitely NOT a vacation! 

Sailing inside is tedious, trying to stay in a 100' channel, worrying about local shoaling, local tides, bridge heights, and bridge opening schedules..it is just not as easy as setting the boat on a tack and letting the autopilot keep you pointed in the right direction. We might go outside tomorrow if the seas die down a bit, but for today, it will be inside.

We finally crawled out about 8AM, had a nice breakfast with Nancy and John, and just spent some easy time together. John cut us some bananas (really!). Here is what we now have hanging inside of the boat.

 

These will start to ripen about the time that we get to Longboat Key.

I got a great picture of a heron that was in the mangrove right off of John's deck..

 

Here are a few pics of John and Nancy's home...

 

We headed out to the grocery store to stock up, and then over to the boat, arriving around 11AM. We were fortunate to have eight hands as we had a bunch of stuff to get to the boat (including a bunch of bananas!).

We got things loaded on the boat, pumped out our holding tanks, filled up our fuel and water tanks, and were ready to get underway around noon time. I took this picture of John, Nancy, and Vic standing in front of "Twice Blessed" just before we finally got underway.

 

We were departing at MM 918 and planning to do about 45 miles today, with an expected arrival just south of Fort Pierce, FL before 6PM...but before we were underway more than a couple of miles, we were intercepted by a speeding motorboat! John and Nancy had headed back to the house and jumped into their "Whaler" to give us a final sendoff...pretty cool!

About 5 miles after the intercept, I took this shot of a seaplane coming into Melbourne...need to get this endorsement on my pilot's license one of these days!

 

Most of the day was spent out in some pretty sparesly populated areas, but things got narrow and interesting around Vero Beach and Indian River Shores. This is one of many beautiful homes that sit on the ICW in this area.

 

Although it was warm when we left Melbourne (finally), with temps around 80, the skies quickly clouded over and the winds picked up out of the northeast. A rather vigorous chop developed on the Indian River, and I found myself needing a jacket one more time. I had really hoped that yesterday was the last of the cool weather.

We also got caught in a couple of scattered showers, but nothing lasting more than 10-15 minutes at a time.

We finally turned off to the east at red day marker "188", located at MM 966 and entered "Faber Cove". We dropped anchor about 5:50PM in a great anchorage. There is a bit of wind this evening, but the anchor is holding well and the air has warmed again. Here are a few shots of our anchorage this evening.

 

We had some leftover beef stew that Nancy had packed for us, eating for the first time up on the cockpit table. It is nice to finally be able to enjoy "warm". 

Tomorrow will likely be a long day with a bunch of restricted bridge openings. I am considering going outside for at least 20 miles, but they are forecasting 6-7' seas and winds out of the east tomorrow. Onshore winds just have plenty of time to build up the wave heights, so I am reluctant to take Vic outside tomorrow. We will have no choice after tomorrow as we are fast approaching Miami and will need to go outside and down the Atlantic Ocean side of the Keys to Marathon FL before we turn north and up the west coast of Florida.

Now all we need to do is to keep that developing low pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico out of our way...1136 miles down..about 400 to go..

Day 18 - Fort Pierce FL to Lantana FL - Bridges, Bridges, and MORE Bridges!

Boy am I tired of dealing with bridges this evening. We got underway this morning around 8:15AM and anchored this evening at 5:45PM...We should have covered 80+ miles. Instead we made it from MM966 to MM1032...66 miles. Along the way we motored under 3 fixed bridges and 14 draw bridges. 11 of the bridges were restricted, opening either on the hour-half hour, or 15 and 45 after the hour. Our journey took us down past Jensen Beach, Port St. Lucie, Stuart, Hobe Sound, Jupiter and Jupiter Island (someone sold a $100M house here last year), North Palm Beach, Palm and West Palm Beach, and finally to Lantana, which is just north of Boynton Beach. 

 

This was our anchorage this morning as I was getting ready to pull the anchor...in the rain! The anchor held well last evening, even though the winds were over 20 knots out of the east..worked for me because I slept like a baby!

 

As we headed south down the Indian River, we ran across this nuclear power plant (at least I assume that it is nuclear) about 10 miles below Fort Pierce.

 

Our path took us south into the St. Lucie River and as things narrowed down dramatically, the upscale houses started to pop up..some beautiful properties!

 

This is the St. Lucie Inlet out to the Atlantic Ocean. It crosses the ICW and then the St. Lucie River heads out toward the canal to Lake Okechobee..the canal across the state of Florida that I cannot take:(

 

And this is the view looking to starboard up the St. Lucie River looking west. The canal only carries about 5 feet depth, and the bridges only offer 55' clearance. We lose on both counts. For some who can make this route, it will save them 4 or 5 days.

 

Below is a pic of the first drawbridge of the day. I was actually behind these two sailboats prior to the bridge, but they were only making about 5 knots. I passed them as soon as we cleared the bridge. This is a "demand" bridge, which means that it opens on request, rather than to a predefined schedule.

 

Once past this bridge, the ICW wanders through a canal until it enters into Hobe Sound. There are some beautiful homes along this stretch of country that wanders through Port St. Lucie as well as Stuart.

Once entering Hobe Sound, the Jonathan Dickensen State Park borders the west bank of the ICW. Vic and I stayed here in the RV back in January on our way down to the Keys. We actually were on top of this observation tower looking across the ICW at Jupiter Island.....never thought that we would be headed south this way!

This next pic is a special location for me. The flag pole is just about exactly at MM "1000" on the Atlantic ICW...counting our trip down to Norfolk, we had gone 1160 miles at this point!

 

And here is another home on Jupiter Island..

This next shot is of the lighthouse at the south end of the Island.

This pic is where our bridge problems really got started. The Jupiter 707 Bridge is a demand bridge. We arrived right behind this motor yacht at 12:45PM. Unfortunately, the bridge was broken and an electrician was working on it. Right after this bridge was another demand bridge, and then a restricted bridge within 2 miles. As scheduled, we should have been able to get through the restricted bridge by 1PM....BUT, we did not get through this bridge until 1:20..the next bridge was open. As we approached the demand bridge, it was open on it's scheduled 1:30 opening. I got within 300 yards of it when the bridge operator closed it on me....now there is a guy on a power trip. I had to wait another 1/2 hour for the opening..got through at the 2PM opening..cost us 1 hour...more to come...9 more to come:(

 

After waiting for several other bridges we crossed into Palm Beach Harbor. Just before entering the harbor, I could not resist taking a pic of this highrise...

 

And here are some of the sites in the harbor, including the unloading of this container ship.

Once through the harbor, we motored down between Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. Here are some photos of both...lots and LOTS of money here..

 

I believe that this one is a hotel in Palm Beach..my guess would be a Ritz Carlton..but what do I know..

 

This is looking out over West Palm. Vic and I had flown down here for a business meeting in July and spent some time enjoying the sites here. They have a great shopping area in amongst all of these high rise buildings...

 

I did not even notice these palm trees at first. Vic saw them and pointed them out to me..had to take a pic.

 

More ritzy ditzy houses..

 

I this stretch through downtown Palm Beach/West Palm Beach, we encountered 7 restricted bridges in a row..I finally gave up after this last bridge at MM 1031 and decided to go drop the anchor around 5:30...This pic was actually taken after we were anchored..as were the next 2.

 

Another sailboat anchored nearby..

 

I just missed sunset..again..but not by more than a minute..



Tomorrow is another bridge day. There are 15 more restricted bridges before we go outside at MM 1066, at Port Everglades. This outside excursion is necessary because there is a bridge on the Julia Tuttle Expressway that crosses the ICW at MM 1087 that is only 55' high..so outside is the only way. The winds have been out of the east for the last 2 days at 20 knots+. They are calling for 2-4' waves in close and 4-6' out in the Gulf Stream. My plan is to keep it in close for the last 22 miles down to Miami Harbor. The plan is to stay at the Dinner Key Marina tomorrow evening in Biscayne Bay (at $2.40/foot for dockage..that is 2.40 x 49')..I have been paying anywhere from $1/foot to $1.85/foot on the trip down...There are some marinas that are getting as much as $5/foot in Miami...will be glad to get fuel and water and then head south on Friday. 

Tomorrow we will end the day at MM 1094. Marathon is about 100 miles southwest in the Keys. Then there is a long run up through the Gulf of Florida, 136 miles up to Boca Grande..and then another 40 miles or so up to Longboat Key. We are still hoping to make it by Sunday as long as the weather holds up...and boy will I be glad to leave all of the bloody bridges behind!

Day 19 - Lantana FL to Coconut Grove FL - MORE Bridges and a Tough Ride Outside

Tonight (Friday October 23) I am trying to catch up for yesterday and today. Yesterday (Day 19) was a tough day and I was wasted when we finally got slipped at the Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove on Biscayne Bay just south of Miami...so I ended up crashing last night before I was able to get the day's blog done..so we are catching up this evening. 

The day started with the anchor up at 7:20AM. The sun is just coming up in this shot across the ICW from our anchorage. We were looking at 14 restricted bridges on our way out to the Atlantic Ocean at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, and timing would be everything. 

 

This was our first bridge of the day. We were about 15 minutes early for the 8AM opening.

Note the other bridge just beyond this one..We had to wait until 8:15 for the opening of the 2nd bridge.

While waiting for the bridge opening, this osprey flew by with a fish in its talons.

We have now been under more than 50 draw bridges. There are lots of ways to open these things, but two seem to predominate, gears and hydraulics. Here is a pic of a geared draw bridge...

Our journey today took us from Lantana to Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale, out into the Atlantic Ocean south of Lauderdale, then back in at Miami Harbor at Government Cut, and down to Coconut Grove on Biscayne Bay. We started at MM 1031 and ended up at MM 1095. But with the ride outside and then back in, we did about 75 miles today. Considering the restricted bridges, and the tough outside ride, it was a long exhausting day.

We saw some incredibly expensive real estate, more boats than I have ever seen (Fort Lauderdale claims to be the yachting capital of the World), and even a few interesting bird shots!

Here are some of the homes and buildings that we saw going south, especially in Fort Lauderdale..

 I guess that these folks like white, big, and modern!

This house is huge and has a drive under dock..We got very tired of looking at this house as the draw bridge just past was closed due to electrical problems for 90 minutes (this is the 2nd time we have been delayed at a bridge for electrical problems in 2 days)...so we just piddle around trying to keep the boat off of the sea walls due to the tidal currents...also put us 90 minutes behind our bridge schedule which we never made up.

This is an "Art Deco" high rise in Boynton Beach...can you say PINK??

 At one of the bridges, these folks joined us in the sailboat "Seabreeze" out of Tampa, FL. It turns out that they are retired and from Philly, and the Skipper used to spend a lot of time in York as he did business with York International. The were a bit slower than us under power, but the bridges kept us together until they pulled off for the day in Ft. Lauderdale. They also draft 5' and planned to take the inside ICW route down along the Keys..we will have to go outside as we draft almost 6'. We may yet meet up at Little Shark River where we are both planning to anchor on our trip up the west coast of Florida over the weekend.

Another home being renovated in " Money Central".

This sign says it all!

 We passed this fellow, the Nordic Prince" about MM1064. This boat was stunning and about 150' long..

 

More boats

and MORE boats....

And high rises and more stunning homes

I have seen this house listed in the "Wall Street Journal"..can't remember the price (but it is way out of my league!)

Boats AND high rises..they are both like flies in Fort Lauderdale.

About 2PM we headed out to the Atlantic Ocean via the Port Everglades Inlet. Unfortunately, we had to go out here, or stop for the day (in hindsight it might have been better to stop here like Seabreeze did). There is a bridge across the ICW in south Miami at MM1087, the Gloria Tuttle Bridge, that is only 55' high. Unfortunately, we are 65' high....so out we had to go outside.

It was a tough ride, and the first out in the Atlantic for Vic. We were a couple of miles offshore (trying to stay inside of the Gulf Stream which is only 6nm offshore). It was a tough ride with 6-7 foot seas and 25 knot winds across the port beam. I had the mainsail out, not that it was the big driving force, but because it forced the boat to take a heel to starboard rather than rocking back and forth across each wave. We were heeled over more than 20 degrees at this point.

This is the only photo that we took as we were departing at Port Everglades..looking back on the Lauderdale skyline.

FINALLY, we are coming into Miami Harbor. These high rises are just north of Gov't Cut which is the Harbor entrance.

Upon entering the Harbor, we turned to port down Dodge Cut and past the cargo handling.

The number of high rises in Miami dwarfed even Ft. Lauderdale.

 

And here is a pic looking back on the downtown Miami skyline as we are sailing south across Biscayne Bay to Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove. Dinner Key is about 2 miles west of the ICW at MM 1095.

Our arrival at Dinner Key Marina was less than impressive. Aside from the fact that I was just plain tired, they sent us to the fuel dock (which had closed an hour earlier). The wind was blowing us pretty briskly into the dock. As I was trying to get the boat off of the dock, I caught the grill that was affixed to one of my port side rails and ripped it off of the boat..so much for grilling steaks out on the stern for the next few days...then the slip to which we had been assigned, already had a boat in it..then when they finally sent us down to another slip, there was no one there to give us a hand...normally if it is your slip, the lines are already on the pilings, but in this case, we were only saved by a considerate nearby boater who took pity on us and helped us tie up. The folks from the marina got there about 30 minutes after we were tied up...would not recommend this place again.

We each took a shower as the day was pretty sticky..plus we were both covered with salt spray from our ride in the Ocean...and then walked over to the Chart House for a very nice dinner. Afterwards, we picked up a few groceries at a nearby store, and walked back to the boat. I turned in at 10PM and asked Vic if she minded if I just slept in on Friday as I needed a down day...I did not blog, or do any planning for Friday...plus I suspect that neither one of us was ready to do 10 more hours out in the Atlantic unless the seas subsided a bit...

1265 miles down...about 300 to go..I am glad that this day is done!

Day 20 - Coconut Grove FL to Long Key FL

Thankfully, today was much better than yesterday. I woke up at 6AM (so much for sleeping in), and actually felt pretty good...so I did my plan for the day, looking at how we were going to get back outside through Biscayne Bay, and where we might anchor. We still had to fill up our water tanks, get fuel, and get on our way. It was 9AM when we finally pulled out into Biscayne Bay. I had hoped to get down to Marathon, but there was no way that I could see us making it today. 

Here is "The Mate" getting ready to help me fill the water tanks before disconnecting from the shore power, etc....

The shorter route was inside on the ICW, but because of our 6' draft, there were too many spots where we would risk running aground..so we had to go outside and down Hawks Channel. This ride would keep us about 2 miles offshore but inside an "off shore" reef which would keep the ride a bit more comfortable. The ride out to Hawks Channel was about 8 miles before we even turned south. We headed out through the Biscayne Channel south of Key Biscayne. 

This is looking back on Coconut Grove as we motor out through Dinner Key Channel into Biscayne Bay.

These two cormorants were obviously in heated conversation as we passed by...this is a shot that I could not resist!

Looking back at Miami..

And the lighthouse at the south end of Key Biscayne...

There were 6 or 7 of these houses that were sitting on the edge of the Biscayne Channel...I have no ideas as to what they are about...

Here is one last look back at Miami before it disappears in the haze..

 

Today we finally had a decent sailing day..and got both sails set on a port tack...we sailed, and also motor sailed..we were doing about 8.4 knots just under power, 7.8 knots under just sail, and 9.3 knots 
with both sails set but with power...we did some of each of these today.

And others had the same plan...

Frankly there was not much to see...although we did pick up a few sites..

Like this "Bird Hotel" on one of the Channel Markers...

And here is Key Largo from offshore..

And Islamorada..

 

And here is a crabber. I was slow in getting to the camera. When we first came upon this boat, there was a dog up on the bow. As this fellow turned north, the dog headed to the back of the boat...well behaved dog...I have never seen so many crab pot markers..and I thought that the Chesapeake Bay was bad...

This next photo is the bridge over Long Key. It is a 65' bridge that allows traffic to move back and forth from the ICW into Hawks Channel. We may go under it tomorrow if we decided to cut across here as opposed to "Seven Mile Bridge" at Marathon. We are going to anchor here shortly.

The anchor was finally set at about 6:15PM. Here are a few shots of our anchorage.

 

I did a little swimming (the water was great)..

Vic did a bit of fishing...

She even caught a couple of catfish (in salt water no less)...

 

I even got a chance to shower at the stern of the boat..there is a hot/cold shower fixture at the swim platform which was perfect this evening! (ignore the gut)

The sun set around 6:55PM..we had a great view..

It is really muggy this evening with a low in the high 70s and a lot of humidity..so I have decided to keep the boat closed up and the generator running (and AC). As I sit here finishing up this post, it is just after midnight and we are rocking a bit. The winds just picked up to about 15 kts. They have been about 7 earlier...should sleep well.

I was just outside and the Milky Way is once again very bright in the sky. It is nice to get out where there is no ambient light and see what we used to see as kids..

We are now looking at Monday for our arrival into Longboat key. I am guessing that it is about 220 miles from here, but that is just too much for two days unless we go outside and do an overnight sail tomorrow...just not in my plans right now. Regardless of how we head across, the plan is to make Little Shark River tomorrow evening. 

1340 miles down..220 or so to go...it was a good day today!

Day 21 - Long Key FL to Little Shark River FL (Everglades National Park) via Marathon FL

The day started around 6:15AM. The dilemma of the morning was whether or not to go under the Long Key Bridge, and take the short cut over to the west coast of Florida, or to go on down to Marathon, get fuel, and take a longer trip, but with less chance of running aground. After looking at the weather, which included 10-15knot winds out of the northeast, I decided to take the longer route. While I might have been able to get through at 6’ draft, I figured that the NE winds would drive the water out of the Florida Bay, making depths on the ICW questionable.

We had the anchor up and were under way around 7:30AM (which is local sunrise), and headed the 27 miles down to Marathon. 

The ride was uneventful, other than a threat of rain, and we arrived around 10:40PM at Boot Key Harbor in Marathon. We stopped to top of our diesel tanks before the run north. I am hopeful that we can make it to Longboat Key without another fuel stop.

The lady at the fuel dock in Marathon had just moved down from Tampa. She and her husband sold everything, bought a motor trawler, and headed south to the Keys. They had planned to go to Key West, but when the got to Marathon, they decided to stay put! As we were talking to her, it turns out that she used to live in Garland, TX. This is where Vic is from, where her family is all located, and where we also have a condo..small world.

We pushed off from the Marina around 11AM and headed back out for the run up to the west coast of Florida. As were were leaving Boot Harbor, we caught these two birds stretching their wings.

We would cross under the 65’ section of the Seven Mile Bridge south of Marathon. This would be a our LAST fixed bridge before arriving in Longboat Key...Now all we have is one draw bridge at the north end of Longboat...I need to go back and figure out how many bridges we dealt with in this journey..maybe after we get in on Monday...

Once under the Bridge at Moser Channel, we took a heading of almost due north to make the long run in open water across the Florida Bay. We also spent almost the entire ride zigzagging around lobster and crab pots.. We were out of sight of land for about 2 hours....but not of these darn things. They were everywhere!

 

It was a long LONG trip across...this is how Vic was able to deal with the problem....

Our plan for the evening was to anchor in Little Shark River, which is part of the Florida Everglades National Park. After a  36 nm ride ( 41.5 statute miles) we arrived and dropped anchor at 4:30PM. The ride up from Marathon to the Little Shark was uneventful, other than an occasional porpoise hitching a ride on our wake..I love to watch them, but have had problems photographing them...but there were many of them today..and they would sit about 2 foot off of the aft quarter of the boat, just riding the wake..really neat animals!

We were warned that once in the Little Shark River, that there are alligators on the banks (although we have yet to see them), and that we should not plan on swimming!..not a problem tonight.

 

 

One issue being this far out in the middle of no where is that there is no cell coverage, no TV, minimal radio (although we have XM on the boat). I do have Diret TV onboard, but the receiver went south about 10 days ago, and after talking with them, it appears to be a decoder chip in the receiver..so no TV tonight..guess it will be a good night to just read.

Tonight we had an early dinner..before 6PM and decided to close up the boat as the mosquitos are veracious around here. It is in the low 80s this evening and very humid. I have the generator running and the AC turned on. Last night we started out this way, but I shut down the generator around midnight and just opened the hatches. I felt as if I had slept in a sauna when I got up this morning. Tonight, we will just let it run!

Tomorrow, the plan is to go outside quickly and head up to the south end of Sanibel Island. This is about 85 nautical miles. This should be a 10-11 hour run, depending on tides and currents. With luck, this will leave us about 70 nm on Monday.

I am writing this on my word processor this evening as I cannot access the internet. Once we are up towards Marco Island tomorrow, I should be able to get it posted..

Tonight we are about 1412 statute miles into the trip...now that we have a better sense of the last bit of this trip, we have about 172 statue miles to go to the end!...Today for the first time, I can sense the end of this journey...and I am looking forward to our arrival in Longboat Key

Day 22 - Little Shark River FL to Fort Myers Beach FL

The morning was overcast today as we lifted anchor around 7:15AM. It had rained during most of the night, but the sun popped from behind the clouds as we were sailing out of our anchorage at Little Shark River.

 

We had planned a long run for today..almost 90 nautical miles (102 statute miles). The good news is that there were NO bridges, and the seas were very manageable at about 2'. Our first leg took us from the mouth of the river up to the shoals at Cape Romano, just south of Marco Island. Here is how things looked on the chartplotter. Our final destination for the day is about 2/3 of the way up the screen, where there is a bit of a "fish hook" in the coast line. This is where Sanibel Island curves in towards Fort Myers.

 

As we approached Marco, we could see this building for almost two hours. It is at the southern end of Marco Island, which is pretty much the southern end of civilization on the west coast of Florida.

 

Along the way we crossed paths with a bunch of sail boats, but these two boats were both sailing on a run with their spinnakers flying..it was quite a sight!

Heading north, the next town that we passed was Naples...more high rises!

 

Other than looking over at the coast line, there was just not much going on for this very long leg..but these two guys flew across our bow..besides, I needed my bird picture for the day, so they are it!


 

As we approached Fort Myers / Sanibel, this bridge is the first thing that pops out. It is one of three bridges that make up the Sanibel Causeway from Fort Myers, out to Sanibel/Captive Islands. We did not go under this bridge today, but turned right just prior and entered Matanzas Pass which runs south behind Fort Myers Beach.

 

As we were making the turn at the pass, There was a wedding getting started on the beach as we made our turn. It was a beautiful afternoon for this event.

We tied up about 5 minutes later at Moss Marina. The winds were blowing across our path as we were trying to back into our slip, plus we had a pretty good tidal current to deal with. It was not pretty, but we got the boat tied up without breaking anything!

The folks at the Marina pointed us to a nice restaurant down the street. Vic and I had a nice meal at the Matanzas Inn, but I can report that their idea of "Maryland Crabcakes" isn't even close. 

Although we have had an 85 degree day, the humidity has disappeared with a cold front that moved through last evening. The winds were out of the northwest to north most of the day, but will turn to the southeast tomorrow and the humidity will be with us again.

We are back on the boat and I am finishing this up around 11PM. Tomorrow should be a fairly straight forward trip. The plan is to top off our fuel tanks and be away by 7:45AM. We will go outside once again for a 70 nautical mile run in the Gulf of Mexico. 

We have now traveled about 1516 statute miles..about 81 more to go...FINALLY!

Day 23 - FINALLY ARRIVED! - Fort Myers Beach FL to Longboat Key FL

WE MADE IT!!

It seems a bit surreal, but we pulled into our dock today at 5:45PM..ran aground twice in the shallow channel into our dock, but we were able to back out and recover quickly. We came in at low/mid tide, but are sitting comfortably at the dock this evening and feeling great!

Once again, the day started around 6:30 AM. We were out of the dock and sitting on the fuel dock by 7:15AM, and finally underway with full tanks and the bill paid by 7:45AM. 

This is a shot looking back at the bridge (that we never had to deal with) that is located just south of the fuel docks. The sun had just come up about 15 minutes earlier.

As we pulled out from the fuel docks and looked back at our slip, this Casino boat had pulled in right outside next to our slip late last evening. I heard some commotion on the docks as we were trying to get settled last night. It was about 200 folks getting off of this boat.

 

While idling out of the Pass, we passed this commercial "shrimper" in bound. We were just starting our day and he was just done. Apparently these boats head down to the Dry Tortugas, west of Key West as their shrimping grounds....a long run for him!

The run today ended up being 80nm (92 statute miles). As we motored out of Matanzas Pass and back into the Gulf of Mexico past Sanibel Island, the Gulf was nearly flat. There was negligible wind. Although we set the mainsail, it really had no effect on anything other than my spirits! There was no tidal current and no wind driven currents. We spent the entire day motoring along at about 8.6 knots.

Here are a couple shots of the landscape moving north toward LBK.

This first pic is of the southern shore of Sanibel island and some of its condos.

This was just a neat house sitting out by itself on the water on the west side of Sanibel.

For those of you who are fisherman, this is Boca Grande Inlet into Charlotte Harbor. Serious fishing boats head out here for some great tarpon fishing.

This chartplotter photo shows us just north of Boca Grande with the cross hair on the Longboat Pass Bridge where we would come back inside from the Gulf

Everyone had the same idea today. We passed this nice looking Catalina heading southbound, also with his mainsail set but not doing anything but looking like a sailboat!

There were birds everywhere today. This shot is of two birds that had just dived in on a frenzy of fish that had the water churning.

This very boring shot is of the Venice Airport. It sits right on the water. I have leased a hangar here for my Cirrus SR22 airplane, which I plane to bring south sometime in December.

 

This shot is of the drawbridge at the south end of Longboat Key. LBK is FINALLY on our starboard side as we are motoring north. It is about 12 miles long, and we are at the north end.

More of the sights on shore at LBK...

And more LBK condos...

This section of beach is directly across from our community, and is where we will be enjoying the Gulf of Mexico on a regular basis!

After more than 1600 miles,  this is THE LAST BRIDGE that we will have to deal with on this trip. It is at the north end of Longboat Key and is the Longboat Pass Bridge.

After coming inside after this bridge, we picked up the Gulf Intracoastal Water Way (GIWW) at marker 46 and headed south toward day marker 32 where we would exit to starboard and into our little community of Emerald Harbor.

This anchorage and restaurant is about a mile north of us. It is Mar Vista and is one of the best little seafood joints on LBK

 

And here is our new home off in the distance as we turn into the narrow channel into our docks. Our home is just to the left of the big banyan tree in the photo. On this very last stretch in, we ran aground twice, once at a shoal marker that appeared to be mis-marked until a neighbor told us that it was marked for outgoing traffic, and once when we got just a skoosh too close to the seawall as we crossed behind the last marker. Neither was a problem as we just backed off and headed to our docks.

 

My friend and former business partner, Ed Webber, met me at the dock and helped us to tie up the boat. He also took these next two shots.

Do you think that we look happy to be at the end of this journey??...youbetcha!

This pic is looking out from our patio back toward the north end of Sarasota Bay.

 

This is mangrove that sits just across the water from the bow of the boat. Ed took this and we also got a great mirror image of the clouds on the water.

 

Once we got off of the boat and had a chance to step inside of our new home, we were met with tarps and plastic from the painters who had started to paint the inside today. It will be a few days before we can get serious about moving in, so we are just going to spend a couple of nights on the boat with it tied up to our dock..no waves, no rocking...no 6:30 starts for the next day or two..

We had a nice dinner about a mile south at "Ciao" Restaurant, and headed back to the house and the boat.

So now the day and our adventure are both finally behind us. I am feeling euphoric! We have traveled over 1608 miles. We have spent 23 days on the water, put 200.2 hours on our engines, sailed about 50 hours, spent some difficult time in rough seas out in the Atlantic and on Albemarle Sound, scraped at least 50 fixed bridges, traversed more draw, lift, swing, bascule, and pontoon bridges than I even thought existed, passed through our first lock, dodged at least 10,000 crab and lobster pots, and run aground more than 15 times.

Tomorrow I hope to do one last entry in the blog of this journey...just a few highlights and lowlights, some general thoughts on the ICW, and advice for others who decide to make the trip.

Finally this evening, I would like to thank my brother, Steve, and my wife, Vicki, for putting up with my impatience, intolerance, and just poor attitude when things were not going well...and especially to Vic who has managed to spend two weeks with me in a space much too small for most married couples to spend 24/7 together...She is a saint..and I am truly blessed!

Retrospective

It is now Wednesday evening and we spent last evening OFF of the boat. Vic and I brought our RV south in September to use as a base of operation until we could get into the house. As we walked in to it yesterday for the first time in 6 weeks, we both were surprised at how much room we have in the RV as compared to the boat. I guess everything is relative, but it was nice to sleep on a better mattress as my back and neck were both starting to show the effects of too many nights on the mattress in the boat.

Although we have been involved in all of the "stuff" associated with the move into a new home, I have had a fair amount of time to reflect on the journey of the last 3+ weeks. Here are some of my thoughts.

1.) Biggest Regret - I wish that we could have taken more time for the journey. Instead of filling the days with 90-100 miles at a time, we should have done more 50 mile days and spent much more time dawdling along the way and enjoying the sights. This trip really should have taken 2 months for us to really savor the adventure. It would also have seemed less like a trek, and more like a vacation!

2.) I am sorry that the weather was so bad as we sailed through Charleston Harbor. This is just a beautiful city that is surrounded by water. We could have used a couple of days here.

3.) We could have also done the same at Beaufort NC and Savannah GA.

4.) A detour to Key West with an anchorage off of Sunset Beach would have been a real treat. Once we have had a few months to get things together in the house, I would like to sail back down to Key West for a few days. It is an easy 3 day trip south from Longboat Key.

5.) Sailing a boat down the Atlantic ICW drafting almost 6' and with almost 65' to the top of our mast instruments was just hectic. The amount of wasted energy churning over running aground, or wiping the top off of the masthead was significant. If I had spent more time reflecting on this, I would have opted for a boat with a 5' draft and 62' mast height. Hindsight is always 20/20...or maybe I should just have stopped worrying about it much earlier and decided that I was just going to lose the windex and my self-imposed suffering would have ended!

6.) Never play chicken with an ocean going vessel. They move much more quickly then it appears!

7.) There are a lot of bridges on this trip. Here is my quick summary:

    Fixed Bridges - 52 (I think that we scraped the VHF antenna on all but about 5 of them)

    Moveable Bridges (Draw, Bascule, Lift, Pontoon) - 69 (including restricted bridges)

    Restricted Bridges - 42

    Broken Moveable Bridges - 2....why??

    Locks - 1 (and it was restricted)

8.) Sailboats seem to be much better equipped to handle the rough seas than equivalent length power boats. I guess having that 18,000 pound keel on my boat really days make a huge difference! BUT, sailing in 10' seas is just tedious!

9.) If you and your spouse can survive in the close quarters on a sailboat together for 3 weeks without major conflict, then you are moving in the right direction!

10.) You can only eat soooo much Kraft Macroni and Cheese in 3 weeks......

11.) Docking in strong current and high winds is dangerous to the grill hanging off of the rail at the stern of the boat...(and anything else hanging outside of the rub rail on the boat! Ours is now lying at the bottom of the harbor in Coconut Grove!

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to follow our journey, and all those who wrote to us along the way. It has been a real treat for Vic and me to chat about this with many of you, either via email or on the cell during the last few weeks. 

Now that we are down here, don't be strangers. The house is always open to guests. Our address in Florida is 771 Old Compass Road, Longboat Key, FL 34228..."Come On Down"!