Chesapeake - Baltimore

Gus & Jo Elizabeth City NC

Brown water (Tonic Acid)

Dismal swamp (algae)

Norfolk ships

Winds howling at 5:30am 23.5 knts

Waves hitting boat at 5:30

Breakers coming in at 5:30am

Lighthouse Cove Point Chesapeake

There is a saying that most Chesapeake and ICW sailors have experienced going aground, the others eventually will..... well more on this later.
We traveled 250 miles this week starting from Elizabeth City , Dismal Swamp, Norfolk, Solamon Islands and now inner harbor Baltimore. We have had extreme weather all week with several violent storms, high winds, as well as extreme temperatures in the high 90's - 105 during the day and dropping to a cool 80-85 in the evening.
We have had little trouble with the boat except I continue to add about 6-8 oz of engine coolant before I leave each morning; We have been fortunate heading north up the Chesapeake as we have had south west winds allowing us to keep the sails up most of the day. We have been sailing in the deeper water allowing us to stay away from the crab pots that seem to like 10-15' water.

Dismal Swamp was full of biting flies and the water was covered with algae. If we come back through the ICW in the late spring/summer again, I recommend taking the Virginia Cut and avid these nasty pests.
The battleships in Portsmouth and Norfolk harbors are huge and intimidating. Navy police kept you well away from them.

Well our luck finally ran out  having been hit by 2 storms and one grounding.
NOAA the weather system we monitored forecasted a bad system coming in on Father's day weekend. We managed to have a good day getting through Norfolk on the Saturday. We had to get through a few regatta's that were dead in the water due to no wind. Norfolk and the Chesapeake are  so active with freighter and barge traffic, you have to be observant.
We knew the storm was moving fast and we tried to get to a safe anchorage we used before. I second guessed myself and moved to a river a few miles up the bay. I ended up in the channel I thought I was going to, I took a wide turn round one of the markers and ended up on a sandbar. It was an hour before low tide,  no matter what I tried I could not get the boat off the should. We had to wait until 11pm when high tide was due and I thought that as the rise was 2 feet, I should have little problem getting off.
We got hit with worst storm we have ever ben through on water. Weather station warned of potential Tornado's , hail, wind gusts 80, the sky was green and wind starts to howl , waves and rain were breaking over the boat. As the boat started to bounce off the bottom and list a bit, the wind increased to over 60 knots, rain was coming sideways and there wasn't a thing we could do. Prior this we were smart enough to contact the Coast Guard and advise them of our situation. Rain gear and lifejackets were on,
This storm lasted about 20 minutes and usually winds die down a short while later. Not this time ... winds stayed at about 20 knots all night and the waves of 1-2' were constant. As the tide rose we tried to get off the sandbar about 10pm, but to no avail. The strong winds and waves would not allow the bow of the boat to turn in the wind. We know the winds and waves had pushed us from our previous position but did not realize it pushed us over another sandbar,
Coast Guard remained in touch with us and we arranged with Boat US to come and tow us out next day.
That was one bad night, the winds and waves kept hitting us broadside, the boat started to bounce off the sandbar and about every minute or so, you would hear one crack or bang as the boat hit bottom,,, a sound that we can equate to a dentist drilling  a cavity or fingernails on chalkboard... they just made you shutter. Jo slept in her lifejacket and I tried to sleep on the floor of the cabin but don't recall getting much. About 3:30, I put together and emergency kit of documents, etc, should we have to vacate the boat. Funny what anxiety and lack of sleep will do, so I am unsure if this was real or my rationalization of the situation.
Well winds finally dropped from 20 to about 10 around 9am, Boat US would be here around noon, an hour before high tide.
It took Boat US , 45 minutes to drag us over the 2 sandbars. No way we would be able to do it our self.
As I turns out, the boat is  pretty solid. I dove on the rudder and keel later in the day to see damage, other than anti-foul paint off. I started to feel a bit better and looked forward to a good night sleep.
I'd be remiss to comment that Jo was tremendous through this and took things in her stride like the champion she is. She really is the"Ying" to my "yang" more than I give her credit for.

Well the next 2 days went well. Yesterday we had a small craft advisory and we wanted to get to Baltimore. We left about 45 minutes earlier than usual as we wanted to get about 60 miles. As it was wind and waves and current were in our favor. We actually got into Baltimore around 4pm and we had picked out an anchorage. Took a few times, but anchor finally set. We had out run the storm that had been announced on the radio for the past 2 hours, We watched the storm blow through to the north. Not 30 minutes later it came back and hit us . It took only 3-4 minutes for the anchor to let go and in the driving rain and winds we quickly got the anchor up and boat out into the deeper channel. Although the winds were not as high as the other night, 30 plus is nothing to sneeze at. It was hard to see and keep the boat in the wind. A couple of guys on the dock saw our predicament and motioned us into their dock. The winds were strong and I could not get the boat close enough to throw them lines. Then the lightning came and they took off.
We put on our lifejacket and safety tethers and tried to anchor in the mid- channel, but this proved fruitless. After about 30 minutes, the storm and the lightning, rain and winds started to reside. Well any port in a storm, we managed to dock at a gas bar round 7pm, an hour and a half later, drenched.
We were safe and staying put for the night. We will deal with owner in the morning. We changed and straightened up the boat. This is when we realized we forgot to close the aft cabin window and the bedding got a bit wet. All you could do is laugh. We dried it up same we did last time, and all was in order by 10pm.
The silver lining in this story is that the storm broke the humidity. We actually had to throw a  sheet on the bed last night as temperature dropped below 70.
We left the gas dock at 6:30am the next morning and anchored out until 10am when w could get into our slip which we reserved for the next 2 days.

Baltimore from Federal Hill

USS Constellation

Submarine USS Torso Baltimore Harbour

Baltimore

Charleston, SC -Elizabeth City, NC

Charleston, SC – Elizabeth City, NC – June 10-17

Well we did over 400 miles since last blog, which included, stop overs in Charleston, Oriental, NC & I am writing this from the friendliest  city in the south Elizabeth, NC.

Although we traveled a lot, we did it to stay cool as we have been in the middle of a 6 day heat wave. Excessive heat in 90’s and it has broken 100 a couple of times if you include the heat index. The evenings are no treat as often the wind has died, leaving the cabin like a sauna. We got a bit of relief last night as it was cool enough to sleep back in the aft cabin. We continue to have some fierce storms and lightning around us, but we have lucked out much of the time. We haven’t, however, lucked out with some heavy winds, that hits randomly at times.

We have jumped in the water a few times to cool off at the end of the day, but with the water at 83 degrees, not a lot of relief.

We have been anchoring in strong currents at times and as much as we think we know about how to do it, the current throws a strange twist, or the winds oppose the tide and current flow, creating a choppy sea and hence a bouncy boat. Go figure, how can the boat point in the opposite direction of where the anchor is or how can the boat swing on the anchor for 2 hours straight, first going 360 degree in one direction, then followed by a couple of 360 degree turns in the other. Needless to say the anchor has been holding, so we must be doing something right.

There have been a series of shark bites through the areas we travel. The locals have little concern for these creatures or at least they don’t allow them to interfere with their water activities.

The water in a lot of this area is the colour of root beer (brown) caused by tannic acid (decay of plant/leaves etc.) in the water and the consistent ocean going on of currents and tides. The farther we are north, the less we see dolphins and pelicans, but we have noticed a lot more rays.

We had a good stopover in Swansboro, NC, just south of Beaufort and another 1 day stay in Oriental, NC were we had to do some provisioning.

For the last 6 days we have experienced a significant loss of engine coolant. Funny thing, I can’t see any evidence of it in the bilge. I suspected the heat exchanger, and today when temps were high 90’s I did the foolish thing of taking the HX out, draining the coolant, cleaning out the tubes with some CLR and removing quite a lot of debris from the sea water, putting the HX back on, then purging the air from the system. A local mechanic came down and pressure tested the system, and said everything appears fine, Funny thing is that I only lose coolant, when the engine is not running. I am adding 6-8 oz. coolant per day. They are now suspecting head or block gaskets. They gave me some things to look for, so we aim to continue on tomorrow, doing what we have for the past several days… topping off the coolant each morning and diligently looking for leaks, and regular other maintenance.

One of the days during this week we managed 80 miles in 13 hours, which included crossing   Albemarle Sound and Neuse River,2 large expansive body of waters.

I would be remiss to comment on the hospitality in Elizabeth City. On our journey down last October, I talked about a few characters of the official welcoming committee. Well they were here when we came in, and after a few minutes they recalled who we were and we picked up where things were left in October. Gus a 80 year old sailor and southerner and the guy with his monkey.

Well we have been driven inside the cabin by the mosquitos and flies,, sucks to be in a 90 degree boat with no wind,, but as I learned long ago, I don’t expect any sympathy. Cheers

Church in Charleston

Waterfront Home

Boat sitting in marina in front of Charleston Bridge

Mansion Myrtle Beach

 

Shrimpers Beaufort, NC

Barge Cape Fear River 1-2' chop on water

                                                     Snows Cut near Carolina State Park

CHARLESTON,SC. June -15

Well I'm blogging while it's free. Arrived In Charlestown, but no mooring available at City marina. We took a single night at The Marine Centre where we stayed last time. We got propane, did laundry, shopping, cleaned boat and stretched after being off land for 6 days.
Since St Augustine, we anchored at Fernandina Beach, Darien River, Isle of Hope, Paris Island, Church Creek .
The magenta line on our electronic charts disappeared and I made a wrong turn one day. This cost us almost 3 hours of progress that day. To further make a bad day get worse, we got hit by a thunderstorm. It only lasted 25 minutes, but the winds hit 30 knots consistent with gusts to 45 and the rain was coming sideways, waves built to about a foot and half in no time at all. We both got drenched,  but as expected it blew through very quickly. We battened very thing down, but we forgot the aft cabin window. Our bed got a bit wet. Once w anchored we were able to dry it out fairly well by opening up the engine well and the built up engine heat was able to dry out the mattress. After 4 hours we were back in shape.
Our days are pretty routine , we usually depart by 7:30 am and go for 8-10 hours. WE have been fortunate that the winds tend to die down at night and the current although around knots doesn't affect us much. Although we have had storms around us most days , other than the on I mentioned above, w have ben dry and lucky
Well that's it for now, here are some new pics

Dolphin

sunset

On of many Bascule bridges

St Augustine

 St Augustine

St  Augustine

 St Augustine

 St Augustine

 Dolphin

JOURNEY HOME - May 2015

Well after 10 weeks in Barrie (home) returning March 4, we have come back to Florida to bring the boat home.  We flew back on May 20, to Lauderdale, where we rented a car for the week . Fortunately we had no problem with US Customs and Immigration and the 180 day rule.
We were fortunate that the boat was relatively clean and not infested with bugs, rodents and /or mold and mildew. There was not a lot of staining from th burning of sugar cane that takes place only a few miles down the road. It was, however, extremely hot ad humid when we got here and has continued for the last few weeks. 90 plus , living on a boat with little ventilation in the evening, is something neither of us enjoyed.
We had the boat moved out of storage to the work yard so we could get the hull painted as well as some other things to prepare for the trip home. The hull's anti foul paint was following off, so we decided to just scale as much as we could off and reapply some new bottom paint, in anticipation that it would stay on until we got the boat home and we could do a complete hull job.   As well we had to replace the raw water through hull, something unexpected and costly.
We didn't get out of Indiantown for under $1600 this time. This covered the 10 week storage, the through hull, hauling, blocking , moving the boat and launching it.
The boat was launched May 26 and we took an extra day to make sure all the systems worked and again took the time to test the new transmission that was put in a few months ago.
We set out on may 28 and headed up the St Lucie canal to Stuart where we anchored out for the night. All systems worked well, except a small electrical glitch in the control panel. This did not affect the operation of the boat. Next day we headed north up the ICW to Vero Beach, where we fueled up and did some late minute provisioning..
Next day we anchored at Cape Canaveral, then Daytona Beach, St Augustine, (2 days) , Fernandina Beach,
We are presently in Georgia, 50 miles from Beaufort and about 115 miles from Charleston, SC, where we hope to be on Monday.
Again no real issues with the boat, other than the electric glitch, which I believe to be my engine hour meter,, an older analog unit, that may be drawing a bit to much power at times. I'll kept an eye on it.
New tyranny is working well and I am getting almost 10 miles per gal when we are going. We have been motor sailing a lot as the winds have been out of the east, which is great for us.
The ICW has been exciting as we have seen hundreds of dolphins, rays, herons, osprey, fish, pelicans a few gators... but no sharks. There were a few reported shark bites in areas we had just passed through this weekend.. we know they are there.
The only negatives at this time would be the oppressive heat and humidity at times, particularly at night. We have had a few nights of being bitten alive by the tiny "no-see-umps" (mosquito like insects, fly etc.) but you take the bad with the  good.  The other thing that we have to pay attention to are the violent storms and tornados that have been passing through. They come and go daily, We had one when we were working on the boat in the yard, violent rain, winds and hail . Daily on the water we hear of them in various parts of the state, we have seen them all around us, lightning and thunder a few  miles from us,  several times we have battened everything down and donned our rain gear in anticipation. Twice we have been fortunate to get into port or an anchorage before they hit. It is now hurricane season as well, so the fun keeps going and going.
Logistically we have traveled 420 miles, have encountered tides up to 8', battled currents 2-3 knots, 8-10 hour days averaging 50-65 mils per day, winds have been pretty strong . Some of the days have ben tedious, but mostly they have been great
I forgot to mention that we spent a day and a half in St Augustine... one nice city, with a huge Spanish architectural influence. Fountain of Youth and Ponca de Leon... dig out your history books. I haven't downloaded my pictures from the camera , yet so I'll put them in my next blog.
Well that's it for now. Here are a few pics to enjoy

Before

Check this old MacDonald sign (zoom in)

After

Hobe Sound beach

 Boat launch

Cape Canaveral