4 days, 3 nights afloat and Deltaville!

We’re beginning to feel like real sailors --- left Savannah early Wednesday morning.. We took 2 days and 2 nights non-stop to reach Morehead City, 290 nautical miles. Our friend there, Michael, wasn’t available, so we stopped just for diesel and headed back out into the open water. Another 2 days and a night, and we were in Norfolk! We passed the infamous Cape Hattaras, “Graveyard of the Atlantic” and its Diamond Shoals that extend out about 12 miles, at about 11 PM. The evening had turned from hazy to clear and moonlit, mild SW winds as predicted, rather awesome to see the Cape Hattaras light house for several hours, from more than 20 miles away.  Here is sunrise and a fellow cruiser heading north, looking much like Latitudes, all just off of Hattaras.

Traveling like this has its own set of challenges. Like meals. We need to have one good dinner before dark, preferable something that can be easily cooked while underway. Then we need another meal around 3 a.m. That has to be prepared in advance and stowed in microwave bowls. One night wasn’t bad, but I’m definitely running out of over-nighter meals! The days aren’t bad; we get a lot done. If the seas are calm we can take showers. But the nights are long. We take shifts after dark, about 3 hours each, one being on watch while the other one sleeps. Those are long 3 hour shifts. We usually don’t see anything except another ship or two. You can’t read because the light would ruin your night vision. We usually just listen to music.

We wanted a quick stop in Morehead City for diesel but were told that the diesel dock was occupied and could we wait about an hour. Not much option, so we agreed. Much to our surprise, the boat at the fuel dock was the Amistad! The Amistad is a replica of the slave vessel that was overtaken in a mutiny by a boatload of slaves. Here’s the story if you don’t know it --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Amistad

The current Amistad is based out of Mystic, CT, and is used for a training and goodwill ambassador boat with other tall ships. She has been on a tour, visiting Key West and other points south.  Here is her website  http://www.amistadamerica.org/

Their time at the dock was longer than expected, so they generously offered to let Latitudes raft-up beside her, run the diesel line across both boats, and allow us to fill up our tanks. We did!

The captain even sent over a crew member to come aboard and help us move and tie up with them as “there are only the two of you…”. Very sweet.

All fueled up, we left Morehead City and headed back out into the open sea, about 20 miles out, another over-nighter in store. I’ve never had luck fishing in the Atlantic, so I asked the marina owner if I could catch anything out there and what to use. I got the usual “I guarantee this will work!” and ended up buying a cedar plug. Now, I’ve seen these before, other cruisers have them. But I’ve never heard of them working. However, we dutifully rigged up the line and dropped it in about an hour of out Morehead City and had a hit with a 30" king mackerel within an hour. We couldn't get him cleaned up before we had the second hit, this time a Little Tunny. Tired of cleaning, we left the line in the boat for a couple of hours, put it back in, and bingo! Within 15 minutes, another Little Tunny. I’m sold! (and we didn’t put the line back in, either!)  We've GOTTA get Luke a better filet board!

We made it to Norfolk just in time to be picked up by ex in-laws Judy & Joe.  It was great to see them again and catch up.  Judy made a great dinner for us - Luke even ate her sweet potatoes!!!!
Back in the Chesapeake with its icons:

Wolf Trap Light House

Lots of crab pot floats and nesting ospreys.

Latitudes back in the familiar fold of Deltaville

And a beautiful Chesapeake Bay Sunset as a fitting finale to a great 3300 nautical mile winter journey.

Luke's Perspective:

In the Cruising community we often rub shoulders with ordinary looking sailors who have done extraordinary things -- cruise the entire Caribbean, circumnavigate, etc. In comparison to those, we feel like neophytes, having done so little, and will certainly never do so much.

Yet when we sit back and reflect on what we have done over the past several years, it too seems amazing and somewhat overwhelming - we have cruised the entire Bahamas, and the entire Atlantic seacoast, from Miami to Canada. We’ve now passed nearly all the major capes of the Atlantic Seaboard – by sea:

- Cape Henry into the Chesapeake
- Cape Hattaras and its dreaded Diamond Shoals that extend 12 miles out
- Cape Lookout and it’s Cape Lookout Shoals, 12 miles out
- Cape Fear and its associated Frying Pan Shoals, about 12 miles out
- the lesser known Cape Romaine, a bit NE of Charleston,
with the notable exception being Cape Canaveral.

- Northbound – Cape May, the southern tip of NJ, Cape Cod, Cape Ann, the location of Glouchester and Rockport, and numerous capes in Maine.

We've lived on our little boat, 5 1/2 months this last time, mostly self contained, mostly happy, always learning, seeing new places, meeting new people. It's been quite a journey, quite an experience.

Savannah

Ah, back to Savannah, to family and friends and a few days off of the boat. 
You probably think that sailing is all fun and sun soaked sailing, but noooo.....especially before we go for an overnighter we do a lot of checks and changes.  The diesel engine filters have to be checked and changed. A dirty job at the best.

Then there are little things like checking the water intake filter for the engine to see if it's clogged with sea grasses - of course, this filter is sideways under the mattress in our berth. We check the impeller for the speed sensor - this means pulling out a plug from the bottom of the boat and pushing in a dummy plug asap while ocean water spews upwards into the boat.  A wet project.  Little water bugs always come in so we have to treat the water in the boat with bleach.  It's never ending fun.

The trip itself was uneventful. We left St Augustine at the 11:00 AM opening of the newly rebuilt Bridge of Lions, at slack high tide. It's never a good idea to leave an inlet with wind against tide, and incoming tide can give as much as 4 kts of current against us at this inlet. We had mild winds that clocked from the East, to SE, S, SW, just as predicted. There was a surprising 1.5 kt current against us for the first few hours. We motorsailed most of the way until the wee hours of Saturady morning, when we had 20 kts pushing us the rest of the way to the Ossabaw sound. We arrived at the crack of dawn, timed so that we had incoming current at Ossabaw, yet enough light to see the crab pot floats, and so reached our destination at about 9:00 AM.

More fun at Beth's - friend Randy had a birthday so Beth arranged a little birthday dinner party at the house for him.  That's Randy at the far right, in the green shirt.

Our plan now is to leave Wednesday at oh-dark-early to take advantage of the tide and do another long trip to at least Morehead City, arriving Thursday evening.  IF all goes well and the weather continues to cooperate, we may well just continue our trip"outside" to the Chesapeake rather than stopping at Morehead City and doing the ICW to Norfolk .  Won't know for sure until we near Morehead City on Thursday evening. 

FLorida at 7 mph

Drifting up the Florida ICW at 7mph---you get to see the best stuff. 
One thing is that as we reach mid Florida the homes on the ICW are no longer obscenely large but are more normal.

We had a nice sail from Vero Beach to Titusville, about 65 nautical miles.  Yes, we actually sailed up the ICW with 15 to 20 kt winds for a beam to close reach, doing 6 to 7 kts.  We were treated to a great sunset at Titusville.

We took a short 5 hour run to New Smynra Beach to see friends Ret and Joe.  It was a great relaxing visit and a nice dinner out.  Unfortunately we had to leave early the next morning for a long 60 nm day to St. Augustine, into 10 to 20 kt winds -- all motoring.   First, we left the bridge at NSB.

En route to St. Augustine we passed through the Haulover Canal, a short canal with a park on one side and an opening bridge at the beginning.  It's always pretty there and we see lots of bird life.

Passing through Daytona is neat.  Take a look at the decorations on the bridge pilings.

And the bridges!  4 in a row, 2 which we have to request an opening.

Crabbing is done in the part of FL, too.  Not on a large scale like the Chesapeake, but certainly crabbing.  Because those darn crab floats are along the channel in the ICW here!

Next, St. Augustine.  First, we both got hair cuts at the local barber shop - $13 each for great cuts! We like it here, small streets lined with shops.

Here is a shot of the roof of Flagler Collage.  It was built as an exclusive hotel by railroad magnet Flagler.  The ornate roof is especially impressive.

Friends from last year, Don & Trish, are in the area and drove up to see us.  We had a great visit with them.

Including a visit to the historic St Augustine Light House

Don & Trish are from Nova Scotia, along with daughter Cheryl, arthur of cruising books on the Nova Scotia area.  We are planning to go there this summer and were excited to talk to them about cruising the area.  We think they may have talked us into going as far as Newfoundland....

I've pretty well covered most of the shells we found in the Bahamas, so I'm going to stop that for now.  I doubt I'll find any as we travel north - might have to wait till next winter to start that back again!

Florida and the good life!

 Back to Florida.   The world of nuclear power plants

and high rise bridges

After our excitement of the space launch, we went to shore with friends Kris and Ron.  Not much to do in Ft. Pierce, but we did see manatees near the shore.  The town was pretty dead (after Easter) but there was some fishing activity near the city pier. This would be the 4 of us.

We also saw another Portugese Man-O-War.  This time, I got a picture!

From there we sailed (motorsailed) the 28 statute miles to Stuart, FL, the last 7 miles up the shallow, winding St Lucie River. Here we had made arrangements to have our radar fixed or replaced. It was replaced.  And works.  Glad to have it working again, a bit shell-shocked at the price to have it replaced. We took time to wander from the fabulous marina into town.  Neat, old town, lots of restaurants/bars/shops.  We enjoyed the town.

They even have a couple of round-abouts, complete with great statues.

We left Stuart around noon and motor sailed to Vero Beach, about 42 statute miles, on Friday.  We had about 20 kts of wind from the south, on our stern -- motorsailed with just the jib, doing 7.5 to 8 kts most of the time. At Vero, we saw friends Marina and Dave and new puppy Sarge.  I can't believe we didn't get a picture of the cute 15 week old yellow lab puppy. We had a great visit and dinner with them. Then back to the boat to meet friends Ray, Ange, and Nicole on Saturday.  Ange and Nicole brought a great lunch and hor d'orves. Ange even made cookies from Luke's mom's favorite recipe!  We took them for a little 2 hour boat ride north, up the ICW, and then a sail slowly back to Vero Beach.

Past mega mansions.  Single homes and estates worth that are worth more than many of the entire island incomes of the Bahamas.  It's a strange world...

And the dinghy ride to end the visit with our friends at Vero

Today's shell is the measled cowry.  Wonder how it got it's name....

The back of this shell is indeed "measled" - you can see some of the spots on the upper side of this picture.  I read that the animal itself is most beautiful, covered with colorful fringes and tiny papillae.  There are raised tooth markings which you can feel as you run your fingers along it.  The genus name Cypraea refers to the Cyprus, birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite. The name "cowry" then means the "shell of the Cyprian goddess". This "goddess" is about 4 inches long and truly beautiful.

The space shuttle lift-off!!!

We had the most amazing experience this morning - we saw the space launch!!! Not up close and personal, which you can do by anchoring outside of Canaveral, but from our anchorage here, 100 miles to the south. At the right moment, an area of the horizon suddenly burst into flames, a huge swath of land and sky all aglow. Then, slowly and surely, a glowing orb lifted skyward.  The take off picture is a little confusing--- the shuttle itself is the white orb in the center, with the reddish line underneath being the reflection in the water. The other 2 white lights are from the bridge just in front of us.

As we watched it arc, after a few minutes, we saw the burst of light indicating the booster separation and then watched as the boosters themselves fell away from the blue flame of the shuttle itself. An hour later, the vapor trails were still obvious.

 AND - the noise! We didn't hear a thing when it lifted, but suddenly, 6 minutes later, the roar of the takeoff reached us. What an errie feeling.
We could see the shuttle for about 15 minutes total. I have to say, it was quite moving. Now I want to time our next trips to include a lift off!
(no Shell 101 today - this doesn't count as a regular blog entry...)

Back in the USA!!!

We're back in the USA, y'all!!!  USA, sweet USA.

We left before dawn from our night anchored near Memory Rock -- essentially out in the open about 16 nm from the nearest land, except that "land" about 9 ft down. It was a bit choppy, but OK. We were rewarded by a sunrise worthy of an Easter morning.

About 14 miles out of Florida, we could see the high-rises on the horizon.  It took another 3 hours for us to finally arrive at our port of entry, Ft. Pierce, FL. 

As a catch up ---we left Man-O-War Cay and had a nice leisurely sail to our next stop, New Plymouth, a settlement located on Green Turtle Cay. This route is through a pair of "cuts" or inlets around Whale Cay that often get very choppy or  "rage" in strong winds vs wave conditions. We actually went outside the cays to do some fishing on the edge of the deeper Atlantic - with nothing to show for our detour. The total route was about 25 miles. Very leisurely…But not all that glitters is gold --- note the plastic enclosure curtain that is down behind Luke? As we head further north, the morning temperatures are cooler, in the 70’s for goodness sake!

New Plymouth is about as quaint as a New England town, just a lot more colorful.

The narrow golf cart sized streets meander all over the place.

New Plymouth was settled very early by Loyalists, both black and white, all escaping from the US, after the British lost the Revolutionary War. A very nice sculpture garden was built in 1987 to commemorate the original settlers and to give their side of the story, highlighting the hostility and downright brutality of the victorious rebels that forced those who had been loyal to the Crown to flee.

Entering the government dock at New Plymouth

And leaving the dock, you see the still evident pride in the British past, complete with flag.

The town has 3 small grocery stores, think ½ size convenience marts back in the USA. We did see more of the common US foods there, brands we recognize rather than the Bahamian or European brands. There is also a museum (closed when we were there), hardware/marine store, and a bank. We were there on Wednesday…

By contrast, the ABC store (also sells fresh deep fried conch fritters) is open 6 days a week, 7-7.

We didn’t hear or see as many chickens as in some settlements, but cats! Here is a yard full --- 8 of them, cuddled and huddled. Sorry, we miss Wickie…

As we worked our way north, nearer the same latitudes of southern FL, we began to see some of the familiar bird life, like seagulls, great gray herons, and white egrets. It’s nice to see them again.

From New Plymouth we sailed another 25 miles, this time in the Sea of Abaco. Destination, Allans-Pensacola Cay, housing the ruins of an abandoned US missile tracking station. Used to be 2 cays, but a hurricane took care of that some years ago. A short walk through the low trees took us to the Atlantic side of the island, complete with all sorts of cruiser memorabilia…stuff hung all over the trees along the coast, stuff with boat names, cruiser names, etc.

Even a swing.

But, even with the junk, it was still a pretty beach.

We walked the length of the beach to a small inlet/bay. Very pretty.

But it’s not that easy to reach paradise…note me in the far right corner, making my way along the sharp iron shore.

Back to the Sea of Abaco side for a little dinghy cruise – we saw loads of small barracuda, all very interested in our dinghy movements. Two large sharks, not particularly interested in us, thank goodness. And several large stingrays, which didn’t care one way or the other. We kept our toes in the dinghy.

Best of all, the green flash!!!! Again!!!! Very definite, just as the sun set, the remaining bit of orb turned the greenest of greens. After the sunset the sky turned that beautiful pinky red and the few boats in the harbor with us had their anchor lights on. It was a quiet, still night – we liked it.

Next, an easy sail to Great Sale Cay – staging for the next stop before our crossing. It has a beautiful, long beach. In the foreground is a "fish bank" a milky looking shallow area of bottom stirred up by feeding fish, who in turn attract baracuda and sharks.

And another green flash!!!

And LOTS of shelling to be had. That baggie I'm holding up is full, mostly of “olives”...shell du jour after the one in this blog

We sailed lazily from Great Sale to our last stop before crossing, Memory Rock. Not really a rock, just a place in the shallows. We anchored there, leaving at about 6 a.m. for our 75 mile crossing to Florida. En route to Memory Rock, we saw our first Portuguese-man-of-war jellyfish! It was amazing --- a clear, but brilliant blue bubble floating gracefully across the top of the clear blue water.  Nestled beneath the 10" bubble was a wad of dark tenticles, looking short, but I know they aren't.  Average tenacle length is 30 ft, can be over 150 ft!  He was beautiful, but I hate jellyfish.  Check out this link - just click on it below - it shows a great picture and some short info on them.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/portuguese-man-of-war.html

We did the obligatory fishing while we sailed. And boy, were we successful! First, a nasty 4’ barracuda

Look at those teeth – he meant business. Luke was brave enough to use a very long pair of pliers and pull the hook out as the fish hung over our railing. We were all three glad he was gone.

Then we managed to catch THREE little jacks. There are small differences in many of the jacks, so we couldn’t positively identify them. But, small jacks caught other than on reefs are safe to eat and our reference book said “excellent " for the food value. So, we kept 2, releasing the smallest one back for another day. Fresh fish for dinner – very good dry white meat!

And another green flash!  It's been crystal clear and still for the past few days - must be the right formula.
Ship traffic in the Gulf Stream reminded us of why we didn't cross at night without radar.

We took down our well worn, tattered Bahamas courtesy flag, a sure sign we left the Bahamas. 

And were enfolded in the sunny arms of the Fort Pierce Inlet

Today’s shell-du-jour was one I found today on the little bay in Allans/Pensacola. It took some research to identify it. Finally, it’s a West Indian Chank.

Chanks are a species of mollusks that live in tropic and subtropic seas, from low tide level to about 6000 ft! They are carnivorous, eating tube worms and bivalves. This 10 inch fellow has an interesting “underside” with 3 strong spiral ridges (helped me identify it!). It’s a pretty shell.

So, that brings you up-to-date with our Bahamas adventure --- only part of our winter trip south, but a big part of it.  Now we can concentrate on getting the radar fixed so we can continue north and get to see our family and friends!