Granted it's not the usual response to be excited when being bitten by bugs while sitting outside in the evening, but we were. Yesterday evening we arrived at Vero Beach and realized we had landed in the bug zone. Although bugs are generally annoying, they mean no more REALLY cold mornings or nights.
The wind was coming from the wrong direction, the seas were rougher than we'd preferred, and regardless we set out for our first overnight in the ocean. Leaving St. Augustine at approximately 1:00pm on Dec 27, we headed out the inlet, into the ocean, where we would spend the next 24 hours. Going directly into the wind did not lend itself to much actually sailing, the rough water sloshed and churned us up a bit, and we took turns sleeping throughout the night. The next afternoon, we were quite happy to pull into the channel at Cape Canaveral with calm water around us once again. Our 24 hour voyage allowed us to skip 3 days of winding, narrow, shallow water of the intercoastal.
Finally we got our weather! Leaving Fernandina Beach just after sunrise, we had clear enough weather with small enough waves to head out to sea. We went out St. Mary's inlet and traveled along the coast in the ocean down to St. Augustine FL. The day was a little hazy but warm, sunny and calm. There was a very gentle breeze, we were able to put the sails up but there was not enough wind to actually sail so the motor stayed on all day. After all the days of careful planning and constant attention traveling down the inter-coastal, a calm day on the ocean was a treat. We still had to keep a lookout for other ships and Right Wales (we didn't see any Right Wales, but since they are on the endangered species list if we were to spot one we would need to be cautious to stay 500 yard away). However the autopilot could do all the work, no standing behind the wheel with a firm grip, no watching the depth gage, no being concerned about the next bridge. It was easy and relaxing, with our only concern being the St. Augustine inlet. When we arrived at the inlet the tide was going out (not the best thing for us), our calm seas were suddenly rough, sloshing us around a bit, and there were breakers to each side of us. We found our marks kept in deep water, and made it in with no troubles.
During our stay at Jekyll Island we picked up a couple of crew members. Keith and Shane McManus are now voyaging with us. We are taking advantage of them as much as we can as; galley chef, cleaning crew, and teak sanders. I'll try to get some new pictures up in the gallery very soon.
As we left Jekyll Island and headed on down south we continued our discussion of doing a hop out in the ocean. On our brief stop overnight at Cumberland Island, we realized the weather was not on our side. With another small storm front moving through, high seas, rain and wind we moved just south to Fernandina Beach. We hung around there for about 4 days, enjoying the town and doing some work on the boat. I managed to get some pillows made, and we now have all new throw pills on the settee's. A petty thing that makes me really happy. And we have a good start on getting the old varnish off the hand rails, a task that needs completed before beginning to apply the new coats of varnish.
After a couple of days of watching tides, water depth, and weather we landed at Jekyll Harbor Marina. We are safely docked and will be sitting still for a few days letting a storm system pass over and awaiting the arrival of some friends.
We left Hilton Head yesterday and made the decision to continue along the intercoastal thru Georgia rather than make an overnight hop to southern Georgia in the Ocean. We really wanted to skip most of Georgia due to the fact that poor funding has left most of the intercoastal undredged with shallow areas. But due to cold temperatures at night (which would be even colder out on the ocean with a nice steady breeze) and poor forecast for most of the week (rain, high winds, thunderstorms) we thought it best to save our first ocean passage for more favorable conditions.
Our days of travel are fairly short, we can only pass most places at mid-tide rising or higher. One such location we passed thru today, hell's gate. Our charts and books all tell us that parts of Hell's Gate have 1' of water at the average low tide (MLW). Obviously this is problematic with a 6' draft on our boat (Mom, that means at 6' of water we'll be touching bottom). We traversed Hell's Gate at 1.5 hours before high tide and had no problems getting through, although we did see 8' of water at one point.
With that behind us we'll make as many miles as we can today, enjoy the dolphins, and see what treats lay in store for us tomorrow.
On Monday we left Beaufort and traveled down to Hilton Head, SC. It was an easy fairly short trip other than the wind being really cold. After 4 days of not getting off the boat we loaded the dingy with our bikes on Tuesday, or was it Wednesday? I think it was Wednesday, and we headed to town. We had a very enjoyable ride as we discovered the bike trails that go all over the island. We even rode several miles along the beach and saw some dolphins swimming near shore.
That's about all there is to say about the past week, we're not moving much right now and life is pretty uneventful. There's always the big question of "Do we get dressed and get off the boat today and do something, or just wait till tomorrow?" IB has fixed some electronics, I made I couple of throw pillows, and we have been monitoring our power. It seems that our battery bank is a bit older and not performing up to par. Basically that means until they are replaced we have to run the motor everyday for a few hours to keep running the refrigerator, and limited computer usage, since the computers use a lot of power to charge.
