Check out my first ever tuna catch! (Tunny, not great eating but still fun)

We pulled in to Charleston on Tuesday afternoon and docked at the Charleston City Marina. Harry flew home in the morning, I stayed around to make arrangements for a few repairs and then rented a car and drove home.

Once Brian is out of school on the 10th we will resume the trip. We will spend a day or two in Myrtle Beach and then head for the Chesapeake.

Left Islamorada, FL yesterday morning around 7am. Combination of sail, motor, and motor sail had us 10 miles of the coast of Ft. Pierce, FL at 2pm today. NOAA says this north wind will not shift until tomorrow so we pulled in to Ft. Pierce and the City Marina where we will stay the night (too many hours being put on this motor, I'd really like it to last). I'm thinking we will get an early start tomorrow and head for St. Augustine as planned but... maybe we will just explore this area tomorrow and skip St. Augustine. I love having loose plans! I just need to stop somewhere and get Harry back to Virginia on the 30th so he can play golf with Roger and David.

I have seen two sunrises in two days. If you know me you know that means one of two things, playing golf or sailing through the night.

Food (check), water (check), batteries are charged (check), crew is clean (Uncle Harry showered) and the boat is clean inside and out. Ok, the forward head did not get unclogged but there are only two of us so I think we can share one. High tide tomorrow is at 6:55am and we will get started soon after. We are expecting light winds, 5-10kn directly on our tail with the gulf stream pushing us with a couple kn to boot. This will be the story for the next two to three days and we should be in St. Augustine on Sunday with enough time to enjoy the sites and sounds. We will be doing 4 hours on/4 hours off which I think gets pretty tiring after 48 hours or so.

I'm going to miss the Keys but at the same time looking forward to a season on the Chesapeake. Castle Harbour Marina is in Chester, MD, just on the northeast side of the Bay Bridge. Right next to Kent Narrows, not far from Rock Hall, and directly across from Annapolis and Baltimore. And through the narrows we can get to St. Michaels, Caimbridge, Oxford, and the heart of the eastern shore. In four or five hours sail we can get up to Uncle Harry's place on Grove Point. Should be a great summer.

Ok, Atlantic Ocean here we come, with some ICW for brief rest times.

Uncle Harry and I will be flying to Tampa tomorrow and driving a rental car to Sarasota. We will stay in a hotel and then visit with Aunt Eileen and Uncle Sam Wednesday around lunchtime. We will then drive to Islamorada, provision, fix the forward head (always something to fix, clogged outlet hose this time), and shove off Friday morning headed for the Chesapeake. I only have Uncle Harry until the 30th, hoping to get to around Charleston, SC, and then fly home but we will stop wherever we are in order to get him home. I'll come back with Brian (my son who is just finishing his freshman year at Berklee College of Music) around May 11, we will visit his friend in Myrtle Beach, SC, and get to Castle Harbour Marina in Chester, MD in another two weeks or so, depending on weather and whim.

This blog is an effort to keep a few people in the loop concerning where we are and our loose plans in hope that they may join us somewhere. I may try to add some interesting tidbits but I may not, depends on my mood and how much the boat is bouncing around, and whether or not we have cell phone coverage or WiFi.

I'm very excited about this trip. We mostly stayed inside the ICW on the way down last November and it was enjoyable but the wear and tear on the engine worries me and it's just not fun much of the time. There are several places I want to visit and we will spend more time visiting this time around but we will go outside much of the time and only come in for a rest or to see what we want to see. I have been reading everything I can and even have a book describing all of the inlets from Miami to the Chesapeake. Oh yeah, and we will stay inside for as long as it takes to miss any bad weather or even unfavorable wind. I thoroughly believe that schedules are the enemy of cruising (if not life itself)!