Beaufort, SC and Easter Sunday

We picked up a mooring ball yesterday in the Harbor of Beaufort, NC. We took the dinghy into town to check in with the marina and we roamed the town to start to get a feel for it.  It is a lovely small historic town.

We found the chocolate store which was hoppin (no pun intended) because it was the day before Easter.  The interesting thing about this chocolate store is they are the ones who provided the Chocolates for the Movie Forrest Gump.  “Life is like a box of Chocolates.”  Tom Hanks has a reputation of being a really nice guy.  He would ride his bike around town and hang out at the barbershop.  When he was leaving town in his stretch limo, a wedding was just letting out. He went up to the bride a groom and asked if he could kiss the bride.  Everyone, including, the photographer, were so star struck that no one took a picture.  Tom’s crew came along later and heard about the photo faux pas.They called Tom and he left the airport to come back for the photo op. Everyone loves Tom in the town. On the other side of the coin was Barbra Streisand filming Prince of Tides. They said she rode around on her broom and was demanding and terrible to everyone. This movie was being filmed when the Gulf war started and there is a large Marine Air Base close by. The planes were flying constantly and Barbara was incredibly annoyed.  She picked up the phone and called the base commander and demanded that the flying stop and not start again until 9am so she could sleep.  The commander stopped the flying and Barbara was quite pleased with her success. That is until 2 am the commander sent a group of fighter jets to fly low over the town and right above where she was staying they put the afterburners on.  The next morning there was an notice in the newspaper that went something like this…. “To the people of Beaufort, I apologize for the noise last night and to Ms. Streisand, you are welcome…that sound was your freedom.”  I guess he got the last laugh. The flying never halted again. Scenes from Glory with Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick  were also filmed there.

A group of South Carolina government leaders met and made a pact to secede from the union. The secession papers were drafted in the basement of one of the homes. They were then sent on to Charleston, the state capital, then on to Washington DC. The men at that initial meeting all signed their names in blood on the basement wall of the home. During the civil war the union came in and painted in blue over their names “Union.” It is still there today and no one has ever painted on top of the signatures.  We would have liked to have seen it, but it was a private home. Why is Beaufort so well preserved with many homes still standing from the 1700s? Abraham Lincoln was looking for a town in the south to take over and sent approximately 15,000 troops to take this town of about 4000. It would be one of the first towns to be taken by the Union Soldiers in the Civil War. The people in the town got wind of the ships coming in and the all skedaddled.  They left because they feared they would all be found guilty of treason and hung because of what went on the basement of that home. By the time the soldiers arrived there was no one left in the town except a few servants. No fighting occurred and therefore buildings were not  destroyed and burned. This is why so many are standing today. Many of the homes became hospitals for the wounded and offices for the Union. The ironic thing was, that a few years later two boys 8 and 10 were smoking cigarettes and one of the butts started a fire and burned several homes. What the war didn’t do, two little boys did.  They were taken to stand trial. It is reported that the judge had mercy on the children and ordered them back to their parents.  The boys are reported to have begged the judge not to return them to their homes for fear of their mother’s discipline.  I may not have remembered all the details exactly right on that story but you get the gist.

Robert Smalls was a slave who gained freedom during the Civil War.  He freed himself, his crew and their families by stealing a  confederate transport ship the CSS Planter. By these actions he helped convince Abraham Lincoln to accept African-Americans into the Army and Navy. He became a ship’s pilot sea captain and a politician. He was one of the first African Americans to become a United States House representative.

There are so many lovely historic homes.  We saw the hanging tree where slaves were hung. It had a large straight horizontal limb that went over the road. It was a little disturbing to think about. Despite the hanging tree, we loved Beaufort. What a neat town.

Easter Morning, we went to a Sunrise service in the Park along the water.  It was a joint effort of the first African Baptist Church and the Scots Presbyterian church. We joked, wondering if we would be singing hymns to bagpipes.  Hee Hee The service was lovely and the setting along the water with the sun rising made the service that much better.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

4-11-17 Jekyll Island

We anchored carefully due to extreme tides and the full moon adding to its effect. We took our bikes on the dinghy and this time had a dock to tie up to at a boat launch.  There is a nice bike trail system on Jekyll Island.  When we arrive in the historic district, we took a carriage ride.  Miguel was our guide and Don was our horse.  We were the only two on the tour and it was only $15 each.  Miguel was wonderful! He was so knowledgeable and could recall every name and date for everything on the island.  Now Don he wasn’t so great.  He was having a bit of a bad day.  When Miguel asked him to “step up” which means go, he kept all four feet planted and turned his head all the way around so he could give us a look. He then took off and was fine most of the time.  However, he HATES nail guns and they were working on a few houses. He got all antsy and nervous but didn’t do anything terrible.  Miguel apologized, but we told him we have lots of experience with horses and he wasn’t bothering us with his little “things” he was doing.

There is a long history going back to the Native American Indian tribes, then many others came along like the Spanish, English, etc.  It was primarily a Plantation in the 1792 when Frenchman Christophe du Bigon and his family arrived. It is known that the son of Christophe had the last ship of 465 slaves brought into the country to Jekyll Island. After the Civil war ended the du Bignon family was able to come back to the Island. The island was divided among his four children. Through inheritance John gained ownership of a third of the property in 1875.  He then purchased the rest of the island and made plans to make it into a winter retreat for the wealthy. He built the clubhouse and only sold share to 100 people to keep it exclusive. Members and their families vacationed there and enjoyed biking, hunting horseback riding and tennis. Some of the wealthiest members built their own cottages, which were mansion.

One of the most interesting things about the islands was the wealth that was there at one time. In 1910 a senator and  Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Department and five of the country’s leading financiers in the US met at Jekyll Island C

lub.  They created the Federal Reserve which lead to the creation of the U.S Central Bank.

These wealthy people were a bit snobbish. They had Tiffany come in to do the stained glass windows of the church. By this time Tiffany was quite wealthy, but they denied his request to build a home there because his money was too new.  If you read my last blog about Cumberland Island where the Carnegies built Dungeness and many other homes for their family, I said I would tell you why they went to Cumberland.  Well The Carnegies also wanted to build on Jekyll but their wealth was also too new and were denied.  So he showed them and bought the entire Cumberland Island and built Dungeness, which was by far more magnificent than anything on Jekyll Island.

The depression caused the “Club House” to suffer financially.  Our guide told us that the US government wasn’t aware of the amount of wealth  on the island, until a German submarine was seen at the inlet between Jekyll and Cumberland. The government evacuated the Island because they couldn’t afford to have this group of the wealthiest men in the US be killed by the enemy.  We were also told by the guide they hadn’t been paying taxes because the tax collectors didn’t realize the large homes were being built there.  After the war, the island was purchased in 1947 for the sum of $650,000. This was a one time offer or the state would just take it.

The other neat thing on the island was the Turtle Hospital. It is meant primarily for sea turtles but they had others there as well. They had turtles that were shipped down from up the coast when they suffered something similar to hypothermia.  Some had broken shells they were treating the wounds so the shell would grow back, others had so many barnacle on their backs that they were weighted down and couldn’t swim well and were starving.  Back in the Bahamas we had a Loggerhead Turtle encounter. The thing was enormous. We learned that this turtle was between 80-100 years old.  Our encounter just became much more meaningful, knowing the age of this giant and we were blessed to see him.

Oh and by the way, our dinghy was still floating when we got back but it was so shallow even on the dock, that we had to walk it around to the front of the dock before we put the motor down.  No strandings today.

Thank you for reading.  Drop us a line. We love hearing from you.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day.

The docks on Cumberland Island were damaged from Hurricane Matthew. There is limited access on the weekends only to the island. However, we heard other bloggers were able to put the dinghy on shore as long as they didn’t tie up to any breakwall, docs etc.  You can only get to the Island by boat.  We anchored close to the entrance, called the park ranger and he confirmed we could pull the dinghy up on shore.  After getting escorted off the last State Park shore we were a little gun shy.  There were two entrances.  Sea Camp and Dungeness. If we entered at Sea Camp it was a good mile walk to Dungeness and further to the beach.  The ranger said it would be much closer to beach at Dungeness dock. He did warn us that the tides are extreme so be sure to anchor and tie your dinghy.  We beached just south of the Dungeness dock tied the dinghy to a stump on shore and Scott walked the dinghy out quite a ways and dropped the anchor giving us plenty of room for the tide….so we thought.

We had to hike through the woods to get to the road to dungeness. There are wild horses on the islands and we were able to follow the trails they made through the woods, but they were rough.  I was already having a little snake anxiety because we heard there are a lot of rattle snakes on these islands.  I made Scott go first. About half way there, Scott jumps about 3 feet off the ground and took a a leap backwards as I can hear rustling in the woods.  Yup it was a snake and a huge one at that.  However, he didn’t think it was a rattler.  I am almost paralyzed with fear and my phobia of snakes but I had no choice but to move on and get out of the woods.  I was hyperventilating by the time I got out, but made it.  The first building we came to what the Ice house which they put bathrooms in.  There was a large field along the road and we spotted our first wild horse.I took 400 pictures for fear that I wouldn’t see another.. hahaha. I stopped counting at 35 horses.

We walked to Dungeness ruins.   It was quite the site.  You could imagine the splendor of the place before it burned down. This home was built by Thomas Carnegie, brother of Andrew Carnegie in the 1880.  It was a 59-room Queen Anne style mansion. The Carnegies owned 90 percent of the Island and built other estates for their children. The Carnegies moved out of Dungeness in 1925. I am not sure why.  It was destroyed by fire in 1959, allegedly due to arson. The ruins today are owned by the National Park Service since 1972. We had packed a lunch and enjoyed the view of Dungeness as we ate under an old Oak tree in the shade.

We walked to the beach.  The sand was like sugar. The tide was going out and the line from where high tide was to the water, was about 200 yards.  It had a very gradual slope.  This was our first indication we might be in trouble.

The wild horse were everywhere.  I was in my glory. We were surprised at the reaction of other tourist to the horses.  They were terrified of them and scared out of their minds when the horses walked by them.  You would have thought it was a giant gator or a Lion.  The horses were obviously used to people although they kept to themselves and didn’t come looking for treats, which I was glad to see.  We not only saw them on the lawn of dungeness but could see groups of them out on  the marshes. There was evidence of them being on many trails, you had to watch your step.

We put on many miles walking and enjoyed the picnic lunch and whole day of beautiful sunshine, warm weather and history.  On our way back to the dinghy I had to come to terms with walking through the woods…..where the giant snake was. I took a deep breath and told Scott I would be brave and walk the woods. He offered to try to pick me up someplace else.  What a sweaty.  We got to the end of the road and my problem was solved.  The tide went out and I could walk the beach and not have to go into the snake-infested-woods. Along with my elation came a dawning that there was way too much beach.  We took a step out and saw this:

Instead of dread, we both started to laugh.  We thought we did good by tying up the dinghy off shore, but with 7+foot tides it wasn’t nearly enough. As we walked to the dinghy the mud had a crab colony.  The land looked like it was moving with the crabs running away from us.  Good think I don’t have a phobia of crabs or I’d still be there. The dinghy is too heavy for us to carry or even slide on the beach.  We were unsure what to do.  When we got closer to the dinghy, we were slipping in the mud.  Scott hooks him self up like a draught horse and starts pulling to see how hard it would be.  If course I’m no help at this time because I am laughing and taking pictures.  Good think he loves me.  I then dug my heels into the mud and helped.  It slid surprisingly easy because of the mud.  Normally we wouldn’t be able to move it 10 feet.  As we got to the water’s edge and she was thinking about floating, we had another problem. mid calf deep mud sucking our shoes off.  We took them off and went barefoot.  EEEW. But we had success floating the dinghy and safely got back to the boat.  We were a muddy sight to behold.  You may think awe that is too bad that happened, but just think, if this crazy stuff didn’t happen to us you wouldn’t have as good of stories to read.

Despite the Island leaving us high and dry, we loved the experience.

Thank you for reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

4-9-16  Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island

We picked up a mooring ball. No worries about the extreme tides with a mooring ball.  We took our bikes into town and rode out to the beach.  It was beautiful.  We strolled the beach for quite a while just enjoying the sounds sights and smells.  Of course, if I am on a beach I am looking for unique shells.  Not any shell will do. We also heard there are sharks teeth on the beaches here, but didn’t find any signs of them either. The walk was satisfying enough.

It turned out to be a warmer day than we thought, By the time we rode our bike into the quaint little town of Fernandina Beach we were thirst.  We locked up the bikes and strolled the town and came across the oldest bar in Florida. Oh ya we had to go in.  The bar was made of massive wood pieces and in wonderful shape.  The back drop for the bar had the huge mirrors and ornately carved figurines.  They allowed smoking which I despise but toughed it out it was such a neat place. As we sat at the bar we heard harmonica music.  I looked around and there was an elderly gentleman playing away.  I went over to him to ask if I could take his picture, which he graciously allowed and posed for.  He was selling Cajun boiled peanuts.   Seeing I never had them before I wasn’t so sure about them.  The men sitting at the table next to him gave me one to try yuck.  He also was selling T-shirts also but they were on his bike.  I kick myself for not buying a shirt from him. I wonder what they said.  I did give him money for letting me take his picture. He had a fist full of money and money sitting on the table scattered all over.  Later in the day we saw him down the street on his three-wheel bike. The locals all knew him by name and were stopping to talk to him. I originally was concerned for him getting his money stolen, but am sure the locals would have it out with anyone who tried. He gave me a warm feeling in my heart.  It’s not the places we go on this trip, it’s the people we meet.

There is also a State Park on the Island with a fort similar in style to the one at St. Augustine.  We decided to not ride our bikes there but to take the dinghy so we could explore some of the islands.  WE love dinghy exploration.  When Scott was paying for another night on the mooring ball, the attendant told us to take our dinghy to a different Island to find sharks teeth.  The State park is where they are found on the shores of the inlet but they get picked over. Off we go to the said Island, but there wasn’t anything resembling shark’s teeth. It was all sand covered and we realized the hurricane probably blew all the sand over the island.  We ended up at the State Park.  Anchored our dinghy and were slowly working our way to the fort to pay our fee and view the fort, when a ranger came to us asking if we had the dinghy.  Why yes, we thought maybe it was floating away.  He was very nice and informed us we can’t do that, and had to leave right away. He kindly escorted us off the Park.  I did find one shark’s took while walking back to the dinghy.  He was very kind and picked up a shell and gave it to me. I could tell he felt bad about making us leave.  But that is his job. By this time it was too late to get our bikes and ride the 4 miles to the fort. So we went to a few other islands and explored.  Scott did find one tooth on one of these islands.

The poor marina at Fernandina Beach was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew.  They had the mooring field put back together, but only had 4 transient slips that were usable and a handful of slips for their regular customers mostly the Charter Fisherman to get them back to making a living. Not only were there broken concrete piers, but one of their biggest problems was all the silt that got blown in.  At low tide, many of the slips were high and dry.  We really felt for them. The marina was really something before this happened.  It will likely take years to fix and dredge the marina. We were thankful for the hard work that was done to enable us to see the great place.

Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island is a great little spot to visit.

Thanks for Reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

4-2-17 Trawler Life Crosses Her Wake.

Michael and Cathy from Trawler life have been dubbed our Bahama Buddies.  We traveled and spent a lot of fun times in the Bahamas.  We first met them on the rivers. Our next encounter with them was at Alan Pensacola Cay in the Abacos.  Scott and I had hiked a small trail out to the ocean.  We heard voices on the trail and when Michael appeared his first words out of his mouth were “Oh thank God Y’all aren’t naked” We were buddies ever since.  We happened to meet up with them at St Augustine after we split at the Bahamas. We knew they were going to cross their wake in Jacksonville so we tagged along to take photos and to celebrate this very special day. That night they brought the champagne and wine and we made Surf and Turf dinner and we celebrated. They left the next morning for their home marina and to get back to their house.  We made plans to have dinner at a their house the following day.  Michael came to pick us up at the dock and we spent a lovely day on land. Cathy makes a mean spaghetti.  It felt weird to be in a full-size kitchen with counter space and full size sinks and appliances.  I hadn’t realized how used to the boat I had become until a normal home seemed odd. They let us do our laundry.  Only a boater (or a college kid) can know what a gift it is to use the washer and dryer.

The winds were blowing, so we moved up river to another marina.  Michael and Cathy were so kind to give us one of their cars for 2 day to re-provision and to run to the many offices necessary to become official Florida residence.  We had been talking about doing this because Florida doesn’t tax our pension but Michigan does.  After we did our taxes and had to write an additional check to the State of Michigan, that was it. Florida allows you to be a live aboard boater. Michigan does not and makes it very difficult to do things like register to vote etc.  if you don’t own a home.  Florida knows how to do this! Our address is our official boat number on our driver’s license. I bet a Michigan police office will scratch his head if he see’s it.  Many boaters and Motor Homers use St. Brendan’s Isle Mail service for their mail. All the DMV and county office know about this and it was a very simple process. We did everything in one afternoon.

We said our sad goodbyes to Cathy and Michael and were back on our path heading North on the AICW (Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway).  We planned to stop at a plantation on our way north, but the anchorage was right in front of the Plantation, narrow, strong current and in the channel.  No thanks.  We skipped it.   There were not very many good anchorages for that night.  We turned down one after another due to skinny water, or too close to the channel. We came to an area not marked as an anchorage on the side of the AICW and pulled over well out of the channel, had plenty of water. We put out a bow and stern anchor to ensure that we didn’t swing into the channel when the tide changed.  We were sitting enjoying a cocktail on the back of the boat when Scott’s eyes got big.  A Cruise ship was coming down the channel.  Oh man!  He started pulling on the anchor lines to move us over even further and I got on the horn and called the cruise ship, asking if we were okay.  He was very relaxed.  Yes, Ma’am you’re well out of the channel, No problems.  Phew.  It just looked ominous seeing a cruise ship coming down on us in that narrow channel. He passed with ease. We were more relaxed after he went by knowing that if he could get by so can everyone else.  We had a peaceful night.

On to Amelia Island stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.  Drop us a note we love to hear from you!

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo of the day:

There was so much to see and do in St Augustine, I split it up into two blogs. Here’s part 2.

The drawbridge is named the Lion Bridge. We rode our bikes across it and it went up while we were on it.  That was kind of neat.

Why did we cross The Lion Bridge?  To get to the other side silly.

On the other side was the St. Augustine Lighthouse. It is 165′ tall. The tallest is just down the coast and only a few inches higher. You may visit it by climbing the 219 steps to the top. It has a first order Fresnel lense in it.  The lenses come in different sizes called orders.  In the US they go from one to six.  First order lenses are the biggest and can be 12′ high and 6 ” wide. The St Augustine lens is 9 feet tall.   It was built between 1871 and lit in October 1879. Today it is privately owned by the Jr. Service League of St Augustine who are responsible for the beautiful restoration job.

Did you know that all light houses are painted with a different color and design so the sailors knew where they were just by the color and design of the light house.  They also have different signal patterns at night for the same reason.

The lighthouse offered information about boat building in the era that the lighthouse was built.  They have a shop next to the lighthouse that a group of volunteers work to build boats the way they were built back when they used these boats.  They sell raffle tickets and give one away every year.

The other part of the lighthouse experience is researching and resurrecting relics from some of the many shipwrecks in the area. The coast line was particularly difficult for ships and many have sunk.  They are working to identify ships and restore the relics they have found. The relics are heavily encrusted in calcification from the ocean.  Most things are not recognizable.  They bring them up being careful to keep immersed in water due to quick deterioration once exposed to air.  They get an X-ray of the item to see what is inside before they start the long process of decalcifying it.  A Cannon can take 5 years of scraping and reverse electrolysis to clean all the calcification off of it.  That takes patience. In the basement of the lighthouse keepers home they house the relics they have found and cleaned.

Castillo De San Marco is the oldest Masonry fort in the US. It is made of a stone containing compressed shells call Coquina. It was started in 1672 and finished in 1695, that’s 25 years.  Wow. They started construction after many destructive raid of the English privateer Robert Searles. In 1702 the English attack during Queen Ann’s war in an effort to take St Augustine.  1500 residents and soldiers moved inside the fort while they were attacked for 2 months. The smaller English cannons were no match for the stone.  It was so soft the cannon balls would stick in the soft Coquina stone.  The siege was broken when Spanish ships came to help from Cuba.  The fort has never  been breached.

Did you know a Cannon shoots straight and a Mortar shoot up into the air before coming down on it’s target.

Those are the highlights of St. Augustine. We could have spent several more days, but did the important stuff.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

St. Augustine…. So much to do

We are out of our funk with many menial tasks taken care of and working our way north.  St Augustine was an amazing stop.   It was founded in 1565 by the spanish and is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the United States. There is so much history here.  One of our first encounters on land was an archaeological dig going on inside and outside a building.  It is the oldest Catholic church ruins, I believe the the US. They are finding human remains and the usual, pieces of dishes etc.

We found the First Episcopal Church here and an amazing Catholic Cathedral. I am posting the photo of the plaque with it’s history. Interesting read.

The once Ponce De Leon Hotel is now Flagler College. Because it is an active college we were only allowed to view the entry way.  With all of it’s magnificence, we can only imagine the rest of the building. One of the locals at the Visitor Center told us that this was a very fancy hotel intended for the extremely wealthy.  He said back in the early 1900s a room was $100 a night and they required a six month stay in the winter.  Wowsa.

The man who built this hotel also built a hotel across the street for the next class down.  During hard times that hotel went out of business and just sat for year.  It was pretty grand as well with a huge indoor pool. A Mr. Lightner regularly stayed at The Ponce De Leon Hotel.  He was a collector of other people’s collections which he kept in Chicago.  One day he looked across the street and decided to buy the hotel. He moved his collection of collections to the hotel.  It is now a museum with so many interesting and vast collections it is hard to fathom.  It fills the hotel. There was rooms of glass, potter, furniture, paintings, tapestries and more. I will only post a few oddities that made me go hmm.

It happened again! I met up with another classmate, Tom Satran, from highschool who I haven’t seen since graduation.  He and his sister drove over from the other side of the state.  We had a great BBQ lunch together and caught up on each other’s lives.  How fun.  That makes 3 classmates, I have caught up with in Florida.

I am going to end this blog here and start another one with more adventures from the St. Augustine area.

Thanks for reading!  Drop us a note, we love hearing from you.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

We crossed with a buddy boat, named Cork Screw. Trawler Life and Have Another Day crossed together but were going to a different customs check-in station.  Our plan was to fire up the engine at 06:30.  We got up at 05:30 and heard a boat fire up.  We were drinking coffee, and getting ready to go when we looked and our buddy boat was pulling out.  We thought they were leaving an hour early, when in fact we were an hour late.  Scott set his alarm, but didn’t realize that daylight savings happened when we were in the bahamas and he never turned his phone on so it didn’t update.  We scrambled and got underway with an apology to Cork Screw. We were right behind .

I fished some of the way when it wasn’t too rough, but didn’t catch anything.  I was kind of okay with that because I didn’t want to have to deal with cleaning anything while underway and we had fish and lobster in the freezer.  As we approached the US Scott saw a huge Hammerhead Shark chasing a fish.  So cool. I missed it.  We arrive about 5:30 and by the time we docked it was after 6 and our information stated that customs was closed at 6.  We called first thing in the morning and got  slightly reprimanded for not calling last night.  Scott read him the print out from the website and suggested they update the website.  His tune changed.  We had to rent a car to go to the airport to check in personally. We didn’t mind renting a car, as we had a very empty boat.  Off to Walmart and $300 later we have groceries, oil for oil changes, and all kinds of odds and ends we needed. We were glad to have a car.  It would have taken multiple trips on our bikes. My phone had been giving me problems and wouldn’t work at all when I got back in the States.  Luckily we had the car to go in to Verizon.  I ended up upgrading my ancient phone.  It was time.

We stayed 2 nights to recoup from our long crossing and to reprovision.

Off we went up the ICW (Intracostal Waterway) We anchored behind a small spoils island.  We didn’t even drop the dinghy to go ashore. Scott’s (and my) dreamboat anchored next to us .We weren’t sure what make it was, so Scott looked it up and guess what…It’s for sale.  It was a Nordhaven 46 oceangoing trawler.  It had everything you could want on a boat.  Bigger tanks for everything.  We could go all the way to the Caribbean or South America in that boat.   We both dreamed about it but our pockets aren’t that deep.

We cruised up to Cocoa Beach area and hadn’t stopped along the way. We only went into Cocoa quickly one morning to mail some things.  We were in a funk. After the Bahama, Florida seemed boring.  We labeled ourselves as Bahama snobs.  Part of that funk was we had repairs, updates, taxes, bills etc to work on.  Scott ordered a bunch of things we needed from Amazon and sent them to St Augustine our next stop. Once we get things done that we couldn’t do in the Bahama, I’m sure we will be back into the swing of things.

This is kind of a  whiney blog, but I don’t want all you drinks people up north still wishing for no snow to think our life is “All Cold Drinks and Sunshine”  Hee hee. The reality is, that is true most of the time.

Stay tune St Augustine is next…..

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

We left Manjack with Trawler Life and Have Another Day heading for Great Sale Cay. Heading north all was well but when we hung a left to the East the seas kicked up and gave us a bumpy ride.  The anchorage is relatively protected, however, there wasn’t enough land to knock down the winds and even the anchorage was rocky.  There were approximately 20 boat there.  Most were staging to head to West End or right to the US.  We went to West End (Old Bahama Bay) of Grand Bahama Island. We would seek refuge there until we had decent weather to cross the Atlantic back to the US.

Scott and I took bikes from the Marina and rode into the little town.  How sad it was to see the devastation of Hurricane Matthew.  It looked like a war torn city.  The locals all said it looked great compared to what it was.  Oh my.  They took a direct hit.  The photos speak for them selves.  We  were at the Tiki Bar by the pool and the bartender lived through the Hurricane.  She said she went to Nassau where there was more land mass to absorb the storm.  Matthew hit during the night.  She said 16 people were all at her cousin’s house. When it first hit, it ripped the roof right off part of the house.  They sought refuge in a different part of the house.  It raged for about 3 hours.  Then the eye of the storm came over.  It was completely quiet, no wind, no rain and you could see every single star in the sky.  She said it was beautiful, but they know what was coming.  Sure enough the second half of the storm hit and raged for 3 more hours.  More roof was torn off and it pour and the wind howled.  Then it was over and everyone just stood there not knowing what to do next.  She was able to drive her car back to her house expecting it to be destroyed and there wasn’t any damage at all.  She was surprised because she lived where there was little land mass. Many people lost every thing.  I wish we had known that things were still in such disrepair and that there were so many families in need.  We would have brought things and helped out, but we didn’t know the extent of it because the resort was in beautiful shape, the docks looked OK but there was still no power on the docks.

On our way back from our reality check, we stopped at the Sea Glass Beach.  The beach is covered with Sea Glass.  We took some time and picked out different colors and shapes.  Our conclusion of why it is there: They burn garbage on the islands. They then take the broken and melted glass out to sea and dump it. The area off shore is all rocky but shallow, so it gets tumbled by the waves and the edges are all rounded and naturally frosted.  I hope to make some jewelry out of it.  Seeing trash is an issue on the islands, this is pretty genius. It has become somewhat of a tourist attraction and they get tourist like us to pick up glass and take it home with us.

After the Sea Glass Beach, we went to the resort pool, tiki bar recreation area.  They had kayaks, stand up paddle boards(SUP, fishing poles and lounge chairs on the beach and a tiki bar between the pool and the beach.  I kayaked a bit.  I wanted to try the SUP but they were all out.  While I was listening to the hurricane story being told by the bartender, a man came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy lobster tails, or fresh fish, he just caught them and they were in his boat right there on the beach. I made a deal with him and went back to get money.  I got 10 lobster tails.  I already had a freezer full of Mahi Mahi, so I didn’t buy any fish.  I was kidding around with them and they were giving it back to me.  The older guys said ” she fun, give her an extra lobster tail”  of course it was tiny, but what did I care.  We joked around a bit and then the other guy showed me a shell.  He told me it was a special shell.  The older guy said to give it to me.   We bantered back and forth and he said where ever that shell goes, I go.  My response was “Welcome to America, We leave in the morning.”  I was just kidding but as I walked away he gave me the shell.  It is a  Triton’s Trumpet.  It needed major cleaning of all the calcified gunk on it.  I worked hard at it and it is beautiful.

Here are a few of my other shells from the Bahamas

The next day we left the dock at 06:30. Off to the US.  We had an uneventful and relatively calm trip. It was a little bumpy in the beginning but flattened out as we went and we arrived in the US on FAC (flat ass calm) seas.

Thanks for following our journey.  It is a great one.  Drop us a line, we would love to hear from you.

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

What is this contraption on the back of the boat?

The Sea of Abaco is just small enough to jet across it (at 8 miles per hour) but big enough that if the wind blows across it, it can make waves enough to make life miserable.  If you read our last blog you realize we are now on the east side of the Sea anchored out due to a change of wind from out of the west.  Over night the winds changed out of the north which make us exposed  at both side of the sea. The waves were building and we tried to wait it out until it moved from NW.    It was almost noon and we were feeling beat up and decided to head back to Manjack where we will be more protected by afternoon.  To our surprise by the time we got there the wind shifted and we had calm seas.

As we anchored, we heard on the radio that Trawler Live and Have Another Life were on their way through the Whale and Don’t Rock and should be coming in shortly.  Cathy and Michael from Trawler Life wanted us to take them to the reef.   We got out the trusty “Boat Hook Depth Finder” and took off  for the reef.  They got in a little late for high tide and we were kicking up a little mud. They were wondering why I had out the boat hook and quickly figured it out.  We anchored, geared up and hit the reef.  It wasn’t long before Michael speared a Lobster. It was a dream come true for him and cause lobster envy with Scott. Michael had the “lobster bug”  He went back out near the rocks in the bay later in the day but was cut short by shark sightings. There has been reports from other boaters, that there is a 12 foot tiger shark that comes into the lagoon.  I’m sure it is because of people cleaning fish aboard their boat. Frances, one of the young Canadian boaters named it “Peaches.” However, he later told me that that scrubbing his hull is nerve racking knowing that shark is in there.

Earlier, we hiked back to the ocean.  There is an area in the dense woods that is all dug up and has tunnels dug in the grounds.  We saw them before and still wondered what lived there.  We met a couple on the trail that told us when they came through earlier they saw white crabs the size of dinner plates.  After we spent time on the beach and climbing rocks we came back down the trail, walking like ninjas in hopes of seeing an elusive crab.  No luck.  Darn it. At least we know they are crabs and we found out they are nocturnal.  I don’t think we will walk a mile in the dense woods at night to see them because the noseeums would eat us up.

Pretty little cove we found hiking the back trails.

As the sun set, the water was perfectly clear.  We were in 10 feet of water and you could see the spines on the sea urchins on the bottom and every blade of grass.  We  saw a small reef shark swim right next to our boat. Once again no camera in hand. It is unbelievable how clear the water is there.

Several of the young Canadians were wake-boarding behind their dinghy at sunset.  They were having so much fun.  It was great to watch, but if that was me, my mind would have been worried if I wiped out about that Peaches would find me. They never should have told me about her.

That night the people from the Cay and the boaters all had a bonfire on the beach. We were amazed at the quality of musicians that showed up.  One guy played the violin and guitar and picked up mandolin for the second time and played it like a pro.  There was a husband and wife.  She played guitar and sang with a beautiful soul-filled voice and played the guitar and her husband accompanied her with the harmonica while they other guy added in the violin. There were also two older gentlemen that got up and sang an old sailor song from Greenland.  One of them borrowed a guitar and rocked “House of The Rising Sun”  There was a Canadian Family there with their kids who sang us a song in French. They also lit a chinese paper lantern that went high among the amazing star lit sky.  It was a Magical Night in a Magical Place.

In the morning we start the trek for West End where we will cross back over the Atlantic to the US.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

Unique Random Photo Of The Day:

Found this gem on the edge of the beach.