Friday, September 26, 2014

no bumps, leaving Lady's Island to Church Creek

September 26th. It’s been a couple weeks since the last blog. In that time we have waited, in vain I might add, for a new sprocket for our Auto Pilot. Though the sprocket did not arrive, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Lady’s Island Marina. They have great Wi-Fi, and free cable, nice laundry and showers and one of the shops up stairs is a fabric store Tabby fabric. I also make two trips to Kostal Knitting adding to my pillow stash, collecting many new ideas. We dined at several great restaurants the best was breakfast at Burlap's. They have an excellent meat market… well needless to say we will be back.
We got as much done as possible - time to move north. We need to be in Norfolk before the 9th of October for a family visit.
Tides and Time wait for no one and we have bumped enough bottoms in the ICW that we did not want to get stuck again.
Steve the dock master at Lady’s Island Marina helped toss lines letting the current turn our lady around and off we went at High Tide. The day was over cast but the rain never fell until we dropped anchor in Church Creek 47.9 NM
We had our share of Dolphin siting’s, Big Pink Birds, passing power and sail boats … all in all a nice day even though it was a gray day.
Dolphin family playing in Factory Creek


New scarf finished for Christmas stash

sunrise

low tide at the marina



this was a sign in Burlap's  Restaurant. 

the sign says no shell fishing , do you think the bird can read


Pair of Eagles


This is the first time we were worried about hitting bottom not the
top. Cleared both top and bottom with room to spare

rain on the horizon, but calm waters


Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Part two of our Northern trek to South Carolina

Here are a few more photographs from our adventure. We are here until Monday then on ward and up ward.
You will notice the distinct tilt ... I am on the high side of the
boat the horizon is level, the storm is coming ...
 this is a bummer

I did finish this small lap blanket, washed and let dry is the
stiff wind while we waited

It was a hard day for both captain and crew 9/9
out in the Atlantic too rollie for much cooking
Mac and cheese and Hot dogs,

This bug, does not bite but it is pestie and they just kept bothering
us 

yep we were leaning a lot

this is the full moon on 9/9 out in the North Atlantic
( since we are further than the 3 mile limit the maps say
we are in the North Atlantic. Sounds adventurous) 

Sun rise on 9/10  I love that spotlight of sun

We passed Paris Island where the Marines Train.


notice the birds on the sign

Lady's Island swing Bridge



view from our boat at Lady's Island Marina 

South Carolina at Last... this will take two blog pages

Hello from South Carolina
We are approximately 536 NM (as the crow flies) from Norfolk and taking a break, catching some mail, restocking the shelves and planning our next move. Lady’s Island Marina is a pleasant small marina on a small Sea Island. It is connected to Beaufort by a swing bridge.

(The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Southeastern Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States. Numbering over 100, they are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of the US states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.)

Last night we were swaying side to side in the North Atlantic off the Port Royal Sound inlet. We arrived after sunset, dropped anchor in the dark North Atlantic, still 5 miles from shore. Around 11 PM we had a good soaking rain come through which tamped down the exuberant rolling waves, and I finally drifted off to sleep. Around 1 PM the full Super moon shone through the clouds and my hatch. I went outside and saw an eerie site. The ocean was still, lit in suffused cloud moonlight, silent, horizon merging water and sky.   The stillness did not last long 3 AM had us pitching instead of rolling and by 7 AM we were glad to be off the hook and on our way.

***When the moon turns full on Monday, Sept. 8 at 9:38 p.m. EDT, it not only will become the last super moon of the summer, but also this year's Harvest Moon -- which is a full For several nights around the time of the Harvest Moon, the moon rises around the same time that the sun sets, giving the moon a reddened, swollen, pumpkin-like appearance. According to NASA, the name comes from the days before the invention of the light bulb, when moonlight helped farmers reap their crops at this time of year.
On average, the moon usually rises about 50 minutes later than it did the day before, but in the days around the autumnal equinox, that difference decreases to about 30 minutes each night.
9/8--We left Jekyll Island at high tide-- a Full Super Moon exceptionally high tide. Our first challenge was the bridge, all ICW fixed bridges are supposed to have a 65’ clearance but we are finding that is not the case. We have twanged our antenna once and really did not want to knock anything loose. Everyone on the dock watched waiting for us to hit, but we slid on through no problem.
Along with a super high tide there is a low tide and we soon found navigating in the Mackay River a challenge. Where the charts showed 10’ we quickly realized we had 5’. We draw 5’6” so this was a problem. We eventually bumped and bumped hard. We still had 2 hours of low tidebefore it would turn and eventually float us free.  Another sailing vessel going south commiserated with us, saying further north he went over a lot of “skinny water”. He rounded a bend we had traversed and was stuck fast. To add misery we had one heck of a storm growling all around us. We finally floated free, moved off in too deep water and dropped anchor. There were no boats, no lights, and no houses anywhere around us….
UNTIL 1 AM a full moon shone through the hatches and a bright light was fast approaching. A tug pushing a big barge. We had no time to react, the barge went on around us…We eventually got back to sleep, waking to find gray skies but good conditions to move outside and not have to deal with the vagaries of the ICW and super tides.
We had a challenge getting out to deep water, motoring well pass the 3 mile limit. A few shrimp boats passed us buy, one good rain shower washed our decks, but there was not enough wind to sail, so we motored the 60+ miles and a glorious sunset.
Finally in SC
Leaving Jekyll Island




I love seeing all the birds sharing a sand bar

Pelican keeping watch on a range 


Bridge over Brunswick River



we could hear the thunder and just sit  watching this storm approach

Morning on 9/10 still clouds but we are headed out to sea


now this is a super tide, this pole should be 8'above water at high
tide 


Out in the North Atlantic, 5+ miles from shore, we are going
to get wet




can't beat this sunset

Sunday, September 7, 2014

We are in Georgia --- Yeah

After a pleasant two day stay at Beach Marina we had to head on out. Georgia was so close and we still wanted to go outside.  Whoever is in charge of the weather is just not cooperating. While the sky this morning looking little promising it quickly became obvious: it was going to rain and rain all day.
I brought Tom his foul weather gear and ducked below. I did make him a hot lunch, and came up to give him a couple of breaks. We crossed the Cumberland Sound into the St. Mary's Channel Range. There are the marsh grass islands with birds hunkered down against the weather. Waters were a little choppy but nothing compared to the 3 to 5' readings on the buoys out in the Atlantic. I only caught rain spattered glimpse of the Cumberland Island National Seashore. We past the Kings Bay Submarine base with the patrol boats watching as to motored in our assigned channel.
The rain became spits but the wind picked up as we came to our berth for the night. No drama Cool Hand Too came in and we were soon tied for the night. More rain in the forecast tomorrow, maybe we will stay and see the turtle house again. 
684.5 miles to go
leaving Beach Marina

a rainbow to start the day







Some brave day sailors


This green marker buoy should be about 50' out in the water ???

This really is buried in sand . it is an abandoned lighthouse on the northern end of
Little Cumberland Island 
finished my sweater tank top

Tied in for the night at Jekyll Marina

Steak, potatoes, rice pudding with blackberries
Happy Captain