We have been “on the move northward up the ICW“ for the past week!
Have met some really nice fellow cruisers during our travels! Jeff and Sandy Bacon, s/v Manatee with whom we first met in Vero Beach City Marina. They were gracious enough to teach Bunny how to use the “Aquamap” app on her IPad, then took us on a provisioning run at their home port the MBYC!
We also met up with Janet and Bill Brown again during our stop over at Southport. They were gracious hosts with which we enjoyed a nice evening, dinner at a local restaurant and then back to their house where Bill helped Bunny get her IPad backed up and previewed the Aquamap app. Bill was really impressed by what the app could do and how easy it was to use!
Some of our stops have included: Osprey Marina, Myrtle Beach Yacht Club, Southport Village Harbor Marina, Wrightsville Beach, where we are spending the night in an anchorage with 8 other sailboats riding out major thunderstorms!
Attached are a few pictures from our last few days. One thing we have learned during this trip is that we have really been blessed
To have been able to experience this lifestyle and meet so many great people with whom we can share our lives with, even if it is only for a short time or until we see them again “down the line”!

May 15, we stopped at Jacksonville Beach Marina in Florida. As they were the local dealer for Raymarine electronics we stop there to get our chart Potter and auto pilot fixed. They got our chart plotter working much better than it was but still were on able to repair the auto pilot☹️... Captain Muttley did enjoy the trips to shore at this stop!
We continued moving north and during our travels (low tide)we ran aground right before entering fernandina beach. Our goal for this day was to make Cumberland Island at St. Mary’s however we decided to anchor off the paper plant in Fernandina add an Anchorage recommended to us by our friend Dean from s/v Autumn Borne. He was correct in two ways: that it was a good Anchorage, and there was a little stinky there! The paper plant really had a indescribable oder!
I also discovered we had a stowaway a board! That morning when I went out to check our anchor I Discovered “Freddy” the frog on deck eating bugs! He apparently has been with us since we started our trip (see-picture)
After leaving Fernandina and heading north we were soon approached by the US Coast Guard , A nuclear sub was coming out of Kings bay Sub Base with a Navy escort and they had to clear the channel of all boats. They asked us to wait out the passing in the Cumberland Island anchorage area which we did for approximately an hour and a half.
We finally pulled into our dock at Jekyll Harbor Marina where we spent the night awaiting a high tide to pass through Jekyll Creek. Today with our chart plotter acting up our boat buddy Lief Lomeland, s/v Freyja took the lead taking us to our present anchorage off Dolbow Island To stage for our passage tomorrow morning at high Tide through the little mud river.

Today we left Vero beach, what a great place! We met many new friends there and hooked up with the crew of s/v Autumn Borne.
We met a fellow cruiser John Barbera who has been in Vero for almost two years! He drove us all everywhere we needed to go, what a great person! his new engine is scheduled to come in from California next week allowing him to continue with his cruising plans! We wish him the best and hope to see him “down the line”.
We also rafted with two great people Dede and Cambren and had a wonderful evening chatting and enjoying a shot or two of some great Tequila!
Our friend Lief Lomeland from s/v Frey’s finally caught up with us here after coming from the west coast of Florida across Lake okeechobee ! We are now doing the “boat buddy” thing traveling north together.
This morning while trying to leave our mooring ball we found our mooring line had gotten wrapped up in our mooring ball lines! With a little help from a local kayaker Diane we got things untangled!
So.... northwards we go!

Well, today we found out why Vero beach is called Velcro Beach by the cruising community! It is such a hard place to leave. We found out that we are not the exception, upon arrival after coming around the tip of Florida and putting 88 hours on our engine it was time for an engine oil change and fuel filter change before continuing on northward. I changed the fuel filters and Lost prime on the fuel system! After two days of working on the system I ended up calling in a mechanic, who could not arrive until next week. We were scheduled to leave tomorrow with Dean and Susan our sailing buddies. Sooo we are now extending our stay at Velcro Beach!
Tonight we enjoyed a wonderful fresh salad complements of our cruising friend John Barbera s/v Spirit another long timer here at Velcro! To go along with the fresh salad Bunny cooked up some delicious tuna steaks! We then sat back in the comfort of our cockpit to watch mother nature’s never ending wonders as heavy thunderstorms hit this area! It’s nice to be safely tied to a mooring when conditions take this kind of a turn!
We also received updates from a few of our “West coast” cruising friends Lief and Diane & Greg.
Lief is currently transienting the Lake Okeechobee shortcut to the east coast. Diane is in South Carolina returning from a drive home to NJ to visit with her mother. Greg is preparing s/v Abagail Grace for Their departure north up the ICW scheduled to start this coming Wednesday.
We could be traveling with different cruising friends if our luck doesn’t change!
It certainly is true that you can’t make plans when cruising!😁

Well, continuing with our trip north we left our slip in Crandon Park Marina Miami with our water and fuel tanks filled up. Captain Muttley even got to go ashore after a week on the boat, He really appreciated that and took full advantage of the many sweet spots he found was sniffing around, oh the life of a dog!
We headed out Biscayne channel into the ocean where we caught the jetstream for a 72 nautical mile hop up to Lake Worth Inlet. We had A nice 7.5 knt sail until about 1700 hrs When the wind changed and we were out of the golf stream. Or speed dropped to 4 kn and we had to roll the sail in As the winds were coming out of the Northeast and on our nose. We slogged along the next several hours in “lumpy” seas with 3+ ft waves on our beam, It was at this time that we really got to appreciate the weight and size of this boat! We also learned that there are many things that we need to secure it better when we go to sea as we had a lot of picking up to do when we finally drop the hook. We finally pulled into Lake Worth Inlet at about 2100 hrs And with the excellent directions provided by our sailing buddy Dean we found our anchorage and dropped the hook. After a celebratory glass of wine and some hors d’oeuvres we crashed until 0700 hrs!

After leaving Marco island yesterday we headed south along the south west coast of Florida to the little shark River. we lost all cell communications from southern Marco Island until we entered Florida bay by Marathon a 21 hour gap in cell service! This Was not a warm and fuzzy in case we had mechanical issues but everything ran fine!
Today was a great day, 43nm, most under sail with motor assist! 1600 hrs, anchor down @ N24 41.708/W081 07.079, and wine in hand! Marathon! Some pictures of wildlife along the way!