Holden Beach 19-22 Apr

 

   We got underway early in the morning in good weather for Holden Beach and suddenly a cloud bank rolled in as cold wind blew in over the warm water. Normally we don't travel on the ICW in the fog as there is too much traffic and radar is ineffective with all the land clutter. I wished we had waited a couple more hours before leaving. 

   Fortunately, the fog wasn't pea soup thick. We had about 1000ft visibility which was just enough to be safe. Within 30 minutes or so the fog had lifted and we could resume cruising speed.

   Several hours later, the fog had cleared, we had made it through the Shallotte Inlet shallow waters and we had arrived at the Holden Beach town dock. We plan to stay here for 3 days which will provide Sue lots of time to collect shells on the beach, get all our laundry done and take some showers, and fill our water tank up. Meanwhile another cold front is coming through with strong thunderstorms. Plus, Sue's sisters and families are down from New York spending their Spring Break week at the beach. 

   Yes, there were lots of shells on the beach at Holden. Sue and Rivah spent a lot of time at the beach checking out the high tide and low tide treasures. Rivah enjoyed all the time off the boat.

   Some of the collected treasures. These are in addition to the buckets full.

   There are other wildlife animals at the beach besides the normal fish and birds. Sue encountered this guy early one morning. 

   Conveniently, right across the ICW from the town dock was the Provision Company. with the standard beer and fish sandwich options. We dinghied across a couple happy hour evenings. 

   Then it was time for the cold front to roll through. We had a few close lightning strikes on Saturday night but otherwise no problems. It rained but no dangerous winds. 

   On Sunday, the forecast was for rain all day and it did rain throughout the morning, then cleared enough for us to walk down to see Sue's sisters, then the rain was back along with the cold weather.

  Now we were glad we had shore power to plug into as we had to turn on the heat for the first time since last January

   Sue loves to play games with the kids. She actually won the first couple hands of "Trash". We had a great visit with all.

   The next morning the kids were able to come see the boat before we had to get underway to keep moving north. They were excited and very impressed. Maybe some future sailors?

   

Waccamaw River to Bird Island Little River, SC 17-18 Apr

 

   When you come back off the ocean at Winyah Bay Inlet, you are in the Waccamaw River which takes you up to Myrtle Beach. The Waccamaw is one of the prettiest sections along the ICW with cypress tree forests along either bank. We often see bald eagles along the Waccamaw, but this time only saw several ospreys, sitting on their nests.

    The first night off the ocean we anchored off Butler Island, a couple hours up the river. The next night we stopped at Wacca Wachee after refueling.

   In addition to the lowest diesel prices on the ICW, Wacca Wachee has a great restaurant and beer selection.  This visit Rivah got to sit with us on the deck as we had a beer and appetizers and listened to an excellent singer. When we had stopped here back in January with the temperature in the 20s, we ate inside and Rivah had to stay on the boat.

  

   Tides Inn sits at anchor off Wacca Wachee. Its a short dinghy ride over to the marina. 

    

   Next up ICW north of Myrtle Beach is the Little River Inlet. We anchor just inside the inlet breakwaters, off of Bird Island. This is a popular spot for local boaters but most all of them depart at nightfall. We were one of 5 sailboats that anchored for the night. Fortunately there is lots of room here for boats to spread out.

 

  Well, not all the local boaters left at sunset. This poor couple had sat on the beach for too long as the tide went out. When they went to leave, their boat was firmly stuck in the sand and too heavy to lift off.  They had to stay until the tide came back in and finally departed sometime after midnight. 

  Sue scoured the beach for shells but we confirmed that this is "Bird Island", not Shell Island. There were only a couple shells worth collecting. But no problem, we have Holden Beach and Cape Lookout ahead. 

  Next up the ICW is Holden Beach.\, home of lots of shells.

Offshore - St Mary's to Winyah Bay 15-16 Apr

 

   Goodbye to Fernandina. This would be a fantastic place to live if it wasn't for the large, noisy and very smelly paper mill and wood products factory on either side of town. Of course, if there were no factories there probably wouldn't be a great town here.

  We are heading out St Mary's Inlet for South Carolina under blue skies and little wind with our large high pressure system still overhead. The winds and seas are forecasted to be light and favorable for the 30hr trip. We'll see, the forecasts never seem to match reality.

   There were a couple shrimp boats working off the Inlet we had to maneuver around as we turned to head north. No problem as we were motoring with basically no wind and the smooth seas you can sea. So far the forecast is holding up. We're supposed to get more wind this evening and will be putting the sails out. 

   We were able to put the sails out and catch some of the light winds from astern but, still needed the engine to keep us moving at a 6kt speed to get us into port tomorrow before dark. The waves did come up somewhat when the wind is blowing against the tidal current but still only 2-3ft from the aft quarter so not a bad ride. 

  Another sunset at sea. Red sky at night. And the forecast is for more good weather tomorrow.

     Still cruising offshore just north of Savannah after a relatively smooth night. The wind is up enough that we are sailing (for a few hours) and a family of dolphins came over to play around the boat. I got some video with my GoPro camera I will have to edit and see if it is any good. I seem to get better video with my phone, but that has to be above the water. The GoPro is the camera to use underwater. 

  We have made good time and meanwhile, can't get reservations at a convenient marina in Charleston, so we decided to just keep on going to Winyah Bay, at Georgetown, SC. We should arrive there about 5pm if the conditions hold up. So far, so good.

   It's 5pm and we are heading up Winyah Bay just as planned, passing by the old lighthouse. It is always windy at the Winyah Bay Inlet and today was no different as our 10kt winds with us the whole trip from Fernandina built to 20kts. We put a deep reef in the mainsail and sailed up the inlet with main and staysail.

  By 7pm we had made it to a convenient anchorage at Butler Island and pulled over for the night, 36hrs after departing Fernandina. Surprisingly, the offshore conditions were exactly as forecasted, which is a first for the last 4 trips we have made south and back. I'm afraid we will get spoiled now and think any ocean passage will be as comfortable. But, it was very nice to have an uneventful passage. No transmission breaking. No heat exchanger or oil cooler hose leaking. No big winds or seas. And we even got 6hrs of sailing and a visit by dolphins. A great trip. Now its back to the ICW motoring to Yorktown.

    

Fernandina 14-15 Apr

Bridge of Lions

 

      Its another early departure on a crisp sunny morning under a large high pressure system after the frontal passage. 

   Its another full day trip to Fernandina and this time we will have the current against us most of way. 

   The dredging is finished at Mantanzas Inlet so there are no difficult shallow spots to manage on this leg.

   Arrived at Fernandina uneventfully and grabbed an anchorage spot just off the town marina.  Another beautiful sunset from our anchorage. 

   So far all systems onboard have been working without any problems. Hope that keeps up. Our batteries even seem to be holding a charge better after the 36hr motoring trip over from the Bahamas. 

   Fernandina is a necessary stop as this is where we make all preps to go offshore from Mary's Inlet here up to either Charleston or Georgetown, South Carolina. The goal is always to skip the ICW through Georgia which is endless meandering through grassland marshes with lots of very shallow water. 

   At Fernandina we hit all our favorite spots like the Aloha Bagel shop for cheese and Jalapeno bagels. 

   Aloha Bagels now has decaf coffee but our favorite coffee spot in Fernandina is the Amelia Coffee Shop and park. Grab a coffee and update our tablets with their free wifi.

   We also ate dinner at our favorite spot, Timoti's, where I normally get a shrimp seafood basket and Sue gets black bean salad. It was as great as always. Didn't get any photos this stop.

   Normally we grab a beer at either Amelia Brewing or First Love, but this time we spied this German Biergarten right downtown. We checked the beer list and noted a grapefruit Hefeweizen which I had to try. It was superb. Now a new brewery on our must visit list at Fernandina. Even better, Sue got talking to the couple sitting next to us all about Rivah and Labs/dogs and they ended up buying our beers for us. What a great day (notice the clear blue sky as well).  A very enjoyable visit as always in Fernandina.

St Augustine 10-13 Apr

                                                                            

   Heading north out of New Smyrna for St Augustine this morning. Its an early departure to make sure we can make it even if the current is against us. Through the northern causeway bridge at 0730 on another sunny day. Light winds behind us will help us along.

   Daytona now has two of the prettiest bridges along the ICW. This new bridge has decorative rock faces along the supports (versus flat concrete). The next bridge up has ocean blue mosaic tiles on the lower supports. 

   Made it to our mooring ball with no problem. We'll be staying here for 3 days waiting for a front to pass through with strong winds. Looks like we'll spend tomorrow onboard the boat all day, no need to get all wet riding to shore in the big waves.

   Next day update - the front blew through today. Thankfully the two tornados in the front passed us by, one to the north and one to the south of us. We just had thunderstorms with a bit of lightning, but none close.

      A stop in St Augustine now means a trip over to Sailor's Exchange, the secondhand boating store owned by Johnathan and Sammy Joe. We needed to pick up a few things including discount mooring lines as a couple of ours chafed through on the trip. 

     St Augustine also means a trip to Aldi's for fresh produce. Sue does the 5-mile hike for the exercise. This time she may have overestimated the volume and got a good arm and back workout as well as her legs. 

   The Spanish replica tall ship of one of Magellan's vessels was back in town at St Augustine. We toured this ship a couple years ago. The crew told us it was a terrible ride on the open ocean, rolling and yawing all over. Nothing like the tea clippers that came 250 years later.

   As you can see, the great weather was back after the frontal passage. Time to move on north.
 

New Smyrna 7-9 Apr

   Next stop up from Titusville is New Smyrna.  

  Back to our traditional anchoring spot at New Smyrna (in center of photo). Upon arrival, we thought someone had taken our spot, but they were off to the right and left and we were able to shoehorn ourselves right into our favorite spot.  

   There is just enough swing room there for us to put out 75ft of anchor chain which will hold us firmly in winds up to 20-25kts. Any more than that and we have to move somewhere else. 

  

   We were able to watch 3 rocket launches from New Smyrna. The first was at about 1700, an afternoon launch. It was a clear day and we could see the flame of the Space-X Falcon 9 rocket rise up and out of the atmosphere.

   The next launch was a night shot, again a Falcon 9 rocket. Usually the Falcon 9's go right on schedule but this one was delayed 3 times for short periods so we were awake at 2330, 0030 and finally it lifted off at 0130. 

   The night launches are more impressive than day launches as the night lights up at the horizon, then around the rising rocket. You can watch the main engine cutoff and second stage lighting off. 

   The last launch was the Delta IV Heavy. We had been tracking this launch for a couple weeks and several delays as I wanted to watch a "heavy" rocket launch, expecting it to be more impressive than the smaller Falcon 9 rockets.

   Carol and Tara drove us down to Titusville where we would be 50miles closer to the launch pad. But even being in Titusville, the launch basically appeared very similar to a Falcon 9. Yes it was larger but still a view of a little rocket, bright flame and long contrail.  Of note, my cousin happened to be at Cocoa Beach, further down to the south, and he got great pictures of the rocket itself. That seems a better location to see the rockets closer up.

   We did have a great spot to view the launch up at the top of the Titusville bridge. That's the contrail in the background.

   No more launches for several days so its time to head on north. Through the New Smyrna bridge and on our way north to St Augustine.

Titusville 4-6 Apr

    Working our way north now, we anchored just south of the Titusville bridge, getting protection from the strong northwest winds coming in tonight and tomorrow. The winds always seem to be stronger at Titusville than elsewhere along the Florida ICW and their mooring field can be quite rough. This spot on the other side of the bridge is well protected from the northwest winds.

   We always walk the bridge at Titusville to get our exercise in and see the sights.

   

   Our anchorage in Titusville put us in a perfect spot to watch tonight's Starlink Space-X launch. Originally set to go at 0230am, the launch was delayed until 5am and we were up to watch along with several other boats and spectators ashore.

   The launch was as bright as others we have seen. I thought it would be much louder at Titusville but there was a good breeze blowing and we were upwind so I guess most of the rumbling went the other way. Still very impressive.

  There were lots of chores to get done at Titusville. We got our propane tanks inspected and certified for another 5 years, then filled up. We got laundry done and showers. Then it was time to stop by the Playalinda brewery. This was peanut butter beer week. I had a standard IPA but Sue had the peanut butter and dark chocolate ale.

  

   While we waiting for the laundry to wash and dry, we watched a mother teaching her baby to fish in the marina. They were chasing mullet fish around the marina and we saw them catch a couple.

   At the other side of the marina there were several manatees including this mother and her two week old baby.

 The next morning it was time to head on to New Smyrna. We stopped by the fuel dock to top off the diesel and water and then we were off for the 5 hour transit. 

Eau Gallie, Fl 2-3 Apr

   Heading north up the Florida ICW, our first stop is at Eau Gallie, a small town just north of Melbourne.

   Eau Gallie has a protected anchorage from the southwest and westerly winds we are expecting with another cold front passing through this evening. There is also a town dock where you can dock and leave your dinghy with ready access to the town.

    The dinghy dock brings you to a park behind the city library. There are no services here for cruisers but it is a pretty spot. Just around the corner is the access to the bridge across the Indian River which enables a 5 mile walk over to Panera, for coffee and a bagel, and back.

   A downside to landing your dinghy at the city fishing pier. Heading back from our morning walk, we had some vibration and knocking from the dinghy engine. Upon inspection, there was about 50ft of fishline with a large hook and sinker wrapped around the propeller. With a sharp box cutter, we made a quick repair. All good to go.

   It's good the dinghy engine fix was no trouble as the next stop in Eau Gallie is the local brewery, just up the street. 

   There were two many choices so we had to resort to a flight. Best ones were the Canaveral Porter and the Art Handler double IPA.

   Walking back to the dinghy dock we noticed this "Yoga retreat garden" that was open to the public and any volunteers to help maintain.

  Sue checked out the papaya tree but there were no ripe ones.

   Along the fence were numerous plants with black berries which looked like and tasted very similar to New York wild blackberries. The sign said they were Black Mulberry plants. They were very good.

   Sue found the table where they put out the ripe papayas for the public. 

   We got back to the boat shortly before the front and thunderstorms rolled through. No strong storms like we had in the Bahamas, just a couple hours of rain which are great for washing the salt off the boat. 

   The next morning the temperature had dropped 30 degrees (to 55) and the skies were blue. It was time to head up the ICW for Titusville, our next stop.