Author: markperil@gmail.com

Cumberland Island

by markperil@gmail.com on December 11, 2014 in Destinations, Georgia, ICW, OpTrop, Sunny days • 0 Comments

Look, if you have the opportunity to check out Cumberland Island – do it. I can’t believed I lived in ATL for as long as I did, and never made it out. The island is only accessible by ferry, there are no cars allowed except for the few private land owners who were grandfathered in (the whole island is basically a natural park)…the beach is pristine, the campsites are well maintained, they have bikes to rent, and wild horses to admire. We loved it, and stayed a second day to make sure we got the full experience. Sigh. we just kept telling ourselves that there would be more beaches in Florida and beyond…

Thinking of Opa while beach combing. He loved the beach and I will always think of him when I see seashells

Of course Mark went swimming

Swimming in December

Jekyll Island (& Mr. Hyde)

by markperil@gmail.com on December 10, 2014 in Destinations, Georgia, ICW, Sunny days • 0 Comments

Today, we had an ideal cruising day – the type where you sleep in a bit, and still get to your destination by noon. In this case, we were headed to Jekyll Island, Georgia. This island piqued our interest, with tales of riches during it’s former years as a private refuge for the extremely wealthy (think Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, etc.). Back in the late 1800s/early 1900s, they built massive cottages with 22+ bedrooms, which interestingly did not feature kitchens as the families all ate at the communal private yacht club dining hall. Who knew?! We were keen to check it out…

It took us over an hour to get the dinghy unpacked/pumped up/organized and OF COURSE, the outboard wouldn’t start (since we’ve barely used it this fall). After a quick call to pops, we deduced that it was probably bad fuel (thanks Wally! haha), and I siphoned out the old to make room for the new. BOOM! She fired up almost instantly.

Once we got ashore, we basically said “Screw the mansions, let’s go to the beach!”. So we did. And it was spectacular. It’s easy to forget that we are so close to the ocean as we travel through marshes and narrow rivers in the ICW just inland, so to see the wide expanse of the Atlantic again was a refreshing break, and beautiful reminder of where we are headed in the (hopefully) not so distant future.

Wild WIlly n’ Tara

Caitie loves marine mammals

“Stop looking at me swan”

Jurassic Park II: The Lost World

Gettin’ beach ready

Horseshoe crab (deceased) – prehistoric animal!

I’M HAVING A GREAT TIME!

ME TOO!

Lowcountry Living

by markperil@gmail.com on December 9, 2014 in Georgia, ICW, Passage, Sitting at anchor • 0 Comments

This section of the ICW can be boiled down to 3 main themes:

1) Fog

2) Marsh

3) Wilderness

We’ve been a little MIA from the internet, because we’ve been a little MIA from society the past week since returning to the boat. We are transiting one of the more desolate sections of the ICW, with few (and far between) towns, and even fewer boats on the water. To add to the feeling, we’ve had some crazy Bermuda-triangle style fog white-outs, including one that came in so fast that we we were able to tick something off our bucket list: spontaneously anchor in a non designated anchorage (because it was too risky to keep going).

It’s been great though! We’ve continued our “Phase Two” ethos, we still have a stocked library and pantry (after our thanksgiving haul), and have been enjoying shorter transit days in the quiet of the marshland.

Jurassic Park

Haven’t seen one yet, but not for lack of looking!

Seagrass birdsnest

View to the left

View to the right

Misty morning

Best visibility we had all day

Mark hit a wall the other day with our “high output” alternator, as it was not delivering adequate charge to our NEW batteries. It took a couple days of testing and tinkering (with a few cruisersforum.com posts), but he re-did the wiring and managed to solve the problem! Small victories.

Spaghetti!

Boat maintenance is 80% fitting into small spaces.

“I don’t think so, Tim”.

Big Sky, Georgia.

Our next few days should include a peek at Jekyll Island (home of Rockefeller mansions), Cumberland Island (wild horses!) and then F.L.A.! BIKINIS! (or at least, fewer sweatpants).

P.S. Thanks Pat for the beersocks!

I wish we could brew on the boat!

Georgia on my mind

by markperil@gmail.com on December 5, 2014 in Georgia, Sunsets • 1 Comment

We are happy. Phase 2 so far, has been a smash success.

Without a schedule, we are free to do as we please. The weather is good, and we realize how much that helps.

So what if it has been incredibly foggy in the morning for the past few days (can’t see 500 feet ahead of the boat)…”Let’s have another coffee and leave in a coupla hours. The sun should burn it off. Can I make you some eggs?”

Here’s to hitting our stride

Phase Two.

by markperil@gmail.com on December 4, 2014 in Deep thoughts, OpTrop • 1 Comment

We are back on the water, and have officially commenced phase two.

What is phase two, you ask? Phase two is when we stress less, warm up, and enjoy more. period.

We realized that, after reflecting on the first half of the adventure, we have been on such a mission to make progress south, that we viewed any delay as a setback…every day was targeted to be 50 miles…and any anchorage with good holding acceptable as long as it wasn’t too far off the trail. There were places we missed, because they fell outside of the “plan”.

Now don’t get me wrong, we have seen and done some amazing things since we cast off on September 23rd, and we are ecstatic to have made it as far as we have SAFELY…but we have spent a lot of that time feeling pretty cold, waiting for weather, and often kinda stressed out about “progress” and making sure we “do everything right”. I know, I know, tough life not working and traveling on the water, but it actually HAS been a challenging couple of months for us. Anyone who knows us knows that we like to be in control and to have a plan, and this trip has been an exercise in learning to go with the flow and learning to let go of our control and just live in the moment. It’s been hard learning!

So, after the most relaxing Thanksgiving break we could ask for, we are striving to live more in the moment, to not stress too much about every little boat/anchorage/marina thing, and to be present. Tonight we saw dolphins playing in our wake as we anchored, followed closely by large pelicans swooping and diving as the sun set over the South Carolina marshland surrounding our anchorage.

Commence Phase Two.

What we’re thankful for

by markperil@gmail.com on November 29, 2014 in Deep thoughts, Destinations, OpTrop, South Carolina, Sunny days • 0 Comments

Thanksgiving…what is there to say that hasn’t been said? It’s a time to celebrate the awesomeness of family while devouring endless food and beverages, throwing around the ol’ pigskin, and making regular runs to Wal-Mart for festive tablecloths. Ahhhhh…

This time ’round it’s especially nice to come to the lake house in South Carolina. After being on the water for two months (just the two of us), it’s nice to spend some time on dry land, spending time with family (and getting some time to just CHILL)!

Always a welcome sight!

What’s the first thing we* do? Go out for a sail. WTF, right?

*”we” actually just refers to Mark and Walter*

The Hunter 28 responds well to a light breeze and had us ripping around the lake for the afternoon. When we got back, for the first time ever, we docked completely under sail! It was fun, but the look on our faces says a lot

Good QT with pops

The actual Thanksgiving day/meal was awesome as well, though most meals are awesome when you start with an afternoon Bloody Mary bar hehe….

All in all, Thanksgiving was a major success. We still have a day or two to hang out, but I don’t think we ever wanna leave! We need to remember the beaches in our (hopefully not-so-distant) future.

THANKSGIVING SUCCESS!!!

So CLOSE to Charleston, we can almost taste it.

by markperil@gmail.com on November 24, 2014 in ICW, Rainy Days, Sitting at anchor, South Carolina • 0 Comments

We are within striking distance of Charleston! (oh yeah, PS we made it to South Carolina two days ago). The weather is shite, and so we spent today sitting on the hook as it poured and poured rain all day. We made a conscious effort not to get too waterlogged at the expense of our sanity – honestly we really wanted to make it to Charleston today, but it just wasn’t in the cards.

Seriously, more rain??

We used the weather as an excuse to try to get our “non-functioning” natural gas oven working. Through a stroke of genius (and a pair of vice-grips), Mark managed to get the pilot light on, and started the oven after less than 10 minutes of battle – why didn’t we try this two weeks ago?!?!

We whipped together some cornbread muffins in the afternoon. It was the PERFECT excuse to use the jalapeno/tabasco/habanero peppers we picked from the planters at Masonboro Yacht club a few days prior (thanks David and Kevin!).

If the weather forecast pans out, CHARLESTON, we’ll see YOU tomorrow.

The heart of the ICW

by markperil@gmail.com on November 19, 2014 in Destinations, ICW, North Carolina, OpTrop, Sunny days, Surprises

I think we can say we’ve entered the heart of the ICW…

The water is now shallow all the time and we are constantly on the lookout for shoaling (especially after two “soft groundings” in the middle of the marked channel – probably no worse feeling),

The pelicans are almost outnumbering the seagulls (well…almost),

The houses are starting to get more and more colourful, and

WE’VE BEEN SEEING DOLPHINS!

The only thing we’re missing is warm weather, but we keep telling ourselves it’s coming

We’ve been slacking a bit on the photos – it doesn’t help that whenever we point the camera towards a dolphin, they get bashful (still no good pics yet but we hope they’re comin’!). Also, it’s been FREEZING…hard to operate a camera with winter gloves on

We had one exciting day in Mile Hammock Bay. We decided to sit at anchor and wait out thunderstorms (which ended up being upgraded to a tornado watch), and the weather was crazy! Pouring rain one second, sunny the next, 24 degrees fahrenheit with 100% humidity…it was wild. I took a quick video (sry for the low quality, but you get the idea):

Later that night, we watched a boat drag anchor, try to re-set, but get snagged on another poor soul who had been in the anchorage all day with us. It was painful to watch, buuuuutttt not so painful that I couldn’t snap a a quick iPad photo when noone was looking

image6-750x560

Dismal Swamp to North Carolina!

by markperil@gmail.com on November 13, 2014 in Destinations, ICW, North Carolina, OpTrop, Passage, Sunny days, Sunsets • 2 Comments

Damn, we’ve come a long way in 10 days!

Honestly we loved the Chesapeake Bay. We found amazing anchorages (Solomons, Jackson Creek, Chisman Creek), had some gorgeous sunsets and hope to spend more time cruising in “sailors paradise” again in the future.

For now though – let’s keep on…pressing on!

As we got into Norfolk to start the ICW, we were quickly awakened from our sleepy daze by chatter on the VHF radio. It went something like this: “Warship 89, Warship 89, this is Warship 72, Warship 72, over”….”Warship 72, this is Warship 89. Switch to bridge-to-bridge channel 13, over.”…”Copy that. Switching to channel 13, Warship 72 out”.

…all this while we see the boat (apparently named Warship 72) crossing our bow at 20 knots.

“Warship 72, this is Sailing Vessel Tara, over”

Exciting stuff!

As we got into Norfolk, we realized that the US Navy is, shall we say…well armed. There were ships upon ships upon ships lined up in the harbour (everything from aircraft carriers to “warships” to hospital/red cross boats). It was quite a sight to see.

The whole area was pretty industrial and pretty cool despite the heavy military presence.

Inspiration for George Lucas?

When we cleared Norfolk, we entered the Dismal Swamp, which actually wasn’t dismal at all. It was a nice break from the busy harbour, and reminded us of the Erie Canal that we’d transited so many moons ago.

The swamp apparently has tannins in the water which make it a very dark brown. It was like motoring through really strong cup of tea!

Hard to get a photo of the tannins haha

Next thing we knew, we were in North Carolina! We were spat out in a really nice little town called Elizabeth City. We were stoked to be there because my folks had made arrangements to drop by on their way home from SC! They pulled up just as we docked and we had happy hour on the boat, then went for a nice dinner (plus a couple bottles of wine) to celebrate! Couldn’t have been any better. Love yous!

The next day = SUN! WARM! NO WAY! IS THIS POSSIBLE?! FIRST TIME in 6 weeks where we didn’t look like we were preparing to hike up Mt. Everest?! Ah yes (warning: the next photo is rated at least PG-13. Look away while you still have a chance), let’s just say we soaked it up while we could.

We are starting to like the south

Unfortunately, we couldn’t enjoy it for too long, because a cold front has been blowing in and has brought beaucoup de rain. We’re sitting down below tonight (in Belhaven) letting our foulies dry below the bimini in the cockpit.

All in all, we are REALLY happy with our progress over the past 10 days, and it feels AMAZING to finally be in the Carolinas. We may even make it to Charleston for Thanksgiving as planned (knock on wood)

Sigh Time to open a bottle of vino and make dinner.

Virginia

by markperil@gmail.com on November 10, 2014 in Uncategorized • 1 Comment

We had a moment yesterday when we were getting fuel…when we saw a sign that said “Deltaville, VA” and Caitie looks at me and says “oh my gosh, are we in Virginia?!”…of course I played it all cool, being Captain and all but honestly I hadn’t even realized myself that we’d crossed into a new state (a fact I admitted later).

It turned out to be a balmy 60-something degrees with 5 knots of wind behind us and we spent the day talking about how we had crossed into our first “southern” state.

We enjoyed looking at the maps to see just how much progress we have made since the start of our adventure a little over 6 weeks ago.

If all goes well, we will start the official ICW today. We are going to take the “dismal swamp” route (google it). Here’s hoping its nicer than its name suggests