South Florida Vibes

Pictures: the beach at Oleta River State Park, North Miami, with bilingual signage; Heidi and Digna Meija in Boca Raton; flowers blooming in Stuart (I have no idea what they are but they were pretty); kayaking in the mangroves at Oleta River

They are trying to keep some of the natural wonder in Florida – the slogan for the State Parks is “the Real Florida”. It is working, to some extent. We are anchored right now in a bay just a quarter mile from the Intracoastal Waterway where there are mangroves three-quarter of the way around us. Ken is catching small fish and we are watching other thinner fish jumping clear out of the water.  This is the Oleta River State Park, Florida’s “largest urban park”. Just behind the mangroves rise a row of 25 or 30 story buildings. Last night we were visited by a huge Met Life blimp, the third different blimp we’ve seen this week. They must have a schedule so the blimps don’t bump into each other!

So we have alternately busy days and quiet days. It depends on the day of the week, as weekend days are busy everywhere you go here. And it depends on where we choose to anchor.

In Fort Lauderdale we anchored in Lake Sylvia. We have been here before and we know it is out of the wind and good holding ground. When we arrived it was very full of anchored boats. We were on the far side, close to shore because of the lack of anchoring room. We headed out to a favorite “watering hole”, a bar called the Southport. However, our dinghy route in the canal system was blocked by police boats. We tied up to a city dock about three blocks from the Southport and found that there was a car in the canal near the city dock with a body in it.  (The next day the paper reported that it was a 52 year old man and the car was a white Mercedes convertible. No other information about how it got there.)

The following day a woman came out onto the back lawn of her large house on the edge of Lake Sylvia and asked us to move. She was having guests later in the day and we evidently were not something she wanted her friends to have to see! No use in making an issue out of it; we moved. Anyway, most of the boats that were here the day before had left, probably because it is good weather to cross to the Bahamas.

On our third night in Lake Sylvia we had a car alarm or house alarm going off almost the entire night. It’s time to leave!

In the past ten days we have visited with several friends. We stopped in Stuart, which is near Rio where we were in our last blog. We called Tom Coleman, a Marblehead friend who now has homes in the Stuart area and Newburyport. He also has a boat in Florida. We had a good time catching up on his news. Stuart also has a very nice marina with inexpensive moorings for rent and very clean showers and a laundry. The city is quite interesting; we will try and stop there and stay a little longer on our way back.

We visited with Olga Nohe in Delray Beach. She picked us up near where we had anchored and took us to her house. She and Brian moved there 10 years ago from Cohasset. We had a great visit and enjoyed hearing about the Nohe "children" and getting an update on the new headphone business Brian is involved in, working with ”50 Cent”, the rapper.  The next day, in Boca Raton, I biked to Florida Atlantic University where Digna Meija, a former co-worker at Boston University, now works. She showed me around the Engineering Dept. and we got caught up on what’s been happening since we saw her three years ago.

In Lake Sylvia we found Jessica and Dave, new friends that we last saw just before Halloween when we were all in Chesapeake City and heading south. It was good to see them and find out how they have been. They are from New Brunswick and this is their first trip down the East Coast.

We expect to stay in the mangroves and quiet state parks as long as we can before we head back towards Ft. Lauderdale to meet Tammywhen she flies in there and has a five-day visit with us. We have our kayak off the top deck and have used it every day.  There is a rental place here for bikes and kayaks so we find their orange kayaks circling our bay off and on. There are canals and small rivers to explore, and a university campus on the next peninsula has bike trails and nature trails. The state park beach is beautiful and the water here is aqua-colored. We’ll be visiting Miami with Tammy; it’s just 10 miles from where we are now. Of course there are the South Beach and Little Havana highlights to catch, but we also hope to get to the Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne to balance out the city with the “Real Florida”!

Slowing Down the Pace

Pictures: Ken's new bike, in front of the Vero Beach City Marina showers/laundry/lounge building; our neighbor in Rio, a great blue heron looking pale in the flash; our boat at the Rio dock; kids playing in the surf at Vero Beach (Christmas can't seem to come soon enough down here -- they began playing Christmas music on the radio before Thanksgiving)

We have spent the past 10 days mainly in two places: Vero Beach, on the Florida coast, and the Rio section of Jensen Beach, on the St. Lucie River. This is so different from the schedule we had in getting to mid-coast Florida where we would be in 8 different places in 10 days and at first it seems that we are slacking. But no, we are in warm, mild weather and we don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time in the next few weeks.

Vero Beach City Marina is chock full of boats at their mooring field and their marina. We ask to be at a mooring and we are rafted with a 42 ft. Nordhaven from New Hampshire.  Our neighbors are a nice retired couple who live in Boxford, Mass. We are also following a group of boats from Annapolis, Maryland, who we first met in Cumberland Island. One of the “ring-leaders” of this group is a couple we met three years ago on a Tayana 37 (like we had at the time). Mark and Julie introduced us to the crews of three other boats and we hung out with them quite a bit at Vero Beach. Mark and Julie will need to head back to Annapolis, by car, as Julie (an Englishwoman) is having her interview and test for U.S. citizenship in two weeks.  The others are headed for the Bahamas – they may already be there as I type this. So our newfound group won’t be with us after Vero Beach; we end our stay there with a big Happy Hour party at Waldo’s on the beach side of town.

Ken and I spent quite a lot of time walking and alternately bikeriding while we were in Vero (and also in Titusville earlier) since we just have one bike. So Ken gave in and decided he would like to get a folding bike of his own. He now has a shiny black Schwinn with a comfy seat and cool ergonomic grips. We had a long ride back from the bike shop in the downtown part of Vero after he bought it, over a bridge, into the wind, but it was a good test ride.  Another ride took us to a town park and beach where we took a long beach walk, only the third time we’ve been on a beach on this trip.

Before we left Vero we introduced ourselves to Steve, a solo boater in a trawler at the dock. He’s from Duxbury (it does help with meeting people when you can read the town they’re from on the stern of their boat). He’s done the trip to Florida from Duxbury eleven times!

In Rio we have friends we met on our first Florida cruise who get us a space at a dock where a marina and restaurant used to be. Hurricanes had helped to demolish the buildings, which have been recently cleared off the land. Other problems have kept the dock space pretty much empty. We join our friends (working on fixing up a “new” boat they have just bought) and 5 or 6 other boats (mostly rehab projects). There is also a launch here that is used to access a schooner, anchored out in the St. Lucie River. The schooner is a former freight hauling boat that worked in the Buzzards Bay and Islands area, in Massachusetts. It was named LILY OF TISBURY and is wooden, and not very old. It is now just called LILY and has Maine as a hail. The current owners take out paying customers and leave from Stuart and surrounding towns. Today they have it at a festival on Hutchinson Island nearby.

So we are running errands in a car for the first time on our cruise, with our hosts Chris and Kevin Buckley. We got to meet Kevin’s brother who is visiting and is taking side trips each day for serious bird watching. He twice rented an airplane to get him to isolated spots to find birds that have been elusive. We finished a few projects that we just didn’t get to before we left home in October. We ate some good meals with the Buckleys. And we sat out a torrential rainstorm over the past 36 hours that left our dinghy three-quarters full of water (that’s a lot of water!) and a lot of stuff wet in our boat because somehow several large windows were open during the first night of the storm. We officially had more than 7.5 inches of rain (the report came in before the storm had ended).  It’s the first daytime rain we’ve had in six weeks.

We are still loving the wildlife here in central Florida. We saw manatees surfacing by our boat in Vero Beach, we have fish jumping clear out of the water in the dock area we are at now, and there is a great blue heron sitting on a piling that’s 12 feet from our stern each evening.  We have a new Audubon Florida guide now to help us learn more about what we are seeing

More Fascinating Nature, More Friendly Humans

Pictures: Rowers in Eau Gallie basin at sunset; PISCATOR leaving St. Mary's alongside us (the owners are from Vermont and took 18 years to finish the boat after buying a bare hull);large manatee backside, as big as a dinghy, as it does the "dead-man's-float" near the dock in Titusville; view from our boat of the St. Augustine waterfront with the moon about to set overhead (we were very close - this is not a telephoto shot); punch servers at the day-before-Thanksgiving party in St. Mary's (we lost all the pictures of the yummy food and boaters waiting to eat, sorry!)

Thanksgiving Dinner in St. Marys, Georgia was so much better than we had expected. We were assigned to cook a vegetable side dish, and each other boat crew was bringing one side-dish (or dessert or relish, etc.). Several townspeople cooked turkey and made gravy and stuffing and it all was assembled at the Riverview Hotel. Being a hotel, the seating was very comfortable, the buffet tables held warm and delicious food, and the camaraderie between boaters was an added dimension. We were about one-third down the line (there were estimated to be 210 people served).

The night before there had been a dock party with Painkillers Punch mix and ice provided (BYO for the rum). We could have attended an oyster roast after the party but opted out. Other gatherings were held in the days before we arrived. And there was an organizational VHF “meeting” each morning of Thanksgiving Week that you could listen in on and contribute to from your radio on your boat. It works like an old-fashioned party-line with announcements and requests and things for sale.

We met a couple from Scituate (who are traveling with two other boats from Scituate), a couple from Marion, and people from Vermont and Maryland, our tablemates at dinner. Just before dinner we were set-upon by a drifting sailboat in a difficult windy situation in the river. We tried to get another anchor down for the boat since the crew was ashore. They eventually got back and straightened things out but then in moving to a new spot to anchor, they went aground for several more hours. In the end we got to talk with the crew and they were a very nice family from Jacksonville, Florida. The mom is a veterinarian and their 13 (ish) year-old son was outgoing and not too embarrassed by all the commotion.

Since Thanksgiving we have bought fresh bread and veggies at the Fernandina Beach Farmer’s Market, have kayaked to a Jacksonville City Park – an island with walking trails and fishing docks, have sat with cruising people and tested micro brews while watching the Patriots in St. Augustine, have watched manatees lazily feeding on underwater grasses in Titusville, and have enjoyed the company of a couple from Middleton, Mass whom we’ve seen at several stops on the Waterway this week (we chatted some again last night when they stopped at our boat, moored next to their boat in Titusville). We also crossed paths with a family from Marshfield who have brought their two children along and are homeschooling while they sail and cruise.

Today we ended up in a wonderful “basin” just off of the Indian River section of the ICW. The area is called Eau Gallie and is part of Melbourne. The basin is part of a river but there isn’t too much current and we are out of the wind. It’s not isolated; there are nice homes on the edges of the basin and two quiet marinas, but there are only 3 boats anchored in here and the wildlife is plentiful. One pelican is persistently dive-bombing into the water, several osprey are calling from rooftops and mast tips, a manatee is about to surface near our boat, and lots of different wading birds, the long-legged kind, are flying around us. There’s a park full of palm trees that we’ll dinghy to and walk through, back at the entrance to the basin. I haven’t seen any other boats moving in here except our dinghy and another dinghy. Then all of a sudden at 4:30 pm a rowing shell with four rowers and a coxswain passes us, then two eight-man shells. They continue to pass us every 10 minutes or so as they go up and down the river. We find another group of eight practicing on a dry-land rowing machine in the park. There is a banner there indicating that they are from Melbourne High School. This is a great stop!

Looking to Thanksgiving

Pictures: View from Up the Creek, as we have lunch in Hilton Head; Jessie, Roy and Bertha bringing groceries back to their boat in Charleston (Ken arrived with groceries the same way about 45 min later); CALIBOGUE waiting to leave for Daufuskie Island with commuters; horses on Cumberland Island

It seems to be time for counting up, our blessings and other mathematical accountings. We are very fortunate to have good health so far, the time to travel and see the East Coast up-close-and-personal, and to have good support back “home”. Justin is doing a good job watching our house, raking leaves, and providing tech support over the phone. Tammy has sent us some great music on CDs that entertain us and is planning on connecting with us in Florida next month. Pete calls a lot and fills us in on the Patriots’ exploits and other news.

Our numbers so far, in miles traveled, are about 1150. We have been gone for 6 weeks. We have put 180 hours, approximately, on the engine. If we cover about the same distance as our trip three years ago, which was 4400 miles, then we are one-quarter of the way, not counting stops for R & R.

Our time in Charleston was fun, staying at a marina there for a night, and connecting up with friends Roy and Bertha who arrived there a day before us on their boat. They had a visitor from Vermont, a niece who flew in for a week to sail with them and we all hung out together. Just before leaving, the sports field next to the marina was the staging area for a jazz procession, New Orleans style, honoring a local man who was important in the music scene and who had died recently. A large number of people turned out and the jazz that the musicians played while processing to a church for the funeral was wonderful.

We also stayed at a marina in Hilton Head Island; up to now we had anchored every night except in Charleston and HHI (and the free dock in Elizabeth City). The dockmaster loaned us an extra bike and we rode in a circle from the west side of the island, to the beach on the east, then down to the south and over a bridge and back, about 15 miles counting a few side trips. The marina property has a pub,” Up the Creek” and we were regular patrons for two days. And we got to talk with the crew of a 1919 wooden 60 ft. ferry that travels regularly to Daufuskie Island (home to some of the South Carolina Gullah people).

We’ve been in Georgia for the past 4 days, today on the border with Florida. In the area we traveled through, Georgia has lots of marshland, sea islands, and wildlife. We continue to see eagles almost every day, porpoises, osprey, blue herons, pelicans, egrets and today we are near Cumberland Island where there are wild horses grazing on grasses growing along the high tide line. We stopped at the National Park Service Monument Fort Frederica two nights ago and we were told that if the battle that took place there in the early 1700s had not gone well for the British we might all be speaking Spanish right now!

We will be having Thanksgiving in St. Mary’s, Georgia, two miles from Cumberland Island and three miles from Fernandina Beach, Florida (by boat). Some of the townspeople prepare turkey for any boaters in the area, and the boaters bring dishes they have prepared, all coordinated by a volunteer committee. There may be 150 people there. We hope our family and friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we’ll be back in touch in December.

Easy Traveling in the Carolinas

Pictures: the local doctor picks a name out of the hat for a raffle gift at a small pharmacy grand opening in Oriental, NC; surfer in the distance at Wrightsville Beach and a sanderling in the foreground; the beach at Capers Island, about 15 miles north of Charleston, SC; a view across the marsh grass at our last anchorage before Charleston

Finally I can write about something other than the weather. Because we are having a spell of less wind, though it is slightly colder than normal, it is easy to be outside without the windchill. The traveling is pretty straightforward. The Intracoastal Waterway is almost always straight, and the channel has been dredged in the difficult places; it doesn’t hurt that we have less draft with our Mainship than we had with our sailboat (just need 3’ or more of water) and we can go under some bridges without waiting for them to open. During this week while we were meeting no obstacles, we know of two boats that did go aground. Evidently the full moon was causing some unusually low water at low tide. Ken created a big wake for one of the boats, after the owner suggested it, and it worked in freeing the sailboat from the mud.

One of our best days was the stretch of ICW going through the Marine’s Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. There are maneuvers and training sessions in boats and helicopters to watch while you travel through. We anchored in a basin near the chopper takeoff/landing area and had time to slowly cook some ribs which we had for dinner with a great salad and caught a beautiful sunset. Then the Marine’s started night practice on takeoffs and landings in the helicopters. It was interesting to watch and nice to know they are not slacking in their training. They were done by 9:30 pm so it didn’t interrupt our sleep. There were 35 transient boats in the basin that night.

We got ashore at Wrightsville Beach, NC and walked to the ocean beach to see dozens of surfers catching some good sized waves. The young people there are evidently very outdoorsy as we saw one guy pedaling to the beach with his board under his arm and one girl with her board and her friends walking back over a bridge after surfing. The grocery clerk told us the locals enjoy doing without cars when they can. There is a very popular “Loop” that is 2.5 miles long and circles around near the beach for jogging.

Another walk we took was on Capers Island, South Carolina, where the state has set up a pier and dock for dinghies and you can walk to the ocean side of the island. There were lots of mosquitos but we moved fast and at the beach the light breeze kept them from landing. This area of South Carolina is pretty much wilderness with saltmarsh grass and only a few real land areas (“Low Country”), so a dock and a path were appreciated.

We are approaching Charleston, SC. We hope to sightsee a little, do some laundry and grocery shopping, and maybe get to see more of the boaters that we only chat with in passing. Most boaters stop here for a day or two and stay at one of the two city marinas.

In Rural North Carolina with No Phone

Pictures: North Carolina Welcome Center (on Dismal Swamp Canal) staff on Halloween; Alligator River Bridge, taken from the bridge of our boat; Ken catching up on the news at a wine bar in Elizabeth City; bald eagle on top of middle (dead) tree -- we saw about 6 eagles this day in the Dismal Swamp Canal

It’s no surprise that there is no phone coverage in this area, as there are very few homes, roads, electric lines, or any other sign of civilization. We are beset with bad weather, again, mostly high NE winds, but also some heavy rain. We are tucked into Slade Creek, maybe 30 miles inside the Outer Banks. The closest of the Banks seems to be Ocracoke, although we will never see that because when the weather gets better we will take a zig-zag route south and west toward Cape Fear and the NC/SC state line.

To entertain ourselves in this area (did I say no phones….no internet…) we have a lot of reading material, and we are listening to Channel 16 on the VHF, where there have been a few interesting dramas unfolding with tow boats who can’t find their targets, marina staff directing a boat into an invisible dock in the dark, etc. We also have AM and FM radio so can catch a college ball game or a NPR radio show now and then along with lots of country music! We did have radio coverage of the Patriots-Steelers game last weekend.

Since our last blog we have passed through Norfolk with all its huge Navy vessels and have transited the Dismal Swamp Canal, one of our favorite parts of this journey. We spent two nights of free dockage in Elizabeth City, NC. At this stop we met quite a few other boaters, including sailors from North of Montreal, two boats from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a sailboat single-hander, from Connecticut but who has Marblehead ties (he worked at Hood Sailmakers back in his younger days). We got invited on a tour of a trawler one night on an evening walk. The boat was only 3 feet longer than our boat, but had much more room due to its layout and not having side decks to get to the bow. When you’re sitting across the main salon from the owner and he is about 15’ away it is very unusual.

We are using up all of our cold-weather clothes, which we were well supplied with knowing how cold it was in November on our first trip. Warm slippers and hoodies are prized possessions on these cold mornings when we are not going anywhere. The main cabin heats up well when the sun is out; I’ve taken to calling it the Solarium. But when it’s cloudy and rainy it is more of a challenge to enjoy our space. We drink lots of tea and cocoa mid-day and have warm lunches.

Yesterday in our isolated creek anchorage I got Ken to launch the dinghy from where we store it in the cockpit and I took a long row into the side creeks. They were almost without wind even though the reports from the main river were of 20-25 knot winds and gusting higher. In almost an hour of rowing – in an inflatable dinghy this would be only about 2 miles covered – I saw one building, a fishing camp with dock, and a few birds and some jellyfish (freshwater ones?). I also drifted for a while. It was very relaxing.

As I post this we have just reached Oriental, NC, on the Neuse River after a 30 mile trip. There were a lot of boats out today since the weather was relatively better, but it was still a fairly rough and windy trip. The distinctive motor yacht Black Knight, an Eldridge-McGuiness design which we are familiar with, passed us en route.

Virginia and Six Hours of Warm 80-Degree-Weather

Pictures: pumpkins in the city park, Chesapeake City; view of a packed Back Creek, Annapolis, from a nature area with hurricane heights marked on the post; Ken changing oil in our Yanmar; banjo practice on a rainy day

We got treated to a Canadian “delicacy” in Chesapeake City. A young boating couple we met, from New Brunswick, brought out a bottle of Sortilege which is Canadian whiskey and maple syrup, and we sipped it while standing in the town park warmed from kettle-fires and lighted pumpkins. This is probably one of those memories that will stay with us for a long time! We had already sampled the food and beers of two restaurants that were within walking distance of the park and dock.

The next day we left early, just after the Canadians who are poking into small rivers for the next week so we probably won’t see them again for a while, and after the large skipjack BIGSBEE from Baltimore that shared the dock with us but that we didn’t get to see in the daylight. We got to Annapolis that day and anchored in Back Creek, a great place if you can find room. Immediately we got a phone call from Rick, who also spent time with us in Chesapeake City, asking us to join him and his crew at a bar near the main harbor. We cleaned up, got our dinghy into the water from where we store it when traveling, and went ashore so we could walk the 4 or 5 blocks across Eastport (the east part of Annapolis) and a bridge, to meet them.

Other times our journey is a more solitary one, and we are now three days out of Annapolis and have anchored in Solomon’s, MD, the St.Jerome Creek (not sure what town was there), and now Deltaville, VA without too much interaction with other boaters. Most of the travelers heading south left Annapolis either during or just after the big Sailboat Show there, which was two weeks ago, so we haven’t seen very many other cruisers.

Here at Deltaville we have been waiting out a storm. The day we arrived was warm and balmy, then we had one day of wind and drizzle. Today is miserable, cold and wet. Yesterday we got out to take a walk even though it was raining and we found ourselves at a maritime museum nearby and gravitated to a firepit that had a roaring fire in it. We talked with the person who had set it up and he was very interesting, explaining about the history of the museum (started recently, in 2003) and current activities (they are having a Halloween event in the woods with lights and sounds) and the boats (they have several boats in the water, oyster boats, crabbers and a replica of a shallop from explorer John Smith’s time).

One other event this week is worth mentioning. Before we left Annapolis we were hailed by a single-hander behind us and he was asking for help to get going out of the harbor. He had a 30 foot boat with an outboard motor. But he was having trouble with the motor. He asked for a tow while he got his sails up, to head him in the right direction. He immediately got stuck getting his anchor up while Ken tried to assist from the dinghy, then his roller furling gear pulled away from the forestay, but he finally got underway with both sails flying and threaded his way out after Ken towed for the first 75 feet. We saw him out in the bay as we left that day; we hope he gets things straightened out, as he was a little on the edge, maintenance wise!

To fill in time on the boat while it rains and blows, Ken has changed the engine oil, I have been learning to play the banjo (one I brought along that I just bought before leaving) and we get to listen to the World Series and football games on the radio or watch an episode of past TV shows every now and then.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Pictures: 1/4 bushel of crabs in our dinghy, along with fresh water; houses along the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway, decks hanging over the water; bay side of Atlantic City, wind generators with casinos in the background; sailboat that was towed in to Atlantic Highlands after getting loose from it's mooring in the high winds (the tow boat operators have employees on the sailboat deck running the boat the last quarter mile)

As of last night we have made it to Chesapeake City, Delaware, right on the state border with Maryland. We spent our final two days in New Jersey taking a nice walk through an historic town, buying crabs from a local crab boat, eating steamed crabs for lunch on our boat and getting past the last of Delaware Bay. We also had a kind local man offer to take us to a grocery store and back. It was at least 8 miles each way, so he was a true Good Samaritan. When we asked what he did before he retired he said he was police chief for a 60,000-person city in south Jersey.

We had seen more of New Jersey than we wanted, but we were safe, comfortable, and relatively happy so it could be worse. On Thursday Oct. 20 we were anchored off of Greenwich, N.J. This is what I wrote then:

If it does not stop blowing we may not get to see what the guide book promises is a village with many early American homes. Hmmm. Sounds like Cohasset or Duxbury. To get here we traveled off of our course a few miles, along a serpentine river (the Cohansey), away from Delaware Bay because we did not have time to get all the way through the bay before dark. As it was, we were the only boat we saw all afternoon on our trip from Cape May, NJ to Greenwich. Many boats were waiting the forecasted winds out in Cape May or Atlantic City. However yesterday turned out to not be as windy as projected so we did make some progress.

Prior to yesterday, we had two days of interesting cruising in the back waters of the Jersey Shore. We were following the NJ Intracoastal Waterway which we hadn’t had any experience with before. The bridges are low, most at 30 ft. clearance or less. The depth of the channel is mostly 8 ft. or more but you have to be vigilant watching the depth-sounder. There are a lot of marshes and birds on your starboard, going south, and lots of beach houses and docks on your port.

After our first night’s anchorage on the NJ ICW we headed out from behind a low island to leave the way we had come in and were immediately confronted with dredging pipes and buoys. The workers were not too helpful about which way to go to get around this and we grounded out in an attempt to get around the buoys. We had been hopeful that with our Mainship we would NEVER go aground but here we were already stuck! The workers came out in a scow that had a 25 HP outboard on it and told us they were trying to signal us to go out at the other end of the small island; they did offer to try and tow us off the mud and they were successful. Evidently the signs warning of the dredging in that area had blown away and when we passed the dredging equipment the night before the workers were already gone for the day and we made it past somehow. We can float in 36 inches of water, so to get stuck we are in REALLY shallow water!

Backing up to last weekend, we spent it in Atlantic Highlands. That makes 5 and a half days in the Sandy Hook/Atlantic Highlands area. The weather just was not cooperating. We were able to get groceries, wine and beer, and also replaced two of our boat batteries there so it is a good stop for reprovisioning. The anchorage was secure and access to a dinghy dock was easy. There is also a great-looking bike path that evidently goes for quite a way along the shore. I wasn’t able to get my bike off the boat due to the winds and rain.

Our plans are to get to Annapolis and do some laundry, pick up a GPS chip being sent there, and other housekeeping duties before we head south through the rest of Chesapeake Bay. Stay tuned!

Heading South

Pictures: Manhattan, looking at the new WTC with the cranes on top in the middle of the picture; Ken on the flying bridge of RISING TIDE, East River, NYC; children with waders getting net ready at Sandy Hook; sunset off of Norwalk, CT, in the Norwalk Islands

We felt fortunate to have such warm weather for leaving Cape Cod Bay and starting our trip south. And it was perfect for 4 days. It just wasn’t perfect long enough! For the next 4 days we have been stuck in a windy weather pattern that is making it hard to make progress.

On the good side, we had two friends, Ralph and John, help Ken move RISING TIDE from Cohasset to Duxbury. Then before casting off for the Cape Cod Canal and Buzzards Bay we had dinner out with our sons Pete and Justin. Beautiful summer weather helped us to make great mileage to Cuttyhunk, then Fisher’s Island, then the Norwalk Islands in Long Island Sound. Flat seas each day and calm nights were an added bonus. We only got ashore at Fisher’s Island, but we took a nice walk there and found a place to watch part of the Patriots-Jets game (Fisher’s Island is off the Connecticut coast but is part of New York State so locals were mostly Jets fans).

We also had a great trip through the East River in New York City, past La Guardia Airport, Riker Island, Brother Island (where Typhoid Mary was held), Manhattan and out into NYC Harbor with Coney Island, Ellis Island and Staten Island. It was hot in the river and there were only a few other boats.

We decided to stop at Sandy Hook in New Jersey, still within sight of the NYC skyline. It seemed too rough to continue and maybe too late in the day since we would need to go 25-30 miles to the next stop, either the inlet at Snake River or Manasquan. However, the forecast for the next few days wasn’t promising. At our anchorage off the beach in Sandy Hook we could see a row of matching 3-story houses and a lighthouse. It turned out that we were in the Gateway National Recreational Area, which includes Fort Hancock, a closed Army base, and several small museums demonstrating what the 1940s Army life was like. Also there are biking trails and hiking trails with information stops about the Revolutionary War to Cold War history of the area.

Even though the next few days featured drizzle and high winds, we were in the lee and enjoyed watching locals fishing from the shore, school kids on a field trip to catch sea life in nets, lots of bikers and joggers, and a prisoner beach-cleaning- crew. Twice we took the trail to the ocean beach side of this narrow isthmus. We moved mid-day on our third day at Sandy Hook to a town mooring field a mile from our anchorage. The town, Atlantic Highlands, has a nice downtown area near the dock. We have been able to re-provision and also to connect up with friends from TAMURE, a Connecticut boat we knew from our first trip on the Intracoastal Waterway.

Last night Kitty and Scott from TAMURE gave a slide show at the local yacht club and we tagged along. It was very well done, and featured their family on an earlier four-year sailing trip with their two boys (9 and 11 at the time). We also had dinner with the yacht club officials and the featured speakers. So even though we are “stuck” in northern New Jersey, it is not a lost cause! Not sure of the upcoming weather. Stay tuned!

Summer 2011 update

Jay and Laura, Ben & Shelby, RISING TIDE at anchor in Pocasset, Mass.

Ken worked determinedly this spring to get RISING TIDE ready so we could follow through with our cruising plans. He replaced the steering cables and pumps in both steering stations, built a two-bench-and-table dinette, added an anchor windlass, and more anchor chain. (And many other projects!) I upholstered the dinette benches, and the fold-out couch, and generally assisted in most projects. Ask us sometime how much fun it was trying to prime the old steering system before we realized that it all had to go!

We hoped to cruise to Maine to attend a mid-July wedding, travel back to Cohasset for a late-July wedding, then a multi-week trip to Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay in August. All went well. Ben and Shelby Hazen threw a wonderful “country” wedding with an outdoor ceremony in a cleared field, live music from a guitar/fiddle quartet, a huge banquet held under an equally huge tent in an adjacent cleared field, and lots of fresh beer from Andrew Brewing Co. – Ben’s and his father Andy’s company.

After the Lincolnville (near Camden) wedding we traveled to Islesboro, Searsport, back to Camden, Vinalhaven, Rockland, Boothbay, and quite a few other spots in-between. Then, back in Cohasset, we attended Jay and Laura Bertovitch’s wedding. (Jay often sailed with us when it was just us and Pete taking a trip and Pete needed company.) This was another outdoor wedding, on another beautiful day, looking off at Little Harbor from Greg and Ellen Bertovitch’s lawn. Then back at Cohasset Harbor we celebrated at Atlantica restaurant, including special fireworks later that night over our boat.

The final part of our boating travels included a trip to Provincetown for a lobster feed at Long Point with the Hull Yacht Club, then continuing on with several HYC boats to warm water in Pocasset and Cuttyhunk. We took a side trip into Westport, Mass., and enjoyed the area – near enough to Horseneck Beach to walk there and the Tripp Marina had showers and a laundry. We finished up our time in southern waters with 5 days in Lagoon Pond, part of Vineyard Haven, Martha’s Vineyard, and a couple of days in Marion.

Two quick weekend trips to Marblehead rounded out our summer. The boat ran well and we only had one “accident” – a lobster pot warp wrapped on our prop, that I freed up with three freezing dives into the cold Islesboro, Maine, water.

Next up: another long cruise this fall to Florida and maybe the Bahamas. We expect to leave in two days!! (October 8).

Winter Driving Trip, East Coast, 2011

Pictures: Sunset over the marsh in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Roseate spoonbills in the marsh along Black Pt. Wildlife Drive, MINWR


We were lucky to be able to sneak away in the worst of the winter and drive down the coast to Florida in late January. We already had lots of snow in Duxbury, starting before Christmas, and the shoveling was getting repetitious.

We visited a few cruising friends in our first week in Florida, including Pat and Addison from THREEPENNY OPERA, in Vero Beach, Susan and Barry from SWAN, in Nettles Island, Chris and Kevin, from ANDROS, in Stuart. All those couples were currently taking a break from boating (although Pat and Addison were soon to return to their boat in the Bahamas, and ANDROS will sail there in a month or so). We organized a lunch with several of the above sailors plus fellow vacationers Bertha and Roy, from SERENADE.

During our second week we stayed in a condo in Titusville, near Cape Canaveral and Cocoa. This was originally set up as a chance to stay in a nice unit for a good price, maybe not in such an exciting area. It turned into a really great opportunity to leisurely explore the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, where we found different things drawing us there each day at the beginning of the week. One of the best attractions was the 7 mile wildlife drive of Black Point. It is a one-way, unpaved route that encourages stopping and watching and wandering. Other interesting parts of the refuge are the Haulover Canal, which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway; a small boat launching ramp (where we watched launchings and nearby fishermen); and a walking trail that took us through a grove of oranges--bitter!--planted by early settlers. On the way back off Merritt Island one day we stopped and watched kite-boarders; one entertained us by skimming so close to shore that the edge of his board knocked down traffic cones set on the beach.

We visited the Titusville Munincipal Marina where we had stopped on our 2008-09 cruise, and also spent some time at the Canaveral National Seashore. A great restaurant in the area, Dixie Crossroads, was our destination for lunch one day. We also spent time with Jim (Heidi's brother) and Riko in Cape Canaveral and had a great meal at their house. Then, at the end of the week, we checked out a Birding Festival that we saw advertised. It turned out to be lots of fun and we spent our last two days learning about hawks, Florida Scrub Jays, bobcats, local trees and shrubs, and all types of birding resources. So Titusville is not such a boring destination!

At the start of our third week we attended "TrawlerFest" sponsored by Passagemaker Magazine and held in Ft. Lauderdale. We had a chance to go aboard many boats and talk to other trawler owners ("trawler": slower-moving live-aboard power boat for cruisers who don't mind a Sunday-driver pace with the tradeoff of conserving fuel/traveing further before refueling). We also stopped to see Peggy and Jack, who now are living the good life at a small marina in Ft. Lauderdale aboard their 41 ft. power boat, enjoying their first season after converting from sailing.

View of the kiddie pool and main pool from our condo in Weston.

Our condo near Ft. Lauderdale was at Weston, on the edge of the everglades. We have stayed at this resort before, and it is in a good location for taking day trips in any direction in South Florida. Weston is a fairly new, purpose-built town with all the amenities you could want. It is, however, very difficult to find your way around and we spent a lot of time lost on this trip, as we did the first time we stayed there! Walking was safer, and we took good walks around a golf course nearby and also between sister-resorts on our street. Another easy trip from our corner of Weston was Markam Park. I would recommend this park to anyone staying in this area as it has dedicated parts for mountain biking, model-plane flying (and watching), fishing, tennis, boating, camping, target shooting, and dog exercising. And I probably am forgetting some of the uses provided. Of course, picnicing, swimming and regular biking are big here.


Airboat similar to the one we were in, passing us in the Everglades.


Susan and Barry visited us in Weston for an overnight and we all took an air-boat ride the next morning through the everglades. The trip included stops to watch alligators sunning on clumps of sawgrass. Another day we drove to Naples and to Coral Gables to see friends who have winter homes in those cities. We made it back to Ft. Lauderdale one day to re-visit Peggy and Jack and to sit by one of the canals, have a few beers and watch boats. But mostly we relaxed by the resort's pool, or in the large hot tub.

Heidi, Ken, and Josie Stephens at Naples Beach.


Driving back north, we stopped in South Carolina and checked in on Elaine and Roy Davis. They have a winter home in the Charleston area, Seabrook Island. We had a delicious lunch and then tried to take in the views, but we were thwarted by dense fog. Actually, we spent two days on the same island during our 08-09 cruise. At that time we had missed having any kind of nice meal for Thanksgiving and decided to get off the ICW two days later and treat ourselves royally at Bohicket Creek Marina. Great spot with excellent restaurants, and now we know we have friends there!

We may have avoided some nasty storms and bitter cold while we were gone but home-sweet-home still was surrounded by lots of snow when we returned. It took two days to shovel paths to the wood pile, shed, etc. and to get as much excess snow off of the roof as we could. Ice dams were forming so we worked on those, too. Everglades, alligators, and roseate spoonbills are now but a memory.........