Tuesday, April 28, 2009
4/17 to 4/22 2009
4/17/09 to 4/22/09 Lorenzo and Lois left Friday by car to go to a family get-together in Norfolk, and their guests Kathy and Bill (aka "the hitchhikers") are headed home to Michigan, so we rented a car for a few days and saw some sights. Saturday we headed for Jacksonville and checked out a new West Marine store and part of the riverwalk there. Coming back, we drove to Amelia Island and walked around the historic district in the city of Fernandina. On Sunday, we made the trip to Tybee Island to see the lighthouse and all the buildings that are with it. The climb to the top of the lighthouse is 178 steps, which we both managed but regretted! Monday our big accomplishment was to make an 8" high security net for a long shelf , hoping it will prevent things from falling the next time we have to go through rough water. Lorenzo and Lois returned, so Tuesday both boats filled up with diesel fuel ($2.02/gal., the lowest price in the area) and prepared to go on. Wednesday we went about 50 miles on the ICW to Kilkenny Creek to anchor. Wind made it too difficult to raft together, so we anchored separately about 400-500 ft. apart. Later in the evening, the wind stopped completely and the gnats started attacking, as they have been doing for a week or so.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
4/6 to 4/16 2009
Fort Pulaski Moat
One of the cannons
Tybee Light House
Tabby Ruins in Darien, Georgia
Shrimping Fleet in Darien
Waving Girl and Olypic Torch in Savannah, Georgia
Elegant Ironwork on homes in Savannah
King Bay Submarine Base
Orange House in St. Mary's, Georgia
Historic house in St. Mary's, Georgia4/6/09 to 4/11/09 Monday, April 6, was a day of horrendous winds. Twice, as we traveled, we crossed the intersections of two rivers, and wind and waves were especially difficult. It was a relief to come into Amelia Island Yacht Basin, probably our last stop in Florida. We stayed two days, waiting for the wind to die down, as did every boat that came in on Monday. Nice marina. One of the drawbacks was their "utilities fee" of $20 for electric, water, and cable TV. This was in addition to the slip fee of $1.60 per foot of boat length. Although many marinas charge a fee for electricity, it generally doesn’t exceed $10 and frequently is less.
Wednesday we took a side trip off of the ICW, up the St.Mary’s River, which forms part of the border between Florida and Georgia. Because we planned to stay a few days at Lang’s Marina in the city of St. Mary’s, the guys did the car shuffle on Thurs., returning to St. Augustine in a rental car to pick up the two cars at the marina there. In St. Mary’s, Osborne St. has many historic homes and churches along with quaint shops. A nice surprise was getting to view great horned owls about 7 weeks old, who were inhabiting a large live oak tree. Each night there were quite a few people watching for the mother to return with food for her youngsters, who are getting old enough (they’re about 15-18 inches tall) to fly. Although we weren’t able to get good pictures, there was a professional photographer present whose photos of the owls are online at http://www.jcknoll.com/ The pictures are in the "birds of prey" section.
Friday night at the marina was unpleasant because of a group of people who started partying early on a nearby boat, and got loud and nasty. Police got involved, 3 of the group spent the night in jail, and several of us boaters decided that we would move to our next stop before we had planned to. Bob and Lois made sure to go to Lang’s Restaurant on Saturday for their "all you can eat shrimp" special–didn’t want to miss that!
4/12/09 One of the first sights after we returned to the ICW was King’s Bay submarine base, the largest U.S. sub base on the east coast. Traveling was the same old story–terrible winds came up. We crossed St. Andrew’s Sound and St. Simon’s Sound. St. Andrew’s Sound had 4-6 ft. waves, which rocked us badly for the 45 minutes or so that it took us to cross it. Cupboard doors in the cabin fell open and contents rolled out on the floor, along with many of the items on open shelves. In the afternoon we left the ICW to go to the Two Way Fish Camp and Marina, up the Altamaha River. The river had high water and swift current, due to recent rain and flooding in Georgia. Crossing the river to get into the marina was another challenge for us, but we got tied up safely with the help of neighboring boaters.
4/13/09 Rain threatened all day and finally in the evening, it poured. Nonetheless, we put on rain gear and headed to Mudcat Charlie’s, the onsite restaurant. Bob had grilled grouper and Lois had a bowl of crab chowder, both very good.
4/14/09 Savannah, 50 miles away, was our destination in the afternoon. All 6 of us went in Bill and Kathy’s car. A 90 minute trolley tour introduced us to the last city to be settled in the original 13 colonies. Its founder, James Oglethorpe, planned the city in tidy squares, although the arrangement of the squares is a little odd. Many of the squares are dedicated to attractive city parks bordered with live oaks. Savannah is on a bluff 40 feet above the Savannah River, and cobbled streets lead down to the riverside and shops and restaurants located on the bottom floor of buildings that were originally warehouses for goods brought in by ship.
Wednesday we took a side trip off of the ICW, up the St.Mary’s River, which forms part of the border between Florida and Georgia. Because we planned to stay a few days at Lang’s Marina in the city of St. Mary’s, the guys did the car shuffle on Thurs., returning to St. Augustine in a rental car to pick up the two cars at the marina there. In St. Mary’s, Osborne St. has many historic homes and churches along with quaint shops. A nice surprise was getting to view great horned owls about 7 weeks old, who were inhabiting a large live oak tree. Each night there were quite a few people watching for the mother to return with food for her youngsters, who are getting old enough (they’re about 15-18 inches tall) to fly. Although we weren’t able to get good pictures, there was a professional photographer present whose photos of the owls are online at http://www.jcknoll.com/ The pictures are in the "birds of prey" section.
Friday night at the marina was unpleasant because of a group of people who started partying early on a nearby boat, and got loud and nasty. Police got involved, 3 of the group spent the night in jail, and several of us boaters decided that we would move to our next stop before we had planned to. Bob and Lois made sure to go to Lang’s Restaurant on Saturday for their "all you can eat shrimp" special–didn’t want to miss that!
4/12/09 One of the first sights after we returned to the ICW was King’s Bay submarine base, the largest U.S. sub base on the east coast. Traveling was the same old story–terrible winds came up. We crossed St. Andrew’s Sound and St. Simon’s Sound. St. Andrew’s Sound had 4-6 ft. waves, which rocked us badly for the 45 minutes or so that it took us to cross it. Cupboard doors in the cabin fell open and contents rolled out on the floor, along with many of the items on open shelves. In the afternoon we left the ICW to go to the Two Way Fish Camp and Marina, up the Altamaha River. The river had high water and swift current, due to recent rain and flooding in Georgia. Crossing the river to get into the marina was another challenge for us, but we got tied up safely with the help of neighboring boaters.
4/13/09 Rain threatened all day and finally in the evening, it poured. Nonetheless, we put on rain gear and headed to Mudcat Charlie’s, the onsite restaurant. Bob had grilled grouper and Lois had a bowl of crab chowder, both very good.
4/14/09 Savannah, 50 miles away, was our destination in the afternoon. All 6 of us went in Bill and Kathy’s car. A 90 minute trolley tour introduced us to the last city to be settled in the original 13 colonies. Its founder, James Oglethorpe, planned the city in tidy squares, although the arrangement of the squares is a little odd. Many of the squares are dedicated to attractive city parks bordered with live oaks. Savannah is on a bluff 40 feet above the Savannah River, and cobbled streets lead down to the riverside and shops and restaurants located on the bottom floor of buildings that were originally warehouses for goods brought in by ship.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
3/31 to 4/05
03/31/09 to 4/05/09 From our anchorage, it was only 20 miles or so to the Canaveral Barge Canal, on which we traveled eastward about 4 miles to Harbortown Marina. The Kennedy Space Center is nearby and we visited it the next day for a few hours. Then we headed north by car to St. Augustine. Both couples on Lil’ David have cars for this stretch of the trip and usually one car is left at the current marina and one is moved ahead to where they’ll be in 2 or 3 days. At this point they had fetched Bill and Kathy’s car from Fort Pierce. Lorenzo and Lois’s car was at this marina already, so we set off in 2 cars. In St. Augustine, we found a marina, made reservations for the weekend, and left Lorenzo’s car there, all returning to Harbortown in Bill’s car. (Who’s on first,............) Now it was time to move boats and on Thursday, we went to New Smyrna and docked for the night at the city marina. Actually, because there were no open slips, Lorenzo created his own space and we rafted to him.
On Friday, as we cruised toward St. Augustine, the weather seemed to change every few minutes: rain, sunshine, then wind. The wind endured. At one point, a small boat approached Lil’ David. It turned out to be someone from Lorenzo’s home area who knew him. He was comercially crabbing in the ICW and gave them a batch of freshly caught blue crabs. After we got tied up in St. Augustine, Lois J. cleaned the crabs, floured and fried them briefly, and then made crab gravy to eat over rice. Delicious!
As we were all sitting on the aft deck later after dark, we saw a bright, moving light in the sky. Turned out to be a rocket taking up a satellite.
To get an overview of St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States, we did a brief trolley tour on Saturday. The driver did a continual commentary and we could get off at any stop, sightsee, and re-board any other trolley when it arrived. Since the tickets were valid for three days, Sunday was more of the same. We got off to walk thru the pedestrian mall, to visit the fort Castillo de San Marcos, the old jail, the museum, and the San Sebastian Winery. It was a great way to get acquainted with the city and its history. The name Henry Flagler (co-founder, with John D. Rockefeller, of Standard Oil) was mentioned numerous times. He built or refurbished many of the bigger buildings in the late 1800's and early 1900's, attracting many wealthy New Yorkers to spend winter vacations in St. Augustine.
On Friday, as we cruised toward St. Augustine, the weather seemed to change every few minutes: rain, sunshine, then wind. The wind endured. At one point, a small boat approached Lil’ David. It turned out to be someone from Lorenzo’s home area who knew him. He was comercially crabbing in the ICW and gave them a batch of freshly caught blue crabs. After we got tied up in St. Augustine, Lois J. cleaned the crabs, floured and fried them briefly, and then made crab gravy to eat over rice. Delicious!
As we were all sitting on the aft deck later after dark, we saw a bright, moving light in the sky. Turned out to be a rocket taking up a satellite.
To get an overview of St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States, we did a brief trolley tour on Saturday. The driver did a continual commentary and we could get off at any stop, sightsee, and re-board any other trolley when it arrived. Since the tickets were valid for three days, Sunday was more of the same. We got off to walk thru the pedestrian mall, to visit the fort Castillo de San Marcos, the old jail, the museum, and the San Sebastian Winery. It was a great way to get acquainted with the city and its history. The name Henry Flagler (co-founder, with John D. Rockefeller, of Standard Oil) was mentioned numerous times. He built or refurbished many of the bigger buildings in the late 1800's and early 1900's, attracting many wealthy New Yorkers to spend winter vacations in St. Augustine.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
3/20 thru 3/30
Edison and his Banyan Tree
Edison's Night Garden
Kathy at the Edison Estate
Leaving Fort Myers Marina
House along the Okeechobee Water Way
Cattle with egret
History of Water Way and the begining of the Everglades
Miles of swamp
Clewiston Lock
View from the Lake looking south
Lil' David in the Port Mayaca Lock
Sign at Fort Pierce City Marina
Manatee on it's back drinking water from air conditioner discharge
Shuttle dropping in from orbit 
Wheels down and on the approach to landing03/20/09 Because Fort Myers is known for being the winter home of Thomas Edison in the early 1900's, we thought we should visit his estate. The house, garages, and other buildings are intact, and many of the trees and plants that he loved are still here. The neighboring estate, which belonged to Edison’s friend Henry Ford, is also open to the public, although it is undergoing renovation. Incredibly, the Ford estate has garage space for only one car; additional ones were stored in Edison’s garages.
03/21/09 (Note to the Lebanon Coast Guard Auxiliary: Dean and Linda live in the Fort Myers area. For several years, they kept their boat in the marina where we are, but have sold it and bought a home nearby. Bob talked to Linda on the phone.)
03/22/09 After a month in Fort Myers, we’ve gone back to cruising! Today we headed east on the Caloosahatchie River with Lil David and her crew Lorenzo and Lois, with their guests Bill and Kathy. Marinas are a little hard to find on the Okeechobee Waterway, so we ended up at the Ortona lock, about 40 miles from Fort Myers. Just before the lock are several dolphins (multiple pilings, or posts, lashed together at the top and driven into the river bottom) that boats can tie up to. Lorenzo tied to two of them and we rafted onto him. It was an interesting operation and we had an audience from the campground nearby.
The scenery today was varied: orange groves, cattle ranches, modest homes, trailer parks occupied by snowbirds from colder climates, and lovely large homes beautifully landscaped.
There were also stretches where we saw nothing but water and the banks on either side of it.
03/23/09 We made a short day of it today, only going 15 miles and passing through one lock. At the town of Moore Haven, there was a municipal dock that was perfect and the price was right: $1 per foot of the length of the boat, including electric and water hookups. It was located in front of a town park, which included a water playland, discovered early by Bob and Bill. Bill ended up soaked in a water cannon battle.
03/24/09 A long day–70 miles, 3 locks, wind 30 mph. We crossed Lake Okeechobee, which is the second largest fresh water lake totally within the continental US. (Lake Michigan is the largest) After passing the town of Clewiston, we looked back and saw two big plumes of smoke. Then we began seeing them ahead of us in several spots. We think the sugar cane fields were being burned off.
About 5:30 PM we arrived in Stuart, FL, the end of the Okeechobee Waterway. We tied up in the municipal mooring field, a new experience for us. To explain to those who aren’t familiar with mooring: the mooring field is a reserved area out of the main traffic patterns of a waterway. In it are floating mooring balls for boats to tie to for the night. The balls each have a rope attached underwater to a big piece of concrete to keep them in place. The first mate (that’s Lois) lies on the bow of the boat and reaches down to the water with a boat hook, attempting to hook another rope attached to the mooring ball. The ball bobs continually in the water. The rope is slimy and may have sharp critters (barnacles?)on it. Attached to the end of the 4-6 foot rope is a ring, through which the first mate slides one end of a line (rope) from the boat. She brings the line end back to the boat and secures it. Voila! It’s time for a cold drink and a chair facing the west to watch the sunset.
03/25/09 to 03/29/09 Fort Pierce, on the east coast of Florida, was our destination today. We traveled by ourselves, as the crew of Lil’ David had something else to do and will join us tomorrow. Our route from now on, going north, will be the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) for the remaining 1500 miles of our adventure. Because it was very windy again today, Bob had a terrible time getting into our slip at Fort Pierce City Marina. At one point, the boat was sideways in the fairway between rows of slips and he could not get turned. With the help of an experienced dockhand, we got in with no casualties.
We enjoyed our stay here. The marina is very busy and all the boaters are sociable. Two restaurants are on the premises, and both had live music Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. On Saturday, a crowded farmers market nearby offered breakfast, lunch, and plants and vegetables. The main street in the business area of Fort Pierce had evening activities, too–one night there was a food fair, another time it was motorcycle night, and the third night was for classic cars (50's, 60's and 70's). We rented a car for the weekend and could go where we wanted to. On Saturday, we drove up to Cape Kennedy to watch the space shuttle return and that was a thrill. Another interesting place was the Navy SEAL Museum, located here because the first "frogmen" were trained in this area during World War II.
03/30/09 What a beautiful, non-windy day on the ICW! We traveled 50 miles and anchored for the night at Dragon Point near Melbourne, FL.
03/21/09 (Note to the Lebanon Coast Guard Auxiliary: Dean and Linda live in the Fort Myers area. For several years, they kept their boat in the marina where we are, but have sold it and bought a home nearby. Bob talked to Linda on the phone.)
03/22/09 After a month in Fort Myers, we’ve gone back to cruising! Today we headed east on the Caloosahatchie River with Lil David and her crew Lorenzo and Lois, with their guests Bill and Kathy. Marinas are a little hard to find on the Okeechobee Waterway, so we ended up at the Ortona lock, about 40 miles from Fort Myers. Just before the lock are several dolphins (multiple pilings, or posts, lashed together at the top and driven into the river bottom) that boats can tie up to. Lorenzo tied to two of them and we rafted onto him. It was an interesting operation and we had an audience from the campground nearby.
The scenery today was varied: orange groves, cattle ranches, modest homes, trailer parks occupied by snowbirds from colder climates, and lovely large homes beautifully landscaped.
There were also stretches where we saw nothing but water and the banks on either side of it.
03/23/09 We made a short day of it today, only going 15 miles and passing through one lock. At the town of Moore Haven, there was a municipal dock that was perfect and the price was right: $1 per foot of the length of the boat, including electric and water hookups. It was located in front of a town park, which included a water playland, discovered early by Bob and Bill. Bill ended up soaked in a water cannon battle.
03/24/09 A long day–70 miles, 3 locks, wind 30 mph. We crossed Lake Okeechobee, which is the second largest fresh water lake totally within the continental US. (Lake Michigan is the largest) After passing the town of Clewiston, we looked back and saw two big plumes of smoke. Then we began seeing them ahead of us in several spots. We think the sugar cane fields were being burned off.
About 5:30 PM we arrived in Stuart, FL, the end of the Okeechobee Waterway. We tied up in the municipal mooring field, a new experience for us. To explain to those who aren’t familiar with mooring: the mooring field is a reserved area out of the main traffic patterns of a waterway. In it are floating mooring balls for boats to tie to for the night. The balls each have a rope attached underwater to a big piece of concrete to keep them in place. The first mate (that’s Lois) lies on the bow of the boat and reaches down to the water with a boat hook, attempting to hook another rope attached to the mooring ball. The ball bobs continually in the water. The rope is slimy and may have sharp critters (barnacles?)on it. Attached to the end of the 4-6 foot rope is a ring, through which the first mate slides one end of a line (rope) from the boat. She brings the line end back to the boat and secures it. Voila! It’s time for a cold drink and a chair facing the west to watch the sunset.
03/25/09 to 03/29/09 Fort Pierce, on the east coast of Florida, was our destination today. We traveled by ourselves, as the crew of Lil’ David had something else to do and will join us tomorrow. Our route from now on, going north, will be the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) for the remaining 1500 miles of our adventure. Because it was very windy again today, Bob had a terrible time getting into our slip at Fort Pierce City Marina. At one point, the boat was sideways in the fairway between rows of slips and he could not get turned. With the help of an experienced dockhand, we got in with no casualties.
We enjoyed our stay here. The marina is very busy and all the boaters are sociable. Two restaurants are on the premises, and both had live music Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. On Saturday, a crowded farmers market nearby offered breakfast, lunch, and plants and vegetables. The main street in the business area of Fort Pierce had evening activities, too–one night there was a food fair, another time it was motorcycle night, and the third night was for classic cars (50's, 60's and 70's). We rented a car for the weekend and could go where we wanted to. On Saturday, we drove up to Cape Kennedy to watch the space shuttle return and that was a thrill. Another interesting place was the Navy SEAL Museum, located here because the first "frogmen" were trained in this area during World War II.
03/30/09 What a beautiful, non-windy day on the ICW! We traveled 50 miles and anchored for the night at Dragon Point near Melbourne, FL.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)