Caitie said one of her “bucket list” items was to celebrate a birthday in a warm place (those poor December babies!) and I think we’ve finally checked it off. We’re anchored in Daytona Beach, Florida, and Caitie turned the big 3-0 today (which apparently is the new 20).
We hit it hard with coffee n’ cinnamon buns in the morning, had a gorgeous sunny day on the water, followed by a champagne crab leg feast once we’d anchored.
Happy birthday Caitie!!!
Old convertible cross-beam
Stainless steel for days
New rigid crossbeam!
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
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
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!
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!!!
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
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.
