Just Ducky: April 2013

Unwinding the Trip

Mat, Kathy, Pam and Paul

As we travel north up the coast on our way home, we are stopping at some of the same places as we did on the way south, but some stops we are doing differently. We had a very long day getting past all of the bridges between Fort Lauderdale and Lake Worth. Weather prevented us from going on the outside so we bit the bullet and slowly progressed up the ICW. We stayed at a different anchorage this time and we were happy to see it as we pulled in at 6:45 pm. It definitely was not a night for a slow cooking gourmet meal!

It turns out that putting a new antenna on for the radio did not fix the problem and had to replace the radio itself when we got to Melbourne. I don’t want to jinx anything but now it works. After anchoring in Fort Pierce for the night we arrived in Melbourne and had a great visit and lunch at Squid Lips with Uncle Paul and Aunt Kathy. They were kind enough to drive us to our favorite store, West Marine, to get the new radio.

Very good advice from a website called Active Captain and the praiseworthy magenta line on the GPS has kept us in the middle of the channel and out of trouble. There are times the magenta line will take you over land…we think they do that just to remind us not to follow blindly.

Being back in St. Augustine is always a pleasure. We stayed at a mooring this time and they had launch service so these lazy people did not have to put the dingy in the water. Thunderstorms came through one night which was a bit worrisome and then tornado warnings, even more worrisome. But we did fine even if I did stay up most of the night praying the storm to go in another direction. It worked!! Mass in the Cathedral, lunch in the Old Spanish Quarter and a historical presentation about the settling of St. Augustine rounded out the visit. Believe it or not we did not go back to the winery. See, we are doing things a bit differently.

I guess it was a sign of the times, but as we came through Cumberland Sound, the navy was broadcasting that they were taking large ships out to sea and all pleasure boaters were to step aside for their passage. We waited on the side of the waterway for a submarine to pass while navy boats with sailors bearing arms stood guard over us as it passed. The process took many hours so we think another sub and other navy vessels went out too. This was one day after the Boston bombings before they knew who was responsible. Not sure if the events are related or if the North Korea issues came into play.

While we do have a few days traveling with other sailboats that go at about the same speed, we seem to be alone most days. We really do feel the traffic on the ICW is much less than we expected. The marine life is also much less even though we see dolphins a lot. I’m convinced that there are some environmental things going on and climate changes; whatever it is. However, the pelicans seem to be thriving. They are EVERYWHERE!!

Everyone who knows me knows what my least favorite thing on the water is. Is it rain? thunderstorms? High winds? (Now that I think about it, those are not so great either… but I digress.) Fog is my biggest fear on the water. While we have a lot of it in New England, the South doesn’t have much. However, we did wake up to fog a couple of days. Thankfully it was in the morning and wore off and didn’t come rolling in on us as we traveled.

We entered Georgia and our visit to St. Simons was great as we spent time with Cynnie and Ursie. We almost saw Ursie’s granddaughter, almost. Maybe next time. We were able to avoid the dreaded Little Mud River by going out to the ocean and back in to anchor in Wahoo Creek. That made for a short next day as we traversed Hell Gate easily with the help of Active Captain. Whoever named these places needs to chill a bit and not be such an alarmist. I’m sure if Hell Gate was called something like Seagate, we’d all be a bit more relaxed about going through.

We are presently in Savannah for the 4^th time. Three of the four times have been in bad weather, such as hurricane Wilma, hurricane Sandy and right now some front that is going through with near gale force winds. Again, Mother Nature takes over and we wait for the weather to pass. We had dinner with our friend Kathy Kahn; Mike has already migrated back to Vermont for the summer. Kathy’s welcome was great. The sandflies seem to be welcoming us too.

We hope to move tomorrow but can’t be sure yet. Next stop beautiful downtown Beaufort, SC. The tragedies in Texas and Boston and the passing of a dear friend make me appreciate the gifts we have. One of the greatest gifts is the friendship of all of you. Stay well and stay tuned…

Melborne Sunset

Ft Pierce Sunrise

Low water on the ICW

Bridge of Lions

St Augustine

St Augustine Pirate Ship

The Tall Ship Harvey Gamage

Fernandina Beach, FL

Sunrise Fernandina Beach, FL

St Simons Island Rainbow

Sub on Cumberland Sound

We’re on Our Way home!

Pam and her pet Alligator

Although we were ready to take off sooner, we finally got the right wind conditions to go up the west coast of Florida on March 19^th. We didn’t let a few sprinkles deter us as we averaged over 7 knots (speedy for us) among the crab pots through Florida Bay up to Little Shark River to anchor for the night. No sharks, but one alligator and lots and lots of bugs! Mat caught a few catfish until the bugs drove him inside the boat. We arrived at Fort Myers Beach just about the same time our friends Don and Lavon returned from their trip. So we headed over to their condo where they had a slip for us for our stay. They were really great hosts. Travel to and from the beach area is quite a challenge during high season as the roads can’t handle all of the traffic. So we got to think like the Floridians and only go in that direction either early or late in the day. The beach is beautiful with soft, white powdery sand. We took trips to the beach, Cape Coral for lunch and Sanibel Island where we toured the “Ding” Darling Nature Preserve and took part in a wonderful barbeque. Their condo association has all of the amenities such as pool, community room for parties and tennis. We took advantage of the pool and the surrounding seating areas in the evenings as we traded Happy Hour for Sundowners. There we go being flexible again!

With Fort Myers Beach being our northernmost destination on the west coast, we proceeded back into the Gulf of Mexico to start our journey back to Connecticut. It’s hard to believe we were actually in the Gulf. We stayed at Marco Island for a couple of nights and attended Easter Vigil services at the church there. While our mass on Palm Sunday was over in less than 45 minutes, we did get our money’s worth on Easter with a record 2-1/4 hours. After leaving my purse in a taxi the night before and having it returned to me, we had a lot to be thankful for.

We went back through Florida Bay and found all of those crab pots we were told about. Some areas made our lobster pots in Long Island Sound look like nothing! Some skinny water was also part of the trip; you’d think we’d be use to it by now. Our depth sounder was reading 4.2 but we have a 5 foot depth. We expected to be aground but we weren't. Our only explanation is that it was reading from the top of the sea grass, not the bottom. Even though we have towboat US on speed dial, we were happy not to have to call them. We’ve had some pretty long days on the water before making it to Biscayne Bay. We made it out of Miami Harbor slowly as there were many container ships coming our way. They’re bigger; they win the right of way. We had a great day sailing, yes I did say sailing, up the coast to Fort Lauderdale, getting up to 9.4 knots. What a ride!

We are back at Bahia Mar Marina, home of the mega yachts and Just Ducky. Johnny Depp’s yacht is also here but unfortunately he is not. There was a boater’s appreciation party last night that was great;

stone crab, wild shrimp and oysters and an open bar. We feel truly appreciated!

We put our down time waiting out some stormy weather to good use and had our VHF radio checked out as we have been told that our transmissions were low in volume. Radio and connections are fine so it was the antenna that needed to be replaced. Climbing up the 59 foot mast was not something we wanted to do ourselves, so we called in the pros and now have a new antenna.

We plan to leave tomorrow for Lake Worth and all places North as we continue our journey home. We are feeling better about the shallow water to come now that we have our new GPS with better graphics but will probably have to use the tides in our favor to get through the rough spots and allow us to sleep better at night. We’ll stop to see some folks and sights along the way. Our ETA in Connecticut is somewhere mid to late May. Hope the snow and cold weather will be gone by then. (That was supposed to be a joke).