North Carolina to Florida

We left Oriental on Sunday  November 5th after getting our transducer replaced.  We crossed the southern part of Pamlico sound and went into Adams Creek.  Adams Creek is a really nice stretch to get us down to Morehead City.  The weather was not all that nice out in the ocean so we continued down the ICW to Swansboro.  We were able to motor sail with 20-25 knots of wind on our starboard beam.  There we stayed overnight at Caspers Marina.

The next morning we left at 0625 with four huge power boats.  We had four bridges that we needed openings and two of them opened only on the hour.  If you get there even a minute or so late they won't open for you and you end up waiting until the next hour opening.  We lucked out and had the current with us the entire run of 45 miles.  We got to  all the bridges with minutes to spare. 

We stayed in Wrightville Beach Monday night and on Tuesday morning met for breakfast with Island Packet 35 Island Spirit owners Hayden and Radeen and Island Packet 460 owners Eric and Pat.  Hayden and I have been communicating through email for about eight years and this is the first time we have met in person.

Hayden, Pat, Eric, Radeen, Jeff, Sandy Photo courtesy of Hayden

Xperience IP380, Cutter Loose IP460


After breakfast we continued down the ICW where we anchored at Carolina Beach.  We stayed here for two nights waiting for a weather opportunity to go out into the ocean at the Cape Fear river inlet.  A cold front was about to move through the area so on Thursday we moved down to the Southport City Marina and get the boat prepared to leave on Friday behind the cold front.  Thursday night the wind came up to 25 MPH with gusts to 35 MPH but was forecast to calm down by Friday late afternoon.

We departed the Southport marina at 1100 on Friday and headed out the Cape Fear inlet.  The wind was blowing 20-25 with some higher gusts from the northwest.  That put the wind on our starboard beam and gave us a really fast ride.  The seas were running from 3-5 feet and were a bit confused so the ride was a little rough.  Clewie did not have a good afternoon as she barfed all over the bed.  Mercedes took it all in stride and rode it out in her kitty cave.

The wind did calm down some around 10 PM, a little later than forecast but we enjoyed the extra push it gave us.  We passed the Charleston, SC inlet outer buoy at 0400 on Saturday morning.  That was 114 miles in 17 hours.

We had to slow down quite a bit on Sunday morning so we could enter the St. Mary's inlet on the Georgia Florida border in daylight.  We stopped at the Fernandina Harbor marina to get some fuel at 0800 and are now tied to a mooring buoy across the ICW from the marina.  We will stay here a couple of nights and then continue down the ICW.  We hope to be at Vero Beach for thanksgiving.

We have moved.

However we are now a little further north.  We left New Bern on Thursday after waiting a couple of hours in the morning for the fog to dissipate.  We couldn't see the channel markers that are about 100 feet off the dock.

Once it did clear out we motored down the Neuse River to Oriental, NC.  We needed to stop at Deaton Yacht Service to do a short haul to replace our Airmar depth tranducer that quit working over the summer.  I had ordered a new one last week and had it shipped directly to Deaton's.  We were out of the water for only a couple of hours to get it replaced. 

We are now sitting and waiting for the rain to pass over.  Also there is forecast to have very high winds and seas for the next two to three days.  Winds to 45 knots and seas running up to 20 feet.  We have no business being out in that.  It looks like we may leave here on Sunday or Monday and head down the intracoastal waterway to Southport and see if we get a good weather window to head out for Florida.  If not we will continue down the intracoastal to either Wynah bay and exit there or go to Charleston and go out there.

Waiting for weather

We are pretty well set to head south.  We are now just waiting for a good weather window.  This weekend there is a strong cold front coming through.  The winds are going to be north, which is good, but could be up to 35 knots, which isn't good.

We have all of our provisions onboard.  All of our bins are full and the freezer is full of meat.  The aft cabin which we call the garage is full of paper products and other dry goods.  We are carrying three five gallon jerry jugs of gasoline and two five gallon jerry jugs of diesel fuel.  The boat has settled down to almost the top of the bottom paint line in the water.  I really wouldn't want to put any more weight on the boat.

We will most likely take the same route we did last year.  Go down the ICW to Southport, NC and then out the Cape Fear river inlet and do a 48 hour run to the St. Mary's inlet at Fernandina Beach, FL.  Once in Florida we will most likely stay in the ICW down to Vero Beach and wait there for a good weather window to cross over to the Bahamas.  We still are not sure of what route we will take to the Bahamas but we would like to go out the  Lake Worth inlet at Palm Beach, FL.

There are about ten other boats here at the marina that are also about ready to head south.  We all meet on the docks in the morning to discuss the weather.  When we are out cruising we live by the weather.

Reprovisioning

We have started the provisioning process for our winter cruise.  We will store about 5-6 months of food and supplies on board.  We have already stored $400 worth of canned goods.  Next we will purchase paper products and dry goods.  After that we will get the drinks, soda pop, wine, juices and powdered drink mixes.  Last we will get the meat products that will go into the freezer.  In all we will spend about $2000 which isn't bad for 5-6 months.  There will be some fresh produce and fruit we will purchase along the way when we can find it.  While in the states that isn't a problem but in the Exumas you just cannot get much good quality produce.

We are still putting the boat back together from when we had taken all of the sails and canvas off because of hurricane Irene.  I have finished the maintenance on the generator and the outboard motor.  We plan to leave New Bern, NC around the end of October or the beginning of November depending on weather.  This year we are going to store our Expedition at a friends house about 2 miles from the marina.  We will come back here next summer at least for awhile.

KF5MMB

Kilo Foxtrot Five Mike Mike Bravo

This is my new HAM radio call sign.  I have been studying this summer to get my HAM radio license.  I passed the technician test in August and passed the general test in September.  I added a Pactor modem to our onboard SSB, Single Side Band, radio so we can now send and receive emails over the HF, high frequency, airwaves and also download more and better weather data.  With the HAM license I can use frequencies that will allow me to do this anywhere in the world.

Hurricane Irene

We weathered the storm at Northwest Creek marina. It is just down the Neuse river from New Bern North Carolina. The marina has a good hurricane plan, that is one reason we decided to spend the summer here.

Xperience had no damage to her. Some boats had minor cosmetic damage and there was some minor dock damage. The biggest headache will be all the cleanup. We drove around the area and there are dozens of trees down just in this neighborhood. Some are on top of homes. Some area have there power back on but not the marina. We most likely won't have power for another 3-4 days. We moved back onto the boat on Sunday. Here we can cook with our propane stove and we have solar panels that can keep our batteries charged to run the refrigeration, lights and pumps. There is fresh water on the docks.

Here is a link to photos taken prior to, during and after the storm.

Hurricane Irene 08/27/2011

Just Hangin'

We are just hanging around and doing some boat work at Northwest Creek marina near New Bern, North Carolina.

We were able to get four coats of Cetol on our exterior teak. We cleaned it up real good and put two coats of Cetol Natural Teak which has a little bit of color in it, and also two coats of the Cetol clear gloss. You wouldn't believe how the salt water corrodes the stainless steel. We used Collinite metal wax to go over all of our stainless steel to bring it back to its shiny glory. It took lots of rags and a couple of toothbrushes to get into all of the little nooks and crannies.

We have met many nice people that have there boats in slips next to us. Some we knew from the Bahamas. There are about 6 couples staying here that we met in the Exumas. A few of them have homes nearby.

We rented a car and drove up to Hampton to pick up our Expedition. It is good to have ground transportation. We have gone around the city of New Bern and are learning where things are, especially the good restaurants. Eventually we will travel out a little further. Next week we plan on going up to Raleigh. It is about a two hour drive from here.

We have several more boat projects to do and we need some more spare parts for the next cruising season so we will be working on that stuff. There is always something to do on the boat.

Now in North Carolina

We departed Fernandina, Florida on Wednesday the 13th of April. We had a good weather window for about 66 hours and it would take us about 50 hours to reach the Southport marina. We knew we could duck into either Charleston or Georgetown if need be.

When we were going out the St. Mary's inlet we saw "Margareta" IP445 with Bill and Margaret heading out also. We met them at Long Island in the Bahamas in January. They are from North Carolina and keep there boat at Northwest Creek Marina. I hailed them on the radio and Bill told me they were going to go in at Charleston. We decided to set up radio contact every three hours for the overnight passage.

Margareta stayed closer to shore and we did the rhumb line route so we were about 20 miles further out to sea. During the night Margareta kept getting further ahead of us. Bill said that they had a two knot current helping with their speed. The first night passage was relatively mild and we had to motor sail most of the way. Margareta passed the Charleston inlet around 6 AM so they decided to continue further up to Georgetown. We passed the inlet around 9 AM. We were right on our scheduled time. We didn't want to get up to the Cape Fear river before daylight the next morning.

The second night out the seas got really sloppy for about 6 hours and it cut our speed way down. We had 2-3 foot waves on the bow. I had checked the weather forecast and it showed that the wind and waves were supposed to back to the southeast later in the day. Sure enough it did and we were back up to our cruising speed with an estimated time to arrive at the Cape Fear river at 5 AM. Sunrise was at 6:48 AM that day so we had to heave to for about an hour and a half to wait for it to get light enough to see the channel buoys. The current was to be slack at 6:58 AM and then start ebbing which would be against. I wanted to get into the inlet as soon as we could. As it turned out the speed of the ebb was faster than us. By the time we got just past Bald Head Island we had a two knot current against us. Also the wind had picked up out of the southest to 15-20 knots.

We were able to reserve a slip at the Southport Marina for a few days. There was some really bad weather with predicted tornadoes heading our way. It did arrive on Saturday night and was as bad as they predicted.

We left Southport on Monday and just went up to Wrightsville Beach. We had a great current going with us and the 27 mile trip only took us a little over 3 hours. We stayed in Wrightsville Beach one night. We left at 6:30AM with a good current and was able to time it so we made all four of the bridge openings between Wrightsville Beach and Swansboro at our planned time. We stayed at Swansboro for one night. Margareta had caught up to us and were tied up at Caspers Marina next to us that night. The next morning we left Swansboro at 6:45 AM and made it up to Whitaker Pointe Marina by 1:30 PM. We stayed there for six nights until we could get in at Deaton's Boat Yard for service. We will stay here until the service items are taken care of and then head up the Neuse River to the Northwest Creek Marina. We will be staying there for an extended period of time. We are going to go up to Hampton, VA to pick up our Expedition and bring it back so we will have ground transportation.

All in all it was a good sailing winter. We saw and experienced a lot of new things and met some wonderful people. It is going to be nice to just sit still for awhile though. I am looking forward to sleeping in and not having to get up at 6:00 AM to listen to the weather every morning. Hey, maybe I will stay up past 9:00 PM now.

Moving north

While at Vero Beach we rented a car and went to Walmart to restock. We also went to the Publix grocery store to get fresh meat and produce. Every Saturday there is a farmers market over by the beach. We went over and bought some grapefruit and oranges and they are excellent.

After being at Vero for a couple of days "Song of Pogo" came in. This is the sailboat with Otis and Marty from Annapolis. We met them last year at the Dismal Swamp Canal visitors center and had been in anchorages and marinas with them all the way to Vero Beach on our way south. They had crossed over to the Bahamas on the same night we did in December. They went and stayed in the Abacos while we went further south. We also ran into "My Time Two" with Charlie onboard. We last saw him at Vero in December. He went to Ft. Myers on the west side of Florida for the winter.

We stayed at Vero Beach for eight nights and then left with "Song of Pogo" heading north. The first night we anchored overnight off the ICW at Eau Gallie. The next morning we left and went up to Titusville. "Song of Pogo" is going to stay at the Titusville marina for a month while Otis and Marty go care for his 91 year old father. We stayed for four nights at the marina to allow a really strong line of storms pass over. One night we had wind gusts to 50 knots with a whole lot of rain which was needed badly in this area. The was the first time we had been in the Titusville marina and it is very nice. There are over 40 manatees that hang out in the marina area. At night you can hear them rubbing up against the hull. We have seen more manatees in the ICW this trip than all of last year.

After the storms passed we left Titusville and headed for St. Augustine. We anchored overnight at Daytona. There is an area off the ICW just west of marker red 44 that shows on the chart at 13-15 feet. In reality it is only 5 - 7 feet. There were quite a few boats there and we were able to find a spot in 7 feet of water where we were out of the channel. Lots of boats going by on the ICW made the place very rolly. At least after dark it did smooth out when traffic died down. The next day we went up to St. Augustine where we are now on mooring M32 on the south side of the Bridge of Lions. We will stay here about a week and then continue up the ICW to Fernandina. We want to also go back to Cumberland Island and do some day hiking. Once we have a good weather window we plan to go out St. Mary's inlet and head to either Cape Fear or Beaufort, North Carolina. We will then be staying in the New Bern/Oriental area for awhile.

Back in the U.S. of A.

We saw that the weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream was going to be good on Wednesday the 16th of March so we hustled our little butts and got ourselves in position to go.

From Black Point we went north to Sampson Cay to refuel. Sampson Cay has a nice little marina in a protected cove. We just went in for fuel and to buy a few groceries. While we were getting fuel we met Juan and Astella aboard 'Far Away' from Annapolis. They were also heading back to the states. They were going to Key Biscayne and Miami and we were going further north to Lake Worth, Palm Beach area. We both had to get to New Providence Island first however. Us to the east end and Nassau and them to the west end and West Bay.

We sailed with them north up to Hawksbill Cay which is one of the islands in the Exuma Park. We were able to pick up a mooring just off the beach. There were only three boats there for the night. Sandy and I went into the beach and scouted around for a couple of hours. On the way back to the boat Juan hailed us to come by and invited us over for dinner that night. Sounded great to me, I wouldn't have to cook.

Astella had made a really nice chicken dish and eggplant and cheese dish. We enjoyed dinner and talking about our travels and stayed until 9 PM. In the cruising mode 9 PM is an hour after midnight. They were getting up early the next morning and heading to West Bay which at the west end of New Providence Island, about 60 miles away. We were just going up to Allen's Cay which is north about 20 miles.

The next morning when we got up we noticed that Far Away had not left and daylight was wasting. Sixty miles is a long way to go during the day. They finally got under way about 8:30. I talked to them on the radio as they were leaving and Juan told me he had to put on a new alternator belt on the engine. Just the night before we were talking about how there is always three things broke on the boat. At the time Juan had only two items in need of repair. He didn't see that one coming.

We made it up to Allen's Cay without incident, after I checked our alternator belt of course. We anchored there for one night and then headed for Nassau in the morning.

To get to Nassau from Allen's Cay we had to cross the Yellow Banks. It is an area of coral heads and shallow water. The skies were partly cloudy and at times the clouds would block how well we could read the water. When we got to the area where the Yellow Banks starts the clouds just kind of parted to let the sun come through. It was like a divine intervention. God looks after fools and sailors. Oh wait, they are one in the same, at least in our case. We were able to pick out the coral heads fine and made it into Nassau fine.

We went into the Nassau Yacht Harbor marina. Now it never fails that when we go into a marina we get put into the tightest spot they have and this was no exception. We were put into the slip at the inside end of the dock where there is no room to maneuver to get out. And on top of that they put a huge catamaran on the face dock behind us. The current flows through Nassau at 2-3 knots so getting out will be quite interesting and we have to leave at first light in the morning.

Come morning, we end up having to wait until 8:00 for the marina office to open in order to check out. Waiting a bit actually helped our departure as the current was slackening and the wind was rather calm. We were able to back straight and as we were approaching the catamaran behind us I could see a woman sitting in the salon and her eyes were getting larger and larger as we got closer. I stopped the aft motion with about two inches to spare and made the forward turn to clear the pilings. A good start to a 30 hour run to the Lake Worth inlet.

Our first leg of the trip would take us north to the northern end of the Berry Islands and then we would turn northwest for Florida. The wind was blowing from the east-southeast around 15-17 knots and we were sailing 7-8 knots. When we turned northwest the wind calmed some, plus the affect of sailing downwind so we were not able to move quite as fast. We definitely wanted to reach the inlet in daylight so we had to motor sail for while to keep our speed up. We did our usual dodging of cruise and cargo ships during the night, especially around the Freeport, Grand Bahama Island area. I was able to watch fireworks at midnight which were being shot from one cruise ship.

We reached the outer buoy at Lake Worth at 1:30 PM on Wednesday after a non-eventful crossing of the Gulf Stream. We were immediately greeted by the Customs and Border Patrol boat which asked there usual questions. We gave the appropriate yes and no answers.

Once in the inlet it was like a shock to the system having so many other boaters around. They were everywhere, on a Wednesday. Don't people work anymore? We went north in the ICW up to North Lake Worth and set the anchor. Thirty-one hours Nassau to Lake Worth. We called into the Customs office and they told us we had 24 hours to come in so they could see us. Even though they took all of our information over the phone they wanted to see out cute faces.

To get to the customs office we had to unload the dinghy, put the outboard on it, dinghy into a small beach, climb up a hill and over a bridge barricade, walk a half mile to the bus stop, wait 45 minutes to catch the 21 bus, go two miles and change to the 1 bus, go four miles to the 12th street stop and walk two blocks to the customs office. The customs officer took our passports, looked at us and that was it. Then we had to reverse the whole process to get back to the boat. At least the 'entertainment' on the bus was priceless.

Since we purchased an all day bus pass we decided to go the the Gardens Mall in North Palm Beach. Again this was a shock to our systems. We hadn't been with this many people or seen so much stuff in a long time. But, we got used to it real quick.

The next morning we headed up the ICW to Jensen Beach for the night. We just stayed one night there and are now at Vero Beach where we will stay for a week or so. It needs to warm up some up north before we go to much further. We actually had to put the blanket back on the bed. The lows at night in the Exumas was 70-72, here it is in the mid 50's to 60, burrrr.