Old convertible cross-beam
Stainless steel for days
New rigid crossbeam!
Sneak peak: Solar panel “roof rack” for our bimini
Fan Friday
We crossed into Florida today! In eager anticipation of the Florida HEAT, we started installing our 12V fans.
I’m actually kind of blown away (har har) by how much of a breeze they put out…they don’t use too much power either.
We have a long list of projects to do before we go to the Bahamas in the new year, and we are happy to start crossing the easy ones off the list.
Happy Holiday party Friday tout le monde!
Cumberland Island
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)
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!
Lowcountry Living
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
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.
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
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!!!
SHRIMP N GRITS
WE MADE IT TO CHARLESTON!
After waiting out one day of torrential rain in an anchorage near the Isle of Palms, we decided to brave the fog and head into town (also, our meal morale was plummeting quickly with our empty pantry). We headed out around 7am and were unsure if we would be able to make it through the lift bridges, potentially busy harbor and shallow areas* with such low visibility, but luckily for us it cleared just enough to help us through.
*we waited for the full 6ft high tide to transit this stretch of the ICW, and still only had a few feet of water under the keel at spots. We’re getting so used to this shallow water business that a 12 foot depth is now considered “big water” for us.
We didn’t get any shots of the Charleston Harbor, but it looked something like this:
(ok not quite that bad, but definitely not much better)
After a challenging high-current docking (Mark is killin’ it lately with the tricky docking scenarios), we celebrated finally making it to CHARLESTON – culinary capitol of the south, and our temporary boat home for the American Thanksgiving week. We borrowed our beautiful marina’s courtesy car and checked out the downtown strip on King St (which we LOVED), complete with a proper Southern meal of Chicken Biscuit, Ribs, Collared Greens, Hush Puppies, and other fried delicious things.
Blurry/happy photo.
And it was WARM! Since I knew it was going to rain, I wore my foulie jacket, which led to many stares, since everyone else was dressed like a casual fall day in the South. Which means a light layer over your tshirt?! Let’s hope this may be the end of the Arctic Explorer phase of our blog photos…
Now we’re excited to spend some time with Mark’s family in South Carolina, eat lots of Thanksgiving food, use modern plumbing exclusively, and catch up on all of the internet (and friends/fam) we’ve been missing lately.
PS the following two pics are not from Charleston at all, but we had to get at least one dolphin shot in, and I had been pretty crabby lately due to the weather, so it felt appropriate.
H.O.V.A.
So CLOSE to Charleston, we can almost taste it.
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.