March 8, 2009

The restored Cape Florida Lighthouse at the southern tip of Key Biscayne. We can anchor in the nearby harbor for $15 a night. Not bad for such a pretty place. I bet the hotel rooms in town are a bit more!

Isabella with her hat and new umbrella stroller taking in the sights on the beach.

Mother daughter and grandaughter sitting in the cockpit. We are anchored. Notice how close the mangrove lined shoreline is behind us. It got closer as the wind shifted and the boat pivoted around its anchor.

This creature, a green iguana, was resting on the ever closer rocks under the mangroves behind us. He is not a spectacularly large one, only three feet. The guidebook says they grow to five feet and can stand up and run on their hind legs. It doesn't say anything about swimming - thank goodness.

We are anchored in No Name Harbor, on Key Biscayne in Florida having arrived here on the 26th. This is a most interesting place. The harbor is part of the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park which is at the southern tip of Key Biscayne. The park is a natural area with walking paths, nature trails, bicycle paths, a beach, two very nice restaurants, and the beautiful white Cape Florida Lighthouse with its reconstructed keeper’s cottage. Just outside the park gates and down the sidewalk past really expensive houses and condos are a grocery, hardware, post office, drug store, and library with all the things I need, and lots of shops with things I don’t need but which are no doubt necessary for the people who live in the expensive houses and condos.
Bill and I discovered shortly after we arrived that on Key Biscayne English is the second language. People on the street and in the shops speak Spanish first and English second. The local folks are doing more than fine with their incomes, and the place is beautiful. The streets are lined with palm trees set among tropical plantings, the sidewalks are pink, and the soccer fields in the park look like golf course greens. They don’t need our WalMart, K-Mart, Target or other discount stores. CVS, Winn-Dixie, and Ace Hardware seem to be the only chain stores on the island.
Julia, Josh, and Isabella joined us our first Friday night here. Isabella didn’t mind her life jacket, but her ear infection kept her from feeling her best. She was a trooper and viewed the lighthouse and wildlife then spent two nights on the sailboat. Julia brought Bill his birthday present, a 2009 Defender catalogue which he has gone to sleep reading every night since, and a couple of replacement parts for the head (toilet) that is absolutely necessary for me. Josh treated us all to a delicious dinner at the Boater’s Grill.
No Name Harbor is not far from Miami, so on the weekend lots and lots of boats came into the harbor to enjoy the park and dine at the Boater’s Grill at the head of the basin. In spite of the signs saying no tying to the wall between 11pm and 8am, dozens and dozens of boats were rafted up three and four deep Saturday night with their engines idling, blue lights shining underwater, playing Spanish rap while everyone milled about and had a good time until the sun came up the next morning.
Sunday, after Julia, Josh, and Isabella left, we did our usual daily running of the engine to freeze the refrigerator’s holding plate and charge the batteries, only to discover an injector was loose, leaking exhaust and soot into the engine compartment. Bill, the fixer of all things mechanical, tightened the injector hold-down bolts to stop the leak. He said we needed some new gaskets for the injector in case it started to leak again. Those things are not in our spare parts inventory. Bill did an internet search and found the Yanmar dealer in Miami, Anchor Marine. He even found a way to get there with public transportation and just a little walking. On Tuesday we took the bus from Key Biscayne to Miami then the train across Miami to within six or eight blocks of the store. We managed the bus/train part of the trip flawlessly. We got off the train and started walking to the parts store. Little did we know we would be walking through Little Havana! The substandard housing, trash in the streets, cars randomly parked with dudes discussing whatever, barred windows, growling dogs, and razor wire on the top of the chain link fences let me know that I wasn’t in my kind of neighborhood! The internet map also didn’t show that we would need to cross both a canal and a river. The nearest bridge over the canal was barricaded and located in the middle of a fenced off construction area. Bill asked one of the fellows in a hard hat if we could walk through, and we did… right in front of an advancing bulldozer pushing a pile of gravel. To find a bridge over the river, we called the store, and they gave us directions for a six block detour to a four lane drawbridge with traffic whizzing both ways, but eventually we did make it to the shop although we were both dusty and hot. I was shocked to find the two little copper parts that we spent a whole day getting were the size of coins and cost a grand total of $3.00! We safely made it to a somewhat closer train station then back to our bus stop amid the skyscrapers of downtown Miami. Being hungry and thirsty, we decided to have lunch in a pizza restaurant before taking the bus to Key Biscayne. It was a very nice place, a mere stone’s throw from the ghetto. We enjoyed our $20 sandwiches while being served by three waiters. It was an entirely different world. I was happy because the sandwich was delicious, the glass was heavily frosted, and the beer was very cold! A walking trip with Bill is always an adventure, and so far they have all turned out all right in the end.
We have entertained ourselves nosing around the park, walking to the local stores, reading, and, in my case, knitting. I just finished an argyle sweater for Ann’s son Ely and put in the mail to him along with sheet of stickers for his sister, Kaelyn. For mid-week entertainment, Wednesday night, after the rangers left for home, the boaters had a cocktail party in the nearby picnic shelter. It is always fun to meet fellow cruisers. I have never met a boater I didn’t find interesting (and a few are too interesting); Americans, Canadians, couples, singles, people without a nickel to their names, owners of gold plated boats, the sane and the insane, dreamers and doers. I wonder if they find me similarly interesting.
The weather forecast is for the wind to slow down and shift to the southeast Sunday night as an area of high pressure spreads out over us. That should let the seas drop to two feet or less although the wind and waves will still be on our nose. So, we may get to make our crossing to Bimini either Monday morning or maybe Tuesday morning. Anyway, that is today’s plan. We will keep you all posted.

February 25, 2009 The small beach below the bridge at the north end of Lake Worth is a convienent place to beach a dinghy. Shopping and a state park on the beach are both nearby. Our dinghy is the leftmost one.

Nice little boat, huh? We are waiting fora bridge to open and the wind is slowly blowing him down on us.

We motored out of the gap and around to her stern. Can you make out her name, hailing port, and flag?

The section of the waterway through Miami is a little more developed than the parts in Georgia, but there is actually less boat traffic. It is Wednesday and everyone must be at work. Poor people.

Hello from the Venetian Causeway Islands in Biscayne Bay near Miami, Florida. Since my last blog entry, Bill and I have moved the boat from the Matanzas River to Miami, 300 miles farther south! We have motored most of the way but still sailed a fair distance in the waterway when the wind was behind us.
We anchored off Daytona Beach one night, and we spent the next in the Titusville Municipal Marina where I caught up on our laundry and Bill went to West Marine. In Jensen Beach we had one more cold night, or at least a forecasted cold night. With forecast lows in the forties it was cold enough for the local freeze shelters to open for homeless folks and those living on unheated boats. We decided we would survive on our unheated boat. The low on the thermometer inside the boat was that night 57° which was higher than the in-the-boat high of 53° while we were in Carolina Beach. I will have to admit that we did put on our light weight long underwear in the morning for the trip to Lake Worth. But, by the time we arrived in Lake Worth (Palm Beach Gardens) it was warm enough for just a short sleeve shirt, long pants, and no socks! What joy!
We spent two days in Palm Springs stocking up on the groceries, beer, liquor, and the sundries we need for the next few months. The Lake Worth anchorage had a great little beach for landing dinghies with a wonderful Publix Supermarket just across the road and a block away. I made two trips for groceries, and Bill made numerous trips for beer. Remember he can only carry two cases at a time, one in his left hand and one in his right. The dinghy outboard motor was running poorly, so Bill cleaned the fuel filter and carburetor and replaced its spark plug restoring it to health.
We left Lake Worth Tuesday morning headed as far south as we could go in a day. The guide book said there were 28 drawbridges between Palm Beach and Miami. Most had restricted opening schedules that caused us to stop for up to half an hour waiting for an opening, so there was no way we could make the whole trip in one day. The scenery was varied only by the size of the houses along the way. In Palm Beach itself there were actual estates bordering the waterway. These houses were more than large with several acres of manicured lawns and gardens bordering the waterway... think of Biltmore House but with palms. Continuing south, we saw the now usual overly large houses, the typical Florida trailer parks, the large neo-Spanish style houses, the modern high rise condos, and everything in between.
Irish Eyes had been cruising along without any mechanical problems on this trip until we went under the Atlantic Ave Bridge in Delray Beach. All hell broke loose while we were under the open span. The motor suddenly began shaking enough to jar the teeth from out of my head! I was in the process of making a loaf of bread and said, “What the heck(?) is wrong”. Bill, being more mechanically minded, opened the cover at the front of the engine and announced, “The damn thing is jumping off its mounts. Shut it down”. We coasted through the bridge which closed behind us. Bill pulled up the floor in the cockpit and discovered the coupling between the transmission and the propeller shaft had come apart. Three of its four bolts were in the bilge and the last was holding the two halves of the coupling split, one to the left and one to the right, and the engines was cranking itself around and around the propeller shaft. We tossed out an anchor in the middle of the ICW and Bill disappeared with wrenches into the engine compartment while I waved at the all the boats that went past. Bill got the coupling bolted back together in under half an hour, and we were on our way; no damage done! We anchored that night in Lettuce Lake, actually just a wide spot in the ICW for the night. Bill worked on the shaft packing which was badly treated by the errant engine and was leaking water into the bilge at a good clip.
This morning we began the canal trip to Miami looking at the colorful variety of houses and waterside businesses along the way. It was early with very little traffic which was good because the concrete retaining walls on both sides of the canal make the motor boat wakes bounce back and forth. The total effect can be worse than Boone Lake on a summer weekend. We arrived at the Sunrise Bridge drawbridge all alone with a thirty minute wait and no other boats to go under the bridge with us. Just beside the bridge was Sunrise Marina. We had been circling around waiting for the bridge to open when a 156 foot yacht, Vajolioja (pronounced like The Jolly Roger), home port Bikini and flying a Marshall Islands flag, came out of the marina and into the ICW to wait too. Vajoliroja was absolutely beautiful! We have seen any number of large yachts, but this one was spectacular. Not a spot on her, gleaming white, all wood varnished within an inch of its life, a really beautiful boat. We admired the boat from all sides as the wind blew it slowly sideways down on us squeezing us in the gap between it and a similar size Australian yacht tied to the marina’s outside dock. Bill at the helm got us out of the hole to give the big boys lots of room. The bridge finally opened, and we followed in the stern wake of Vajoliroja to Ft Lauderdale where it went out to sea and we stopped for fuel. In talking to the dock hand I learned the Vajoliroja belongs to Johnny Depp, thus the name. The dock hand was impressed by the $30 an hour wage being paid to the boat’s wood varnishers, one of whom is kept on board as a permanent member of the crew of eight! It really was a beautiful boat.
Irish Eyes continued down the ICW through the northern beaches of Miami with their suburbs full of high rise dwellings set among the older beach houses they are replacing. By late afternoon we had gotten to the Venetian Causeway Islands just north of the port of Miami where we anchored between San Marino and Di Lido Islands. We are planning to go through the last Florida drawbridge in the morning then on to No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne to wait for good weather to cross to Bimini. Julia, Josh and Isabella will meet us there on Saturday. They are to take away our winter coat, hats, gloves, scarves & long underwear. I am looking forward to Isabella’s first stay on Irish Eyes. With a baby on board I’ll be a grandmother for sure!

February 16, 2009


Turkeys on Cumberland Island. We must have seen 20 or more; some on the ground, some in the trees.

These things are just plane dumb. Bill threatened to hit one in the head with a stick and have me cook it.

Some of the shells I left behind on the beach. In fact, I left them all behind.

Flora of Cumberland Island. Actually, yellow jasmine. Especially pretty in February.

The blue thing in front of the Kingsley Plantatation house is Bill. The house originally had two symetrical chimneys, but the yankeys who bought it tore one down. The next winter they discovered why there were two.

We are in Florida! Yippee! I should be warm, but I’m not. The wind has been blowing from the north at about 20 knots. The temperature would have to be about 90 degrees right now for me to feel warm… and it is not 90.
We made it through all the shallow spots in Georgia: Hell’s Gate, the Florida Passage and the Little Mud River. We timed our passages to be on a half tide or better and rising to help us stay off the bottom. We arrived at Cumberland Island, Georgia on February 13th. The trip down the Brickhill River behind the island was lovely – birds, trees, marsh, water, and not a house or other soul in sight except for a pack of a dozen or so kayakers who we figure paid more for the experience than we.
You may have been asking yourself, what exactly do I do all day while Irish Eyes travels along? Bill gave me a super deluxe pair of binoculars for Christmas, so I find all the unusual birds spending the winter in the south. Some of these birds are really smart to come to Dixieland for the winter; it’s even colder up north. The 14 power binoculars have gyroscopes in them. All I have to do is press the correct button, and the bird I am looking at stops shaking, well, not the bird but its image in the binoculars. I can actually look at the bird and compare it to its picture in the bird book and be sure I saw what I thought I saw. Anyway, it keeps me entertained. (She also reads the For Sale signs, checks out the couples on the beach, spies on the passing boats, and examines the houses along the way. Bill)
We spent two nights anchored off Cumberland Island. On February 14th, Valentine’s Day, we took the dinghy to the Park Service Dock off Plum Orchard, a large house built by some of the Carnages. The house wasn’t open to the public, but we could wander the portion of the island owned by the National Park Service to our hearts’ content. We walked over the Atlantic Beach side. We saw turkeys, armadillos and lots of flora. When we got to the beach, I found several conch shells (some with very recently deceased with smelly animals inside), sand dollars and other lovely shells. I decided we didn’t need smelly shells for the next four months on board, so I left it all behind on the beach. Just as we started our walk back to the other side of the island, it began to rain. It rained pretty hard, but being hardy sailors, we arrived back to Irish Eyes wet, cold, muddy, but not daunted. It was a very nice way to spend Valentine’s Day. All you Boy Scouts, parents, or such; there isn’t enough money in the world for me to sleep on the ground on Cumberland Island. Too many creatures were crawling about for my taste.
Sunday morning we made our way into Florida stopping for the night between Fernandina Beach and Jacksonville in the Ft. George River opposite Kingsley Plantation. Bill and I had been there years before in Canary, our 22 foot sailboat. We inflated the dinghy and went ashore for a brief tour of the buildings and grounds. Not much had changed since our last visit in 2003. The ranger said they were in need of funds to complete the restoration of the main house and open it to the public. Still, it is a nice place for a visit.
Tonight finds us anchored in the Matanzas River near its inlet to the ocean. There is an ancient Spanish Fort off our stern. I can’t imagine why there should be a fort here. If we go to the exhibit tomorrow, maybe I will find out why this miserable, shallow, current infested area needed defending. For tonight we have two anchors down, supper and a warm bed.

2009 Greetings from Onboard Irish Eyes.

Bill lights the 'Yacht Lamp' in a vain effort to warm the inside of the boat while it snowed outside in Carolina Beach.

This is the last pontoon bridge on the ICW. The part with white house has been floated off to the side. Now that we have passed, it will be moved back into place connecting Sunset Beach with the N. C. mainland.

The Marines keep this old landing craft tied up in Mile Hammock Bay. It must have some historical value.

The Ben Sawyer Bridge to Sullivans Island is typical of the swing bridges on the ICW.

We passed from the Cooper to the Ashley Rivers in front of the Battery in Charleston.

The Wapoo Creek Bridge south of Charleston is a bascule bridge. These are the quickest opening of the bridges.

Bill and I had so much fun in the Bahamas last year; we decided to go again this year. We are on our way to the Exumas, as far south in the Bahamas as we got last year.

We left Kingsport January 26th. We passed through Salsibury, NC spending the night with Bill’s Dad before making our way to New Bern.

Bill did boat maintenance while I did the boat provisioning (shopped). That means I was away from the boat while he pulled out at least one thing from every locker on the boat and made a great mess of everything. It was a good thing for our relationship that I was not there. While we were in New Bern, we had a lovely dinner with Jamie Mills and his roommate John. Jamie has become a very good cook, and John is a sailor, so we had a wonderful evening.

We agreed on Saturday, January 31 as our departure date. That was fine except the temperature was about 28° then we left the dock. Now, 28° is not too bad when we have 120v electricity, but it is entirely another thing when we cannot plug in our little heater.
We had a lovely three hour downwind sail on the Neuse River to the Intracoastal Waterway and Adams Creek where we anchored for our first night out. It was cold, so we were to bed early which was exactly what we needed… warm and restful.

The next day we made it past Beaufort, Morehead City, and Swansboro to Mile Hammock Bay in Camp Lejeune only touching the bottom twice. Score: Bill – 1, Adair - 1. After another full day motoring, (I say we go sunup to sundown, Bill just says quit whining) we anchored Monday night at Carolina Beach. Our next hurdle was to go down the Cape Fear River. That trip is twelve miles of open water exposed to the wind and twice daily tidal currents. Being the cautious sailors that we are, we actually listened to the weather forecast before we left. What a surprise! The high temperature for Tuesday was to be 34°, and on Wednesday NOAA said snow showers and a high of 32°!! And I thought I left the nasty snow stuff behind in Tennessee! We decided to stay put for two days. It wasn’t too bad inside Irish Eyes. Bill worked on the boat, and I read and knitted. If cold old Tuesday was not bad enough, we awoke on Wednesday to gray skies & snow showers! Yuck! The high temperature inside Irish Eyes was 51° which occurred while I had the stove lit cooking supper. I am not sure what Bill did that day, but I spent the day sitting in the vee berth under the covers with my hat on, reading & knitting. Nights weren’t bad at all until we looked up in the morning to see our frozen breath hanging as icicles from the metal frame of the hatch over our heads. I don’t know which is worse, having the cold drops of water fall in to my ear or looking up to see ice looking back down at me.

Bill’s 58th birthday was February 5th. The day dawned bright & sunny. The forecast was for 10-15 knot winds from the northwest. Great wind for a run down the Cape Fear River, and even better, the current in the morning would be with us. The only problem was the temperature! After much discussion, we decided to go on to Little River, SC. The prospect of seeing my sister Elaine & my brother-in-law, Jean Pierre, a hot shower, and electricity for our heater spurred us on. I had on two pairs of long underwear; Bill had three. We each had three shirts, heavy pants, coats, and hats. In addition for me, an ear warmer, gloves, heavy coat, numerous pairs of socks and my coat’s hood. The Cape Fear was a piece of cake, and in the afternoon we made it through the two shallow inlets between Southport and Little River with only one light bounce on the bottom even though it was dead low tide.

We tied up at Coquina Yacht Club and plugged in the heater. We had a great birthday dinner for Bill with Elaine and J.P. at the Mongolian Grill with dessert and drinks later at their house. The next day, Bill changed the engine oil while I had a girly lunch with Elaine and her friends. While I made good use of their washing machine, JP cooked us a spectacular dinner delivering us back to Irish Eyes where the heater was already running and life was good.

It was not nearly as cold on Saturday morning when we got underway. Elaine & JP waved goodbye to us from the road overhead as we passed through the Little River Swing Bridge and began our motor trip down the ICW and Waccamaw River to Georgetown. I made our first loaf of boat bread on the trip while we were underway. We anchored in the Georgetown harbor to warming temperatures. The next day’s journey from Georgetown to Dewees Creek (north of Charleston) was fairly uneventful except for a slow couple of miles around McClellanville where the water was shallow and the tide low. We saw more than a couple or 6 foot spots and never more than 8 in one two mile stretch. (We draw 5 feet.) At low tide it was hard to tell where the mud ended and the water began. Sunday’s anchorage in Dewees Creek was pretty. The porpoises were frolicking around while on one side of the boat the sun was setting and on the other side the full moon was rising.

Monday, we came through Charleston harbor with warming temperatures and clear skies. We could see the bridges across the marsh grass from miles away, and the houses on the Battery shown in the morning light. Bill was even barefoot for a while. We both took off even our light long underwear. We are headed south toward that place where Jimmy Buffett says “the weather suits our clothes”, well not these clothes. That night, we anchored in the South Edisto River off the side of the channel behind marker 157. The forecast was for highs in the seventies the rest of the week, but rain Wednesday and Friday.

The names of Tuesday’s places roll off your tongue. South Edisto River, Fenwick Island Cut, Ashepoo River, Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff, and Coosaw River. Suddenly, we are in Beaufort and Paris Island with its underpaid Marines in their barracks, then after a quick sail up Port Royal Sound to the channel behind Hilton Head Island and Calibogue Sound where we are within rifle shot of the overly wealthy in their grand mansions. Past Daufuskie Island, but before Georgia, is the Cooper River, abandoned by the Intracoastal Waterway, where we anchored among the salt marshes with the day’s freshly baked bread, roast chicken, vegetables, salad and wine for supper and the night.

Wednesday took us into Georgia across the Savannah River after a monster container ship crossed ahead of us going downriver. There are two drawbridges in Georgia and we passed through both of them today. In Thunderbolt we fueled the boat, topped off our water tanks, and emptied the trash. We get about 10 nautical miles per gallon. The aptly named Hell Gate connects the Vernon and Ogeechee Rivers. Our guidebook says that the water depth is 2 ft in the centerline of the channel at low tide. We need 3+ feet of tide to get our 5 ft draft through it. Our timing was bad. The tide was +3 ft and falling as we approached, so we have anchored for the night in the Vernon River near some houses in a place the chart calls Montgomery. Tomorrow morning should be a better time to go through. It is the 11th of February and we are four days ahead of ourselves last year.

Coming Home

Bill missed the Kingsport Lions Club Turtle Derby again this year as did this group of red eared sliders.

Purple Pickrel Weed along the side of Bull Creek.

Swamp rose growing where you would expect it to grow; in the cypress swamp along the Waccamaw River in South Carolina.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it’s been.

We are back home in Kingsport after being away for just over four months. The house survived in our absence. The exploding population of spiders and bugs did a good job of looking after the place for us.

Takes time - you pick a place to go and just keep Truckin on.

The trip north on the ICW was very pleasant. In Palm Beach we bought groceries, in Jensen Beach we waited out some high winds, in Melbourne we had a quiet night, in Titusville we did the laundry, in Daytona we anchored of the sewer plant, and in St. Augustine we spent the day touristing with Josh and the very pregnant Julia. From there it was Fernandina Beach where we tied to a mooring ball only to be told by the marina that our boat was too big; a problem that was easily fixed by anchoring nearby thus saving us the mooring ball fee. A quick run to St. Marys got us back into Georgia and gave us a place to sit out a frontal passage. In the Frederica River we anchored for the night just out of the waterway after being blasted by a thunderstorm and marbles of hail. We fueled the boat for the last time in Richmond Hill, GA and anchored in Birthday Creek although it was no one’s birthday. We made it through the famously shoal waters of Georgia without touching the bottom even once and entered South Carolina anchoring in Skull Creek behind Hilton Head Island. Figuring that it would become unbearably busy Memorial Day weekend, we sailed (and motored) to Beaufort anchoring off the town to do a little shopping, eat a restaurant meal, take in the Gullah Festival ($20 per person per day), and wait for everyone else to go back to work leaving the waterway for us. Anchored in the Ashley River off Charleston we had excellent WiFi from the nearby Mega Dock where the mega yachts were paying mega bucks for it. Georgetown got us the first full day of rain on the whole trip, so we stayed two nights, stayed dry, and bought scollops and fish from the nearby shrimpers. Bull Creek on the Waccamaw River was gorgeous with the spring flowers in the cypress swamp and brought our count of alligators sighted up to three. Little River, SC gave us another couple of marina nights (for a total of 11 for the whole trip) while we visited with Elaine, JP, Kenny, and Mary Ellen. Most importantly, we got a new working autopilot which freed us again from constantly steering the boat. An early departure gave us high water in the Shallotte and Lockwood’s Folly Inlets, but gave us a 2 or 3 knot contrary current in the Cape Fear River slowing us to a crawl. In Wrightsville Beach, NC we had our first midnight anchor drill when we bumped another boat on the tide change and had to move. In Mile Hammock Bay we got to see the US Marines run their boats onto the mud banks to practice towing them off again (and they needed the practice). We are better at it then they are. We anchored on June 4th in Cedar Creek off the Neuse River where we spent our first night out on February 4th exactly four months before to the day. In the morning we sailed back to New Bern and into the heat wave. With a forecast of 100° temperatures for the next few days and the boat’s air conditioner in Kingsport, we decided to forgo all the jobs on our maintenance list, to miss the Cherry Point Air Show, and to miss the marina’s spring breakfast party and hurricane seminar. We packed up and left on a four hour drive to Salisbury, NC to see Bill’s father and family and enjoy their air conditioning before coming back home to Kingsport.

Back home - sit down and patch my bones and get back Truckin on.

We had a wonderful trip and are still speaking to one another. A four month cruise was a great way to celebrate our 35th married year. Wonder what we should do for our 36th?

Exumas to Beaufort, SC

Capt'n Bill at the navigation desk.

The lighthouse in the east entrance to Nassau Harbour.

Our route through the Bahamas.

The Spanish hand over the Castillo San Marcos, and the rest of Florida, to the British.

May 25, 2008

We are back in the USA. Bill has been singing the Beatles tune “Back in the USSR” but with his own words. Between his singing and his words the effect is nearly unbearable especially on this small boat.

We left Warderick Wells in the Exumas Park on May 5th and headed back north along the bank to Norman’s Key. We anchored off the west side of Norman’s and went to MacDuff’s Beach Bar for a beer (or two…) and supper. I had fish fingers which were Mahi-Mahi (dolphin fish) caught that day. I saw a picture of the fisherman who caught the fish, and since he was in the bar, congratulated him on an excellent fish. It really was good! Bill had a huge cheeseburger with fries while thoughts of Jimmy Buffet drifted through his head and ketchup drooled from his chin.

We left Norman’s Cay the next morning and sailed the 50 miles to Nassau dodging the coral heads poking up from the white sand twenty feet below the boat along the way. We anchored in the harbor but did not even get off the boat. We had heard horrible tales of thieves swimming out to anchored boats. Some said it was best to keep the boat locked and the alarm system turned on (we don’t have such a thing) even when you were on board! Maybe one day we will go back and stay in a fancy resort, or maybe not. Our anchor was up early, and we were off across the Tongue of the Ocean to Chub Cay in the Berry Islands. We were making such good time with the wind on the quarter that Captain Bill convinced me we could keep on sailing, cross the Grand BahamaBank at night, and make it to Bimini early the next morning. So we kept on going. This was my first overnight sail. It wasn’t too bad; just not a lot to see after the sun went down. The moon set about 9pm, and after that it was dark. But, beside the red and green running lights reflected in the bow rail, you could see thousands of stars overhead and the phosphorescent wake of the boat behind us; very impressive.

We arrived in Bimini Harbour and tied up in Weech’s Marina by about 11am. Bill chose Weech’s because it was the first marina we came upon and there was a sailboat tied to the outer dock. (It was also the cheapest marina listed in the guidebook.) The one sailboat left after we talked with them leaving us as the only large boat in the marina. Both of us took a short nap then went out for some sightseeing. Ernest Hemingway used to hang out here in Alicetown with his fishing buddies. One of his haunts was the Compleat Angler Bar. We thought we would have a drink in this famous bar, but when we got there we found that, alas, it burned to the ground in 2006. Not so much as a toothpick of wood remained. We later went to the Anchorage Inn, another Hemingway hangout, for dinner. The view was outstanding, but the food was so-so. In December 2007 the Bimini locals rioted after a police shooting in a bar and burned the police barracks and the police boats. We could still feel the tension in the air. From the look of things, I think a lot of drugs were flowing freely there in Alicetown!

The weather forecast for Saturday was excellent; we couldn’t ask for better to cross the Gulf Stream. As soon as the sun was up, we untied ourselves from the dock at Weech’s and headed across the Gulf Stream for Palm Beach Florida 75 miles away. In the Florida Straits the sun was out, the sky was clear, the wind was light, the seas flat, the autopilot was in charge, and all was well on Irish Eyes. We saw a Coast Guard cutter five miles away headed in the opposite direction and didn’t think much about it. When the cutter turned around and started following us, we got a little paranoid. We were watching them on the radar and discussing their maneuvers when we heard, “Sailing vessel Irish Eyes this is Coast Cutter Diligence.” over the VHF radio. (They could read the name on our stern, but we could hardly see them in the haze.) We responded and were told to prepare for an administrative boarding party. We were to maintain our course and speed and the boarding vessel would be with us shortly. An inflatable boat with about a dozen armed men came along side us. Two of the men jumped aboard Irish Eyes, and I do mean jumped. They were very nice. The peered in the boat’s bilges, checked the flares and horn, looked at the life jackets, counted the fire extinguishers, examined the boat papers, and copied the numbers from Bill’s passport. But, I just sat there. They didn’t even ask me my name before they left. It all added a little excitement to our trip.

We made landfall at Lake Worth Inlet about 5pm without any further ado. (And, without so much as a single nibble on the two lures we trailed all the way across from Bimini.) Our original plan was to be in Florida by May 15th. We ended up being five days early, but with the good weather window, it was the time to go across.

As we were approaching the inlet, a small oil tanker was leaving. Bill went just outside the red edge of the channel to give the guy lots of room. All was well until the tanker turned 180° in the channel and started back into Lake Worth keeping us under its bows for the full turn. We were more than a little worried because in addition to the ship behind (and above) us we were surrounded by a cloud of small motor boats and jet skis. The tanker was just getting into position to come alongside its unloading dock, but we did not know it at the time. The motor boats and jet skis were another tale. We had to navigate around Peanut Island, a popular spot with sand beaches for Saturday afternoon boaters to meet, drink, and party. Unfortunately, between the booze and horsepower, it was like driving down the interstate with cars weaving in and out of the lanes except there were no lanes. The cops were there and even had a police paddy wagon boat on the scene, but that did not slow the party down. Welcome to Florida! It was a shock after two months of laid back island life. We quickly fled a couple of miles north, anchored in the northern end of Lake Worth, and had our usual hook down drinks. This time they were doubles!

When a US registered boat comes back into the United States, they must call an 800 phone number to obtain entry clearance. Before we left the US we bought a Homeland Security decal for $27. This was supposed to speed our clearance into the US. We had our sticker, so we thought we would just make the phone call and that would be the end of it all. Wrong. First, we had a half hour of “Your call is important to us…”. Then when a person finally came on the line, we were given an arrival number and told we had 24 hours to report in person to the Palm Beach Airport Immigration Office. Okay, no problem. We got up Sunday morning, took the dinghy over to shore, locked it to a fence, walked to Wendy’s, called a cab, and waited. Our cab arrived with a Haitian driver. That was a good thing as he knew exactly where to take us and what to do. The Immigration Office was a separate building from the air terminal. Nobody was in line when we got there, so our driver said he would wait. We got to the window, rang the bell, a uniformed officer opened the door a crack, took our Ziploc bag of boat documents and passports and said, “Be right back”. He wasn’t joking! We waited outside, and less than two minutes later, he cracked the door open again and handed us back our plastic bag of papers and told us we were cleared. Nobody ever inspected the boat, asked us any questions, or held up our passports to see if the photos matched our faces. The passports were not even stamped. I now feel very safe knowing these procedures were in place! It cost us $110 in cab fare to enter our home country! Oh well, somebody thought this system was a good idea.

We left Palm Beach after a quick trip to the grocery store and began our journey north. After a night in Daytona Beach, we stopped off in Titusville at the municipal marina to do the laundry, fill the water tanks, and wash the salt off the boat. Bill made his obligatory trip to the local West Marine store, and we had a restaurant meal ashore. The manatees were still there swimming around the boat and drinking the water that leaked from the dripping faucet on the dock. We continued north to St. Augustine to meet Julia and Josh. They brought us the new supply of books we had ordered from Amazon the week before. They also took us shopping at Sailor’s Exchange, Winn Dixie, and Radio Shack. We took them to a restaurant on St. George Street for lunch, to the Castillo San Marcos for a tour, and to the Sana Maria Restaurant for supper. We played tourist ourselves in St. Augustine for two days and went to church on Sunday for the first time since January.

From St. Augustine we motored north on the ICW to Fernandina Beach where after some confusion we anchored for the night in the Bell River across from the town. The next day we made a short journey to St. Marys, Georgia to wait out some forecast high winds. As we continued on our way north, we also anchored behind red daymark 222 north of Brunswick, in an unnamed creek near Richmond Hill, and in Skull Creek at Hilton Head Island. We are now in Beaufort, SC for the Memorial Day weekend just being lazy, walking around town, taking in the Gullah Festival, doing a little shopping, and reading our new books. We hope to be in New Bern (and maybe Kingsport) by June 15th. That’s as far as we have planned. I have to pinch myself every now and then to believe we have really made this amazing journey. Life really is good!

In the Exumas

Three younger members of the Allen's Cay iguana herd relaxing on the beach.

The wrecked drug smuggling airplane at Norman's Cay.

Some of the scattered coral heads in the harbor at Warderick Wells Cay.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Greetings from the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park. We arrived here Saturday afternoon in time for the weekly beach party. You know, cruisers are a very different sort. Interesting, but different, really different. But, I am jumping ahead…

We were anchored in the harbor at Ship Channel Cay at my last writing. Since we bumped the bottom on the way in, we decided it would be best to go out in the dinghy and do some sounding, a little exploring, to find the best path back out. We really worked at this making two different trips at low tide. Well, in spite of knowing for sure where the deep water was, we bumped the bottom on the way out. Unfortunately, this time on rocks not sand! What a horrible sound, lead on rock! We finally bounced off the rocks, powered through the sand, and made it out into deep water. We were on our way although missing some bottom paint but with no real damage.

After that little adventure we needed a rest. Fortunately, our next anchorage was not far away. We were on ‘Island Time’ so we didn’t sail too far (6 nm). We went into the anchorage at Allen’s Cay. There are iguanas on the cay, lots of iguanas, lots of big iguanas. They really are quite homely. Some are very large, some are smaller, but I thought they were all creepy. You have seen them. They are the dinosaurs in the old grade B black and white movies. The man and woman from the motor boat anchored ahead of us took their beach chairs and umbrella over to the beach to sit and read while twenty or so iguanas stood in a circle around them and watched expecting to be fed. I don’t think I could concentrate with a herd of iguanas watching me! They were really weird.

We stayed at Allen’s Cay for two nights and then moved to Norman’s Cay, first anchoring on the banks side for a night then moving to the better protected south end of the cay for the next two nights. Norman’s Cay was once the home of drug king Carlos Ledher. Ruined buildings line the south end of the island; some with bullet holes. Apparently, this cocaine smuggling business operated for about fifteen years ending sometime in the eighties. One of his pilots made use of some of the cargo, was overloaded, or just missed the landing strip (choose your story) , and wrecked his C-46 nearby. It is partially submerged on the south side of the cay. It makes for a nice snorkeling spot. There are so many fish that it is obvious that some island adventure company must bring people out to photograph the airplane, see the fish, and feed them. The Sergeant Majors were like the blue gills on Watauga Lake; very friendly. With the drug operation gone things are more normal, and the north end of the island has roads and houses. The 3000 ft airstrip is still in use, and we saw several planes come and go. There is a nice beach club on the banks side of the island serving good food and cold beer. We enjoyed an evening of both! While we were anchored at the south end of the cay, the wind blew pretty hard as a weak cold front came through.

We left Norman’s Cay and headed into the Exuma Land and Sea Park. You aren’t allowed to fish, shell, or harvest anything within the park boundaries. Most of the cays are uninhabited although there are some privately held cays within the park boundaries. This area is very different from the Abacos. There are fewer towns, the islands are hilly, and the water unbelievably blue and clear. We sailed about 7 miles to the west side of Shroud Cay. Shroud is uninhabited and has several winding creeks leading from the west to the east side. We took two dinghy trips into the creeks and through the mangrove swamp that fills the interior of the cay. The red mangroves have tenacious roots. They look like long legs bending at the knee growing outward then down into the water. There is a natural fresh water well on the top of a limestone hill near the anchorage, and Bill made three dinghy trips carrying water back to fill our tanks. (No Julia, there weren’t any floating bits, but then again, the water was an almost bourbon brown.) We saw our first tropic birds here. These arelarge white gull-like birds with two very long tail feathers that trail behind them in flight.

Our next long (?) day was a 5 mile sail to a beach on the west side of Hawksbill Cay. This uninhabited island has beautiful beaches on both sides with a nice trail from one side to the other. On our hike back from the east side beach to the west side beach and Irish Eyes I saw a snake! There are only three kinds of snakes in the Exumas, two are boa constrictors and one is a brown racer. I found a brown racer. Those who know me know that I really don’t like snakes! Hawksbill Cay has some ruins from a 1785 Loyalist plantation. We walked up another trail to see those ruins. I wasn’t impressed, and I didn’t like the prickly tropical flora that was along the trail, so I let Bill explore while I went back to the beach.

Saturday we actually did sail a fair distance, 15 miles, to the park headquarters here in Warderick Wells. The park has provided 22 mooring balls in a protected harbor in front of their headquarters office. The deep water is a J shaped channel with dry sand flats (at low tide) in the middle and along all the edges. At low tide the sand is dry about 2 feet behind Irish Eyes. You could step off onto dry land. If Bill had chosen this spot to anchor I would have said he was crazy! With the boat moored, we went off to an evening appetizers-and-drinks party on the beach.

Sunday we piddled around most of the morning (maybe that had something to do with the rum punch a crew of Frenchmen brought to the previous night’s beach party) and didn’t get off the boat until noon. We took a hike across the island through a mangrove swamp and up Boo Boo Hill. Boo Boo Hill is named for the sounds that the ship wrecked ghosts make on full moon nights. On the top of the hill is a driftwood stack made by boaters who leave a piece of wood with their name and date as an offering to the fair weather gods. Warderick Wells Cay is all limestone and sand. Part of the trail is climbing over sharp pointed limestone rocks. My $1.99 flip-flops did great; they did not die and neither did I. The sun was intense, shining both down on us and back up from the rocks. A two hour noontime hike was plenty for me! While I was grilling supper, I watched as a shark and a school of horse eyed jacks swam circles around the boat. We also have our own resident four foot barracuda keeping us company in the shade under the boat.

Today we were a little smarter. We left Irish Eyes at 9am before it got quite so warm and sunny. We hiked through tropical forest across the island and back and along several beaches. I was fine until one of the informative signs explained that in that one section of the woods, boa constrictors could sometimes be seen stretched out along the branches of trees sunning themselves. I walked fast, very fast through that spot! This afternoon we snorkeled along the small reefs on the sound side of the island. We saw lots of large fish and several lobsters, but we can’t fish for anything because it is a park. Today I am recuperating from my last two busy days by drinking some of Captain Bill’s Rum Punch. We are on beer rations as we are almost out! [Four cans are left, much as I had earlier predicted. Bill]

Our plan is to begin a slow trip north. We will head back up the Exumas, over to Nassau, on to the Berry Islands, then to Bimini and back to Florida. But, you know what Bill always says, “If you want to make God laugh, make a plan”. We have a plan; next we will see how it goes.

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