Daytona Beach, FL mm830

 

Our final day in St. Augustine we found this Cuban Cigar shop where people were busy rolling cigars.  Made us think of Bob McChesney!  Another day I saw a woman in the stern of a sailboat that looked just like Maggie only with gray hair!  And other day I saw a guy in a sailboat that looked like Dave Ryan with a beard down to his chest.  Do you think I might be missing our friends?

 

 

Today we filled up the gas and water tanks before starting a leisurely cruise down the ICW to Daytona Beach, FL.  We are staying here for a week at our first Loggerhead Marina.  It has nice accommodations and it is great being plugged into power again; a little less juggling and cable TV! 

 

 

 

My sister is driving over from Orlando to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend with us.  This historic weekend brings to mind the many thanks we have for our friends and family.  As we have looked around us for the last 19 days we have silently thanked Pat McChesney for letting us know about Verizon MiFi which has kept us linked to you.  We are thankful for  David Schiller for selling us his dinghy, the Millers for all the Tervis Tumblers, the Gadwells for telling us about the guy that was selling his sewing machine and sewed our isenglass windows back into our flying bridge enclosure and Lynn Malarz for making our generator cover.  Your help has added to the enjoyment of our trip.

 

   

WE SINCERELY WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 

Lois, we are sorry we couldn’t make it to your family dinner. Tammy and Amy, so glad you are making your first turkey dinner. 

 

 

 

 

We will continue our blog next Tues.  We plan to depart for Cape Canaveral to watch the last shuttle take off on Dec 1.  Then we will stay one night at the Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach.  Our final stop will be the following day at our winter home in Stuart, FL.

Love to all, Jan and JB

Pictures from St. Augustine, FL

 

We started Sunday in a French bakery for breakfast.  I’ve been drinking instant coffee on the boat.  My way of reducing the clutter on the galley counter as JB needs 7 items to make his coffee with his French press!  That being said, when I drank my first sip of coffee in this shop, I couldn’t help making noises that sounded like . . .  Well, you know!  So this sweet boy came running over to see what the noise was about!  We all had a good laugh!

 

Here’s a photo of the live oak that is called the Senator.  It is over 600 years old. Which means it was there when Ponce De Leon landed in 1513.

 

 

The Fountain of Youth was the best tourist site we saw today.  It is interesting how archaeology has discovered the location of the first settlement here in 1565 with recent technology from space.  And the native Americans lived there for 1000 years prior to that Spanish arriving!

 

 

 

We had to drink from the Fountain of Youth!  It isn’t bottled because it tastes nasty, like sulfur! But the settlement was made here because there was fresh water along the bay where they could go fishing and anchor.

 

 

 

 

This native American said he was a descendent of the original Village of Seloy.  He tried to justify why they stole our pigs after they gave us corn.  They didn’t see it as stealing.  Pretty cool that they had this gentlemen, surrounded by artifacts, telling us what it was like in 1565. 

 

                                                         

 

 

From there we walked to the Old Jail.  This building was originally made of brick and the prisoners escaped easily so they covered all the walls, inside and out, with a layer of concrete.

 

 

 

 

JB quickly made friends with the sheriff who was 6’6” tall.

 

 

 

 

 

Up to his old tricks, he had me arrested! Don’t I look miserable!  This is an open air jail.  All windows were covered with bars only.  No heat, no A/C.  Lots of mosquitoes, rats, flies, you name it!

 

 

 

 

Here is the Lightner Museum built in the 1880’s by Flagler.  It houses three floors of 19th century art.  The building and all of the scrubs and trees were covered in white lights for Christmas.

 

 

 

Saturday was the first time the lights in the city were lit this year.  It was a big celebration with a band at this town square.  The town was packed with locals!  Sunday the tourists had the city to themselves.  It was much nicer! 

Last night we took a 30 minute trolley ride around town with 3-D glasses that made all the nights, even traffic lights and car lights look like snowflakes.  We also had Christmas carols playing.  Singing was optional.  It was fun and certainly got me into the Christmas spirit.  JB says it is too warm to be Christmas!

St. Augustine - Saturday

 

After cutting JB’s hair on the deck of our boat while tied to a mooring buoy in a very busy area (My excuse for the worst hair cut he ever got!) and several chatty phone calls we finally made it to shore at noon!  Never having been here and not wanting to spend three days walking, JB decided we needed to buy a three day ticket for the trolley that takes you to the various attractions.  Good idea.  As it was we got to see the Castillo de San Marcos fort which part of the National Park Service.  ( This is a photo of the Bridge of Lions from the top of the fort.  We are moored on the opposite side.)

We arrived in time to see the ceremonial procedure the Spanish used to fire the cannons. Due to the fact that the fort changed hands between the British and Spanish so many times in its 338 year history, every year the historical lecture is changed to reflect the other side. It was a really great experience to hear about this special fort.

                                                                           

The fort is made of Coquina rock, hand carved out of nearby Anastasia Island and brought to this site on barges.  It is hard to imagine it as a “soft” substance since the fort has survived many battles and the ravages of time.  But the story goes that the canon balls stuck into its surface and the inhabitants would go outside, pry them out and repair the wall with straw and concrete while under siege.

 

My high school friend, Bill Thompson and his wife of 38 years, Connie, came to visit us.  We had fun catching up on missed years while walking down St. George Street lined with historical buildings turned into quaint little shops and restaurants.  Then we dined at my favorite restaurant, Hooked on Harry’s.  Not only is the food superb, but the outside terrace is under old      trees covered in tiny white lights.  Then the band started playing.  With a full moon, it was very romantic.  And we didn’t even need jackets!

How can we not be happy!  We have another two days here before we continue to Daytona for Thanksgiving week where we will be joined by my sister, Nancy.  Since we walked so much yesterday, we plan to ride the trolley today.  Tours of the St. Augustine History Museum and Fountain of Youth are awaiting us.  We are told we can drink from the Fountain of Youth.  Sounds like something worth trying!  What do you think?

St. Augustine, Fl mm780

 

 

We traveled a leisurely 50 miles today down the ICW south of Jacksonville.  It was a lovely, sunny, warm day.  The only real challenge was going through Jacksonville the currents were so strong and so conflicting that it created turbulence for quite a ways.  Then, for some reason, the strong, conflicting currents under the bridges caused “Belle” to fish tail so much that there were times I feared we might meet up with the bridge.

 

Again, as most days since Wrightsville, NC, we saw dolphins, but they were too quick to capture on film.  More pelicans and seagulls lined the waterway.  Not many boats today, but the ones that passed us had no courtesy and sped pass causing tremendous wake.  Fortunately, we had everything safely stored down below.

 

 

We passed lovely homes with elaborate boat docks/porches.  This one made us think it looked like something Robert would have built. The house was equally as lovely with planters filled with red flowers, like Maggie would display.  We went by too fast for me to get a photo of it too.

 

 

 

Here’s a photo of my favorite house.  It was light pink with teal trim inside the white woodwork.  I like the porch too.  If it had a metal roof and was further south I’d be even more delighted.  Dream on. 

 

 

 

 

Can you believe these cars on the north side of the inlet???  Those waves are in the ocean!  The people are sitting in chairs fishing at the water’s edge inside the inlet!

 

 

 

 

I never saw the fort from the water before.  We will tour it tomorrow.  The last time I brought someone here the story was turned around so that the Spanish were the heroes and Americans left feeling bad for what their forefathers did.  Originally, Americans left feeling patriotic.

 

 

 

The St. Augustine City Marina only had mooring buoys available, so we are sitting out in the river.  We finally put our dinghy in the water so we can go to shore.  Just when we were beginning to think we didn’t need it!  Here is JB after paying for our mooring. 

This city is my favorite with its incredibly old history where it flip flopped between Spanish and English rule.  JB hasn’t been here, so I am so looking forward to sharing all that awaits with him.  We will share it with you tomorrow.

WE FOUND FLORIDA!!!! BUT…

Coordinates: 30degrees 33N, 81degrees 27W

It appears we have traveled south 8 degrees and about 50 degrees east.  Where are we?  mm 726 on the ICW off of Amelia Island just north of Jacksonville.  50 miles to St. Augustine.  It seems once we get going and the weather is gorgeous we just want to keep going.

(Wild horses on Cumberland Island, GA)

 

 

If you remember, I once said we might get Florida charts.  We were told you can download them on the computer and JB said he did.  But about 10 miles back his computer lost its GPS, charts, the works.  We were off the paper charts.  Our cell phones stopped working.  All we could do was follow the markers.  After being a bit spoiled it was eerie.  This is when we started cutting up and making jokes out of the situation.  What else could we do? 

(Ft. Clinch on the north tip of Amelia Island, Fl)

We had two trawlers following us all day.  After going about 6 miles without charts or Garmin the trawler behind us hailed us on the radio and told us we made the day very easy for him.  Ha, Ha, Ha!  He asked where we were staying the night.  When we told him Alligator River, he said he was staying there too.  At that point, JB told me, “It’s like the blind leading the blind”.  The trawler is from Cape Canaveral, Fl but spent a month at Olverson’s Marina.

JB is now working on his computer and trying to get everything working again . . . . . . . .

I knew he could do it!  It only took about 30 minutes and he has everything fixed.  That’s my guy!!!  His comment after looking at the chart for tomorrow, “Oh, great. There’s a passage that would put Georgia to shame!”

We have had quite a trip in the last 15 days.  Tomorrow we will arrive at St Augustine and stay there until Tuesday.  As of Tuesday we will be at the Daytona Loggerhead Club and Marina for a week.  Then it will be to Stuart for the winter, or at least until our bank account recovers! :-)  

 

JB IN FLORIDA!                                           JAN IN FLORIDA!

We were thinking about continuing this blog until we get to Stuart around Dec. 1 or 2.  How does that sound to you?  Thank you so very much for reading and participating in our journey.  We hope it was fun for you too.

Jekyll Harbor Marina – mm 684

Coordinates 31 degrees 9N, 81degrees 29W

Thanks for the comments to yesterday’s post.  We commented to your comments.  Check it out!

Forgot to tell you yesterday, we passed Moon River.  The MOON RIVER, of which the song was written by Johnny Mercer and sung by Andy Williams.  I love that song!

Today is the 14th day on our way to Florida.  We have adjusted so well to this lifestyle it seems like the three of us, Belle, JB and me, are as one.  The rhythm of the water gently rocking our home is comfortable and joyful.

JB took this photo while underway.  He said it looks like Miller Time.  What do you think?

 

The magenta line of our course in the ICW on our charts was even more difficult to follow today.  We traveled mostly at low tide. (Can you see the tide line toward the top of the marsh grass?)  The chart started showing alternative routes in dotted lines.  I really don’t know how JB figured out how to proceed. It was mind boggling.  No street signs here!  He had the depth finder alarm set for 5’ which means 6.5’ because of its location.  The thing was going off all day!  Some times he was in the center of the river and the chart showed him in the marsh!  For a short time we followed a sailboat in these shallow depths.  The had their sails out so they could heel which raised their keel.  In retrospect, JB said he wouldn’t do that stretch of the ICW again.  The weather was so good we should have gone out the St. Catherines Inlet and come back at Brunswick.

JB called ahead for gas at Ocean Petroleum in Brunswick, GA.  It was 5.5 miles off off the ICW.  He was told they sold gas for $2.69/gal.  Sounded almost too good to believe. When we arrived around 4pm we were told they only sold diesel.  Even the guide said they sold gas!  Now we were forced to continue and no real anchorages nearby.

 

Turning lemons into lemonade, we decided to spend the night at Jekyll Harbor Marina.  We had dinner out.   Tomorrow we plan to ride our bikes around the island, finish our laundry, and get a late start for Cumberland Island, Ga.  We plan to anchor out and dinghy to shore.  It is supposed to be an extremely beautiful island with wild horses.  It was once the home of Andrew Carnegie’s brother.  At that point, we will only be 7 miles from Fernandina Beach, FLORIDA!!!! 

Buckhead Creek South of Savannah, mm 608

Coordinates:  31 degrees 55N, 81 degrees 5W

WOW!  Thanks so much for the many wonderful comments.  It really means a lot to know someone is reading this.  But it means even more that you are enjoying it! 

Since we left Charleston, most of the view has been of marshes and beautiful, large homes.  We spent last night at Beaufort, SC.  Refueling was a big “ouch”.  Gas was $3.50/gal.  We stayed at the Downtown Marina.  After docking we walked the town, about four city blocks, than walked back along the River Walk.  It was nicely landscaped with Bermuda grass and large two person wooden swings hanging from concrete structures.  It was too dark to take photos.  We ate out at a local favorite where they had TV’s.  What a treat!  JB got to watch sports and I watched Glenn Beck!  It was another treat to get back to the boat and watch TV.  It had only been a week.  And, naturally, I saw ‘Dancing with the Stars’ again.

Back to more marshland.  It was overcast with light rain this morning.  I stayed below and gave myself a manicure.  Meanwhile our course was so winding that JB couldn’t use the auto pilot.  Around noon, when it cleared up somewhat, I went topside and he was talking about anchoring out because it was so difficult to steer.  Honestly, it was so bad we would have surely gotten lost it he didn’t have his laptop set up as a Garmin showing us where we were.  So many ‘islands’ of marshland and so many ways to turn. YIKES!  I didn’t blame him.  So I looked ahead in the Cruising Guide for an anchorage only to find that we were 20 miles from Hell Gate.  The Cruising Guide has always been very conservative, but caution prevails and it was very explicit in that this was a very dangerous 1 mile cut between two rivers that always shoaled in.  It strongly advised that the safest time to attempt it was mid-tide and rising.  Now I don’t know how people navigated these waters prior to all the electronics we have on board.  We both searched for the Tide App on our phones and learned that we were in the rising tide.  High tide was in two hours.  We agreed to go for it!  With 15-20 mph winds whipping around us as we twisted around the marsh islands and through Hell Gate, we safely conquered the cut!

 

         

When we entered SC, the tide variances grew to 3-6’ and all docks where floating.  I tried to capture the extreme length of these docks (makes ours look tiny).  At the end of the dock is a floating platform.  Most boats are kept on lifts. 

 

The tides in GA have an 8’ variance.  I thought it was really great when I saw the moon cycle was part of the weather news.  So many homes are built so close to sea level.  It just isn’t logical to me!  I can’t imagine what happens during the flood tides from storms and hurricanes.

 

We are in shrimp country.  I keep asking JB to stop by one of the many shrimp boats we have seen to buy several pounds cheaply, but I haven’t convinced him yet.  We will make it to Brunswick tomorrow.  In fact, he says its the last place to buy cheap gas before FL.  Haven’t given up on finding cheap shrimp yet!  And “Yes” we did pass up Savannah.  The negative information from the guide talked us out of it.  We decided to save it for a land trip.

 

This gives you a little idea of what it has been like today.  We traveled through Thunderbolt and Isle of Hope.  We are currently in an 20’ deep anchorage with three sailboats under the word, “Bing.”

Charleston, SC

 

If you are having trouble finding the comment section, It is located at the end of each day’s post in blue.  It isn’t very big, so you really need to put your glasses on! :-)  We enjoy your feedback.  Thank you for making this blog interactive.  Miss you, Jan

We took a 1 1/2 hr bus tour of this historic city today.  It was incredibly awesome!  So we took photos of things we wanted to share with you.  This photo is of a style home called Charleston Single.  Notice the fire hydrant and tree with the black door to the right. That is the front side of the house on the street. The black front door actually leads to the side porch. If the front door was closed, the house was closed to visitors because the southern belles were in their petticoats fanning themselves on the porch on hot summer days.  No one walking by dare look at the porches.  When the ladies were properly dressed the door was left open.

This is the Calhoun House.  The largest private residence which we heard was owned by a DC attorney.  The third floor is used by their family.  The first two floors are filled with an amazing collection of antiques for the tourist. Calhoun was VP under Andrew Jackson and supposedly was responsible for the Civil War.  There is a lot more history, but to be honest, we couldn’t remember it all.

 

Notice the gray dots on the front of this house. Charleston is on a fault line along the east coast. In the late 1800’s they had a 7.2 magnitude earthquake.  This concrete house  had walls that were pulling away from the center. So they devised a way to slowly tighten screws to put the walls back in place. The dots are the ends of the screws. Now they are part of the decoration!  The first floor of this building was under water during Hurricane Hugo. 

Bubba, our tour guide, recommended Hymans Seafood Restaurant for lunch.  It was another fantastic experience.  Eli, the great grandson of the original owner, stopped by our table to make sure everything was satisfactory.  All celebrities come here to eat.  Our table had a brass plaque that said, “Timothy Dalton ate at this table.”  The food was to die for.  We ate so much we don’t even want dinner tonight!

Charleston, SC mm 467

Thanks for checking in with us.  Please fell free to make comments at the bottom of the various posts as I check them daily. Its great hearing that you love reading about our adventure.  Thanks for the many positive feedbacks. Love to you all. Jan

 

We cruised about 50 miles down a “ditch” (dredged canal) to Charleston arriving at 1pm today.  We are both loving this lifestyle so I spent most of the day looking up trawlers and catamarans for sale on my I phone.  Life is tough.  Sometimes I feel like the Millers, always on the go. 

 

Once we arrived in Charleston we walked to the market.  The place was extremely crowded. I suppose this being a Saturday didn’t help!  I managed to get a good price on a Sweetgrass basket.  So I’m very happy. :-)   I’ve been wanting one of those ever since I first saw one 20 years ago and was too tight to spend the dough.  But I lost a bet JB says I made when I told him I didn’t need to buy anything on this trip.  Oh, well.

Tomorrow we are going shopping for a universal remote for our TV since I left ours at home. Somehow I didn’t think walking the three steps to the TV would be a problem, but it appears we need it to do programming to get all channels. Then we are going to wash the salt spray off the boat.  I’ll catch up on laundry since we have use of a free washer and dryer.  Maybe our burgees will finally get mounted.  Doesn’t sound like an exciting day does it?

You know that problem we had before we left home about not being able to find things?  Well, we are only living in a 14’ x 34’ space. I believe that is less than 500 sq. ft. So you would think that might alleviate the problem.  Initially, we had some difficulty remembering where we stored things.  That is understandable, right?  Well, the other day, after JB’s nap, we were sitting on the sofa and talking when he asked me if I knew where he left his pants (jeans, that is).  Being a “stupid” question, I gave him the “stupid” answer. “In the bedroom where you left them.”  This caused me to think about what his ‘man talk’ really meant when he asked me where he left things.  I finally came to the conclusion that instead of using brain power to locate his things (a lowly task, no doubt), he would ask me where they were so I would fetch them for him.  So ladies, do you find your guy doing the same thing?????

I found out how far it is to Stuart on the back page of our Cruising Guide that takes us to Fernandino Beach, Fl. It’s 1076 miles. Not much more than the 900 we estimated.  We have gone 557 miles.  So we are more than half way ‘home’.  That sounds so GOOD.  We discovered today that Savannah is 8 miles off the ICW, so we plan to avoid it as we are smelling the sweet air of Florida and are eager to get there.  Sun and warmth.  Oh, yeah.  We’ll be loving it!

JB just cooked me a filet mignon steak dinner with fresh asparagus and baked potato.  Got to go and eat dinner. Miss you.