We're in Florida!

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

We have not been able to update this blog as much as we would have liked because we have been without reliable internet service a lot lately.  Hopefully that will improve now that we will be traveling in more populated areas.

We left our Possum Point anchorage on Saturday morning and headed south towards Brunswick Georgia.  Our intention was to make it to an anchorage just north of Brunswick named appropriately - North River.   From there we would have two travel days to get to Fernandina Beach Florida just south of the St. Mary’s River.  

We spent the day winding our way through the vast saltwater marshes of south Georgia.  Once again it was cold with the icy north wind blowing 25 knots at times.  We took turns at the helm, an hour on and an hour off so that the other person could go below out of the wind for a while.

Underway we did have some entertainment.  Bridges in Georgia are on VHF channel 9 and the International Hailing and Distress Channel is channel 16.  We keep our radio on scan so that we can hear both frequencies.  On Saturday we were monitoring two guys (think Goober from the Andy Griffith Show) who were using VHF channel 6 as they were hunting bear.  They had apparently shot and wounded one and were tracking it.  At one point one of the guys says “I think he (the bear) musta went into them bushes over yonder”.  His partner replied “yea but don’t go in there till I get there or he might jump ya.”  Didn’t hear if they ever found their bear or not.

We traveled 60 miles and arrived just before dark and anchored in the North River.

Sunday was a little warmer with less wind and the sun actually showed itself in the afternoon.  We were bound for an anchorage 20 miles north of St. Mary's but had another tide problem.  We were still having extreme high tides.  We were on the Brunswick River and as we approached the entrance to Jekyll Creek which runs along the west side of Jekyll Island it was obvious that there was too much water to allow us to pass under the fixed height Jekyll Creek Bridge a couple of miles to the south.  So we pulled off to the side in the Brunswick River, dropped the anchor, had lunch and watched some football.  After a couple hours we decided that due to the delay we would not be able to make our planned anchorage.  Since it had been a week since we had been to a marina and had laundry to do, we decided to take a slip at the Jekyll Island Harbor Marina.  We were also getting low on the all important Diet Coke and this would be a good opportunity to reprovision the boat.

The marina is located just south of the troublesome fixed bridge.  Once the tide had gone down a little, we were able to clear the bridge and get tied up at the marina.  We ate dinner in their restaurant and then Judy did laundry.  Note that Brian does not do laundry.  This is because Judy wisely will not allow him anywhere near her clothes for fear that they will come out a different size or a different color than when they went in.  We also attempted to update this blog but found that the marina wifi was not working.

The next morning we borrowed the marina’s courtesy van and drove to the only grocery store on Jekyll Island.  Surprisingly well stocked, the store is really two double wide mobile homes put together located right on the beach on the Atlantic side of the island.  We bought groceries and then stopped at the Dairy Queen on the way back to the marina for lunch.

Back on Sweet Escape we are getting ready to depart.  Judy is at the helm and Brian takes the bow line off thinking that the 3 knot opposing current will swing the bow out away from the dock.  It does - really fast and by the time Brian got the spring and stern lines off, the boat had swung too far from the dock for him to get on.  So, there is Brian still standing on the dock and Judy is on the boat out in the middle of the channel.  Great.

Thankfully Judy had no trouble turning the boat around and returning to the dock to pick him up despite the strong opposing current.  Nothing like a little excitement to spice up a Monday morning.  Brian started to worry that Judy had one of those bear hunters stashed down below and planned to leave Brian at Jekyll Island for good.

As we headed south on Monday we passed by Cumberland Island, one of the South Georgia barrier islands and home to herds of wild horses.  These horses were brought to the island by a doctor from Europe in the 1920’s.  After the man’s death and to this day the horses roam free on the island.  We actually saw one grazing in a marsh as we passed by.  See the photo at right.

We made our way south to the St. Mary’s River and then to the promised land - Florida.  We spent the night in the Fernandina Beach anchorage just south of the Florida - Georgia state line.

Each night we study our charts for the next day’s run.  We could see that Tuesday was going to be a challenge.  We would have five fixed bridges on Tuesday between Fernandina Beach and St. Augustine, our destination for the day and where we would stay put until Friday.  In addition to high tide problems with bridges, there would be low tide concerns as well because there are many reported shoal areas along the waterway in that stretch.  Therein lies the rub.  On the one hand low water is good to help you get under fixed bridges but on the other, low water makes getting through shoal areas especially difficult.

We left this morning (Tuesday) on dead low tide at 6:45 AM.  We felt that we would prefer to run aground over losing our mast at a bridge.  As we motored along the sun made an appearance and was with us most of the day.  In fact, one man came up on channel 16 and asked “What is that strange round yellow thing in the sky?”  We are not the only cruisers who have been dealing with the crummy weather the past several weeks.

We motored along the ICW and after a couple of hours it started to look like Florida.  We crossed the St. Johns River which if you turn west will take you into downtown Jacksonville.  Sweet Escape continued south.  The waterway south of Jacksonville is lined with beautiful and expensive homes that are fun to see as you pass by.

We made it through all of the reported shoal areas and under all the bridges except the last one just north of the Bridge of Lions in downtown St. Augustine.  As we approached this last fixed bridge we could see another boat ahead of us make an approach to the bridge and then abort, turning away.  We called this vessel on the VHF and he reported that the tide boards were reading under 63 feet clearance.  Not enough for us so we pulled to the side of the river and dropped the hook to wait.  It was about 3:00 PM.  We waited until about 3:45 when another boat reported that the tide boards were now reading 65 feet.  Up more than two feet in just 45 minutes?  I don’t think so.  Seems that the first guy didn’t know how to read the tide boards.  We cleared easily allowing us to make the Bridge of Lions 4:00 PM opening.

Once through the Bridge of Lions we called the St. Augustine Municipal Marina on the VHF for a mooring assignment.  The marina runs the large mooring field here.  They gave us mooring ball 20 which we found easily and picked up with no trouble.  As this is written, Sweet Escape is swinging on her mooring in downtown St. Augustine.  There is a moderate wind - still from the north and it is in the mid 60’s under a sunny sky.

Progress is a beautiful thing.

Check our albums page for additional photos from this time period.   

Church Creek to Savannah, GA

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

Church Creek like most anchorages along this part of the ICW is essentially a navigable channel that runs through a large marsh.  There is little wind protection from any direction and there is almost always a significant current that will reverse at least once while you’re there and maybe more than that depending on how long you stay.  A challenging anchoring scenario in any case.  We anchored there on Sunday night following our departure from Charleston.  Overnight we had winds in the 30 knot range but once again our trusty Manson Supreme anchor held us fast.

On Monday morning we got an early start and headed south bound for Beaufort.  Along the way we ran into some really shallow water.  At one land cut we saw depths as low as 4.5 feet and we actually had to drag Sweet Escape’s winged keel through half a foot of mud to get through the channel.  Along the way we passed by another sailboat that had wandered out of the channel and run aground.  We called this boat on the VHF as we passed to insure that the crew was okay.  They were fine, just waiting for the tide to come back up and re-float the boat.  The penalty for not paying attention to your chart.  See the photo at right.

We made it though and pulled into Beaufort Monday afternoon.  We anchored just off the downtown area.  It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine and temperatures in the mid 70’s - but that would soon change.

Warning - Read further at your own risk because there WILL be whining.

The weather report called for another cold front to pass through about midday on Tuesday and in addition to the cold temperatures it would also bring clouds and rain.  Add to that the fact that there would be a new moon that would cause extreme tides and the next several days were sure to be a challenge.  More on the tides later.

We decided to stay in Beaufort on Tuesday and woke up to the same gorgeous weather.  We put the dinghy in the water and went into the town dinghy dock.  From there we went to Blackstone’s Cafe for breakfast and and then walked the ten or so blocks along streets lined by oak trees covered with spanish moss to the Piggly Wiggly where we did some minor reprovisioning.  At one point along the way Brian pulled some moss off a tree and gave it to Judy.  A lady who was planting flowers in her front yard saw this and laughed.  “We’re not from around here”, we explained. “Thats what I figured, we don’t usually carry moss around”, she said.  

At the Piggly Wiggly checkout as we were putting our groceries into backpacks and our little pull cart that we use for such trips, the store manager approached us and asked if we were cruisers.  We answered that we were and he then offered to drive us back to the dinghy dock and we gratefully accepted.  So it was that Donald, the store manager drove us back to the dock and even took the long way, giving us a mini tour of this charming southern town filled with so many friendly people.

At about 3:00 PM the cold front came through and the temperatures dropped 30 degrees, the clouds rolled in, the winds kicked up and it started to rain.  We just finished getting the dinghy back up on the davits when this happened.

The next morning we had planned to travel about 60 miles which would put us well south of Savannah Georgia.  One look at the weather and the tides and we knew we would not be going very far.  It was raining and it was cold and as uncomfortable as that is that was not the biggest problem.  That day and every day since we have had extreme tide events where the high tides run up to three feet higher than normal.  This has been causing local flooding here and it poses a problem for us with respect to our clearance under fixed bridges.  This means that we have to time our fixed bridges with the tides and this has been severely impeding our southern progress the past few days.

We left the anchorage at Beaufort on Wednesday afternoon just before low tide so that we could clear the Beaufort fixed bridge just to the south.  Had we attempted any earlier in the day and we would not have been able to pass under the bridge.  Because daylight savings time is no longer with us we lose an hour of travel time as well so, we were able to go a total of nine miles on Wednesday instead of the 60 we had originally planned.  We anchored in Colwin Creek just east of Paris Island, the Marine Corps recruit training facility and endured yet another cold, windy, stormy and mostly sleepless night on the hook.

On Thursday we woke to another raw, wet and cloudy day.  We could not leave until noon in order to clear two fixed bridges.  On Thursday we were able to travel 25 miles.  We anchored overnight in the Cooper River just north of Savannah and spent a comparatively peaceful, albeit cold night.

This morning, Friday - we woke up and actually saw the sun, for five minutes before the clouds once again moved in.  Today we had three fixed bridges to clear and timed our departure so that we would arrive at the first one at mid tide.  That meant that we could not leave the anchorage until 11 AM, a little better than the past couple days.  Today’s run was also a little more tolerable than the past couple too because the strong north wind was at our backs most of the day.  It is counterintuitive to think that the north wind would be in your face while you are traveling south but the fact is that the ICW is like a snake and you are often traveling in directions other than south.  We were able to put on 30 miles today and are anchored at Possum Point just north of the Vernon River about 20 miles south of Savannah.

A word about the weather.  We have been generally disappointed in the weather we have had on our cruise so far.  It has been cold much more than it has been warm.  Unseasonably so ever since we left the Erie Canal in October.   Today, we were speaking to a man at a marina where we stopped briefly for fuel.  He told us that this weather - highs in the low 50’s and lows in the low 40’s is typical for late December and January.  Indeed we have had some nice days but they have been few and far between.  We feel that if we can get further south the weather should improve but in practice it just hasn’t been the case.  We don’t expect any sympathy from readers, but it is discouraging to get up day after day, dress up like we’re going skiing and sit in a frigid, closed up boat every night.

The desire to get south as quickly as possible has us considering skipping the Cruisers Thanksgiving celebration in St. Mary’s Georgia.  St. Mary’s is located on the St. Mary’s River just north of the Georgia - Florida state line and about five miles off the ICW.   Each year hundreds of cruisers assemble there at the Riverview Hotel for a large thanksgiving day potluck where the hotel provides the turkey and ham and the cruisers bring everything else.  Right now our desire for warmer weather outweighs our need to attend thanksgiving dinner.  We’ll see how it goes.

See our albums page for addition photos from this time period.

Charleston, SC

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

We arrived in Charleston on Thursday.    

Readers will remember that we ordered a life raft while in Annapolis and were unable to catch up with it in Yorktown, VA as originally planned.  Consequently we had the package sent to the Charleston City Docks - not the marina where we ended up staying.  When we called attempting to make a reservation, we were told they were full.  Thats why we ended up at the Charleston Harbor Resort four miles away from our elusive life raft.

As it turned out we were fortunate.  This is a very nice marina with a great staff and lots of amenities.  We took advantage of one such amenity shortly after getting Sweet Escape secured Thursday afternoon when we boarded the complimentary shuttle to downtown Charleston.  The shuttle drops off and picks up in front of the Ben and Jerry’s on Market Street every two hours.  We were dropped off at 4:15.   We had dinner and Judy did some shopping along King Street, the famous shopping district in Charleston.  It didn’t take Brian long to realize that the sooner we get out of Charleston the better at least as far as our wallets were concerned.

We decided to catch the 8:15 shuttle back to the marina and arrived at Ben and Jerry’s at about 7:40 which meant we would have to wait.  In the area of the Ben and Jerry’s are located several candy stores, one especially noteworthy for it’s delicious buttery tasting pecan pralines and it’s slightly nasally woman who shouts “free samples” every time someone walks down the sidewalk past the store.  It is almost comical and Brian had to resist the urge to walk back and forth in front of the store to see how many times it would take before she stopped calling out “free samples”.  We must confess to having tried a “free sample” and then purchased the goods to enjoy later back on the boat.

Our impression of Charleston is very positive.  It is an historic and very pretty city and would be a great place to spend a vacation.

On Friday we again took advantage of the shuttle and went to the Harris Teeter grocery store where we did some serious reprovisioning of the boat.  Friday was noteworthy for another reason.  The USS Yorktown, a post WWII era aircraft carrier is docked as a floating museum next to our marina.  Upon our approach to Charleston we had noticed that there were bleachers on the deck of the carrier and could not understand why.  As it turned out, the Yorktown was to be he site of 2012 Carrier Classic basketball game between Marquette and Ohio State.  The game was scheduled for 7:00 PM local time on Friday.  We ran into a lot of Milwaukee and Wisconsin people who had flown down for the game.  The Goodyear Blimp showed up and was circling the marina but...the game was not played.  Because it has been colder than normal here, no one apparently thought about the possibility that the playing surface, being outdoors at night,  would collect condensation making it slippery and thus dangerous for the players.  That is exactly what happened and the game had to be cancelled.  Wow - I imagine someone is sweating their job over this one.

On Saturday we put our dinghy in the water and drove the four miles to the Charleston City Dock where we finally collected our packages, including the life raft.  We also hired a diver to check for any damage to Sweet Escape’s hull resulting from our unfortunate encounter with several submerged logs on the Dismal Swamp Canal.  Luckily the diver found no damage other than some missing bottom paint.

Saturday afternoon we broke out our folding bikes and put on 12 miles.  The bikes did fine - we on the other hand are a work in progress.  We rode to West Marine and then to Walmart before returning to the boat.

This morning (Sunday) we fueled up and pumped out and left Charleston for parts south.  We only ran 25 miles today and are anchored in Church Creek with four other boats as this is written.  Tomorrow we will head to Beaufort, SC (pronounced bew-fort and not to be confused with Beaufort, NC, pronounced bo-fort) about 50 miles south.  It is supposed to turn cold again later in the week and we would like to be as far south as possible when that happens.

Calabash, SC to Charleston, SC

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

We woke up Sunday morning happily floating in 9 1/2 feet of water. It was warm and sunny that day, something we haven’t had a lot of lately.  We pulled the anchor up and headed out, bound for an anchorage up Bull Creek off the Wacamaw River,  some 40 miles to the south along the ICW.

We motored a little over five miles before we encountered two bridges.  The first was the Cherry Grove Bridge, a fixed bridge with a charted vertical clearance value of 65 feet and then the Little River Swing Bridge immediately south.  Upon approaching the fixed bridge we noted that there were no tide boards on the bridge.  We were just beyond high tide and the clearance looked like it was going to be pretty close.  Brian called the operator of the nearby swing bridge to enquire about the clearance.  The bridge tender said that the clearance was 65 feet at low tide and indicated that since they have four foot tides the clearance at high tide could be as little as 59 feet.  Based on that there was no way we were going to attempt that bridge at almost high tide. 

So, we turned the boat around and attempted to call a marina just to the north of the bridge on the VHF to see if we could pull up to their dock for a couple hours while we waited for the tide to fall.  No response.  Call again.  No response.  Then another boat called us to tell us that the marina is closed on Sundays.  Perfect.  We pulled up to their fuel dock and tied up for three hours before attempting the bridge.

Once again, three hours of waiting put a dent in our travel time and so we elected to stop for the night at the Barefoot Marina in North Myrtle Beach about ten miles to the south.  This is a beautiful marina in a beautiful area.  We arrived there, got Sweet Escape tied up and walked over to a very nice shopping plaza for dinner where we ate at a Johnny Rockets.  Although we got caught in the rain on the way back it was a nice way to spend the evening.

On Monday morning we pumped out and then left the marina headed south for Thoroughfare Creek, a remote, wooded but pretty anchorage about 45 miles to the south just off the Wacamaw River.  We ended up staying two nights there because of rain on Tuesday.  We spent Tuesday trying to keep the boat warm.  We cooked food and baked bread, any excuse to turn the oven on and other than that we were pretty lazy.

Wednesday, we dressed up like Eskimos once again and headed out.  We ran 45 miles to an anchorage at Awendaw Creek.  This was another remote anchorage surrounded for miles around by marsh.  It looked like we were anchored in the middle of a wheat field.  While en route there we came upon a pod of playful dolphins.  It was like we were at Sea World, dolphins leaping clear out of the water, swimming alongside the boat and just being very friendly.  Neither one of us had ever seen dolphins jumping like that in the wild.  We were able to get some photos which we will post on our albums page.

On Thursday we headed out to Charleston where we are staying at the Charleston Harbor Marina.  We had planned to stay at City Marina where we had our life raft shipped along with some mail, but the marina was full and so tomorrow we have to figure out how to get over there and collect our stuff.  

This evening we took the free shuttle from the marina to the downtown area. We had dinner and walked around the historic downtown section of Charleston.  This is a very pretty area and well worth a visit. 

Adjacent to the marina is the World War II era aircraft carrier Yorktown.  The Yorktown is permanently moored here as a floating museum.  Tomorrow, Marquette University will play the Ohio State men’s basketball team on the deck of the carrier.  Consequently, the area is loaded with people from Wisconsin here for the game.  We have met several already.

We will spend two nights here at this marina and beyond that we have not decided what we will do.  Depending on the weather, we may anchor out in Charleston for a couple of additional nights in order to see the rest of the city before continuing our journey south.  We’ll see.

Check our albums page for photos from this time period.

Morehead City NC to Calabash, SC

Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com

We fueled up and pumped out on Thursday morning before making our exit from the Morehead City Yacht Basin after being there for a week due to Hurricane Sandy.  We were both looking forward to resuming our journey south.

Once out of the channel from the marina we had to clear the Morehead City Bridge.  This is a fixed bridge with a height at MHW (mean high water) of 65 feet.  It was high tide and the tide boards at the base of the bridge were indicating 63 feet and change.  What to do?  Sweet Escape has an air draft of 61 feet plus about a foot and one half at the top for sensors and antennas.  We decided to try because the alternative meant that we would have to find a place to wait for the tide to go down.  We made it, but not by much.  In fact, our VHF antenna dragged along the bottom of the bridge as we went through.

Next up was the Atlantic Beach Bridge - another supposed 65 footer at MHW.  We approached the bridge and could see several sailboats anchored along the edge of he channel, obviously waiting for the tide.  We approached the bridge and read the tide boards.  62 and one half feet.  No joy here, we would have to wait.  It was 11:00 AM and the next low tide was at 4:30 PM.  Morehead City just would not let go.

We anchored off to the side of the channel and cooled our heels (literally) for a few hours.  I say literally because it has been very cold here.  With temperatures in the low 40’s at night and high 50’s during the day - combined with strong winds, we feel like we never left Wisconsin.  We have been using our generator powered reverse cycle AC/heat a lot.  Each day we bundle up in multiple layers like Eskimos with ski caps and gloves - well, glove in Brian’s case, having had one of his gloves blown away in the hurricane.

We waited until 3:30 PM and decided that the tide had gone down sufficiently for us to clear.  Having had our travel time seriously limited by the fiasco at the bridge and not wanting to be fooling around on the ICW after dark, we motored 20 miles south to Swansboro where we anchored off the channel in the creek there with several other boats.  We dropped the hook just after sunset and before it was fully dark outside.

Friday, we left the anchorage on another frosty, windy morning headed for Wrightsville Beach, 40 miles south.

This stretch of the ICW runs inside the barrier islands and there are many inlets to the Atlantic Ocean which means a lot of shoaling occurs here.  It is almost impossible to not touch bottom along this section of the waterway.  If you are careful and pay attention to what is going on you can avoid a hard grounding.  This means paying attention to your depth sounder and being ready to power down at the first hint of shrinking water.  The best plan is to “FTOB” (follow the other boats) and let them show you where the skinny water is.

We hit bottom four times, each time in the middle of the channel, but never hard and we were able to get off with no problems.  Charts are pretty useless because the bottom shifts with the currents.  So you pay attention to the aids to navigation and watch your depth sounder and oh yes, FTOB when you can.

We arrived at Wrightsville Beach and anchored in the anchorage there where we saw a spectacular sunset.  It should be noted that we watched the sunset from inside the boat rather than outside with temps in the low 50’s and a 15 knot wind  We are so looking forward to being able to use our cockpit in the evenings again.  

But to do that, we must head south and so it was this (Saturday) morning we weighed anchor bright and early (for us anyway) and headed back out to the ICW and actually west for most of the day with the exception of a two hour run south on the Cape Fear River.   We motored along the ICW accompanied by some dolphins that swam in our wake for a short time.  

We had the tides with us.  We had three worrisome fixed bridges to clear but arrived at all three on a low tide and cleared with feet to spare.

Our destination was Calabash Creek, 60 miles south just across the South Carolina state line, where we planned to anchor.  Upon arrival we found the anchorage pretty full, forcing us further up the creek in shallower water than we wanted to be.  But, we had little choice as anchorages are few and far between on this section of the waterway.   Further complicating things was the fact that we arrived about 45 minutes ahead of dead low tide.  This made getting into the creek a chore in and of itself with so little water.  We first attempted slowly down the center of the channel and grounded.  We were able to easily get off and found deeper water along the left side of the channel.  Once into the creek, we anchored in about six and a half feet of water.  This was a calculated decision.  Since it was still ahead of low tide, you can imagine what happened.  Yup, as this is written Sweet Escape’s keel is sitting on the bottom of Calabash Creek.  We expect to leave at about 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.  At that time we should be at low tide plus three hours and should be floating.  To quote Captain Ron - “it’s the tides man, they can work for you or they can work against you”.

Readers will have to wait patiently (as will we) to see if our calculation turns out to be correct.  If not TowBoat US can expect a call.

When we find some Internet we will add some photos to our albums page from this time period.