Heading North

Leaving Vero Beach at Sunrise

We ended up staying four nights in Vero Beach because we heard from Dave and Toni that they would be there Wednesday.  Then we stayed an extra day because Al was having the light for the bow that he ordered, sent to St. Augustine Municipal Marina and that it would not get there until Monday, so why leave “Velcro” Beach with free bus service to almost any type of store you want and to the beach as well.

We left Friday and had a terrific sail up the inter-coastal waterway which you don’t get too often.  We made it to Titusville where we anchored for the night.  The next day we did some motor sailing up to Daytona where it blew a good 25 knots for a while but then settled down for the night.  We then motored to St. Augustine where I made the 5pm mass at the Basilica of St. Augustine which is a beautiful old church with a lot of history.

The next day we went into the dock to fuel up, get water and to hose down the boat.  It was the first time we hosed the boat since leaving Nassau in December.  We did have two good rains that helped clean the boat, but nothing is as good as a hose down.  

Cannon

Afterwards we decided to do the tourist thing and go tour the fort, Castillode San Marcos.  It was our lucky day because this was the week that all National Parks were open free to the public.  It was interesting to see how they built such a strong fort and how they lived there to defend our country. Also I found the decorative touches to the cannons thought provoking.  Like why make them fancy? There were some great views from the top of the fort as well.  We left at sunrise the next day and got another beautiful sight looking similar to our sunset at Great Sale Cay.

Sunrise leaving St.Augustine

Our next destination ended up being Cumberland Island.  We had been doing some long days because we thought we might like to take a good weather window to go out in the ocean from there to Charleston, thus by-passing the twisting inter-coastal waterway in the buggy marshes of Georgia.  That is what we ended up doing after countless hours checking the weather from all the sources we could use, television, internet, and NOAA weather.  There was a 20% chance of thundershowers when we neared Charleston but luckily it never happened.  The winds were in the 7-9 knot range from the south, but wasn’t enough to keep us going at 6 knots so we motored sailed.  We saw some interesting sights along the way.  One area of the ocean was just covered with the round jelly fish with a brown ring.  Another area had groups of skates just floating below the surface, almost like they were sunning themselves. 

Three dolphins playing beside our boat

 But the most fun were the dolphins that came and played next to both sides of the boat around dusk.  We never have had so many at once.  We saw at least six on one side and four on the other rolling up next to the cockpit.  It is so much fun watching them and “trying” to photograph them.  It seems all I can ever get are their backs and fins.  This was one of my better shots.

These long days on the ICW and mild sailing in the ocean have given me an opportunity to get some rug hooking done on my Halloween rug.  My witch has been a lot of fun to do after the repetitive geometric I completed earlier on this trip.

We made it into Charleston inlet around 8:30 in the morning and headed to Isle of Palm marina to visit with some friends.  Al slept to mid afternoon since he was up almost all night, while our friends took me to replenish produce and milk.  The predicted thunder storm did finally arrive but while we were having dinner with our friends safe in their home!  We had a pleasant visit with our past neighbors and moved out the next day to continue our trek north.  We motored from Isle of Palm and spent 6 hours in the ICW in rain, with the radar swinging, and the six mile band of showers followed us the whole time. The only change was regular rain, or downpour!  We are in Georgetown, SC to enjoy the town and attend church on Easter.