Category: ICW

Jekyll Island (& Mr. Hyde)

by  on  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.

<I should say the outboard behaved VERY erratically during the trips back and forth from the dock, gaining it the moniker “Wild Willy”.  I am confident there will be more stories to come of WW taking us for a “ride”…>

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

IMG_7401

Caitie loves marine mammals

IMG_7424

“Stop looking at me swan”

IMG_7436

Jurassic Park II: The Lost World

Gettin’ beach ready

Horseshoe crab (deceased) – prehistoric animal!

I’M HAVING A GREAT TIME!

IMG_7478

ME TOO!

Lowcountry Living

by  on  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

IMG_9894 IMG_7363 IMG_9947 IMG_9940

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.

IMG_7383

“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!

I wish we could brew on the boat!

So CLOSE to Charleston, we can almost taste it.

by  on  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??

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!).

IMG_7321 IMG_7325 IMG_7323 IMG_7343

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

The heart of the ICW

by  on  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

IMG_7304

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  on  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.

IMG_7092

IMG_7196

IMG_7123

IMG_7133

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"

“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?

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

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!

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.