2008 Cruising
11/15 to 11/30/2008
This is our log for 2008; our other voyages are now in Prior Voyages.
We plan to post and update at least weekly. We move the older portions of the log to secondary pages accessible at the bottom of the page. Join our voyage!
Updated on 12/01/2008
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11/17/08 - Cold and clear with light winds. Again the cold made offshore travel in 20 knot winds a poor idea. We motored under cold clear skies to Lanier Island on Saint Simons Sound (Brunswick, GA). Along the way we saw a few boats, pelicans and our buddies the dolphins. At Lanier we dropped anchor and made supper. I called Bill Rhode to see how their offshore run went. He related that 20+ knot winds kept them moving rapidly, causing them to reef so they would slow down (you don't want to arrive at a strange inlet in the dark.) Their enclosed pilot house made the temperatures acceptable even though they couldn't run the heater. They're headed for Minneapolis until mid January for the holidays. (Not on the boat....on land) Running in Georgia keeps us on our toes... or should I say stubbing our toes. The sidebar is a good summary of depths in the ICW. At the Little Mud River range Ruth was marking 8.5' with a 7' tide. Miles was a little to the right in the channel marking 11' - that equates to 2' to 4' at mean low tide. This is tow boat heaven! If I had a SeaTow or TowBoatUS franchise I'd want it to be in Georgia. We're looking at another cold front, more robust than the one we're in. Oh, I've learned that cold is a relative term. While a windy 40 knots seems bone chilling to us, if we were still in WI and it was 40 we'd call it a warm spell. The wuzzy factor is a slippery scale. 11/18/08 - Another cold windy morning. We started relatively late, 10am, waiting for the tide so we could get through Jekyll Creek. It turned out we were overly cautious, finding the shallowest spot to be 13' with the 6' high tide. That said, at low tide we would not be able to run the channel - typical of Georgia's maintenance. With the 15 - 20 knot wind the chill factor made running today uncomfortable. Miles took a slip at the Jekyll Island Marina while we anchored just below it. Given the tide and wind it took us an uncharacteristic three attempts before we were happy with our position and hook. Then we snuggled into the heated cabin to spend a day with Buddy. Barry spent most of the afternoon on the internet catching up on correspondence, doing boat/radio licensing paperwork and studying the services of a web hosting company that is under consideration for a site to be developed for the business of a friend. He finished with bleary square eyes. Movie night, "The Garden of Good and Evil". We especially enjoyed it as we'd visited many of the Savannah sites where it was filmed. 11/19/08 - The wind whipped around us all night, whistling in the rigging and tossing little waves at our hull - it sounded cold, we didn't stick our noses out to check. The diesel heater quietly murmured promises of heat all night - nice! At dawn the southbound boats began parading by us. We headed south, taking a little detour south of Jekyll Island. Miles caught our error and got us back on track... second time we've made this mistake. Our chart platter shows two routes but one gets too shallow further south. We've marked the chart book to avoid this in the future. Arrived in Fernandina at noon, took on diesel and water, left our sewage and moved to the anchorage. Got on the phone with RayMarine as the new masthead wind indicator we installed on 8/5/08 failed the day before yesterday. Arrggghhh! We also had a failure with the wash-down pump we installed in February. We have to get to a West Marine outlet to resolve that one. Spent the afternoon chasing gremlins. I now suspect the mast wiring to the wind indicator was compromised by the lightning near miss at Quarterdeck Marina 18 months ago. Will have to wait until we pull the mast next time to replace it. We ordered a replacement so we can bread board the system to check the mast head unit. 11/20/08 - An early 7:30 departure put us in the ICW at low tide. Northern Florida's channels have their shallow spots. We started by threading our way through some 7' stuff. Twice during the day Ariel came to a sudden stop followed by a squirming action as Miles worked his way out of the mud... daymarks lie. It was warmer than the past few days. We actually took our foul weather jackets off during the day - that left our tee shirts, long sleeve shirts and fleece jackets. We made the 3:30 opening at the Bridge of Lions. Ariel went in for fuel and decided to take a slip. We anchored by 10A then later moved further south to the east side of the river to get away from the crowd. A couple of boats running from mark to mark passed off our bow. Their mark to mark practice will ground them a few times... there is a charted course line in the channel that gives you the best path. Straight lines around corners will put you over shallow spots. Steaks on the grille completed the day. Ruth agrees we didn't cook and eat like this at home... pretty soon they are going to letter Goodyear on my sides - hey, it would be a paying job. 11/21/08 - Another dawn departure, 40 degrees, 14 knot winds... this series of cold fronts blasting down from WI make us feel right at home. Where'd I leave that dear, whoops, deer rifle? We powered all day enroute to Daytona Beach. Didn't bother to go to the beach given 50's and 18-20 knot winds from the north... no bikini cuties today. We anchored just south of downtown, a place we've used several times as there aren't a lot of options around here. Ariel joined us at anchor here for the first time figuring if Squander got in here last spring they could. 11/22/08 - Sun rose over a cold ICW. At 7:15 we headed out after calling Miles and waking him... waking him? Mr. 5am? It was a first. Amazingly he was underway before we hit the ICW. He's fast. We ran past Titusville, motor sailing with 14 knot NE winds. Nice ride. I like this section of the ICW as you can easily motor sail it either way. It also has a lot of neat little palmed islands, spoil banks from past dredging. Saw more dolphins today than we've ever seen. Also saw two flocks of pink Flamingos at Haul-over. Looks like these flocks might be expanding, kewl! During our last half hour we had two dolphins running with us about 2' from the helm. Man they are fast... they toyed with us for about 20 minutes then went off to do what dolphins do (not that). We ran all day with Tioga, a 50? foot beautifully restore Hinckley. With a mast in the 64' range they were really cautious at the 64' bridges. The last one they cleared I watched with binoculars, when they passed the hanging lights the lights were level with the top of their mast... way too close for my heart. They check their deck for parts after a tight one. We anchored around 3:30pm at the south edge of Cocoa Beach. Nice spot in 11' of water. Time for cocktails on Ariel. We are coming south too fast... have to slow down (after we get where it is warm). Miles and Laureen need to get to South Beach and will probably run ahead, joining us again late January. We went over to Ariel for drinks... sundowners, and scored a bunch of new books - great news! Talked to Pat, Evie, and Bradd & Maeve on the phone. Great to catch up with folks. Little light on pictures this posting, hey, Florida is Florida... boorrrrriiiing visually. We'll find something of interest... condo for sale? 11/23/08 - The sky started turning rose around 6:15, time to turn on the coffee. Rolled Miles out and headed south motor sailing... heavy on the motor, light on the sailing. We had dolphins playing with us today. Boy those beasts are hard to shoot (with the camera). We finally got one, see the sidebar. We caught up with Pike and Linda, Tioga, just outside Vero Beach. They decided to join us rafted off Ariel. John & Bobby Jo, Don't Look Back, came over - we all had sundowners on Ariel. 11/24/08 - A warm sunrise... whoopie! Tioga slipped their lines and were underway by 7:30 - sure was great meeting them and spending an evening together. We'll be watching for each other in the Bahamas. Miles & I donned shorts and washed the growth off his dinghy - that artificial reef he's been towing around behind him the last 16 months. (We called it his hoola skirt and told him he should be in Hawaii) Actually it was pretty good. He'd waxed it the last time he cleaned it. Ruth was on the phone and computer all day trying to place 6 trucks of material. She noted it would be easier selling Humvees. Later in the day Rich & Carol, The Great Catsby, arrived and rafted off Don't Look Back. We got a new boat on our mooring, Island Chariot, bringing the count back to three; John & Julie and Elvis Ann, their peach colored Cockatoo. Elvis, like Buddy, became Elvis Ann as he/she matured. The two birds were only slightly intrigued about each other. Elvis speaks only a couple of words but love to show off a series of tricks. 11/25/08 - Beautiful sunny day. Worked most of the day making a pattern for Ariel's dinghy. (chaps for sun protection) Ruthie left us at 12:00 pm and went gathering with Bobby Jo, Laureen and Carol. They had a blast! Nothing like women bonding with gathering at West Marine, AT&T, TJ Maxx and Publix Grocery. She came back with a full dinghy (yes, she is now a dinghy captain) and we off-loaded tons of stuff. One of the goodies was a replacement pump for our anchor wash-down which is a must with the muddy bottoms we suck into. Whalla! Barry reinstalled the new pump and it works. We can now again wash our chain and anchor when we pull it up. No more slime on the deck; we'd really gotten used to having the wash-down system. Smoke and mirrors sometimes with a little bitc ing in between. We now have lots of food, rum, wine, parts and Christmas presents until 2moro. Oh, the girls are going to Wal-Mart on the bus 2moro. I'm currently sewing shut my pants pocket where the credit card is kept. Lucky I didn't give it to Ruth today. She had toooo much fun! 11/26/08 - Beautiful daybreak. Miles noted that the sun seems to rise a little earlier as we've gotten further south. A note from Bradd & Maeve indicates they are trying to get here for Thanksgiving. It will be great to catch up on their adventures again. I needed a place to do the pattern to fabric transfer for Mile's chaps. John offered the rear deck of Island Chariot... turned out to be a perfect space. I got all the patterns transferred to fabric and the fabric cut. 11/27/08 - A beautiful sunrise heralded T-Bird day. We joined a group of boaters for a Thanksgiving potluck at a park adjoining the harbor. Met a lot of old friends and a bunch of new ones. Folks from the coast, Canada and the Great Lakes. Our table was the last to go through the line... the food just made it. Bradd & Maeve joined us later in the day. Sure good to see them again! They'd made 2 trips from the Chesapeake to Beaufort, NC before heading south. They have a show this week in Melbourne, FL then head for Cuba to see if they can help the friends that had their homes wiped out by hurricane Ike... the whole town is gone. 11/28/08 - Black Friday... a beautiful day. We were un-American and did not go shopping. I don't think they missed us. I worked on sewing together the major parts of Miles dinghy chaps. Got the 7 major panels and two end caps sewn together. Now I need to make the green trim pieces and get them attached. Ruth was getting a kick out of watching the pelicans when she noted two manatees swimming next to our boat. They hung around for a couple of days. Ancient mariners reputedly thought they were mermaids... not saying much for ancient women. Laureen hosted dinner for the crews of AA and Sampatecho aboard Ariel, one of the better restaurants in the harbor. It was delicious! 11/29/08 - Another beautiful dewy morning. We moved to the fuel dock for water, diesel and a pump-out. Provisioned again we headed south with Sampatecho and Ariel. We motored in the ditch until just after lunch, turning off the ICW at St Lucie Inlet and feeling our way into Manatee Pocket - a new anchorage for AA. A little dinghy exploring led us to West Marine where the gang got a boat fix. Then back to our boats for supper and an early retire. 11/30/08 - Up at pre-dawn and on the water by 7. Actually as I pulled the anchor alone (Ruth was still getting a little extra beauty rest) I was concerned the wind would push AA down on Sampatecho... yet they never got any closer. That was when I realized our keel was in the soft muck bottom - low tide. We easily powered into deeper (9') water and started back tracking out of the anchorage. Sampatecho got a later start and chased us all the way to our Lake Worth (Palm Beach) anchorage. While Ruth drove I cut pieces to trim out Miles' dinghy chaps. All materials are now cut, final sewing and fitting will take another day. Interesting day with 25 knot winds, gusts into the 30's. The bridges were on the edge of having to shut down; a couple did for short periods. We lucked out and made anchorage by 1pm. All afternoon rain squalls passed through, often with gusts in the mid thirties. Maeve invited all of us over for dinner. Bradd makes a Caesar salad that is deadly. Grilled chicken, roasted peppers, rice and wine really rounded the menu out nicely... that and good fellowship. We headed home just in time to miss another squall. |
Click on the photos for an 8" x 10" view. Use Back to return to the site. ICW Waters As we travel south on the ICW we've been tracking water depths a little closer for a fried that will be doing part of the ditch with a 7' draft. If you read the specifications for the waterway he should be able to run to Miami in the ditch. The federal project depths are 12' from Norfolk. VA, Mile 0 to Fort Pierce, FL Mile 956. From Fort Pierce to Miami, Mile 1089 depth is designed to be 10'. This is at mean low tide. Virginia has this figured out and their channels are pretty much on the money. North Carolina is working at it and only have a couple of feet to go in their tight places. South Carolina is worse than North and needs high tide to make the mark in many areas. Talking to a tug pilot in Beaufort, SC, he related that with 8' of draft they regularly blew clouds of chocolate mud from their props. He noted that they are one of two companies that will travel that area. Our friend would have problems with his 7' draft. Georgia can't make the mark at high tide (even though their tides get up to 7' ). One needs to use guide books and tide charts to find deep enough water. Northern Florida uses Georgia's guide to dredging. If they have project depth at high tide its a go. Actually, in many places they don't even have that. Ariel (6' draft) grounded twice in the stretch from Fernandina to St Augustine. St. Augustine to Cocoa Beach depths were in 10 - 12' area. Only a couple of spots that were 9.5'. Not bad for a 12' target. We'' give them a B for waterway maintenance.
There's something in the water...
There he is, see the second one ahead just to his right?
Turkey in the shrouds
Nope, not a thin turkey
Elvis Ann and Julie
John & Elvis doing tricks
Ruthie returns from gathering
She's very good at it - fortunately it's a little dinghy (the boat, the boat)
Colorado crew of Salty Paws
A sailing couple from the Canadian plains, S/V Pioneer
Miles waiting for a shot at the stuffing |
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