A Merry Christmas in Stuart, Fl

Merry Christmas to everyone from Fred, Willie, Sal and Kerry! We hope everyone had an enjoyable day.

We spent Christmas in Stuart, Florida. The temperature was about 22’C and it was sunny with a slight breeze. It was the warmest Christmas I can remember. Mom and I were sick and had runny noses but loaded up on Kleenexes and we walked to town where we had a delicious and very filling English breakfast. We then strolled along the waterfront to try to burn off a few calories. We then relaxed and read for a while. In the afternoon Sal and I went over to Chautauqua where we had tea and cookies. We tried to build a gingerbread house. Dad instructed us on it’s construction but were left to our own devices as we tried to decorate. We concluded that neither of us would make it as a cake decorator and in fact, our gingerbread house looked a little like a haunted house. We’re seeing how long it will last now. Last night 1 ½ reindeer has mysteriously gone missing. Dad got to work in the kitchen. We decided to scrap the traditional turkey and instead indulge in a seafood dinner. We had bbq shrimp and some mussels for an appetizer, followed by bacon wrapped scallops on rice with some green beans. We even had pumpkin pie for dessert (though someone forgot the whipped cream!). It was a pleasant evening. We exchanged a few gifts and then went over to Second Wind where we used the wifi antenna to call Sean on Skype. He was having a great time in Manitoba.

Beautiful weather, great food and family, it was a wonderful Christmas.

Before we made it to Stuart on the eve of Christmas Eve, we spent a few quiet days in Manatee Pocket. We had hoped to find a mechanic there to fix our outboard engine. We took the engine on a walk to find a mechanic. He had one look at it and said it was not worth fixing and we should just buy a new one, he knew a place where you could get them for $650. We said thank you but no. Very discouraged we went back and tried calling another place. Everyone seemed to think it was different things. I decided to call Phil, a good family friend and someone who has helped us prepare the boat and fix up Chautauqua. He is an excellent mechanic and was the one that sold us the motor. Through a bad internet connection, and our limited understanding of motors, he was able to describe to us exactly what was wrong, and what we needed to do to fix it. We sequestered a tool from a neighbour boat and followed his instructions, cleaning and drying the inner parts and getting the water out of the fuel and the carburetor. We had it together and in the water in less than an hour, then tried it. It started, to our utter amazement, on the first pull! We have never been more happy. It actually felt like we fixed something. Thank you Phil! We decided that we would spend Christmas in Stuart on a mooring ball so that we would be able to use the marina facilities and be a few blocks away from a grocery store.

We’ve been watching the weather and a strong coldfront was to come through the night after Christmas. It started to get windy at about 11pm, we were prepared for it and had everything tied down. The wind hasn’t let up at all today. Dad used his new wind speed indicator and has been getting reading up and around 30 knots all day long. The waves have the boat rocking around and we have felt queasy a lot of the day. It isn’t supposed to let up for a couple of days, but one it does, we’ll move to West Palm Beach where we’ll be waiting for the right weather to cross over to the Bahamas.

Cocoa to Vero Beach

Sunday December 12^th we had a calm morning anchored near the village of Cocoa, a calm before the storm, or so they say. The wind started to pick up at 10am. We had coffee on Chautauqua and felt the gusts come through. We took our dinghy back to our boat before the rain came and the wind got any stronger. We were safely inside when the boat shuddered as the first of the north winds came through. I looked out and to my horror watched as the wind picked up our dinghy and turned it right over, motor and all!!! Ahhhh. We ran out and turned the dinghy over with the help of another gust of wind. But the damage had been done, our faithful outboard motor was in the salt water for about 10 or so seconds. We took it off in panic and then my dad told us to try to start it. I read in the manual that we had to put oil in various places and made sure it was dry. Sal pulled and pulled with no luck. We took the cowling off the engine and looked around. It didn’t seem overly wet, but we found out that there was no spark, so either the coil is not working or the spark plug is not working (we think?). We didn’t have a replacement spark plug to rule that out, so we put oil in it, and sprayed it with WD40 in hopes to prevent any corrosion. Sigh, never a dull moment unfortunately.

We spent the following day in Cocoa as it was still very gusty and the temperature was dropping quickly. We went ashore and looked around in the village. Lots of gift shops and antiques and crafts. We listened to the weather as another hard free warning for the area. We had a cold night, we didn’t get up too early, but even at 9am, it was still I’m sure below freezing. We had a cold sail 20 miles to Melbourne, where we anchored behind the bridge. It was the first time I had heard Sal complain about the weather, even my dad said that he was tempted to buy a plane ticket to Jellyby road. He said that it was probably colder there, but at least he could get the house warm with the fires going.

On Wednesday December 15^th we motor sailed the 30 miles to Vero Beach. This is a very popular spot for cruisers and is nicknamed Velcro Beach because once you come here, you tend to stay longer than planned. We had planned to stay for 2 nights, but 4 nights later… we’re still here. We’re here partly because we’re waiting for the spare spark plugs that we’ve ordered, and because my parent’s haven’t been able to patch their dinghy without it leaking. We want to have everything fixed before we make the cross over to the Bahamas. There is a free bus that takes us around the city. The weather has finally warmed up and we’re in shorts and t-shirts again!! Yay.

Currently there is a window to cross over to the Bahamas, the winds are light and from the South. The window is closing this evening, so we’ll have to wait for another opportunity. It’s too rough to cross in any kind of north wind or winds over 15 knots so we’re now playing the waiting game. Some people have to wait for months to cross, and last year many people never made it across… so we’ll just be patient and see what comes our way.

Today (Dec 18^th) is my dad’s birthday so we are had a small celebration this evening. Mom and I made a cake and we were extra nice to him today.

Titusville

We left Daytona Beach before sunrise on December 7^th because we wanted to make it the 48 miles to Titusville. Another cold morning as we shivered to get the anchor up and get on our way. We had a great run with the current and wind with us and made it before 4pm! We saw lots of dolphins and little islands with palm trees and sandy beaches. We anchored outside of the Titusville marina with lots of other boats. We went ashore the next day and walked around.A space rocket or some test launch of a rocket was set to be launched between 7am and 3pm at the Kennedy Space Station…Dad saw the whole launching though he says that he could barely see anything, while Sal and I only saw the spiral smoke leftover. The downtown area was quite small and a lot of construction going on. We wanted to rent a car as we hoped to go to Disney World the next day. We looked online at Enterprise and found a great deal… 28$ a day. We decided to get the car for two days. When Sal went to go get the car, our great deal turned out to be such a huge rip-off. We thought maybe a few extra dollars a day for insurance. The cost was triple what we expected!!!! I vow never to rent a car again.

However we had a car, so we had better make good use of it. Disney World Here We Come!!! We got up early on Thursday December 8^th and drove our overly expensive car to Orlando and Disney world! We decided on the Magical Kingdom as the park we wanted to go to. We got our tickets and took the tram to the entrance. It was so exciting. There were Christmas decorations everywhere and everyone was in the festive spirit. Sal and I looked around trying not to bump into things or people as we went. It wasn’t too busy in the morning but when it warmed up in the afternoon, there were people and lots and lots of children everywhere. I felt like a kid again. It was exciting to see Mickey and it really did feel like a party. We watched the shows and the parade and went on most of the rides. The rides were mainly for kids but they were so neat and fun. We both had a great day and had a lot of fun. Even Sal was humming Disney tunes on the car ride back. My parents decided they would rather not go, so they stayed in Titusville. They made plans with friends from home who were in the area vacationing to get together for lunch. So they had a pleasant lunch catching up. It apparently got very windy during the day and a cloud of ask from a fire nearby covered their boat. They kept an eye on the boats for us. We arrived home around 9pm tired from a long day of walking.

The next day we had our shopping lists ready to go and used the car to provision up. I think we have enough food to last us a few months! This would be our last big provisioning before we cross over to the Bahamas. Both our boats are sitting a little further down in the water with the extra weight from all the food stored.

December 11^th we planned on heading out early for our next stop, Cocoa, however the fog in the morning delayed our departure for about 2 hours. It lifted around 10 am and then we pulled up anchor and left. We made it the 20 miles in about 4 hours. We anchored in the best spot we could find because we knew another cold front was coming through in the morning. It had just started to warm up and here we go again with the cold!

St Augustine

We arrived in the oldest city in America – St Augustine, on the 4^th of December. As we were coming up to the city we noticed some flashing lights of police cars and as we got closer we realized that a parade was going on. It was their Christmas Parade. By the time we got secured to the mooring ball and ashore, it unfortunately was over. We walked around the city though and it was bustling. Horses and buggies were giving tourists tours of the city and there were also sight-seeing trolleys going around the city and stopping at various locations. We walked down some old brick streets and looked in a few of the many shops around. It was warm and we had to take off a few layers. We stopped at one of the shops for some delicious Italian pizza. Mmmm was it good! We booked tickets for a ghost walk in the evening. They have a fort in the city called Castillo de San Marcos which they have lots of re-enactors in the streets and at the fort. We saw a ‘British encampment’ and then went across the street and toured the fort. It was neat to look around and the view from the top of the fort was great. We even got to see them shoot off a canon.

So we were told about this torch parade that goes on each year. We knew to be somewhere at 7:30. We figured we would see the crowd and find out what it exactly is later on. The town was lit up with millions of lights on the buildings and trees. It was very festive. So at about 7:20 we found the crowd of people in the park down town. We tried to figure out what was going on and where we should stand. Everyone seemed to have a different idea of what was going on. It was just entertaining to hear people say their version of the events. Nothing happened until almost 8pm when the army marched by with torches followed by the women with lanterns. They story being that they were going to march down to the edge of town and shut the gates out to keep the rift-raft out, as they did many years ago. All in all we waited in anticipation and suspense with a lot of people, and we were a little let down but it was still fun. Afterwards we went on our ghost walk…. We walked around the town finding out about ghost sightings and historical places. Our tour guide was really into it and we both got a little freaked out at points. At the end of the day we were exhausted as we returned to our boat.

We left the next day, putting St Augustine on our list as a place we would like to spend some more time at on the way back. We stopped a little ways out of the city in a narrow creek in hopes to get a few groceries. We anchored and then dad dinghyed us to shore so we could cross the street and go to the grocery store. There was no place to land the dinghy and we didn’t want to go too far away, so he pulled up to an old dock and we had to climb up with an old wooden ladder. The dinghy got a little too close to the oyster shells that were on the wood and we heard the dreaded ‘whoosh’ as the dinghy got punctured and all the air was coming out. Sal had to go back with him to keep his hand on the hole to prevent all the air from coming out. Good thing we had a good stock of patches for the dinghy! We moved on and anchored in front of Fort Matanzas. The wind had started to pick up and the current was very strong here. We had a windy rocky cold night!

On December 6^th we got up early and left in the freezing cold! We had all the clothing on that we could fit. We took turns coming below to warm our fingers and toes. The weather is starting to depress us. I truly thought that we would be in bathing suits, shorts and t-shirts all the way down, on the bright side, this is almost record lows for Florida… so that makes us feel a little better knowing that this is not normal. We anchored in Daytona beach, but were too cold even to venture to shore. With the wind chill it was 3 ‘ C! Dad warmed us up in the evening with a hot turkey dinner and mom made an apple crumble.

We Made it to Florida…BUT… We’re Still Cold!!

We only spent about 4 days going through Georgia. We had some days of sun but strong winds. Sometimes in our favour, other times not. Sunday November 28^th we anchored across from Fort Frederica, which is a historical site that displays the remains of a fort and village over 300 years ago when the English and the Spanish were fighting over the ownership of Georgia. All that remains now are a few remnants of the houses and a wall or two of a defensive fort. It was nice to walk around. We saw our first Orange tree- a Seville Orange tree. My parents picked a few and brought them back, but they were very seedy and not edible. We spent the night with the antique cannons aimed at us. The next day was a windy and we crossed Sapello sound. It was very exposed and we felt like we were out in the ocean again. Rolling waves had us bobbing around for about 1 hour until we were back in the protection of the river. We found a protected anchorage behind Cumberland Island and spent the night there. My mom saw an Armadillo while walking around on the Island. Cumberland Island also has wild horses, but we didn’t get a glimpse of them. I was on the lookout for alligators, but alas I did not see any. It was a picturesque evening.

Tuesday November 30^th we crossed into Florida. We took a mooring ball for the night and went ashore. We showered and walked around in our shorts and t-shirts. So happy that we finally made it to the sunshine state! Sal bought me an ice cream (the most delicious one so far on this trip). We looked on the internet and found a movie theater about a 45 minute walk away, so we headed out and were able to watch the new Harry Potter movie. We then had to walk back in the dark. It was an eerie night as the wind was picking up and it was very dark out. Back at the boat, we settled down for the evening, discussing how awesome Harry, Hermione and Ron are! (hehehe). Then we slept, only to be woken a few hours later by banging on the mooring ball…uuuggghhhhhh. The wind had picked up and the ball was bashing into us. It stopped about an hour later, and I looked outside to see what was going on. The wind had changed to the north and a line of very dark clouds were approaching. This was the cold front coming through. The wind started roaring and waves picked up. We were rocking and bobbing and rolling. I was glad that we were secured to our ball, even though I was cursing it an hour earlier. Dad thinks we had gusts up to 40 knots! It died down a bit towards the morning and I was able to sleep. Sal on the other hand slept almost completely through it, besides the parts where I was talking to him.

December 1^st was a wind day. It was too windy for us to dinghy safely ashore so we spent a quiet day in the boat watching a few shows on the computer (until the battery died) and we played a card game, and napped. We tried reading but it made us a bit queasy as we were still rolling around a bit. We ventured out in the evening for dinner at Chautauqua. Did I mention that it was also starting to get very cold with a biting north wind? Well it was!

(Submarine in it's garage)

December 2^nd, the wind had died down enough for us to make it ashore. This time we were walking around in jeans, shirts, 2 sweaters and a jacket… what a difference! We did a bit of shopping and exploring the downtown. Time to move south…maybe we can catch up to some warmer weather. I told Sal if we ever do this trip again… we’re leaving in the beginning of August, not the middle of September! We left the mooring ball and headed down the river where we went about 10 miles and then anchored for the night.

(Fernandina beach - our first view of Florida, it smelled a little especially when the wind was blowing from the south. The town was cute though)

Today (Dec 3) we are on the move again, hoping to make another 40 miles south.

Georgia

Beaufort, SC (pronounced bew-fort, while Beaufort, NC is pronounced bow-fort). We had been told by some cruisers that Beaufort hosts a community Thanksgiving every year and all the cruisers are invited. We thought we better check this out. We arrived just outside of the city on Nov. 23^rd in the evening. While trying to anchor, I did not pull in the lines that we use to tow the dinghy, and all the sudden the motor stops… I knew exactly what happened – I fowled the prop with the dinghy tow lines. Annoying! But easy to fix with an outboard motor. We had to cut the line and then lift the motor out of the well and then untangle the line around propeller. We had the motor back in the well and finished anchoring 15 minutes later…. Lesson learned – always make sure lines out of the water when running motor. We went over to Chautuauqua for dinner… we are all running low on food now! Dad managed to cook up a delicious frittata with baked beans. It seems the less food they have the more creative and delicious the meals! The plan was for my parents to stay at a marina the next day so that we would have access to their courtesy car to get groceries. So the next morning we left early and went under the bridge. We both filled up on gas. Sal and I went to the free day dock because we were planning to anchor for the night to save some money. We took a trip to the grocery store – Sal was our driver! It was so busy I guess because everyone was doing their Thanksgiving shopping. We only had 1 hour use of the car so we hurried our way down the isles. It feels good to have fresh fruits and veggies and stocked up with food (and a bit of candy/ junk food J) Sal and I headed out to anchor…but it was almost low tide (almost 9 foot tidal range) and we could not find a spot to anchor under 20 feet!! We don’t have enough anchor rode to anchor securely in anything over 25 feet so we bit the bullet and paid for a slip in the marina. Some very neat stores in Beaufort…could have easily spent a lot of money, but nowhere to put any purchases.

(Beaufort had a beautiful waterfront)

As soon as we were about to fall asleep tied safetly to the dock the karaoke from a nearby bar started……. Ohh man it was bad and sooo loud. We weren’t able to fall asleep! The next day, we realized that we should have been out there at the bar instead of sleeping!! We’ve turned into boring people going to bed around 9 30pm each day and waking up at 630am!

(We didn't see any yet though)

Thanksgiving day. (which was a Thursday – weird!) We got up and cleaned up the boats a bit with the fresh water from the docks…then we headed down to the church in Beaufort at noon where they served Thanksgiving lunch. We were seated and served sweet tea, water, or coffee and a plate with turkey and all the fixings. A delicious meal shared with people from the community. The one lady at our table was very interested in Salomon because she had spent some time in Nicaragua. Everyone was very kind. To finish the meal off we each had a dessert, there was a selection of pies, brownies and cakes to chose from. We got a delicious meal, dad didn’t have to cook a turkey and there were no dishes to clean up!

(Thanksgiving Dinner)

We left Beaufort in the afternoon and anchored just our two boats behind a couple of islands in Skull Creek. The next day we entered Georgia. We crossed the boarder in pouring rain and had a long wet day of motoring. That night a cold front came in and yesterday (Nov 27^th) was one of the coldest days in a long time. Back to our 5 layers, mitts, toques and scarves! It was a sunny day, but didn’t feel warm until well into the afternoon, the north wind kept everything very cool! Today (Nov 28) we are a little bit warmer but we just want to be wearing our shorts again!

(Sal saw some 1 legged birds - well they have 2 but only stand on 1 at a time)

Alligator Watch, Dolphin Sights, and Bumps in the Night

We passed by Myrtle Beach, although we didn’t see the beach or a lot of the area. We did see a few golf courses and some of Barefoot Landing. We were going to dock there for the night but decided to continue on to a marina further on. We passed through the infamous “rock pile” where the edges of the canal are laced with large rocks. We saw and kept clear of any rocks, and had no trouble. We were travelling with about 6 or so boats that day, and were close together as we had 3 bridges to wait on. Little Second Wind tried to keep up, but way back from the main pack. After passing through Myrtle Beach, we left civilization for swamp. Just before the last bridge of the day, we thought we saw a floating log (not uncommon to spot drifters along the ICW) as we got closer, I jokingly said to Sal, oh look an alligator. We got a little closer and agreed that it looked like an alligator. I thought maybe it was a lawn decoration…. but then it MOVED! We spotted our first alligator. It was quite small, but amazing to see. By the time we got out of shock and grabbed the camera, we were quite far past it, so the pictures are not close-ups, and we couldn’t turn around, because the bridge was waiting on us. When we docked at Osprey Marina, we excitedly told my parents, they unfortunately had not seen it, when they went by that area. The marina was fantastic, on arrival they gave us a goody bag with some food items, a key ring and some small gifts! What a great welcome.

Friday, Nov 19, we had breakfast at the marina and chatted with a few boaters. They informed us about must see stops along the way. We returned to the swamp and headed out on our way. We arrived in Georgetown (the 3^rd oldest city of South Carolina) just after lunch. As we arrived, we detected the pungent odor of the paper factory nearby, luckily the winds were not blowing it towards us. We went ashore and looked around. Some great shops and restaurants. We wanted to buy some souvenirs but would not know where to store them on the boat.

(Downtown buildings in Georgetown)

We were awoken by the crowing of a rooster on Saturday. We were not expecting that. We passed numerous hunters in camouflaged boats and clothing, but other than that the rivers and creeks we were travelling down were very quiet. Currents are stronger now and tides are around 6 feet! We had another animal encounter today. While motoring along, I felt the boat move. I checked the depth sounder, it said 16 feet – ok so we didn’t hit bottom, I looked behind me and all the sudden, a dolphin surfaces about 3 feet from me! As Sal can attest, I freaked right out. It scared the pants right off me. Sal came running out and we watched the 2 dolphins as they swam away. The next morning as we were leaving, 6 or 8 dolphins swam by us, we slowed down and watched them as they played around our boat. They would come up on either side of the boat. We tried to get a good video of them but it’s sometimes hard to tell where they will come up for air. What a great way to start the day, watching dolphins as we finish our coffee.

We arrived in Charleston, South Carolina yesterday. We anchored in a deep anchorage among many other boats. We tried to find the elusive dinghy dock, and ended up tying up to what we thought was the dinghy dock. No one was around to tell us otherwise. We walked around Charleston, admiring the beautiful houses and tree lined streets. We had wanted to stay another day but dad was eager to go, and worried that we would run out of food. When anchoring, Sal and I tried to do a Bahamian Moor, which is putting out 2 anchors 180 degrees apart. We thought we had done it quite successfully until 2 am when we woke up to a thud. We had bumped into the boat ahead of us. Time to re-anchor (luckily the full moon provided lots of light for us). Unfortunately getting up the anchors proved to be quite a challenge. Somehow, we were not able to get 1 anchor up because they were too far apart and we didn’t have enough rode on either anchor to let on out, while we picked the other one up. We had to send Sal in the dinghy with the one anchor rode while I pulled up the other one… then I had to go pick up Sal in the dinghy with the other anchor rode and then we pulled that one up. We only set one anchor out after that. Needless to say our Bahamian anchoring experience was not a success… we just hope no-one was watching us last night.

(Palmettos, South Carolina state tree)

(Street in Charleston)

(No helmets necessary!)

On a pleasant note, the weather has been getting increasingly warmer during the day, still a little cool at night but nothing near what it was a few weeks ago. With the warm weather we are starting to see a few more bugs, specifically ‘no-see-ums’ which are small biting bugs that come through our bug nets. Ahh you win some, you lose some.