11/19/2008 Savannah, GA to St Augustine, FL

11/10/2008 I left Savannah after the nice stay there. I was rushed off of the City Dock as they had some sort of cruise ship coming in that evening. Of the four boats tied up on the dock, two decided to pay the high rate at the hotel dock (3.00 ft/night) and two us headed down the river to find a place to anchor for the night before working our way south. I ducked in behind an island that primary use was an import station for natural gas. This worked out good for me as it gave me a head start for the next day.

11/11/2008 I was hoping to use the back side of the island to short cut my way onto the ICW, but there was a bridge, so I had to go the whole way around the island and back onto the ICW. I had two bridges that lifted on request other than high road traffic times. It was nice to keep moving and have the bridge lift just as you arrived instead of waiting sometimes for almost 30 minutes. As I was traveling down this passage I found out where all of the cruisers stay in marinas when stopping in Savannah. It was on the backside of Savannah on the ICW. It would have been a bus ride, but lower cost to stay and more mariner friendly. Here is a picture of some of the big boats in one of the marinas.

Late in the afternoon I came across another “Hell’s Gate”. The first one was an area on the East River in NYC that had a junction with the Harlem River. The counter currents I assume could make it a difficult place to transit, but as I was traveling with the tides then, I never had an issue. This time it was a cut between two rivers and it had a lot of shoaling, or a moving bottom that made it difficult for the authorities to place channel markers for clear passage. I hit this area towards a low tide and was told that some areas could be a foot deep. There was a monohull that stood off for awhile until I passed through. I took good old time going through as I was basically following my depth sounder to weave my way through the channel. I finally made it through without a bump, but the heart was pounding.

That day I made it to Walburg Creek for the night. As I was coming into the creek I was met by a large pod (12-15) of dolphins swimming all around. Good way to finish up a day of boating. I dropped the hook in a protected corner of the creek behind the grass.

11/12/2008 I woke up to a start this morning. I went to bed last night believing I was sitting in a well protected area due to the ground and grass that protected me from the wind and wave action to wake up after a rising tide to only having the grass tips above the water.

I decided to take it easy today and move slowly. I did some work around the boat and cooked up a pot of chili for dinner. I figured if I had a pot of something for dinner I would find someone to share it with. I finally took off around 1:00 in the afternoon that day with expecting to make a short day of it. As I was leaving there were a couple of catamarans motoring down the ICW ahead of me. One of them peeled off and headed north up a river and I did catch the second one. We started talking on the VHF radio and decided to anchor up in the same area and they would love to join me for some chili.

The couple I was talking with is Richard and Jetti aboard Bombay Duck. Richard is English and Jetti is an American. I offered to come over and pick them up using my dinghy as there was a good current running through the creek we were in. For the first time I could not get the engine running by the third pull, or the thirtieth pull. I worked in the dark and after cleaning the spark plugs, I was able to get it started and made it over to pick them up. Jetti said that she was feeling like a high school girl that was going to get stood up, but they appreciated my persistence in getting the engine started.

I had the chili warming up and ready to eat when they arrived. I never thought about the spice I put in the chili and I did not think I put much in, but I make sure my chili doesn’t taste like spaghetti sauce. Richard being English and doesn’t eat much spicy food started to sweat. I could see the beads running down his forehead. Jetti loved it as she usually can’t use much spice in anything do to his delicate taste buds. We had a good time talking about our adventures so far coming down the ICW.

11/13/2008 This morning I took off around 7:00AM. It was my first time navigating in fog. It was thick as pea soup. I could not see 50 feet in front of me. I used radar, gps and the chart plotter to determine where I was. It was the hardest navigation I ever did as there was no wave action, no wind and no ability to see navigation marks or the shore line. It was real easy to get disoriented. I zig-zagged down the channel. I did decide to use the auto-pilot and that worked out a lot better. All of you airplane pilots would understand this as I basically needed to travel and trust my instruments.

The fog started lifting around 9:00 and did clear up nicely. The weather was beautiful after this and it warmed up to 80 degrees. I was able to put the sleeping bag away and sleep with the hatches open for the first time since about Labor Day. I made it to Jekyll Island, GA that night. Jekyll Island was a club used by the tycoons of the late 19th century as a winter retreat. Many or the “cottages” are still there. The state bought most of the island to keep it in a nice retreat area for all to join in. Bombay made it to Jekyll Island also. I spent sometime with them after they anchored and found out what Richard did that he could work from his boat. He is catamaran designer that specializes in designing catamarans that can be built by the do-it-yourselfer. It turns out that Bombay Duck is one of his designs that he bought from the second owner. You can find more information about him and his designs at http://www.sailingcatamarans.com/.

11/14-15 I decided to stay at the island for a couple of days. The first day was fuel day. I rode my bike to the north part of the island to a campground to fill a propane tank that was a 10 mile round trip carrying a propane tank. Then I made five round trips to a local gas station for gas using my five gallon can. I also moved onto a dock that is used at a boat ramp that was closed for repair.

Day two was to be laundry and sight seeing. I was going to use the marina laundry to get the laundry done, but after checking into it with the marina, I was going to need to pay $20.00 to tie up my dinghy. That was going to make it very expensive laundry so I decided to do bucket laundry. I was able to get my shirts and shorts washed until the weather turned cold and rainy. I decided to take a nap while the rain came in and then going riding around to see the sights. I made it to the museum that was closing in 20 minutes. I did not get to spend much time, but it seems to have a rich history and worth the stop if you are ever in the area.

That day a shrimp boat squeezed into the dock area to drop off some shrimp for a customer. The owner of the boat in front of me, Doc, helped them with moving around some baskets and they gave him 2-3 pounds of shrimp right off of the boat. He brought over boiled shrimp and I provided a salad and some rice. This was the best shrimp I have ever eaten.

11/16 One of the reasons I also stayed at the island for a few days was that the weather was to change from a southerly wind to a westerly. The weather came in just it was forecasted and I took off at 9:30AM with a slack tide. I was able to sail across the sound to the ICW and had a wonderful morning of sailing. I made it across St Mary’s inlet into Florida finally. I saw a couple of interesting animal life activities today. One was the largest flocks of white pelicans I ever saw. The others were dolphins. One was a dolphin chasing a fish. I was able to see both the fish and the dolphin. The dolphin turned quickly and the fish escapade. I then saw the fish jump out of the water the dolphin to go after it again. I wasn’t sure if the dolphin was playing with the fish like a cat would play with a mouse, or if the dolphin could not catch the small fish. The other was a group of dolphins that huddled together and appeared to be wrestling with each other. I did need to motor at that point due to the currents in an out-going tide. I stopped at Ft George River that evening.

11/17 I got up early this morning and motored down the river against the tide. This I had planned as I expected that after I crossed the St Johns River and then get a push from the incoming tide. It worked out as I got a two knot push. I boated into St. Augustine around 1:30PM. St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US. It was founded by the Spanish in 1572. I was also getting prepared for another cold night. They are calling for low temperatures below as expecting to go down to thirty degrees over the next couple of days. While I was traveling down the water way, I saw this helicopter that appeared it was sitting on the power lines at the tower. It turned out that there was a technician on the tower working at the top and this helicopter was assisting. There also was a helper standing on the runner of the helicopter. That would a thrilling job.

11/18 I want to do some sight-seeing here today. I worked around the boat during the early morning and went into the city marina to use the showers and laundry. I was finally able to wrap up the laundry and trying since I was in Savannah. I spent the afternoon walking around town and enjoyed it so much I decided to stay one more day. The buildings around are very interesting. Here are some of the photos of the historical downtown.

11/14/2008 Charleston, SC to Savannah, GA

11/5/2008 We left Charleston at a reasonable time as we could not pass through the local bridge until 9:00AM. We now have my mother on-board for this part of the trip. The morning started out with a real bang to the trip. When her and my father boat, it is her job to be the anchor wench (her term, not mine) and on this trip I have worked the anchor and my dad is steering. Well she came forward to watch and I thought she was watching to see what was done as she might take on the roll of foredeck crew on this trip. We had a first in Charleston because we set two anchors due to the tide and current swings and the close proximity of the boats in the anchorage. I was hoping to first pull up the second anchor, which is using 5/8 inch nylon line as a rode, but that would have entailed pulling the boat against the current so I decided to pull the primary anchor. It started out with the bridle wrapped around the chain. This wrap came from the boat twisting on the anchors due to the wind and currents. I was finally able to clear the bridle and I think this about when my mother went back to the cabin. I was able to bet the primary anchor up and cleared away. That left me with the secondary anchor. I had to guide my dad while he steered to work up towards the anchor for me to raise it. As we kept working towards the anchor, we were getting closer and closer to a permanently anchored house boat with a dinghy tied off of the back of it. I started to worry the anchor would be under this boat and I would not be able to raise it until we had a tide change. We slowly worked closer and closer. I had to allow the dinghy to slide in between the hulls of my boat and we edged right up the transom of the house boat and I was able to lift the anchor out.

This trip I believe also was therapeutic for my mom. She had been fighting a cold and flu for the last three weeks since my dad had left for the trip. On this day, she crawled into the sleeping bag and slept through most of the day.

We motored through the day and tucked up the Bass Creek in Morgan Island. We had a good dinner, played some cards and hung out. We started getting eaten alive by no see-ums. These are small bugs that leave nice little welts. I decided to start up a bug repellent coil to try and flush them out of the boat. Almost as soon as I started the coil we all decided to turn in for the night. I left the coil burning and it did kill off the bugs as we found out the next morning. It also made the boat smell like we had a camp fire on-board. I have never used one of these in an enclosed boat and I don’t expect I will again. It does scare you when you wake up and smell smoke.

11/6/2008 We took off after breakfast and started motoring towards Beaufort. As we left the creek and went into the river came across another pod of porpoises. What we had different this time was one swam with us for about 10 minutes. It would swim up from behind and stayed right off of the steering station and surface with a blow out of the blow hole every 15 seconds or so and then swim to the front of the boat and back again.

We then motored into Beaufort, SC. We stopped for fuel and showers at the city marina and then a good friend of mine from Cisco, Mike Hix. We had a good lunch together and talked about the times we worked together and caught up what is happening since I left the company. I don’t miss it at this time. Mike is also working on restoring a 43’ Chris Craft Motor Yacht. He hopes to get it in the water before the end of the year.

We motored until 6:00pm that night just as the sun was setting. We made it to Skull Creek, SC for the night. My mother went into another role of hers when they are boating and that is cook and dishwasher. She made us a delicious chef salad for dinner. It was a good change as me and my dad had gone into man-food, lots of soups (including ramen noodles), spaghetti, macaroni and cheese and eating out. She ended up cooking most of the meals until they left. It doesn’t take long to fall into a rut without someone to shake it up a little.

11/07/2008 We made it to Georgia. One more day of motoring. We made it to Savannah around 11:30 in the morning. We had not lined up a place to keep the boat as we were hoping to stay on the city dock. The rates for a slip were outrages, $3.00 a foot/night. The city dock was only $1.00 a foot/night, but the whole dock was taken up.

We stopped at the Hyatt and they did have room, but that was $3.00 a foot or over $100.00/night including taxes. I walked down to the city dock to see if the boats could move closer to make room for one more. There wasn’t enough room if they squeezed together, but an Irish gentleman, Desmond, on a trawler said I could raft up with him for the night. We did that and early the next morning, the boat behind him left and we tied up there for the rest of the stay.

We set off to the visitors center and started to get a lay of the town and what we could do while there. There is a nice water front that was built out of the old cotton warehouses along. There are the typical restaurants and gift shops including the candy stores that we frequent regularly.

11/08/2008 We spent the morning cleaning the boat. It was due for a good cleaning and something I need to spend more time with to keep it in good shape. We wrapped that up, got cleaned up and headed off for lunch. We then took a tour bus of the city and were shown around the historic district. The area is larger than Charleston with many more homes and parks. It still amazes me the amount of money that was made in these towns during their hey-days of rice and cotton.

11/09/2008 This was the last day for my dad’s trip and my mother heading home with him. We lounged around for the morning and headed off for lunch. My dad went back to the boat to work on getting a hotel room near the airport lined up for them as they were trying to get out on a 6:00AM flight. My mom and I took off on a walking tour to find the park we saw with a large fountain for pictures. We made it back to the boat and they packed up for the trip home. We had a light dinner out and then they were off by taxi to the hotel.

Epilogue: I am finishing up another leg in the journey. This was the last three weeks traveling with my dad. I was caught one day surprised about this leg. It was how I was taking this for granted. I am thankful that I have a great relationship with my dad, he is alive and willing to join me for my adventure. After I thought about it, I am aware of many men who will or would never have this chance due to any of the three reasons I listed above. This was a tough journey mainly due to the cold weather. We both endured, made adjustments (by buying a propane heater, tying up in marinas or docks, adding clothing, digging out sleeping bags, etc.) and found times to laugh about it and realize we did do it and not quit. There was times we needed to be patient with each other and I credit my dad for being much better at it than I, as he has been, and something I strive for. I am also thankful that my mom was able to join us for the last part of the trip. She brings a different atmosphere to the boat, we had fun together and she is now able to better prepare for when they join me for three weeks in the Bahamas.

Thank you Dad and Mom for all of your support of this adventure
Bill

11/06/2008 Morehead City, NC to Charleston, SC

10/29/2008 We left with another sunrise. This time there was frost on the coach house roof. Air temperature was 36 degrees and I am sure the wind chill was below 30. I did expect a little bit of cold, but we have had cold almost everyday since my dad has arrived. He is holding up well but a lack of sleep for both of us is catching up.

We did stay in the anchorage during Wednesday waiting for the winds to change. While we were waiting I ran into the local town and picked up oil and filters for the engines and we changed out the oil. We also worked on the vents for the fuel tanks. They all seem to be working as best as possible. When I was in Annapolis I did drill some holes in the fuel filler tubes in the tank and that did seem to work better when filling the tanks from a pump. I have decided to leave well enough alone at this time.

The day wait paid off well. The winds did clock around from the west to the north as predicted and that allowed us to sail almost the whole day with 10+ knots of wind on the beam. We saw very few boats on the ICW today. We were passed by a power cruiser and a sailboat that was motoring. That was about it, except for the fishermen in their hunting gear trying to enjoy themselves in the cold. I guess a cold day of fishing is better than work any day.

The sights for the day were plenty of porpoises, a draw bridge and swing bridge that we needed to wait for and traveling through the gunnery range of Camp Lejune, the Marine boot camp. I saw all kinds of porpoises today in pods of 2-4 or more. Early this morning we had a couple of them jumping out of the water in their graceful arcs. That is something new for me to see in the wild.

There are not many anchorages along this area of the ICW. We are anchored in an exposed side creek for the night. Tomorrow we will take off early again and we expect to make it into Wrightsville, NC.

10/31 What a difference a day makes. As the day went on the temperatures worked their way into the high sixties. All is better in the world. We had a light air day with us motor-sailing, mostly motoring. We made our way through Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and onto Southport. We had swift currents that always seemed to be against us, but we plowed on. We saw many porpoises today and the water was clear enough that we could see them swimming under the boat along the bow.

We stayed in the Bald Head Island Marina and Bald Head Island. This located right at Cape Fear. I would call this a well designed, gated community. There is no gate though as the only way onto the island is via the ferry or personal watercraft. After the many cold days and nights, we needed to stop at a place to tie up, walk about and get hot showers. We also did all of the laundry.

11/1 November is here. We left at our normal time of 0700. We decided to take the sort cut to Charleston, SC via the Atlantic Ocean. We should arrive late Sunday morning. We can do this in a little over a day versus three days on the ICW.

NOAA was calling for light airs in the 5 MPH range when we left. As soon as we made it out of the harbor, we set the main and jib sails. After we cleared the channel and the drag of the current from the incoming tide, I set the spinnaker also. We sailed double-slotted (spinnaker and jib, along with the main for a good two hours and then the wind started to shift more behind and I rolled up the jib.

The boat loves this water. She has been galloping along with no problems all day. The water is so beautiful also. It is the clearest and bluest water I have seen on this trip saw far. We ended up sailing with the spinnaker until around 4:00 in the afternoon as the wind kept shifting more off the rear of the boat and I went to using the jib and main wing-on-wing. We did this until the wind died around midnight. We then went to motor mode for the next four hours until the wind picked up again and we sailed into Charleston Harbor at 7:00AM.

It was fantastic night with clear weather. I was using the Milky Way as a runway and the moon as a beacon to sail towards. The moon was directly on my nose and causing a bright shimmer on the ocean. Mt dad had a great time with the all night sailing and it was much easier for me having a second person to sail with. We did a tow hour shift which allowed enough toe for me to get some sleep.

As we came into the harbor we sailed past Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter was where the first shots of our American Civil War started back in 1861. After we made it into the harbor, we headed off of the channel and found a place to anchor and hit the sack for a few hours. We hung out for most of the day there as I looked into the different marinas in the area. There is a shortage of docks and the prices showed it.

We decided to anchor just down river of the City Marina with it’s Megadock and beautiful “mega” yachts. After we dropped the anchor I looked over and saw a little sailing cruiser and it had the name of Varuna on it. The next morning I was talking with the captain and asked him what his boat was. It is a Contessa 26. If you are a fan of mine of Tania Abei you will recognize that as the boat she used to sail around the world that she documented in her novel Maiden Voyage. This boat, it's captain and the stories that came about are probably the biggest inspiration I had to attempt a trip like this. He is the second owner of the boat after Tania sold it and he was heading to the Bahamas.

11/3 We spent the day getting the feel for the area as we expected to spend a couple of days here. I was told this is a nice place to visit as we are traveling down the coast. We were also waiting to see if my mother could make it in to finish this part of the trip with us. She is to fly in on stand-by tickets and it is touch and go.

I introduced my dad to cruisers transportation, walking and public transportation. The last time I traveled with him was to San Diego a few years ago and he had a real hard time walking. He has bad knees from working and he also smoked for most of his life. I was pleasantly surprised as he was able to keep up with me as we walked. We found a bus stop and from there we were able to piece together the bus transportation in Charleston.

We made it over to the visitors center and found information about tours and activities in town. As I mentioned earlier, this was where the Civil War started. It was also the Silicon Valley of its time when it came to wealth. The money made here was in rice and cotton from pre-Revolutionary days. We decided to take a duel trip on Tuesday that included a guided bus tour of the city and a boat trip out to Fort Sumter. After we cleared that up it was grocery shopping time and back to the boat for the evening.

11/4 We needed to get moving early today to make it on the tours. As we made it on the bus this morning we had one of the friendly bus drivers we had yesterday. She said she wished she new we would be back, as we could have brought here a cup of coffee from the marina as she loves the taste. As we went along we got into a political/economical discussion and she share with us how hard it is to keep afloat. I do feel for her and others as I am so blessed to be able to do this trip. Today is the big day for the election.

We made it to our tour and had a great time. The tour guide showed us around town including the many homes of the era, how the town was expanded, the street layout, etc. He was very informative and made it a great time. After the hey-day for this town, it went into a deep depression that lasted for many years. It started after the Civil War and went into the 1900s. There was a couple of hurricanes in the early 1880s, then a massive earthquake in 1886. Then the next time for recovery was coming in the 1920s, they had to deal with the stock market crash. It is a vibrate city now a days and appears to have a growing downtown area again. He then dropped us at the City Aquarium and we caught the ferry to Fort Sumter. We had a positive attitude to the weather when we left the boat in shorts. Not too good of an idea today on the water. The wind was blowing pretty good and the air was chilly. Since today was election day and the weather wasn’t too good, there was a small group of people on the trip. We were able to have a park ranger give us a nice tour of the Fort and explain what happened during the sieges on the fort during the Civil War and what was done to it for WW II. The second picture shows some cannons and a fort wall. Two thirds of the wall height had been blown off during the sieges of the Civil War. It was well worth the trip and the $30.00 cost for both tours.

After lunch we made caught another bus and made our trip to West Marine. The most shopped at store other than groceries and it is like I can’t pass a town if they have a West Marine. I needed to pick up my last set of charts to get me to Key West. After that we headed back to the boat and settled it. We still weren’t sure if my mother was going to make it as she was stuck in Chicago waiting for a connection.

We spent the evening watching the election results. For us it was exciting to watch the results as it was a blow out, so not much stress over the results like we have had in the last two elections and we were both rooting for Obama. I really hope he can bring a positive attitude to the majority of our country and work with our congress and businesses to make it a better place to live for people like the bus driver we had this morning.

I received a call from my mother at 10:30 that she was in a shuttle bus and would be at the docks in 15 minutes. She made it and off I went to pick her up. It turned out to be a perfect day.