Thomas Leigh Sabbatical - June 2011 to January 2012

Vessel Name: Thomas Leigh
Vessel Make/Model: Capital Yachts/Gulf 32
Hailing Port: Edmonton, AB
Crew: Marcel, Cheryl, Dorian & Taris
About: Family of four - son, Dorian (age 16) and daughter, Taris (age 12), two shih tzu (Chloe and Tia)
Extra: We are about to embark on a 6 month sabbattical that will see us starting in Sidney, BC and ending in Florida!
10 December 2011 | Indiantown, FL
09 December 2011 | Indiantown, FL
08 December 2011 | Vero Beach, Florida
01 December 2011 | Melbourne, Florida
28 November 2011 | Titusville, Florida
25 November 2011 | St. Augustine, Florida
19 November 2011 | Fernandina Beach, FLORIDA - Yes FLORIDA
17 November 2011 | Brunswick, Georgia
11 November 2011 | Charleston, SC
09 November 2011 | Dewees Creek, SC
06 November 2011 | Carolina Beach, NC
03 November 2011 | Mile Hammock, NC
30 October 2011 | River Dunes Marina/Broad Creek/Neuse River/North Carolina
27 October 2011 | Belhaven, North Carolina
24 October 2011 | Dismal Swamp Visitor Centre
22 October 2011 | Hampton, Virginia
17 October 2011 | Deltaville, Virginia
16 October 2011 | Solomon's Island, Maryland
11 October 2011 | Cambridge, MD
Recent Blog Posts
10 December 2011 | Indiantown, FL

Homeward Bound

The morning the kids, dogs and I left for the airport it was cloudy and I knew we were definitely in for some rain. We packed up the car and headed towards Stuart before getting on the I95 north to Orlando. By the time we hit Stuart, the rain came. I got on the I95 and ended up having to pull off [...]

09 December 2011 | Indiantown, FL

Our Final Destination

Stuart was our last stop before we arrived at Indiantown where we would be leaving Thomas Leigh for the winter. We had all intentions of either getting a mooring ball or anchoring in Stuart as we would just be there for one night and hadn't planned on touring the town. We phoned to inquire about getting [...]

08 December 2011 | Vero Beach, Florida

Taris Turns 13!

We travelled about 35 miles down to Vero Beach and were escorted into the mooring field by a couple dolphins swimming alongside our bow. For as many dolphins we have seen on this entire trip, the minute you yell "Dolphins", the kids still come running. They are still amazed at watching them swim through [...]

01 December 2011 | Melbourne, Florida

To the Universe and Beyond

After much thought, Taris decided she wanted to go to Universal Studios instead of Disney (I guess because she's been to Disney three times already) so we headed into Orlando the morning of November 29th to spend the day at Universal to celebrate her 13th birthday.

28 November 2011 | Titusville, Florida

Hangin' Out With Manatees

Do you ever hear a word and get a song in your head? Well that happened to me the day we left St. Augustine. It wasn’t a word that someone said but one I read. The name of a boat in fact . And after reading it, I had spent the next couple hours at the helm singing “Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya. [...]

25 November 2011 | St. Augustine, Florida

The Heavens Opened Up and Out Poured The Sunshine

The morning we left Fernandina Beach, the heavens had opened up and in poured the sunshine and warm weather. It was wonderful to be travelling our first full day in Florida in our tank tops and shorts rather than jeans and sweaters. They don’t call this the Sunshine State for nothing.

Homeward Bound

10 December 2011 | Indiantown, FL
Cheryl/rain, rain and more rain
The morning the kids, dogs and I left for the airport it was cloudy and I knew we were definitely in for some rain. We packed up the car and headed towards Stuart before getting on the I95 north to Orlando. By the time we hit Stuart, the rain came. I got on the I95 and ended up having to pull off at a rest spot for an hour hoping it would subside. After arriving in Orlando, stopping at the Florida Mall to get some additional luggage and then at Petsmart to get a bigger kennel for the dogs, we arrived safely at the Orlando Airport. We had an uneventful flight except for the last hour when I ended up with a headache and nausea. Long day! Everything went fine as we cleared customs until I was asked "Maam, why haven't you declared your dogs on your customs declaration card? Do you know there is a $1300 fine for not declaring animals when you come into Canada?" At that point the tears started rolling down my face. I hadn't even thought of it. In the end they gave me a warning! Thank goodness. Nanny, Poppy, Cassandra and Uncle Trevor were waiting at the airport for us. We were finally home. Safe and sound. Just waiting on Marcel to arrive on the 17th.

Picture - dock at Stuart

Our Final Destination

09 December 2011 | Indiantown, FL
Cheryl/drizzly, cloudy
Stuart was our last stop before we arrived at Indiantown where we would be leaving Thomas Leigh for the winter. We had all intentions of either getting a mooring ball or anchoring in Stuart as we would just be there for one night and hadn't planned on touring the town. We phoned to inquire about getting a mooring ball about two hours before reaching Stuart but there was only one left and it was on a "first come, first serve" basis. We were not optimistic that it would still be there so figured we would be anchoring. As we were heading up the St. Lucie River towards Stuart, we noticed our speed had slowed down, even with the head sail out. Marcel chalked it up to the current so we kept on trucking. It was around 4 pm and we were starting towards the last two bridges before we hit the anchorage. One had a 65 foot clearance but the other one had to be opened. We headed toward it but the closer we got our speed dropped drastically. We figured we needed to check it out so turned around to attempt to anchor. There were a couple marinas in site when we turned around so I got on the phone quickly to book us in for the night. We figured if we had to do some checks on the engine it would be easier to do it at the dock. We arrived at the Loggerhead Marina safely for the night and soon realized it was the marina that Topaz (Marsha and Tony) were staying the winter at. We had a great little reunion with them that night. They both looked very relaxed and seemed to have settled into the community there.

Marcel by this time had changed the fluid filter for the engine and everything seemed to be good. We got up the next morning early and headed toward Indiantown. We hadn't gone about 5 miles when the engine appeared to be having the same problem. We had about 23 more miles to go to Indiantown and with that we had to go through a lock. We debated what to do. Marcel played around with the gears a bit and we kept going. The problem seemed to come and go. We figured if we could get through the lock, we had a better chance of getting Boat U.S. to tow us to Indiantown rather than back to Stuart if we happened to breakdown. In the end, we arrived safely in Indiantown.

We spent that night picking up our rental car and attempting to pack everything! What a job! And it poured rain that night.

Picture of Marcel and I before we left Vero beach

Taris Turns 13!

08 December 2011 | Vero Beach, Florida
Cheryl/sunny & warm
We travelled about 35 miles down to Vero Beach and were escorted into the mooring field by a couple dolphins swimming alongside our bow. For as many dolphins we have seen on this entire trip, the minute you yell "Dolphins", the kids still come running. They are still amazed at watching them swim through the water and alongside the boat. We will definitely miss this.

Vero Beach is a boater's dream and we all decided it had the best mooring field of all the places we had stopped on this entire trip. It is very well protected and all the mooring balls are extremely close to the dock. There is a free bus right by the marina that will take you all over Vero Beach and the marina was a short walk to the Atlantic Ocean and plenty of beautiful beaches. We decided we were going to spend some time there and celebrate Taris' 13th birthday.

Because it is so popular however, you might be tied up to a mooring ball with two other boats. We ended up alongside "Searcher" who is crewed by Steve who has been living on his boat for the past ten years. He had been held up in Vero Beach for the past month waiting repairs on the boat before heading over to The Bahamas. The next day "Queen" arrived. She is a powerboat which is crewed by Sandie and Steve from Wildwood, NJ. We had met them at Titusville the day before we went to Universal. They spent one day at the dock and them rafted up beside us. They had travelled the intracoastal on a sailboat 25 years ago.

A couple days before Taris' birthday she put in her request of what she wanted for supper. This was quite the meal and it took us all day to make but was well worth it. It consisted of stuffed jalapeno peppers, spinach salad, double stuffed potatoes, garlic cheese bread, bbq ribs and brownie pie for dessert. Gone are the days that my kids would have been happy to have pizza for their birthdays. Thank goodness!!! I am so glad we raised kids who can appreciate a fantastic meal! After supper, Steve (Searcher) and Sandie & Steve (Queen) came over to help us sing happy birthday to Taris and celebrate with brownie cake. Oh what a night!!

We were going to leave Vero Beach on Dec. 7th and head towards our final destination (Stuart) before arriving in Indiantown but Indiantown didn't have a spot to put us until the ninth so we spent another day in Vero Beach.

While we were there we got to explore the beautiful beaches, do a little back to school shopping, tour the huge craft show that was at the local park and witness our first Christmas parade boat show. The Christmas season is definitely in the air down here but we find it very hard to get into the spirit as of yet due to the fact there is no snow! You can take some Canadians out of the Canadian winter but you can't take the Canadian winter out of the Canadians (haha).

The only thing that we did not enjoy about Vero was the night the wind total died and the noseeums came out. The next day the kids and Marcel looked like they had the measles. They didn't seem to phase me. Marcel tells me it's his french blood. It is sweeter than mine!! I am grateful for that!!

To the Universe and Beyond

01 December 2011 | Melbourne, Florida
Cheryl/windy
After much thought, Taris decided she wanted to go to Universal Studios instead of Disney (I guess because she's been to Disney three times already) so we headed into Orlando the morning of November 29th to spend the day at Universal to celebrate her 13th birthday.

Marcel and I went to Universal back in 1993 so being there again brought back lots of memories. We had a blast on all the rides and decided "The Simpson" virtual ride was the best. We had lunch at Mel's Diner, toured the streets, listened to live bands and just had a wonderful family day. Taris had a great time and I know she will always remember her 13th birthday.

We returned back to Thomas Leigh that night absolutely beat and decided to spend one more night in Titusville on a mooring ball to recoop from the long day. We had about another 70 miles to go to our next major stop Vero Beach. The morning we left Titusville, we decided we would anchor around Eau Galle or Melbourne for the night before proceeding onto Vero Beach the following day. Marsha and Tony (Topaz) had spent one night with us at Titusville before moving further south. They had stopped in Vero for several days and told us it was a great place for a couple days layover. We travelled about 35 miles that day and ended up anchoring in Melborne just off the intracoastal in about 6 feet of water. We double checked what the tides would be doing the night we were there and realized shortly after we arrived that according to the tide tables on our chart plotter, the water was going to drop about 2.5 feet. We debated whether to move because we figured that we would probably be hitting the bottom by the time it was low tide. We decided to sit and wait a couple hours to see what our depth read and while we were waiting we realized that the tides had absolutely no affect on the Indian River (which was where we were). There was only one other boat anchored with us that night and boy did it blow! I don't know if I am just getting more comfortable with our anchoring in six feet of water or because there was nothing to run into if we dragged, but I slept quite well that night despite the amount of wind.

We woke the next morning to a slight breeze, cooler temperature but sun shining brightly down on us. I was back to my sweater, foul weather jacket and mitts at the helm the morning we left but it only last a couple hours and I had to start peeling the layers off again.

Hangin' Out With Manatees

28 November 2011 | Titusville, Florida
Cheryl/sunny/warm
Do you ever hear a word and get a song in your head? Well that happened to me the day we left St. Augustine. It wasn’t a word that someone said but one I read. The name of a boat in fact . And after reading it, I had spent the next couple hours at the helm singing “Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya. Oh Lord Kumbaya”. That was the name of the boat “Kumbaya”. It was moored behind us at St. Augustine and then we anchored behind it at Daytona Beach. Couldn’t get it out of my head!

Anyways, we had an uneventful trip down to Daytona Beach. We anchored just off the ICW along with about 12 other boats for the night. Topaz was there and so was Summer Wind to name a few that we knew. We got up early the next morning and off we ventured down to Titusville. There was a wide body of water we had to travel down for about 8 miles that we were not looking forward to as Topaz was about an hour ahead of us and they said the wind was roaring at 28 miles an hour and there was a bit of a chop. We debated about finding a stop along the way and wait but the forecast was suppose to be worse the next two days and we just wanted to at that point get to Titusville. In the end Mosquite Lagoon was nothing, it was when we passed through the Haulover Canal and arrived on the Indian River that the wind picked up. Actually we had a nice motorsail across but when we turned down the chop was what picked up. In the end we arrived in Titusville around 4 pm and tied ourselves off on a mooringball. We decided to pay for four nights as this was where we were going to rent a car and take the kids to Universal Studios in Orlando for Taris’ 13th birthday.

The next morning Marcel dinghied in to pay and after he got back we heard from Ben and Jane (Old Rosie). They had arrived in Florida about 10 days before us. They had gotten themselves settled at Harbourtown Marina (near Cape Canaveral) until they fly home for Christmas. They said they would pick us up at 1 pm and take us to Cocoa Beach for the day. We got ready and Marcel, Taris and I rowed in in the dinghy while Dorian kayaked in. We really need a bigger dinghy to carry us all along with a motor. Rowing in (while good exercise) can be a bit of a hike. As we arrived, we were quite surprised to find out the marina had quite the collection of manatees floating in the harbour. Someone was washing their boat with a hose and there were about five manatees trying to drink the water. What a site! Got lots of pictures. Marcel and I had the opportunity to scuba dive with manatees back in Florida in 1993 but the kids had never seen these gentle creatures before so it was quite the opportunity.

We were reunited with Ben and Jane and proceeded to Cocoa Beach. What a spot ! It went on for miles. There was a huge wharf that went out into the water for what seemed like forever. We were FINALLY seeing the beautiful beaches and water that we had been dreaming about this entire trip. Ben and Jane brought a picnic lunch along with a bottle of champagne which we were able to toast our “arrival into Florida and survival of the ICW”. It was great to see them again. They took us to Ron Jon’s (apparently the BIGGEST, most FAMOUS surf shop in the U.S.) and then we went out for supper. They drove us back to the marina in Titusville, we said our goodbyes (for now), we figure we’ll see each other again sometime here as they are leaving Old Rosie down in Florida as well. We then proceeded to row back to Thomas Leigh IN THE DARK! It took us what seemed like an eternity to find her. We went through the entire anchorage and finally found our way back into the mooring field where she was waiting for us (along with Tia and Chloe barking their heads off at that point).

This morning we woke up and decided if we were going to spend the day at Universal tomorrow we didn’t want a repeat of last night when we arrived back late so we headed into the marina and tied up to the dock. More manatees circled our boat this morning (what a treat). Well we have rented a car so will be on our way bright and early to Orlando tomorrow morning to hang out with “Harry Potter” at Universal Studios

Picture of Manatees trying to get a drink!

The Heavens Opened Up and Out Poured The Sunshine

25 November 2011 | St. Augustine, Florida
Cheryl/typical Florida weather - thank goodness
The morning we left Fernandina Beach, the heavens had opened up and in poured the sunshine and warm weather. It was wonderful to be travelling our first full day in Florida in our tank tops and shorts rather than jeans and sweaters. They don’t call this the Sunshine State for nothing.

Our next big stop was in St. Augustine which we knew we would spend one night anchored out before reaching this destination. This spot was at Sister Creek just before the bridge. We had a quiet night other than when the tugs/freighters came by to go through the bridge. The bridge operator had told us we were anchored in a good spot and we would have no problems but when it is 2 in the morning and you hear the ringing of bells from the bridge going up and you look out to see a big spot light on you you start to question if you were far enough out of the channel. We were by a long shot, I just had to get used to the idea of seeing the bright lights on me as they made the turn towards the bridge. In the end, the bridge only opened three times during that evening.

We set out the next morning knowing we would have the current against us for awhile. However, we did not expect it against us the entire trip down to St. Augustine. 4.5 knots an hour seems like a snail’s pace but we arrived safely and tied up at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. We ran into Caribbean Soul on the way in. They had done part of their voyage from Beaufort, SC on the outside. We decided to spend some time visiting this beautiful city. It is officially the oldest city in America and from what we’ve read, the oldest in North America. It is quite the spot and after spending the last two days here (two at the dock and tonight on a mooring ball), I think it is my favorite city from North Carolina down. The great thing is the minute you get off the boat and up out of the marina, you are right in the middle of old St. Augustine. This place has character and history and LOTS of it! It has a huge Spanish theme going on here. Yesterday we visited the Castillo De San Marcos National Park. There is a really neat fort here (Dorian was in his glory) complete with canons and everything. Afterwards we strolled through the downtown market. They had the waterfront all decorated with lights for Christmas. Quite the site! Today I took a cab to Walmart to do a provision stockup as we are heading out tomorrow. We got tied onto the mooring ball and Marcel and the kids went back into town. They have a courtesy boat here that will pick you right up at your boat and take you to the dock so you don’t have to pull down your dinghy.

We figure we will be on the road two more nights before we end up in Titusville. We only have 210 more miles left before we make the turn up the St. Lucie River to Indiantown. Oh Topaz just showed up and I think are leaving tomorrow as well so we’ll have a buddy boat again for a couple days.

Decided to stay one more night on the mooring ball. Needed a day that we did absolutely nothing (LOL). Well the wind wasn’t cooperating either!

Picture of St. Augustine

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