Bruce and Esther's Sailabout: December 2007

I love Florida! The weather has been in the upper 70's to lower 80's and we are now finally using the air conditioning instead of heaters. We had a great time in Fernandina Beach as Amy, Bruce and I rented bikes to do a bit of sightseeing and go to the beach. We left Fernandina Beach for a long day all the way to St. Augustine, Fl. We were again travelling with the Mary T and Northern Reach. We all anchored just in front of the town, before the bridge and found it to be a quite scenic as the waterfront was all lit up for Christmas. The Mary T and Northern Reach left early the next day to get a dock in St. Augustine as they felt more comfortable leaving the boat for a day of sightseeing on a dock instead of on anchor, especially Jim and Karen as they have the cat to think about. We arranged to meet in town for lunch and sightseeing. Again as the time was short, we chose a narrated open air bus tour. We had met another Canadian couple from Alberta along the route as they were having some engine troubles and asked if we had some oil. Karen and Jim had some and they passed it over to them and later we met up in St. Augustine. We arranged to meet them for happy hour and then to go and watch another lighted boat parade put on by the town of St. Augustine. We watched it from shore with a thousand other people only to see that the parade kept circling our boat on anchor all by itself!
We enjoyed St. Augustine but were anxious to leave and get to Tittusville where we were finally planning on stopping for a month and just relax and enjoy the sunshine. We were still 2 days away so we stopped and anchored in Daytona Beach but didn't get off the boat and then left the next day for Tittusville. The entrance to the Marina was well marked but quite shallow and Jim and Karen kept bouncing off the bottom. Luckily it was just soft mud. This was just the beginning of the bad feeling we were starting to have about this marina. When we finally got into the marina, the docks were a wreck and the marina was dirty and in need of a major face lift. We thought Bucksport was not the greatest but this marina made Bucksport look like a five star resort!! Even the other boats in the marina looked like they were all ready to sink. We then saw the "For Sale" sign in front of the marina and thought to ourselves "this can't be good!" The only good thing about the place was that there was a fresh water creek running into the ocean and because Manatees like the fresh water, there were quite a few Manatees at the docks. Because of the Manatee, the marina has been unable to get any permits to dredge or renovate. Luckily we had not put any money down as we decided that this was not going to work out for us and Jim and Karen were definitely NOT spending Christmas there. We quickly got out the books and started looking for other marinas and making phone calls to see if there were any slips available. We were by this time a bit gun shy and we were afraid to put down a credit card sight unseen. It was not easy finding another marina but we eventually found one another 2 days away on Nettle's Island. It sounded nice and you could walk to the ocean so we booked a couple of slips, took a cab out to dinner and left as soon as we could the next day. We had over a hundred miles to cover and stopped the first night in an anchorage about 50 miles from Tittusville in a anchorage just off the ICW, called Rock Point. There were 2 small islands in front of our anchorage that we could dinghy too which had sand beaches. Two other Canadian Catamarans followed us in and beached themselves on one of the islands. Bruce and Karen went for their first swim off the boat since we met up with them and then we took the dinghy to shore to take a walk and to see the sunset. We met up with the other 2 Canadian boats and got talking to them for quite a while, when we started to here a horn going off from one of the boats anchored in the bay. Ken did not come to the beach with us so we figured that he was getting lonely or wondering what was taking us so long as the sun had been set for quite some time and it was now dark. We decided it was time to head back anyway so we hopped in the dinghy and headed towards the Mary T. When we arrived, Ken was shining the light on the bow for us and told us that he had picked up too swimmers in the water. A young couple had been out for a canoe ride, when their canoe sank and they had to start swimming. Of course they had no life jackets with them! It was a bit of a distance to shore and with no lights on our dinghy and only a 2.5 horsepower engine (that is a bit unreliable at the best of times), we didn't want to take on the responsibility of taking them to shore when we had no idea where we were going. We told Ken to call the coast guard and have them come and pick up the kids as that was what they were paid to do (so we thought). The coast guard refused to pick them up so Ken took it upon himself to blow up his dinghy and put his engine on and take them to shore. Only in the good ole USA!!
We finally arrived at Nettle's Island to find that the marina was exactly what we had been looking for! The people are very friendly, there is a nice tikki hut that all the boaters can get together for happy hour and dinners, it is only 5 minutes to the beach and it is a nice island and area to ride your bikes around. The only setback is that the grocery store is a bit far away and the marina is renovating the washrooms and laundry room so there is no laundry here until the middle of January! Not really a big problem for us as we have rented a car for a few weeks. We don't even have to take our own garbage to the bin as we have Andrew who does it for us for $.25 a day! There is a small grocery here as well as a bakery, restaurant and hair dresser. Bruce even got a $10.00 hair cut that looks good! We ate at the restaurant the first night we were here and it was fantastic. There are a lot of live-a-boards here so there is already a planned Christmas Day Brunch and a New Year's Day potluck dinner. We have done a bit of exploring by car and hit 2 flea markets and farmers markets today that had some great stuff. Lots to see and do in the area so Karen and Jim shouldn't get too bored sitting around the beach all day (poor guys) while we go home to the snow and the cold! The Mary T has also booked in for 2 weeks so will probably spend Christmas here also.
This will be my last blog until the new year so Bruce and I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous New Year. Talk to yo' all next year!

dolphins swimming beside the boat

Jim and Karen on our sightseeing bus in St. Augustine.

Brusther's bikers getting ready to head to the beach in Fernandina Beach!

Giving the Manatee some fresh water at the dock in Titusville. It was the only way we could entice them to come up.

We're back! It was a great trip home and the wedding was beautiful, of course we are a little prejudice! Everything went off without a hitch, the bride and groom looked estatic as did everyone! (pictures to follow). Our good luck seems to be staying with us as our flight, bags and rent-a-car went off without a hitch and we were soon on or way back to the boat again. It was also nice to again be back in the warmer weather.(79 degrees the day we arrived) I wish could say the same about the weather the week we were home. Toronto had their first cold weather alert and ice and snow storm of the season! Some people at home were mentioning that our blog is getting a bit boring now that we have not had any real adventurous happenings! Hopefully it will stay boring, but you never know, you will just have to keep reading all the boring crap in the mean time. We will probably be heading back out to the Atlantic and out of the calm waters of the ICW in the next few days so you never know.......!!

The boat was just the way we left it and since we had fueled up before we left all that was left to do was reprovisions, fill of the water and return the rental car. We left the dock about 10:00 on Tuesday morning for a relatively short day to an anchorage south of Georgetown, SC in the South Santee River. For the first time in a while, we were by ourselves in the anchorage. It seems that we are at the tail end of the snowbirds heading south. I think I prefer this as now we don't have to rush to anchorages to get a good spot! We are starting to get a lot more current and even when the boat is stopped on anchor, our knot meter is reading that we are still moving, very strange feeling. At night we can hear the water on the stern of the boat rushing by. We left just after 0630 on Wednesday as we wanted to meet up with Jim and Karen on Northern Reach just past Charleston so we had 2 bridges to time and about 50 miles to do. Karen had booked us into a marina called Ross Marina. It was a great spot to meet up with them, talk about our plans over the next few days and our plans for Florida. We decided to book a marina in Titusville where Jim and Karen could spend Christmas, we could leave the boat while we went home for Christmas and have a couple of weeks just to relax, take a break from travelling and do some sightseeing! We hope to be in Titusville around the 8th or 9th of December and then fly home around the 17th or 18th of December again. The marina sounds great as it has a pool, tennis court etc. and it is cheap enough that we can rent a car for the time that we are there for sightseeing.

Today, Thursday the 29th of November, we are travelling with Jim and Karen again and heading to Beaufort, SC. We were a little dissapointed about missing Charleston but it will definately be a stop for a few days on our way back to the Chesapeake, when travelling will be a lot less rushed. Steve, Shirley, Mark and Carol are in Beaufort and we are not too sure yet but they may be staying in Beaufort until after Christmas I have started trying to write a little bit everyday when we are underway instead of spending time on shore trying to remember where we have been and what we have been doing for the last week or so. This also makes it easier to post it once we get to the internet somewhere. (my mind can't remember too far back!) We have been seeing tons of dolphins in the ICW which surprises us for some reason but we are not complaining as it is one of the most enjoyable things in our otherwise boring days of motoring thru the ICW.

We anchored just outside of Beaufort in Factory Creek and just as we finished anchoring, Jim called to tell us there was some dolphins beside our boat. It turned out to be a mother and baby swimming by, they were really cute! We left in time to catch the 0900 opening of the Lady's Island Bridge and after clearing the bridge, we passed by the city marina where Steve, Shirley, Mark and Carol have booked a slip for a month and will spend Christmas there before heading further south. They were all on the dock to wave to us and it was sort of a sad feeling leaving them behind and knowing that we will not meet up with them again for a while. We headed to another anchorage in yet another creek called the Bull Creek. Bruce and I have been travelling again for 4 days straight and were happy to arrive early in the day just to relax and enjoy the sunshine. We were just outside Savannah. GA and had a hard time finding a dock for a couple of nights as it is a very busy weekend with pre-Christmas activities going on as well as a decorated boat parade. Karen did eventually get us booked in a town called Thunderbolt that is right on the ICW and a cab or bus ride away from Savannah. Most sailers stay around here and tour Savannah by car as Savannah is about 8 miles up a river off the ICW. We are on our way now and will most likely have internet to post this blog. Our frends Ken and Amy (Mary T) are at another marina in the area and have the use of a van/car. They are planning on picking us up and doing some sightseeing this afternoon. I have really not been off the boat since Tuesdayand it is now Saturday so as you can imagine, I am very anxious to finally get off for a walk!

We had a great time in Savannah, the weather couldn't have been more perfect for sightseeing. Ken, Amy and Amy's friend Dietra (nicknamed do do) met us in the afternoon and we visited on our boat until dark as there was a boat parade scheduled for 1800. We were really glad we waited to go for dinner to see the parade as the boats were all beautifully lit up and as they all passed by our boat we blew our airhorns and sung (or at least tried to sing) Christmas Carols. It really helped to get us in the Christmas spirit! We went out to Tubby's Tankhouse for dinner and arranged to meet the gang in Savannah the next day. Jim, Karen, Bruce and I took a tour of the city by sightseeing bus in the morning which is a great way to see everything and them decide what you would like to go back and look at again. We then met Amy, Ken and do do and walked and walked and walked for the rest of the day. What a great city to explore and it is small enough to see most things in a day as long as you don't visit any museums!

As much as we hated to leave, we really had to keep on moving. We didn't have as long a day leaving Savannah as usual so we could start a little later and as we were taking the inside route (the Atlantic was too nasty to try that day),and we wanted to wait for high tide to make sure we would have enough water below our keels! Fields Cut, which we had to take, was reporting only 3 1/2 feet in places! We made out just great and only went about 30 miles to Walburg Creek and anchored for the night. The weather forcast for the next day looked good so we got an early start and took the Atlantic route out the St. Catherines Sound and back in at St. Simons Sound. Although we didn't get to just sail the whole trip, we did motorsail it and did shut the engines off for an hour or so! The main thing is that we avoided all the shallow water in Georgia and had a nice relaxing day. I don't know if we are getting smarter or just having better luck as we seem to be avoiding any horror stories! Sorry if I am boring you all, but we like it better this way! Since it was still early enough and it was high tide when we came back in at St. Simons, we decided to continue inside for a bit to get over some shallow water spots the needed to be passed at high tide. We anchored in Umbrella Creek for the night and again the sunset was amazing.

We are finally in Florida, Fernadina Beach to be exact. We arrived fairly early yesterday, Wednesday, December 5th and are on a mooring ball at the Fernandino Harbor Marina. Ken (from the Mary T) is fighting a cold and we are all a bit tired from travelling the last few days, so we decided to take a day down. We went in for lunch yesterday and it is a charming town which could use more exploring time. We had a potluck dinner last night on our boat and today we plan to go for a long walk and find the beach. We were also able to pay for a day on the internet so I can finally get this blog posted in the comfort of our own boat and it allows us to make lots of skype calls today too!! From here we plan to head to St. Augustine tomorrow and then we are only 2 days away from Titusville where we can finally rest up a bit. We will probably take a day down to see St. Augustine so we should be in Titusville by Monday if all goes well.

Nuclear sub at a dock in the St. Mary's River, can't see it very well cause we need a new camera with a zoom on it. Again a gun boat in the water making sure you did not get too close.