Feeshin!

Watching the clothes dry!

Woke up to crisp 50's this morning after passage of a cold front but smiling because it is sunny out. Then I heard that back home in NY Sandy Creek is having a snow day and that really put it in the proper perspective. I love snow(at least to watch) but there is just something about seeing the sun every day that makes everything feel so much better!
This has been a happy week so far and naturally it is going by fast. In fact, this trip is going by fast! We have been out here now almost a month and have already had a raft full of adventures!

But there are also mundane realities to boat travel: We have laundry to do this morning so I am sitting here by the machine as I write. Life's daily chores do not disappear when we step on the boat. We cook meals in our galley, try to keep a clean boat, and do stuff like shopping and laundry. There is always boat maintenance to be done and trip planning....but still plenty of time for reading a book or taking a nap. Late afternoon-evening is always a special time when after a long day we settle down in the cockpit to enjoy the sunset with a sundowner (<---Drink)

The best part about traveling the ICW though is immersing ourselves into this waterborne lifestyle. It all plays out to a completely different tune when you are traveling on the water. I am truly blessed and thankful that I have a mate (the admiral) to share it all with.

We have enjoyed our visit to Marineland Marina where the staff is just the best. Gonna try to pedal up to Ft. Matanzas at some point if the north wind will cooperate. Sunday we head for the Daytona area and a family reunion with my cuzzints. Looking forward to that!

Pie and Exercise!

This morning Joanna and I took a little hike through the park bordering the marina.  Pretty woods walk that ends up at a bench on the ICW.  Good place to do some fishing and I just got my license. :-)

Then this afternoon I took off on my bike to find a bank and a store.  Found both but it was a long ride.  At least Florida has the right idea when it comes to bicycles.  Beautiful 8 foot wide bicycle trails that often wind through the woods.  So pleasant!  In the end it took me an hour to reach my destination pedaling hard into the wind. Coming home took a half hour!
We are expecting a cold front tonight with wind and dropping temps.  Glad to be at a dock tonight when winds might really blow!
Goofball move of the day:  Publix makes a great key lime pie.  The reason I know this is because on our last trip my personal goal was to find the best key lime pie on the east coast.  And guess where I found it: That's right, the Publix in Marathon!  I tried key lime pie in every rest. we stopped at but found none better!
But today it never occurred to me to pick one up until I was halfway home.  My bad! (Well, maybe I'll be going for a ride tomorrow.)
By the way, there is one other place that serves great Key Lime Pie...that would be Miss Joanna's kitchen!!!

An octopus and an eco-tour!

What a wonderful day!!!!!  We spent the morning on the beach at the Marineland facility taking the "Behind the Scenes" tour. Learned some interesting things, like the fact that the oldest dolphin in the world lives here. Nellie is 59 years old! Holy Crap! How about this: Dolphins shed their skin every 2 hours!!!!!! We saw dolphins of all shapes and sizes, from a little guy still nursing to a 500 lb. adult.
My favorite part of the tour of this facility, which by the way has been here since 1938, was the octopus tank. That little girl really put on a show, gyrating and changing colors and hugging the side of the tank just for us.
Strange Fact: "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" movies were filmed here.

This afternoon we took a private Eco Tour with  another couple to the surrounding wetlands.  Chris and Brandon took us out on their jet boat that runs on cooking oil!  It really goes fast and the exhaust  smells like french fries! We visited the wetland area where we saw all sorts of plantlife and wildlife including egrets, herons, an osprey, a bald eagle, dolphins, skimmers, terns, pelicans, and sea gulls. This is a unique area where southern black mangroves meet savannah grasses from the north.  It is an area teaming with wildlife. We visited Matanzas Inlet where we could experience the power of the shifting tides in a small boat. We even got to see Ft. Matanzas and learned the history of that ancient structure built by the Spanish in the 1700's.  I loved every minute!

Marineland and Eco Tour pics

These are a selection of some of the pics taken today.  The octopus was my favorite at Marineland.  The eco tour involved a boat ride to the wetlands and also to Ft. Matanzas.  It was terrrifc!!!!!  Great day!

Forrest Gump

I went for a long bike ride today on A1A on a beautiful warm sunny day toward Ft. Matanzas. Couldn't quite make it as I ran out of gas about halfway. Beautiful ride though with the ICW on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I was nearing home and feeling thirsty when I saw a wiry guy walking along the road wearing a backpack with a U.S.flag sticking out of it. I figured this guy had a story to tell so I pulled over.
"OK,"I said as I reached out and shook his hand. "What's your story?"
"Well," he said with a smile, "I'm Dave from Norman, Oklahoma. A few months ago my home burned down. It wasn't much but it was all I had. Lost my dogs in the fire, too."
Dave had some trouble getting these last words out. "So how did you end up here in Marineland, Florida?"
"Well, I'm sorta like Forrest Gump I guess. My neighbors gave me this backpack and I put it on and started walking. I've been walikng ever since. I guess you could say I'm trying to find where the good Lord wants me to be."
I asked Dave about his daily routine and where he spends the night. Basically he finds a quiet place in the woods and just beds down.
"I tried Miami," he said, "but it wasn't safe. So now I am heading up to Georgia."
I commended Dave on his journey and wished him God's blessings. Then we shook hands. I offered him a few bucks (all I had) and a bottle of water. He thanked me and we parted ways. When I got back to the boat I couldn't help but wish I'd done more. Haven't been able to get him off of my mind since. That song "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne keeps floating through my head.

PS: A few years ago while riding his bike Dave was hit by a car. Broke his back and both his legs. But now that he is on this journey he says,"i'm in the best shape of my life!"

More beach shots

The big fish in the nature pond looked like a carp. Shore birds feeding on sand crabs at low tide.
The big fish is a black drum.

We own this ditch!

We left New Bern in early January and saw quite a few late starters like ourselves. But we stopped along the way and now the ICW seems devoid of people heading south. All the anchorages are empty and we pretty much have the ditch to ourselves.  We like this! Everyone else seems to have rushed on to get further south.

Atlantic ocean

We took a walk over to the beach to see the "big water". There is a nature pond along the way. These pelicans were waiting to see if anything good to eat would float in through the pond intake line.

Marineland

We left Comachee Cove Marina at 8:30 and now we are at Marineland Marina where we plan to stay for the week. It's basically an educational nature center so I will be in heaven taking Kayak trips, seeing Marineland, and exploring some local landmarks like Ft. Matanzas. This is a very friendly place and we like it here already!

St. Augustine marina

We are in Comachee Cove Marina amidst a sea of boats for tonight. Enjoying our stay here in St. Augustine area.

Free Dock!

A boater likes nothing better than a free place to tie up. Most marinas charge by the foot. The further south you go the more expensive they get. They charge by the foot, usually somewhere between 1-2 dollars. Obviously we avoid the 2 buck a ft. and higher stops as much as possible as it adds up fast when your boat is 38 ft. long!
Tonight we are staying at jim king park outside of Jacksonville right near the sister creek drawbridge and there is no charge. Pretty nice!
We crossed the border today and we are now officially in Florida. A beautiful day in every way!

1/26/13-Sitting here at the dock this morning watching all of the weekend fishermen dropping in their boats and heading out for a day on the water fishing. There is a steady stream of traffic. Seems strange since many of my buddies up north are also heading out to fish...on the ice.

Tide goes up...tide goes down!

Tomorrow morning at 8:00 am we plan to head over to the fuel dock here at Lang's Marina to fill up and pump out the bathroom (called the head) holding tank. All of our waste is held in a tank on board until we can get it pumped out and safely disposed of (and you thought we just went overboard!). 8:06 am is high tide and that is good for us as there will be no current at that time (slack tide). It is much easier to manage the boat when you don't have tidal currents pushing you all over the place. Tides in Georgia can be pretty big, sometimes 8-10 ft. in one cycle. It is important to know about the local tide when you anchor. Our boat needs almost 5 feet of water under it at all times to float. Any less and we are aground. So when we anchor out we usually look for water around 13 ft. deep. Then we know that at low tide we will still be afloat. It is approaching low tide right now here at the marina. I am enclosing some pictures to show what that looks like. The docks we are tied to are floating docks so they go up and down with the tide. Right now the ramp leading to our dock is looking pretty steep. As the tide rises, that ramp will float higher and level out.

St. Marys Ga.

We spent an enjoyable day in St. Marys and had dinner with dear friends from up north. Great meal at Angelo's rest. In Kingsland. Here is downtown St. Mary's.

Help we're stuck!

We left the Fort Frederica anchorage at 8:15, three hours before low tide to make sure we could get through the shoal water at the southern end of the Frederica River. All went well until suddenly we felt a bump...then a second bump that turned into a complete stop. Great! Our second grounding of the trip. Only this time we were stuck fast on a falling tide. Uh oh... Time to call for help. I dialed up tow boat US, sort of a safety net for boaters. If you get stuck and are a member, they come out to help. And so a long hour and a half passed in which we began to lean over as our keel stuck in the mud. Our boat needs 4.5 ft. Of water to float and we were now in something getting steadily less than that.
"How far over will we lean?" Asked Joanna.

"Uh... Quite a bit," I replied trying to sound casual. Soon we were leaning over pretty good. But in true western fashion, the guy in the white hat showed up just in time. Ritch from BoatUS really knew his stuff and in spite of my doubts had us floating again minutes later. The price: 1,000 dollars! But wait... Since we are members, the help is free! Whoopee! Lesson learned: keep your towing insurance up to date!
We moved on to negotiate Jekyll Creek, another bad stretch of skinny water, but all went well and we made it all the way to St. Mary's ga. We are gonna visit with dear friends the next few days.
Before I sign off here is a picture of tonight's sunset dedicated to all my friends on the wrong end of that snow cannon in Pulaski.
Oh, I almost forgot. Docking when the wind is blowing and the tide is flowing can be extremely difficult. We arrived late so there was no dock help and Joanna did a masterful job of bringing us in while I played dock boy.