LOTS OF DAYS ON THE WATER, SUMMER 2012

Pictures: This is Duxbury at low tide on the day we stopped there on the way to the Cape-- one reason we still keep our boat in Cohasset!; Tom, Heidi, Sally, Jean, Ken and Harry after our "fishing tournament" in Vineyard Sound; several of us had musical instruments -- Heidi (banjo), Jean (mountain dulcimer), Harry (guitar), Tom (guitar); Nina can delicately step into the kayak for a trip to shore or a ride around the harbor with Sally; our grand-nephew Henry and his mom Cathy in Maine; one of the fairy houses near Perry's Creek -- look closely at all the details; Heidi is looking for the least sandy mussels, also in Perry's Creek; Harry and Ken on the Cliff Island north-facing beach with Brewster and Rising Tide behind them on a very blue day!

When the hot weather hit early and often, we packed up and left Duxbury on RISING TIDE for two weeks in the Cape and Islands area, then two weeks in Maine (we had a break in-between).  Our boat is low maintenance, doesn’t need much prep work to get going, and doesn’t even need particularly good weather. All it asks for is a full tank of diesel. We have been fueling up on Wednesdays when a tanker truck comes to the harbormaster’s dock in Cohasset. This service is primarily for the lobster boats, but we can get in line when they are done.

On July 6 we left to transit the Cape Cod Canal. It’s pretty close to us on the South Shore. You just want to time your passage for when the current is with you. We had taken a quick boat trip north, to Hull and then Marblehead for the 4^th of July. We have already seen fireworks several times this week, and before the week is over we will have had about 6 nights of fireworks! Our first destination south of the Canal is Marion; we always stop here at least once on a trip to the Cape. As we passed the Converse Point property formerly owned by my Aunt, and before that my Grandparents, we see with binoculars that a big pile of excavated sand has replaced the family cottage. Sad.

For the rest of the first week we will join with two boats from Hull, EDGECOMB and BREWSTER. Most of the time we spend anchored in Lake Tashmoo on Martha’s Vineyard. From here you can walk to Vineyard Haven and also to one of the roads west of town and from there it’s only a bus ride to other parts of the Island. Days pass pleasantly with Tom, Jean, Harry and Sally as we go fishing, exploring (at the Vineyard Playhouse Ampitheater-in-the-Woods they are rehearsing a Shakespeare play and some kind of Gregorian chant reaches you as you hike through the area), and visiting (we finally have a long morning’s chat with Ed and Cathy on FREYJA after seeing them briefly once in the Bahamas and then another time, again briefly, on Cuttyhunk). The highlight of the week is the fish banquet after our do-or-die fishing “tournament” aboard BREWSTER. We got lucky and caught about 10 keeper fish. Ken and Harry cleaned them and at dinner that night we all got to try the four different types of fish caught.

After leaving our fishing friends, we anchored outside of Edgartown for a night, and met up with John Campbell, his friend Mike and his brother David for dinner (plus we saw Bill and Marilyn Adams after dinner). Then we headed for Osterville on the Cape. We used to spend some time here almost every summer at the annual Cat Boat Assoc. Rendezvous, but this is probably the first time we’ve been back in 20 years. The next day we went into Waquoit Bay, which we had avoided when we had a sailboat. We enjoyed watching the professional quahoggers, checking out the State Park here (access only by boat), discovering a bocci game being played on the beach.  For our last day on the Cape we anchored in Pocasset, just south of the Canal, and had dinner at the Chart Room with our son Justin (he rode down by motorcycle to join us) and with Tom and Jean who have ended up here as well.

Our Maine trip started on August 3 with a side trip to Provincetown for the Hull Yacht Club Cruise and Lobster Lunch. We were invited by the same Tom, Jean, Harry and Sally that were our traveling companions in July. The lunch on the beach was great; we ordered two lobsters apiece and pigged out, plus there were lots of side dishes brought by the attendees (about 30 boats). We discovered that you can walk from Long Pt., where we were anchored, along the beach, then a mile-long dike, and then through the West End to P-Town center in less than an hour.  Or it’s about a mile by dinghy.

After two nights in P-Town we left in company with BREWSTER for the Isles of Shoals, at the N.H./Maine border. We passed through Stellwagon Bank which is known for its great fishing and for sighting whales. We saw one large fin whale and a few smaller whales, plus we stopped to examine a large, bloated leatherback turtle (4 or 5 feet long) floating dead about 8 miles south of Isles of Shoals.

We had a variety pack of weather while in Maine—lots of sun, some afternoon thundershowers for about 6 days in a row, some morning fog (not always clearing by noon) for about 4 days. Some of our stops were: Cliff Island in Casco Bay, Witch Island near South Bristol, Tenant’s Harbor, Rockland, Perry’s Creek on Vinalhaven Island, Belfast and Camden. Sally and Harry have a well-behaved Chesapeake Retriever named Nina.  Because Nina gets to go ashore quite often, we were encouraged to go ashore and walk more than usual. Our best walk was a trail up to Fox Rocks off of Perry Creek. Even though we had drizzle and fog that day it was a lot of fun, and we got to see several fairy houses along the trail, evidently inspired by local fairies (and made by local residents and visitors).

We had a chance to gather mussels at a few of our stops and had shared dinners the nights that we cooked them. We found we had missed the blueberry season or the animals and birds had gotten to them first, but we could buy wild blueberries in the local stores. We also made a point to get lobsters to cook on board as the price this summer is very low. It has something to do with a glut of lobsters and with processing plants in Canada not taking the overflow from Maine this year.

We met Maine friends for dinner: the Cassidys from Union we saw in Rockland, the Hazens from Lincolnville we got together with in Camden. We were first-time visitors to Belfast and wanted to catch the brewery/restaurant at Marshall Wharf but we arrived on their day off. However Belfast is a great town with lots to see and do within a short walk of the docks, including a large food co-op with bakery/café. We rented a float for both our boats from First Street Shipyard and enjoyed the amenities of showers and laundry there.

Sally, Harry and Nina left for home two days before we did, to attend a weekend wedding. On our way back home we stopped at Port Clyde, got fuel, and shopped at the General Store, an authentic on-the-pier local gathering place. We had two more nights in small harbors, then stopped in South Portland to get our niece Cathy, her husband Brandon, and baby Henry onboard for lunch and an afternoon cruise around Great Diamond Island and some others nearby.  That night we anchored off of Cousin’s Island near Falmouth and the next morning we visited with our friends the MacLeods at their dock at Prince’s Point—they brought breakfast!

Our last two nights and days were spent back in the Isles of Shoals and then at our mooring in Marblehead, passing through the Annisquam Canal on Cape Ann on our way to Marblehead. We saw the last of our seals and harbor porpoises on the way to Isles of Shoals, and started to see Northern gannets north of Cape Ann (you only see these large birds at sea, not on land, and only when they are migrating, to and from Canada). 

We got back to Cohasset early on August 20. RISING TIDE behaved very well on these trips and except for Ken having to change a water pump impellor in Maine, did not require much attention. We had used our kayak quite often on both trips but not our bicycles, so in Cohasset we got them out and took a long ride around town and out to Forest Ave. by our old house. We had missed Nina and our daily walks on these past few days. No new boat trips are in our future; we are traveling in September by plane, out to the west coast for two weddings and some tourist destinations in the Seattle area, Corvallis (Oregon) and San Francisco. We will pass on taking the long Intracoastal Waterway route to Florida in the winter and will probably drive down for a few weeks. Ken has signed RISING TIDE up for a haul-out in Duxbury, probably in late October.

Back to Normal?

 

Pictures: 

You can see this carousel from the water when you go down the East River, New York City; another NYC surprise is a tram that you can see if you look carefully at bridge in this picture, about half-way along, the Roosevelt Island Tram; Bonnie and a friend at the Milford Yacht Club; a schooner charter out for a sunset sail in Newport (when they tacked they passed us within 15 ft. of our cockpit!); the beautiful deep waters off of Castle Inn, leaving Newport; Heidi and Ken safely home and having Mother's Day lunch at Pete's house in Braintree.

Normal for us on our cruise was conserving water, cooking fuel, and electricity. We have a 43 gallon water tank and three spare containers of water, about 16 gallons more. Our cooking fuel is alcohol and has to be hauled aboard along with everything else, so we are careful with not choosing food that has to be cooked too long. We use quite a few battery-operated lights and a radio that cranks, in addition to our boat’s wired-in lighting and radio/CD player.  Our solar panels work extremely well to charge our boat battery, but of course not when it’s raining so we have to have back-ups. The boat battery and hot water heater both get charged when we are running our engine but then when we don’t go anywhere we can run both down.

Getting home we are adjusting to the land-based normal. No more hauling the anchor each morning before getting under way. No more closely checking the weather for three days out and planning our itinerary accordingly. Our Skipper Bob guide to anchoring sites can go away for a while, after helping us find some great places to spend the night and sending us in the right direction ashore to find groceries and hardware stores. We are back to the big-screen TV, the thermostat to control our house heat, mail getting delivered to our door, cars to take us to run errands. It all seems very weird!

RISING TIDE brought us safely back to Duxbury last Monday, May 7, though the Cape Cod Canal against the current, but we found it pretty easy going by staying near to the edge where the current was less. We had four days of traveling after leaving northern New Jersey. We pushed it the last day because rain was predicted to come in for several days, and it did! Those last four days were perfectly beautiful, and the wind was not a factor, so we had “smooth sailing”. We went from NJ through New York City, a wonderful route on the East River, with hardly any other boat traffic, to City Island, NY. The next day we stopped in Milford, CT. After that we had a long day to Newport, RI, but were glad to get there as it’s a protected harbor with more going on than most at this time of year. And from there to Duxbury.

At the City Island anchorage we were reunited with friends Kitty and Scot on TAMURE. We hadn’t seen them since last fall when we left Atlantic Highlands, NJ to go south slowly on the ICW and they left to sail outside in long hops to Charleston, SC. They eventually continued on to the Bahamas and returned to Atlantic Highlands on May 4 on the morning after we got to Atlantic Highlands. They had the same plan for that day as us, to transit the East River in mid-afternoon to catch the favorable current in the dangerous part, Hell Gate. We enjoyed getting together with them that night for several hours, comparing notes about the winter travels and about plans for the future. Their next stop, the next day, was home in Rowayton, CT.

Our stop in Milford, CT was scheduled as a chance to show the former owner, Bonnie, what improvements we have made to RISING TIDE. We got guest dockage at Bonnie’s yacht club, and also got to attend a Cinco de Mayo party there with her and her friends. Since we have stayed in touch and tried to connect with Bonnie in Florida (our schedules conflicted) it was great to make it work this time.

Our very last day of our cruise was last Friday, May 11 when we moved RISING TIDE to Cohasset, which is a 12 mile car ride but a 25 mile boat trip due to the long trip out of Duxbury and Plymouth Harbors. It’s difficult to sum up the seven months we spent cruising and exploring the East Coast, Florida Keys, and part of the Florida Gulf Coast; but we are definitely glad for the opportunity and we now have memories of innumerable towns and cities in this area along with lots of wildlife and many great people that we met.

PS Check out the website, below, for a young British man who is rowing from Miami to New York right now! It is a fund-raiser for Alzheimer's Disease. We didn't meet him as he was a few weeks behind us, but he has been making great progress on his trip.
http://www.iamfinechallenge.org/wp/

Chesapeake Bay and New Jersey Shore

Pictures: Kids at an "old-fashioned"authentic soda fountain in Rock Hall, MD; a mallard pair in Annapolis; we were headed to the red-roofed building, part of a maritime museum, in Solomon's Island, MD (we had to go around!); returning to our dinghy after a grocery-shopping walk in Manansquan, NJ; sunset view from our anchorage near Atlantic City (the boat on the right is a cruiser from Maine)

Usually having to see a dentist is not the highlight of your day. But in Deltaville, VA, just before we were to head north, Heidi had an issue with a orthodontic retainer and needed it re-cemented.  Very luckily a dentist was located nearby who could do this, even though it was his day off. He and his wife live on a plantation looking out over the Rappahanock River and he only works in Deltaville for one day normally, with 3 other days in Richmond. Dr. Suyes cheerfully completed the repair in a “cottage” office on his property and then he and his wife sat and talked with me for another half hour. This in a town that probably doesn’t have more than a thousand residents, on a Friday afternoon, and with transportation based on bicycles. We all found we had a lot in common and enjoyed hearing about each other’s travels.  

Since leaving Deltaville we have been putting some miles in. The weather has been mostly chilly and grey, and we’ve had our share of rain, although it has come mostly at night. We know we are a little too early in the season to fully enjoy the Chesapeake and NJ shore, but we are hoping to get home by mid May.

The route we have taken, staying inside of the bays, following canals, and behind the Jersey beach towns has put us in touch with many of the birds that are mating and nesting at this time of year. It has been interesting to watch nests being built by osprey, an excess of male mallards being shunned by female mallards that have already paired, and egrets showing off their beautiful mating feathers. We also have seen an abundance of butterflies, most likely red admirals.

There are few other cruisers. Some of the other boaters we stay in touch with are still in Florida or the Bahamas. We did get in the middle of crew practice for a high school near Atlantic City. There were about a dozen rowing shells with about 8 coaches in their own boats buzzing around one 5 mile stretch. The rowers had to stop to avoid us and we had to zig zag to avoid them. Also in this stretch were 4 bridges that we had to get opened as they were too low for us to go under.

We spent an extra day in Solomon’s Island, Maryland and two extra days in Annapolis. Both places have museums, good restaurants, and good resources for boaters. We met another cruising sailboat in Annapolis, from Texas, that is completing the Great Loop, heading next up the Hudson and to the Great Lakes.  The other towns we visited for a short time were Rock Hall, MD,  Delaware City, DE, and Manasquan NJ (a lot like Scituate, MA).

We expect to transit through New York City’s East River later today, after we fuel up in Atlantic Highlands N,J and wait to catch the favorable current through the tricky area called Hell’s Gate just after Manhattan. If all goes well the next blog post will be from Duxbury or Cohasset, MA!

Back to Wearing Shoes

Pictures: Only one gate would open to release us at the lock at Deep Creek in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia, but RISING TIDE got out easily (picture taken by Marilyn Beemer); the floor of The Taproom in Hampton -- a restaurant with lots of beer on draft and great seafood; kids from a fourth grade in Asheville, NC watching classmates on a NASA rocket simulator at the Virginia Air and Space Museum; Erwin Beemer, from SOLITUDE, Ken and a museum volunteer check out a Wright skiff at the Deltaville Maritime Museum; wild dogwood blossoms near the visitor center on the Dismal Swamp Canal.

North Carolina brought with it cold weather and very few traveling cruisers in April. We often would see less than six other boats all day (not counting local fishing boats) and we would be anchoring by ourselves. Maybe the smart boaters are back in the Bahamas and Florida still. There are also many long distance travelers who are opting for finding a marina in the south and leaving their boat there for the summer. There is a big storage yard in Indiantown, Florida and we have also heard that Ft. Pierce, FL and Jacksonville/St. Johns River are popular for less expensive off-season storage.  The boats are usually tied-down to eyebolts in the yard to protect from hurricane winds.

Our last warm day was in Wrightsville Beach, NC where they have a great walking loop that goes from the beach and up and down two sides of a pretty marsh. A week later we were in Hampton, VA after enduring wind, rain and solitude. We wore our long pants, winter hats, lots of sweaters, and socks with our shoes all through the towns of Belhaven, Oriental, and the Dismal Swamp. Two of those days we spent in a small basin in the U.S.Marine’s Camp Lejeune. We watched helicopter take-off and landing training which involved low approach routes directly overhead. We also had a rainy afternoon of Mexican Train dominos, dominated by the sharp play of Ken.

In Hampton we went to two museums: the Historical Museum featuring Revolutionary War and Civil War displays, and the Virginia Air and Space Museum. They are both excellent and we learned a lot. We also had some great hands-on experiences at VASM, including making paper airplanes and launching them into a modified wind tunnel. Little kids could play with a functioning shortened baggage conveyer with briefcase-sized luggage. There were lots of aircraft and the building has a beautiful soaring ceiling shaped like two wings.

There are many good restaurants in Hampton, most on the main street near the public pier. It is called Queen St. and some of the buildings and the street go way back to the founding of the city in 1610. There is a university in the city that is predominately African-American and was founded around 1880.

We are now in Deltaville, just north of Hampton, and are hauled out for routine maintenance like painting the bottom of the boat and the cockpit floor. It has warmed up and we have explored a bit of the nearby creeks in our dinghy and the kayak has gotten some use. The boatyard we are in, Deltaville Boatyard, is just one of about 6 or 7 large boatyards and marinas that we have seen in this small town. It must be the position in the south of Chesapeake Bay and its location as a peninsula with two rivers running past that bring so many boats here. There are boats from Switzerland, Oregon, California, Maine, England and many other places.

Being in the mood for history this week we toured the Deltaville Maritime Museum a few days ago with a couple from Michigan who we had met recently. We could walk to the museum from the boatyard and it featured a small building but lots of yard space for restored small local boats, a reproduction of explorer John Smith’s shallop (which would have been deployed from Smith’s larger boat) and a restored “buy boat” for the oyster trade at a dock on the grounds. The Michigan couple has since left, continuing on their Great Loop trip from their home port on Lake Michigan down several rivers and lakes to Mobile, AL and then around the Gulf of Mexico and Florida, then up to the Hudson River, some of the Great Lakes and back home. Now that is a lot of miles!

We get launched back into the water today, soon to be in New England if the weather cooperates. 

Low Country Surprises

Pictures: The view from Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine, walking across back to the city, with Flagler building towers in the distance; Heidi and her third and last brother to visit us, Jon; Ken with BBQ and bloody mary in Charleston at one of the after-parties for a big road race, the Bridge Run; Tiger Lily and her grandma goofing off; the only picture I dared to take at Apollo Beach and one of the easiest nature photos -- a crab; we passed under these trams today in the ICW near Myrtle Beach, carrying golfers back and forth.

We have been out of Florida for ten days, quickly passing through Georgia and slowing down a little for South Carolina. The weather continues to hold in a good pattern, usually in the low 80s and sunny, although we have had two scorcher days that got up to 89 degrees in the boat and neither day had much of a breeze. The fishing could have been better – we put a big push on to catch SOMETHING before our bait went bad and the result was one lonely catfish and one feisty crab! I think we’ve given up on catching and will concentrate on ordering fish when we dine out or when we find a fish market.

Ironically we are in the most fished area on the east coast, it would seem. We have seen surfcasters, shallow water trollers, boats propelled by poles in the flats, canoe and kayak fisherpeople, large charter boat fishing crews, people fishing from wharves,  and every other type in between. Right now as we travel north we are not seeing many other cruisers but the fishing boats are everywhere.

Before we left Florida we were visited in Fernandina Beach (the last town in Florida) by Heidi’s brother Jon and his wife Debbie. They were on their way to Orlando for a vacation.  Then we got to see another person from home, a young man who is in medical school in Charleston, SC. Tom Ross is half-way through his 4 year program there and joined us for an evening as we caught up on our family and his family news. We spent the past few days in the company of another boat, RACHEL, whose crew right now is Julie, Mark and granddaughter Tiger Lily. It was fun to have an eight-year-old around. RACHEL is a Tayana like the one we used to have, and we met her first three years ago coming back from the Bahamas.

Our first surprise was actually back in Florida. We visited Apollo Beach, part of the Canaveral National Seashore. It is in a remote spot but was near our anchorage.  Its remoteness must account for the fact that once you walk on the beach 30 yards past the parking lot none of the bathers were wearing any clothes! Nor were they dressed in the other direction; we tried.

The next special event took place in the evening, in Tom’s Point Creek, just before Charleston. We were the only boat anchored there, and there were only two houses we could see, both quite a way from our place in the creek. Another isolated spot. We were trying to avoid the large number of no-see-ums that had invaded our cabin and were sitting in the dark cockpit listening to the night sounds. The baying of hounds started a way off, then got closer and then Ken spotted flashlights that gradually moved up toward where we were anchored. We never saw any people or dogs but exactly even with our boat the lights stopped moving and were now shining up in the trees and the barking increased. We were watching a coon hunt. It did end with the coon being shot, so I guess it was successful for the dogs’ owners but a little disappointing from our prospective. Then all the noise died down and the show was over.

Yesterday we stopped at Thoroughfare Creek about 25 miles south of Myrtle Beach, SC thanks to a tip from RACHEL. They were also stopping there and said if we got there first to anchor by the dunes! We have not seen any river bank dunes on this part of the trip; almost everywhere in Georgia and South Carolina our constant companions have been mud banks, oyster-shell banks, marshes or tall pines. Although this creek is about 20 miles from the nearest inlet out to the ocean and 5 miles as the crow flies, the dunes were big and led to a fresh water pond after a run down the backside. You could see dunes in all directions, partly covered with vegetation. We swan in fresh water, a treat, and found out the island – Sandy Island – is the only undeveloped island left in South Carolina. It has been inhabited by generations of slaves’ descendants (left there after Emancipation caused plantations to close), there is no bridge connecting it to the mainland, and it is one of the “Gullah” communities of the Lowcountry.  Down here Gullah means there has been a separate culture and language maintained throughout the years due to the isolation of the community. We did not meet any of the residents but after we were back from swimming and exploring we watched a single black man walking around on the dune and then sitting in the sand for a while looking out toward our boats and the other bank of the creek.

That’s about it except for mentioning all the wildlife in this stretch. Eagles, stingrays, freshwater turtles, wood storks, ospreys nesting, and porpoises. We are still going barefoot a lot of the time.  And we are looking forward to the North Carolina stretch of the ICW starting tomorrow.

All Fixed and Back to the East Coast

Pictures: Heidi and brother Jim in Cape Canaveral; vegetable selection at LaBelle grocery store on the Caloosahatchee River; bridge tender manually moves a turnstile on this bridge to open it at Slim's Fish Camp, near the Okeechobee; our dinghy has collected a crop of floating fresh water greens near the Okeechobee; Ken and Mark, our mechanic at Marco River Marina, almost done with the reinstallation; Ken got a good shot of an alligator as usually you only see two eyes and its nostrils. 

The transmission got put back in on Monday, March 5, and we took a test run later that day.  It has been two weeks since then and all is well. Even the weather has changed to just sunny and comfortable from hot and humid.

We have been to Naples and Cape Coral since getting back on track, and have completed the “circumnavigation” of South Florida by traveling through the Okeechobee lake and canal route back to the east coast ICW. Several adventures later we are happy to be heading for home, although it will be another 1450+ miles to Duxbury!

We visited with Josie Stephens in Naples, walked through the beach community near the City Dock, and out onto the long pier there that juts into the ocean. Cousin Connie Eshbach and John Diggin have a condo in Cape Coral and are very near to a lovely basin – Bimini Basin – where you can anchor and access quite a few resources. We had breakfast with Connie and John, and the day before had watched the setup of two television stations’ reporters in a small park there, showcasing a new man-made beach. Connie and Heidi speculated on why the beach is referred to as a “non-swimming beach”. Alligators were one idea we came up with.

On the Caloosahatchee-Okeechobee route (took a while to learn how to say and spell this!) we caught glimpses of the vast sugar cane industry there.  In a grocery store the other shoppers were just as likely to look like they were from Central America and many were guys wearing cowboy hats; the skyline in several directions had large towers of smoke clouds which we learned were from the burning of the cane stalks (after processing?).

Wildlife was abundant, and we saw what we thought was a mink, swimming across the canal in front of us and stopping to make a lot of noise every 30 seconds of so.  We passed two owls in a nest at the side of the canal looking back at us, the first owls we’ve seen. There were about a half-dozen alligators in the side canal we stopped in for the afternoon one day.  And in the same place several colorful birds were in the mangroves, some we had not seen before on our trip. (Back in Cape Coral we saw a bald eagle with some catch in its talons.)

We definitely had our worst night of the trip, so far, in the area west of Lake Okeechobee, near Moore Haven. We got bombarded by bugs, zillions of them, and lots of them made it through our defenses to bother us after dark. Ken kept getting up to find what he could and kill them, Heidi tried covering completely with a sheet but that made it stifling and the buzzing continued anyway. Morning couldn’t come too soon. We found piles of dead bugs everywhere outside the boat, especially on the decks and near the ports and windows. It took two separate cleanings to get rid of them.  We are now gun-shy and take bug spray with us everywhere we go; we haven’t recovered yet!

Most recently we’ve been to Stuart, Vero Beach, Eau Gallie and Cape Canaveral.  All nice places with good city moorings, easy anchoring  or inexpensive marinas. While walking on shore we got caught in a rainstorm in Vero Beach, took shelter in a park gazebo, and soon made friends with the two men and two boys on bicycles who also “huddled” there. Every once and a while it would start to let up and one of the boys would go out for a football pass thrown by one of the men, then it would start pouring again. In the end we had to jog back about a half mile to our dinghy in the rain and got soaked.

We saw Ian and Marlene from GUST O’ WIND for a visit last week and yesterday we spent most of the day with Heidi’s brother Jim and his wife Riko, residents of Cape Canaveral. We went “home” with some freshly baked quiche and a folding beach cart they no longer need.

The future brings, hopefully, continued good weather and a fairly straight line north to the Georgia-Florida border. And a few nice fresh fish for dinner. We have some frozen squid for bait and we are determined to find fish this afternoon!

HOT Conditions

Pictures: Old tree in the southern Everglades, with bromeliads in the branches; Joel and Heidi at Marco Island Marine; snowy egret on our bow; nature walk with leaders in green t-shirts and their cart with samples and buckets for more discoveries; Sand Spit at Tigertail Beach and the deep layer of shells in the foreground

Transmission problems caught up with us on RISING TIDE and we have been in Marco Island for a week trying to get everything fixed and put back together. Marco is just north of the last visitor center in the Everglades National Park. It is a very well developed island with tons of housing and commercial properties, but it has a good boat yard for service and a great west-facing (Gulf of Mexico) beach. The weather this week has been setting records for the hottest February.

Before the transmission tanked we did cruise across Florida Bay from Marathon to the southernmost part of the Everglades, Flamingo. There is a Visitor Center there, bike and hiking trails, camping, boat rentals and tours, and great wildlife. We watched crocodiles and manatees there in the boat basin where we had a slip. Neither species was looking to get too close to humans; the crocs were sunning and the manatees were feeding. We didn’t, luckily, see any of the pythons that are non-native species and are said to be living and breeding in the area.

We had two more days in the Everglades, at Little Shark River on the Gulf of Mexico side of the park and at Russell Pass, near Everglade City at the northwest corner of the park. The gnats in Little Shark River were horrendous and only allowed us about an hour outside watching wildlife. After that we hunkered down behind screens and could still watch the dozens of bird flocks skimming over us and over the water flying north at sunset (to rookeries?) and heard dolphins passing in the dark. Before the gnats overwhelmed us we were entertained by a large loggerhead turtle with a huge orange head (we both thought it was an orange float ball at first). The turtle popped up when we first set our anchor and then about every 3-4 minutes, just quick enough to see if we were still there, circling our boat, too quickly diving  before we could get any pictures. Loggerheads are said to weigh several hundred pounds at full adult size.

At Russell Pass we anchored with several other boats. We stayed as far from the edges of the pass, lined with mangroves, as we could and had less bugs this night. The sunset from there was beautiful and it was a very peaceful night. Earlier that day Heidi had kayaked through Oyster Bay off of the Little Shark River, trying to find one of the chickees that are provided by the park for the overnight kayakers and canoeists. It was an unsuccessful search but good exercise paddling against current and wind. When we googled “chickee Everglades” we found a picture of a wooden structure built over the mangrove roots at the waters’ edge, just a platform with a roof and an outhouse.

 The transmission repair has been dragged out partly because we arrived on a Friday at noon and partly because Ken drove the old transmission to Miami to be rebuilt and it takes another day pretty much to drive back to pick it up. Thanks to Scott Stephens and Linda Wallace for a car. But it saved $2000 over the quote from the place the boatyard was going to send it. It has been a hot, uncomfortable week to be working in the bilge. Ken and our mechanic Mark deserve a lot of credit.

Here at the marina where the boatyard is, there are lots of distractions: a fast catamaran to Key West (like the Boston commuter boats), day trip sightseeing boats, captained small catamarans for half-day sails, fishing charter boats, a large Ships Store, and two small bars. We also have lots of birds and a resident snook that swims around the docks (it’s a large-sized protected species of fish) .

There’s a beach in Marco Island called Tigertail that has a great lagoon and a “sand spit” to wade to. The lagoon is full of birds and small creatures; there’s a nature walk-and-talk every weekday morning to point them out.  Many invertebrates, sea worms and egg cases were seen and examined, as well as some “new” birds such as the reddish heron with a long pink bill, tipped with black. There’s an osprey feeding fresh fish to its chick in a nest. The sand spit has piles of small shells washed up there and lots of beach walkers.

Strangely enough we have had visitors here! Joel (Heidi’s brother) and Marie drove over from their vacation condo in Ft. Lauderdale, Jack and Peggy (Canadian boating friends) stopped by after driving to St. Petersburg to look at a possible new boat, and Scott Stephens (long-time friend of Ken’s) is staying in Naples and took Ken to the Goodland Sunday Afternoon Celebration, in the next town over, and also took us by boat to Naples. 

1,780 miles to the Tropics

Pictures: The "soil" in Marathon and most of the other Keys is composed of coral.{except where they have trucked in loam, or have paved it over, just like in the the Bahamas); Mike and Mimi Powers with us on the Harbor Walk in Key West Bight; juggler on a tall unicycle at the Sunset Celebration in Key West; moonrise over Boot Key Harbor in Marathon; one of the sharks we saw while snorkeling at Sombrero reef off of Marathon; Ken surfacing, with Rising Tide in the background, at Sombrero reef.

Wow! A lot has happened in this past “blog time”. The Patriots have played in the Super
Bowl. That’s enough said about that.  We have been spending time in the Keys, mostly Marathon and Key West.  We had companions with us from Ft. Lauderdale and now they have gone. We were visited by very good friends Mike and Mimi and got to explore Key West with them. And we’ve been snorkeling several times and are enjoying the proximity of the reefs off of the Keys.

First of all, the mileage to this point deserves a comment. We have circled about a lot the past two months but now we have reached the southernmost point in our trip and will be heading north! So 1,780 miles is the number that we have come up with to account for our last 4 ½ months.  And these last two weeks have been tropical: very warm, very bright sun, beautiful plantings and lush greenery, birds and fish at every turn. The fruits and veggies are delicious here, and widely available, especially the citrus, mangos and avocados. We need to wear light colored clothing. Navy blue and black would be way too hot.  We need to have sunglasses and hats on at all times. Not complaining now, just reporting on the conditions in these tropics!

Our friends Peggy and Jack were with us for more than a week, traveling in their recently updated Sea Ray, keeping us company at a few restaurant meals in Marathon and letting us stop by their dock site at the city marina for a few drinks now and then. Just as they were leaving to go back to Ft. Lauderdale we got a phone call that Mike and Mimi were flying down to Florida from Massachusetts and would be in Key West for almost a week. They arrived in Marathon and spent a night and then drove to their hotel in Key West. We moved RINGING TIDE to a city dock there a few days later and overlapped with them so we could enjoy their company, take a few walks, eat out, and catch up on their news. The weather during their last two days in Key West was especially perfect.

Back on our own after Mike and Mimi left we took some bike rides through the neighborhoods in “the Conch Republic” and attended a sunset celebration in Mallory Square. We also loved the lunch on our last day at a Thai restaurant that was on a floating barge right next to our dock.

We have snorkeled at Sombrero reef, about 4 miles off of Marathon, and at Looe reef (4 miles) and Newfound Harbor Sanctuary reef (1/2 mile) off of Big Pine Key.  All three times the sea conditions were a little rough, with 2 ft. swells, but the diving was really memorable. There are moorings provided so you don’t have to anchor, and the reefs are full of fish and interesting corals. Our first glimpse under water on our first dive was of barracuda, sharks, and colorful reefs fish looking for shelter under our hull.

The weather should be stable enough tomorrow or the next day for our next direction, into the Everglades National Park. We are preparing by having enough fuel, food and water to get us through a week in an area that is full of wildlife but not full of supplies.  We had a preview of the quieter side when we were in the harbor at Big Pine Key on the way back from Key West. The water was perfectly clear, the stars were very bright; we expect more of this in the Everglades as there are no cities near and the boating activity is lighter.

It’s time to head north, to the 130 miles of Everglades coastline in southwestern Florida.  

RISING TIDE’s Cruising Tips

Pictures: Miami-Dade police officers training on the bike trails in Oleta River State Park; our new friends Dave and Jessica and their boat KIANDA coming over for happy hour (they are now in the Bahamas for the rest of the winter); sign seen on the bike rack in Key Biscayne; bottlenose dolphin who swam alongside with two others for about 20 minutes on our cruise from Key Largo to Marathon; colorful fish Ken caught off of Shell Key -- he let it go when we didn't get another to make a lunch

We’ve had a pleasant 10 days or so since Pete and Eri left. Ken got the transmission running fine again, by changing the fluid twice.  But no real adventures to report, so it seems a good time to report on our challenges, observations and tips.

Keeping a reliable water supply has been a regular chore. We have a water tank that is undersized for living aboard and using water 24/7. We haven’t needed to get fuel since just after Christmas and fuel docks don’t particularly like dispensing water without a fuel purchase. Our alternatives are finding city docks that have water or taking water jugs ashore in our dinghy and filling them. Coconut Grove city docks provide water; water spigots for the jugs were found on Elliot Key in Biscayne National Park, Key Largo County Park, Oleta River State Park, and Marathon in the Keys. Other anchorages in the Miami and Upper Keys areas, while wonderful spots to enjoy wildlife or get a great Cuban meal, were lacking water entirely. Solutions would be to get a water-maker (makes fresh water from seawater but is expensive and is plagued with filter problems) or adding an additional water tank or changing the one we have.

Flying bugs in this area of Florida seem to be limited to a few areas in closer to the mangroves that have no-see-ums. We have mostly been able to sit out at night or walk beaches during the day with no flying disturbances. We have screens and do use them at night, but I think it’s just a habit formed in New England. Crawling bugs almost never make it out to our boat, thank goodness, but we did have one or two spiders that eluded us for a month. Ken thinks he has recently gotten them both.

Our bike transportation has been working out well. We have split our shoreside traveling about 50-50 between walking and cycling. We have found some good bike trails and Ken even got a quick adjustment on his bike from a trailside mechanic set up in Oleta River State Park. We rented a car for two days in Coconut Grove, got lost a few times, picked up a large grocery order, and met a nice rental agent who moved down here from Boston after college. We’ll probably not need a car again; we usually get groceries into a backpack each and a bike-rack load each and return to the boat looking like hobos. It’s the case of beer that is the killer!

Speaking of hobos, we have been in two or three anchorages lately that each has a dozen or so “bumboats”, which are (sometimes but not always) poorly maintained boats with singles or couples living on them and lots of grass growing along the waterlines. They don’t usually move their boats and travel back and forth to shore in rowboats. The same attributes that attract us to an anchorage is good for them: a water supply and a good place to leave your dinghy when ashore. We find good guys and bad guys (the drunk ones) and have experienced their strong loyalty to each other and to “their” harbors. You can tell they are eking out an existence; they are mostly happy and talkative and enjoying the good boating life.

Our evening’s entertainment has been pretty meager – a few dinners out (more often we eat lunch out and save money), an evening picnic and concert one time, watching recent episodes of TV shows that we can get on the laptop with wifi, listening to music CDs or our ipod.  We play games every once and a while, and Ken has recently dominated in Mexican Train dominos. After Pete’s visit we are feeling fat and happy because he brought us a large supply of DVDs. Now we can watch movies and only have to charge up our laptop first; for internet TV we have to have our wifi source (our cell phone) charged too, and we have to watch the use of gigabytes. It has us on the verge of our technical knowledge limit. But we’ll still be following the latest NCIS and Downton Abbey shows which we are hooked on.

As to our main relaxation activities (besides reading and watching wildlife): I am still working on my banjo licks and my slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs. I’m up to page 173 in my tutorial. It definitely helps to have a hobby to turn to, to fill in the longer journeys or the windy days when we don’t go to shore. Ken is back into fishing after getting advice from a neighboring female boater who has had a lot of luck. He is getting bait-shrimp and pulling in interesting small fish. He intends to work his way up to the larger fish by using a smaller one as a live bait.

We traveled yesterday with Peggy and Jack, friends with a Sea Ray 28 BLUE DOLPHIN, down the bayside of the Keys, watching the dolphins swim along with us at 10 knots. We arrived in Marathon, got on a waiting list for a mooring, and anchored about ¾ mile from the city marina outside of the large mooring field. We’ll probably stay here in this cruiser-friendly  harbor for 10 days or so and then continue on to Key West.