Got the MRI!

Finally, I saw the doctor and had my MRI this morning.  Have an appointment on Wednesday afternoon to get the results.  The doctor sounded positive - we're hoping for good news and maybe a trip further south!

Still in Vero

We're still in Vero Beach.  Not that we don't like Vero, we do.  Great friends here, nice town, convenient shopping (free buses).  But we really wanted to leave by now and be headed south or even in the Bahamas.
It started as a simple desire to have a PT appointment so I could be stretching my ankle muscles.  It took over a week to get that perscription worked out. We got some negative input so decided to have my delayed MRI done here to determine the status of my ankle and consider our cruising options.  Another week of trying to make that happen, including a denial from my insurance because the Dr. and MRI are in separate states. Then a 4 hour stint in the ER room (only to learn that ER doesn't do MRI's and the hospital doesn't do them on weekends).  Now I'm told that the on-call ortho surgeon for the hospital is obligated to see me, but I have to call and make an appointment and hopefully he'll arrange the MRI.  At least it'll be a second opinion, but let me tell you, I am just a bit frustrated in my efforts to get PT and an MRI.  grumph. 
That's it - sunny, 80, a little windy today. Smoke loves lazing on the boat, I started a new knitting project, and Luke has accomplished some boat maintenance and computer stuff. I shouldn't complain ....

A few pictures from Vero Beach

A little catch-up for our visit here in Vero Beach.  A couple of days ago Luke and Dave drove out to Sebastan Inlet, about 15 miles north of here.  A nice inlet, but we are blocked from using it due to a 37 foot high bridge near the entrance.  We need 62 feet to clear.  The day was clear and the water blue.  Here is the inlet, taken from that 37 foot bridge.  The jetty going out into the water has a fishing pier at the end.

The pier was crowded with Saturday morning fishermen (and fisherwomen)

There is a fish cleaning area near the pier.  The birds don't miss out on that!  The cute pelicans rule.

Wood Storks aren't cute, not at all, but they sure are in the mix, too.  They are big!

Long time family friends Ange and Ray visited on Sunday.  We went for a leisurely boat ride up the ICW and enjoyed getting together again. 

It's been great seeing Marina and Dave.  We've had dinners with them, and they have generously let us borrow one of their cars.  That has been a tremendous help in provisioning, errands, etc.

Boat work tomorrow, a PT appointment for my ankle on Wednesday, and then we will probably be leaving Vero for this trip.  We do always enjoy our time here, though.

Quick catch-up

We made it to Vero Beach without any problems.  Now we're on a nice mooring in 80 degree, sunny, Florida weather! We love it - Smokey is basking in the sun, quietly surveying her new world.
Shopping and hanging out at the fishing pier in the inlet with friends Marina and Dave yesterday (I'll let you guess who did which!).  Today, close family friends Ange and Ray will be here for a visit. 
Pictures and more later, probably tomorrow evening.

Roseate Spoonbills and a ROCKET LAUNCH!

As usual, we left in the morning way too early - at "Civil twilight".  That translates into 20 minutes before dawn - the sky is light enough to do things outside without artifical light, but not daylight yet.  That would be about 6:50 a.m. these days.....  But, as a plus, Luke caught this beautiful shot of sunrise just outside of St. Augustine.

Our 60 mile run from St. Augustine to New Smyrna Beach was mostly a long day of motoring and a few rain showers.  Houses along this part of the ICW run the gamut from RV's and single-wides, to monster mansions that you can't believe.  We pass through Daytona on this leg of our trip.  Daytona is a busy place - lots of those monster mansions and high rise condos.  It's busy enough that there are 4 bridges crossing the waterway.  2 of those bridges are high enough that we just cruise on under them.  2 require a request for an opening. The second of those bridges was having some slight technical difficulties....they could only get one of the two opening sections of the bridge to raise.  After some waiting, the nice bridgekeeper told us that if we wanted to go through the half opening, we could do so.  We did!  It was a bit tense, but Luke did a great job of putting Latitudes in just the right place to slip through perfectly.  For perspective, that bridge is only 25 feet high when closed.  We require 60 feet clearance.

Unfortunately, our friends that we intended to visit in New Smyrna were both ill and we had to postpone our visit until our trip back. 

Todoay, we again left at civil twilight and motored on to the Haulover Canal, a short little canal with an opening bridge that worked!  The other side of the canal, where the water widens again, is the site of many spoil islands, little islands that dot the waterway.  These islands always have the most white pelicans that we've ever seen.  They are just hundreds of them, all clustered together on these tiny islands.

But this year we saw something new.  A fellow cruiser alerted us to the fact that pink Roseate Spoonbill birds share these islands, at least the islands with trees.  This isn't a clear picture, but you can see the pink flutter of the spoonbill.  There were dozens of them sitting in the trees.

These big birds look like a cross between the pink flamingos and the ugy wood storks.  Here is a picture of one, borrowed from the web.

Next along our route today was Cape Canaveral.  With NASA's big cutbacks, it was sad to pass the  building, American flag hanging proudly, but apparently sitting empty and quiet along the waterway.  As Luke said "the twilight of the gods and their chariots of fire" is here.



But, NO!  At dinner tonight (local pizza joint, yum!) we talked with other cruisers.  We can always spot each other....  anyway, they told us about an unmaned rocket launch tonight from Cape Canaveral!  Our anchorage tonight is in Cocoa, a mere 20 miles from the launch site.  Not far at all in terms of seeing the launch.  Sure enough, to the minute, we saw the huge ball of light rising in the sky, curving into orbit, dropping red bits of debris in it's path.  WOW!

This certainly isn't a good night picture, but will give you an idea of the size of the rocket glow over the lights of the nearby bridge.  A few minutes after we began seeing the rocket, the rumbling sound reached us.  Amazing.

Tomorrow, again at civil twilight, we leave to make our way to Vero Beach.  Friends Marina and Dave are there - we'll be glad to see them.  We will stay a few days to visit, provision for our crossing to the Bahamas, and enjoy Vero.

St. Augustine

ahhh, we feel much better after a good night's sleep!

Luke did awake during the night and notice the Bridge of Lions, all lit up in the dark.  It was really quite spectactular, lights relfected in the still water.  The center area with no lights is the actual opening span.

The city marina here has a launch service - they pick you up at your boat and take you back to it.  It's free, included in the cost of the mooring ball. This is great, as it means that we don't have to take down and put up the dinghy for one trip into town.  We took the 10:00 launch into town this morning.  Haircuts at the local barbershop.  This shop has 7 chairs, all staffed by men and women, and serving everybody.  I was certainly not the only woman getting a haircut.  And we both got good haircuts.

After that (and a slice of wonderfully greasy pizza!) we set out to explore St. Augustine again.  We like the narrow alleys.

The old homes have mostly been converted into shops, museums, or B and B's.

Flagler Collage is always impressive.  We didn't take the tour this time, but like to admire the grandeur of the authentic Spanish Renaissance style architecture.

We found one new church that we hadn't noticed before.  This is Grace United Methodist Church.  Yes, it looks a lot like Flagler!  It turns out that clever Mr. Flagler wanted land adjacent to his Ponce de Leon Hotel (now Flagler Collage).  He wanted to build a courtyard on the property.  But there was already a church on the location that he wanted.  So, he proposed to the church trustees that he would build them a church at a new location if they would give him the land where the current church was located.  They agreed and the new Grace Church was built in 1886 in return for the land.  Now we know why the two buildings look so simiar.

After our leisurely tour of St. A in the 75 degree weather, we took the launch back to Latitudes.  There we watched a beautiful topsail schooner sail lazily out through the bridge.  (we confirmed the schooner type on Luke's schooner T-shirt from Maine!)

Luke took on one chore - putting relfective tape on our mast.  This is the idea of boating buddy Peter.  When returning to the boat after dark, we can pick out Latitudes by shinning the high intensity flashlight beam on masts and watching to see which one shines back at us! lol! Hopefully we won't be terrorizing all of the boats in the anchorage and will just make sure we're headed to the right boat.  I can vouch that that is not always as easy as it should be.

Off tomorrow, heading for New Smyrna Beach, another 60 miles-ish south.  More warm weather!

Florida and shorts!

ok, just for a little while after we arrived in St. Augustine, but we DID wear shorts for a while!  Never mind that we had on thermal undies and sweatshirts for 24 hours before we finally got here!
It was a nice sail from Beaufort, SC to St. Augustine, FL.  24 hours. We picked the short weather window so that the winds were forecast to be from the NW leaving Port Royal Sound, progressing to the E through the next 24 hours. The weather was as predicted, and  we were under sail only for about 10 hours of the 24 hour trip. The sailing only part was broad to beam reach, sailing at 7 to 8 kts - quite nice.  We had a beautiful moonrise at 12:39 a.m. in a clear black sky, and passed a few lit up shrimp boats along the way. We are 150 miles further south. 
I''m still a bit tired from the change in sleep, so this will be short
Smokey is glad to be here at a quiet, warm mooring. She has re-explored most of her boat.  I've seen her stretched out on the narrow anchor hanging over the water, prowling the topsides of the dinghy (and inside), on top of the solar panels (THAT didn't last long!), and her new favorite place, perched on the jib furler on the bow of the boat.  It's that little round disc that the rope is rolled up onto.  It's been a favorite ever since she swatted a bird from there last year.

We entered the harbor of St. Augustine - America's oldest city! - through the newly renovated Bridge of Lions.  The bridge has been under reconstruction  since 2005 and was just finished this year.  Here's the new bridge, opening for an unseen boat to pass through.

Just before the bridge, we get a great view of the historic Castillo de San Marcos from the waterside prospective.  This Spanish fort dates back to 1672.  The first Easter Mass in the New World as held here.  We'll probably walk over tomorrow and visit the fort.

Just at dusk, the sky behind the city turned a wonderful shade of pink.

The bed is definitely calling now.  Tomorrow we plan to take the complimentary launch service from Latitudes to town and do a little sightseeing in the 75 degree weather!!!!!  I can't walk as far as before, with this air cast, but I do hobble about pretty well!

Rocking the night away outside of Beaufort, SC

Sometimes, when cruising, you just have one of THOSE nights....that happened last night, Thursday.  We motored down the SC ICW from south of Charleston to just a few miles north of Beaufort, SC.  It was a very windy day, mostly on the nose,  but we were in the ICW instead of the ocean, so it was ok.  It took all day to reach our destination, as we ended up motoring against current of 1.5 to 2 knots all day long.  I didn't know that was possible, what with tide changes every 6 hours.  It just depends on where we are relative to an inlet from the ocean. Anyway, it was dusk as we reached out destination.  I went out in the 20 knot wind and did the anchoring.  Fortunately, the anchor "set" as soon as we dropped it and we felt secure.  With the even higher winds predicted, we carefully chose an anchorage location that would put us on the "leeward" side of land in a relatively narrow creek which is part of the ICW.  In other words, we were protected by trees and land that would break up the predicted south wind before it got to us.  Well.  Shortly after dark, the darn wind shifted unexpectedly to the west, and blew straight down the channel where we were anchored. With wind in excess of 20 knots and gusts to 35 knots, we didn't get much sleep.  The boat rocked.  It rolled.  The various anchor alarms went off (that's good - we like to know what is going on).  Everything was ok, we didn't drag our anchor, and  the boat stayed where we wanted it. As a special bonus, we had wind against current about half the time, putting us sideways to the 2 to 3 ft chop generated by the 25 to 30 kt winds, and the anchor chain dissapearing at strange angles, like under the boat. What a miserable night - Luke was up every hour or so to check out the alarms and how the boat was swinging around.  We were glad for morning.  As soon as we pulled up the anchor and motored around the turn to the now sheltered side of the island, everything calmed down.  But at least, before the wind picked up, we were treated to a nice sunset (the first of many for this season's blog, I'm sure!)

The cold mornings have a wonderful effect on Smokey - she wants to be a lap cat.  I like it!  She is definitely toasty and warm when she lays in my lap, although she makes accomplishing anything difficult.

Beaufort, SC has a town dock that is free during the day so boaters can go sightseeing, eat out, etc.  Boats can tie up there from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m.  But not overnights!  If you stay all night, you will be hit with a $3000 fine! (yelp, that's three thousand!).  We left at 4....

Beaufort itself is a sweet little southern town, established in 1514. It was settled by the Spanish, then the French, and later the British.  The big live oaks drip with Spanish Moss, letting you know you are in the low country.  If fact, it looks like every plant here drips with Spanish Moss.

We visited the historic Parish Church of St. Helena, established in 1712.    http://www.sthelenas1712.org/index.php?page=history   Really interesting history!

 The wall around the building was built of  bricks that were used as ballast for the big sailing vessels coming into the Beaufort harbor.

Within the church walls is the old cemetary.  Beaufort honors her own, with each Confederate soldier's grave appropriately marked.  A Confederate flag and a CSA plaque mark each grave.

In addition to the many local graves, there are 2 British officers buried here, killed during the Revolutionary War.  Their graves are marked, appropriately, with British flags.

Know what else Beaufort has?  Grand old mansions, built from the fortunes made by producing rice, indigo, and cotton.  These stately homes have been used for movies such as "The Big Chill", The Prince of Tides", and "Forest Gump".  They have not been turned into museums; most are still private residences.

And a little botany lesson - Not being from the SC, GA, or FL, I've never seen the fruit of a sago palm until today.  The palm plant itself is beautiful...it's much taller than I am.  I had to hold the camera above my head to get this picture.

But just look at the fruit in the middle!

Turns out that there are two types of Sago palms.  One has edible fruit and the other one is highly poisonous.  This is the poison varity.  I've just never seen the fruit - these orange balls are at least 1 1/2 inches in diameter.  Very impressive!

It's going to be cold tonight, but we are here at the marina dock, hooked up to electricity.  Very nice.  Our look at the weather gives us hope for an outside run from here to at least St. Augustine, starting on Sunday.  I hope it holds up, because we sure are ready for consistently warm weather.



Our first overnighter of the season

We left Wrightsville Beach, NC, waaaay too early on Tuesday for an overnight run to Charleston, SC.  It was very successful, as we are here! Winds were mostly from the NE 8 to 12 kts, and we were headding SW. That gives an apparent wind of 5 kts or less, so we motor sailed nearly the whole way. An overnight run is an easy way to make miles count  - we went 143 miles in 28 hours instead of 50-ish miles per day on the ICW.  Boring at times, as it gets dark by 5:30 and not light again until 7.  Long perids of night. The nearly full moon, hidden above the thin cloud deck surrounded us with an eerie, misty light horizon at times, a luminous haze at others, as we motor sailed along on a gentle sea almost 30 miles off shore, past "long Bay" NC.

from Luke - I'd like examine the last two days to put into into perspective the "inside" (ICW) vs the "outside" (offshore) decisions that we make. The ICW has statute mile (SM) markers. Moorehead City is at SM 205. Wrightsville beach at SM 285, Charleston SM 465  and we are presently anchored at SM  487. To relate this to nautical miles (NM),  SM X 0.8695 = NM, or one NM = 1.15 SM. Latitudes happily motors at 6.7 kts or 7.7 SM/hr at the engine rpm we prefer to run. So, since we left Beauford/Moorehead City at dawn on Monday 1/9, 'till we anchored at 11 AM this morning, we have progressed 282 SM in 52 hours, a bit over 2 days. This was with a 10 hour run offshore from Moorehead City to Wrightsville beach, and a 22 hour offshore run from Wrightsville Beach to Charleston.

If we had stayed "inside" on the ICW, we could have theoretically done 7.7 SM/hr X 10 hours of daylight for 77  SM per day. In reality, we have to find an anchorage, we can't just stop. Also, most bridges are "restricted" and don't open between 7 and 9 AM, and 4 to 7 PM, open every 30 minutes in between. In NC, SC and GA we often find currents of 1 to nearly 2 kts with or against us. The net effect, we'd be lucky to average 50 SM per day. So, our 282 SM "inside" on the ICW would have taken us about 5 days vs 2 days with our 2 outside runs. Of course, the trade-off is that we need favorable weather forcasts, which we define as winds from not foreward of the beam, and 15 - 20 kts or less, 15 preferred, and that doesn't happen every day!

When we got to Charleston we stopped for diesel and water. Here is the dock in the early (7 a.m -. ish) light.

We took an hour nap before the marina opened, but,  ummm...nobody feels great after 4 hours sleep...

We reentered the ICW in  Charleston.  How about this boat???  Think the "fishing camo" will work?  -- or maybe it's a decoy to attract fish --- We thought the paint job was great.

Smokey was glad to get back on the quiet ICW.  She showed her appreciation by helping us read the chart....and then her daddy found her tummy - she LOVES  a tummy rub!  A good reward for a good boat cat.

She is sound asleep in the back berth - I'm going there soon!  Tomorrow we want to try to get to Beaufort, SC.  Maybe Savannah late on Friday.  From Savannah we can wait for a good weather window to take an outside run to St.Augustine. FLORIDA!!!!

Beaufort, NC, New Bern, and dozens of dolphins!

We had a nice ICW trip on Jan. 6 to Beaufort, NC. We motored slowly past R.E.Mayo, a fishing/ shrimping boat dock.  A little run-down, but very picturesque in the early morning light.

Here is a nice view of the waterway and it's many little shallow areas, shown from a bridge.  The only place boats can go through is the narrow blue water on the far right side of the picture.

Our friend in the area, Michael, was able to arrange for us to borrow a wonderful dock from one of his buddies.  This dock was the best!  Only a few blocks from downtown Beaufort, safe and secure on the floating dock, complete with electricity.  What a great favor! 

Friends Phyllis and Peter picked us up and took us to their home for the weekend.  It was a wonderful visit, although folks must have wondered about Phyllis and me....she also is wearing an aircast due to a foot injury.  Two peas in a pod!

We both love to knit and do crafty stuff - she taught me a new "something" --- I'll show it when I'm done!  Peter and Luke both have similar backgrounds and enjoy talking technical geek stuff, so we're all 4 happy!

While in Beaufort, Michael and his wife Connie invited us to a dinner party.  It was nice to meet new folks, plus the meal was delicious.  That was a real treat!

Today we took the outside run, not the ICW, and moved from Beaufort to Wrightsville Beach, NC, another 70 miles further south. It was a downwind motor sail, 15 kts diminishing to 5 kts by the end of the day.  We had the most amazing experience - at least 30 dolphin rushed to the boat as we were about 9 miles offshore.   They came blasting in from every direction.  For at least an hour and a half, they played beside, in front of, and under the boat!  WOW!  These pictures can't do the experience justice, but here are 3 views. If you could see this picture well, you could pick out 10 dolphin just crusing beside the boat.

This group is playing in the wake just off of our bow.



From both sides, they would scoot just under the bow, crossing our path.  Sort of like a game of "chicken"..

We've seen some beautiful things on our trips, but this surely was one of the best!

Not as cold as last year!

We left Coinjock in a blistering 22 degrees, but the wind had died and with a combination of thermal underwear,  layers, flannel lined jeans, jackets, woolie caps, and gloves, we managed quite well. This was the scene about 7:30 AM.

 In fact, the sun was shining, giving us a lot of warmth in our enclosure.  Smokey liked the warmth of the sun. Her winter coat has filled in and fluffed out so much that she looks like she's gained a few pounds. She is soft and warm.

The warmth was deceptive.  It was cold outside, never getting above 34.  These salt water icicles from freezing spray of the Albemarle Sound near the bow are proof! We sailed across the sound in 10 to 18 kts, mostly on the beam, meaning salt spray over the side of the boat.

We anchored just north of the Alligator-Pungo Canal.  Surprisingly, we were in company of 4 other sailboats. Guess we are the "after the holidays" group.  Last night wasn't so cold, only 34.  With our propane space heater, generator-run heat pump, AND electric blanket we stayed comfortable.

Our trip this morning began with the Alligator-Pungo Canal.  This is the canal that was ice covered last year, where we were breaking ice as we went.  Much better this time!  Captain Luke was at the helm.

The canal was quiet and calm.  It runs through  part of the Mattamuskeet Wildlife Refuge. http://www.fws.gov/mattamuskeet/   "Popular with hunters" the guidebook says - and it must be.  We heard the shotgun blasts of duck hunters and saw their little duck hunting boats the last couple of days.  It is a beautiful area. I just realized that today's picture looks much like the one taken as we neared Coinjock a few days ago. We love the reflections in the water.

Some parts of the refuge have apparently had forest fires.  This is sad, but the tall, dead trees apparently give good vantage points to eagles, waiting for their prey.  We saw 2 today.  One was a Bald Eagle, the other one either a young Bald or a Golden Eagle.  Oh, also saw 2 large Great Blue Herons flying low over the water.

Latitudes is SAILING across the Pamlico Sound as I type.  A nice 15 knot wind is doing the job for us, heeling the boat over by 15 degrees.  Smoke has been undecided about either staying below with me or going up top to sit on Luke's lap.  The lap won.

Tonight we will anchor in Adams Creek, only 40 short miles from Morehead City, NC.  That is about 200 miles south of Deltaville.  Hurray!  We'll be at anchorage early enough - and it's warm enough - for hot showers in the boat! Maybe even a sun-downer in the cockpit if the enclosure stays warm enough.