June 29, 2010 - Virginia

Last night was breezy, it was blowing greater than 20 knots all night. It made the Albemarle Sound crossing this morning a little choppy, but it was only temporary. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, except that we are now in Virginia!

We got to our planned anchorage at Pungo Ferry, and the water was a little to skinny, even for us! Luckily there was an abandoned marina right across the way. The windows were all boarded up and looked as if it hadn't been occupied in a long time. Tonight, we will call it home, and hope that the pilings stay put while we are here!

June 28, 2010

We left Belhaven early, there was no need to go ashore. We made our way to the Alligator River Canal. With a name like that you would expect to see....alligators, but instead we saw a baby black bear. We saw something swimming across the canal with its head above water a few hundred yards ahead of us. The canal couldn't have been more than 200 yards wide. Through the binoculars we could see that it was a bear, and he kept turning his head to look at us while he was swimming. Once he reached the shore he ran full speed for the cover of the trees, but before he disappeared he turned to watch us go by. It was very cool, I am still wondering where "momma bear" was!

In other wildlife news today...I killed the worlds largest green head fly! It was so big that I had to take his photo to remember him by.

We got to South Lake anchorage by 4:30, but we had to navigate through crab pot city to get there! There was such a concentrated amount of crab pots that it was like driving a school bus through a mini cooper slalom course. It might have been easier if our beam wasn't 23 ft. Chris is still cursing the crab pot fishermen!

June 27, 2010

We sadly left our Beaufort mooring, we had to get diesel and fill up with water before we set out. We had an easy time pulling up to the fuel dock with the wind and tide in our favor. I left the boat to go and pay for the fuel and throw away trash, and when I came back the guy who was moored next to us was on the dock talking to Chris. I got back on the boat and threw my crocs in the dinghy which hangs from the davits on the back of the boat (that is where we keep our shoes, that way we never forget them when we go to shore, which has been know to happen before we established that routine). Anyways, I got back on to the boat with Dahlia and slipped off my crocs and tossed them into the dinghy. One of my crocs tried to escape, Jim saw it fall into the water too. He jumped onto the transom and tried to reach out with his leg to get it. It was too far so he reached his leg out further and further. Then it was like watching slow motion, "ooooohhhh nnnnooooo JJJJJiiiiiiimmmmm"!! He fell right in the water! I felt terrible, not only was he soaking wet on my account, but he had his cell phone in his pocket too!

I hope Jim's day got better, ours turned out pretty good. We made it to Belhaven, NC. Which was a good distance to travel in a day! There was just one section on the Neuse River which is just off Pamlico Sound that we were all on the verge of going insane. There was a 6 knot trailing wind and we were traveling at 6 knots, which translates to NO breeze at all. The temperature in the saloon of the boat was 100 degrees, and it wasn't that much cooler in the cockpit. To add insult to injury, we were swarmed by green head flies. We made a game of how many each of us could kill. This is where we started to cross the line of sanity, when some of the flies didn't die from swatting, we would take great pleasure in tearing one wing off to let them suffer. Sick...I know, but their suffering helped ease our suffering. Plus, it is hard to feel sympathy for something that just keeps biting you!

We got in around 7pm and while we were anchoring Dahlia fell asleep in her chair, it must have been a long day for her as well!

June 26, 2010

A perfect beach day! We went to the other side of Carrot Is. on the dinghy to spend some time at the beach, there was a terrific breeze, and perfect water temperature. Dahlia enjoyed eating more sand, and Deason, Chris and I learned how to throw a casting net.

Bobby brought his Jet ski. That thing is so much fun! You know you are having a great time when you are laughing and smiling so hard that your upper lip gets stuck to your gums.

Sadly, we will leave Beaufort tomorrow. We would like to make it back up to the Cape so we will get on our way! We will definately spend more time here on our way back down in the fall.

June 24-25, 2010

Yesterday was by far our best day on the boat, we did nothing. It was great! Deason spent the day on the beach with another boat bound boy. He was only 6, but they had a blast. They were rowing a dinghy along the beach and Deason even rowed back to the boat to get lunch. Then he had to fight the current to row back to the beach, he never gave up. By the time his friend left and he got back to the boat he was so shelled that I thought for sure he would fall asleep at dinner that night.

We went out to dinner with Uncle Bobby, then to the pirate show. The show was a brief history of Blackbeard and included cannons and gun fire that scared the pants off Chris and I. Dahlia was completely unfazed by it all. They even recruited kids to become pirates, most of them ended up spinning the "wheel of misfortune" to assign their pirate posts. Overall, the show was very funny, most of the humor was meant for adults, and hopefully went over the kids heads. Deason didn't want his picture taken with the pirates so Dahlia and I had to stand in, she liked the pirates.

Deason may not have fallen asleep at dinner, but he barely made it to his pillow, then he slept till 8:15. There really isn't anything better than an 8 yr old boy getting ALL of his energy out! After his great night of sleep, he had to report for work today on Water Bug at 10am. He loved it, and has been spouting off Beaufort info and history to us since he has returned. Sherry got here tonight and we had dinner on the boat, if only the no-see-umms didn't join the party, it would have been perfect!

Before D went off to work he was sitting on the floor with Dahlia when he looked up at me and said "Mom you look all new......except you have pirate toes".

Only a kid can compliment you and insult you in the same sentence. I took the compliment and decided that rather than have him elaborate on what pirate toes look like that I would just go moisturize my feet instead.

June 23, 2010

I started the dinghy! Then, I almost fell in the water! I pulled that thing as hard as I could, and then it slipped from my hand and I almost landed in the drink. Chris almost fell in the water too, but it was because he was laughing so hard.

The great thing about this cruising lifestyle is that you get to discover all of these little coastal towns that we would probably never get to otherwise. There is a lot of history in all these little towns as well. We went on the Water Bug tour, and Uncle Bobby is a wealth of knowledge. Blackbeard's boat Queen Ann's Revenge was found in 1996 off the coast, and there is a great museum here that has all sorts of recovered artifacts from the ship. Coincidentally, Chris' great great great etc. uncle helped take the town of Beaufort for the Union Army during the Civil War.

We have a great spot here, we get to see Rusty and Connie (two wild mustang horses) who live on Carrot island. They are two bachelors out of 45 or so wild horses that live on the island. They graze on the sea grass quite often near our boat.

June 22, 2010

Yaaayy....Beaufort! We made it to Beaufort early! Well, early for us after traveling 40miles. We were greeted by my Uncle Bobby on his boat Water Bug of Water Bug Tours, and a friend of his who was kind enough to help us get on to the mooring. Once we were secured Deason and I went for a quick swim, then we all went to shore to check out Beaufort, and see Uncle Bobby.

After that we all came back to the boat and had a great dinner, with a beautiful harbor view and great company. Deason did his first solo dinghy ride to drop off Uncle Bobby, he drives that thing better than I can. Yet, I was still very nervous, have to take off the training wheels at some point though! See it, do it, teach it!

June 21, 2010

Up and at em' early. We had to hit West Marine for our water pump. We had water, but it was a two person operation to get it. If I was doing the dishes, Deason had to work the switch. I would run the water until it would only trickle, then Deason would turn on the pump by flipping the switch. It worked, but was very tedious yelling "pressure" when you needed water while in the shower.

We liked Wrightsville, everything was fairly easy to get to. Once we moved the boat to the different anchorage it was more enjoyable. We did have a few people fly by on their power boats making sizable wakes. Then, there was this one prize moron who was taking his kids tubing in and around all the boats in the anchorage like we were orange traffic cones and he was having fun doing donuts around us. He was so clueless that he had the nerve to smile and wave at me. He might have gotten a clue when I didn't wave back and just put my hands on my hips, because he said something to his wife and sped off in another direction.

After West Marine and the grocery store, Chris had the new pump installed in no time. We hauled the anchor and made the 1pm Wrightsville beach bridge opening. After that we had two other bridges to go through with "on the hour" openings, we made good time to one of them and had to wait on another. Overall a pretty good day, enough wind to have the jib out.

Since we left late, we ended up getting to our planned anchorage around 7pm. Needless to say, we were all tired. It then took 6 tries to finally set the anchor, it just kept dragging. We set the anchor alarm on the GPS and hoped that it would be loud enough to wake us in the event that we dragged again.

Aside from the anchor dragging, the kids seem to be enjoying this lifestyle. Deason builds replica lego models of all the boats he likes, and Dahlia is growing up faster that we would like her to. The boat doesn't seem to have delayed her in anyway when it comes to trying to walk, she can stand on her own now and the movement of the boat doesn't even knock her down. She probably has it the easiest out of any of us due to her low center of gravity. We will however be getting safety netting ASAP!

June 20, 2010- N. Carolina

Leaving Barefoot was the easiest transition we have yet. We were literally on the ICW just a few hundred yards away from the bridge that doesn't open when it gets too hot. We called the bridge and by the time we untied and drifted into the channel, the bridge was opening for us.

The whole day was just as seamless. We had a fair wind and were able to have the head sail out the majority of the day. We averaged 8 knots, and at one point going through Cape Fear we had a 3 knot push from the tide and did 9 knots up to Snows Cut. After that it seemed like only a short time before we got to Wrightsville Beach. It was the longest we have traveled in a single day on the ICW, 63 statute miles.

When we got to the anchorage the wind was blowing at 15 knots and the first place we dropped the anchor was near the channel where there was a few abandoned boats. Everyone was swinging at the anchor and none of us felt comfortable with the looks of the holding that the other boats had. Finally, we decided to haul it up and move. We moved to another spot where there appeared to be occupied boats. It turned out to be more protected from the wind too. We all felt more relaxed instantly, and settled in to have ourselves a "happy fathers day" "mac n' cheese" feast.

June 19, 2010

Delayed again, last night our fresh water pump stopped working. Good thing we were at a dock and not anchored, we were able to hook up the hose and bypass the pump so we could get water. Chris determined this morning that the pump is fine, but there is something wrong with the pressure switch. Of course the West Marine store here doesn't have the part we need. Chris is going to wire it so we can turn on the pump manually until we are able to get the part we need.

I won't let him complain about this particular job, he can work lying down on the saloon seats, I almost caught him sleeping on the job!

It is not exactly walker friendly around here. It is around the large marketplace where we are docked, but there is no sidewalk on rt 17, so we can't get to a few stores that we had planned on going to. Instead, we crashed a local beach resort. I guess they don't expect people to walk into a resort property especially if there is no side walks to get there. There was a gate and a gate guard for the cars, but we just strolled right by without getting a second glance from anyone. Then as we were making our way to the beach we were offered a ride in the golf cart trolley! Deason quickly found some kids to play with and got out some energy running around and catching crabs!

June 18, 2010

We left Georgetown early, we planned an early start to get a fair tide all the way to the SC/NC line. Somehow we must have been looking at the wrong tide chart or wrong date, and ended up fighting the tide the whole way. Ooopps!

The ICW that goes through S. Carolina has been really scenic. There was very little development on our trip today, until we reached Myrtle Beach. The other great thing was that we seemed to trade black flies, and green heads for butterflies and dragonflies. It was a much more enjoyable trip not having to be a meal for parasites.

Unfortunately, our trip was cut short by a swing bridge that was broken down. The Barefoot landing bridge has trouble when the heat gets excessive. Apparently, the cement swells and the pins get stuck, and the bridge can't open. We were just fortunate that the marina right next to the bridge had available space. Otherwise we would have had to turn back and go quite far to reach an anchorage or another marina. We are only 20 miles from NC, so we will be in a new state tomorrow. Making progress!!!

June 17, 2010

We left Hilton Head, and all of us could hardly breath it was so hot. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it was seriously hard to breathe. The strangest thing was that there were people running in that heat, I am pretty sure that is not advisable.

We have decided that we prefer to anchor, in addition to the price tag, when we are at a dock there is a lot of stuff to do. We end up spending the time doing laundry, getting to the store, and usually spend a half a day thoroughly cleaning the boat. When we are at anchor we read, eat, and sleep!

When we left Hilton Head we had planned on going a few miles and anchoring. Once we set out, we decided to go off shore, we had a good forecast for wind and water so we went for it. Once out there, we had great weather, and decide to do our first overnight.

Everything was going great. I woke up around midnight to give Chris a break, and I was surprised by how dark it was. I know, silly, but there was barely a moon, and no light pollution, so it was very dark. I was only on watch for maybe a half an hour before Dahlia woke up. Poor Chris was back on watch until I could get her to sleep. I came back up at 2:30. The seas were calm, and there was about 5 knots of wind, there was some lightning off in the distance, but it seemed very far off. About 20 minutes go by, and the wind starts to pick up to 10 knots, 15 knots, 20 knots, at that point I was uncomfortable and decided to wake Chris again. The weather report was still calling for variable winds 5-10 knots, and seas 1-2ft. I am not sure where they were getting their information, but we were in 5-6ft seas, and 20-30 knots of wind for the whole night. We must have just been on the outside of that storm and was suffering from its wake...the whole night. Yet, the weather channel was still insisting it was good conditions.

The worst part about the whole night was the wave slap that the choppy seas create. It is when the water is forced between the two hulls and slaps the underside of the boat. It doesn't cause any damage, but it sure sounds like the boat is going to come apart. For Dahlia, being a light sleeper, it was torture. She tossed and turned and fussed all night long. Chris ended up on watch all night getting sprayed with salt water, and riding the mechanical bull that was now our boat.

By morning we had abandoned our way point of Cape Fear, NC, and decided to turn in and head for Georgetown, SC. We were 20 miles off shore so that wasn't just a quick stop off either, but it was the closest inlet for us at that point without turning around and heading back south.

We got to the anchorage in Georgetown, it was about 8 miles inland, so it took a little while to get here once in the inlet. On our way we saw an alligator, a real alligator, in the ICW. He wasn't a little alligator either, he was big and we were close enough to see his orange eyes as we went past him. I now have a new thing to fear when I go swimming, we clearly won't be swimming here.

Georgetown is quaint, the anchorage is right off the harbor walk, as you can see from the picture with our boat in the back ground. It is all "mom and pop" stores too, a great little book store, and tons of restaurants. The only down side to this anchorage is it right next to the steel mill that runs 24hrs/day. At various points through out the day it smells like burnt mushroom pizza???? Overall, a pretty good anchorage!

P.S. No more overnights for us until Dahlia proves to be a better sleeper!

June 15, 2010

I love Hilton Head! The slip here is fairly cheap, and the amenities are great! There are tons of restaurants and shops right next to us, and free entertainment at night. Deason loves Gregg Russell, who is this hysterical singer/entertainer that plays every night in the summer!

It has been record breaking heat lately, yesterday it was 96 degrees out, but it felt like a billion. We went to the pool, and thankfully it was very refreshing! The pool at the condo in Naples was heated, and it felt like swimming in mashed potatoes.

To quote the newspaper "today partly cloudy, mostly just hot"! This must be what I get for complaining so much about the New England winters!

The other great thing about being here is you get to take a trolley to get to the grocery store! Sadly, we will leave today, but we probably won't go too far, we plan on staying at this slip until they kick us out today!

June 13, 2010 South Carolina

Chris and I were both awake at 5am, we pulled the anchor as soon as we could see to navigate our way out of the swamp. In all reality it isn't a swamp, just marsh, but it felt like swamp to me. We left Altamaha inlet, and headed for Hilton Head.

I love the idea of seeing new places, and experiencing new things, but sometimes it is nice to go some place familiar. My dad owns timeshare in Hilton Head so we have been here a number of times before. Its nice to know where the stores are and how we are going to get around.

The trip up here was long. We arrived at Harbour town about 5pm, it was a record breaking hot day, and all we could think about when we got off the boat was eating in an air conditioned restaurant. The wait was way to long, so we got take out burgers, came back to the boat and turned on the AC. It is only the second time we have used the AC on the boat, and it feels like cheating or something. Yet, I am currently writing this, sitting in front of the vent with a blanket wrapped around me, so I don't feel to badly about it.

June 12, 2010

I wish we could have spent some time visiting Cumberland Is., but we want to be a little further north so we don't worry so much about the weather. We decided to motor up the ICW, for the day, and see how far we could get. I wished later that we had gone off shore. It was so hot, which made me very grumpy, and I am sure by the end of the day Chris wanted to push me overboard. It was so hot it took to much energy to talk, plus the fact that Dahlia is cutting her top front tooth, and wanted to be held all day long. That didn't help the heat factor.
I don't have much to say about the ICW in Georgia, it was just swamp. We ended up anchoring in swamp lands just north of St. Simon Is., and I don't care to ever anchor in that area ever again. It was buggy, and the tidal range is a ridiculous 8ft. We got there at low tide and anchored in 5 ft, and had to keep putting out chain as the tide came in with what seemed to be a 4-5 knot current. We actually left the GPS on to see if we were dragging by looking at our speed over ground meter. We didn't drag, but I killed a fair amount of bugs though out our time there, which is enough to make me not want to go back.

June 11, 2010 Georgia

We left St. Augustine fairly early, with the plan of going up the ICW. There was no wind, and as we were about to turn north onto the ICW we made a last minute decision to go off shore instead. It turned out to be a good decision. We were able to go further than we thought we would, and we missed a storm too.

We traveled up the coast to St. Mary's inlet, it was flat calm the whole way with pretty much no wind, so we just motored. Along the way we saw a shark. Chris saw a big splash in the water, and when I went up to the bow to look, I saw a dorsal fin and a tail fin out of the water. He was about 7ft long and swam right next to the boat as we went by. I am not even going to try and guess what kind of shark it was, I just know it wasn't a great white, but it still makes me wish I never saw the movie "Jaws". The whole time all I could hear in my head was the jaws theme "da...dum.......da...dum.........da...dum"!

When we got to St. Mary's inlet, the dark clouds where right where we wanted to go, with more lightning in one storm than I have seen in the past year. We turned around and went back out to sea to wait till it was past. The storm moved south pretty quickly, we got some rain and a really good lightning show from a distance, and an even better sun set.

We ended up anchoring right off of Cumberland Is., and it turned out to be the most peaceful, picturesque anchorage.

June 10, 2010

We really like it here, it is a great anchorage. Except for all the power boat wakes, but that is a whole issue that I won't go into. I will just say that I have grown to dislike power boats. I must admit that after all those storms we actually considered having the boat hauled out, flying home for the summer, and coming back down in the fall. We are so glad we didn't do that, it has been a blast going up the ICW. I think we were putting too much pressure on ourselves to SAIL, when all that we really want to do is see and experience different places.

We went ashore today to do the touristy stuff. We walked around the historic part of town, and it really felt as if it could be 1600's, as long as you didn't look in too many of the souvenir shop windows. We ventured over to the old fort, on our way there a nice couple handed us their passes to the fort and we gladly excepted. The only problem was, Chris and I walked up there looking comletely clueless, which prompted the guard to ask us when we bought the passes. Chris couldn't think of anything else to say except the truth, so the guard ripped up the passes and didn't allow us in. I guess we could have purchased passes after that, but we felt kind of stupid, so we just went off and walked around the grounds instead. On our way around we couldn't help getting a few pics of us with the boat in the back ground.

After that we walked across the Bridge of Lions to a small market recommended by Skipper Bob for its off the boat shrimp. The shrimp were fantastic grilled. Tomorrow we will head out with a few anchorages in mind, and we'll see how far we get.

June 9, 2010

We had a very short trip today, we motored for about an hour to get here, and that includes anchoring. We have a great spot, we are anchored right in front of the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument built in 1672.

We got right in the dinghy to head in to town, we decided that today since in was on the fairly dry side we would do our errands, which meant walking 2 miles to a real grocery store, and tomorrow we will do the sight seeing. We did go for a long exploratory dinghy ride over to Salt Run which is a nice little inlet, we were hoping to find a good swimming beach, but no such luck. We ended up jumping off the boat instead.

The town is beautiful, walking around the waterfront here doesn't feel like we are in the states. It is actually 200 years older than Plymouth, but I don't remember them teaching us that info, back in Massachusetts.

June 8, 2010

We had to dinghy over to the marina this morning to get some binoculars, something we kept saying we needed to get and then kept forgetting every time we entered a West Marine. The dinghy dock and all the other docks are behind a locked gate. I had to wait at the gate and not let is close so we would be able to get back to our dinghy. I guess it is not the best neighborhood. I am not sure how it is possible, but Dahlia always seems to fall asleep on these dinghy rides, must be Deason's superb dinghy driving skills!
We got a late start after our West Marine trip, and while heading out of Daytona on the ICW we had ourselves a little adventure. There was four bridges in a row, a draw bridge, fixed bridge, draw bridge, and then another fixed bridge. We came through the second bridge and I had just called the draw bridge tender on the radio, and Chris was busy trying to tell Deason and I what to do because we were going to stop and get fuel. When I hear on the radio the bridge tender calling us.
"Ahh, north bound sailing vessel, you are out of the channel"
" north bound sailing vessel you are WAY out of the channel"
At that point Chris and I realized he was talking to us, and Chris realized he was in fact out of the channel. We only ran a ground slightly, thankfully he had put it in idle when he heard the radio. Not that big of deal, we came out of it fine, just a little bruised pride. Unfortunately for Chris, we are extremely competitive with each other, and he will have to suffer the ridicule until I do something as brainless.
We were behind schedule a little, and didn't want to navigate at night, so we ended up anchoring a few miles away from St. Augustine. We didn't want to run aground again! We will head there tomorrow and spend the day sight seeing!

June 7, 2010

We had a great day today, we only had one short rain shower. We had to motor the whole way, only a few miles we had the jib out, until the wind turned on us. Fixed bridges....no problem!!
We have seen more wildlife on this trip, every time I turned my head there was a dolphin, or a manatee, and even another sea turtle. SeaWorld would go out of business if everyone knew that all they had to do was rent a boat and head out onto the ICW to see some porpoises.
When we got to Daytona we set the anchor on the first shot, and then fired up the grill. Our first time using the grill, best burger I ever had!

June 6, 2010

Deason found some kids to play with at the yacht club, they were up until 10p fishing and catching crabs. Deason was insisting that we cook the crustaceans, I used the excuse that it was too late and was happy to see them back to their watery home in the ocean.
The next day the kids were back, and we didn't have the heart to leave when he had kids to play with. It was a good thing too, because we were greeted by 3 manatees that seemed to want some company. We insisted that the kids didn't pet them, which was hard, because I wanted to, and we thought it was best if we set the example.
We ended up leaving by 11am and we headed through Canaveral Lock. I must say, it was kind of anti climatic. The water barely moved a half a foot. We did learn that it was built by NASA for the transportation of the recovered shuttle boosters.
After that we made our way to Titisville. Our first mast test was 65ft power lines. It was the scariest moment I have experienced so far on this boat, but we made it, even though it didn't look like we would. I am sure i will be just as scared going under the first fixed bridge too.
We were able to motor sail a good portion of the way, we were doing 6 knots with our head sail and just over idling on the motors. We got caught in the rain while we were anchoring, but we have started to look at it as a positive....it cools us off, and washes the boat.

June 5, 2010

We are at this great yacht club, its funny how things just work out sometimes. We decided to stay because yesterdays forecast called for numerous thunderstorms, plus at this yacht club it is stay 2 nights and the 3rd night is free. How could we go wrong! We even had a nice buffet dinner with all the members last night. They were some of the nicest people we have encountered throughout our travels.

Ft. Pierce was a good place to dock because everything we needed was a short walk away, but not the friendliest bunch. We said "hello" to this one fella that was walking by us, and his reply was a stony "yup". I feel that it actually takes more effort to be that grumpy! Anyways, these people are great!

We have been apprehensive to leave because we get so exhausted with the long days out at sea, even though it doesn't seem like 50-60miles is that long, it is when you have to deal with storms on top of it all. We have been traveling outside, and not through the ICW because in black tape at the helm it states that our mast height is 66ft 4in, and all the fixed bridges in the ICW are 65ft. We have been next to a lot of other boats and our mast does not appear to be that much higher than everyone else's. We decided to finally measure it, which meant climbing the mast again. We measured 60ft, and that was also accounting for 8in. of possible stretch to our line. We will do a second measure tomorrow to make double sure, but so far the plan is to head up the ICW, that way we can do shorter days, get in earlier to anchor and spend less money on docking.

For now we will just enjoy our free night of dock space , watch the dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, and obscenely huge cruise ships. We can even hear the music from these ships, which makes you feel like you are right there with them doing the "Macarena", and the "YMCA". "Ce-le-brate good times....come on"!

June 3, 2010

Good grief!!! Will these storms never end! The day started out pretty well, we left the dock at 7am, there was no wind, but the seas were flat calm. We motored until about noon time. The generator over heated once during our motoring and needed a little rest, but we left the compartment open it and it seemed to alleviate that problem. The lack of wind made it possible for love bugs to fly out to our boat, while they don't bite, they were quite annoying, and I spent the morning trying to keep Dahlia from eating the ones that would land in the cockpit.
Around 12:00 the wind picked up and we were able to raise the sails, with a nice east wind we were doing 5+ knots.
Then around 2:30 the blackness that was just over land south of us started to creep around us, not wanting to take any chances we dropped all the sails and started the generator up again to motor east hoping to run away from the thing. Not long after that, the storm appeared to be surrounding us, we had all the hatches closed and while the kids and I were in the shelter of inside the boat, Chris was in his foul weather jacket at the helm. At 3:15 this thing hit us, Chris screamed for goggles so he could see, and told us to get below.
I felt the boat turn quickly into the storm, Chris said it was the hardest thing he had to do was to turn into the black monster.
While the hardest thing I had to do, was keep smiling for the kids. Deason was OK for a while having already been through two of these storms, but it started to take its toll on him. He started saying "I hope Dad is alright, and I want the sun to come out". All I could say was "Dad is safe, and the sun will be out soon", in my head I was saying "I hope". Dahlia was completely unaffected, she just couldn't figure out why she couldn't sit up, thankfully we were on the bunk and her falling over all the time became quite funny. She thought so too!
We do a lot of making up songs in this family, so to make Deason laugh I started singing the "soggy pants" song in honor of Dahlia's diaper. That seemed to help, Deason is a pretty easy audience when it comes to making him laugh.
Chris informed me later that the winds outside were 45knots and he couldn't see past his nose, the goggles didn't really help because they just kept fogging up. They just prevented him from getting pelted in the eyes with rain and hail. He did say that he saw some lighting that was too close and some small water spouts...oh boy! Easy to find the humor in all of this once it is over...in all reality I keep having dreams about our boat being airlifted out of Florida, and not on a water spout.
We decided against anchoring because of all the crazy weather, plus we are not covered until we leave this state. So we would rather be safe than sorry, and safe for me is snuggled up to a dock.
We pull into the dock with the help of a really nice couple, it wasn't the most graceful docking, we couldn't seem to land. We went from port side to starboard, and back to port trying to get tied on. We finally got in, and after heading up to the club house to retrieve the hidden key the girl was suppose to leave for me, we figured out that we were actually at the wrong dock.
We overshot by one dock, and had docked up at a yacht club. We were helped by yacht club members, not dock attendants.
It actually worked out quite nice, the people were super friendly, and their transient rate was only $1.35/ft. much cheaper than the other dock. So we will stay here for the night, and dream of giant helicopters flying us away!

June 2, 2010

We are still in St Pierce, we keep finding reasons to stay, but we are definitely leaving tomorrow. We were going to go anchor right outside of this marina so we could just pull up the anchor and leave early. Good thing we are procrastinators by nature, because we had another squall come through today.

We were having a nice time with another family that stopped by the boat, Deason got to play with some nice kids. Suddenly the sky got real dark, and the lightning started. Just like the other night, the temperature dropped and the wind clocked around and was coming out of the north. The rain became torrential, and it was even hailing. The wind was blowing at 50knots, we actually turned on our electronics to get wind readings, since we were semi-safe tied up at the dock.

We were all watching the storm from inside, when we see two sailboats being dragged into the channel. It appeared that one boat was unoccupied while the other had a lone sailor aboard. The smaller unoccupied boat was dragging the larger boat. The captain seemed to be trying his hardest to pull free, but in that weather it was difficult. After about 15 mins of mayhem the skies lighted up and the wind died down, only to have it start up again, only this time the wind whipped around and was coming out of the SE. We were right under the eye of the storm. The two boats that were headed into the channel and eventually on to the sandy shore were now headed right towards us after the wind changed direction. The smaller boat seemed to have had his anchor line wrapped around one of the pilings, and the larger boat finally had someone come to his rescue to help him get free. At this time we actually feared that the smaller boat was going to come right at us because it was still dragging.. Chris lowered the dinghy hoping that we would be able to put it between us and the on coming boat. Luckily that wasn't necessary because the storm was finally passing and everything went back to normal.

We found out later that the sailboat that dragged, drags all the time, and has caused this marina some problems blocking the channel. Last week it was up against the bridge. It is for sale, and the owner doesn't deal with it so it has become everyones problem. We are glad that we had procrastinated and did not go out there to anchor, and we decided to stay at this dock while that boat is out there in the anchorage.

We will definitely be departing tomorrow, I want to get as far away from Florida and these silly squalls as possible. Now we know why the insurance companies want you out of Florida by June 1st it gets ugly in the blink of an eye.

June 1, 2010

Still in Ft. Pierce, we are going to leave really early, we felt we needed one more good night sleep. We are going to go to Cape Canaveral tomorrow, and it requires going through a lock. The lock has a bridge right before it that doesn't open between 3:15-5:30, we are hoping to get there before that time period.

Today we went over to the beach in the dinghy, while we were over there it started to rain, and we left all of our hatches open! Damn you Florida rain!! You literally can't turn your back without it raining, but to have to close the hatches every time we walk away from the boat stinks! It gets too hot inside with the boat all closed up like that. It wasn't too bad actually, nothing the fans and a little "Shamwow" couldn't fix.

Dahlia loves the water, she crawls right in and would keep going if you didn't stop her. She likes to nibble on seaweed too.....yummy!

We saw dolphins again today, they catch fish right in this little inlet where the marina is. There was one that was swimming just under the surface, and you could see his wake coming right at the boat, then he swam about 3 ft away from us all the way beside our boat. I swear I could watch dolphins all day. We also saw a manatee today, he surfaced right near the dock which Chris and Deason witnessed and I only got to see his tail as he was diving.