12/30/13 Southern Florida Coast

I love this picture of us so I had to include it....somewhere!  As we were out for a day sail we noticed something floating in Charleston Harbor. At closer inspection we discovered it was a deck chair! We immediately slowed down, turned around, grabbed the boat hook, and removed the danger to navigational aid. Amazingly enough it was a wooded chair in great condition. As you can imagine, we had fun relaxing in it throughout the afternoon and Chris and Rose were happy to take it home with them for their front porch relaxation.

This is us in Charleston when we met friends Chris and his girlfriend Rose who drove to visit us from Sumter, S.C. We had a fabulous visit with them and they we so helpful in getting us organized and reprovisioned.

Ok, now back to the Florida ICW. We have spent two peaceful days traveling south on  the Indian River portion of the ICW. We spent night in Mosquito Lagoon, a huge 6 foot deep bay where we swam. We saw many cannonball jelly fish swimming by Kuivato and felt we had to do some internet research before taking the plunge. We learned that not only is their sting minor,but they are apparently a delicacy in Asia.  There are only 5 boats in Georgia that are licensed to net them for fear of upsetting the ecobalance and they are the 3rd greatest export tonnage from Georgia behind shrimp and oysters. 

We have arrived in W. Palm Beach at the Old Port Cove Marina and I am quite sure we are the smallest vessel here. There are lots of cleaning crew scurrying around to prepare huge sport fishing vessels for their owners arrival. We celebrated New Years Eve with Leela and did quite a bit of final grocery store provisioning, West Marine, and  Home Depot visits. After a night at the marina we anchored nearby in Lake Worth which is a large fairly well protected harbor. We also had a bundle of mail to pick up at the West Palm Sailing Club which was a lovely older facility that had a great local small boat sailing feel; quite the opposite of the Oldport Cove marine with its mega yachts. 

We have identified a potential weather window for our departure across the Gulf Stream to Memory Rock in the Abacos and on to Great Sale Cay and possibly Green Turtle Cay for customs clearing in. This adventure should take us about 25 hours. However, after speaking to many seasoned local sailors, the Kuivato/Leela team gathered for a strategy meeting and decided to change our itinerary. We have learned that the weather in the Bahamas has been very windy this winter, particularly the more north you are where the cold fronts are stronger. Additionally, the farther south you go the water temps are warmer and the cold fronts tend to have a harder time penetrating into the easterly trade winds. We are now planning to motorsail in the ICW to Miami Beach and wait for a good Weather window with southerly winds to cross the Gulf Stream from a point far enough south to not have to fight the Gulf Stream. From the Miami area It's 50 miles to Bimini and  then another 80  on to the Berry Islands where we will clear customs. Hopefully we will then find an idealic anchorage to stay for a few days to relax. We have thoroughly enjoyed the journey, but it has been far from relaxing pressing on each day, navigating, provisioning, and working on the boat. Tim has been working non stop on projects including final connection of the solar panels, rerouting the auto helm compass wiring, and upgrading the engine alternator regulator. That's in addition to the dozens of other projects and repairs that have been continuously happening. I have been keeping myself quite busy and we are both longing to relax in the warmth and sunshine in the days to come.

To get far enough south to take advantage of the northerly Gulf Stream current while crossing to Bimini and onto the Great Bahama Bank, we need to go through  26 bridges between West Palm and Miami, most with restricted opening times, either on the hour and half hour, or quarter hours. If you don't make it to a bridge on time you then have to circle around until the next opening. At one point we  made an impromptu to stop for fuel and water at the  Hollywood City Marina, while Leela decided to press on south. After we fueled up and re-entered the ICW, while waiting for the next bridge opening we noticed a bakery and restaurants with docks right on the ICW so we made a quick pitstop for some baked treats.  Since it was predicted to blow 30-40 knots overnight, we chose to duck into a beautiful, well protected basin at Oleta State Park, 2 bascule bridges and 1 high fixed bridge north of Miami. Entering the park was quite a challenge as the entrance was a 75 foot wide cut through dredge spoils with depths of 2-3 feet on either side. It was interesting being at the helm and relying on an aerial photo image on the IPad so heavily to navigate. Without the several navigation apps we are using, we would likely not enter anchorages with such challenging entrances. 

We then got a very depressing call from Leela stating they just learned  the last fixed bridge only had 55 feet of clearance at low tide! Their mast height is 55 feet without considering the two feet of antenna, lights and windex. Kuivato's mast is also the same height. The question we have is why did this bridge get built in 1962  with 55 foot clearance when virtually every fixed bridge in the ICW from Cape May NJ to this point has 65 foot clearance, the design clearance for the ICW? Seems like someone screwed up or got paid off. Since they could no longer proceed south, Leela turned around and came north to join us in the park anchorage for the night. We would now have to motor back north to Port Everglades and head offshore the 25 miles down to Miami. 

We were anchored next to a liveaboard who poked his head out upon our arrival. Tim asked him how long he has been anchored here and to our surprise he said 6 years! He explained how he had an annual membership to all of the Florida State parks which allowed him access to go through the park landslide entrance where there is a $3 daily fee. However, in Active Captain we read there have been problems in the past with livaboards landing in the park and using the bathroom facilities at the nearby Florida International University, so the Park only allows kayaks and canoes to land on shore. As such, we wondered how our neighbor gets around that rule. We soon learned the answer......what a sight it was in the morning to see this 300+ pound man laying on his back on an air mattress paddling to shore. Apparently landing on the beach with an air mattress is not prohibited. It is interesting to see how differently we all get around in this life.

We hardly felt the blow overnight the anchorage was so well protected and we decided to stay another night until the wind died down. The next day as we began our ritual of Tim hauling up the 100+ pounds of anchor and chain, the sticky mud we've been anchoring in most of the trip seemed a bit more sticky today. When the anchor started to come up there was also a lot of resistance. Having experienced this before,  (The boulder in Rockport MA, first night out) my first thought was to grab the camera to capture whatever it was we caught. Indeed, this time it was a 1-1/2 inch diameter braided steel cable, possibly left behind after the basin was dredged or mined. Being experienced in in problem, it only took us minutes to set us free. At least we now knew we weren't going to drag in the previous nights blow!

This is becoming quite a photo journal of anchor treasures!

Begrudgingly, we traveled north again through many of the same bascule bridges we had traveled through south two days earlier. Something about retracing your steps that just doesn't seem right. We were delighted that none of the bridge tenders commented on our revisit! The weather was predicted to be rainy with 20 to 30 knot winds from the north so we knew it would be a fast furious ride south.

We donned our foul weather gear, secured the safety jacklines on deck, put on out life vest,and prepared for a very bumpy sleigh ride. Departing Port Everglades was quite difficult with the waves that stacked up in the entrance and we were moving so slow I wasn't sure we would make it out. Indeed we did and as soon as we turned south, we were flying along.

 White water, blue water, green water, we saw it all! Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight  to make sandwiches in the AM before departing so I was scrambling around the cabin slapping together peanut butter and jelly, our new favorite meal while sailing in winds greater than 20 kts. At one point Tim saw me fly across that cabin into the head door where hip landed on the door handle. The bruise is quite a sight still one week later. We arrived in Miami harbor early in the afternoon and anchored off the west side of Miami Beach. We took a little nap, got up for a bite to eat and crashed for the night.

Miami is quite a town, the night lights were fantastic! Images projected on the sides of skyscraper buildings, all the fabulous lights from the various bridges and still some holiday color spattered around. 

We took the dinghy  to explore Sunset Lake as we had read some interesting entries from Active Captain. We meandered along the canals of the "Venice of Miami", until we came to the lake. Much to our amazement we saw no less that 26 Lasers hulls on moorings surrounding a 200 foot area directly in front of a high end home. It is reported that the owner of the home doesn't like boaters to anchor near his home so he shines floodlights on anchored boats and plays loud music in an attempt to deter passing vessels from enjoying "his" lake. Then he came up,with the idea of anchoring these laser hulls to prevent anyone from anchoring. How so very sad. Indeed, there are mean spirited individuals who have nothing better to do with their days than harass cruisers. 

From our anchorage you follow a canal to the grocery store which even constructed a dock for dinghies. It was truly refreshing to visit a place that  knows how to cater to cruisers.

As we dinghied around, I kept an eye out for fellow cruisers Michelle and Joe on "Simple Life". They are seasoned cruisers who been traveling from R.I. and whose blog we have been following since their departure in September. In one of their blog entries she proudly showed off her home made elaborate dinghy cover. It was this dinghy cover that tipped me off to their identity. What a treat to finally meet up.  It  was unfortunate that we were unable to spend more time than drifting in our dinghies but it looked like a nice weather window to cross to the Bahamas was approaching and we needed to really do FINAL provisioning for the BIG departure across the Gulf Stream. 

As you can see, Janaki and Diane traveled "Miami style" in the the fire engine red Mustang convertible from Enterprise while making the final mail drop pickup in Islamorada, yet another adventure.

With Janaki at the helm, we all cruised Miami Beach that night picking up the "boys " jaws the entire evening! What a hoot of a town. We look forward to returning to get the full experience some day.

Friday evening the 10th we sailed to south to Biscayne Key to stage for the big morning departure. Sunset on the Miami skyline was spectacular. I couldn't help but envision Don Johnson at the helm of his cigarette boat going a 90 miles per hour in the massive Biscayne Bay, what a sight it is!

Saturday morning we awoke at 0600 for a 0700 departure. Tim listened on the single side band receiver to Chris Parker, the weather forecaster many cruisers retain for weather routing in Florida , the Bahamas and Caribbean. Chris predicted "horrendous" conditions in the morning with winds to 20+ kts and confusing seas until afternoon when he recommended departure from Miami. We had our own, very local onboard forecasters, Tim and Graham, who felt the winds and waters would be fine for a swift ride to Bimini. Departing Key Biscayne was an adventure and passing remaining Stiltsville was a pleasant surprise. Apparently, the  homes were built on stilts in the middle of the Bay entrance on shoals by squarters in the early 1900s.  The fact that they that still exist after decades of storms is truly remarkable. We understand they may now be going on the National Historic Landmark List. 

Leaving the Biscayne Bay entrance was rough but once offshore it was a  fabulous ride, a bit more bumpy than we expected, but certainly not horrendous. We have come to realize for good reason forecasters like Chris play it rather conservative since many cruisers are not well prepared for, or capable of handling, heavy conditions .

As soon as we cleared the harbor, we set the sails for a due east course and dlet the Gulf Stream carry us north to,where we would enter the Grand Bahamas Bank north of Bimini. The morning consisted of many discussions regarding sailing the "S-curve" theory of crossing the Gulf Stream and today I am finally able to laugh at yesterday's convictions, ah, the vast self knowledge this adventure has availed me is stunning. The west wall of the Gulf is about 10 miles from Miami. The winds were SE at 15-25 kts and we were able to sail at an average of 6.6 kts. We had half of the jib up and 3 reefs in the main. What a wonderful ride mostly keeping to the rumb line the entire journey. We were delightfully pleased to arrive at North Rock on Moselle Bank just north of North Bimini late in the afternoon. It was awesome to see water depths of 2500 ft during the crossing and then sail into 10 foot depths on the Bahamas Bank. We decided to drop anchor along the northeast shore of North Bimini to rest for a few hours before continuing on to the Berry Islands. Tim and I had a toast and our first swim in the Bahamas at sunset in the most gloriously green waters thus far. The water temp was 79, same as the air temp for the evening. The dip was quick as we need to do more research about whether there is any truth to more shark activity at sunrise and sunset. We rowed over to Leela to celebrate our arrival after our 2 1/2 month journey. Based upon the wind prediction we decided to continue the second leg of the crossing at 0300. Sunday morning we were sailing again in the warm Bahama breezes with tee shirts

I began my morning with a lengthy sunrise yoga session on the bow while Tim prepared French toast along with the last do our Christmas ham which had served us well with over 20 meals! We arrived at Great Island Cay Marina in the Berry Islands at 1600hrs after another rip roaring sail. The marina staff arranged for the customs officer to come to the marina and an hour later we were cleared in with our cruising and fishing permits in hand.  Here we are, our first landing on Bahama soil having cleared through customs! The yellow quarantine flag comes down and our Bahama courtesy flag flying high! It's been a long amazing journey.

12/21/13 St. Augustine, Florida

We finally made it to Florida! Jacksonville was our first stop as we had a mail drop pick up. The big item to pick up was a new  cockpit table that Bryan (Kelsey's partner) had handcrafted with folding leafs to replace our tiny one that didn't even fit two plates. We had seen the partially finished table during our Red Hook stay and were looking forward to getting the beautifully craft table so that we could more comfortably entertain in the cockpit. We are waiting for Christmas to open the package, what a treat it is going to be!

In Jacksonville we stayed at the  free Metropolitan Park Marina next the Jaguar Stadium. Apparently during games the marina is packed tailgating football fans on powerboats. We'll certainly be departing before participating in that scene. Oddly, Leela and Kuivato were the only two boats in the marina that night. Graham, seeing how tired we all were, ordered pizza to be delivered to the boats. As we were eating, Tim felt something hard in his pizza, thought it was was rock and was shocked to find it was half a lower molar that had split away from a big filling. Why do these things have to happen while you are traveling and away from your trusted dentist? Tim wasn't in any pain, but what to do next?

Fortunately my friends Sally and Dan McCue, who live in York in the summer and at our next stop, St. Augustine, in the winter, were able to connect us with a pilot friend, Dr. Bob Thousand. Dr. Bob was apparently quite happy to help fellow sailors and the first thing he did was invite us to tie up to his dock for as long as we were in town. He and Jane have a fabulous location overlooking Salt Run on Inlet Avenue on Anastasia Island within walking distance across the Bridge of Lions to downtown St. Augustine. We are one of 5 boats the end of his 200 ft dock with eight slips.

Dr. Bob had us meet him in his kitchen at 0700 The next morning after our arrival to examine Tim's tooth. His diagnosis was that Tim would at least need a crown, maybe more serious work. The problem was, due to the holidays most labs that fabricate crowns were closing the next two weeks so we needed a dentist who had the equipment to make the crown in house. Dr. Bob fortunately was able to set an appointment with Dr. Michelle DeFelice, a fellow boater. Monday morning, Tim hopped on Dr. Bob's bike and headed  4 miles to the appointment and I followed when I join him after some errands with Janaki and Graham. The office had a Cerex machine which takes digital photos of the area where the crown will go, creates a digital image of the crown, and then sends the image to a CNC milling machine in the next room which cuts the crown from a square block of porcelain.

 Two and a half hours later we were biking back to Kuivato. Tim with a new crown, and the entire process was behind us. We were very fortunate!

Greg, a live aboard at the dock, has a sailboat that he has completely outfitted from the Sailors Exchange, an incredible used marine gear store in town. He has been quite helpful showing Tim around Dr. Bob's tool room and sharing boating maintenance gems. Tim donned his scuba gear to check how the bottom paint was holding up and the sacrificial zinc anodes on the propellor shaft. Kuivato's bottom looked fine even after three years in the water; however, the zincs mounted in the Spring were completely gone, not a good thing since the propellor then becomes the sacrificial zinc :(.  

Bob and Jane generously lent us their bicycles for our visit which have been invaluable. We have put many miles on these strand cruisers and had lots of fun riding them day and night. I wish I had taken a picture of Tim riding home from Sailors Exchange with the 6 ft stainless steel tube plastic tied to the bike frame and hatch screens dangling from his backpack, or biking with the plethora of groceries we purchased from the Farmers Market a few miles down the road on Anastasia Island. What a hoot!

One night we hosted a cocktail party aboard Kuivato and invited Dr. Bob, Jane, Janaki and Graham and neighbors, Vince and Nancy. Vince and Nancy picked up Janaki and Graham walking home from the Farmers Market thinking they looked like fellow sailors and surprise, they happened to be Dr. Bob's neighbors! All of our guests that evening had had extensive sailing experience over the decades of traveling to the various islands in the Bahamas so the conversations were educational and stimulating as you can imagine.

This is the view of the pelicans on the dock that have entertained us during our visit.

St. Augustine is a beautiful historic city with it's Fort Castillo De Marco, magnificent homes dating to the early 1700's, Spanish influenced architecture, and lots of interesting bars and restaurants. 

Here we are Christmas Eve at the Tini Martini Bar in town.

As a group, we unanymously decided that the potluck meals we have prepared on the boat have been far superior to the meals we have eaten out. Our Christmas Eve meal consisted of fresh local shrimp, kale and local tomato salad, quite delicious. I made yummy shortbread cookies that we crafted into holiday shapes. After dinner we hoped onto the bikes and went into town for the 2300 candlelight service at the Presbyterian  Church in town.  We both enjoyed the pomp and formalities including communion and great Christmas carols that we all belted out. The warmth and light of the candles we lit from one another made a spectacular scene in the stained glass dome towering some 100 ft above us. We stopped in the town center and took this picture before retiring to the boat at 0100 Christmas Day. 

We have learned some new nautical terms in the past few weeks. last night's sunset was 5:31,Civil twilight was at 5:57, nautical twilight 6:27 and astronomical twilight was at 6:56. Civil twilight is when the center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. At this time the horizon is clearly defined and the stars are visible. Nautical twilight is when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. At this time generally objects are distinguishable but normal outdoor operations are not possible. Astronomical twilight is when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon. Sky light illumination at this time is solely from the stars or moon if it is present.

Christmas Day we went for good long run/walks and cooked up a dinner of spiral ham, turnip, scalloped potatoes, kale salad, and fruit salad. Phil Decker, a former Eliot resident, joined us for Christmas Dinner. He sailed his Catalina 27 Catmandu south to St Augustine this fall from Washington DC, and has been living at the City Marina for 6 weeks. What fun to connect up with Portsmouth friends during our travels. 

After a week in St Augustine it was time to move on; we also knew it was time because the fresh water tanks were empty and the holding tank was full. The bikes were returned to Dr. Bob's garage (we had become quite fond of the bikes!), we said our goodbyes and thank you's, and cast off at high tide to avoid plowing through two feet of mud like we did when arriving. We fueled up, watered up, and pumped out at the City Marina; then Kuivato was once again southbound on the ICW heading for West Palm Beach, our last major stop behind crossing for the Bahamas.  

12/15/13 Cumberland Island, Ga

We decided to sail up the St Mary's River and check out the sleepy town of St Mary's which has been described as the town time forgot. Indeed it is a sleepy quiet town with no grocery store.  There is one marina that was indicated in Active Captain reviews to have quite an old timer character as a dockmaster, with facilities that were rather minimalist and in need of some TLC. Indeed, Nat was a warm inviting host who offered to help out in any way, but we never saw him other than when he had us process our own credit cards while he sat back behind his desk. As you can see from the picture below the place is in real need of deferred maintenance; from left to right a half torn out cleat, a fire extinguisher with the bottom rusted out long ago, and a power pedestal also torn out teetering on it's side. Thank goodness we had found a few secure cleats to tie up to since the current rips through the marina like some many of the marinas in this region where they are built on the banks of narrow rivers.

One of the local gift shop merchants invited us to join their annual Christmas house tour which included some 20 stops, however it turned out many of the stops where the local merchants, ugh! Instead we chose to eat alligator burgers, oysters and crab cakes at Sharkys, a place recommended by a local. 

We had some online business to take care so the morning was spent at a coffee shop making good use of their wifi.  We left Langs Marina at 1500 and sailed much of the way to Cumberland Island with a 10-15 kt west wind. Along the way we saw Scott on Strider, motoring in from offshore. We had shared a dinner with Scott and his wife Jenny, in Beaufort NC on their 50+ft Bristol. Unfortunately, the winds and current precluded us from rafting or getting together for dinner that night and Scott had a schedule to keep so he departed early in the morning.

December 16th. What fun, this morning we finally got the chance to meet Anne aboard Crazy Lady, who Graham & Janaki met at the Hinkley marina in Thunderbolt. She arrive at Cumberland Island the day before us and has been cruising solo since leaving Oswego, NY In July on her 28 ft. Aloha sloop built in Canada.  We all hiked around this magnificent National Park.  Cumberland Island is a magical barrier island off the coast bordering Georgia and Florida, with ruins from an era gone by. It was originally owned by Revolutionary war hero, Nathaniel Greene who sold it to the Carnegie Family in 1884. We heard from one of the park Rangers that they had "excessive" celebrations before the Great Depression, after which time the island mansions fell into disrepair.  Today many of the building remains are still present and one of the mansions is maintained by the Park Service. Most incredible was the lush forests filled with massive live oak, Spanish moss and seductively swaying tall grasses. The island is also overrun by wild horses, pigs and deer, the latter two populations which are controlled by annual hunts including a mother/daughter hunt which was going on in the northern "wilderness" portion of the island. A Ranger told us the horses are causing tremendous environmental damage to the island ecosystem but unfortunately at some point Federal legislation was passed which prohibits touching the horses and managing the population. 

We saw huge buzzards, many busy terns, an eagle and we collected the most delicate shells that had natural holes bored by some hungry creature. Janaki and I had our first skinny dip of the adventure in 60 degree waters, totally refreshing and reminiscent of my four season dips at the Vineyard. The sun at mid day warmed and dried us off quickly after the envigorating plunge.

We all loved island so that we stayed 2 nights. The second day we were the only ones, along with the wild horses, on the miles long beach, truly magical! We hope to return possibly on the way north in the Spring it was so idealic.  

On Tuesday December 17th we continued our travels south toward Jacksonville FL on the ICW while Tim dismantled the Nissan outboard carburator to diagnose why it had died the night before. A bit of cleaning, a new o-ring and gasket, and the engine was back in shape running smoothly. We encountered many shoal areas and at one point as we were following Leela, she abruptly came to a halt having run aground. We saw this happening and quickly turned to starboard only to run up on a shoal ourselves. Fortunately, the muddy bottom is soft, does no damage, and if you don't plow your boat too deeply into it, you can usually back off without to much effort. Later in the afternoon we came to another dicey spot where we saw two sailboats ahead that were aground, so  we decided to drop anchor at a nearby deep spot and wait until the morning high tide to continue. It was also Janaki and Graham's wedding anniversary, so we brought some bubbly over to Leela and had a lovely celebration.   To our surprise, when we exited Leela's cozy cabin after dinner to dinghy back to Kuivato, wondering where the grounded boats were, one of was anchored right next to us, free of the mud.

Janaki, Diane and Tim doing yoga on Cumberland Island.

12/8/13 Charming Charleston and points south

Our visit to Charleston was so delightful we hated to leave, but it was time to keep moving south and we will be back. The morning of our departure we awoke and arose early to go for a run/ walk on the Battery boardwalk and through downtown to say our final goodbye to this warm inviting town. As it turned out, they were preparing for their annual Reindeer 5K running road race. What a treat to see the city turn out for this festive event wearing Santa costumes and reindeer antlers. We had colorful conversations with locals, delicious bagels and a great workout. A fabulous goodbye to one of our favorite towns thus far.

We meandered our way south along the ICW to the Ashepoo River through the Fenwick Cut. We found an idealic anchorage along the bank of the Ashepoo River in the lee of a tall stand of trees which shielded us from an overnight northeast blow. Since we expected calm water we rafted up for the night with Leela. We have done a lot of creative anchoring on this trip and Graham and Janaki are becoming quite experienced, one of their goals for the winter. The next morning it was on to Beaufort, S.C. 

The weather was cold and foggy so we were back into our winter layers. In Beaufort, pronounced beu- fort, the weather cleared a bit and we enjoyed lunch at Plums located on a lovely waterfront park overlooking the boats at the free town dock. Towns in the south seem to be very welcoming to cruisers and some provide lovely storefront facilities.!

Back to motoring on down the ICW to our next anchoring site, off the community of Fort Fremont on the eastern shore of the Beaufort River. The fog was so thick, had we not had our electronics, we would never have been able to continue. Captains Graham and Janaki also have AIS and radar allowing them to take the lead and notify us whenever any other vessels are in the vicinity. 

At some point we passed over the border into Georgia, very exciting!

We motored up the very industrial and busy Savannah River and docked in The heart of the Savannah waterfront at the town docks. This dock is all about location without much in the way of amenities, no bathrooms, a few working power pedestals, and one functioning water spigot.. Soon after our arrival with Leela, two Canadian boats we last saw along the New Jersey coast arrived on the dock to join us. Two other boats we passed in the previous days also arrived filling the dock to capacity. We have enjoyed meeting the sailors on other boats and sharing our adventures. Three out of the four boats had sold everything and sailed off without any serious plans or schedules for their futures...very interesting!

Our initial impression is that his town has a much different feel than Charleston. Where Charleston was a comfortable, young and active town, Savannah feels more of a city. The population of Charleston is 120,000 vs 140,000 for Savannah. One fabulous thing Savannah has going for it is it's parks. Every other block has a beautiful greenery culminating with Forsyth Park at the far south end of town.

The Spanish moss is prolific and it is not a surprise that Savannah has been host to many movie sets.

 During our three days in Savannah we spent much of the time walking and eating. We went to Mrs. Wilkes Kitchen, a popular family style all you can eat restaurant, for a southern comfort food feast. She apparently began serving people in her home in the 1940's and they have continued the tradition to this day. Her fried chicken recipe was my favorite and we both took second helpings of the 20 plus side dishes including okra, squash, blackened peas, and green collards.

Tim has somehow found another taffy store and our ongoing challenge is to see if anyone rivals Tucks of Rockport, our quest continues...

It was time to continue on so we left Savannah early AM on Thursday 12/12 and met up with Leela in Thunderbolt where they had been for two days getting some engine maintenance completed at a marina. We then continued on along through the low country to a remote anchorage surrounded by marsh. 

11/24/13 Thanksgiving tales and on to Charleston, NC.

We were given the green light by Graham to tell the Thanksgiving tale! he has a great sense of humor and we are all learning this experience is a time of self reflection.

As we mentioned previously, due to weather considerations, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Wednesday at Lambs Marina.. Both Leela and Kuivato began to get excited and started making plans for a joint feast hosted by Leela in her expansive cabin. Tim and I cooked the turkey filled with stuffing and everyone contributed their favorite Thanksgiving dishes; squash, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green beans, tofu with mushrooms, pumpkin pie, etc. Graham, the gentleman that he is, came to our boat to help Tim transport the turkey and other food over to Leela. To secured the turkey for transport across the docks, Tim placed it in a large covered pot and handed it off to Graham. The next thing Tim hears is the pot top clanging across Leela's cockpit and his first thought was " hmmmmm, does a cooked stuffed turkey float?".  Tim then heard so much commotion  he thought Graham might have fallen into the water as maneuvering onto Leela from the finger pier was tricky. From within Leela's cabin Diane hears the pot lid clattering and the next thing she sees is the turkey tumbling through the companionway onto the top cabin step, followed by the stuffing, all without the pot it arrived on the boat in! Graham was so distraught that he went for a walk to cool off as Diane and Janaki piled the bird and stuffing back into the pot. No one missed a beat and in the end  we all had a good laugh, even Graham, eventually. What a great sport!

Overnight the temperature dropped from 60 degrees to 27 and we woke to frozen docking lines and ice wherever the previous days rain had left water. Otherwise the day was sunny and we departed in the icy morning traveling down the Alligator River to the Pungo Canal to the Pungo River into the Pamlico River. From there, we continued to Goose Creek to the Hobukon Canal and onto serenely of Bear Creek where Graham and Janiki further honed their anchoring skills. We rafted together and shared another delicious meal.

Up early and continued on to have a great sail down the Bay River to the Neuse River to Adams Creek and into Adams Creek Canal to Beaufort where we were greeted by several bottle nose dolphins and many pelicans. We anchored across the channel from the Beaufort waterfront.

The small coastal town of Beaufort caters to sailors and even had an olive oil specialty store that boasted more than 50 varieties of oil and vinegars. Yum yum! 

In the morning we took the dinghy to the Rachel Carson Preserve island that borders the south side of  anchorage and is inhabited by wild horses. We went for a run/ walk on the miles long white sandy beach, barefoot and in shorts. We are finally reaching warm weather! Wahoo!

Warm enough for the first time to run on the beach since leaving Portsmouth, NH!

 Kuivato at anchor in Beaufort, NC

On Monday December 2, we departed Beaufort, NC at 4am for an estimated 36 hour offshore passage to Charleston, SC in order to catch a favorable weather window. The channel out of the  harbor to the ocean was quite tricky a night with no moon, the strongest current we have seen since the Piscataqua, numerous very shallow shoals, and navigation lights for multiple channels. 

We would have had tremendous difficulty had it not been for the navigation apps on the Iphone and IPad to help guide us. At one point in the darkness Tim was looking for his cup of OJ which was eventually located exactly where it should be in the teak cup holder at the helm, except for the handheld VHF radio which had been placed in the cup. Fortunately the VHF was submersible and survived the dunking in OJ. At dawn we were again greeted by dolphins entertaining us at the bow. We had great sailing conditions for about 19 hours, then motorsailed another couple hours until dawn Tuesday when the wind died and we motored the rest of the way to Charleston on glassy waters.

The overnight sail was quite incredible for my first experience. Tim is a night owl so he let me nap until 0100 then I took the helm until 0500. I went back to sleep at 0500 until 0800 when I awoke and we shared a celebratory breakfast. We are lightly considering leaving from here to go off shore to the Bahamas directly? It has taken longer to get here than we expected, imagine traveling 800 miles at 6.5 knots in 6 weeks vs. driving the same distance in 16 hours.... Hummm

December 3 Sunrise off Cape Romaine Shoal, NC on the way to Charleston.

Leela rounding the entrance bouy into the Charleston entry jetties. Arrived at 1330. Celebrated our arrival with a Dark n Stormy with Graham and Janaki.