Thursday-Friday May 19-20: Snaking Through North Georgia

      We left Brunswick Landing Marina close to noon, after spending time in the laundry room, buying some fresh meat at the local grocery, and paying a little visit to Art and Pam on Tinacious.  It was squally with thunderstorms.  It’s warm and a little rain wouldn’t bother us, but the giant green biting flies were more than we could handle.  We closed up the hatches and spent the day in the pilot house.  Those flies had descended on us as soon as we crossed from Florida into Georgia, and they are some obnoxious.  It was a losing battle with the flyswatter on the way to Brunswick Landing, and we didn’t even attempt a mass murder when we departed.  We sat in the pilot house and watched the flies buzz all around the windshield.  I know flies have a purpose on this Earth - especially in a swampy area filled with birds and fish who will prey on them - but a few hundred less of them would be alright with me.  

     We ended up spending two days in the pilot house, winding our way through the swamps of coastal Georgia.  The air was muggy and still with occasional lightning, thunder, and rain: a front was taking its time moving through.  Dan kept watch over the auto pilot, I ducked outside for the occasional picture.  

Spanish moss hanging over Ft. Fredericka's Oglethorpe Barracks.  (Revolutionary War Historic Site.)

     I also decided to try out my stove top oven - basically a bundt pan with a lid that sits in its own stover burner ring - that we’ve carried all this time but have never used.  I made brownies.  They turned out great, especially if you like a lot of brownie edges.  

Brownies from my stove top oven.

     Wednesday we anchored at Mile 653 in the South River, where there was just enough sun during an evening shower for a rainbow.  Thursday night we anchored near Mile 599 in the Odingsell River, just behind Wassaw Island, near the Ossabaw Sound.  Dan had talked me into making another overnight passage tomorrow.  I confess it didn’t take much talking.  I was ready to do anything to get away from those flies.

Muted rainbow over the Georgia marsh.

Monday-Wednesday May 16-18: Florida to Georgia 

     We have made good time traveling so far this week!
     Monday we paused for a few hours at the free dock in New Smyrna Beach, FL.  Dan changed the fuel filters while I walked uptown through the historic district looking for wifi.  I found it at a cute little coffee & ice cream shop - Donna's Canal Creamery.  Here I could update the blog and take care of other business.  Dan joined me for a bowl of ice cream when he was done.  We got back on the waterway around noon and eventually dropped the hook in a small creek our anchorage guide book calls "cement plant creek."  We had stayed there on the way down last December, and remembered it as a narrow, fairly quiet place.  It once was home to a cement plant, and some of the old buildings are still there, but now that property belongs to SeaRay manufacturer, and the docks are filled with large motor yachts waiting to be sea-tested and finished.  Last time we were here we saw evidence of building and planning.  This time a new, very large home with a dock sits where there was once mostly mangroves, and the planned marina next door to it is further along in development.  Next year this creek will probably not be usable as an anchorage.
     We had met Randy from the trawler Slack Tide at Great Sale Cay - they were one of the vessels Dan talked to who planned a slightly different crossing than us.  We had been leap-frogging with them since Fort Pierce.  On Tuesday as they came astern to pass us by, Dan asked them to take our picture, as we had the drifter up.  They were happy to do so, promptly emailing them to us.

Motor-sailing up the ICW.

     We put in a long day on Tuesday, cruising past familiar sights.  Neither of us felt like stopping anywhere, so we just kept up a steady pace.  Dark clouds were rolling in and the air was humid and oppressive; we wanted to get as far as we could before the thunderstorms began.

St.Augustine's famous cross.  

A bald eagle sits on a sand bar.

   We made it through the Jacksonville area, where the currents always seem to be against you no matter which way you go, and continued on to a small anchorage in a small creek.  Lightning and thunder were rumbling ominously to the West of us, and just as we dropped anchor, it started to pour.  Rain was pelting us from all sides and continued well into the night.  We had to close all the portholes, which made it rather steamy inside.  Neither of us slept very well.  

    The North wind on Wednesday morning was most welcome.  The air was cooler, a bit dryer, and though the sun rarely made an appearance all day, things dried out by mid-morning.  We had a very pleasant trek up through the rest of Florida.  We began playing leap frog with another trawler -Tinacious - with whom Dan struck up a radio friendship.  We wondered about the name.  Was the wife's name Tina?  Were they retired from tin sales?  Was it a misspelling of tenacious?

     St. Mary's River is the border between Florida and Georgia.  We spotted a couple of sail boats milling about.  In the inlet itself was a tug boat escorting... Dan took out the binoculars... a submarine.  We recalled there was a submarine base just up river in Georgia, and that traffic would be halted when one was moving.  Dan hailed one of the sailboats whom we remembered seeing in George Town.  We wanted to exit the ICW and travel up the Georgia coast from the Atlantic.  Was there a security call we had missed?  The vessel - Good Morning Vietnam (Robin Williams fan?) - let us know that the sub was leaving the area and as long as we stayed at least 500 yards away we would be fine.  We don't know why he and the other sailboats continued to mill around, but we followed in the sub's wake out to sea.

     The ICW in Georgia is very winding.  Tides and currents switch back and forth depending on which bend you are in, and the bottom is shifting and often very shallow.  We enjoyed the straight run outside in the ocean.  There was a light breeze and a small swell; we put up the mainsail and had a great motor-sail.  We thought about continuing all the way to Beaufort, South Carolina, but Dan was worried about fuel.  The last time we'd filled our tanks was in Spanish Wells, at least two weeks ago, and we had covered a lot of ground since then.  So we turned back inland at St. Andrew's Sound, bound for Brunswick Landing Marina in Brunswick, GA.  We had been there during Thanksgiving weekend.  It's a reasonably priced marina that offers a lot of free amenities and cheap fuel.  Many cruisers spend weeks or months there, and some leave their boats there during hurricane season.  It has a large live-aboard community and the atmosphere is very similar to that in George Town, Bahamas.  There are potlucks and parties, activities like yoga and karaoke, and there will be a large cookout on Memorial Day.   The clubhouse offers free beer every night, and wine is free on Wednesdays.  We fueled up, tied up, and made straight for the happy hour.

     Here we met up with Naimh (whom I spelled as Nieve in a previous blog - it's pronounced 'Neeve') from Freed Spirit, and we met the folks from Tinacious who had arrived minutes before us in this marina.  Tinacious, it turns out, is named for the boat and their determination to get her built.  She is made of aluminum.  Freed Spirit is here for a couple of months, Tinacious for a couple of days.  We will probably leave in the morning.  

Brunswick Landing Marina, dock # 1 (of 15).

     

   

Sunday May 15:  Mosquito Lagoon

     We took Willie in to the yacht club first thing to take on water.  After being in the Bahamas and understanding that most water there is rain gathered in cisterns and reverse-osmosis created, it’s quite a thrill to remember that here in the US it’s free and available almost everywhere.  

    We headed back into the ICW North.  It’s the weekend and the air and water temperature are in the eighties.  The waterway is busy with small motor boats of all kinds - jet skis, fishing boats, pontoon boats, weekend party-boats, even sleek, noisy cigarette boats.  They zoom all around, bouncing along at a bone-jarring speed for the occupants who wave at us cheerfully.  We can only imagine what this area is like in the heat of the summer.  We kept up our steady 5.6 knots, reminiscing about the last time we came through, and watching for wildlife.

Ospreys are nesting on almost every day marker.

     Today we saw turtles, dolphins, manatees, and several different birds.  Two new-to-us birds were the white-face glossy ibis (which isn’t white-faced yet, and has a very dark body) and the roseate spoonbill.  There were also white ibises (ibisi ?), royal terns, great blue herons, white egrets, osprey, and lots of pelicans.  After the scarcity of birds in the Bahamas, seeing the large avian community here is very nice.  

Two manatee cavorting in the canal between Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River.

Roseate spoonbill - see the dot of pink in the center of the photo?

Lots of fishermen out.  We don't know what they were catching, but they were catching something.

     We dropped the hook just North of Cape Canaveral, in Mosquito Lagoon.  Fortunately a Northerly breeze is keeping any mosquitoes at bay.  We enjoyed a virtually bug-less fall and winter; I am hoping the trip North in spring time will be ok.  Some people are very attractive to biting/stinging insects.  I am one of them.  If there are ten mosquitoes and a hundred people, I will end up with at least five bites.  We have screens, but it can get a bit stuffy below decks with the hatches and door closed.  But the good news is that the black flies should be gone by the time we get back to Maine!

     

Saturday May 14:  to Melbourne, FL

     Today Dan and I hashed out all our options for getting home to Maine.  We have been tossing around a lot of ideas - leaving Willie in a boat yard somewhere, trucking Willie home, cruising Willie back.  There were many pros and cons for all the possibilities:  leaving Willie behind meant we’d probably be home by the end of the month.  But it also meant traveling back to an out of state boatyard to do the work that needed doing, such as scraping and painting.  Trucking Willie would be expensive and it would be a hassle to secure everything for transport, but again, we’d get home sooner, and the boat would be in our barn for Dan to work on.  We’d been leaning toward this idea.  Both those options would also mean buying a car, which we’ll have to do anyway since we currently don’t own one, but this would not be simple to do so far from home.  The third option - cruising home - would take the longest, but was probably the least expensive.  And, we realized, it would be easiest on Tommie.  So we are cruising Willie home to Maine.  Dan can work on the boat in our barn, we’ll buy a car when we get there, and Tommie can go right from the boat to house with minimal stress on her.

    As we got underway from Fort Pierce, Dan got in touch with our friends from Palm Bay to let them know we were back in the US and would be in their area today.  Dave and Dianne were in their summer home in Indiana, but copied Ed and Joyce on his reply and they immediately invited us to their home for dinner and hot showers.  As emails sped back and forth, their hospitality extended to offering us a ride to get groceries or do other errands as well as finding us a place to anchor and a safe place to land and leave our dinghy.

     This area, with its proximity to Cape Canaveral and things aeronautical and space related, is home to satellite engineering plants and think tanks.  I think we mentioned a Thursday night get-together of great minds at local bar Rooneys, which we have been privileged to be part of on occasion, including last December when we passed through this area on our way down the coast.  Ed and Joyce are part of that crowd, as are Jack and Jackie, who are the caretakers for a local yacht club where we were welcomed to land our dinghy and make use of their facilities.  All four of them were there to greet us as we came ashore with our various bags and jugs, as was Jackson, Jack & Jackie’s little Jack Russell terrier.  They all have been keeping up to date on our adventures; Ed fills them in on our blog updates when they meet for their weekly Thursday night at Rooney’s.  We almost felt like celebrities.

     Joyce and I grocery-shopped and went back to her place while Ed and Dan ran around town for propane and other necessities.  She effortlessly prepared a fantastic roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner for us while Dan and I had the luxury of a real shower and did a load of laundry.  (I’ve been hand-washing most of our things, but those king-sized sheets in the v-berth are too big to hand-wash and hand-wring, and we can’t really hang them on the lifeline to dry.)

     Ed and Joyce had been to the Bahamas in the early years of their marriage, and have many years of cruising under their belts.  They offered us a lot of tips and advice as we prepared for our trip and we were all eager to swap stories.  We had a wonderful evening with them.  

no photos today, sorry

Thursday-Friday May 12-13: May  Great Sale to Ft Pierce

     We made preparations for our overnite crossing most of the day. We set up ditch bags, things we would need if the unthinkable were to happen out in the straits during the night. We had one bag with first-aid kit, distress flag, signal mirror, flare gun, flashlites, another with our computers, double wrapped in waterproof bags, another with water and GORP, We also had at the ready in the cockpit, our survival-immersion suits, a five gallon jug of water, and our life vests, with waterproof lights attached.

     Our plan was to take it easy during the day, do all the prep work, go for another swim, then set off at 1800 for the 160 mile trip, that would bring us to Ft Pierce just after noontime Friday, to enter the FT Pierce cut on the incoming tide.

     We had a nice swim in the early afternoon, 30 laps total around the boat, 25 without flippers, 5 with. It was a little choppy and I for one drank more salt water in that one swim than I had had all winter. Not used to swimming without a snorkle!

     At 1700 we were ready, so we headed out an hour early. The plan for crossing the Gulf Stream is no light matter. Several factors have to be right or it is a No-Go situation. We had been watching the weather forecast for the last 10 days or so with this crossing in mind. There can be no North wind in the picture, as a North wind against the North Bound Gulf Stream spells tall, close-spaced waves. Ugly.

     We were hoping for light South East winds. At least 2 days worth and had been watching that closely. I mean, why not make the crossing as easy as it can possibly be?

     Another thing key to the plan is your destination, and when you need to arrive. Since all the destinations in Florida involve a  cut or Inlet there are certain times when you may or may not want to transit them. For example, I did not want to arrive at Ft. Pierce inlet with an outgoing current and an incoming wind, again, steep, close-set waves. So our arrival window on Friday was between noon and 6 PM.  We did the math and that gave us the departure time.

     So this means that you need to be at the proper place at the proper time to be ready to take advantage of the good weather window of opportunity.

     The other part of the plan is either having a buddy boat, or at least knowing who was going to be out there at the same time as us. We had made tentative plans for buddy boats, but they had fallen apart, so at the Great Sale anchorage I dinghied around and made radio calls and found out what the other boats plans were. None of them matched ours exactly, three boats were going to Ft Pierce, but none were going all night. Two were going to West End on Thursday, then departing there at Zero dark thirty for Ft. Pierce, the other was going as far as Mangrove Cay Thursday afternoon, then start very early Friday for FT P.. All three boats made speed better than ours, so we would all be arriving close to the same time.

     We were out of things to do at 1700, so we decided to get a 1 hour head start on our plan. Worst case was that we would get there too early and have to slow dawn.

     The wind was light and right behind us all of the fifty miles to Memory Rock. I had the first watch until 2000 (8 PM), when Kathy took over til midnite. Just before sunset we got our last look at the Bahama bottom thru the clear waters of the sandy Bahama Bank. Then early in her watch she saw the anchor lights of one of our friends from Great Sale, the Slack Tide anchored at Mangrove Cay. They would be catching up with us later.

Our last Bahamian sunset, somewhere between Great Sale Cay and Mangrove Cay.

     I got a couple hours of shut-eye and relieved her at midnite. We were just shy of Memory Rock, which is almost at the end of the Little Bahama Bank.

     The plan for the next leg was to keep a Westerly heading for about 25 miles until our course hit the Northbound Gulf Stream, where we would turn and take advantage of the 3 knot current for the next 7 or eight hours.

     About an hour and a half into my watch I spotted the lights of a ship on our port quarter. I flipped on our radar and eventually picked him up at 8 miles. I watched him go from 8 miles distance to 6 miles, to 4 miles, all on the same relative bearing. Well this situation is called “constant bearing, decreasing range” and you guessed it, if no one does anything the two vessels are going to collide. So I tried calling on the radio, over and over, no response. Finally after 2 minor course changes it still looked to me like it was going to be too close for comfort, and you never know if anyone is even looking out the ships windows, I made a major course change that headed us off their stern.

     In the end, we were never within a mile of each other, but it sure felt good to finally see hs stern lights.

     Kathy was up at 0400 to relieve me and she kept our Westerly course another hour or so and then turned to run NNE with the Gulf Stream. It was a calm night, 5 knots of wind or so, maybe a one foot sea, and we were motoring under full sail. The The quarter moon had set at 0200 and the stars were bright and distinct. The whole of the night we could see the glow of the city lights on the coast of Florida (from 56 miles away!).  And we were making 8 knots, 2 ½ knots better than our average 5.5.

     I got up at 0800 and made us a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs, and after breakfast Kathy hit the bunk, she deserved a good sleep, if even for just a few hours. She did a great job on her watches, never having a ship issue and taking full advantage of the Gulf Stream.

     We rode the Gulf Stream until we were almost as far North as Ft. Pierce as it comes within 10 or 12 miles of shore at that point. About 12 miles out we sheared off to the West and headed for the inlet, it was about 1200.

     We lowered our Bahamas courtesy flag, raised our Quarantine flag and ran the inlet, the current with us, calm as could be, up between the rock jetties, lined with fishermen. We anchored just to the South of the North bridge.

Ft. Pierce Inlet.

Q flag raised.

     Kathy had all our papers laid out for me so, as “Captain”, I could call customs and check in. We have a myriad of documents, ships document, passports, Nexus/Global Entry cards and numbers, the 2016 customs sticker for the boat and our BR numbers that we had obtained when we came into Maine from Canada in late August. Not to mention the fingerprints and iris scans, no joke!

     The whole idea is that we are considered "Trusted Travellers" so we should be able to check into the country with just a phone call. How slick is that?

     Well, the first several calls we could not get thru, then we found out that Kathy's phone wasn't working, later we found out that her speaker had gone bad.  People can hear you when you call them, but you can't hear them.

     So we went to my phone, which seldom works, what do I expect for $11 per month? And it worked fine.  But we got disconnected twice after we had gone thru all these confusing menus, where we fell into no clear category and didn't know which number to press.

     Finally I got thru to a guy, and he immediately put me on hold for about ten minutes. When he came back on the line he insisted that I “sounded a long way away" and that we couldn't possibly be anchored where I said we were.

     I finally convinced him we really were there, then proceeded to start giving him all the info that he asked for. After quite a lengthy discussion, where we seemed to be going nowhere, I volunteered that we each had these “BR” numbers, and he said, why didn't you say so. I said, you didn't ask.

     So I gave him my BR number and he said, that's an old number, how long ago did you get that? I said end of August 2015. He said can't be, that system has been out of date for years, are you sure? I said, yeah, we got those numbers from Customs in Eastport Maine in August. (Maybe the mail hasn't been getting thru to Eastport for a couple years.)

     So in the end, he gave us new “BR” numbers over the phone and authorized our entry. What a relief, as we were very close to having had to taxi to the Ft. Pierce airport to fulfill all the requirements.

     Doesn't all this make you feel secure and safe?

     So all was well that ended well, we had a near perfect crossing, all went as planned, our friends entered shortly after us, and we all got checked in. And in spite of the loud whir of tires on the nearby North Bridge, and the hourly freight trains blaring their horns, we slept very well that night.

Back in the USA.

Wednesday May 11: Great Sale Cay

     Wednesday morning we headed over to Great Sale Cay.   This is a small, uninhabited island whose main claim to fame is that it’s a stopover for cruisers coming and going to the Bahamas.   We planned to use this place as our jumping off spot to cross to the US tomorrow evening.  It’s a little over 23 nautical miles from Foxtown, about 45 nautical miles from West End, a popular check-in destination on Grand Bahama Island.  We arrived mid-afternoon to a large, wide harbor with one other boat anchored.  We chose a spot on the other side of the harbor.  Dan had spotted something ashore he wanted to check out.  He donned his skin diving gear and set off, and I opted for a half-hour’s worth of laps around the boat.  The water was murky here - the guide book calls it “fish mud”.  This is bonefish territory.  Bonefish like to burrow, and they tend to stir up the bottom.  After all these weeks of very clear water, it was odd to not be able to see the anchor chain, let alone the bottom.   Dan found a nice piece of driftwood, and we both had a good swim.  In the meantime, four more vessels pulled into Great Sale and anchored near the other boat.

Great Sale Cay

     After quick showers from the sun-shower bags, we weighed anchor and motored across to join the fleet.  Dan jumped into the dinghy and went from boat to boat to do a little meet ’n’ greet and see what other people’s plans were.  Three of them were also crossing to the US, and though one of them was also going to Fort Pierce, none of us were planning the same route, nor were any of us leaving on the same day.  The other two vessels had just arrived and were heading further East in the morning to begin their Bahamas adventure.  Lucky them!

     It’s hard to believe this leg of our cruising year is almost over.  We have enjoyed the Bahamas so much!  We shared a small bottle of champagne as we watched the sun go down.  

Sunset, Great Sale Cay

May 10 Tuesday: to Foxtown

      We set out after breakfast from Angelfish Point for Foxtown, where we knew there was a cell antenna, and we needed to get current on the blog for our faithful (and sometimes demanding) readers. Besides, we wanted to do the run to Great Sale Cay in two legs.

      We made the 11 mile run under power as the wind was only 5 knots from the East. When we arrived at Foxtown it was clear that the cell tower was transmitting unclearly, so we ventured ashore in hopes of finding a hotspot. We tied up at a pier where they were unloading conch meat by the bushel-bagful. They were fine with us leaving our dinghy while we walked “town”.

Foxtown. 

     We checked out 2 of the 'Grocery Stores' and pretty much found mostly freezer-burned meat. After finding the Post Office and mailing a letter, we walked back to a little bar/grill where Kathy had found WIFI when we walked by before. We went in and had to skirt around the pool table in the entrance with a couple guys playing. We grabbed stools at the bar either side of an older gentleman, ordered drinks and Kathy pulled out her laptop. She got the password from the barmaid and went to work. Problem was she was on the corner of the bar, two young natives were horsing around, showing off, and she had to keep ducking the butt end of the cue stick, as well as work the internet and balance her drink.

     I finally figured out that my end seat up against the wall would be much better for her, so we switched seats.

Da Valley Bar & Restaurant.

     We struck up a conversation with the older gent, his name was John Russell. Actually he thought I had been in there before, I swear I hadn't, but he didn't care, he was full of talk. He ordered a diet Pepsi, I think just to be sociable, and proceeded to hold court. His people were the first to settle at Foxtown, he had sailed with his Daddy on a sloopboat, fishing off the Abacos. The sloop was a wet-well smack about 35 feet. They would go out for as long as it took to fill the hold, then sail to market. John had also sailed as cook and deckhand on tugs, towing and also ship docking at the supertanker harbor on Grand Bahama Island. As a matter of fact he had just come back on the ferry from Grand Bahama that morning after visiting his son and daughter, both of whom live there with their families. He also told us about his battle with prostate cancer, in which he has been clear for the last year. He is 78 years old.

Dan with John Russell.

     So we got to compare stories about sailing, tugs, where we had been in the islands, our health, our families, and then when his Pepsi was gone, he ambled out the door.

     In the meantime, we had ordered another beer and wine, and a burger with fries, and while we were finishing that, John left, then the barmaid came in after a break and sat down beside me at the bar with her burger. (she may have owned the joint, not sure) She was a good size woman, and also full of talk. We also talked about island life, families and the trials of getting older. A little girl came in during our chat and told the lady she had gotten all her spelling words right that day, very cute. Turned out we had a lot in common.

This guy was trying to sell Dan some conch, to buy cigarette money.

     All the time, guys, mostly young to middle age guys were coming in and out, buying a bottle of this or that, and cigarettes 4 at a time. We never saw how much that cost them, but it was a pretty brisk market. I guess it must have been about quitting time.

     When we got back to the dinghy, there were a couple kids at the pier, seven or eight years old maybe, and the little girl told us straight away that she had been playing in our boat. Everything was in order, so we thanked her for telling us, and headed off for Willie, the only boat anchored off the town.