Camachee Cove Harbor Marina, St. Augustine, FL

When I looked at the tide charts last evening I evidently read them backwards.  Thinking that high tide was at around 8 AM, that appeared to be a good time to make our escape from the little cove we anchored in as there wasn’t much water when we entered at high tide.   Actually, on the ICW there really isn’t a lot of water anywhere.   I was surprised to see the tide was down when we got up in the morning, so we ended up creeping our way out.  We made it with not much to spare but a miss is as good as a mile.

This is the result of mis-attention when transiting the ditch:

More of an embarrassment than anything else. The tide should float them off in about 5 hours.

As we approached St. Augustine we found Charlie Nobel was on station, flying the flag signals “I wish you a pleasant voyage” and escorted us into St Augustine.  Mike, who owns Charlie Nobel had on board the new owner of the Pilgrim 40 Miss Lily (Hull #45), who he recently had shipped the boat overland to Florida and is having some work done before it gets re-launched.

Charlie Nobel waiting to greet us

Under escort

After we docked we did our chores (checked in at the marina office, cleaned up the boat, ourselves and did some laundry) and then had a small wine and cheese reception aboard Liberty.  Will and I were able to go over some Pilgrim details and compare notes, Dale and Mike talked about places to watch over Maple Sugar for a month while they go back to Canada and Bobbi and Sylvia talked grandchildren.  Mike then took us out for a fine dinner in what really wasn’t an out of the way place, but you would never know it as we were about the only people in the establishment.

The weather today was virtually perfect.  Light winds and pleasant temperatures.  We were able to finally remove the enclosure that surrounded the back deck of the boat.  This has been up for virtually two months to protect us from the less than great weather we have been having.  We were also able to open the overhead hatch in the forward stateroom, a first on this trip.  The long range forecast is for temperatures in the low to mid 70’s for highs and the lows in the upper 50’s for the next week.  We will not complain about these conditions.  Maybe we are done wearing socks now.

Dave

Well, we made it to St. Augustine!!  The sun was shining and the temperature was warm.  We took down the enclosure on the back of the boat this afternoon.  We have had it up for two months because of the cold!!!

We got everything caught up on the boat then had a great time with Will Pearson (another Pilgrim owner).  We then went out to dinner with Mike Anderson (owner of Charlie Noble) and our Canadian buddies. We had a great time!!!  Thank-you Mike!!!!!

It feels wonderful to be in warmer weather and I really love the palm trees!!

Well, I guess we will see what tomorrow brings!!!

Bobbi

Florida (at last)

The anchor came aboard at 7:30 AM this morning and we began our trek to the Fort George River Anchorage, a distance of 50.7 sm that required 7.3 engine hours.

On the way we passed Kings Bay,  U.S. Atlantic Fleet’s home port for U.S. Navy Fleet ballistic missile nuclear submarines armed with Trident missile nuclear weapons.  We didn’t get to see any subs coming or going which would have been really cool.

Degaussing Structure

 

At roughly 11:30 AM we finally entered Florida waters.

Evidently we managed to dodge all the no-see-ums in the reed-lands of Georgia, as we were never bothered by a single one.  I guess there might have been a silver lining in all that cold weather.  We were prepared for them however and were interested in seeing how our defenses would work out.  I guess that question will have to wait until spring to be answered, or maybe next fall.

The Fort George River is home to the Kingsley Plantation. This was was a slave trading headquarters, training slaves for specific tasks to increase their value at sale.  Since we arrived at 2:45 we had time to dinghy into their dock and tour the grounds.

Somebody better get that 2014 sticker updated to the 2016 version before we get stopped (it is on the boat).

59 minutes, and not 1 hour? What is with these people in Florida?

 

Slave quarters (restored and the remains).

Five boats in the anchorage by the time the sun set.

Back on the boat, it was time to start dinner.

Bogle (wine), sword fish, baked potato and cottage cheese for dinner.

It was a great day, 50+ miles, no groundings, crossed the Florida line, toured a slave plantation, had a great dinner with good wine in a terrific anchorage; moderate temperatures (relatively speaking), what more could you ask for.

Dave

Well, we made it to Florida!!!!  Holy Moly!!!  (We are at anchor in Jackonsville)   We had a very good day today.  The weather was a tad warmer, which made the ride a bit more comfortable.

Once we got in we took a little dingy ride to a slave plantation.  It is really difficult for me to read how we treated other people.  I hope we have learned.

On the way back to the boat we dropped off some bottled water for our Canadian buddies.  Apparently a little trouble with their water supply.

We are headed for St. Augustine tomorrow.  We are looking forward to meeting, Mike Anderson.  Mike has the boat Charlie Noble.  We had a wonderful time with Mike back in Elizabeth City.  We hopefully will be able to catch up with Mike in St. Augustine!!

We’ll see what tomorrow’s adventures will bring the captain and first mate!!

Bobbi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Umbrella River Anchorage, GA

Today’s run was exceptionally short, 13.6 sm.  The Gozzard 36 had been hoping that their chart plotter, which supposedly had been fixed and shipped to the Jeckyll Island Marina (scheduled delivery for Tuesday) would actually be there.  Long story short is that it wasn’t.  Of course calls to Raymarine on Wednesday were fruitless and today being the day after Thanksgiving weren’t much better.   We are currently anchored 2 miles from the marina in the hopes that it would magicaly appear today but of course it didn’t.  It looks like the rest of the way will be done without the Raymarine device, but the Ipad on the Gozzard seems to be getting them there (as well as following directly behind us).  Tomorrow we will be in Florida waters (finally).  The low last night was 37, the high today was 50 and we are getting tired of this cooler than usual weather.  Tonight the low will be 40 requiring the use of our propane fired heater again.  I really have to replace the steel tank with a fiberglass, see-through tank as I have no idea how much propane is in that 20 lb tank.  We have a 10 lb tank in reserve, but climbing up onto the boat deck in the middle of the night to switch over the tanks doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

The highlight of the day was seeing the 104′ , 1926 Mathis-Trumpy motor yacht that docked behind us yesterday while we went to dinner in the daylight.  What a magnificent vessel to say the least.

FREEDOM out of Newport RI

She is the sister-ship of SEQUOIA and underwent a  seven year restoration.  They replaced all her planking and frames, she is now double planked Douglas fir and up close appears to be a fiberglass hull.  I wasn’t able to see a seam line in her hull.  20,000 bronze bolts were used to fasten the planks to the frames.  They claim that 25 people were employed in the restoration, averaging 4000 man hour/month.

You can read more about her restoration and see pictures of her interior here:  http://www.woodenyachts.com/media/presslibrary/showboatsinternational.pdf

Our “good friends” with the 40′ Hinckley left at 8:10 this morning, probably before any of the authorities had a chance to visit them.

Other than that, we are sitting all alone directly across from what appears to be an abandoned pier with a some buildings on shore that must have some significance.  On our way here we passed a dock that had a tour boat tied to it.  Later, the tour boat showed up off the pier and sat there for a while, so the tourists could view the property.  There is a big No Trespassing sign on the dock.  We should have called the boat on the radio and asked why the location was interesting, but are sometime slow on the draw, so to speak.  The best we can do is speculate as Google Maps does not show any roads out to this location, and Google Earth doesn’t lend any clues.

View from the water (our prospective)

Satellite view of the buildings.

I guess this will have to remain a mystery as a Google search didn’t turn up anything interesting.

Dave

Well, yesterday we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed our time at Amy’s and Robb’s.  What a great family!!! Thanks for the left-overs!!!!

We also skyped with our daughter, Jill, the word is out that we are going to have a third grandchild and it is a girl.  We are very happy grandparents.  Three grandsons would have been great, but a grand-daughter is something else!!!

We will be in northern Florida tomorrow (It’s a miracle!!!)  We can only hope and pray the weather gets warmer!!!

Bobbi

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving in St. Simons

We are fortunate enough to be able to spend Thanksgiving at the vacation home of the Kane’s daughter Amy, her husband Robb and their children on St. Simons Island.  While we have met their children a few years ago we were still strangers to Amy and Robb until today.  We had a wonderful time and dinner at their house.

Dinner preparation

At the table

 

 

After dinner we went for a walk down to the beach so we could return and have desert.  A fine time was had by all.

It turns out that our “friend” that waked us in the ICW yesterday actually ended up docked directly behind us.

Magic 2, out of Key Largo, FL

It also came to pass that there were five boats docked here that “knew” him.  One of the boats was particularly upset with him as they could hear him coming up behind them for a half hour before he reached them.  All the boats were screaming at him over the radio for his antics and after he passed they could hear boats in front of them screaming at him.  This went on when the boats were north of Charleston.  His only one radio response was wah, wah, wah.

Our Canadian friend went over to talk to him as he was a professional negotiator (policeman) at one time in his life and the guy simply said that you just need to turn into his wake and slammed his cabin door on him.

One of the sailors called the Coast Guard who directed him to the Georgia authorities who he called to report the guy.  They said they would send somebody to investigate but today being Thanksgiving, I doubt they did.  We saw the entire family of the Magic 2 leave early on in the day anyway.

Since the boat was a few feet off our stern I was able to read it’s Hull ID number and from that found that it is a Hinckely 40, jet drive (no props or rudders), 880 hp built in this September.  The owner must be taking it back to Florida from the Hinkely plant.  Trying to find a price for a new one is impossible but I did find a seven year old model for sale, listed at $760k.  This probably means that new ones go for about $1 million. This proves that just because you have money, you might not have any common sense or feelings for others, which is really a shame.

Dave

 

Well, Happy Thanksgiving!!  We had a great day with a wonderful young family!!    Robb is a terrific cook, Amy is a great hostess and their kids are just the best.  Thank-you so much Robb, Amy and kids!!  You made our day very special!

We will be leaving St. Simon’s Island tomorrow.  We’re not quite sure how far we will go tomorrow, but we hope we will be in Florida by next week!!  Hopefully the weather will warm up by then!!!

Bobbi

 

 

Golden Isles Marina, St. Simons Island

The anchor came aboard at 8 AM under cloudy, cold sky’s (again).  It was as short day as we reached the marina, a scant 25 miles away by 12:30 PM.  There was a short chop in the Altamha Sound which got a bit of salt spray over the forward portion of the boat, but other than that no excitement.  The clouds did clear out just after noon, pretty much as forecast but the temperatures never got above the low 60’s.  Normal high for this time of the year is 67 degrees.

The early arrival gave us a chance to shower and relax before meeting Amy, Robb and their three children for dinner.  Since it gets dark so early, we didn’t get to see to much of the island on our way to dinner.  Tomorrow we should get a better idea as Thanksgiving dinner at their house is scheduled for mid afternoon.

Dusk at the marina

 

Dave

North River Anchorage

Today we made 54.2 sm on 7.6 hours of engine time.  We left the Delegal Marina at 7:30 AM so that we could get through Hell Gate when there was plenty of water.  When passes are so named, they get your attention as there usually is a reason for the name.  Today was quite uneventful as there was virtually no wind all day, just off and on rain showers that lasted most of the day and have increased now that we came to anchor.

The lack of wind was nice as we crossed Ossabaw, St. Catherines,  Sapelo, and Doboy Sounds.  All of them had some current and a bit of wind coupled with current produces a steep chop in a hurry.  Swells off the Atlantic could be felt as we crossed each one.

We only saw one cruising boat all day, when this big clown roared by us close aboard at about 30 knots, never slowing down a bit.  He passed the Gozzard 36 right at a nav marker that Active Captain listed as a hazard due to shoaling.  If the tide had been down just a few more feet he probably would have left his props in the sand.  I would have been more than happy to called SeaTow for him at that point.

The anchor went down at 3:30 PM and now it is time to sit back and relax for the evening as we listen to the rain in our well protected anchorage that we are sharing with no other boats at the moment.   No grilling dinner tonight in this weather, it will be cooked inside.  No pictures today either, just imagine a gray box.

Tomorrow  there will be a short run of 25 miles to the Golden Isles Marina in St. Simons tomorrow with only the Altamaha Sound to cross.

Dave

Another day at Delegal Creek Marina

We don’t want to arrive in St. Simons until early Wednesday afternoon.  It is 40 miles as the crow flies, but 70 miles on the ICW.  This meant that if we left this morning we would need to spend two days on the hook someplace, traveling about 25 miles/day or staying here for the day ($40) and spending one night on the hook, with daily travel of about 35 miles/day.  No contest, as this is a nice quiet marina with an incredibly friendly and helpful dock master (who always addresses you by name) and we wanted to tour the area.

We moved from the fuel dock to the end of another T head.

The missing nav buoy is hanging out here.

There is a restroom out on the docks that has the worlds greatest view of the salt marsh.

Today we boarded the golf cart they provide for marina patrons and took a four mile trip into “town”.  It turns out this entire island is a gated community as you can’t get on the island without passing a guard house.  The cheap seats (houses) go for $300k.  There are paved cart paths that parallel the winding roads that pass by the nicely landscaped homes along the way.  We didn’t see too many residents as it appears these are mostly second homes, but landscaping contractors are quite prevalent.  The town center appears to consist of about a half dozen different banks (go figure), some specialty shops, one restaurant, a gas station and a golf cart repair center.  Most people eat at the “clubs”, meaning the clubhouses at the golf courses.  They didn’t know that four “homeless” people were roaming their byways in a borrowed golf cart.  Evidently there are some not so well marked “no wake zones” around this island that are heavily enforced as a number of boaters have complained about getting fined for non compliance.  Yesterday we were wondering why a trawler that was in front of us was going so slow as we followed them in what appeared to be a desolate area.  Now we know.

It has been great to just sit around and relax again without needing to move the boat.  At the moment we are at the bottom of a low-low tide meaning the tidal range for the last seven hours has been 8.8 feet.  We are now looking up at the banks of the creeks with the reed grass on top. Interesting, for those of us who usually don’t deal with tides.

Dave

Well, another nice day!!  The temperature was in the 70’s and just a light breeze.  We took a golf cart ride with Dale and Sylvia (our Canadian buddies).   Dale drove Dave navigated and Sylvia and I held on for dear life!!!!  We found a nice little restaurant and the four of us had lunch!!

We plan on being at anchor tomorrow then into St. Simons on Wednesday.  I  am already looking forward to watching the Macy’s Day Parade and dinner with our fellow “pilgrimers” daughter and family on Thanksgiving.

I have to say a word or two about the dockmaster here at the marina.  His name is Billy and he is a very dedicated and kind man.   It seems to me that Billy goes above and beyond!  Cheers to you Billy!

Off to an anchorage tomorrow and then to St. Simons!

Bobbi

 

 

 

 

It is finally warm!

The low temperature last night in the anchorage was in the low 60’s and by early morning was 64 degrees.  It has been raining all night, but the sound of rain on the deck is quite soothing.  We left at 8 AM bound for the Delegal Creek Marina, at the mouth of the Vernon River on the Ossabaw Sound.  It wasn’t a good day to travel as the rain was coming straight down with limited visibility.  Navigation was pretty much by the chart plotter as it was difficult to see the navigation markers, or even the shore line at times.  The marina is up a creek off the sound and with an east wind pushing against an outgoing current the mouth of the creek was very choppy.  There are a few twists and turns, a buoy was missing and the rain picked up again just as we were entering.  The tide was up (you can’t get up this creek if you draw more than 3-1/2 feet and it is low tide) so in the end we had no real issues.

Since we are on island and they had just closed one grocery store and hadn’t finished building the replacement as of yet, the marina provided a ride for Bobbi and Sylvia to the grocery store off the island.  Normally they have a golf cart you can use to chase supplies.  We filled our fuel and water tanks and pumped the holding tank in the pouring rain, but it was a warm rain.  There is lots of humidity now, but it is warm and it finally feels like we are getting south.  This has been the warmest it has been in what seems weeks.  We still haven’t used the fly bridge at all.

We are tied up at the fuel dock for overnight as they are not expecting any more boats.

It’s too bad it is overcast, as this must a magnificent view with the sunlight coming through the trees.

Total fuel for the trip so far is 460 gallons of diesel on 273 engine hours and we traveled 1556 nm.  This works out to 1.7 gallons/hour (including genset use of about 20 hours) or 3.38 nm/gallon.

Data usage for the month is 12.5 GB.  Dockage for this evening is a little less than $1/ft although diesel was a bit more expensive than we have seen at $4.05/gallon.

Looking forward a few days, it appears that we will be spending Thanksgiving with the Kane’s (Pilgrim GATSBY) daughter Amy, her husband Robb and their children on St. Simons Island where they have a vacation house.  We met them a few years ago and it will be interesting to see how their children have grown.

I understand that the harbor in Duluth, MN has frozen over, six weeks earlier than normal.  Glad we aren’t there.

Dave

Well, we are in Savannah, Georgia!!  The weathers was rainy this morning, but nice and warm this afternoon (almost 70)!  We are getting south!!!

A young fellow, Kyle, took Sylvia and I to the grocery store.  We found out that he will be going into the Coast Guard in February.  He told us all about Savannah, his life, and about his family.  He just seemed like a good kid!!!  Good Luck Kyle!!!

Our friend, Mary, from Annapolis called us yesterday and asked if we would like to spend Thanksgiving with her daughters’ family in St. Simons.  Mary just about made our day!!!  I was feeling a little sad about not spending Thanksgiving with our family.  Hopefully, spending Thanksgiving with another family and their kids will help!!!  Our Canadian buddies are going to join us as well.  We can’t wait!!!  Thank-you Mary!!!!

We are having dessert tonight with Dale and Sylvia  (Strawberry shortcake).  Does life get any better than strawberry shortcake???

I think we are going to spend another night  in Savannah.  The price is right and it is beautiful here!

Bobbi

Low Tide Woes

The plan for today was to continue our journey south heading for the Herb River anchorage at roughly mile 585.  Our bail out point was mile 572, the Wright River anchorage but if we were making good time to continue on.  We actually had more current with us than against us so we were able to bypass the first anchorage and continue to the second.

The ICW crosses the Savannah River and continues through the Elba Island Cut.  We came through here about an hour before dead low tide with the tidal range being about 9 feet, in other words there wasn’t much water.  We were “leading” and the chart plotter indicated a channel on what appeared to be the “wrong” side of the markers, although what was right and wrong was subject to interpretation due to the fact there was another channel the intersected with the one we were following.  We waited for a large power boat to pass by the markers that was coming the opposite way and he kept to the wrong side.  We figured him a local that knew what he was doing.   After he passed by we continued, keeping real close to the markers as we still weren’t sure about things.  While we never saw less than 10 feet of water, Maple Sugar hailed us and said they went aground just to the right of Red “4” in the image below.  Evidently they were just outside the so called channel, that may or may not have existed.  Anyhow, to make a long story short, we went back and tried to wash them off with our wake.  A Pilgrim never tows a large wake anyhow so that didn’t work.  We then tried to tow them off but failed in that attempt as the tide was still dropping.  All the black squiggles is our track as we tried to pull them off as well as waited in the Savanna river.  It turned out there was 17′ of water to the left of the red markers in question and we gave directions to a few boats that were attempting to enter the cut while we were waiting, so we weren’t the only people questioning the markers.

Eventually they called BoatUS who came and pulled them off on a rising tide and we were on our way again.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience for Sylvia on the Gozzard as she had never been in such a situation before but no lives were lost and no damage done. The major excitement came as a large container ship came down the Savannah river and passed the entrance to the ICW.  After it passed it sucked a ton of water out of the cut, putting Maple Sugar on her side then the water rushed back in and almost came over the side deck into the cockpit.  You are not a real cruiser until you put the boat hard aground.  Our time is coming I am sure.  Fortunately, Dale had purchased BoatUS towing insurance for $125 a few days ago.  The tow boat guy said that it would have been a $1000 for his services without the insurance.  And yes we have the same insurance.

We didn’t think to get any pictures of all this so the description will have to suffice.  We did make our planned anchorage while there was still light so no excitement there.  I believe there is a serious happy hour being had on Maple Sugar at the moment.  9 hours of motoring netted us 54.8 sm even though we spent a few hours going nowhere.

Dave

Beaufort SC (bjuːfərt/ bew-fərt)

Beaufort SC, is pronounced differently than Beaufort, N C.  We left our very nice, secure and serene anchorage at 7 AM as scheduled to maximize the tidal range when passing though areas that have snagged some sailboats in the the last few weeks.  The issues were around mile marker 515 in the Ashepoo Coosaw Cutoff canal.  We came though about 2′ above MLW and never saw anything below 6 under our keel (10′).

Plot of our position overnight as we changed locations depending on the tidal flow.

 

Dolphin escort while leaving the anchorage at 7 AM

The scenery is appearing more southern-like as we go

Dale and I dinghy-ed into to the local marina dock where we went up town for some shopping.  We went into a real meat market where they wrapped our purchase of sliced turkey and bologna (for Bobbi) in actual paper butcher paper.  Dale purchased a Honda EU2000i generator (gas) that will produce 13 amps as they are tired of being cold at night.  It will serve double duty to run their AC unit (if they can get that fixed) or charge batteries if they ever go flat.

Beaufort Anchorage at dusk

 

This is the 70th post we have made, so tomorrow will be the 70th day that we have been underway.  Today we made 44.9 sm on 6.4 engine hours.

Dave

Well, we woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise and dolphins swimming close to the boat (Life is good!!).  Our daughter, Jill, called this morning to let us know about their Thanksgiving plans with friends and her husband’s family.  (The first holiday away from the kids may be a little difficult!)  We are going to spend Thanksgiving with our Canadian buddies!

We are getting closer to Florida.  Tomorrow we should be in Georgia. We’ll see what adventures Georgia brings!!!

Bobbi