There have been several things that we've come across or observed that we found interesting. This entry is about some of the sights we've seen and captured on film (or not) along the way.

Wildlife:
Dolphins - I believe I mentioned about the dolphins we've seen. In fact as we continue our travels the dolphins are all over the place. They will surface in front of your boat, off to the side and a few days ago two of them were swimming along our stern. They are fascinating to see, no matter how many times you spot them. Unfortunately we've yet to snap a picture of them. They are so quick that before you can blink they're gone.

Cormorants - It's not uncommon to see a black bird perched on markers along the ICW, its wings spread as if waiting for a big hug. This bird is the cormorant, a sea bird found on fresh and saltwater. The reason they sit with their wings outstretched is they do not have well-developed oil glands, so its feathers are not waterproofed well. As a result, it spends significant time drying its feathers by holding its wings out in the sun. We passed one today on a marker after a bridge, and before I realized he/she was there we were too far away for a good picture. I be on the lookout so I can post one before we end the trip.

Bald Eagle - during the hour that Tom was below installing the new alternator, way back when, and I was at the helm being towed by Nugget, we spotted a bald eagle perched on the top of a pine tree. Even from a distance (to far to snap a picture) this bird was magnificent in stature and a thrill to see in the wild.

Transients/Cruisers - As you travel the ICW, boats that have jerry jugs of fuel and water, dinghy's on the back, solar panels, wind bugger, etc. are labeled as transients. If you pull into a marina you are often placed at the farthest point from the office or facilities along with other transients/cruisers. However, these groups of boaters are always willing to help, offer assistance, include you in their festivities and are a wealth of knowledge on all sorts of things. Case in point, we no sooner had pulled into one spot when a lovely woman came to our boat to invite us to a cruisers party. She didn't know us, or we her, but we instantly were welcomed and included. We have met wonderful people on this trip, and made new friends that we will continue to see

Live a boards - Check out some pictures of the "live a boards" we have encountered, most recently at Titusville.

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Saturday, November 07, 2009

I know you're all waiting (or not) to hear our rating of our dinner at the Sunset Harbor Yacht Club - it was a ten! The service (Allison was our server) was first rate, and the food was delicious. We had the Prix Fixe meal that included (for two) an appetizer, salad, main course with potatoes and veggies, plus dessert for $50. It was worth way more tha that and something we will not soon forget.

In the morning (Friday) we waited until Rob, the harbor master, came (around 0830) to assist us off the dock. It was a smooth exit and again, we thank all of the great staff at SHYC.

We traveled to Titusville, 28 miles of which are in the Indian River, and since the wind was on our beam blowing 20 knots, we put out the jib and had a marvelous sail. We arrived at the marina around 1500 and with the wind still at 20 knots we were happy to have assistance of a few on the dock to help us guide the boat into the slip and secure our lines.

On our starboard side I needed to secure a line to the stern piling. The gentleman on the boat next to us extended a boat hook and assisted me with getting it around the piling. As I looked at him I thought to myself "he looks like Santa Claus". Well as it turns out, Bob (his real first name) does in fact play Santa! (Please don't show this to children under the age of 10). Beginning Nov. 19, he travels to a mall in Sarasota and for 5 weeks each year listens to what people want for Christmas. He said he's had as young as 2 days old to 108 years young sit on his lap. (Check out the gallery for my picture with Santa).

We have been in contact with Bill and Jackie Zajac (friends from Buffalo who moved to FL in '03) and in fact are on our way to where they live today (near Cocoa Beach). However when they found out we were going to be in Titusville, they decided to drive up and have dinner with us. It was so good to see them and start to catch up on all the news. We will rendezvous with them today and plan on spending a couple of days there.

We are looking forward to the next couple of days with the Zajacs and touring the Kennedy Space Center.

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We had a fun day on the ICW today traveling from St. Augustine to Daytona Beach. Both of these towns are firsts for Tom and me and it has been enjoyable seeing them from a water perspective.

Today we passed a boat Lanna Kai from Annapolis, MD. Once passed, the captain radioed us and asked us about the flag we were flying. He recognized the P. C. flag but not our burgee. I told him we were members of the BYC and that Tom was the P.C. and he went on to say that we were the third boat (counting his) in a row with a PC on board.. He went on to say that he was PC of the Annapolis YC and the other boat ahead of us was a PC from the Hampton Yacht club. When he mentioned that, I said "yes I know, we met them in Morehead City and have been semi traveling with them since that time". Of course I'm referring to Greg and Judy from Magic II. We continued our conversation and found that they have traversed the ICW for the last 18 years and currently make their home in Marathon, FL. They are on their way back there having gone up to New England for a few months and when they are done they will have gone over 4000 miles (and I thought we were doing well at over 1700)

We had made arrangements with the Sunset Harbor Yacht Club in Daytona Beach the day before to dock there for the night - they offer 1 night free dockage plus $6.00 for 30 amp service. It was a tricky entry again for the dock is short and again we needed to deal with pilings. Fortunately there were two able bodied men to grab our lines, the harbor master Rob and an assistant, Steve. Without their help it would have been very unpleasant.

After awhile we went up to the clubhouse to meet Diane Larson, Director of Membership who we originally spoke to when we made our reservations. Diane made us feel most welcome, gave us a tour of the clubhouse - a beautiful Mediterranean style building with a pool and hot tub overlooking the marina, a large formal and informal dining room downstairs and a large banquet rooms upstairs available to the general public (Don Wharf, manager of the BYC would die for this large room to book parties). Diane presented us with a burgee from their club and took our picture while holding it. We in turn will send her a BYC burgee for them to hang in the informal dining area.

During the outside tour Tom asked about a new building going up and what it was going to be. Diane told us that the land and waterfront in front of it belonged to the family who owns NASCAR and the Daytona speedway. The building will be their new corporate headquarters. On the dock was his 95' yacht named HiBanxs.

After the tour and thanking Diane for her kindness and hospitality we went back to the boat. We are planning on having dinner in their dining room tonight. Stay tuned for the entry tomorrow to see how it was.

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Every part of the ICW is beautiful in its own right and each day presents challenges with current, tides, depths, etc. We certainly are enjoying our trip but as I've said in past entries, at the end of the day you are exhausted - but a good exhausted with no stress (per se).

We left Jekyll Island around 0645 on Nov. 2 and crossed into Florida around 1000. There were no signs "Welcome to Florida" like on the Thruway and no palm trees to greet you. In fact we were so busy watching for the buoys and channel markers to cross St. Mary's river that we didn't realize until we were almost two miles down the ICW. It was a great feeling to know we are in the last state of our journey and the final leg of our trip. We have now passed through a total of 9 states - hard to believe we have gone over 1500 miles!

We continued down the ICW to our final destination of Jacksonville Beach. We pulled into Beach Marine but not before going under a bridge that had 5 knots of current against us. For those of you who have sailboats and live in the Buffalo area you know you avoid going under the Peace Bridge in the Niagara River at all costs. We had confidence that Synergy II would make it through and it did with flying colors, but as we were passing the abutments it was if you were standing still!

Once we got settled in we took a walk around and found a store that is something Tom dreams about. Along the perimeter there were shelves neatly stocked with marine parts and equipment. But in the center of the store, which was quite large, was covered with boxes of 'stuff'. It seems the owner had purchased an old hardware store and is in the process of sorting everything out. There were 5 young men standing at a table with boxes of pipe connections, all different sizes, placing like ones together. When I asked them how long they had been at it they said 'two weeks' - yikes at that rate they'll be employed for at least a year! (or more). Anyway we found some more fuel filters - at half the cost we paid at other stores and some other sundries.

Next morning we shoved off at 0715. The current was about 2 knots so again, we used the technique we have perfected on this trip to get away by placing a fender at your stern, hold the stern line to the center cleat on the dock (like the spring), put the engine in reverse which throws the bow out and then quickly release the line. It works great!

Our next destination was St. Augustine. We arrived around 1130 which gave us plenty of time to tour the town. We got our bikes off the boat, but before we could "play" we (or should I say I) needed to do some work. The bags that we have our bikes in - old sail bags we bought at Bacon Sails in Annapolis - needed some new waterproofing. I placed them on the dock and proceeded to saturate both sides. While we were gone they hung on our lifelines to dry.

We rode into town and toured the waterfront and old St. Augustine. What a lovely city, rich in history. We then rode across the Bridge of Lions (the bascule bridge we will go through) and rode around Amelia Island. We rode over to the marina where Magic II was and as we came in the entrance, there was Judy walking their dog Nicki. Greg soon joined us and we chatted for a short while before saying goodbye and riding back to the marina. We stopped at Stewart's market for some shrimp and tuna, which we had for dinner that evening.

When we got back to the boat we struck up a conversation with folks on a boat across the way, English Rose, who sold their house and are moving onto the boat with plans to be gone for the next 15 years! They said the back stateroom is filled with things that they couldn't part with just yet, including two sets of golf clubs, and over the next 6 to 8 months will slowly decide what to keep and what to toss.

Anyway - it is now Thursday a.m. and we are on our way to Daytona Beach. We left at 0625 to make the 0700 opening of the Bridge of Lions.

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Welcome to the low country - this is what a majority of South Carolina and Georgia is called due to the low, marshy grasslands with which you are surrounded. The ICW in this neck of the woods is very windy, narrow and shallow in parts - especially during low tide - so consequently it makes it quite challenging. Tom and I work in tandem taking turns at the helm and as lookout. It is imperative that someone is always looking for the next red or green buoy or day mark.

After leaving Hilton Head early yesterday morning we finally ended the day by anchoring in Cattle Pen Creek in St. Catherines Island. We entered at low tide and there was still enough water (10 ft. with as low as 5 in some spots) to anchor. Just after we set the anchor another sailboat came into the anchorage. It was about 1500 and it was nice being all settled in before the sun set.

We prepared the boat for evening by hanging the anchor light (Tom has a LED light that is light sensitive drawing next to nothing in power), hanging the light in the cockpit so we could eat dinner out there and lowering the sides - it was getting cool. As we were doing all of this the sun began to set and we couldn't believe what we were seeing. The sky was magnificent and Tom and I both agreed that this was one of the most spectacular sunsets we have seen. Check out the pictures in the gallery for this date and you will see what we mean.

We had a great night at anchor and slept like babies. We got up around 0545 today and pulled the anchor around 0645. The night before as we were looking at the charts and planning today's journey, Tom made two routes - one through the ICW and the other on the outside. Looking at the weather, we opted for the outside.

We made our way out Sapelo Sound with the winds from the north. As we turned south we put out the jib and had a glorious sail down to St. Simons Sound where we turned in to rejoin the ICW and make our way to the marina we would be staying at tonight - Jekyll Harbor Marina. We slowly and carefully made our way down Jekyll Creek - it was now low tide (1330) and had very shallow depths (they call this skinny water). The range went from 5 & 6 feet down to zero and point 1 and 2 at times below the keel- again just a little stressful! Finally the depths increased slightly and we were glad to arrive at our destination. The dock hands were there to grab our lines - we fueled up and then made our way further down the face dock for the night.

This marina has a courtesy car (free - you can have it for about 1 hour) and courtesy bikes. After we checked in we took advantage of the free bikes and did some riding around the island. As we turned on to the main road, I noticed a sign to the left that said 'Island Exit' so I said to Tom let's go right. We proceeded to ride along the road seeing virtually nothing but trees. We kept riding hoping to find something but to no avail. Finally we found a path that cut across the island and came out not to far from our starting point. We then went north past the marina and lo and behold if we had turned left in the first place we would have found civilization. As it turned out there isn't a lot here in the way of shops, etc., but it is a pretty island.

Back to the boat - we hosed off the salt and the anchor locker - it had a lot of mud from the anchorage and then retired for dinner and a quiet evening. Tomorrow we will enter Florida - this is the last state in our journey.

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We woke this morning at 0530 - yes you read that right. With the time change last night we turned our clocks back which means the sun now rises around 0600 and sets around 1730. So if we want to travel at least 60 miles in a day we need to get going at first light. Oh well - who said in retirement that you'd get to sleep in! We've had great fun these last few days but they were also bittersweet.

We left Charleston City Marina on Thursday a.m. with two knots of current which made the exiting from the dock a little tricky and harrowing. We undid the lines (with some help from the people on the boat in front) and moved the boat back to give us room to maneuver. Unfortunately they let go of the lines a little too soon, so with Tom giving it full throttle and the fact we were farther back, we barely missed wiping out their boat and possibly our stern apparatus! Another exciting departure followed by discussion on how to improve in those conditions in the future.

The next thrill came shortly after the bascule bridge outside of Charleston (closed from 0700 to 0900 in the a.m.) when we traversed Elliot Cut - the current was four knots (see the pictures). Fortunately it was not that long of a stretch, but still long enough to make boat handling a challenge.

We had a great passage to Beaufort, SC. Beautiful homes again line the ICW. There was even a portion where we were able to sail. There was one more bridge we needed to go through just before the marina in Beaufort. This bridge, Ladies Island Swing Bridge is closed between 1600 and 1800. We thought we were going to make the opening prior to 1600 - the current was with us, we were able to make more speed with the jib up in one section, but as it was getting closer to 1530 and we realized we were still about 8 miles away and knew we wouldn't make it, so we cut back the engine and enjoyed the sail. We arrived around 1710 and floated till the 1800 opening. This actually worked in our favor since we tied up on the outside facing wall at the Downtown Marina at Beaufort.

Judy and Greg from Magic II were right next to us having arrived there a few hours earlier, so we had them over to the boat for drinks. That night I made crab cakes from the crab we purchased in Georgetown.

Tom and Greg were part of some excitement on Friday a.m. A 39' Cabo Rico sailboat was going to back out of his slip, but the current had other plans. Instead of backing out, the current took hold and pushed the boat parallel to the adjacent dock. It took 4 men, lots of fenders at the stern and port side, and lines to winch the boat off the dock, to point his bow into the current. It took them quite awhile but they got it done. After that, we walked around Beaufort with Judy and Greg before departing for Hilton Head.

It is a short run to HH - about 22 miles. The day was overcast and cool - we arrived at Harbortown Marina around 1330. We stayed here since this is where Nugget spends the winter and we were going to spend time with Charlie and Stella. It is a beautiful marina identified by the large red and white striped lighthouse at its entrance. The staff was very friendly and helpful and we got situated into our slip with no problems.

Took the bikes off the boat and were on our way to West Marine to pick up another alternator Tom had ordered. About a mile into our trek Tom realized he didn't have the printout from Defender which was selling the part for $100 less. Tom needed to present that at West so they would honor the lesser price. So we turned around to go back to the boat and as we approached we met Charlie and Stella who were returning from picking up a rental car. Charlie offered to take Tom to West (a much better plan knowing that I am the one with the basket on the bike so I would be the one carrying it back to the boat) while Stella took me to do wash at their condo.

It all worked out well, wash got done, alternator was purchased and we all ended up back at the condo for some wine before we went to Truffles for dinner. After a great meal (thanks Tony for recommending) we said goodnight and went back to our respective boats.

Saturday started out very foggy but by 0900 the sun came shining through and was with us the entire day. We all went to the Concourse Car Show - a two day event - the first day having some antique cars, but mostly various car clubs displaying their cars. Today (Sunday) is when the antiques are shown (Charlie - hope you enjoyed it and made it to your dinner in Greensboro on time). It was really fun to see the cars and the weather could not have been nicer.

We decided to have something to eat at the show - they had a tent set up with tables underneath. After getting our food (I was the first one to have everything) I said I'd find a table. Since there were none totally empty, I found one that had only two couples sitting so I asked if they minded if we joined them. When we were all sitting at the table, I asked each couple where they were from. Hold on to your hats - one couple was from East Aurora (they have a place in HH) and the other couple lives in Lockport! What were the odds of us sitting at a table with people from Buffalo? Needless to say Charlie and Stella were flabbergasted as well, and proceeded to hear again (almost verbatim) about the great quality of life, the great food and low cost of housing. It was if we all read the same brochure from the Chamber of Commerce before we left.

After the show we were given a grand tour of the island and Tom and I were both very impressed with the abundant vegetation, the miles of bike paths, magnificent homes on the water and just the overall ambiance that this island provides. We're so glad that we were extended the invitation to visit - it was well worth our while and a place we will not soon forget.

Before we went to dinner that evening, Stella and Charlie came to our boa. Stella presented Tom and I with a small bag and said this was a remembrance of our trip together. If I haven't mentioned in previous blogs, Stella paints in watercolors. Throughout our passage she has been painting various scenes that she views along the ICW - they are beautiful and precise, truly capturing the essence of what we saw. The watercolor she gave us was of Synergy II viewed from Nugget. We were totally surprised and thrilled to have such a memento that we will cherish forever.

It was our final dinner together before we said our goodbyes. At the beginning of this blog I used the word bittersweet. Tom and I have enjoyed traveling with Charlie and Stella and feel fortunate that we have made new friends that we will continue to be in contact. We are also hopeful that we will sail with them at some future date. We wish them a safe return to their home in NC and look forward to our next meeting.


Before retiring for the evening we tried to Skype Scott, Melissa, Doris, Jack, and Bill/Jackie. We were successful with only linking up with Bill and Jackie and had a great conversation. We look forward to seeing them when get to their neck of the woods around Cocoa Beach, FL

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