East Coast Travels

4/1/ to 4/15 2007

We will be working our way north the next few months... visiting places we rushed by on other trips.

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 05/15/2007

4/1/07 - I learned that my article "Totally Loop" was published in the April issue of Latitudes and Attitudes. That explains the number of e-mails I've been getting from Larry King and others. Time to get my pen sharpened and get back to writing (other than in the log). Today we head for Boca Raton where we'll meet Maeve and Sampatecho. Really looking forward to seeing them again. We sailed offshore all day, running 8-11 knots over the ground in 15 knot winds. By 3pm we were negotiating the Hillsboro Inlet. I was worried about the inlet after examining our charts so I called TowboatUS for local knowledge and learned the channel was actually 3 times the depth our paper charts and electronic chartplotter indicated - piece of cake! Two hours later we'd traveled the ICW to Boca Raton and the wall behind Jon & Nel's... a virtual marina with water, power, shower... the works - with a beautiful home to boot. We had a potluck dinner with Maeve last night. Bradd's in Canada until Wednesday. Maeve makes a mean salmon. 4/2/07 - Got to read the Lats & Atts article last night. Somehow after it's in print it seems like someone else's work even when unedited. We spent the morning provisioning. We pretty much emptied the larder on our way back, knowing we could restock a lot cheaper in the US. I also ordered LED replacements for the 3 navigation lights that have been driving me batty. The new bulbs have a 100,000 hour service life and no filaments to break. They will be hardwired - eliminating the connections that keep corroding (even when we were in fresh water). That should resolving our lighting issues. It is a beautiful day, temperatures almost as high as WI - high 70's. We're still in Marina Solbu (Solbu is the name of our hosts' home). It's in a very nice area on a canal just off the ICW. There is room for 4 40' boats on their seawall dock. AA needed a good cleaning (salt 1/8" thick in places) and some minor work before we head up the coast. We spent the late afternoon working around Solbu. Ruth did weeding while I worked with Maeve on John & Nel's Passage 42. Our way of thanking them for a mooring while we wait for Bradd to get here. Maeve joined us for dinner. Ruth prepared a delicious shrimp stir fry. 4/3/07 - We worked at Marina Solbu most of the day. Ruth did gardening while I worked on refinishing teak on Jon & Nel's Hunter Passage 42. We'll finish up tomorrow and head out Thursday. 4/4/07 - The teak is back on the Hunter and a broken step has been rebuilt. Jon should be pleasantly surprised on his return. The gardens in the back of the house (along the docks and pool) are cleaned and weeded, looking very nice. It's time to leave Marina Solbu. We took a refreshing dip in the pool as afternoon wound down - interrupted briefly by the arrival of Sampatecho's dinghy (it had been out for warranty repairs.) I modified our navigation light housings to accept the new LEDs we received in the morning. This should resolve our lighting issues - finally. Bradd flew in late in the day - just in time for drinks and dinner. After dark we tested the new lights. Beautiful! Much brighter than the originals with 1/10th the power consumption and 2 soldered connects versus 8 crimps. 4/5/07 - We planned on heading out today but Bradd learned that a shipment of wind generators was arriving tomorrow morning and wanted to get them reshipped. Ruth hauled me up the mast to wrap the ends of the upper spreaders (they'd torn our gennaker). I also need to get some ripstop nylon to repair the sail. 4/6/07 - Bradd had mentioned he couldn't open the deck fitting to fill their forward water tank. That being the case they'd have to remove the bow berth cushions this morning to fill the tank - as they'd been doing the past few months. While he and Maeve were at Cruising Solution's warehouse I removed the fitting and clean the threads (harder than it sounds). A little Teflon lube on the threads and it works like magic. At noon we motored north on the ICW as winds were northerly so it didn't make sense to go outside. A couple of bridges delayed us and hour so it was early evening before we dropped anchor at the upper end of Lake Worth, just north of West Palm Beach. At dusk I sounded the Conch. It was great hearing Bradd respond and then a couple of other boats. Listening to the weather we are in for a few days of high 40's at night and 60's during the day. Brrrr! 4/7/07 - Today was a jacket day. 10-15 knot winds out of the North and high 40's. We saw lots of dolphins. ibises and a number of families camping on the islands along the ICW. We stayed on the ICW all day, making it to Jones Fruit Dock at Wabasso, 45 minutes north of Vero Beach. The orchard was started in 1889 and served the White House for several years. A hurricane wiped out the trees a few years back. Richard Jones is a spry 88 years old. He rents dock space for $10.00 per night, $13.00 with electricity because he enjoys meeting the boaters. He and his 85 year old wife are a real treat! We signed his log of guests along with the likes of Billy Graham, Walter Cronkite, and executives from most major industries. The boat that signed in yesterday was from Traverse City, MI - go figure. Alaska, Africa, Australia and Canada are among the nations represented. We'll definitely stop here again. 4/8/07 - Another sunny, cool morning - jeans and jacket weather. 8am and we were moving, headed for Titusville (Cape Canaveral). Being Easter it was a pretty quiet day. It was a motoring day as the wind continued to blow out of the north. The Easter Bunny (Ruth) visited both boats leaving chocolate eggs. We passed the Space Center Vehicle Assembly building most of the afternoon. Hey, we only were going 6 knots. Enroute we saw more dolphins than we've ever seen in one day. At dusk we anchored rafted in a small inlet off the ICW by the Haul-over bridge. It was a little different in that we rafted with our bow anchors out but with out bows facing opposite directions. It worked well, keeping our rigs apart and putting an anchor at each end of our raft so we wouldn't swing in the narrow anchorage. Bradd and Maeve stepped over for an Easter dinner of grilled marinated pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, green beans and Bradd's famous Caesar salad. It doesn't get much better. This area is well known for its Manatee population, though you couldn't prove it by us. Dolphins, yes, Manatees, no. 4/9/07 - 7am, cool and overcast - we headed out. Again the wind was from the North so we stayed on the ICW. As we left our anchorage I was treated to the sight of two Manatees swimming along the channel. Later we saw dolphins. As we trekked North we saw more Manatees. For as ungainly as they are their movement in the water is graceful. That said, I still believe the sailors of old that thought they were mermaids had hit either too much rum or fever laden water. It was a quiet day, occasionally raining while the wind defied the forecasts and blew directly at our bow. Just past New Smyrna Sampatecho established that the channel was 5' deep using their 5' 6" keel as a depth sounder. Whoops! They were able to back off and found deeper water by staying tight against the red nuns. The number of homes for sale along the ICW is staggering. Given that, there are still a lot of new homes being built. At 6:30pm we pulled into a tidal creek by Fort Matanzas and anchored for the night (We'd wanted to make St Augustine but fell 2 hours short due to tidal currents and headwinds). I was directing Ruth around some submerged white/red crab pots that I thought were submerged due to a short line and high tide when I realized they were jellyfish. She didn't see them and thought I was nuts. That aside we were soon snuggly hooked. 4/10/07 - We left Fort Matanzas at 8am. It is the smallest fort I've ever seen - about the size of our house, two story, brick. The St. Augustine Bridge of Lions opened for us at 10am. It was a grey day punctuated by showers. I took advantage of Ruth's helm time to replace the screen and glow plug in the diesel cabin heater but couldn't get it restarted. I think it has a feature where after 5 tries it won't restart. I have a little more diagnostics to do before I call their service center. By dusk we were anchored at Fernandina Beach, the FL/GA border. Maeve had invited us to a chicken dinner so we launched the dinghy and joined them on Sampatecho. 4/11/07 - Fog was hanging over the paper mills when I got up at 7am. A fisherman was tending his traps with the help of a flock of pelicans. They had it down to a science... when he finished with one pot they'd fly to the next and wait for him. This is where we picked up brother-in-law Dave on our loop trip. Ruth and I moved to Cumberland Island, GA, about a half hour trip. We anchored and took the dinghy ashore for a long hike. We saw the ruins of Carnegie mansions, armadillos, wild horses, a wide variety of plants and beautiful ocean beaches. We even saw some of the white jellyfish with red stripes like I'd seen in the water at Ft Matanzas - Ruth is now a believer. What a great way to spend a day! We left Cumberland Island at 5pm, headed offshore for Hilton Head. Running offshore we traded 96 miles on the ocean for 165 ICW miles of winding Georgia and South Carolina tidal flats. 4/12/07 - All night we'd watched lightning dance over the mainland  west of us though we never were near any storms. With dawn the clouds cleared as we approached the mouth of Royal Sound. It was a great sail even though we motor sailed the last 5 hours. By noon we were anchored off Broad Creek, Hilton Head Island. We locked into the Windmill Yacht Club basin after Sampatecho (the club use the lock to offset the effects of the tide). We are the guests of Bob and Judy Powell, friends of Bradd and Maeve's from earlier years in the Bahamas. We joined them at their beautiful 5,000 sq ft home overlooking Calibogue Sound for dinner. It was an enjoyable evening, Judy was a nurse and a licensed mid-wife - one of the first in NY state. Finding they like cruising life they sold their home in New England, eventually buying 3 on Hilton Head. Their goal is to get back to to cruising on an extended basis. The home we visited is for sale. 4/13/07 - Dawn, crisp and clear, not a cloud in the sky. I started the day working on a couple of articles I have in progress. I was going to go up the mast until I realized it was Friday... so I did a little cleaning instead. After lunch our hosts provided a car and we used it to provision the 2 boats. Very handy. We ate at the yacht club with Bob, Judy, Bradd & Maeve. It was a fantastic meal. I had she crab soup and seared scallops - to die for. Wow! Ruth had trout almandine and loved it. We splurged and had desserts. If we told you how good they were we'd have to kill you! 4/14/07 - Charleston beckons, offshore it's about 68 miles versus 80 on the ICW. CNN is issuing dire warnings so we are going ICW. Before we left we had breakfast at the yacht club with Bob and Judy. A hot buffet, eggs, bacon, cereals, sweet rolls, fruit, etc... $1.99 per person. What a deal. We hated to leave - especially with the weather forecasts: tornados, large hail, 50 knot winds, thunderstorms and pestilence. Man. I hate that pestilence. We sailed, motored, motor sailed our way up the ICW, stopping for the night at Tom Point Creek. It's a pretty secure anchorage in the event the dire forecasts prove true. We are about 25 miles from Charleston and 1 mile from a swamp fire - bright side, no gnats. 4/15/07 - The cold front was swept in around midnight - driven in by 35 knot winds. Lightning and rain danced around us, but we only got rain and wind. NOAA is calling for 35-40 knot winds all day today. Currently we are under tornado warnings. Not having a basement, Ruth has decided to crawl back under the bed sheets. We initially elected to remain at anchor as our instruments were regularly recording winds in the low 30's (we believe our wind speed reads low). Sampatecho was reporting low 40's as was NOAA. The marsh was blanketed by what looked like fog but was actually spray being blown off the waves. The bridges on the ICW don't open when the winds are above 35 knots so we couldn't go far today if we wanted to. That was confirmed a little later when the Coast Guard announced that the Port of Charleston was closed to all traffic due to unsafe conditions generated by high winds and waves. By noon the winds had diminished a little and Bradd wanted to get closer to Charleston... we agreed and headed north on the ICW. By mid afternoon the weather stations were reporting gusts to 52 knots.  Never thought We'd be surfing up the ICW! We anchored in the Stono River about 8 miles from Charleston and the first bridge that would need to open for us. Anchoring was a treat - the anchorage was crowded and we ended up putting down two anchors in 35 - 45 knots to position the boat as best we could. Ruthie did a great job getting the boat in place in high winds. I slept in the main salon so I could hear and quickly react to our anchor (dragging) alarm until the winds diminished to 20 knots around 2am.

AA in Marina Solbu Solbu pool and hot tub Ruth trimming the landscaping Installing new LED bow light Weekend camping on the ICW islands Now that's a dinghy Mantanzas buoy Fernandina fisherman with his helpers Wild Cumberland horses graze at Dungeness ruins Waiting for their boat to come in? AA moored at Windmill Harbor, at the SCYC South Carolina Yacht Club - view from AA cockpit ICW signs that will make Miles pucker, note the stain

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