01/26/2012, Harbour Cay Club, Marathon, FL
PHOTO ABOVE: Sunset viewed from Far Niente anchored in Matecumbe Bight.
Yes, yes, I know. No updates as promised. Sorry. Just been to dang busy to sit down and knock out a new post.
We arrived at the Harbour Cay Club in Marathon, FL on New Year's eve after a 3-leg journey from West Palm Beach. Weather was sunny and winds were very light. Seas barely 2' all 3 days.
12-29-2011 - West Palm to Key Biscayne: 76.8 nm, 11 hrs 22 min (via the Atlantic)
12-30-2011 - Key Biscayne to Matecumbe Bight: 75.4 NM, 10 hrs 23 min (via Hawk Channel)
12-31-2011 - Matecumbe Bight to Vaca Key, Harbour Cay Club: 24.4 nm, 4 hours 12 min (via the Florida Gulf side - dang skinny water on this side!)
Once we arrived at HCC we joined 6 other Island Packets here with a social schedule that would not quit; New Year's Eve Party, Bowl Game Day(s), trips to Key West, NFL Playoffs, nightly Tiki Hut discussion group, etc.
Four of the six IP's headed up the west coast of Florida for a tour of Captiva, Ft. Meyers, and other Gulf gems.
Meanwhile, it is boat project time. Knocking out a few projects a day, mostly maintenance related. I did rebuild the fresh water system in the boat. I removed the old Jabsco belt drive pump and accumulator tank and replaced them with a new Jabsco VFLO 5.0 smart pump and a 50 micron whole house water filter. New system works great and is much quieter. That is due, in part, to the isolation platform I fabricated out of Starboard and some rubber coasters. (Picture in the Gallery)

Currently waiting for a new Rocna anchor (33 kg). I plan on swapping it with the CQR (60 lb) on the starboard side. Veteran cruisers swear by the Rocna/Manson Supreme design. We'll get a good chance to test it out when we head to the Bahamas in March.
The other planned 'big project' is in the early stage. We are adding 335 watts of solar panels to facilitate battery charging. My dilemma is mounting the 3 panels without interfering with the sailing of the boat. I designed a stainless steel tubing rack that mounts above the bimini, clears the boom where the panels can be mounted. So far I have only templated the rack with 1" PVC tubing and ordered the necessary tubing parts. Once assembled, I'll pick up the panels locally. (Picture in the Gallery)
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12/24/2011, Palm Harbor Marina, W. Palm Beach, FL
Weather in Palm Beach has been very nice since we arrived one week ago and (two fingers crossed) looks promising next Wed and Thurs for our leg down to Marathon (170 nm).
This past week we enjoyed West Palm Beach and getting together with much of the Van Zile family for Christmas at Marjorie's brother's home in Ft. Lauderdale.
I'll update the blog as we prep and begin to move to the Keys.
Merry Christmas to all!
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12/12/2011, Cocoa, FL (MM 898 AICW)
We left Fernandina Beach on Dec-5 and stopped in St. Augustine a couple days where among other things, we enjoyed a tour of the remarkable Hotel Ponce De Leon, built by Henry Flagler and now the home of Flagler College. We also enjoyed dinner with cruising friends we met back in Deltaville, VA.
Next was an overnight stop in Titusville to test out the brand new mooring field. Quite nice and the right price, $15/day. Not much in Titusville per se but Marjorie did manage to locate the local seafood market. After a walk of a few miles and back we enjoyed a shrimp stuffed fresh red snapper for dinner.
The most recent leg was very short, only 19.2 sm, to Cocoa, FL. We stopped here in the spring and enjoy the downtown area which is 2 blocks from the very nice Cocoa Village Marina.
With completion of that leg we surpassed 5,000 nautical miles aboard since we left Holland, MI June-18-2010. That is just over 5750 statute or land lubber miles. We accomplished this in 542 days (1.48 years) and in some 101 cruising legs.
So 5,000 down, who knows how many more to go?
Headed to Vero Beach tomorrow for a few days. Then we'll work our way south in 2 legs to West Palm Beach. We prefer to go to Ft. Pierce for a night and then move offshore to the Lake Worth inlet. But offshore weather the past several weeks has not been great for us sailors. Seas have been very rough with many fronts and high winds. A few cruising friends have been waiting for a window to cross to the Bahamas for more than 5 days. One even bailed out and headed for the west coast of Florida via Lake Okeechobee and Waterway.
So if we don't get a weather break later this week, we'll just bight the bullet and make for Lake Worth via AICW. Not our first choice, but at least we have an option.
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12/04/2011, Mooring #2, Fernandina Harbor
This past Wednesday we made the overnight, off-shore trip from Beaufort, SC to Fernandina Beach, FL. The leg was 126 nm. We left at 2:07 pm and arrived at the mooring ball #2 at 8:30 am. All in all it was a fairly good leg. The final hour was very uncomfortable as wind had shifted from the west to the northeast at 12-18 kts and created a very lumpy sea with 4'-7' waves on our beam as we motored down the channel to the St. Mary's River, Cumberland Sound and Fernandina Harbor. As we entered the protected channel, just in front of us was 'Cloud 9' Captained by Steve from New Bern, NC in an IP 45 (#6). In the photo above, taken as I dinghied back to Far Niente from the marina, Cloud 9 is on the left and Far Niente is on the right.
We plan to leave Monday am just as the sun is rising and making 61 sm trip to St. Augustine. We'll stay there a couple days then head south with planned stops at Daytona Beach, Titusville, Melbourne, Vero Beach, Ft. Pierce and then scoot to the outside (off the ICW) to Palm Harbor Marina in West Palm Beach.
We'll get to join the Florida based Van Zile Family Christmas Day.
Then it is off to Marathon.
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11/09/2011, Dataw Island Marina (MM 523)
PHOTO ABOVE: Dataw Island Marina Office and Restaurant 'Sweetwater'
Dataw Island Marina (about 3 SM from ICW MM 523 on the Morgan River)
We made our way further south and spent a little more than a week in Charleston, which, by the way has some fabulous restaurants, easily the best collection of dining experiences of any place we sailed to and stopped so far.
Our original plan was to shoot out to the Atlantic at Charleston, as we did last fall, but weather is simply not cooperating. So we bit the bullet and traveled 49 nm via the ICW from Charleston to Dataw Island. If we had pushed on to Beaufort, we would have to wait for the 6:00 pm bridge opening and now that daylight savings time is off, we would hit the Beaufort City Marina in the dark and with no attendants to assist docking in the notorious Beaufort River tidal current. Dataw made sense from a stopping perspective and because we have heard many good things about the Island and the marina.
The ICW trip to Dataw was interesting. We departed Charleston City Marina with a group of 4 sailboats from the group known as Cruising Sailors of St. Michaels. All 5 of us were lucky as just before departing the U.S. Coast Guard cutter 'Anvil' was making its way south on the ICW. That meant that we did not have to wait for the 9:00 am bridge opening. The USCG has the distinction of getting bridges to open regardless of schedule. So we followed her and a couple large motor yachts through at 8:15 am, 45 min ahead of schedule.
The Eliot cut was real interesting with a whopping 3.5-4 kts of ebb current on our nose as we exited on to the Stono River.
Under most circumstances the 45 minute break on the bridge opening would have been great, today however it just meant we had to slow down so as not to hit 3 stretches of the ICW until the tide had risen 2-3'. The worst of these areas is known as the Ashpoo-Coosaw River cut (MM 517) and based on the tidal heights and the depth we saw passing through, I'd say there is 4' or less of water at low tide. We timed and hit area just before 3:00 pm and saw under 6.5' of total water depth on a tide that was predicted to be, at that time, 3' above MLW (Mean Low Water).
The entire leg was enhanced by following the shallow sail boats of the Cruising Sailors of St. Michaels who were kind enough to announce depths on the VHF as they lead us through this cut. Once through we were home free for the day.
This season our trip down the ICW was made very enjoyable by traveling with and meeting our cruising friends Chris and Susie (m/v FOREVER FRIDAY), and Gary and Maggie (m/v ASTRA) as we traveled from Morehead City, NC to Charleston, NC.
Our stopover points on the ICW this year were:
10/21 Morehead City Yacht Basin (MM 203)
10/22 Beachhouse Marina, Surf City, NC on Topsail Island (MM 261)
10/23 Southport Marina, Southport, NC (MM 309)
10/24 Barefoot Landing Marina, Myrtle Beach, SC (MM 354)
10/26 Harborwalk Marina, Georgetown, SC (MM 403)
10/29 Isle of Palms Marina, Isle of Palms, SC (MM 458)
10/30 Charleston City Marina, Charleston, SC (MM 469)
The Gallery now has a collection of photos from various stops taken as we made our way south the last few weeks.
We plan on staying in Beaufort for a few weeks to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and visit with friends. Also a number of boat projects need to be completed before we make our way to Florida (Fernandina Beach, St. Augustine, and Vero Beach to name a few of out stops) for December and Christmas.
We are striving to be in Marathon back at the Harbor Cay Club in early January.
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10/20/2011, Bridgeton Marina, Neuse River
PHOTO ABOVE: City Hall in New Bern. Very Swiss-like.
We made a 64 nm passage from Pungo Creek to New Bern via the Pungo R., the Pamlico R. (and Sound) and then up the Neuse River. It took 8:43 and we arrived before 4:00 pm with the hopes of making the last bridge opening. If we did not make it we would have to wait unitl 5:00 pm to enter the harbor and marina at New Bern.
Ah, the best laid plans. Just as we entered the southern end of the Neuse River the Coast Guard announced on VHF channel 16 that the Cunningham Bridge in New Bern was experiencing mechanical problems and would not open until further notice.
Okay, new plan. So based on the recommendation of some fellow cruisers we headed for the Bridgeton Harbor Marina which is on the east side of the Nuese R. just a bit north of downtown New Bern proper. The marina is a relatively new facility with very well built, large floating docks and wide fairways. It is also less than 50% occupied. Turns out the condo, shop, restaurants that were to be built shore side are on hold.
We had electrical problems during this leg. The alternator was not charging the battery bank. With about a 10 Ah use rate, we had more than enough juice to run the full electronics package during the leg. We got in contact with a very well recommended marine electrician who arrived about 5:00 pm to take an initial look. Diagnosis, very iffy voltage regulator for the alternator AND, to add insult to injury, a diminished battery bank with only about 40% of its specified capacity.
Well we all know that batteries, even when properly used and charged have a finite lifetime. So we bit the bullet (I am really tired of biting bullets) and ordered 9 new batteries.
We made a trip over to New Bern via courtesy car on Saturday. Nice downtown area. We also discovered that "Pepsi-Cola" was first developed and produced here. Who knew?
Batteries and the Balmar voltage regulator are now installed and working as advertised. This new Balmar regulator has a very nice feature. There is an LED readout that allows you to monitor your alternator and get readings on volts and amps out. Another thing to add to the 'underway' checklist.
Weather looks great for the next week, so we are going to get moving south in the ditch again with anticipated stops in Morehead City, Surf City, Southport, Myrtle Beach, Georgetown and then layover for a week or so in Charleston, SC.
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10/12/2011, At Anchor, Pungo Creek
We left Dozier's in Deltaville on Oct-8 and headed for Portsmouth, VA. We entered "the ditch" On the 9th and made the 48 sm (plus 5 bridges and a dozen motoryachts) leg to Coinjock in 7.5 hours. Enjoyed the famous Coinjock prime rib with some cruising friends we met in Deltaville.
The weather was good the next day and we crossed the Albemarle Sound and entered the Aliigator River. After some crappy weather we left Alligator River on Oct-12 and headed for Belhaven via the Alligator R. and the Alligator-Pungo Canal.
Tonight we are anchored in Pungo Creek, right outside of Belhaven. This is a great place to anchor as it is protected 360 degrees, has moderate depth at 8-10 feet and very good holding. It also very large, so if weather really is an issue dumping 150' of chain overboard would be no big deal.
So what have we been doing since late September, mostly waiting for good weather in Deltaville. We also had our prop shaft alignment checked; it was off and surprisingly 2 of the motor mounts were loose! Good to have that taken care of.
Unfortunately I think I still have to much vibration in the wheel. Prop balance/alignment is the next thing to tackle, but that means pulling the boat, shipping the prop off to be checked, adjusted, rebalanced etc.
We made it all the way to the Keys last year with this vibration. Hopefully we can do that again, pull the boat there and get the prop serviced while we hang at the Harbour Cay Club.
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