Friday, December 16, 2011
Sittin' on the Hard at the Port
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Changes In Latitude--North Carolina to Florida
The Adventure Begins--
FINALLY!!!! We untied the lines and left Point Marina. After months of dreaming, delays and waiting we finally set off. First stop just a few miles away in Oriental where we met Ralph the diver who cleaned our boat bottom and saildrives (these are the lower units of the engines that have the propellers on them). From there we crossed the
Out at Sea--
There was good wind until later that evening. We ran about 20 miles offshore and tried our luck at fishing. A couple of False Albacore hit our lures and Bill almost got us a Mahi dinner but it got away. Samantha is not too happy with the engine noise and the rocking of the boat. So far she has not been sick but pretty much hides and gives us the evil-eye. Our first day at sea ends with a beautiful clear sunset. Bill says he saw a small green flash—I missed it.
While out at sea, Bill and I trade off watch. We watch the radar for traffic and make sure the autopilot is tracking properly and not running us into anything. I do better if I sleep first so he woke me up around midnight because we were going to pass through the cut at Frying Pan Shoals. The buoy lights were reported out but we found them working. The only things we really had to watch for were the unlighted markers. Using the GPS, Radar, and spotlight we found them easily. The wind and seas were calm, which made this passage thankfully uneventful.
Saturday night we entered St. Mary’s Inlet and anchored at the southern end of
On Sunday we were blessed with beautiful weather so we took the dingy over to the Beach Camp Trail dock and walked the trail to the beach. A canopy of live oaks hung with Spanish moss and ferns led us to a large dune field then an expansive beach at low tide. Amazingly there are no bugs! In the intertidal zone I find dense populations of coquina clams, most with a little tuft of algae growing on the end. The algae sticks out of the sand where each clam is buried. Coquina clams are nothing new but I had never seen them associated with algae. It appears to prevent them from burying deep in the sand and I am not sure what it does for them. Shorebirds of many kinds were abundant and I found several live whelks sticking their “noses” out of the sand. Near one tidal pool I found a ghost shrimp that had climbed out of the sand. This is very unusual—the burrow openings are all over but the shrimp do not voluntarily come out of the burrows. They are quite slow and have very little defense. I put him in a tidal pool where he could hopefully dig down to safety.
Monday morning we got up early and dingied over to the Dungeness trail dock. Dungeness is the name of the estate first built by Nathanial Green (southern general in the Revolutionary War) and later acquired and developed by Thomas Carnegie. Most of the buildings are now in ruins. Again a canopy of live oaks led us to the estate entrance. We saw a pair of does and their fawns crossing the path on the way. We saw wild turkeys, large gobblers standing guard while the hens pecked, and several wild horses which were let go after the Carnegies abandoned the estate.
St. Marys to
Once we were out the inlet it was not too long before we left pristine saltmarsh coast and crossed into
Thursday, December 8, 2011
We're Here!
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Fuel on Thanksgiving???
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
We Are Off the Grid
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Any Day Now--Could Be Tomorrow
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Critter Catchin'
A few days of south winds have lowered the water in the creek. The weather was cloudy but warm and the water is not really cold yet. There is marsh and some rocks by the seawall so I took my net to see what I could find around and under the rocks. The slideshow has some pictures.
This afternoon we started stocking up on supplies. We also bought the Explorer Chart Books for the
Monday, November 14, 2011
Sunrise at the End of the Tunnel
It appears that we will be leaving next week sometime. The enclosure installation is scheduled for next Monday. This is the last thing we have to wait for. At least we are having some nice weather and I have been fishing and kayaking. Bill and I have caught some undersize trout and redfish—we can’t keep them but they are fun to catch. I fear if we have to depend on fishing for food we will be very hungry. This weekend there were quite a few of the “weekenders” at the marina but my how quiet it gets after they leave on Sunday. Samantha has figured out how to get on and off the boat (onto the real dock instead of the reflection) but sometimes gets confused about which boat is hers (there is another catamaran next to ours). I am not happy about her wandering, I’m lucky she is not particularly comfortable with it.
Sunrises and Sunsets are some of the prettiest I’ve seen. Thank goodness for digital photography.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Life has become very slow and I am still adjusting. We are now waiting for our stern enclosure to be made which should be done in the next 2 weeks. Today bluebirds are sitting on the wind vane dropping seeds on the roof. Yesterday the big excitement was that Samantha decided that she was ready to explore territory beyond the boat. She had been peering down into that stuff below the boat for days but it was too far down for her to test it with a paw. I watched her as she braced herself for the leap then aborted a couple of times. I yelled out to her “don’t do it” but could tell she had made up her mind. I kept back, knowing that she can swim (she fell off once before) and her curiosity must be satisfied sooner or later—let’s just get this one over with. All of us have had a case of cabin fever--first mosquitoes and flies, then cold front passage has made waiting for our back enclosure a bit tedious. So she finally made a flying leap—splash! She popped up with that “OH $@*% look and kittypaddled to the stern stairs where I had a towel waiting. She’s fine and I hope she has learned something about boats.
Fantasy and Reality
How easy it is to say “When I retire on August 1, I will get on my boat and sail into the sunrise.” Certainly, that’s pretty much how we took off to the