I am going to Mexico on vacation! Yes, I need a vacation from my vacation!.

Ah…Abacos!.

I planned on leaving the Bahamas and going to Los Cabos Mexico on Feb 28th to meet up with my sisters on Mar 1st? The best laid plans….Silver Airways in the Bahamas is perhaps the most mismanaged airlines I have ever flown! And, I have flown Aeroflot!

 

Y my flight was supposed to be from Marsh Harbour Bahamas to West Palm Beach on to Houston overnight in Houston and then onto Los Cabos. my plane had a mechanical problem and so they put us on a oer flight leaving from an even smaller airport 30 minutes away. 5 of us were put into a van and raced up to Treasure Cay where a roomful of people sat…no airplanes had landed or taken off that day. the clerk questioned why they sent is up there. while we were there, alone from Ft Lauderdale circled the airport, the clerk, baggage handler, etc read them the windspeed, ceiling cover, wind direction, etc…but the pilots couldn’t really see the runway…not a lighted field! and, no control tower. So. They turned around and went back to FLL. she suggested that they divert to Marsh Harbour and pick up some of the 100 or so passengers waiting there. But, they had timed out and couldn’t legally fly anymore. So, back in the van race back to Marsh Harbour where a flight I had been wait listed on actually had taken off! So, let’s try Tampa! No, Tampa is overweight and they had to take off 10 bags. Okay, we have one seat left for ft Lauderdale, they will give me a voucher for a night there and I take off at 6am, will be in Los Cabos in time for a late lunch and glass of wine with my sisters. At 10:30pm, they cancel the flight to FLL because of fog. only place to stay is at the Abaco Beach Resort…$330 a night. Won’t give me a voucher.

have to be back at the airport at 7:30 for the new itinerary….#7 that is going to Tampa then on to Houston…will get into Cabos a day late, but it is the only seat. Tampa flight is delayed 3 hours…now going on the FLL flight…last minute, going on e Tampa flight…will have a ticket waiting for me in Tampa to go on with United. Check my bag to Houston, get to Tampa with 30 minutes…no ticket waiting because United didn’t have any seats!!!! anywhere! A really nice Silver Airways agent and her friend a United agent and a jet blue agent get me on a jet blue flight leaving at 7:40pm to NEWARK!!!! And, then a 9am non stop to Cabos. At 2 AM we board the JetBlue to Newark…all other flights including the United newark have cancelled due to snow and ice. Land in Newark at 4:30am…go to the club lounge and take a shower. Then, get into my first class seat (thank you United agent in Tampa). And get to Cabos a day late, but very happy to see my sisters! I haven’t even started on my return trip!

We Had a great time in Cabos….stayed at Secrets all inclusive. Food and drinks were great. We had 2 rooms, both with their own swimming pools. A gorgeous view and had our usual laughing non stop 5 days! nobody can make me laugh…or cry for that matter like my sisters!

We toured Todas Santos and the desert on the way there, Hotel California and the art district in San Jose del Cabos. We ate, we drank, we sang, we danced, we had a blast. I thought I could live there.

We left and thank goodness, my trip back to PA was uneventful and I had been upgraded to first again. A couple of days in PA freezing reminded me that I was now a tropical gal. I gladly returned to Treasure Cay, Bahamas! Okay, so I could really live in Treasure Cay! We stayed there a couple of days…some friends wanted to meet up with us in Great Guana for the Barefoot man concert at Nippers. This is quite an event. a Jimmy Buffett kind of character and a party that is described as Junkanoo meets the mummers! We actually had other plans in Great Turtle Cay, so we missed it this year.

But, the days in GTC and the Sea of Abaco was splendid. the sailing was perfect…the seas great and we thoroughly enjoyed our sailing from Treasure through Whale Cay back into the Sea of Abaco and the Cays.

After a tour of New Plymouth, GTC, we decided it was time to leave the Bahamas and started the staging. New Plymouth was an interesting place….very quaint. It is another loyalist island…settled in the 1700’s by American loyalists…after the revolution, they were loyal to the king and so had to leave America and settled in the Bahamas. They are the white Bahamians.

We left GTC, and spent the night anchored, along with 20 or so other boats getting ready for the West End, Grand Bahamas. From West End, you can cross to Florida….if the weather window is right.

We pulled into a slip at Old Bahama Bay and who should be our slipmates but Island Spirit! We had a great time catching up with them over drinks and snacks.

We did not heed all of our knowledge or others advice when we left Old Bahamas Bay at 5AM…we should have! the first couple of hours were a little challenging with seas 4-6 ft and winds much higher than forecast. We pulled into Fort Lauderdale in a fog…both U.S. and the weather around 10pm. We were pooped puppies….but, it was good to be here!

A couple of days to recoup at our slip in FLL and we rented a car and took off for the keys. We stayed down in Key West for 2 nights and then went over to Naples. A great little side trip.

We went to FLL beach today. Just read and waded in the surf…wonderful! we will be here another 5 days before trekking home. I will stay in PA. David will fly back down on April 19th and link up with a coup,e of guys to bring Sassy back to the Chesapeake. They have done this run a couple of times…it will be 5-7 days of 24/7 in the ocean taking advantage of the Gulf Stream….not my style!

We have had a great time for the past 61/2 months and are already thinking about our next adventure. Thanks to all of you who came with us. we expect some of you to spend a week or two with us next time we do this….fly into treasure Cay and sail and spend days and nights with a lot of fun people.

Love to you all!

 

 

When I started this, we were in Staniel Cay waiting out a weather front….a couple of days later, we are in Cape Eleuthera…waiting out a weather front. I will tell you more about Eleuthera later, but it is described as the best kept secret island from Travel and Leisure. It is gorgeous, but, I think it is like most of the Bahamas….a little downtrodden from the economy.

We are anchored off Staniel Cay in the Exumas…waiting out some weather….story of winter in the Bahamas! we have been back and forth to Staniel a number of times, but it is beautiful. Our friends, Mary and Dave were also in Staniel and so we had a farewell luncheon at the Yacht Club. we have been traveling with them off and on since December and have had many a merry time…we will miss them! But, I think we have made friends for life.

So, to catch up, we last left you in George Town on our way home to Pennyslvania. while in PA, we had 3 snowstorms! So, we were very happy to be back in the Exumas. We had a great time in George Town….dinner with some friends of David’s from the Audubon society in the Poconos, a cocktail party at Peace and Plenty Hotel (a hotel that Dennis and I stayed at 25 years ago)… A country western and a blues band concert in Regatta Park with resident characters….the dinghy dock in town…the Anglican Church and the wonderful people.

After George Town, we sailed up to Farmers Cay for the 5F festival. farmers Cay is a great little island. Our friends Dave and Mary had gone up the day before to secure mooring balls for each of us and we had a backup reservations with Mr Roosevelt Nixon. While we were sailing in, we heard our friend from our Maryland Marina ask for a mooring ball too! We hadn’t seen Bill since sometime in Oct/Nov timeframe on the ICW. It was good to see Bill and Ken. They came down with other Rock Hallers

We started out the night before with a sunset drink at Ty’s Sunset Bar (one of 3 on the island)….beautiful sunset, but you have to be careful if walking as it is right next to the runway. The windsock for the runway is one of the most unusual wind socks I have seen and since we are in the tropics, it is not a necessary garment.

The day of the festival….we knew it was an event when a larger mail or supply boat came into the channel….music blaring and lots of people aboard. Overall the festival was a little disappointing…I thought it would involve more local kids, but we did have fun. I took some school supplies to the woman pastor and she saw some local leaves in our friend’s pocket. She used her arms to demonstrate the properties of the herbal Viagra.

We traveled up to anchor in Black Point  Settlement with Dave and Mary, and as we were sitting in the cockpit, a dinghy came by and more Rock Hallers….Dave and Cherie! We hadn’t seen them since Elizabeth City, NC and although it was just a short couple of cocktails and a catchup, it was sure nice to see them. We hope to see them again in the Abacos.

While in Black Point….a favorite island amongst cruisers, we visited the Garden of Eden. Willie, an elderly man who appears to be suffering from Parkinson’s lives a little bit outside town and most of his property is coral rock. He has a gallery of plants, driftwood, sculptors, etc and tells a story about each on his tour. Lovely man.

Black point has a couple of notable ladies…Ida who owns the laundromat, the best $4 hot shower and 5 fried conch fritters for a dollar. The place is immaculate and she cooks them right up beside the cash register. The other woman is Lorraine and she has a restaurant that is also really good…fresh fish sandwich was wonderful. Cruisers actually donated money over the past couple of years to help her expand. Lorraine and Ida also bake bread. The Bahamas is known for its bread….coconut, cinnamon, banana, white, wheat, etc. It isn’t like cake, it is bread and it is so good. David loves coconut bread french toast. Anyway, the island is stunning, the people so friendly and the food…tasty. Lorraine’s husband is a big Steelers fan.  I am going to send him a towel when I get home as he thinks his wife keeps hiding his and he needs it!

Some other interesting situations…we were boarded by the Bahamian Defence Force while we were in Blackpoint.  We saw them boarding our friends boat and then we took the dinghy back to ours and they boarded us, but without the machine guns they had drawn on our friends.  They were very polite, friendly and informative.  There were a couple of raids in Staniel the previous week.  A Texas couple and their 7 kids were there on a catamaran fleeing the US because of fraud charges.  The US and Bahamian Navy captured them and then there was another boat seized?   Really unusual for that kind of activity.  We see very little crime outside of Nassau.  Almost no one locks their boat, etc.  Another funny thing is you will see an orange golf cart on Black Point with a bunch of kids in uniform…yep, it’s their school bus and today on Eleuthera, we saw a bus from Chattanooga!  There are a bunch of kids from Park City Utah at the Island School for a week of ecological studies…they are about sixth grade and it is a wonderful program.

Back up in Staniel for the big blow coming in from the west, we anchor next to Eddie and Sam from the UK….and, they are fellow Bristol owners. Sassydancer (our boat) was one of the first custom, handmade boats built by Bristol. Eddie and Sam bought their Bristol over the phone from Australia from a woman in Rock Hall. For such a small town, it is amazing all the people we have seen down here from there or have some connection to it.  They are a really fun and interesting couple. We met them in Hampton Virginia and talked about the boats and hoped to hang out more, but we had boat problems and friends we were visiting there, so it was really nice to run into them.

From Staniel, we decided to sail to Eleuthera. It is one of the 5-6 times that you are really at sea. Most of our traveling is island hopping, but you have to make a few crossings when going from one set of islands to another. We had a pretty decent crossing…one wave crashing over the boat and getting me in the cockpit, but mostly just wind on our nose, 15-20 knots wind and 4-6ft waves.  Sounds scarier than it is…especially because what I first saw said 1.7 seas…later I figured out that it was in meters, not feet!

We came into Cape Eleuthera Marina, got a slip, had a hot shower, and set up a dinner date at Pascals for Valentines. A Nice romantic dinner and a good nights sleep!

This morning we woke up to pretty stiff winds and couldn’t think about sailing, so we rented a car, along with a couple we met last night and we toured Eleuthera. Sunday’s are very quiet in the Bahamas, almost nothing open, but we found a couple of interesting spots. Governors Harbour is a lovely town and right outside it are 2 very interesting places. Our carpoolers have sailed Eleuthera many times and they wanted a hamburger from this guy that started selling them from a tent on the beach 4 years ago  to a little cafe 3 years ago.  We searched for the cafe and then asked a woman if she knew where it was. We tried to follow her directions, turned around a couple of times and finally found “the Deck”. The view from the deck is stunning…the decor is really beach kitsch done well. And, it was supposed to be the best hamburger and fries anywhere. We walk up and Mark, the owner says he’s closed because his worker didn’t show up. Mark is totally stoned, but then says he will fix us hamburgers and drinks. We agree on what we want, etc and then another couple comes up, but they were just having drinks. Mark went from a tent on the beach to a very impressive 18 acres on the beach and an incredible restaurant and home. We did have a great hamburger and fries and rum punch, and then for dessert, Mark wanted us to join him in smoking his cigar sized joint. We passed…on not smoking, but got a kick out of this character.

The couple that came up for drinks told us about an abandoned navy base about a mile up the road, so we went to check it out. It was was like a ghost town…abandoned in 1980 after 23 years…sounded like secret stuff.

We are hoping to get to Spanish Wells tomorrow as a staging point for Grand Abaco Island. if the wind stays as predicted we should be able to do it…but if not, we will be in Spanish wells for 4-5 days for the next weather window to do the crossing over to the Abacos.

Have heard from some of you about the cold weather. We were actually cold this am and had to put on heavy sweaters. But, we didn’t have to put on boots and mittens!  We wish you a warmer winter!

Love to you all!

Katie & Dave

 

But, I used to live near Lodi, California and let me tell you, it cannot compare to the Bahamas. And, stuck is really not the right word….but, the weather kept us captive in all three locations.

We left Fort Lauderdale for our first foray outside…which means we were on the ocean. We headed for no name harbor on Key Biscayne for our staging point for Bimini. We took off early the next morning while it was still dark and the first 2 hours were pretty intense. Lots of wind and seas about 3-4 feet. But, then it turned into a beautiful sailing day. We pulled into Browns Marina in Bimini and, stayed there for week waiting for the weather window we needed to cross the Atlantic and spend a night anchored on the Grand Bahama banks,,,,more about that later.

Bimini is charming. So many cruisers are dismissive of the island as the place you have to go to do immigration or to state for the northern, central or southern Bahamas, but I really found the people to be incredibly friendly and the island to be very pretty.

A little history about Bimini….a pretty common theme, and actually for most of the Bahamas. The original Arawak natives were conquered by the Spanish, who indentured them into slavery, decimated their population with disease, and generally took over the islands. British settlers arrived seeking religious freedom in the 1600’s, but after butting heads with the Spanish, seemed the area ungovernable and let it go to the Pirates. The Pirates reigned in Nassau until Woodes Roger, famous for capturing and killing Blackbeard cleaned up Nassau and challenged pirates to accept Death or Pardon. Spanish were not happy with all that was happening, so with the help of the US and France, they recaptured Nassau, but it only lasted a year until the Brits got it back, playing a trick on the Spanish, by having the same British troops go into and out of ships making it look like they had many more troops than they did. The Spanish fled and the Bahamas went to the British.

In the meantime, the U.S. was just finishing up the revolutionary war and many loyalist to the king fled to the Bahamas. There are still a couple of settlements that will only sell their land to descendants of the loyalists! During the civil war, the Bahamas became a major trading center for the blockaded south. And, again those blockade runners were employed during the 20’s prohibition. The Bahamas were the major source of hooch for the U.S….but, after prohibition was repealed, a severe depression hit the islands.

During WWII the islands were an allied staging area and R&R site for US and Canadian soldiers. Today, tourism accounts for 60% of their GDP.

Back to Bimini

Our only problem was that the disco was right at our Marina and we were there before, during and after New Years! So, with the exception of a night or two, we heard blaring hip hop until 2 or 3 in the morning. But, we had a lot of fun with our fellow slipmates and the facilities were good.

We had dinner with our neighbors every night! First, Steph fixed us chicken cache tori delicious! Next night Dave and Mary had bought fresh lobster off the resident fisherman, and we had some filet mignon, so for NYE we surfed and turfed it. Next night Richard had spaghetti that one of his friends had made…fantastic, with a salad and bread. Next night it was fresh grouper and lobster at Richards again and the we finished it off with a salad and taco night with all the trimmings. Needless to say, alcohol was involved!

We spent our time touring the island…checking
to see if Charley, the resident Bimini bread maker had fresh coconut bread, waiting for the supply ship to come in on Thursday with fresh produce, walking the island, renting a golf cart to visit the rest of the island, doing chores on the boat, waiting for navigational chips for the chart plotter, napping, going to the beach, saying hello to everyone on the island and just generally relaxing. I attended mass at the Catholic Church…right alongside the 7 or 8 other churches on the hill overlooking the ocean. Stunning and the few people in church sang in loud and lovely voice.

After a conference of everyone who could speak on what the weather was going to do, we decided, along with Richard and Dave and Mary to make the run for Nassau. The day was a little iffy, but turned into a beautiful sailing day. We anchored in the middle of the ocean on a shallow bank for the night. Full moon, loads of stars, light wind….until around 10PM!!!!! Big wind shift and too much wind…along with really heavy seas. We were bounced around all night. Have to admit, it was uncomfortable, but I have a lot of confidence I the captain and the boat. We left in the dark around 4:30 AM and got to Nassau 12 hours later…just in time to miss the cruise ships exiting. Dave and Mary were not so lucky and had to stay outside the harbor for 2 hours until they left. They were greeted by armed men in dinghys…guess that is good considering the security, but they were really tired by the time they got in.

The weather prediction kept us in Nassau for 3 days. We got on a bus with Dave and Mary…the wrong bus, and did a tour of New Providence. the people there are so polite. Everyone getting on the bus bid us a good morning and helped us figure out the proper bus to take us to the gardens and the zoo.

Downtown New Providence is a mixture of colonial British influence and t-shirted Americans off the cruise ships. We are asked a lot that day, took a coup,e of bus connections and toured both e botanical gardens and the zoo. A delightful day except for my feet! Another night of dinner and drinks with Mary and Dave…Richard begged off as he had a lot of company coming in the next day from Canada.

Dave and Mary stayed in Nassau because their daughter and son in law decided to fly over from Florida and cruise with them for a while. We pressed on to the Exumas…a short 5-6 hour sail from Nassau along with some new slipmates…”peaceful, easy, feeling” Marilyn and Bob. Everyone remembers your boat name easier than your actual name. And, since our boat’s name is Sassy Dancer, I have to constantly say it was named after a dog…not me!

Allen Cay is beautiful and we have only had 5-6 boats anchored in the inlet that we are in….but, weather once again has kept us from moving. Last night we had 40mph winds and were concerned over whether the anchor would hold…it did. But, it was a rocky, rolly night. Tomorrow we are moving over to a marina to celebrate my 4 year old birthday! I had my BMT stem cells 4 years ago today from my lovely donor, Diana. I am here to enjoy the huge and ugly iguanas that inhabit one of the beach at the cay polite us because of her lifesaving donation. Aside from being a lovely person, she is a hero to me and to my family. David and I toasted her and her family tonight as we shared a glass of wine.

The raw and unspoiled beauty of these islands is amazing and when we sit out at night and see more stars than we have ever seen and enjoy a full moon over the most beautiful water, we thank God that we are so lucky. Life is good!

Love to you all!

We last left you in Florida….we made it down the Intracoastal to Ft Lauderdale and our good friend, Pam Wall hooked us up with a private marina only seven slips in a residential zone at a ridiculously cheap price…no we will not tell you where!  We had met one of the cruiserDavid, last year and he is a great neighbor! we also met Diane and Frank from NYC and Marg and Steve from Seattle. I was only there for a couple of days as I was flying out to the west coast for my nieces wedding, and then flying home to Pa for Christmas, but David had a great time in Ft Lauderdale by himself! David and Diane and Frank went in the dinghy for the Christmas parade through the intracoastal waterway while I was winging my way to Portland, Or. they had a great time….David also had dinner, appetizers, drinks, etc…just about every night with one of the other 7 guests in our Marina.

  We

  I Was attending a luncheon with Dennis’ (my late husband) children, grandchildren and even a few great grand children!!!!!  it is always wonderful to see them.  Then, I attended a rehearsal dinner followed the next day by , the wedding ceremony and reception.  A great time of drinking, food and dancing! I flew flew home to PA, David still dining and working on the boat in Florida….David flew home on the 21st and we went to see the kids down in Wilmington….on Christmas Eve, we went to Jake and Teisha’church for their Christmas pageant…J! T and baby Oliver were Mary Joseph and Jesus and Wyatt was a Shepard.  Wyatt was having a little confusion about baby Oliver, Jesus, Christmas, so we got a birthday cake that said happy birthday Jesus and I think he then understood.  After opening presents with David’s family, we stayed at the Philly airport Sheraton and took off for Fort Lauderdale on Christmas morning.  the next day was spent provisioning and then we went outside down to Miami to stage for the Bahamas! We stayed the night anchored in Key Biscayne and at 5AM we headed in the dark to Bimini!!!! It wasn’t the best crossing, but it was mostly enjoyable and uneventful.  We have been in Bimini 2 days and are working out the telephone, Wifi stuff and just asking it easy. It is beautiful here and the people are very friendly and welcoming. Our neighbor boat invited us to dinner last night…this guy is some kind of gourmet chef.  he made Chicken Catetori and it was something great!  tonight we h ousted a different set of neighbors for happy hour and since tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, we decided to have surf and turf!  they bought 12 lobsters off the boat this afternoon and we have filet mignon …so, along with a toast of champagne, we will toast in 2015….wishing all of you “smooth sailing and fair winds” Love to all Katie and David PS We will leave Bimini in a couple of days for the Exumas…

We flew home from Savannah and left the boat in Beaufort, SC to attend David’s family Thanksgiving/Family Reunion.  David’s grandmother started the tradition 94 years ago and his aunts and uncles have really done a great job in keeping it going.  It is a pot luck affair with lots of southern thanksgiving goodies and attended by 75-100 of David’s relatives.  this year his cousin Chuck’s son, Garrett made a special ale especially for our Thanksgiving feast.  Check out the label that he applied.  Really cute cousin and the ale was good.

     

After Thanksgiving, we flew back to Savannah, picked up the boat in Beaufort, and headed south to Georgia!

Here’s David:

We really liked Beaufort and the marina that Katie told you about in the last post. It was an interesting town, but what I enjoyed most was the swamps, Spanish moss, history and warmer weather… finally. Forrest Gump was filmed primarily in this area, and they have all of the filming locations on a map for you. We did go see the huge swamp oak, “Jennie’s Tree”, and the bridge over the Mississippi River that Forrest was filmed running over was actually the bridge from Beaufort to Lady’s Island. If you are a Forrest Gump fan, you’ve got to come to this place…

We soon found ourselves in Georgia. I had heard a lot of negatives about Georgia, the never ending curves, 8 foot tides, 4 knot currents, and the channels that hadn’t been dredged, leading to hard groundings. Well, all those complaints turned out to be true. It was also strikingly beautiful, eerie at times, and desolate, we saw far more porpoises than people. Several places worth mentioning – perhaps the worst was a spot right in the middle of 2 channel markers where we hit a hard ground going only 2 knots, the boat leaned over 30 degrees, spilling everything and breaking my coffee press with grounds and coffee all over everything. Katie managed to clean it up, bless her, we got off the high spot and went on, even more cautious than we had been doing.Can’t go much slower than 2 knots… Then we came to “Hell’s Gate”. A 1 mile cut, feared by everyone for it’s “skinny water” (lack of depth). Rather than go through it on an ebb tide, we anchored out at a beautiful spot and waited for low tide. We figured if we were going to ground, better to do it on a rising tide rather than a falling one… especially in 8’ tides… so we picked our way through it, and made it successfully, often slowly sliding through the mud on the bottom for long stretches.

Katie back:  So, we found some beautiful anchorages…quiet, desolate, and sometimes wild and disappearing!  We crossed from Georgia into Florida after encountering very heavy fog.  The Navy was moving a Trident submarine through the river into the sea, so we had to wait on one side of the river until they let the civilian boats go through…Hope it is headed somewhere nice for those boys and girls aboard and that they never need to use the “trident” part of the ship.

We were very excited to be in Florida!  And we found a couple of nice anchorages here too.  At one of them, David decided to try his fishing pole out and a sailboat coming in shouted out that he was not coming over for dinner if david was fixing whatever he caught.  It was our friends, Warren and Ernie from our homeport in Maryland.  We made arrangements to meet up the next day at the marina we were staying at in St Augustine and ended up having dinner with them and another friend. we also ran into a couple of cruisers we met in hampton, va and again in southport…it is a small community!

St Augustine is the oldest city in the US.  It was founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565 and the city is filled with the colonial Spanish influence.  Really fun place, my mom went to nursing school not too far from here and sailed from Jacksonville to St Augustine.  I bet it was very different in the late 30’s!  It is a little over the top touristy now, but still a beautiful city. David and I toured it in trolley and by foot and really enjoyed our time there.

When we left St Augustine yesterday, a dense fog set in and the tide was low, so we waited it out for a couple of hours, decorated the boat for Christmas and pushed on and found an anchorage just north of Daytona.  The sky had cleared, we had shrimp, salad and a glass of wine and sat upstairs watching the full moon over the water and the Christmas lights and listened to Christmas music and whoa…what was that!  Porpoises and dolphins have been in and out, a few swimming aside the boat racing and a couple of what looks like very young dolphins swimming, but last night we saw and heard the blows of a manatee!  What a great night!

It is a beautiful day, we just had a boat pass us from Bethlehem, PA and David called them on the radio…they actually live in Hellertown on Water street…about a block from us.  We should be in FT Lauderdale in 4-5 days and then will be there or up in PA or in my case out in Oregon for a couple of weeks and then back down on Christmas Day to FT Lauderdale.

Cheers!

Kate & Dave

So we’re in Florida now… about to leave St Augustine. The fog is terrible, and the moon brought exceptionally high tides, so we are waiting both out. Hence, I have some time to write.

We left you in Myrtle Beach, SC on our last post.  We anchored out the first night – beautiful and calm for the most part, but the tides and currents can be wild!  We pulled into Charleston to a marina for a couple of days,  and the current was fierce! After we got tied up, we went over to the USS Yorktown for a tour.  the Yorktown was instrumental in the battle of Midway during WWII as an aircraft carrier.  The Japanese Navy Sunk it after it sank a number of Japanese ships, but it was rebuilt and floated again.  The submarine at the museum looked like it was moored at our Marina….it was in really bad shape, so after we got on it, we decided not to go in it!

 Yorktown On bottom

 

David and I toured Charleston on a horse drawn carriage and walked about 5 miles around the city…really charming. Beautiful homes, lots of history and great restaurants! And, of course the history of the civil war – first shot at Ft Sumpter – which is that little mound in the harbor with the flag.  I thought it would be bigger!  Only one person was killed – and it was an accident as he went to save the flag.

Later we met up with our friends, Carol and Bob for drinks, dinner at a great place, Cru Cafe, and then more drinks!   we left the the next day to continue on down to Beaufort SC where we were going to stay for a couple of days and then leave the boat while we went home for Thanksgiving. 

While in Beaufort, SC we toured the Sea Islands, including St Helena.  The Sea Islands tell a story of cultures from freed slaves, Africa, Creole, and indigenous Carolinians and Georgians.  It is a beautiful and haunting area.  We toured Penn Center on St Helena which was one of the first Black schools to educate freed slaves.  The town of Mitchelville was the first freed slave town….in 1820.

 

Beaufort is a really charming town – lots of great restaurantz and shops and home to the largest Marine Corp Bases.  We did a walking tour of Beaufort and took in the majestic homes and the lovely gardens.

 

 

This bllue building above is the “fillin station” next to our marina.  The marina is a wonderful place!  There are 125 reviews of this marina and almost all of them are 5 stars – and the ones that are not are because they started charging for the washer and dryer or the currents to get into the marina are strong.  People started to stay at this marina one night and have stayed 7 Months!  The people are amazing and it really is a family environment and friendly!  We came in on a Friday and when we called in, the dockmaster said, “Good, you’ll be here for steak night at the fillin station.”  I’ll sign you up.  So, we went to Steak night – this bar only opens on Wed, Thurs and Friday.  Wed is a $4 hamburger, hot dog, potato salad and drink.  Thurs – 2 pork chop dinner for $7 and Friday it is a pound of steak, baked potato and corn for $10.  An old Marine Corp retiree cooks the food on a grill out the back – have to tell you, it was a great steak – tender, cooked perfectly and the comaradie of our gang was really fun!  And, the drinks were cheap too.

Speaking of cool, cheap places…..

David had found this…how do I describe it…hummm local color seafood/cheap docking place. the write-up in active captain was mixed…some saying it was a broken down dock with no help to tie up, etc…and others that said stop here for sure! great people, great shrimp, but it is a working shrimp and oyster dock, not a marina. so, we were there at around quitting time, so we tied up ourselves (I am getting a lot better at lassoing pillings and tying lines to cleats, etc), I went in with our $25 to stay the night and, bought 2 lbs of the biggest, sweetest shrimp for $9 a lb. Not exactly some of the stories in the write up…they had the shrimp thrown in for free! but, we did meet a couple of local characters and had a good night’s sleep and some great shrimp.

We had some raucous weather while in Beaufort, so our only choice to drive  into Savannah was a very sunny, but very cold (high 20’s, low 30’s with a lot of wind) day.  So, we opted for the hop on hop off trolley and toured one of the most beautiful cities in the US.  St John’s the Baptist church is stunning – and the restaurant selections is  almost overwhelming.  There are 56 squares…I think the first ones inn the historic district were developed by Oglethorpe  the first governor.

The South Carolina school of Art and Design is big in Savannah and they have renovated a ton of buildings – this one is a restaurant that is run by the students that is a former pharmacy.  They have kept the drawers with “ointments” heart, etc…very cool city, but we needed more time!  We walked most of it after the trolley, and David took a picture of me sneaking into the cupcake store!

 

The sunset is from our boat in Beaufort – Happy Thanksgiving to everyone – we will be back on the boat on Saturday and continue heading down – our friends are in Florida – enjoying the warmth and we are ready to do that too!

Kate & Dave

 

marine being dumped into the watoer with weapon, shoes!

 

Last time I updated everybody, we had just entered North Carolina and had visited Elizabeth City and Edenton. We left Edenton and headed up to Belhaven to see Lida and Roger, my friend Melissa’s parents. I had heard about Belhaven, Lida’s hometown for years and wanted to visit them and their lovely town. We docked up, shopped the town…got lots of goodies, had dinner with Lida and Roger, visited their beautifully restored home, had some homemade apple cake, met their son, Chip and took a picture as we left town the next day. Great visit

We needed to change our plans to go to Manteo and Ocradoke out on the barrier islands because their was an expected nor’easter for 2-3 days which would have been dangerous. So, we decided to go to the River Dunes Marina early. I had a coupon for a BOGO night and it came highly recommended. So, we left Belhaven and I recharted our course.

We stayed there 3 days and met some great people. I hitched a ride into Oriental with a group of them and we ran errands…the smallest Walmart you have ever seen…craft show, hardware store, seafood shack, west marine, and a sports bar…all in a couple of hours. David and I borrowed the van next morning and went in to oriental. And a couple of surrounding towns. Oriental is where we met Dog! And, saw a lot of the pretty shrimp boats.

From Oriental, we went over to Beaufort, NC. Another picturesque Watertown…with loads of history, great food, beautiful landscape

and sailing. The picture of the wild horses is directly opposite the downtown. We met up with a couple who were at River Dunes with us and docked next to each other….really nice and fun, even if they were trawler folks! We will see them again along the way. While in Beaufort, we visited the NC Maritime Museum….which has an exhibition of the “booty”recently brought up from Queen Anne’s Revenge….the mother ship of Blackbeard the pirate. Blackbeard was captured by the British in Beaufort and was decapitated and had his head hung from the bowsprit of the avenging officers ship.

The rest of the town had a lot of interesting shops, restaurants, but, we were more interested in the free drinks and music at our marinas bar.

The day we left Beaufort, was a long one. We had heard the day before that you needed to pass Camp LeJeune early, because they were doing maneuvers
And firing off ordinance and you would have to stop and wait a couple of hours.
Luckily they were not shooting anything off while we were sailing by, but they were still doing maneuvers. One of the pictures is when the soldiers were pushed off the inflatable craft into the water with their combat boots, weapons, full dress and then expected to lift themselves up out of the water back into the boat. We had our coats on watching them. There were planes that take off and land totally vertical, helicopters dragging payloads as they skirted around the areas, huge landing crafts like the d-day invasion, Coast Guard and Navy gunboats…an interesting array of military action. Then, we anchored in their staging area overnight and as it was the only anchoring area around watched as more sail boats, catamarans, and trawlers vied for enough room to feel comfortable for the night. There were a couple of boat squabbles, we just listened, but in the morning, everybody was fine.

After the military day on the ICW, we decided to make a long day and head down to Southport. I love Southport…it is another lovely, picturesque town And, it is 30 minutes from my condo on Ocean Isle beach…which meant a bed that doesn’t rock and a shower that has a lot of hot water and walking on the beach…incredible sunsets over the channel from the deck and, no else around. We took advantage, rented a car and ran all our errands,etc.

It was so cool going through the ICW around islands that I know from the beachside…a totally different and beautiful view. Lots more wildlife…we’ve seen so many different birds, had Dolphins beside the boat, fish jumping and of course those fishermen!

We are now in Myrtle Beach and David is meeting so many interesting boat people. He is so excited by the level of interest in the Bristol…people actually come over to the boat to see it, and of course other Bristol owners are very proud. He has promised to go over and see a guy’s Bristol tomorrow morning before we leave. I am going to walk with the resident Marina group at 6:30 if it isn’t too cold!

We are still having fun, meeting interesting and enjoying nature!

Katie & Dave

 

 

 

Captain Dave

 

 

Ocean Isle bEACH AT THE CONDO

Souhport

 

This is the beach outside my condo in Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Pelican

Marines in amphibious boats…

this blog is a hot mess…still trying to get it right!

The Dismal Swamp was a bit of a disappointment, with a major highway running alongside it. However, when we left the Swamp ditch and started navigating the Pasquotank River, everything changed… we were in the most beautiful cypress swamp I have ever seen.

We anchored behind Goat Island, a good anchorage, but well known for its owls. We had at least 4 of them carrying on, so David did one of his atrociously bad owl calls, and that shut them up for the rest of the night. They’re probably as scared of the swamp monsters as most people are.

 We dockied in Elizabeth City the next morning… Known as the City of Hospitality, you get free docking, a wine and cheese party, and a gentleman at the dock all day to help with any questions, tying up, etc… Unfortunately, my alternator repair I had just done gave out within about 5 hours, so I found myself fixing it while

underway several times… I took it all apart, found the source of the problem, and needed the services of a machine shop to fix the problem.. (For those of you that have asked… I’ve got the hi power alternator which provides more than the amperage my batteries need. I have backup systems and safeguards as well, so the loss of the alternator wasn’t a big issue. We have an additional generator, as well as solar and wind generation, and I can turn off the battery to the engine, so no matter what, I can always start the engine..) Well, it turns out on Sunday nothing is open in North Carolina, except for Mike and Mike repair services, who do anything, and I mean anything, that will pay them something. I gave them the parts I needed machined, and they disappeared with my expensive alternator and a bunch of parts…. They showed up 2 hours later, apologized for the bill, which was far less than anyone, anywhere would have charged, and did a superb job on the repairs. I put it all togerther, and it has worked perfect.  They were an interesting father and son duo.  Father Mike didn’t like naming younger Mike a junior, so he just named him Mike.  And Sarah, named their little girl Sarah…so, the IRS thought they were just taking double deductions.

We met up a bunch of our friends from Rock Hall in Elizabeth City, NC.  It was great to see them and share stories. They left a week after we did, which gives you an indication of our slow pace, or their very fast one.  We did not get the EC wine and cheese party…it was Sunday in NC, so we did it ourselves.  Carol, retired recently and shared her champagne with us…apparently she will be greatly missed by her colleagues, but we’re happy to have her as one of our fellow retirees.

We left Elizabeth City 2 days ago and headed North to the end of Albemarle Sound.  We are going 60 NM out of our way…everyone is wondering why we were heading north when everyone else is going south as fast as possible.   Well, we are so happy we chose Edenton, NC.  It is a perfect small town for boaters and maybe for just about everyone.

The city docks are free for 2 days…electric $3 a night, free wifi, showers, cable and…the use of a car!  we were the only transients there!  the charm, history and hospitality of this town was incredible.  We  were greeted everywhere like we were the most important people in town, we went to see a free afternoon movie at the Taylor Movie house, built in 1925…saw Teahouse of the August Moon…was great, with a full audience at 4 PM…gotta love us retirees!

We Had a great meal at one of the local restaurants…Watermans and, we went on both a walking and a trolley car tour that left us numb with their historic legacy going back to the very early 1700’s. First courthouse in the state, oldest house in the state, several signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, one of the most famous runaway slaves in America, active underground railroad, and on and on and on.  And, did I mention everyone was incredibly nice? I met an old guy named Jim, who has a decrepit old trawler he’s fixing up… If we lived here it’d take about 2 days for Jim and I to become best friends, except he doesn’t drink alcohol.

Edenton also was home to Governor Iredell…actually, I think he was better known as one of the first Supreme Court Justices, and the Barker House was the location where the ladies league of Edenton refused to drink tea as part of their revolutionary stance against the king of England and the tax on tea.  There is a great museum at the Barker house in their honor.  There are about 170 high end historic homes in downtown Edenton dating back to the 1700’s!  They have their own Sotheby’s agent on Main Street and when we slowed down to grab a flyer, she flew out of the door and handed us a card saying…you never know.

The lighthouse has a story too…was originally at the Roanoke River Inet,  but, a man bought it about 50 years ago, had it out on Edenton Harbor and lived in it for 40 years and his son sold it to the county and now it is a museum!

So we’re leaving Edenton tomorrow morning early, to find an anchorage on the Alligator River. We leave it with some melancholy, and hope to be able to return to this lovely town. So, we anchored in the little Alligator River, I fixed a Caprese Salad and Spaghetti and, we had a great sunset.

We were pooped, so we went to bed early….water was like glass, almost no wind, and perfect protection from the south.  Around midnight, the wind shifted to the north and was 22-28 kts and we had some waves AND we were dragging our anchor, along with about 10 others boats that had anchored there.   It took me a couple of hours to get the picture of David running around the boat naked except for his life preserver out of my head!  It was the rockiest, rolliest night I have ever had in the boat.  we didn’t sleep much watching to see if the anchor would hold and I actually got a little sea sick from the waves and wind….oh, and then it started pouring!  Needless to say, we bugged out of there this AM as soon as it got light enough, along with everyone, but this poor trawler who was waiting for Boat US to come and tow him out of the stumps….guess he is a sound sleeper and didn’t notice his boat was moving!

I did not get the pics lined up with the story….you will have to guess what matches up!

PS We are now in Belhaven visiting a friend’s parents, and we just heard that the swing bridge we came through yesterday is closed due to 35 MPH winds!