April 17 19 Redbird Creek to Beaufort SC and Two Lay Days There 66 5 Miles

We hauled the anchor at 7:15 to get to Hell Gate about 30 to 60 minutes before high tide at 8:40, measured at a tide station only 2.5 miles from that canal. It was cold and windy -- in the wrong direction -- but we passed through Hell Gate with no less than nine feet of depth -- about six more than would have been there at low tide. We got such an early start and partial favorable tides, that we changed our destination from Bull Creek to Beaufort SC, which had been scheduled as the next days destination; we got onto a mooring, rather than their dock where we had stayed our last two times here at 5:05 pm.  Generally the tides were running to the sea from high tide near Hell Gate for six hours and then rushed upstream. The course was so circuitous and involved going upstream on some rivers and down on others that it was always a surprise to us when we entered a new segment to find out which way the tide was flowing. With 2500 rpms on the Yanmar our speed varied from 4.8 to 8.4 knots depending on the current. Maybe some Comp Sci Ph.D. could solve the riddle of when is the best time to leave from point A to go to Point B, depending on your boats speed, unadjusted for tide, and the date in the lunar cycle. But I cant game nature. I mentioned hairpin curves and here is an early part of the passage

from the pliers at the right, through Hell Gate  at the screwdriver tip, upper right, past one hairpin curve above the big washer to just above the wrench jaw at the left. Overall,  the course for this segment was about 30 degrees, or north of northeast.
The portion of the days passage before we got to and crossed the Savannah River was new to us. It took us past Thunderbolt, the boating capital of Georgia. We had heard so much about this place, so close to Savannah, including that the marina brings you a free Krispy Kreme doughnut in the morning. Here are its boatyard and marina and a big beauty. I wonder how she got in this far from the sea with her mast vastly exceeding 65 feet in height.

We also passed Paris Island and Hilton Head, both of which I mentioned during our voyage south last fall.  We tried to motor sail in the afternoon, when we got to Port Royal Sound and the Beaufort River the last 14 miles, but the wind had died down and our speed brought it to our nose.
Our stay in Beaufort was quiet. Unlike our last two visits here, we took one of the marinas moorings. We used the marinas courtesy car to spend $290 at the Publix on Ladies Island, across the river. We off loaded several days of our garbage, filled our four one gallon water bottles, met with friends, including a pot luck dinner ashore. We had planned only one lay day, but the forecast weather seemed worse on the second lay day and we like it here so we stayed.
We made a date with Carla, co-owner of another Saga 43, "Reverie", as she was driving past this town between Charleston and Brunswick. But she had a friend as a passenger who did not want to stop, so our rendezvous had to be put off until the fall when, hopefully, Carla and John, who we have not yet met in person, will be driving through New York on a day when we will be there.
We spent some time discussing whether to divide the segment from Beaufort to Charleston into two halves, as we did on the trip south, but in the end decided to go almost all the way to Charleston and anchor in the Stono River, just south of the city. This solution avoids two problems. 1. It is hard to find a berth in Charleston due to Race Week. 2.  There is a strong tide under a bridge that is closed for rush hours which we have to pass at the end of another long day, just before Charleston.
We saw a matinee of Noel Cowards "Blithe Spirit", at the USC Beaufort campus theater. We sat next to Louise and Jim, nice folks, who recommended "Narrow Dog to Indian River" by Terry Darlington, which I am recommending to Dick and Elle.

Though in a university setting, the show was put on by the local theater group and funny, a farce: during a seance with a medium a mans wife comes back as a ghost visible only to him and torments his new wife. And only $20 per ticket for good seats.
And having had dinner and breakfast at Low Country Produce, located in the former City Hall, during our trip south, we had lunch there this time. Innovative inexpensive food in a place with cloth napkins  which also retails its food; one sits among display cases and racks.
The dink is hauled and we have to get underway early tomorrow to make the 7 am opening of the Ladies Island Bridge, less than a quarter mile away, or wait until 9:00.

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October 6 Oriental to Morehead City 19 5 Nautical Miles

We had to get our sea legs back. But while it was calm in Whittaker Creek, it was blowing hard, though probably not as hard as our new wind measuring instrument shows -- calibration needed -- once we left its shelter.  We could have beat the first five miles crossing the Neuse River, but after that is was mostly canal-like waterways with the wind strong in our faces from the southwest and we motored all the way and did not set a sail.  Approaching Morehead City/Beaufort a pod of perhaps 20 dolphins passed us, going upstream, in groups of two or three at a time, their black fins, and later their backs revealing them. Sorry I could not catch a picture; I was at the helm. This military assault landing vessel was going out Beaufort Inlet to the sea while we were approaching it from the north.

Our first stop was a fuel dock, which was tricky getting into, and back off from with all that wind, but we took on 45.8 gallons, our first refueling since Annapolis. I figure that since Yorktown, we have been burning .66 gallons per hour.
We had several choice anchorages picked out but with all this wind we took a spot on the dock of Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant for $25 if you eat here.
We were joined for dinner there by Deb and Terry of "Island Time," a 42 foot Brewer cutter-rigged cruiser, the boat that is tied up behind us and enjoyed good conversation but sadly, very mediocre food.

They are from Midland Michigan and plan a five winter campaign to cover the Caribbean, all the way to Panama and the Central American coastal nations, leaving the boat for the summers. He was an engineer for a chemical company and she retired as a professor of biology.
           For tomorrow I planned two options. The first is to go out of Beaufort Inlet and back in at the Masonboro inlet near Wrightsville Beach. This is about 75 miles, but 69 of them a straight shot in the ocean, where we can go straight and fast. They predict 20 to 25 miles of wind from the NW, so it would be a speedy beam reach and close to shore so that the big seas will not have had a chance to build up and winds diminishing by five knots in the afternoon.  The alternative is a two day passage to Wrightsville Beach via the Intercoastal. The problem with this second alternative is the midpoint anchorage -- Mile Hammock Bay located in Camp Lejeune. Specifically, the Coast Guard is advising that the ICW will be closed tomorrow for military exercises involving firing live ammunition in the direction of Mile Hammock Bay. So the inside route may require us to spend another day here. A variation on plan B, mentioned by our new friends during dinner, would be to anchor at Swansboro, about ten miles short of Camp Lejeune with a rather longish run in the ICW the next day.  After dinner, while we walked four blocks to the postoffice and back Lene prevailed upon me to forego plan A for fear that even if we left at first light, we would have only 11.5 hours before it got dark, meaning that we would have to make 6.5 knots to get there before dark. Plan for the worst is her mantra. And Lene did not relish rising before daybreak and a rough passage and I like a happy crew. Lets check the weather again in the morning.

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May 19 22 Solomons to St Michaels and Three Lay Day There 50 7 Miles

Underway 9:30 to 5:45.  Winds "light and variable" said NOAA. And they were directly from the north until noon when we put up the rags as our course came to 020 and we were on a starboard close hauled reach which broadened. We passed some interesting sights. Cove Point Light disproved my prior assertion that there are no pretty lights in the Chesapeake.

Night passages require you to keep in the center to avoid unlighted fish weirs like this one, quite a ways off shore.

  This is part of a dock for the off loading of liquid natural gas into tanks ashore.

A voice on VHF told a boat passing closer than a quarter mile to keep off - security zone.

For about an hour we sailed without the engine, at about four knots; light and variable. Back to engine when our speed got down to two knots. Lene heard something funny and reported that no water was coming out of the salt water cooling exhaust, so we quickly turned the engine off and continued slowly under sail. I checked the intake of seawater into the boat and it was not clogged. So we tried again and either we had not had a problem in the first place or it went away spontaneously. Warm seawater spurted out of the exhaust, again.
Our friends, Mike and Janet, ex Harlemites whose lovely home we visited in Ft. Pierce, FL, have their summer home here. Janet scouted out the anchorages, which get crowded on beautiful summer weekends. In 2006 we came here twice and docked once at the marina and once in the Maritime Museum. But it was Tuesday and before Memorial Day, and there were no other boats on anchor so we came into the small inner harbor, in eleven feet of water on 65 feet of snubbed chain. This was preferable to the large but exposed anchorage out in the river where it is about 18 feet deep. Our private cove.

Lene looks happy after the passage, her last of this winter, and her smile makes her look great, but then again she always looks great.

During the night the wind came up and either we dragged a bit or our rode got stretched out straight in a different direction. Either way, we appeared closer to the land behind us so we picked up and reanchored.
We dinked in to the public dock and bought groceries at Acme. I got both a postcard and an outfit for my granddaughter when we toured some of the local shops. Returning to land after lunch, we were picked up by Mike, driven around town and to their great home where we hung and talked about old times.

Later we enjoyed dinner with them at the Miles River YC. Yum. A very nice club with an active racing program including Star class boats that are stored ashore and winched down into the water for races. They also race dugouts which are very old fashioned wooden boats with three sails. Their interesting quality is that in lieu of a keel, they use people, as many as four per board, as many as four boards, tucked under the lee gunnel and extending about ten feet out the other side. There crew members are human ballast, leveraged to keep the boats upright. In the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum they show a video of these races. Wild! The same sort of idea are raced in Geogetown in the Exumas, Bahamas.
It was the next day, after we had sweet potato mango pancakes at Mike and Janets house, that I visited the museum, seen here from the dink tied to ILENE, with its screwpile lighthouse.

First thing a saw was this T-shirt, which I did not buy.

It further gives the lie to my prior assertion that none of the Chesapeake lighthouses are pretty. It was raining all day.

Another boat came in while Lene was aboard and I was in the museum, and anchored near us. Pretty close but not two close, seen here at sunrise the next day. During our last night, three others crowded in as well.

I spent some time talking with the volunteers who build and repair wooden small craft in the museums boathouse. I learned how they make round masts and spars: they start with a square log and plane off its four corners resulting in an octagonal one. Next step makes it a sixteen sided and then 32 sided, which appears round, but it is sanded with paper stretched across a frame so it has a rounded surface. Neat tricks.

The center of the museum is an exhibit on the myriad ways that folks have used the water of the Bay: as a livelihood, for pleasure as housing and the myriad variations of boat racing, yacht clubs, camps, fishing, etc.

 One three-tree "canoe" exhibited in the boat shed was placarded as having a beam of 62. No way was it that wide; I told the museum people.
Mike and Janet lent us their car on our last day and we drove for sightseeing in nearby Easton and visited its art museum. There we met John and did some provisioning.  John drove back with us in his car in preparation for his voyages for the rest of this cruise, from here back to NYC. This gave Lene the opportunity to drive his car to NY and park it at the Club so John and I will be able to offload perishables and necessaries back to our apartment and he will have wheels to get home to Cambridge MD. This also means that Lene avoided the NYC - Chesapeake passages on both ends of this cruise.
We had planned only one lay day in St. Michaels, two in the Wye River, which we loved in 2006, and two in Annapolis, before the start of the passages home. An all day rain killed off the Wye River and Johns schedule made it better for all us to leave from St. Michaels for home. It seems that plan B usually wins out over plan A.

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HYC Cruise Days 11 and 12 August 4 and 5 Westbrook CT to Milford CT and Lay Day There 19 Miles

 I had a bit of trouble backing ILENEs stern to starboard in order to get off the Westbrook dock; bit more wind than I had thought, but no harm done. ILENE motor sailed south, past the east side of Duck Island before tacking to the west. I had hoped to clear east of Fishers Island and its shoals on their south side, but there was too much west in the SW, and we had to clear that obstacle on its north side before tacking south again. This time Lene intelligently pointed out that the wind was too light to make the sailing part of motor sailing worth the game and so after a bit more, we headed west, just on the edge of being able to sail. So it was a motoring day until the last fifteen minutes, when the wind came more southerly and we close reached with the engine at idle speed.

North Star had passed us early, much closer to shore, and we were assigned a slip very near her. But a failure of communications and Lene commenced the turn to port into the slip too late. We missed the assigned slip and were floating sideways, north, to the shallow end of the Milford Landing Marina. Not a problem. North Star and ILENE were the only boats in the marina (two more came in the next day) so we just pulled in to number 13 instead of number 7. Perils of Pauline!
Underway from 9:45 to 2:45.

Next up was a party with North Star and Stu and Barbara, who came by car from Westport. We had a big round table with six chairs in a shady public spot, lots of food and wine, and the enjoyment of renewing old friendships. It was one of the high points of this cruise, in my opinion. Bruce and Stu are Past Commodores and senior to me in the Club and I joined in 1990. Everyone present except Lene and Barbara knew Stus late wife, Deena. And everyone except possibly Barbara knew my ex, Dorothy. So we all go back a ways but never fail to enjoy retelling old stories of funny and exciting moments from past cruises. This is not to say that newbie cruisers would be unwelcome. Indeed, they would be most welcome.

 
Another quiet night, but from a side port, when I went to the head at midnight, I saw the visuals of a big thunderstorm over Long Island. Too far to be heard, but quite the light show.

During the lay day, we had more visitors by car. Joan and Jerry drove up and had lobster rolls for lunch at the Milford YC with Bruce and Diane. Lene got a haircut in the AM, and we had lunch with a classmate of hers from Lincoln HS at a local eatery before I gave ILENEs top sides a thorough scrubbing. Dinner aboard.

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December 1 3 Kingsley Plantation to Jacksonville and two Lay Days There 19 8 Miles

The passage, under motor, was uneventful. I was a bit disappointed to miss out on the tide up the St. Johns River. If we had started a bit later we would have caught more favorable tide.  This large suspension bridge had a high tech industrial appearance, less graceful than others, I thought.

 We passed a large cruise ship about ten miles before the city and waved to the passengers. I had not known that Jax was a cruise ship port. The trip up the river about 15 miles reminded me a bit of Norfolk with a large military presence, and huge commercial shipping. Watching the mammoth cranes at work -- sliding out and picking up or putting down shipping containers so quickly was rather amazing. They must have a computer program to tell it what to do because each trip out over the water between ship and shore involved two containers -- one off and one on.
Jacksonville was named after President Andrew Jackson who made his name by killing Native Americans in Florida, and is the largest city we have visited since leaving New York, almost two months ago.
Jacksonville Landing, on the river, at the heart of the downtown area was apparently intended as a version of the commercial activities of New Yorks South Street Seaport Museum. But it has fallen on hard times and the stores are mostly fast food restaurants. (So we ate at Hooters, a first time experience for me as was eating a corn dog for lunch the next day).  But the City offers its seawall, perhaps 200 yards of floating dock -- free -- for up to three nights. And there is water so ILENE got a thorough bath, but there is no electric, showers or help getting on or off. The Landing has a bad reputation for subjecting boaters to petty crime and pan handling. An alternative is a different free municipal marina where one can also get electricity for $8.00 per night, and which is not near pan handlers. But it is 1.5 miles from the downtown area, we did not fear panhandlers and did not experience any problems.

They say you have to raft up to other boats -- up to five abreast!!  -- if there are more boats than wall space. This could be quite difficult considering the current that runs in the river. But we were the only boat there when we arrived in the early afternoon, and no rafting was needed during our three nights; and we could have stayed longer had we wanted. The photo was taken after we left, and the only boat is the one just to the left of where we were tied up, below the Hooters.
We visited the Cummer Museum. Not a bad try for a smaller city like this. It was in the Cummer mansion, with additional buildings and had three lovely formal gardens out back, fronting the river, English, Italian and the third by Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of New Yorks Central Park. The city has a municipal trolley- looking bus system. Its route is listed on the tourist maps and would have taken us to the museum $.75 per person, one way. We waited for almost an hour before some kind person showed us the inconspicuous sign which had been pasted up that said that service had been discontinued as of the day before. So we took a cab, walked to the new Fresh Market nearby and got another cab back to the boat.  I also visited a somewhat disorganized maritime museum located in JVille Landing, and we took the free skyway, an elevated railroad that connects different parts of the city (sort of like the systems at New Yorks airports) to an excellent and popular restaurant, B.B.s, at the end of the line on the other side or the river and walked back across the Main Street Bridge.

We were lucky to make this bridge opening on our way in. There was construction and all of the associated equipment had to be removed before they could raise the bridge, causing a delay that permitted us to avoid waiting almost an hour for the next opening.
We enjoyed visitors here: Michele and Manu, whose "TeePee" is in a marina at Green Cove Springs, another 20 miles up the St. Johns River, where they are readying her for the Bahamas. They came by car and after several hours of talking and eating we went to the  monthly arts walk including a free guided tour of the Jacksonville Theater, built in 1927 and renovated in the 80s, including its backstage and dressing rooms; sort of a mini Radio City Music Hall. The central business district was done up in booths with artisans and crafts people; many live music events reverberated in the streets.
We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art to see what all the controversy was about: The day before we arrived, a painting of a nude pregnant woman on display there had been denounced as pornographic by the city manager. It was not, but his criticism ensured large crowds and pickets defending the arts. Shades of Mayor Rudy Guiliani.  Then, back at the boat, Lene cooked up that sweet potato pasta as a prima vera for dinner aboard for the four of us. A good time. One Floridian described Jacksonville to me as "the armpit of Florida". We had only a few days there but his criticism seemed harsh.

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January 19 Coconut Grove to Pumpkin Key 24 8 Miles

We had first feline drama last night: It was dark. I opened the cafe doors of the companionway to let the cats in but Alfie didnt come. So flashlight in hand I walked around the deck, opened the stack pack (a favorite Alfie hiding place by day) and checked atop the canvas, under the helm seat and in the dink. No Alfie. But then we heard the first of her cries and they were from behind the boat. So I swept the water with our strong flashlight, but no Alfie. Time for the 2,000,000 candle power floodlight, but we had trouble hooking it up to the cigarette lighter socket and stretching out the cord. Time to lower the dink and search for Alfie in the water behind the boat (where the current would be taking her. But her cry was not the powerful piercing "Im in trouble" scream, but rather her petulant mewl. Lowering the dink takes me five minutes -- Ive timed myself -- perhaps longer in the dark. Lene has now started whimpering and I asked her to please stop because such is not useful.
Before actually completing the lowering we found her. With the possible fuel flow problem that morning, I had advised Lene to take the hand held VHF radio that morning: "Just in case -- so you can call for help if you need it". It was in the little compartment in the bow of the dink created by an aft opening hinged padded seat there. I had forgotten to take it out when hauling the dink up that evening and the lifting lines run across the opening edge of the seat, making it hard to lift the seat once the dink is raised.

But I had gotten the seat up enough to reach in with my hand and retrieve the radio, for use the next day. And the seat was left raised -- just enough for Alfie to squeeze herself in. But with lower footing on the inside of the cabinet, she was not strong enough to get herself out, without help. She craves small spaces. What a relief!

Today we were underway for about five hours and I looked forward to a good sail because except for two dredged and charted channels, one a quarter mile long and the other a mile or so, the water was open. Shallow at 8 to 11 feet, but open. But though I put up sails as soon as we cleared the Dinner Key Channel, the wind did not cooperate, until the last half hour, a time when one is always eager to get the passage done. The wind was from behind us and too light to move the boat at a reasonable speed.

Pumpkin Key is a roundish lump of an island on the ICW side of the Keys, just off the northeast end of Key Largo. No services or shore activities, just a hangout place for boaters on the go.

 There are about ten boats here, mostly power, with plenty of swinging room. The water is ten feet deep all around, and we have 60 feet of snubbed chain out and do not expect heavy wind tonight. All of the boats are on the south side (lee side) of the island; the other side becomes the anchorage if the winds come from the South.
The Keys are stretched out in a mostly east-west direction with just a bit of southing as you head west for Key West. There are two routes to Key West from Miami: one way is the ICW route which is north of the Keys, in the Gulf of Mexico. It has many marinas but is quite shallow, too shallow for us after this point. The alternative is called the Hawk Channel which runs south of the Keys in the Caribbean/Atlantic. It is called a channel because there is an off shore underwater coral reef running parallel to the Keys. Hawk Channel is deep enough and wide, ideal for sailing, if the wind cooperates, but has few marinas or anchorages along the way. From here we expect and hope to be mostly separated from the wake-making power boats which prefer the ICW route.
There are several passages by which one can switch between ICW and Hawk. Our plan for tomorrow, subject to weather, is to go through Angelfish Creek and the Hawk Channel to Rodriquez Key, off the other end of Key Largo  -- before reaching Marathon, which is a rest station for cruisers, the next day. The only potential problem is that some books and folks say that Angelfish Creek is too shallow for ILENEs 5 8" draft. Others say we can make it if we go shortly before the high tide, which is scheduled for 8:10 a.m. tomorrow. And the entrance to the Creek is only about a mile away -- I already have it loaded in as our next waypoint. So we plan to leave at daybreak. And we will check in and let you know how it went, in our next post -- either from Rodriguez or Marathon.

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October 19 Mill Creek of Solomons Island to Mill Creek near Reedville 43 miles

From one quiet anchorage to another. We had planned to go to Reedville, a nice small town, formerly capital of the menhaden fishery. These small fish are used in fertilizer and cosmetics; in NY we call them bunker. A millionaires row of Victorian houses of the captains of the fishing boats is well maintained. On our first visit, in 2006, we dinked in, toured the town and were invited to the weekly Friday night pot luck gathering in progress at the Public Library, even though we had no "pot" (nor bottle) with us. But in checking "Skipper Bobs" we learned of another Mill Creek, on the opposite (southern) side of the entrance to the Great Wicomico River from Reedville. The chart said that the water in the marked channel was deep enough and many folks in Active Captain had praised it so we changed our plan and added another new port (Cambridge was the first this cruise) to our Chesapeake destinations.
For all except the out and in portions of the days trip the wind was about 160 degrees off our starboard bow plus or minus 20, and strong. The direction gave us the first chance to use the new preventer lines - the first time on this cruise that the wind was nearly behind us. The preventer prevents us from damaging ourselves and the boat in the event of an accidental jibe.  We did not have such a jibe today, only one very controlled jibe near the start, but its like carrying an umbrella to prevent rain.

We saw a lot of 20 knots, some 25 and a gust of 30!  And that is apparent wind so the true wind was five to ten miles stronger. The boat got to 10.5 knots during one long memorable surf down a wave. Our chart plotter has a logging feature which records our position every half hour and computes our course made good from one such fix to the next and the distance between them. Of course this is worthless if you make big loop and end up in the same place half an hour later, in which case it shows you went zero knots and zero distance. But today we were going relatively straight, with only a  few detours to avoid hazards. During the four hour period from  10:30 to 2:30, the computer says we covered 31.7 nautical miles, for an average speed of 7.925 knots. Not bad. One half hour period shows 4.5 knots! Well take it. I have a video of the knotmeter display, showing the speed shooting up and then back as we surfed down a wave, but not the 10.5 knot wave, and Ill have to add that video when I learn how to, because my computer says I cant due to no "previewer" installed. And another video shows a wave rushing up behind us and passing under us. If I was really good at this we could see the two on split screen, but Im not going for an advanced degree.

This was with small jib and reefed main.
The day was clear and bright but cold, as shown by the outer layer of Lenes attire.

She can handle the boat. During the beginning of the "going in" part, when we turned west and brought the wind forward of the beam, we discovered that we were overpowered and the boat tried to round up into shallow waters. Lene steered while I furled the headsail. She also made excellent suggestions as to a good location to turn directly into the wind to drop the main, and monitored iNavix on the Ipad while we went from buoy to buoy, in to the anchorage. We had a beep at seven feet when we got too close to the shallows that line the channel and I turned to safety.
Another delicious home cooked dinner.

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December 19 20 Dragon Point to Vero Beach and First Two Lay Days Here 32 4 Miles

Another day of motoring in the ditch with no wind. Passing Johns Island, near Vero, to port, we were impressed by the wealth invested in real estate there recently, lets say within the last decade, in large single family homes. The John Island stretch of the ICW was nice and deep, about 16 - 18 feet, compared with 10 - 14 feet most of the rest of the days passage. possibly the influence of money.
Dragon and Vero are very similar geographically. Both are on the eastern, barrier island side of the ICW, just north of a high, 65 foot bridge linking that island to the mainland. In both cases you continue south until you are almost at the bridge and then hook a sharp left around a green buoy into a small sheltered space.

Vero has a nice municipal marina with docks (at left in photo above) for those who want them and moorings that rent for less than $15 per night, including taxes, cheaper on a weekly, monthly or annual basis.

ILENE is third from right. Sailors on a budget joke that the place is called "Velcro Beach" -- people come here and seem to stick here -- living aboard for about $300 per month. The marina reserves the right to raft you up, as many as three boats on a mooring, but so far we (and all the other moored boats) have been alone. We told the marina to raft up only people who are not allergic or phobic about felines. They have no launch service but a very short dink ride in sheltered water to an ample and secure dinghy dock in a canal just off the harbor.

Good showers and laundry but the wifi is terribly weak: we retreated to ILENE where Lene finished Breaking Bad using most of our remaining monthly allotment of fifteen gigabytes on the last day of the subscription month.
Our neighbors:

The town has a free public transit system of fifteen mapped and scheduled routes. The marina is a stop on Bus Route 1 which runs both to and along the Atlantic coast, about a mile east, leaving at 10 minutes after the hour and west to the airport on the mainland side at 45 minutes after the hour. At the airport, or before, you can connect to most of the other routes but some destinations require three buses. So it is free and extensive but service is limited to once an hour, ending on weekdays at six, Saturdays at three and there is no service on Sundays.
We walked to the beach and back on our first evening (about two miles round trip) and had a mediocre Italian dinner. We took the bus to the mainland market and to the beach for a long walk on it the next day. We had some nice talks with some of the local people. Many jellyfish, about a foot in diameter when flattened, lay dead or dying on the beach, to be cleaned up by the authorities. The Beach is steeper than those at Daytona and Cumberland Island. This beachside town is the opposite of Daytona Beach. No honky tonk.  No cars on the sand. Banks and brokerage houses(insurance, real estate and securities) instead of head shops and tattoo parlors. And no or very few high rises. Moderately large suburban ranch style homes that I guess were built in the 60s.Modest compared to the Johns island megamansions. More older people. Development has been managed here. There are poor people in Vero but not in the beachfront side of this town.
We saw a sign advertising a diver, Peter, who lives on his boat here. He came to do our bottom, said it was rather clean, and replaced our zincs. I was surprised that he charged only $40.00. I topped up the water levels in the seven batteries, which were down very little, except for the group 27 starting battery where the level was too high, above the "fill to this line" mark, so I used an eye dropper (used to test the battery) to draw out the excess fluid from it. I wonder how that happened and what harm the excess acid-water may have done to the battery. Its charge seems better now.
We had planned to stay two days but some forecast  rain and strong winds from the south  may extend our stay until Christmas. It is a pleasant place to be detained and we plan to visit the Art Museum, which is an easy walk, on Sunday, and the Botanical Gardens and a movie at the mall using bus connections after that.
We have also been contacting present and former members of the Harlem YC who live in south Florida at least part of the year, and though some are going north to be with family for the holidays, we expect to rendezvous with at least some of them during the next few weeks.

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November 18 19 Beaufort to Harbor Town on Hilton Head and Lay Day There 23 2 NM

I had planned to leave Beaufort at 2 p.m. on the 18th and arrive in an anchorage off Cumberland Island in the St. Marys, Florida area about 10 a.m. on the 19th. But the Admiral was wiser in light of predicted 29 degree temperature at night, so we made the short hop in the ICW to Hilton Head and put in to its Harbor Town Yacht Basin, in the Sea Pines Resort, where in addition to golf and a health club, they have heat.

My brother, who lives in the Atlanta area, brings his family here every year and it would have been great to see him here but it is a long drive, he comes in the summer and this is definitely not summer. The developers did a good job of saving the majestic old trees bearded with moss. Most of the housing is vacant for the off season now; this place must be a big traffic jam in season.

The trip was cold but uneventful. I had on many layers to keep warm, topped off by heavy weight foulies which keep out the wind and keep in the body warmth. We saw porpoises, but that is an everyday occurrence hereabouts. Later I learned the cause of the unusual, to me, activity of the porpoises in Big Tom Creek. They hunt for food in packs, herd the little fish together and than eat away. We were passed by this shrimper with his nets out to starboard.

I wonder how he can go straight with that much drag so far to starboard.  We passed Parris Island, the famous Marine base.We used the small jib to ease the engine except when transiting Port Royal Sound, where the wind was on our nose. It was a four hour trip with Lene in the cockpit with me after it warmed up a bit, for the second half.

The marina is a circular affair carved out of the land with an unofficial tourist lighthouse at its side. Four dollars to climb to its top.

Next, the other ILENE is in the center, from the top.

On the lay day I visited the health club, 0.9 miles walk from the marina, for my first workout since early October. I may have done a bit too much but the muscles will work in out through sailing. And I cleaned and waxed the port side rubrail, because we are port side to the dock here.
They have good restaurants here. We dined aboard our first night and at the Topside Restaurant in the marina, (Extraneous lights at top are reflections of the restaurants internal lights on their window -- you can see how calm it has become.)

We were joined by Joe and his wife Sol, from "Solshine" their 42 foot Catamaran (25 feet wide) tied up near us, after sharing a bottle of wine aboard the cat. There we met their dog and cat, but I forgot to take their photos; so next time. They are retired from teaching school and computers and recently sold their land base in suburban Virginia so Solshine is their only home.

I had met them in the laundry room at Beaufort, and now here. Their son is in medical school.

Our current plan is to leave mid day tomorrow and get to St. Marys early the next day. So the jack lines, and preventers must be rigged in the morning and the harnesses and tethers gotten out, despite winds predicted to be so light that they will force this to be a motoring passage. But warm.

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August 10 to 19 Cleaning Dining Paddling Planning and Oh Yes Sailing Too

Not all sailing in this period.
One day was devoted to cleanup after the cruise, replacement of the last cherrywood batten to hold up the cabin liner after installation of the new screens in the salon (Thanks, Tony!) and topping up coolant in the engine.
One day we had a lovely dinner with Craig and Katherine of Sangaris at the Club. I accepted their invitation to crew for them on their passage back to Boca Raton, Florida this fall. I expect this will be about three to five days, to the Chesapeake. The start date is not yet set, but probably sometime in October. So the departure may be while Lene is vacationing with our niece, Yael, in Israel, which will require some cat sitting coordination.
Another day we visited Fran, an old friend, in Kent, CT.  I paddled her canoe around her lake; not sailing, but.....
Lene was somewhat reluctant to come with me and Bennett and Harriet for a week on "On Eagles Wings" in the Virgins at the end of next March, but consented. I always tell her the same thing and it usually turns out true: "For a good time, come with me!" And Bennett advised that he would drop off the guests he will have during the first of his two weeks aboard, in Charlotte Amalie Harbor on St. Thomas, rather than on Tortola, sparing us the ferry ride from our flights arrival on St. Thomas, USVI to Tortola, BVI. And more important to me, he has agreed to look into going back by boat from St, Thomas, USVI to Tortola, BVI via St. Croix, USVI. This simplifies our Customs process because we will already be in the USVIs. But the major benefits of the proposed route are first, that it provides for two somewhat longer than usual passages (40 to 50 miles) to and from St. Croix  and second, it will add a "new" island to my travels. The beauty of this route is that the passages have a lot of south and north in them, providing for beamy reaches in the prevailing trade winds from the east. I immediately got out my Puerto Rico and VI chart kit and plotted the courses and their lengths and did some preliminary scouting about the entrances to the harbors, anchorages, restaurants, and shore attractions on St. Croix. I enjoyed this very much and sent off an email to my companions with the fruits of my labor of love.
Also, I have blocked out a date in May 2016 for a lunch with Eve, who with her late husband, Selwyn, have mentored me in sailing. [The word "mentor" derives from a sea story; Mentor was a character in Homers Ulysses, who mentored Ulysses son during his long sea travels.] Eve now lives in Austin TX but is visiting New York and we will pick her up and drive her to lunch with Jim, who has sold his beloved "Aria." So, some bits of advance planning. "Failure to plan is planning to fail."
And I did enjoy three day sails, for a total of 10.25 hours. The first was with Lene and our artsy, facially hirsute friend Jeff, who took this self portrait: his reflection on one of ILENEs shiny dorades.

Wind varied from 5 to 15 knots. We headed up through Hart Island Sound, circumnavigated Execution Rocks counterclockwise, getting around green can 1 off New Rochelle, thence a rather straight shot back through the small passage off Kings Point to Throggs Neck and back to the mooring. A rain cloud to the west looked threatening but passed south of us.

Dinner at the Club was again excellent.

Next came a sail with Lene and our nephew, Mendy, visiting from Israel. Mendy has sailed with us several times including Maine and on Club cruises over the years, and he is stronger than an ox due to excessive workouts in the gym. He did all the pulling and winching. All I need do is train him a little better on which strings to pull, how far to trim them  and why to do so, and he will be an excellent sailor. But for the first two hours the wind was so light that we only made about two knots, though the wind came up at last and we got to 6.5 knots for the return. In hindsight, if we had left two hours later we would have had more fun.
The third sail was an Old Salts Wednesday and provided the best wind of the three. ILENE had a bye day. I sailed with Bennett, Brian, Mike, Morty and Clara on Ohana. Wind was at about 12 knots from the NE and we darted back and forth several times between Throggs Neck and the entrance to Manhassett Bay on near beam reaches, achieving a speed of up to 7.5 knots.

Here is Ohana taken from Deuce of Hearts, sailed by Mark, Richie, Mark and Marsha and Art and Carolyn, who sailed on Deuce of Hearts, we had twelve sailors in the cats roomy cockpit for the after-sail libation. Sunny warm and windy; what more can one ask for!

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