Carolina Beach, NC to Oriental, NC

Sunday, April 23rd (Day 22)

Mostly cloudy.  Mid 70s.  Sea temp 70.  Light SE winds.

45nm today (848 total trip miles) 

Yesterday was very stormy and we never made it into town.  Here was the weather radar in the morning.  We are at the blue dot in the middle.

Our plans for today were to make Mile Hammock Bay.  It is the only nice, calm, protected anchorage with good holding between Wrightsville Beach and Morehead City.  This is one section where you need to time the bridges or you spent 1/2 your day trying to keep the boat in the middle of the waterway while waiting for the next bridge opening.

The Wrightsville Beach bridge was our first and it opened on-the-hour.  It was 12 miles from our mooring so would take about 2 hours at our normal 6 knots.  There are several inlets along this section (Carolina Beach to Morehead) so you sometimes have the tidal currents helping and sometimes they slow you down.  So, we left a little early to make sure we were at the bridge for 10am.  We can always slow down if we are going to be early but we can't speed up if we are running late.

We were off the mooring at 7:30am and motored through Carolina Beach back to the waterway.  It was a quiet morning but I had to stay diligent passing through several shallow areas.  They are clearly marked on the Army Corps of Engineers surveys which are displayed on our iPad running AquaMaps.  It definitely takes out a lot of the guesswork we had to use several years ago. 

Just 10 minutes early we approached the Wrightsville Beach bridge and idled around waiting.  About 2 minutes before 10am, a 38 (?) foot sailboat comes zooming into the area where we and a trawler have been waiting.  He motors around us and goes right up to the bridge.  What was he thinking?  Had he never heard of waiting in line?

He was first through the bridge then ran slower then the trawler and us.  Since we only had 5 miles to the next bridge and it also opened on-the-hour, I wanted to take our time but this gent slowed down to idle speed.  We passed them and stayed ahead the rest of the day.

No worries or waiting through the Figure 8 Island bridge and we had open water to New River.

New River has been a typical problem area for boats over the past several years.  There is shoaling where the ICW crossed the inlet and shoaling a mile later (heading north) just passed Mile Hammock.  We were happy to see a dredge working near the inlet and it was totally clear - I think the lowest water I saw on the depth sounder was 12 feet.  How nice to see this area cleared out.

A short time later we were anchored in Mile Hammock Bay with 3 powerboats.  The 4 of us made a little rectangle with probably 400 feet between us.  I thought this was nice but knew it wasn't going to last.  Over the next few hours 4 other sailboats came in and anchored around us.  Just before dark a larger sailboat came in and anchored right in the middle of everyone.  Oh well...  light winds tonight which are supposed to clock in the early morning.  This place will probably clear out before that.

We had a quiet night on anchor and enjoyed the peaceful area.

Monday, April 24th (Day 23)

Partly cloudy.  Mid 70s again.  N winds at 10-15 dying later in the afternoon.

51nm today (899 total trip miles)

We only had one bridge to time today and it was about 3.5 miles up the ICW.  It opened on the hour and half-hour so the longest wait would be less than 30 minutes.

I had planned on leaving 45 minutes before the bridge opening so we wouldn't be waiting there very long.  It didn't quite work out that way because our anchor chain was very muddy and took me a while to pull it up while washing off the mud.  We motored out of the anchorage at 7:25am.  Could we make the 8am bridge opening?

The Onslow Beach bridge is run by the the Marine Corps at Camp Lejuene.  They have very specific instructions that they cannot open unless there is a boat waiting at the bridge.  It is one of the slowest bridges on the ICW so we could be 1/2 mile away when it starts opening and still make it there before fully opened.  But, they won't do that as we've found a few times in the past.

But, today the current Gods smiled on us and we had helping current all the way to the bridge.  We arrived in plenty of time for the 8 am opening and only waited a couple minutes.

About 2 miles passed the bridge is another ICW trouble area where it crosses Brown's Inlet.  Sometimes, we've had to take a zig-zag course through here.  Not today.  Once again the dredges had cleared everything out and we ran straight down the middle with nothing less than 10 feet of water under us.  Nice!

The rest of our day was uneventful as we had a little helping wind on the jib working our way through Bogue Sound to Morehead City.  

I love watching the houses along the waterway looking for some that are a little different.

 

The tide had just started going out Beaufort Inlet so it helped us get to the turn at Morehead but we ran pretty slow under the first high-rise bridge toward Adam's Creek and Oriental on the Neuse River.  

Just after the turn toward Adam's Creek, for the past few years, there had been a sunken fishing trawler laying on it's side.  Today, there was a workboat there and I could see they had cut the stern off the trawler.  There was only 1/2 of the boat left.  Geez.  What a job that must have been.

The winds had calmed as we approached the Neuse River.  This is sometimes a bad area because the Neuse is shallow (20-30 feet) and the wind can kick up high, short waves.

Today it was just a light chop on our nose that gradually decreased as we motored the 3 miles across the river to Oriental.

We have several friends in Oriental after passing through here for 17 years.  Mostly because our friends D and Don (s/v Southern Cross) purchased a house here many years ago to work on their boat at the dock behind the house.  We've had many great parties at their house and met several locals - some that we've kept in touch with.  One of the couples, Bryce and Helen, own a slip in Oriental Harbor marina that was open so they offered it to us for "a while".  The weather over the next week didn't look very nice from here to Norfolk so we just might want to hang for a bit.

We pulled into the marina just after 5pm where D and Don helped us tie up.  It was a great reunion to see them again!  D took Laura for some local grocery shopping while Don helped me put the boat to bed from today's cruise, drink some wine, and catch up on both of our travels.  They ended up staying for spaghetti dinner and it was lots of fun.

While Don and I were reminiscing, a large tugboat approached the dock and tied up along the seawall.  It was pretty interesting and we walked over to assist.  It was an old 60' Army tug that this couple had fixed up and now used it for cruising.  Here's a picture from our boat with the colorful sunset behind them.

Tuesday, April 25th (Day 24) to .....

Cool last night and we turned the heat on for the first time in several months.  

We are gradually becoming accustomed to dock life again after over 3+ weeks of traveling from Marathon and only staying in marinas two nights.  We might be here for a while.  I don't remember when I've seen a weather forecast so bad for so long ahead of us.  There are several fronts coming through Chesapeake Bay over the next week to 10 days which are bringing rain and high winds - not good for traveling by sailboat.

It's nice to be in a marina for crappy weather but this marina is open to the Neuse river for winds from the SW.  From that direction, there is 3-4 miles of open river for the winds to build up seas.  Add that to the fact that we are on the dock closest to the river might mean we're going to have a rough ride a few days we are here during storms.

The past few days the winds have been out of the east (behind us) and the swell still works it way around the breakwater into the marina.  We have been looking for a better spot to wait out the weather and might even go out and anchor in the South River (much better protection there) if the forecast looks really bad for sitting at this dock.

In the meantime, we've had a few dinners with D and Don, taken walks around town and (of course) worked a few boat jobs.  I've been checking the weather forecast several times a day and still don't see decent weather for motoring / sailing to Norfolk in the next 10 days.  So we'll hang here and sit it out.  As I frequently say, there are places a lot worse than here to be held up by the weather.

Throughfare Creek, SC to Carolina Beach, NC

Thursday, April 20th (Day 19)

Clear and sunny.  Light south winds.  Air temp 68.  Water temp 66.

41nm today (757 total trip miles)

I want to start by apologizing for my very long blog today.  We are currently in Carolina Beach sitting out thunderstorms so I'm downstairs with plenty of time for writing up a storm.  Here ya go....

It was a pretty day as we pulled the anchor at 8am.  There was a trimaran anchored in front of us that had come in yesterday.  We've seen this boat the past few days and actually went through the Wappoo Creek Bridge with them.  We had motored into Charleston Harbor together then they took the ICW and we went off-shore that day to Winyah Bay.  It cracks me up to see the same boaters over several days.

We motored down the creek and out onto the Waccamaw River.  There were a few power boats that passed us but everybody was nice and kept their wakes low.  It was calm and pretty.  We relaxed and enjoyed the quiet morning not realizing what was coming.....

Laura and I were sitting in the cockpit a halt-hour later - enjoying the beautiful springtime shoreline - when we heard "beep...  beep...  beep".  I looked at my instruments and didn't see any alarms.  It was coming from downstairs.  "It's the smoke alarm!" I said.

Laura rushed downstairs and said there was smoke in the boat.  I told her to take the helm while I checked it out.  As I opened the engine room door the whole boat filled up with smoke and I could see sparks flying off the front of the engine near one of the pulleys.  "This isn't good" I remember thinking as our other two smoke-alarms also started going off.  No flames but I needed to get the engine shut down now.

I ran up to the cockpit and quickly turned off the engine.  Laura went out onto the bow to drop our anchor in the river.  I used the boat's momentum to get closer to shore and we anchored as the river current slowly pulled the chain tight.

After the boat was safely anchored, I was wondering if I should put a call out on the marine radio telling other boats we were disabled but safely anchored.  I looked around and we were out of the main channel so I didn't want to get into a 20 minute conversation with the Coast Guard (that we've heard plenty of times in the past with other disabled boats).  "What is your location?  How many people on-board?  What's the description of your boat?  Does everyone have a life-jacket on? ......  "  I decided against it for now.

I opened all the engine room doors and the smoke gradually cleared.  I knew where the problem was - I had seen the sparks flying from a specific area - so I open the tool box and pulled out the sockets and wrenches I would need to pull the pulley off the engine.  I also put on some arm-protectors Laura had bought for me off Amazon to help my arms from bruising and cutting (Yep.  I'm old and have weak skin now...).   Here I am tucked into the small engine room taking things apart.  You can see the small pulley I'm working on.

My biggest worry was that the failed bearing had overheated so much that it fused to the pulley or the bolt holding it to the engine.  I had spare bearings but didn't have a spare pulley.  Also not sure if I had a spare bolt.

I only slightly burned the tip of one finger taking the pulley off the engine.  I could see the bearing was toast.  Really!  It's supposed to be a sealed bearing and the seals were gone (burnt off?) plus the ball-bearings inside were now flattened.  It was metal against metal which wasn't a good thing.

At the top is the pulley with the bearing installed.  The new bearing is underneath.  You can see the ball-bearings exposed in the bad one and, if you look closely, they are flattened on both edges.

After digging around to find the right size socket to pound out the old bearing, I cleaned out the pulley and pressed in the new bearing (with a different socket and hammer).  It all looked pretty good when I got done.

I installed the pulley and new bearing back on the engine.  The nut was hard to put on as the bolt threads were a little out of shape.  But, the bolt went on without too much torque so I continued with the install.  1 hour and 15 minutes after the first smoke alarm sounded I had the engine running.  It looked and sounded good.

Looking back....  Yesterday when we were motoring up the river to last night's anchorage, Laura and I could hear a small squealing noise.  We looked around in and out of the boat without finding the cause.  I remember saying it sounded like a machinery noise but never looked in the engine room because it stopped a short time later.  Plus, if I had looked in the engine room, I would have probably just heard a running diesel engine.  I think this was the bearing starting to fail.

After talking to a few friends afterwards they responded with a couple questions.  Why did I have a spare bearing?  Over 10 years ago we had problems with this bearing and I replaced it several times until I talked with a knowledgeable person at a company that sold different types of bearings.  I explained what it was being used for and he told me which bearing I should use so I bought 4 or 5 of them. (They were only about $10 each as I remember.)  This particular bearing had been on the engine for 9 years and 5,000 engine hours (Yes.  I'm anal and keep track of that kind of stuff).  I'm not complaining about it's longevity but the way it failed was almost a disaster for us.

The second question was more worrisome for me.  A couple friends said it was lucky we had a smoke detector in the boat.  Really?  Folks, please, please, please don't run your boat without at least 1 smoke detector.  We have one in every room.  They are not going to break your wallet and could save your life.

Ok.  Enough about our excitement for the day (week, year...).

I have to mention what happened next which again proves that everything in life changes.  Nothing ever stays the same.  One of my favorite sayings....

We have always stopped at Osprey Marina in Myrtle Beach for fuel both heading north and south.  It has always been the cheapest fuel in this area.  Waterway Guide has been a big help to us finding the cheapest fuel stops but I don't even bother to look in this area because Osprey is always the lowest price.  You can click HERE for their excellent website.  It will open in a new window.

Anyway, for some reason Laura decides to check fuel prices for around here on Waterway Guide.  She notices that diesel at the Wacca Wache Marina (I love that name.  Say it three times fast.) is listed at $3.59 / gallon while Osprey Marina is $4.45 / gallon and Myrtle Beach Yacht Club is $3.99.  Holy cow!  That's a huge difference.  What happened to Osprey?  When she told me this I thought we had already passed that marina and didn't want to go back against the current.

About 15 minutes after we got the boat running again from the bearing replacement, we come up on a marina where everybody is stopping for fuel.  It's the Wacca Wache. Yea!  There are two powerboats in front of us heading in and one behind us.  We had never stopped here before so I don't know what to expect but we're down to about 1/3 of a tank and should take about 90 gallons.  I talk to them on the radio, receive instructions about docking and we head in.

The place was awesome.  They had 3 or 4 diesel pumps that were all constantly busy.  We pulled right up to the face dock.  The gent helps us tie up, passes us the diesel hose then went on to help other boats that were coming and going.  I think we were only there about 20 minutes and took 92 gallons.  That saved us almost $100 if I had gone to Osprey 15 miles ahead.  Plus, this place was super-easy to get in and out.  We'll be back!

We had a very nice remainder of the day motoring to the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club and arrived just after 4pm.  The waterway through Myrtle Beach was busy with lots of small powerboats and a few cruisers that passed us.  Of the three bridges that had to open for us, only the Socastee Bridge made us wait for 10-15 minutes.  We never even had to slow down for the Barefoot Landing Bridge - he  opened in time for us to just zoom right through.

Before turning into the marina, I check and we are at low-low tide.  The water level is actually 1/2 foot below the normal low tide.  I called the marina on our marine radio and ask if I need to know anything about coming in at low tide.  The (young) gal on the radio tells me no problem.

As soon as we take the turn off the ICW into the marina channel we run aground.  Laura is up on the deck getting lines ready and almost falls over from the boat going from 3 knots to zero in 2 seconds.  Luckily it's a "soft" grounding in mud - not a hard crash against rock or coral that could really cause some damage to the boat.  

I was able to back off the mud with full throttle in reverse and had plenty of water depth closer to the red channel markers.  Once in the basin I have a terse conversation with the gal who told me "no problem" with low tide.  I don't think she really understood but "might" now tell boaters to stay near the red channel markers at low tide.  However, I understand it's the Captain's ultimate responsibility so I mark our chartplotter with the shallow area and move on.

We've been traveling the Atlantic coast and the ICW on Second Wind for 17 years.  Plus, we've had a few paid deliveries (I am a professional Captain) so this is our 34th (or 35th) trip up or down the ICW.  I always try to see how far I can make it between Norfolk and Miami without "touching bottom."  I failed this time after just over 800 miles.  I've only made it twice....   As our musician friend Eric Stone sings, "If you ain't been aground, you ain't been around...."

After tying up at our slip, I went up to check-in.  Geez.  This is one of our favorite stops but it gets more expensive every year.  Several years ago it was $1 / foot / night (about $50 for us) a night.  Now it's up to $2.25 / foot ($110).  Quite a difference.  

Our friend Sandi lives nearby so she drove over to the boat for cocktails and dinner together.  She arrived as I'm washing the boat down with fresh water to remove all the salt from our several off-shore runs.  She and Laura hang out below while I finish up the boat wash plus fill up our water tank then put away our hose.  A short time later I join them for wine and munchies.  We talked for over an hour then headed up to the marina restaurant "The Officer's Club" for dinner.  Don't we look happy and the end of our cocktail hour?

The restaurant was pretty busy but we ended up with a beautiful table outside on the balcony overlooking the basin and 3 marinas.

Dinner was excellent as usual.  We had lots of fun with our waiter - Illy.  When he first came to our table, he starts with, "Fair warning.  I'm new and you are only my 4th table."  Well...  we just cracked up (it couldn't have been the 2+ bottles of wine we had on the boat).  We had a great time with him.  Every question we asked he had to go back and ask someone.  "What's the catch-of-the-day?  What comes with the shrimp basket?  What salad dressings to you have?" The poor guy was clue-less but trying hard.  It was a riot.

After dinner we said sad good-byes to Sandi and headed back to the boat for a little TV before bed.  I was so glad I had completed all my "marina" chores before our happy-hour.

Friday, April 21st (Day 20)

Sunny and warm.  Light southeast winds.  Outside temp 63.  Water temp 64.

46nm today (803 total trip miles - 1/2 way!)

Neither of us slept well last night - probably the red wine - but we relaxed in a bit and backed out of the slip at 8:45am.  It was a quiet, pretty morning as we motored out of the basin back to the ICW and turned north (well...  actually east in this section).

I think the past 5 or 6 years we've done this next section between North Myrtle Beach and Southport, NC off-shore.  It's only a 25 mile run from the Little River Inlet to the Cape Fear River entrance.  Plus, there are Shallot and Lockwoods Folly inlets along the ICW that are typically tricky to navigate near low tide.  But today, it didn't seem like the right choice.

First, the tidal current was flooding so we'd have a slow ride out.  Then, the current would probably be against us coming back in Cape Fear which would really slow us down.  Plus low-tide in this area was 4pm so we'd have plenty of water for the tricky spots - the last one would be around 2pm. I decided to take the ICW instead.

No problems as we motored across the North Carolina line toward Southport.  The day was uneventful and I even tried to slow down because our ETA to Southport (and the Cape Fear River) was going to be around the maximum current against us.  But, it was not to be.  We arrived at Southport just after 2:30pm.  Current predictions on our chartplotter showed 4 knots of current against us.  Yuck.

As we turned north up the Cape Fear River, I tried to stay out of the main channel near shore to cut down on the current against us.  But, we had to move out because of shallow water and we were only making a little over 2 knots.  We had the jib out with light winds to help as much as possible.  Our speed is the second instrument from left.  We were doing 2.6 knots with 8 miles to go up the river before we turned off for Carolina Beach.  Oh man.  This was gonna take a while.

Laura took this video of a channel marker that looked like it was zooming through the water.  Watch how slowly it goes by.

 

I could see a current line in the water across the river to the east and decided to head for it.  The eastern shore had a larger shallow area between the main channel and shore that might be less current.

Oh boy.  I was so happy that this worked great.  Once out of the main channel, our speed picked up to between 4 and 6 knots.  We made the 8 miles in only 2 hours against max current by using a little smarts.  Cool.

At 4:30pm we entered Snows Cut and even had a little current with us here.  I had made reservations at the Carolina Beach Mooring field on the DockWa app and by 5pm we had tied up to our mooring and were putting the boat to bed. 

I played my flute for a while in the cockpit and one of our neighbors even stopped their dinghy to listen for a while.  We spent a quiet evening on the boat.  Watched a little TV off Starlink, prepared the cockpit for possible rain tonight and thunderstorms tomorrow, then hit the sack early.

Saturday, April 22nd (Day 21)

Cloudy with thunderstorms.  Outside temp 66.  Water temp 70

Didn't move the boat today.  Sitting out storms in a nice, protected mooring field.

No rain last night but storms came in 9am.  There was lightning, loud thunder and high winds in the area for about an hour.  Rain continued on and off most of the morning.

I took advantage of the downtime to write this (looooooong) blog then try and plan for the next week or so.  As we relaxed this morning, I got to thinking that we hadn't had a day off moving the boat since St. Augustine - 8 days ago.  We did have a couple short days (<> 20 miles) and spent a VERY busy day in the marina at Thunderbolt.  It was nice this morning to just sit back, work a few minor boat jobs and use the computer (instead of my iPhone) for a change.

We were hoping for a couple non-rain hours today for us to get into town by dinghy. We need a few groceries (nothing critical) and a little walk would be nice.  Plus the Celtic Creamery is one of our favorite spots for their homemade ice cream.  It doesn't look like it's gonna happen.  Oh well.  We'll just stay on our boat and enjoy the calm basin.

Plans....  The weather doesn't look very nice later in the week for traveling north.  Rain and high north winds will keep us stopped somewhere.  We might have spent some time in Swansboro with my cousin Tim and his wife Karen (another of our favorite stops along the way) but they have just flown to Ireland for a little vacation.  Have fun!!

Instead, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be nice so we'll take advantage and try and make Oriental on Monday.  We have friends loaning us a free dock at the marina and will be able to spend time with our long-time friends D and Don (s/v Southern Cross).  We might be there for several days sitting out rain and north winds.  I'll keep you posted.

Thunderbolt, GA to Throughfare Creek, SC

Monday, April 17th (Day 16)

Clear and sunny.  NW winds 10-15 gusts to 20.  Air temp 56.  Water temp 66

82.5nm today (618 trip total)

Our off-shore forecast for today showed winds out of the NW (from shore) at 10-15 knots and seas 1.6 foot - 7 second period.  That should be pretty nice.  My plan was to head down the ICW for a few miles then take the Savannah River out to sea and maybe come in later this afternoon around St. Pierre Creek to anchor for the night.  Once again, the tidal currents would be helping us out in the morning then back in this afternoon.

We were off the dock at Thunderbolt Marina at 7:15am.  We had to wait a few minutes because a 100' sailboat was maneuvering into the lift at the boatyard and took up the entire basin.  It was quite a sight.

 Laura took this picture of the pretty sunrise as we were leaving the marina basin.

About 1/2 hour later we approached the Causton Bluff Bridge.  This is a Bascule (lift) bridge that has been (almost) replaced by a high-rise bridge.  The old bridge is still there in the mostly up position.  Oh boy.  They sure made it interesting navigating a 61' mast through those bridges.  Here's Laura's video of our passage through the bridge.  Are we gonna make it?

 

It was a quiet ride through the rest of the ICW to the Savannah River.  The ebb (outgoing) current was really moving and it helped us average over 9 knots from the ICW out to sea.  We had reefed main and jib helping us zoom down the river.  At one point we hit over 10 knots SOG.  Our speed is the second display from the left. 

As we turned north (actually NE) once the currents brought us to deeper water, winds were about 70 degrees off our bow (close reach) and the boat was heeling about 15 degrees but the seas were just a 1-2 foot wind-chop on the port side.  It took us a little while to get used to the ride and relax under sail - it has been a while.  At this point we were running with single reefed jib and double reefed main (we had some of our sails pulled in because the high wind gusts were making the ride uncomfortable).  Later in the day we took out the reefs when the wind died a little.

We had our engine off for 5 1/2 hours and it was pleasant except for the hour or so for us to sail around the Port Royal Sound channel.  There must have been lots of current there kicking up the waves and we bounced around a lot.  But, after that, we were able to work our way closer to shore and the ride was much better.  Laura took a nice video of our sailing today.

We actually made better time than I had planned so we kept going past St. Pierre Creek and came in the North Santee River - about 10 miles farther.  There was an anchorage there not too far from the ocean so we could pop back out in the morning.

Later in the day, I saw the forecast for tomorrow had changed a bit to north winds 10-15 in the morning before clocking SE in the afternoon.  North winds would not be great for us off-shore tomorrow,  We changed plans a little and continued up the North Santee River to a great anchorage we've stayed at before - Church Creek.  

It was a long day and, with the helping flood currents, we made it to Church Creek just before sunset.  Holy cow!  There were 4 boats already anchored there.  Where did they come from?  

I did my typical "Dog going around in circles looking for a spot to lay down" before anchoring.  I don't like anchoring between two other boats because it bugs me when others to that.  I anchor far enough away from the boat in front of me to feel comfortable.  Many times I've had another boat come and anchor between us.  But, this time there was no choice and there seemed to be plenty of room.  We anchored at 7:45 pm, watched a little TV and hit the sack early.

It was a long day for us and lots of work managing the boat in the changing winds plus, most importantly, keeping us safe.  But, we both understood that this off-shore run would get us around ALL the shallow spots in the ICW between Savannah and Charleston.  Plus this was during a time period when the low tide was in the afternoon so we probably would have had to stop early each day when we got to a shallow spot near the low tide.

Planning ahead, I saw that the low tide tomorrow was around 1pm.  In the past, we've needed at least 2 feet of tide to get through the shallows north of the Ben Sawyer Bridge plus a notorious ICW shallow area was around McClennanville a few hours later.  But the area around McClennanville had been dredged a couple years ago and should / might be OK.  That meant we'd need to get through the Ben Sawyer by around 11am and that was 25 miles from our anchorage.  Oh boy.  We needed an early start again so I set the alarm for 6am.  I was starting to hate that alarm....

Tuesday, April 18th (Day 17)

Partly cloudy and cooler.  Winds N at 10-15 in the morning - clocking to SE in the afternoon.  Air temp 45.  Sea temp 66

78nm today (697 total trip miles)

Neither of us wanted to get out of a warm bed into the cold morning.  Weather.com said it was 45 degrees outside but our boat thermometer said 54.  Still chilly.  It was our first day of sweatshirts....

We were underway at 6:45am.  No movement on the other 4 boats anchored near us.  Maybe they were the smart ones...   Our colorful sunrise a little later.

We had helping currents for the first couple hours so I thought we could make the Ben Sawyer Bridge by 11am.  First we had to navigate the sometimes tricky Elliott Cut then, just down the waterway, the Wappoo Creek Bridge.

I checked the current prediction through the cut and it showed we'd have helping currents.  We've seen the currents in this cut over 5 knots which seems crazy on a 6 knot boat.  Once the houses along the cut were passing us until I went to full throttle on the engine.  That won't be needed today.

Hmmm...  The Wappoo Creek Bridge schedule had changed.  They now had a 7am to 9:30am lockout for rush-hour traffic (they wouldn't open during this time except for commercial traffic) and only opened once an hour on the 1/2 hour after that.  So...  we needed to get there for the 9:30am opening.

We made great time and approached the Elliott Cut just after 9am.  It was just about the calmest I've seen it.

Just 1 mile later we approached the Wappoo Creek Bridge.  I call the operator on the radio and we motored slowly around for 10 minutes until the bridge opened at 9:30am.  

Currents pushed us out the creek and down the Charleston Harbor.  Nice!

While motor-sailing through the harbor, I could see that the predicted north winds were very light - maybe 5-6 knots.  How about another off-shore run today for the 3rd day in a row (with a day in the marina between them).

With the ebb tide pushing us out the harbor, we would turn NE toward Winyah Bay around 10:30am  Then we had 45nm to travel between the two inlets.  At 6 knots that was 7 (and a little more) hours.  We should be in Winyah Bay around 6pm then anchored by 7:30pm in a nice spot where we've been before.  Laura approved the plan and we headed out to sea again.

I wouldn't normally estimate our off-shore speed at 6 knots because we could have currents against us or slow down from motoring into waves.  But, with the SE winds this afternoon, we should get help from the sails at least for a couple hours.

We motored out onto a very calm Atlantic (MUCH calmer than yesterday) and turned northeast around the shallows toward Winyah Bay entrance.  It was beautiful.

Around from 11am to 1pm the winds gradually clocked from north to southeast.  When the apparent wind was 40 degrees off the bow we rolled out the mainsail which added about 1/2 knot to our speed.  As the winds clocked passed 50 degrees we were able to roll out the jib and our speed picked up into the 7s.  I lowered the engine RPM to keep our speed around 7 knots.  The winds were only in the 6-8 knot range so not enough to get us there before dark without help from the engine.  

Later in the afternoon the winds picked up to 10-15 and the seas increased accordingly.  As we turned into the Winyah Bay channel at 6pm we were doing over 7 knots with just the mainsail and motor at low RPM.  We zoomed into the bay with the boat bouncing around a little on the 2-3 foot wind-driven waves.

The ride was much calmer and quieter as we motor-sailed up the bay and turned west toward the ICW.  We anchored about 1 mile before the ICW on a lovely tree-lined spot in the Waccamaw River at 6:45pm.  

Laura heated up leftover chicken enchiladas and we ate dinner in the cockpit watching a pretty sunset.

One problem we had today was our inverter quit.  This device supplies 110v house current to the boat from our batteries when we are not plugged into shore-power or don't have the generator running.  It just quit working.

I did a little troubleshooting after we anchored.  It was getting power from the batteries and didn't have a blown fuse.  But, it was totally dead and wouldn't turn on from the front panel or the remote we have installed at the nav desk.  Bummer.  This was purchased a little over 2 years ago to help charge the Lithium batteries.  It should not have died this quick.

One contributing factor might be our starlink.  Because starlink requires 110v, we've kept the inverter on almost constantly since leaving Marathon.  But still....  This inverter should be able to run 24 / 7 without issues.  That is what it's made for.

Laura wanted to run her mixer and I figured we'd run the Honda generator for starlink and TV tonight.  After dinner I started up the generator.  Bing!  The inverter came to life and started charging the batteries.  I tried turning off the generator - the inverter kept running and supplying 110v to the boat like it's supposed to. We watched TV off the inverter and it's still running fine the next day.

I opened a case on the inverter with the manufacturer - Xantrex.  We'll see what they say about it.  I'm worried that it might be 2 months over the 2 year warranty and we'll have to spend another $1,300 to replace it.  If that's the case, we won't be buying another Xantrex.

Wednesday, April 19th (Day 18)

Clear skies and light SW winds.  58 degrees this morning.  Water temp 67

20nm today (716 total trip miles)

We decided it was time to relax and have some fun after all the hard work we did to get around GA and southern SC.  Plan was to motor only about 20 miles to Throughfare Creek and anchor early in the afternoon for some dinghy exploring.

Just after 11am we dropped our anchor in Throughfare Creek.  FLIES!  Even before shutting down the engine I was being bombarded.  Little triangle-wing flies that didn't seem to bite but left scratchy welts.  Maybe we should have stayed in Florida a few more days?  That wouldn't have made any difference.

We closed up the boat and relaxed down below a while.  After a nice lunch, we went back out on the deck, lowered the dinghy and put the outboard back on.  We're getting pretty good at this after maybe 200 times and, even with the high currents trying to pull the dinghy away, we had the motor on and running in about 15 minutes.

There is a nice beach just 1/4 mile in front of the boat where we ran the dinghy ashore and went for a short walk.  I wasn't comfortable leaving the dinghy there for a long walk so we just hiked around for a short while then launched the dinghy again and went for a ride up the creek.  

This creek runs into the Great Pee Dee River after several miles.  We had a nice ride up there on a beautiful day.  After looking at the charts, I realized that our Throughfare Creek is one of the few places to get between the Great Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers.  That's why there is a lot of boat traffic around our anchored boat - even on a Wednesday.

The bass-boats go flying by and don't rock us at all.  But the larger (17-25') boats seem to slow down to the speed where they create the most wake and we go flying.  I've watched them go by and I'm pretty sure they are trying to be nice by slowing down.  They just don't look behind them and see us jumping up and down with their wake.  

Here are a few pictures we took on our dinghy ride.

An hour or so later we were back at the boat.  I decided to take the outboard off the dinghy in case we go offshore from Little River Inlet to Cape Fear in a couple days.  The dinghy would be fine with the motor on cruising up the ICW but I don't like the extra 95 pounds swinging around back there when we are in the ocean.

Plans, plans, plans...  We have reservations for Myrtle Beach Yacht Club for tomorrow night.  It's only about 40 miles from here so we should be able to make it there early and spend some time with our friend Sandy who lives nearby.  Saturday is supposed to be rain and storms so we have reservations for Friday and Saturday on a mooring in Carolina Beach.  That should give us some time to go into town for the Celtic Creamery homemade ice cream between the raindrops.  Yumm.

I think it's time for muchies and a cocktail.  Later.....

St. Augustine, FL to Thunderbolt, GA

Friday, April 14th (Day 13)

Partly cloudy.  Light winds building from the south later in the day.  72 degrees

54nm today (433 total trip miles)

Off the mooring at 7:45am.  Current was zooming so as soon as I released the mooring lines the boat started heading for the mooring (and boat) directly behind us.  Whoa!  Get on the helm!

Waves off-shore were still high from the storms yesterday so we ran the ICW north from St. Augustine.  An outgoing tidal current helped us the 1/2 mile to the inlet then it was against us for the next several hours.  I think we averaged only 4.5 knots all morning (our normal speed is 6).  My goal was to make it near Fernandina Beach which would set us up for an easy off-shore run tomorrow.

This part of the ICW was still busy with day-cruisers until the St. Johns River.  Then it was just us and a few powerboats that passed us.  It was a nice day to be cruising the ICW and we enjoyed it.

Just before Fernandina there is a high-rise bridge over the ICW (to Amelia Island) and, just after that, a railroad swing bridge.  We've seen this closed before and had to wait for a train to the paper mill.  This time it was wide open so we continued through.  

Laura and I were talking as we slowly motored through the bridge against the currents and we both heard a machinery noise starting near the boat.  Laura was looking around and I saw the railroad swing bridge was closing on us.  "Holy Sh...!"  I pushed the throttle forward (maybe another 1/2 knot on a sailboat) and we made it through the bridge just in time.  I couldn't believe it!  No notice on the marine radio.  No horns or sirens at the bridge.  Just close it and assume nobody is around?  That was crazy.  Here was the Kingsley Creek Railroad bridge closed behind us.  Boaters beware!

Tidal currents were more helpful the rest of the day and we motored into Fernandina just after 5pm.  I had tried to call the marina earlier in the day to reserve a mooring.  It used to be a City Marina but I guess they sold (or leased) to a company called Oasis.  I wasn't impressed.

There was probably plenty of room to anchor but the wind was picking up and, with the high tidal currents here, the mooring would give me more piece-of-mind.  

I called the marina earlier in the day to try and reserve a mooring.  "Press 3 for reservations...".  After waiting over 10 minutes on hold, I hung up.  "Press 1 for Dockmaster...".  Nobody answered there either but I left a voicemail saying I wanted to reserve a mooring.

There were several moorings open so we tied up to one.  Even as experience as Laura and I are after 17 years, it took us 2 tries because the winds were now honkin' and the currents were pushing us away from the ball.  After getting our two mooring lines attached, the boat settled down.  Nobody ever called me back.

Just after dinner we were relaxing watching TV.  I was thinking about the off-shore run tomorrow and realized we hadn't taken the outboard off the dinghy.  Just before dark we dropped the dinghy in the water and pulled up the motor with our block and tackle.  I flushed it out with a little fresh water, pulled up the dinghy and cleaned up everything on the deck for an ocean run.  Nice!

Unfortunately, we were directly downwind from the paper mill.  The smell was terrible but I eventually was able to put up with it.  Laura ended up sleeping in the salon with closed windows.

Saturday, April 15th (Day 14)

Sunny and warm with light SE winds.  Air temp 74.  Water temp 73.

81.5nm today (514 total trip miles)

Neither of us slept well last night.  The boat was pretty warm and stunk from the paper mill.  I had the alarm set for 6:10am and by 1/2 hour later we were off the mooring and heading out to sea.  Laura took this picture of the sleepy Fernandina as we motored passed.  Pretty sky....

We had the currents with us (that was the plan) so within 45 minutes we were out the inlet and had turned north up the coast.  

It sometimes works out that the high tide is in the early morning and the falling tide afterwards can help us out the inlets a little later.  Then, by early evening, the flood currents will help us come in so we can anchor for the evening.  The coast of Georgia is very shallow and sometimes you have to go out 5-10 miles before turning up (or down) the coast.  If we don't have the tides helping us, it's just not worth the effort to spend a little time off the ICW.  The currents helping bring us to 7-8 knots - the currents against us bring us down to 4.  Big difference, right?.  This trip up the coast the tides worked in our favor we we headed out onto a pretty calm ocean at 8 knots.

By 7:30am we had our big sails up and were motor-sailing north at over 7 knots.  The winds were only 6-8 knots so we would have been going only about 3-4 knots with the motor off.  If we wanted to make miles (and we did!), we'd need to keep the engine running.  But, it would have been running all day up the ICW anyway, right?

Winds were from the west (from shore) so never built up any waves.  There was a small swell from the SE (like always!) but we had both the jib and mainsail full out which kept the boat pretty calm.  As we sometimes say, it was a rock-a-bye-baby ride.  And, we actually were both able to take naps in the afternoon.  Here was the ocean 5 miles off the Georgia coast at 10am.

A short while later I took this zoomed-in picture of the Brunswick Bridge from 5 miles off-shore.

One interesting thing that happened in the afternoon was both our cell phones went off with an alert of a chemical fire in Brunswick, GA.  We could see the smoke plume behind us with the winds pushing it almost to the horizon.  No worries though.  We were many miles north of Brunswick by then.

In the afternoon, Laura and I discussed where we were heading today.  We had originally hoped for St. Catherine's Inlet but maybe we could take advantage of the really nice ocean and make it farther.  Current speed would put at at St. Catherine's with helping currents but only for a short time.  If we went passed St. Catherine's, we'd have to go for another 6 hours for the tide to change and the currents not be against us.  We could go all the way to Port Royal Sound (Beaufort, SC) and would arrive there around 11pm - just before the tide changed to help us up the river.  We'd probably to up to Beaufort and anchor in the dark around 1am.  Doable but not our favorite choice.  Especially after neither of us slept well last night.

Did we need to be in a hurry?  Our goal is to be back in Catskill, NY around May 20th so Laura can make a flight out to her grandson's high school graduation a couple days later.  That gave us about 7 weeks from Marathon.  Should be no problem, right?  But, we've already used 2 weeks just to get to Georgia.  We were thinking we should be in Norfolk around May 1st to give us time up Chesapeake Bay then find a good window for the NJ coast.  That's just over 2 weeks away.  Do we need to do things like an 18 hour day to make that comfortably?

We sailed up the coast of Georgia discussing this and actually counted the days we would need.  After 34 trips on the Atlantic ICW, we know it pretty much by heart.

April 16 & 17 - Savannah (extra day to sit out weather)

April 18 - Beaufort

April 19 - Charleston

April 20 - Georgetown

April 22 - Myrtle Beach (leave extra day for Waccamaw currents)

April 24 - Carolina Beach (leave extra day for Cape Fear currents)

April 25 - Swansboro

April 26 - Oriental

April 28 - Norfolk (2 days early)

This doesn't include any extra days to sit out weather in a marina or anchorage but it also doesn't count days saved by off-shore runs like today.  We shaved 1 or 2 days off the trip just today by taking the ocean instead of the twisty-turny Georgia ICW.

OK.  We don't need to panic and run 18 hour days.  Plus, the winds picked up from the south later in the day (as predicted) which helped us get to St. Catherine's in plenty of time for the currents to help us to our anchorage.

We anchored at 7pm near Buckhead Creek.  Peaceful and quiet.  Nice dinner and we both slept great!

Sunday, April 16th (Day 15)

Cloudy with rain and storms in the forecast.  Air temp 67.  Water temp 72

22nm today (536 total trip miles)

This afternoon, tonight and tomorrow morning are supposed to be rain and thunderstorms.  We decided we'd leave the anchorage early and treat ourselves to a marina around Savannah to sit for a couple days.  Oh boy!  Our first marina of the trip!

We pulled the anchor at 6:15am under a dark and dreary day.  As we turned out of the anchorage back into the ICW, I took this picture of the sunrise.

Pretty right?  See how calm the water is for the refection.  But wait...  That wasn't the sunrise in the east.  This was looking west.  East was totally dark but there was a little cloud break in the west that was lighting things up.  Very weird.

We looked at marinas on AquaMaps using ActiveCaptain and Waterway Guide write-ups.  Our first choice was Thunderbolt Marine because it was within walking distance of a few restaurants and had good reviews.  We had never stopped here before.  I called at 8am and left a message.  Hmmm.  How long would should I wait before calling somewhere else?

15 minutes later Greg called me from Thunderbolt.  They had a nice slip for us on a floating dock.  He asked me to make the reservation and pay on DockWa which I did.  Easy piezy!

Just before 11am we approached the marina and I called them on the radio.  Greg was a great help and a short time later we were tied up in the basin along the marina wall.  This place was cool.  They worked on huge boats and we saw several sailboats in the 100 foot range being worked on.  

We had signed up and paid for 2 nights but, by time we checked in, tomorrow didn't look too bad.  Greg said we could take until tomorrow morning to make up our minds and he could easily have DockWa refund us for the day if we decided not to stay.  Nice!

Our engine was ready for an oil change so I set it to drain into a container then Laura and I took two loads of laundry to the office.  I checked in while Laura started two washers. We walked around the marina yard a bit then I headed back to the boat for a little hull cleaning.  I had noticed a few days ago that we had some rust stains on the starboard side - probably from the stainless over the rub-rail. It really needed to be taken off and polished but that would be a job for this summer.  The boat really looked bad so I grabbed the water hose, my spray bottle and the jug of Muriatic Acid I had stashed.  Turns out we were docked on the port side so I dropped the dinghy so I could work on the starboard side.  It wasn't hard work and about an hour later I was done cleaning both sides then put away the dinghy.  She looked much better!  No more rust-bucket....

After relaxing for a bit, I then replaced the oil filter, drained and filled the transmission oil, then refilled the engine with fresh oil.  An hour later I was cleaning everything up and Gertrude would be happy now until probably somewhere in Chesapeake Bay.

We relaxed a bit then decided to head to the recommended restaurant for a late lunch / early dinner.  After cleaning myself up a bit, we walked about 1/4 mile to Tubby's Tank House.  The place was pretty hopping for 3 on a Sunday afternoon.  Our waitress was very nice and the food excellent.  We both ordered the Grouper Sandwich (recommended by Greg).  I had mine blacked - Laura had grilled.  They came with Sparky's Spuds - potatoes dipped in beer-batter and deep fried.  Yumm! 

I posed for the picture this time.

Right now, I think we will leave tomorrow morning and motor the ICW to the Savannah River then tidal currents should help us out to sea again.  Sea forecast looks great for the next 3-4 days with seas less than 2 feet swells and helping winds.  We will probably bypass Beaufort (and the shallow ICW spots north of there) and run off-shore to maybe South Edisto River to anchor for the night. Then back out in the morning Tuesday for a long run to Winyah Bay.  Whoa!  That would put us 2 days ahead of the schedule above!  We'll see.  We won't count our chickens yet.....

Titusville to St. Augustine

Saturday, April 8th (Day 7 - continued) to Monday, April 10th (Day 9)

These three days were quite "bouncy" on Second Wind.  We spent the whole time on the boat because the waves were too big to launch and travel in the dinghy.  This typically isn't a problem for us as we are used to the solitude.  Laura enjoys baking and crafts while I work a few boat jobs (there are ALWAYS boat jobs...) and play / sing music. 

I've been working on learning a new song lately - "Wind it up" from The Boat Drunks.  I love the lyrics but am having problems playing the guitar to the island beat.  Check it out on iTunes for a little fun.

The ketch on the mooring behind us is very colorful - and not in a nice way.  Check this out -

What are you thinking when you have a Cyan stripe, Burgundy sail covers and Tan canvas.  Plus, we saw the owner (?) come out on the deck in a green shirt.  "MY EYES!!"

Laura loves trying new dishes so she made Shrimp Wonton soup one night.  We had walked to the grocery store on Saturday morning and one of the items on our list was wonton wrappers.  They didn't have any (it was only a small store) but I said, "Why don't you just make your own?"  She got out her phone and found a couple good recipes. Plus she could use her manual pasta-maker to flatten out the dough.  A few hours later, she dug right in and had our whole galley under construction...

The end result was awesome and I ate two helpings.

She also likes making gnomes and played around with a new one.

I mentioned that gnomes don't wear flowers in their hair and maybe this one was a female?  With a beard?  Too funny....

We had planned on leaving Monday but the front with high winds decided to stick around another day.  One of our neighbors on a power-catamaran decided to leave on Monday and I thought he was nuts.  The winds were steady in the mid-20s and gusting into the 30s.  Laura watched him motor forward over the mooring ball while the wife (?) pulled the mooring line up to the bow and removed the (3) mooring lines they had attached.  From here things went downhill.  For some reason, he continued to motor forward over the ball maybe thinking the ball would pass harmlessly between the two hulls of the catamaran.  No....  that didn't work as planned and he ended up catching the mooring ball / line / chain in his starboard rudder or prop.  

They dropped their anchor (maybe because one engine was out of service) and he eventually put on a bathing suit and snorkel gear.  About an hour later they motored away picking up their anchor.  I was thinking, "Where's the mooring ball?"  As the boat turned and motored toward the marina, we saw the ball pop up and float away.  He must have broken it off the chain attaching it to the bottom.  That was quite a job.  These moorings are supposed to be hurricane rated. We later saw them anchored up by the bridge.

About an hour later the marina office calls me.  The pleasant gal on the phone asks if we are OK because they found a mooring ball on-shore next to the marina.  I said we were fine and told her the story.  I didn't want to be a tattle-tale but the folks on the catamaran should have taken responsibility for destroying a mooring and called the marina.  Funny that the gal on the phone didn't seem too upset.  Maybe this was a frequent occurrence?

A few showers came through during the evening and we buttoned up the boat while streaming videos off the Starlink.  Hopefully, outta here tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 11th (Day 10)

Partly sunny with high winds (mid 20s) and occasional showers.  Air temp 70.  Water temp 75

42nm today (331 total trip miles)

Even though the winds were high and occasional showers were predicted, we decided to leave and continue our trip north.  I think both of us were ready to leave this rolly / bouncy mooring field.  I felt safe on the mooring but this bay is too wide open for high winds from the north or east.  We had lots of both for the past 3 days and nights and they built up waves big enough to bounce around our 21 ton sailboat.

I completed my morning engine room checks then fired up the Perkins and our electronics.  Just after 8am we released the mooring lines.  Winds were steady in the low 20s with higher gusts.  This part of the trip to Daytona has a couple sections a little open to the east (where the winds were coming from all day) and about an hour after leaving the mooring we turned east up up the ICW toward the Haul-Over canal and bridge.  This was the most open section of today with 4 miles to shore for the winds to build up a little higher seas.  Motoring into the 25 knot winds and 3 foot seas the boat slowed to about 4 1/2 knots (from our normal 6) which made this section even longer.  It wasn't a bad ride for us but every once in a while the bow would bounce down on wave and send up spray that eventually covered all of our windows in the cockpit.  

Once through the canal we turned north up the Mosquito Lagoon which put the winds on our beam.  Hmmm..  Maybe our first sail of the trip?  If we wanted to sail this narrow ICW channel safely, we would have to be careful and let out only enough sail to keep the boat moving nicely without overpowering because of the high winds.  Plus, unless we have the right percentage of mainsail and jib working, the boat becomes "unbalanced".  This means wind gusts blowing on the jib will try to turn the boat into the wind and we would quickly be outside of the deeper channel we need to stay in.  Unlike most sailboats, we had roller furling on our mainsail which would make it easy to let out just the right amount.  Why not give it a try?  What could go wrong....

After a steep learning curve of how much sail to put out, we eventually settled on about 1/2 jib and just a few feet of mainsail.  Check it out -

The winds were high enough for the boat to be pretty well balanced with just that little bit of mainsail.  We were re-learning medium to high-wind sailing!

I turned off the engine for our first non-engine sailing the trip.  It lasted for 1 1/2 hours until we got into the islands before New Smyrna Beach when the winds died a lot and kept changing direction.  At one point we were sailing over 7 knots.  Laura took this picture of our instruments.  7.2 knots boat speed with 24.1 knots of wind.  Yoo Hoo!

 

We pulled in the sails to motor through twisty New Smyrna area and the George Munson Bridge.  Once we were around Ponce Inlet and associated islands, our course was mostly north so we rolled out the jib for help and lowered engine RPM. 

By 3:45pm we were anchored near the new Memorial Bridge in one of our favorite spots.  This anchorage was excellent for protection from east winds and, even though the winds continued into the night, the boat stayed pretty quiet.  

I love this mansion in front of our anchorage.  We were finally in calm waters.

Laura and I talked about taking the dinghy to Caribbean Jacks which is one of our favorite restaurants with dinghy access.  We both decided to relax and leave them for next time.

Around 9pm we heard fireworks outside and, from our cockpit, we had a ring-side seat.  They didn't last long but they were very nice.  This picture is just using my iPhone.

 

I have one of my boat instruments monitoring maximum wind speed.  This only includes sustained winds - not gusts.  Today it read 29 knots.  

Wednesday, April 12th (Day 11)

Partly cloudy, not as windy and no showers.  Air temp 71.  Sea temp 73.

48nm today (379 total trip miles)

Just after leaving Titusville yesterday, I called the St. Augustine City Marina and was able to snag a reservation for 3 nights on a mooring starting tonight.  I felt like we had won the lottery!  These moorings have been harder to find over the past few years.  I think it's because many boaters use them for in-water storage.  It's a cheap way to store your boat (<>$400 / month) but it takes the moorings away from transients who would actually spend money in town.  OK.  Enough of my rant...

Anchor up at 8:15am and we motored back to the ICW.  Winds were down a bit today but we did use our Jib to help us along.  We ran 90% of the day with reduced engine RPM on mostly quiet waters. 

No problems today as we navigated to St. Augustine.  I called the marina on the marine radio and they told me we were assigned a mooring on the north side of the Bridge of Lions Bridge.  We only waited about 10 minutes for the 4pm bridge opening and were tied to our mooring about 15 minutes later.  

Now.  We needed to check in, pay for the mooring and get groceries.  Should we wait until tomorrow for the grocery run (it's about a 2 mile walk) or get it over this afternoon / evening.  Tomorrow was supposed to rain most of the day (it didn't...) so we decided to suck-it-up and do our groceries now.  

After I checked-in and paid for 2 nights, we walked through town and down US 1 to Winn Dixie.  It was beautiful weather for a walk - not too hot or humid.  Laura's foot was doing excellent and I was having problems keeping up with her.  Geez.  Just 2 weeks ago I had been walking 3-4 miles several times a week.  What happened?

After almost $200 worth of groceries later, we got an Uber for the ride back to the marina.  I chatted a little with the driver, Mohamed, who seemed nice.  Back at the marina there were no carts near the drop-off spot so I hoofed across the marina for a dock-cart while Laura unloaded the groceries into the parking lot.  We carted the groceries to our dinghy, loaded the dinghy, motored back to our boat, put the groceries up on the side deck, tied up the dinghy, then we transferred the groceries to the galley.  Lots of work but we are stocked with fresh groceries now for a couple more weeks.

I pulled the dinghy up on the davits and went downstairs to help put some stuff away.  On the way, I checked my pocket - no cell phone.  Hmmm.  Did I give it to Laura to put in the pack?  Nope.  Was it in the dinghy?  Nope.  Oh crap.

I picked up Laura's phone and called my number hoping maybe I had dropped it in the dinghy or in the boat and I would hear it ring.  After about 8 rings, Mohamed answered it.  It must have fallen out of my shorts pocked when I climbed out of the car.  Actually, this was pretty lucky, right?  I knew where it was.

Mohamed said he was on his way to Jacksonville with a paying passenger and would be back in town between 9 and 10pm (it was currently 7pm).  He would meet me at the marina where he dropped me off.  I gave him Laura's phone number which he called on his cell phone so I would have his number.  He was great!  

I put the dinghy back in the water and we watched a few shows on the TV.  At 9:15pm I get a call from him saying he is about 45 minutes from the marina.  A while later, I dinghy back to the marina and we arrive at the parking lot together just before 10pm.  He gets out of the car and hands me my phone.

OK.  Now, here is my problem....  How much money should I give him as a reward.  He just returned to me a $1,300 iPhone with a huge part of my life on it and I'm VERY grateful.  But, he didn't manufacture the phone, he's just returning something I left in his Uber. I wish I knew how far out of his way he went to return the phone.  Was he coming back to St. Augustine tonight anyway.  Really no way for me to know.  How much would you give him?

I didn't think $20 was enough so decided on $40.  When he handed me the phone we talked a bit and I explained I wanted to give him a reward but wasn't sure how much.  He said it didn't matter - he didn't expect anything.  I asked if $40 would be fair and he said, "Oh yes.  Sure.  Whatever you want...."  Geez.  He could have given me a sob story and I'd have peeled off a couple $100s.

Back to the boat a short time later and I again haul up the dinghy on the davits, climb down into the salon and relax for a little bit with the TV.  A little while later we hit the sack.

Thursday, April 13th (Day 12)

Sunny becoming cloudy with storms later in the afternoon.

This morning, we were thinking, "It's such a beautiful day.  Why are we sitting here?  Why did we hustle to do our groceries yesterday instead of this morning?  Should we go in for lunch and take the chance of getting soaked?"  The weather forecast kept changing and it was a sunny, nice day.  Forecast was rain at 11am, then 1pm, then 2pm...  

Don't forget that we forged ahead with groceries last evening and paid for 2 nights on this mooring because it was supposed to rain almost all day today. Finally, at 4pm, I looked out over St. Augustine and saw this ominous sky.  It was like a something out of a science fiction movie.  I took this panorama with my iPhone.  I think if you click on it, you will see the whole thing.

The black clouds came over with lightning and thunder.  We were looking at lots of what we call "Red Shit" on our phones.

We're always posting videos of great sailing, dolphins, etc.  Here's one of the storm.

An hour later, the Sun came out and we were treated to a little rainbow over the Bridge of Lions Bridge.

Our friends Kevin, Victoria and their 3 sons (s/v Tsunami) have been on a boat in Jacksonville for almost a year.  They were newbies to sailing and cruising a couple years ago and I helped them get down the coast safely from Albany, NY to Oriental, SC.  Victoria texted me yesterday to see if we wanted to get together - maybe dinner tonight?  We texted during and after the storm to try and organize dinner.  Laura and I discussed going in to meet them and she mentioned that everything on the boat was soaked - including the dinghy.  We decided to put off the get-together.  Good thing.  More storms came through over the next couple hours.

Somewhere during the storm our Honda generator sputtered and quit.  It sounded like a fuel problem because it sputtered for a while.  If there was water in the electronics, it probably would have just stopped.  After the rain stopped, I drained the carburetor and it had rusty water in it.  Oh boy.  Last night I had emptied one of our gasoline jugs into the generator.  I try to be careful doing this because the bottom of the jug sometimes has water or other sediment.  After draining the float bowl (very easy on this generator), it ran for another 1/2 hour and stopped.  I can either keep doing this or, if it keeps happening, I'll probably have to completely drain all the gas out of the tank on the generator and refresh with new stuff. 

Our current plan is to leave here early tomorrow morning and try to make somewhere around Fernandina tomorrow night.  Winds are finally supposed to calm down tomorrow, Saturday and most of Sunday until another front Sunday night.  We'll have to see how far we get and how bad the storm Sunday night is supposed to be before deciding on our travel past Saturday.

Generator just died again.  Off to work I go.....