Biscayne Point

We did about 25NM on the ICW (I know, I know…) however the bridges today seemed a little better set up for timing and we only had to wait 25 minutes or so for two of them. One of the opening ones was closed when we arrived but the height on the “bridge board” showed 56’ and our mast is 53’ at the most – so through we went and we seemed to have a few feet of clearance.

It’s been a while since we have seen the dreaded crab/lobster, etc trap but today there was a few of them in really bad spots, that is until we got a closer look at them – they are coconuts that have fallen into the water! DOH!

Going through Fort Lauderdale was busy with tons of boats and the largest collection of cruise boats I have seen, there were 8 or 9 here and room for lots more, which are probably out. Some of the buildings are colourful and unique as seen by these pictures.

Not sure what these kites? were supposed to signify but they were pretty neat, some spun on their axis . Maybe they were selling boats or condos…..

We passed a very busy party area where the youngsters were “playing” and some entrepreneur had set up a floating restaurant! Note the colour of the water, we are in the Bay of Biscayne and it looks much more appealing.

Today we spotted the elusive mushroom tree, which grows here in the southern climates :)

We are anchored near Biscayne Point in a large bay only few miles from Miami. We will soon be done with the bridges and be at our hopping off spot to the Bahamas.

Lake Santa Barbara

Ok so I really don’t mean to not be truthful on the blog (lie is such a nasty word), but we are back in the ICW despite our best intention not to be! The winds have been quite strong out of the north for the last while (week maybe?) so the seas have built up quite a bit. Our thought this morning was that we would check it out and if ugly would deke back to the ICW for a run down to Fort Lauderdale. Well we did check it out for about 1/2 hr but it wasn’t sitting well with us so we went back in. However the first bridge only opens at 15 minutes after the hour (although our book said 15 and 45 after the hour), of course we missed it by 10 minutes which meant that we had to spin around in front of the bridge for the next 50 minutes. I felt like just dropping the anchor and waiting but nobody does that and I didn’t want to be the stupid Canadian who does something different :) Anyways we had like a zillion bridges to either call for an opening or wait for certain timings. Today was also a day of mega yachts and mega houses, the further south we go the bigger they become. By 5:00 we were only 5NM from Lauderdale and had enough for a day and found a nice anchorage in Lake Santa Barbara. It is surrounded by nice houses so there is no privacy, as we are peering into homes with our binoculars they might be doing the same to us……

The picture is of a well decorated house that we saw for Christmas.

Fort Worth

Well hopefully today was our last day travelling on the ICW, which is good because there was a pile of opening bridges with timings to meet, meaning you had to go like the wind (at least for a sailboat) or even go very slow. Last night as a preventive measure I put in some “barnacle buster” which is supposed to get rid of any build up of barnacles, calcium, lime etc out of the engine cooling system. After we put it in, small mussels started popping up in the raw water strainer and by morning they had completely dissolved! Cool, hopefully it did the same in the rest of the system!

We normally run at 180 degrees for 1800 RPM but today we were down to below 160 so it must have needed cleaning! All this to say when I had to push the engine hard between some bridges the temperature stayed cooler than normal. Will get a jug to bring with us.

The night we left Fort Pierce we were treated to a thunderstorm – yuk not good on a sailboat with a lighting rod in the middle of it. Here are some weird clouds from that night.

Last night the bar in Manatee Pocket was hopping and this power boat behind was full of colour with the red, white and blue.

This boathouse? in the ICW reminded us of winter, the eves looked like icicles, not that we miss it……but Christmas is coming as this well decorated house shows.

We arrived into a large anchorage in Fort Worth that is full of Canadian boats and will head back out to the ocean for a run down to Fort Lauderdale or Miami as soon as the weather permits it, looks like Saturday will be good.

Once we get to the Bahamas the blogs will probably go down to one a week due to lack of internet connections and laziness on our part :)

Vero Beach/Fort Pierce

Well our time in Vero Beach was very busy, hence no blog for the past week and a half! We rented a car for the week and headed to St Petersburg to visit my (Heather) mother Marg and Jack on Tuesday. We had a great time seeing their place for the first time. On Wednesday they took us to Johns Pass for the day, we had a fun time being tourists visiting all the shops! They also took us to the Crab Shack which when you see the outside you would never venture inside but the tell tale sign is a full parking lot! It was very “rustic” ie indoor picnic tables but the food was great, Snow Crab is the main feature so we did try that and it was very good. Richard ordered the Gator nuggets and they were really good, no distinctive flavour, sort of tasted like chicken.. Unfortunatetly we had to leave on Thurseday as we had a part arriving in Vero to fix our leaking injector line and Richard needed to go to Orlando to pick up an antenna for our SSB radio. Our visit was much too short but it was so nice to see family!

Back in Vero Richard was able to get the part working, not without a lot of frustration! We spent the next couple of days provisioning and packing and repacking the boat and Richard picked up more spare parts to add to the already 5 spare parts for every system on the boat…!

On Saturday we spent a fun day with Steve from Slow Flight and Mark and Margie from Tattoo Two (Canning NS) touring around West Marine and the big Marine Surplus store… I cant believe that I now actually enjoy snooping around “those” stores! Richard was happy to find a spare windlass remote control in case the one he fixed in Elizabeth City broke. We ended the day with a great meal and fellowship at Outback Steakhouse before heading back to our boats. Sunday was a very busy day as we picked up our last minute provisions and repacked our already overstuffed boat, in the evening we were invited to a potluck on Tattoo Two and had a fun evening with good food and singing with them and Paul and Phylis who were rafted up to them.

Monday we returned the car, took on water and diesel and were once again on our way headed for Fort Pierce. We pulled in shortly after lunch and anchored close to Steve on Slow Flight who had left earlier that morning. It was great to see Ken and Merydie and Laurie and Francis again. We had happy hour on Steves boat with two other couples in the anchorage and then Ken and Merydie came out to our boat and we had a great time catching up on each others news.

Tuesday morning Ken took Richard and Steve to West Marine and a fishing store where Richard somehow found even more stuff he needed, this time for “catching the big one” later in the day Merydie and I made a trip to Walmart where I purchased a bit more meat for the freezer… not that I don’t have faith in Richards fishing capabilities but…. Richard and John helped Steve take his boat out in Harbourside where he will work on the bottom over the next couple days. Richard ran into Warren and Diane while he was over there. We enjoyed happy hour at the marina with Ken, Merydie, Laurie, Francis, Steve and John and his wife.

We had planned on staying for another day or so but after breakfast we noticed the boat beside us was dragging and when we tried to tighten up our lines the current was against us, we tried reversing but the engine seemed to be smoking our thought was that the lines were wrapped around the shaft so Richard dove on it but it was clear. (24 degrees) We were dragging at this point and heading towards a shoal and the bridge so Richard put out our stern anchor. We managed to get the snubber lines on to the boat and Richard took the dinghy out to retrieve our stern anchor. Once up and safely away from the shallows we decided to leave this anchorage and head for Manatee Pocket about 20 miles down as the current here was strong, more high winds were in the forecast and there were already a lot of boats in this area.

We arrived in Manatee Pocket at around 2 PM and found a snug spot for the night. Manatee Pocket is near Stuart where we originally bought the boat 9 years ago. Just like a horse going back to it’s barn after a ride I think the boat knew where we were going to, we got up to 8.50 knots with the motor on and a strong wind behind us! Richard got a lift into town to pick up some prefilters for the water maker, so hopefully when we soon get to better waters we can try it out.

Vero Beach

Destination - Vero Beach

Well our destination is Vero Beach but from Cape Canaveral to Vero is 65 miles... too far for us to make it in one day comfortably so we over nighted in Sebastian. It was a pretty uneventful day with long narrow routes and still lots of dolphins and dilapidated boats along the way.

We made it in to Vero around 11am on Friday and were looking forward to having a break from traveling and look forward to reconnecting with people. We checked in and paid our mooring fees for a week as we plan on doing some maintenance here and also rent a car to head to Saint Petersburg to see my(Heather’s) family there. Our food situation wasn't the best as we were out of necessities like milk, bread and eggs. We had just enough time to grab a quick shower and grab and hope on a bus for the grocery store. This is a fantastic spot for cruisers as there is a free bus system. We met the young couple who we saw several times on the ICW from Quebec City, they have a little trawler named Charlotte that he built, really nice couple who are on their way south as well. We caught the last bus back to the marina and loaded ourselves and our groceries into the dinghy, it was a very hot day so everything needed to get in the fridge! We stopped by and had a chat with Greg and Debbie and then with Shep and Deb so by the time we got to our boat things really needed the fridge! We ended up meeting up with everyone at 4 pm for happy hour on Four ZZZZ’s and it was great to reconnect and to meet two new couples as well!

          We headed back to our boat for supper and no sooner had we got aboard than a dinghy with two couples stopped by to see us. Turns out it was a couple that we had noticed were from Nova Scotia a few days prior and we knew they were headed here so we were looking forward to getting to know them and the other couple was an american couple who were rafted up with them. (Vero is a very popular spot so you can expect to have other boats raft with you) Both couples were heading out for supper and invited us to join them so off we went. So we jumped in our dinghy and followed them. We had a great time at the restaurant and it turns out that the NS couple, Mark and Margie, are from Pereau (behind Canning) in the Valley! So as the evening winded down we made plans to meet them for Church in the morning (Mark is a retired Baptist Minister)

        We made it back to the boat after a great evening just as Steve from Slow Flight stopped by for a visit so we enjoyed a nightcap with him. What a wonderful day we had seeing old friends and meeting new ones, this cruising life is everything that we hoped it would be!

Sunday in Vero

We met Mark and Margie at 915 and had an enjoyable walk to Church, it was a beautiful day. The closest Church was a United Methodist service at 10am. It was a very  large traditional Church and after Communion we enjoyed the fellowship time with beverages and cookies. Once back it was boat chore time, Richard got the Air Conditioner/ Heat exchanger working and fixed the kettle and ordered some parts that we need for the water maker. I made lunch, cleaned the head, did the blog and basically stayed out of Richards way!

Cape Canaveral

It was another long day on the ICW as we had 55 nm to Cape Canaveral. We left at

7 AM and had to pass by this sign. Seems strange to see advertising in the middle of the channel.  I can see how Florida has a love/hate relationship with boaters, there are many wrecked or abandoned boats just off of the main channel as shown in these pictures. There are also boats that have placed themselves just off the main channel and have 6 or 8 anchors down all around the boat to hold them in position. A lot of Florida has very strict laws about anchoring due to these issues.

A lot of what we went through today was very open, in fact it looked like large lakes as shown, but stray more than a few feet off the channel and you would be aground.

We also had a canal with a bascule bridge to go through, there were some mangroves on both sides of the canal.

Coming into Cape Canaveral, but at a distance is the main launch site for NASA!

There is an opening bridge on request just before our anchoring spot but it will not open between certain hours – one of them being from 3:30 to 5:00, of course we made it to the bridge at 3:45 so we had to wait until 5:00 pm. We had looked at the information first thing in the morning but I had figured we could not get there til 4:00 to 4:30 but I forgot that the guide books for the ICW work on statute miles, where the boat is set for nautical miles so we were much closer in time to the bridge than I thought we would be – had I known I could have increased the speed to make it.

Anyways we anchored before the bridge, Heather cut my long hippy hair and we both got a shower in before the opening so it all worked out ok.

We were invited to Steve’s boat for home made pizza that had shrimp, pinapple, bacon and a white sauce on it, it was great! Heather brought over some homemade cookies.

On the row back to our boat the phosphorescent in the water with any movement was incredible!!! It was the colour of green glow sticks and was so bright. I can’t tell you how cool it looked when you pee in the water :) Even the little bit of current in the water lit up the anchor chain from the movement. Try as I might I could not get a picture of it with our camera however.

Daytona Beach

We would like to go back out to the ocean for our runs, but the distances between the inlets are at least 60 nm. Also the next few inlets are tricky and they say you should have “local knowledge” to use them, hopefully this will change a little further south, but for now we are back on the ICW. The ICW here in Florida is much more forgiving and straighter so you are covering more ground than South Carolina and Georgia.

We started out early this morning as we wanted to make Daytona Beach, which was 55 nm away. There were many of us travelling sort of together, at one time there were 6 of us as you can tell by the picture. It was a warm and windy day so we were able to throw up a sail for a period of time, which increased our speed.

The large rainbow trout which was coming out of a roof looked a bit out of place down south here – course any 20 foot rainbow trout looks out of place with it’s head out of a roof!

Speaking of out of place, check out the old tug boat that somebody lives in, zoom in and you will see a dressed up Pink Panther! Apparently some woman came out of the doorway with just a shirt on after I took the picture, Heather was against the idea of circling around for another picture :(

One of the bridges in Daytona Beach has sea life murals done in tiles on the bottom of the pier, pretty cool considering you have to be on the water to see much of them. We are anchored in front of a large marina here in Daytona beach for the night.

St Augustine

We had a late morning and waited for “Slow Flight” to catch up to us. We started off at around 10  am for a short run into St. Augustine. Before getting into our mooring at the municipal marina you have to wait for the “Bridge of Lions” bridge to open up every 1/2 hr. The area here is very busy with boats going in a out of the inlet to the ocean, other boats circling around waiting for the bridge to open plus all sorts of  local traffic. Anyways after the bridge opened we were able to find our mooring and were relieved to see that they were spaced out properly and not as tight as in Beaufort. For $20.00 a day there are showers, laundry, water taxi and dinghy dock available.

St. Augustine is the oldest city in the states, having been established 450 years ago! There are a lot of unique old buildings and roads as you see by some of the pictures. The strange part of this, is all the glitz and tackiness intertwined among old parts. Sort of reminded us of Niagara Falls with the Ripley’s believe it or not, mini golf, fountain of youth, scooter rentals etc. Anyways when in Rome…..so we jumped on a “Red Bus” tour (one of many) and got a great tour of mostly the old part of the city. This ticket allows us to use it for the next 3 days, getting off/on on at various sites.

Shown is a palm tree that has grown up through another tree, both were alive and doing well. Speaking of tree, the large one here is called “The Old Senator” which is a 600 year old oak tree!

We finished off our first day at a nice Italian restaurant.

The next day myself and Steve spend a good part of the day going through a really good used marine consignment store, I picked up a few small things including parts to rebuild the AC water pump.  In the afternoon we went to the local legion for lunch.

Our last day here I worked on the water pump but there were more problems with it. I took the whole water pump to the consignment store. It looks like the bearings in the motor are shot and you cannot get at them as they are sealed in epoxy! The store reimbursed me for the parts I bought and I was able to buy a complete rebuilt unit from them. I spent another couple hours putting it back together, this got the water flowing again but there is no blower fan working!!! I have not had this AC/heater on for about 6 years and I guess it shows :( I have no idea how to get at the fan as it is jammed into a cupboard. Maybe I’ll just rip the whole thing out and use it for more storage…….

In the afternoon Heather and I went for lunch and walked around the town. In the evening we got together with some IP (Island Packet) owners, I think they are sort of a cult but they let us join in, maybe they are trying to convert us :) We will leave early tomorrow and try to make Daytona Beach.

  

Tolomato River

We left this morning around 830am timing our departure with high tides due to shoaling early on our route. There were lots of reports of shoaling along our way but thankfully we didn’t find any! We did go under 8 bridges today, at one of them the current was so strong that with over 5 kts of current we were only able to do .7 of a kt over ground… not fun.

   Interesting fact that we read is that every day over one thousand people move to Florida and also that one in twenty residents own a watercraft… You can see one of those boats below, note that when three engines just won’t due go for the forth.

One area that we passed today was quite shallow along shore so the docks were way out in the water so much so that they use a golf cart to get out to there.

We also passed a large Navy dry dock just outside of Jacksonville. As we were approaching Jacksonville we could see a large Nuclear plant and Richard kept commenting on the fact that we seemed to see it for most of the day as we wound in and around through the marshes.

The houses today were definitely different from the ones in the Carolinas and Georgia. They were still for the most part huge but it was interesting to see that there were quite a number of older and very run down houses interspersed amongst them and it was evident that some had been torn down and large ones were taking their places. Since we are travelling  at this time of year we haven’t been bothered by bugs that often but obviously they are a problem in these marshy areas, check out the screened in areas behind some of these houses. We were surprised to see Ronald MacDonald at one of the houses…

 Our plan was to only go about thirty miles today and as we were approaching where we were going to anchor Steve in Slow Flight, who was ahead of us, was checking out some spots. As we rounded a corner we could see him in an anchorage but unfortunately he had gone aground:( He had called SeaTow, who was on their way, and since he is faster than us we decided to carry on and he would soon catch up. Turns out that the next few anchorages weren’t good so we ended up traveling 15 more miles for a total of 53 miles today.  SeaTow came but due to the tide going out it ended up taking another two hours for them so get him unstuck. By this time it was getting dark so he ended up anchoring there. We arrived at our spot just before dusk to find it very full and as we motored around looking we found it very shallow so we pressed on. We pulled into a nice empty area just as the sun was setting, we don’t like leaving it this late but it all worked out nicely and the rain started after we were all settled!

Fernandina Beach II

Last night we decided to move locations as there was a forecast of 10-15 kt winds and we were in a very exposed area…boy are we glad we moved. They under estimated it and we were sure rocking and rolling! The current and the winds were totally opposite with the current holding the back of the boat directly into the wind. Max (our dinghy) was not a happy camper and kept knocking on the boat ( a rubber dinghy wouldn’t do that). We were really looking forward to getting to land this morning for our showers and checking out the area. Fernandina is a lovely little town with lots of quaint shops along the main street and the best part is that it is right on the waterfront. Richard really enjoyed a couple of the local antique stores, they were huge and packed full of everything. We went to town with Steve from Slow Flight and had lunch together at a really cool little place that used to be a gas station, the food was delicious. We also stopped at a great bakery for bread and cinnamon rolls and warm pretzels… I found a neat cross stitch store with all hand painted canvases, lovely but very pricey, I came out empty handed! Richard meanwhile found an old time hardware store that was right out of the 50’s… he didn’t come out empty handed.

We saw a beautiful old tree growing right in the middle of the road, obviously someone didn’t have the heart to cut it down so they built the road around it. The house that is pictured here has beautiful carousel horses built into the porch.

We were invited over to Slow Flight for sundowners and had a great time. Our plan is to leave with Slow Flight tomorrow and head to St Augustine with an overnighter on the way.

Fernandina Beach

I think I forgot to mention in the last blog that we were in Georgia! Here is the sunset from that night. As Georgia’s ICW is quite shallow in spots and it is not dredged due to financial reasons I was leaning toward going off shore. The would be via an overnight sail to get into Florida where the ICW is in better shape. As mentioned in a previous post it did not work out the day we tried. Steve (Slow Flight) was interested in doing the same thing so we made plans for leaving the next morning. We were going to either Fernandina Beach, Jacksonville or St Augustine and would make the decision based on timing and speed. As you can see by the picture it was very calm although the sea was going to be sloppy with waves coming in on our beam for the trip. It took a couple of hours to get out far enough from all the shallow water to actually head down the coast to Florida. We had some things going for us that we didn’t have two days before, the weather was going to be warm, even at night. The waves were not as bad but there were still no winds so it would be motoring for up to 24 hrs. Well two out of three isn’t bad! As a bonus Steve would be going along on his boat too. The seas were not agreeing with me today, although this time it was not bothering Heather as much. We had a full moon, which was a bonus, although the first part of the night it was overcast with a bit of rain. Once we got going we all agreed to press for St Augustine because at our present speed

(6 knots) we would arrive in Fernandina Beach at about 1 AM, not a good idea if you could help it. We could however make St. Augustine by noon the next day, so that was our destination. Around midnight Steve, who was about 2 miles ahead radioed and said he was having fuel problems. He had already changed his primary filters twice, cleaned out some lines but still had a very high vacuum so the engine would run and then die. Changed his filters out in that sloppy sea? Wow, he’s a real sailor, I was just working on keeping Heather’s potatoes and chicken supper down while being in the cockpit, there is no way this crème puff sailor could have managed to mess with fuel filters last night. Anyways we both stopped moving for a while, so he could try some more things. At this time with no forward motion we were sickenly rolling from side to side. Heather’s dinner was still in the northern hemisphere and I managed to avoid a feeding to the fish, but it was not fun :(

After what seemed like an eternity we decided to make for our nearest port , which was Fernandina beach (about 20 nm). Steve could do a few knots for a bit, then the engine would die, start it again, then die etc, but we were making progress. In the meantime he got a hold of a towing service (Sea Tow) but they would be another 1.5 hrs until they could get out to where we were. About 3:00 am Sea tow made it out and began towing him in. We decided to do the entrance at night, although not preferred it is very well marked, is quite deep and there was a full moon with good visibility. The hardest part was dealing with being tired after 16 hrs of sloppy seas. We made it in safe and sound at 5:00 am for a well deserved rest.

This afternoon we toured around town and had a nice lunch at the Happy Tomato.

These cool looking small speedboats are available for rent at the main dock, I’ve never seen anything like them but they look like fun!

Steve worked on his boat, checking and changing most of his fuel lines but to no avail. I’m going over tomorrow to help out and maybe between the two of us we can figure it out.

Turtle Neck bend

Well today’s temperature was more in line with what we were thinking it would be like. Last night however was very cold as predicted and we were glad we decided not to go out to the ocean.  Paranoia is such a strong term, I like to think that I am instead sensitive to the sounds/vibrations coming from the engine. (esp after the transmission woes). At any rate, I thought I was feeling more vibration today as we were motoring so we pulled up to a marina so I could check things out. I dove into the lazerette and checked everything along the drive train, but saw no issues. I figured maybe a shaft zinc had gone loose or some small line was around the prop as it was only happening at high speed. The water was 17 degrees – eek - and dark brown but I didn’t have a lot of choice so I grabbed the “spare air” and the mask and took a look. The zinc’s were tight and lots of barnacles everywhere. This was more by feel as the visibility was only inches. So what is the problem? I don’t know, I think paranoia, oops I mean sensitivity along with a build up of barnacles that is misbalancing things. Anyways after my cold bath I jumped in the hot boat shower to wash off whatever was in the water. We were about 5 nm from our stopping point today when we heard “slow flight” (Steve) calling another boat. This is the boat that we had the Southern Boil on a few weeks back. We got a hold of him and we met at a common anchorage (Turtle Neck Bend) along with another woman (Mary) and her 12 year old daughter who have been travelling as buddy boats.

Lots of dolphins today, in fact the little beasts have a habit of jumping inches away from the boat and scaring you. They got Heather one time and me another. A couple pictures of some big houses that are around, one seems to have a copper roof although hard to see in this picture. Here is picture of how they mount electrical poles in the water – yikes!

Hilton Head

Well the best laid plans………..As mentioned we had hoped to sail direct to Florida and by pass the worst part of the ICW. We put Blue Max (the dinghy) on the deck, put out the jacklines plus a bunch of other things to get ready. From where the ICW turns inland to the ocean when you are clear of some shoals is almost 10nm. We got a good chunk out there but there seemed to be a lot of reasons to not go. In no particular order 1) The winds were lighter than anticipated until close to Florida (5 knots from behind) which means motoring for 20 to 24 hrs. 2) The seas were quite sloppy and Heather wasn’t feeling well (although for some odd reason I was ok). We need two of us to be ok to do shifts at night though. 3) It was supposed to be down to the high 40’s F tonight, which we knew going into it but combined with the other things it was just best to go back to the ICW for now and will try to get back out further down the ICW. Anyways we are in an exposed anchorage just off of Hilton head for the night.

Beaufort SC

We are in Beaufort South Carolina now and we must say that this is everything that we expected the south to be and more! We’re on a mooring, something that we try not to do due to the expense but the town moorings here are only $20 a day and include showers, laundry and better yet – a courtesy car, its great to be able to drive again! The marina is right downtown so we are within walking distance to the beautiful historical district and all the cute boutique like stores! Yesterday we went on a horse and buggy tour through the town, what an amazing place, so much history. The houses here are incredible, lovely architecture and so different from what we are used to seeing. All have incredible double balconies and staircases gracing the front. The ceilings of the verandas are either painted robins egg blue to ward off spirits or black indicating there has been a death or tragedy in the house. It seems that this is a very Spiritual and/or superstitious area. Most of the old homes still have their original kitchens that look like small houses on the property, the kitchens weren’t attached to the houses so as to keep the houses cooler and in case of fire it didn’t affect the main house. We have seen quite a few Southern Live Oak trees, which are huge and have amazing branches that reach down and across the ground. A lot of the bricks that are used around this area for fences or houses were brought here as ballast in the ships and were dumped in the harbor.

        We have also seen lots of Spanish Moss hanging from the trees everywhere here, actually it is not Spanish or Moss but a type of air plant, we also learned that you don’t touch it because it is full of red bugs and chiggers, we don’t know what those are but we do know that we don’t want them! Richard and I took a walk in an old cemetery today and something bite him on the foot – it freaked him out so much so that he didn’t want to walk there on the grass any more!! He said he thought it was a burr but when he touched it it flew off… Luckily I had Benadryl in my purse.

Speaking of Richard, the morning that we were heading to Beaufort he broke a tooth… When we arrived he went over to a dental office that happened to be right next to the marina and they said that they could get him in on Saturday morning, we were really pleased with that! Later that day they called back and had an opening for 830 the next morning… now that is service.

   Friday morning we did boat chores, I went to shore and did laundry while Richard changed the oil, and zincs, and worked on extending the cable for the WIFI. I must admit my chores on the boat are pretty simple. We dirty very few clothes on board as we didn’t bring many and it takes very little time to clean a 37 by 11’9 foot space. After lunch we headed to town and did some sightseeing and checked out some stores. We went into an amazing Gullah Historical Art Gallery, Gullah is the name for the African descendants in this area, and they have their own dialect, traditions and Spirituality. The owner of the store was a very interesting man and we really enjoyed learning from him. We purchased a beautiful locally made sweet grass basket.

Beaufort has been the site of over 30 movies in recent years including Prince of Tides and Forest Gump. Well you would never believe who we saw in our wandering today  FOREST!!!!!!

Saturday was a wild day for us! Winds were 40kts from the north and it was REALLY COLD and REALLY WINDY, Richard was up a lot during the night checking things out and adjusting ropes. At 7am I got up as I knew he was exhausted. (Richard spoils me by always being the one to get up) It was freezing, so I quickly bundled up and opened the hatch boards to have a look and I was shocked to see the stern of the 49 foot trawler beside us about 2 feet from our stern! So much for letting Richard sleep in… He was up like a shot and ended up jumping onto the trawler to fend it off and to wake up the owners. Looking around the mooring field we could see numerous boats doing the mooring field shuffle fending off other boats. The marina said the moorings were for 35 foot boats but it is too close for even that size. We were getting ready to go anchor somewhere even though the winds were crazy but thankfully the trawler ended up going to the dock so we stayed. Unfortunately the impellor on our heater wasn’t working and that was one of the few spare parts that Richard doesn’t have with us (who knew that we’d need to use a heater!) so we spent the day bundled up in jackets and blankets – It’s the third time that I’ve had socks on on this trip and I actually had two pairs on! We even had candles and the lantern on for warmth.

Sunday was abit warmer as we headed to shore for Church. Richard had asked about churches while we were at the Gullah Art Gallery and the owner had mentioned a Baptist Church down the road so that is where we decided to attend. It turned out that he was also the Pastor of the Church and we were blessed with attending an amazingly powerful service and sermon, everyone was so friendly and welcoming. It was very different in the way the service was conducted which was interesting. Again it was a two-hour service and the time just seem to fly by, the choir was very powerful with beautiful voices and the hymns and songs were very different from what we are used to hearing.

After Church we had lunch at a nice little café down the road and we caught a peek at Forest having his lunch there as well! Then off to the grocery store to fill up our recently defrosted freezer. Once back at the boat we did some chores to prepare for our departure tomorrow, our plan is to leave around 11am and take the outside route to Florida. We had planned to do the ICW the whole way but Richard is anxious to shake out the sails and give the motor a break. I’ve always been convinced that Richard has an obsession of climbing the mast and it surfaced again today as up he went to remove a fitting on the backstay that was catching on the topping lift. After a few more chores we stowed the dinghy back on deck and we are ready for our departure. Beaufort has been a really lovely town to visit and if it were in Nova Scotia we would surely consider moving here!