8-15 Mar, Daytona Beach Spring Break - with Jackson, Ella and Reed

 

  Heading north past the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse to Daytona Beach where we will be hosting the grandkids for their Spring Break. 

   We'll be staying at Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona and pickup a rental car to travel around with the kids. That will be useful also as Rivah has another vet appointment for her anal gland issue. Not getting worse but, not getting better either.

   Well, the kids didn't make it on Monday as their flight was cancelled but, now scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

   That gave us a free day with the rental car to drive to New Smyrna and spend another day with Tara and Carol for more beer and tacos.

   Success! They're here finally, just a half day later. Now off for Daytona activities.

   First stop is the beach. Its not hot Florida weather but at least it's short sleeves, especially in the sun. 

   Its a tight fit for 5 on the boat but there's room for everybody. 

   Game time.  Looks like the boys are sleeping through the instruction phase. 

  If you're in Daytona, you might as well tour the most famous site in town, the Daytona 500 Speedway. 

   The tour was fairly interesting with views of the stands, the track, the pits and winners lane.

  Here's the whole team in Victory Lane. 

   After the track tour, our plan was to head to Cape Canaveral to tour the space center and watch a launch that evening. However, we learned its $85 per person to get on the facility which only makes sense if you allocate an entire day to see all the sights, so we opted to head for the beach.

   Meanwhile, the launch was scrubbed, the second time the kids have missed a launch, so we had a nice seafood dinner and then headed back to the boat.

   Next on the agenda was kayaking at Blue Springs park where the manatees come to lounge in the warmer spring fed waters off the St Johns River. There are several hundred manatees here and several big alligators that we saw. 

   In the afternoon it was off to the go-kart track for some racing.

   The karts actually go pretty fast, up to 30mph which is fast when you are sitting a few inches off the asphalt and running through the hairpin turns. 

  It takes a while to figure out how fast you can power through the turns sliding slightly but not spinning out. I see how young racers learn how to drive starting with these little go-karts.

   After racing, it was off to Putt-Putt golf, then on to Tara and Carols for dinner. A pretty busy day.

   All too soon it was time to head back to the airport. We packed a week of activities into basically a 3-day visit but everyone had a great time.

   Fortunately there return flight went as scheduled with no delays.

   Back to just the two of us. Coffee and bagels for breakfast in Daytona.

21 Feb - 07 Mar New Smyrna, FL

 

   Poor Rivah. She has an infected anal gland and has to be kept from licking it. We are trying two inflatable collar donuts rather than a hard plastic collar that would be a problem on the boat. We tried one donut but she can still get around it, so its double guards.

   She is on 10 days of medicine then we have to return to St Augustine for a recheck. 

   Meanwhile, we will spend some time at New Smyrna visiting our friends Tara and Carol.

   First on the list to do is a visit to the New Smyrna Beach Brewery. We know our favorite beers now, hazy IPA for Mark and dark Stout for Sue. 

   The weather has been sunny but still cold. Long sleeve weather but at least not winter coats any more. Still have a thick blanket and comforter on the boat but no need for the electric blanket. 

   Not a good view of rocket launches at Cape Canaveral from our marina berth looking over bright lights from a restaurant and condos, but you can see the rockets go up at night from here. A bright red streak in the sky. A bit of rumbling several minutes later.

   Always work to be done on the boat and going aloft is best done in the marina on a calm day. We had to install a new flag halyard as the old one degraded in the sun and broke. Sue gets hoisted up the mast to feed the new halyard through the block at the spreaders. 

   Staying at the marina is very convenient for taking walks and stopping for bites to eat. Rivah is very hopeful of getting a treat but, she doesn't get treats from the table. In addition to her anal gland medicine she is on special dog food for her digestive issues. The downside of getting older we are all familiar with.

   Spending a couple weeks in New Smyrna we had several opportunities to visit with Tara and Carol including a Mexican dinner with them and their friends from Columbia (who have US citizenship they reminded us and not facing deporting).

  Weather is warming up, but it is still winter in northern Florida. At least its very sunny. Very little rain this trip so far, just cold northern winds. 

      We're here again for the Mardi Gras parade in New Smyrna. Not as many floats as last year but still lots of decorated golf carts and Jeeps and lots of beads. 

   The New Smyrna beach with cones denoting where the vehicle access area is. Another sunny but cool day.

   Tomorrow we will be heading north to Daytona Beach to host the grandchildren coming for Spring Break.

20 Feb - 21 Feb, New Smyrna, FL

    Transiting to New Smyrna with the staysail out to try to take advantage of the north winds behind us. 

   We are trying to get to New Smyrna before 5pm when the marina closes but it doesn't look like we will make it because the tidal current is against us for most of the 10hr transit. 

   Here we are passing through the Matanzas Inlet area which is a notorious shallow area with lots of shoaling. But it was dredged last year so no problems as long as you stay on the proper track.

   There are 3 opening bridges to pass through along this transit and fortunately all 3 are opening on request with no time restrictions. We got through all 3 with no delays.

   Several bridges to pass under in Daytona Beach. Daytona has done a nice job designing and decorating their bridges. Very pretty compared to the normal "functional" concrete bridges along the ICW. 

   Approaching New Smyrna with the iconic red lighthouse at the Ponce de Leon Inlet. 

   Didn't quite make it to the marina by 5pm but we did make it to the bridge and make the 5pm opening. The winds never came up to the forecasted level which is good now as it is time to enter the marina and always easier with light winds. 

   Made it to the marina just after closing but it was a straight in shot to the slip and light winds so we docked with no problems. 

   We decided to stay at the city marina for a week as there are some strong winds and thunderstorms forecasted plus, Rivah has to go to the vet with some anal gland problems so this will be more convenient. 

14-19 Feb, St Augustine, FL

    Up early to transit down to St Augustine but, we have a problem. The windlass was struggling to pull up our anchor and I soon learned what the problem was. Our chain had somehow worked its way underneath another abandoned chain on the river bottom. 

   I had to get a dockline under the old, heavy chain to take the load off our chain, then we were able to retrieve our chain. But, the next problem was how to get the old chain over our Bruce anchor which has 3 flukes which catch the river bottom - and catch on the old chain. 

    I got two flukes over the chain but every time I tried to get the 3rd over the anchor would spin. Since it took me two arms to hold up the 80lb old chain I didn't have a free arm to spin the anchor. Sue had to come up forward from the helm to spin the anchor with a boat hook. That left noone at the helm and we nearly drifted into another anchored boat nearby, but she was able to race back and motor us forward and save the day.  Thirty minutes later, we were on our way for St Augustine.

   It turned out we hadn't wasted 30 minutes because 30 minutes later we caught up with the American Eagle cruise boat who was delayed passing through the very narrow railroad bridge south of Fernandina. If we had left on time, we would have had to wait for 30 minutes behind the cruise boat as he worked his way through the narrow railroad bridge opening. 

   For those interested in an ICW cruise without your own boat, this cruise line offers cruises along several sections of the ICW and Chesapeake Bay.

     White pelicans on the shore. We are finally in Florida, although the weather temperatures don't reflect it.

   Several hours later we have arrived at St Augustine and picked up our mooring ball. We asked for the north mooring field as it is the closest to the marina so the shortest dinghy ride and, we got the first ball next to the bridge. That was very fortuitous as the winds blew from the north for most of our 6 day visit which gave us a wet dinghy ride back to the boat each trip, but it was the shortest trip possible.

   We ended up staying 6 days at St Augustine, which is longer than normal, but it gave us time to get our laundry done, take Rivah to the vet, and visit with our nephew Johnathan at Sailors Exchange. They have a new building, larger than the old site, which lets them display all their merchandise.  And they also have a new AirBNB house available to rent.

  We walked out to the lighthouse to get some photos and also to stop by the Old Coast Brewery and taco shop. 

   Turns out Rivah has an infected anal gland that we had to get checked and medicine prescribed. Now she's on 2 weeks of antibiotics and the no licking collar. Turns out one of these donut collars wasn't enough so she has been wearing two of them. Not that happy but she doesn't try to get it off - just mopes. 

   St Augustine is a very picturesque city with lots of tourists even though it was quite chilly. At least when the sun was out it was warm. We had two days of rain while we were here with some cold temps at night. Nothing like jumping into a cold, damp bed at night.

   Soon it was time to push on further south, hopefully to some warmer weather. 

   Another early departure as we have a 10hr trip to make today to get to New Smyrna. Off the mooring ball and through the 0700 bridge opening with no problems. 

10-12 Feb, Charleston and Fernandina

 

   We arrived at Charleston Harbor and anchored off Fort Johnson, just inside the inlet, positioned for an early morning departure for Florida. 

   Unfortunately, no time to tour Charleston (which we have done several times) as we have to depart tomorrow morning for our weather window.

   First light Monday morning and we are departing Charleston, passing by Fort Sumter, heading out the channel. 

   The winds are light at daybreak but forecasted to build from the northeast and push us straight down to St Mary's Inlet at Fernandina, FL We have a 30 hr window to make this 24+ hour trip before the wind shifts to the south on our nose.

   The winds are just about 30deg off from dead astern so we have poled out the headsail and have a preventer line on the mainsail to prevent it from swinging across the boat and perhaps breaking. We have two deep reefs in the sails as the winds are forecasted to be 20-30kt.

   During the morning the winds were light and I took a reef out of the mainsail. Within a couple hours the winds had built to over 20kts and we needed that reef back in. That means furling the headsail and turning up into the wind to take the load off the mainsail so we can pull some more in. Accomplished that feat, then back on course to St Mary's with 3 reefs in.

   No heat from the sun during this passage so it is a bit chilly, around 50degs. The crew are all curled up with lots of blankets in the cockpit.

   This will be a tough passage for Riveh as it is way to rough to go out on the deck to her potty spot. She'll have to go in the cockpit or hold it for 24hrs. Turned out she went once in the cockpit.

   Passing by anchored ships off of Savannah, the halfway point. Usually we pass through here in the middle of the night when we depart from Georgetown, further north that Charleston.  It's a shorter trip offshore leaving from Charleston and not as spooky passing the anchored ships in the daytime.

   The winds are strong and seas at 5-6ft from astern, rocking and rolling us, but we are making good time averaging over 6kts.  We had some surfing speeds up to 8.5kts before I put the reefs back in and slowed us down to safer speeds.

   Its a one overnight 24hr trip so we now have 12hrs of nighttime sailing. Sue caught this interesting moment in time with the ocean depth at 56.8ft and our speed at 5.68kts.  

   Nighttime is when you think of all the things that could go wrong with the boat. On two previous trips we have had hose clamps break on the engine causing flooding in the engine compartment. Nothing hard to fix but scary when the bilge pump goes on in the middle of the night unexpectedly. (I replaced the leaking oil cooler this summer that was causing the clamps to corrode.)

   We are sailing this time so no worries about the engine. Still making great time and we will be arriving at St Mary's about 6am. The wind is forecasted to die down by 6am so that will be good and we can slow down and arrive in the daylight. Meanwhile, it is a roller coaster like sleigh ride sailing downwind.  Good thing is no bashing into waves, but still some sharp rolls back and forth. Amazingly, Sue has not gotten seasick, a first. The Bonine and wrist bands seem to be working.

   St Mary's Inlet at 7am, can't see a thing. The wind died down so we slowly approached the Inlet waiting for the sun to rise. 

   Fortunately we have a chartplotter with GPS that shows you where you are, where the channel is, where the commercial and fishing vessels are that have AIS, and we have radar if we need it.

 

   Of course the wind builds back up as you are passing through the inlet and the waves build in the shallower waters and two dredges are working in the inlet plus a shrimp boat is exiting in the fog, but we made it through with no problems.

   By 8am we were in an anchoring spot inside the inlet in safe and calm waters. There was a tug and barge sharing our anchoring spot, but lots of room for both of us.

   We spent the day at anchor, sleeping and relaxing. Tomorrow we will move our anchorage spot to just off the city marina where it is a short dinghy ride to shore, with showers and laundry.

   A safe and quick passage, but still physically and mentally exhausting. Nice to be anchored and calm.

8-9 Feb, Georgetown to Charleston, SC

   Departing Georgetown for Charleston. Was a nice visit with warm, sunny days. This time of year the town dock was free each day giving easy access to town without putting the dinghy in the water.

     Heading into the ICW from the Waccamaw River.  Up ahead is the floating swing bridge that crosses the ICW. This is are first time down the ICW from Georgetown in last 10 years. We've been going out to sea at the Waccamaw Inlet for the past few years.   

   This year we only have a 24hr wind window to transit offshore on Monday to Florida so we head down to Charleston and put out to sea there.

    This an interesting bridge. It is basically a barge with an asphalt road on the deck.  Here it's in its berth next to shore. When vehicles need to transit it swings out across the ICW. 

   This is an upgrade from what used to be here when we came through 10 years ago. Then it was a small one vehicle barge that was pulled back and forth across the ICW via cables. 

   We could get to Charleston in one day but the winds don't shift for us until Monday morning so we'll take two days to get there.  Halfway to Charleston is a nice anchorage at Awendaw. We've stopped here several times. Usually its very quiet and isolated, but these days they are depositing dredging residue on the island. There were several construction cranes and dozers there, but thankfully on Saturday night all was quiet.

   Sunday morning sunrise after a quiet night. We are off for Charleston today.

    This is the view for most of the day. Marsh lands between the mainland and the ocean. A few fishermen out this morning but very few people live along this area.

  Anchored off Fort Johnson, just up the river from Fort Sumter.  We have one other boat neighbor. 

   Nice spot to watch the Charleston sailing races on a Sunday morning. Three classes of sailboats raced a couple races each.

   A bit rolly here with lots of boat wakes from far away boats, but we will be leaving early in the morning, heading out the inlet and on to Florida.