When we arrived at the marina, they put us right in front of
the restaurant. Now, this isn’t the fanciest of restaurants, but it is a nice
one and we wanted to put our best foot forward. Unfortunately, all the boats
next to us were not used by the owners very much were spic-and-span. And there
was Traveling Soul who looked like she had been “rode hard and put away wet.”
We had cleaned her once in the Bahamas, but since then she had cruised through
many miles of salt spray, been used to catch fish, had been south of the tropic
of cancer and generally had a coat of grease and grime on her. So, you are
thinking that the first thing we did was give her a good-old-fashioned
cleaning, right? Nope, not this time; this time we PAID for her to get a
good-old-fashioned cleaning. The cleaners did not do as good of a job as Ann
and I would have, but at least we weren’t embarrassed to have Traveling Soul right outside the
restaurant.
Before going on, I should probably finish the saga of the
watermaker. Now you are probably thinking, “Why is he such a cheapskate? If
they need a new watermaker, why don’t they just buy one?” Well, I have a pretty
good reason … actually, I have about six thousand good reasons; that’s right,
six boat units; six grand, six thou, six Grover Clevelands – in short a
boatload of money. I had decided that if we could get the old one fixed for
about two grand that we would do it; otherwise, it would be a new one.
The repairman, John, decided that it might be the membrane
assembly, so he took it back to the shop, tested it and everything worked well.
If it wasn’t the membrane, then it might be the high pressure pump. It was
going to cost some serious money to rebuild it, but that was John’s next best
guess. He rebuilt it and it, too, seemed to be working on the shop bench. Well
if it wasn’t the pump and it wasn’t the membrane, then maybe some air was
getting in the fittings between the thru-hull and the pump. He replaced most of
those and tried again. It still wasn’t working. Finally, because he was at a
total loss as to what to try, he called his boss. His boss suggested that he
take the pre-filter out of the system and see how it ran that way. John was
convinced that wasn’t going to work, but since he had his boss on “speaker”
when the suggestion was made, he felt he had to try it. You know what happened.
It worked perfectly.
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| Sometimes Spot just wants to relax -- even when the boat is underway |
After re-provisioning in Palm Beach and getting re-accustomed
to the land of big grocery stores and cable TV, we made some repairs and
improvements to our internet connectivity. First, we replaced our wireless
router. Our old router just wasn’t putting out much of signal anymore. We
couldn’t get it at the printer, just one deck below the router, and couldn’t
get it at the salon table (where we do most of our computing), so we replaced
it with an inexpensive NETGEAR router. Additionally, our Verizon aircard
(technically, I think it was a wireless modem) was not working as well as it
once did, so we replaced it with a Verizon Jetpack. With those two
modifications, we are now up and can be on-line most of the time.
Two weeks and four days later, we had formulated our
campaign plan for heading up the ICW. We decided we would:
·
Control costs by
o
Anchoring as much as we could
o
Take on fuel only at the least expensive
locations along the waterway
·
Visit some specific locations, including
·
Visit targets of opportunity along the way
·
Arrive in Solomons, MD on or about 5 June
And then we were off. Our first stop was at the Loggerhead
Marina at Vero Beach, primarily because they have good fuel prices. It worked
out to $2.03 per gallon – a little higher than my $2 goal, but the best we
could find in southern Florida. As it turns out, in the slip next to us there was
a retired Army officer, Carol Doyle and his wife Roberta who live aboard their
boat Miramare who said there were
three others retired Army officers in the marina. We had a drink and lot of fun with them. We’ll try to see them again
next year.
After Vero it was off to see our friends Tom and Cristina aboard
their boat Tadhana. We like Tom and Cristina
and we like Cocoa Beach where they were staying. We met for lunch at Ryans –
which has the best “white” pizza we have had in a long time. In addition, Cocoa also has the
biggest hardware store I have ever seen; it occupies seven buildings in the
historic district. Needless to say, we always go there with a list of stuff we
need to buy.
We then took two days to get up to Saint Augustine and
stayed on a mooring ball there for three nights. Why Saint Augustine? Because it
is just about our favorite city on the ICW. We have been here three or four
times and every time we see and learn more about the city. This time we
visited a for-profit “Archaeological Park” that actually had a number of
interesting exhibits. Did you know, for example, that Ponce de Leon (of "fountain of youth" fame) was on Columbus’ second voyage? And that Ponce was the
first European to set foot on the continent of North America -- despite what any of those Limeys may tell you? Ann went to see
Flagler College. Did you know there are 79 Lewis Comfort Tiffany windows in the
college’s dining room? There are other places we still have to visit. Next time
I really want to go to the Ripley’s “Believe it 0r Not” Museum .
 |
| The dining room at Flagler College. It used to be the dining room at Flagler's "Ponce de Leon" Hotel. |
After Saint Augustine our plan was to proceed up the coast
to Cumberland Island. As is the case with most of these places, we have been
here before and just love the place. It combines elements of history with
nature in combinations that are difficult to describe and always interesting.
However, the closer we got to Cumberland the worse the weather sounded, and
since we would have been anchoring at Cumberland we decided to skip this
particular island and head to our next destination, Jekyll Island.
We have written about Jekyll in the past. Although the
weather was as forecast (terrible for the first several days), we did manage to
accomplish one goal we did not achieve last year. We saw an alligator in the
wild! Actually, we saw two of them. One was about 5 feet long and no more than
fifteen feet or so away from us. The other was on the other side of the pond
and was about 12 feet long. We also took the tour of the cottages, ate at the
Rah Bar. We also went to the Crane Cottage for lunch with our friends Kay and
Charlie from Plane2Sea. We also
bicycled, shopped (well, actually, Ann shopped), and took the marina’s golf
cart to the grocery store.
After Jekyll we made a short stop at Brunswick Landing
Marina for diesel. It costs (are you ready for this?) One
Dollar and Sixty-Five cents per gallon. Now, this won’t mean anything to
those of you who don’t cruise the waterway, but Sheri was fired. Now Sheri was
an institution at Brunswick Landing. She was built like a football player, had
the mouth of a sailor and had two dispositions. If she liked you, she was a
real sweetheart; if she didn’t she could be a real (witch – w + b) – if you get
my drift. Since Sheri liked us (actually, she liked Ann and tolerated me), we
sometimes stayed at Brunswick to make sure we stayed on Sheri’s good side.
 |
| The blockhouse at Fort King George in Darien, GA |
After Brunswick, we went to Darien, GA. Darien has a free
dock where you can moor your boat for up to two nights. We had wanted to go
last year, but when we were ready the town was in the midst of their annual
blessing of the shrimp fleet. Apparently it is quite a shindig in that there
were no slips available. We went there
this year with three items of significance. First, we visited Fort King George,
a state historic site. From 1721 until 1736, Fort King George was the southern
outpost of the British Empire in North America. A cypress blockhouse, barracks
and a palisade earthen fort were constructed in 1721. For the next seven years,
His Majesty’s Independent Company garrisoned the fort. They endured incredible
hardships from disease, threats of Spanish and Indian attacks, and the harsh,
unfamiliar coastal environment. After the fort was abandoned, General James
Oglethorpe brought Scottish Highlanders to the site in 1736. The settlement,
called Darien, eventually became a foremost export center of lumber until 1925.
Second, we
bought two pounds of just-off-the-boat shrimp! That evening we cooked them on
the grill and loved them. Third, though we did enjoy the stay at a free dock,
we scratched the hull pretty badly. I am sure that it will cost us a couple
hundred bucks to get it fixed – a little more than a slip would have cost. It
just goes to show …
 |
| It is absolutely impossible to capture via photo or in words the stark beauty of the Georgian marshlands. Imagine this view 360 degrees around you. It is really cool. |
In just a
minute we are going to close out this entry. But before we do, I want to say
something about the anchorages where we have stopped. You will note that we have
discussed only those locations where we had something specific to do, or those
marinas about which we had something specific to say. We have not discussed the
many anchorages that lie in between. I love anchoring and I can honestly say
that I enjoyed almost all the anchorages at which we stayed. There are a number
of reasons. First, we get to sit back and enjoy nature. One of our anchorages
this year was in an ancient cedar swamp; another was in the marsh lands of
southern Georgia and yet another was among the abandoned rice fields of South
Carolina. Trying to describe the surroundings of these anchorages is nearly
impossible. All of them are, in their own way, marvelous. From many of them you
can see for miles in any direction and not see a soul. Imagine sitting on our
flybridge on a beautiful 75 degree day, with a nice, cool drink in one hand, barbecuing
freshly-caught shrimp with the other and listening to some groovy (yes, I did
use that word!) tunes from the 1960’s on satellite radio. Although each anchorage
is different, the “chillaxed” feeling you get from anchoring on almost any one
of them is absolutely wonderful.
Ann’s Notes:
I know you must be surprised seeing me put my two cents in..I know I skipped
the last blog. I did proof read the last one and Michael writes and described
the events so well I had nothing to really add.
Our stay at
Old Port Cove, as usual was nice. I really do like the Palm Beach area and I do
know my way around. Plus Spot’s vet is there so she got her annual shots and
check up. She is fully grown, on the small side for a cat, she only weighs ten
pounds. Her personality which is larger makes up for her smaller size. She is
the perfect boat cat, I am so glad she is part of our lives.
While we were
in Palm Springs we replaced the anchor chain. Our old chain was yucky and
rusting. One would think in a boating community that replacing 220 feet of chain would not be a problem. Oh…not
so fast matey…it was a two day project on the phone finding the correct size of
chain for the windlass and the length needed. As it turned out …West Marine had
to special order it …once ordered we had to pick it up in the rental car. We always
get the economy size car from Enterprise, so needless to say it is on the
smaller side. Now 220 feet of rolled up chain weighs about 330 pounds. I know
this because I Googled it. 3/8 chain weighs about 1.5 pounds per foot…I did the
math for you. Michael and I had to handle lots of chain. Remember we had to get
the old chain off the boat and put the new one on, that involved taking Bertha
off the end of the old chain. Let us just say it became a two day project with
lots of chain moving. Gotta love cruising to do all this.
Our trip up
the ICW has been wonderful. The weather has pretty much been good, a little on
the cool side. That just makes sleeping at night much more pleasant. The bugs
that love me and leave makers are still plentiful but I have enough anti bug
stuff on board to counter act those nasty insects.
I saw one
thing in a little southern country store in Darien GA. They were selling local
honey, I picked up the bottle to see where the honey was from and what types of
plants the bees used to make the honey. The type of plants will give the honey
a distinctive taste. So I am reading the label and I start to giggle..on the
bottle; it read, “our bees are all free range bees” I guess it is hard to keep
bees from not wandering off.
Traveling
Soul…OUT
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