HOLIDAY GREETINGS!

Tis the season to communicate with friends and family, and although we had been blogging our sailing progress this fall, we dropped the ball so to speak when we moved ashore in St. Augustine for Thanksgiving with Jay and Pegg and then drove north with Andiamo's John and Betty for a month in the bitter cold of PA! Two events were already on the schedule as we headed north, first - the CCYC Christmas party in Annapolis which was a great success with 22 boats represented and much levity and a spirited gift exchange - just who did end up with those decorative sailboat plates?!?

Second was Blissmas which we scheduled to coincide with Martha's entry into Medicare. What Martha didn't know was Dan had organized a surprise gathering at our favorite Italian Restaurant to save me from having to cook on my birthday. The surprise was hard to pull off as Dan couldn't figure out how to keep me from planning dinner for our family of 22, so I got to be involved with the final preparations for the gala event. One of the highlight of evening was the "vonBlissmas" singers (6 grandchildren and 1 grandnephew) performing "Happy Birthday!"

We have taken care of haircuts, doctor and car care appointments, and are visiting with each of our East Coast families before we head south on the 28-29th to put Brunelle back in shape for the rest of our southern trek. (The water system is currently apart in preparation for a new faucet set-up in the galley - I'm sure there will be more to report on that when we get back!) We wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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  !      ~~~_/)~~~     !      M&D

We missed sending a Christmas greeting in 2008 because we took our first trip south to the Bahamas on Brunelle and although we came home for a month at Christmas time, Martha had both knees replaced for her birthday and didn't get around to writing.

Here comes another good excuse! December 2009 the Bliss family, Grandma Peddie, Jay & Pegg, Dan & Martha and Barb all went to Chile for three weeks. We visited with our Chilean "son" Mauricio (lower right) and his family in Santiago. Mauricio had spent his senior year with us in 1992. We also visited the Clemo family in Concepcion. Patrick (who was Dan's best friend 55 years ago) made sure we saw all the wonders of Chile. He is pictured with us at his country home in Renaico (upper left). Jay, Dan, and Barb pose outside their old home on Pedro de Valdivia. It was truly a trip of a lifetime. Peddie (at 91) was thrilled to be back and kept remembering people and places. We hated to tell her that most of those people were probably gone! Luckily Patrick's mother, Joan, was alive a well and she and Peddie had a wonderful time together. We all enjoyed being welcomed so lovingly by all the Clemo families, Patrick, Beverly, Maureen and Jackie and their spouses.

By missing 2008 and 2009, we missed reporting that Danny (DB) married Natasha during Camp PaHaGaCo 2009. This picture is from Camp 2010, but it does show the whole fam damily. I'll try to group by families: Jess & Sam holding Ben(2), Oliver (2 mos.) is being held by Julie), John & Brandi, Popov & Grand Mar with Grace (5) on her lap, her twin sister, Alice (5) is in Katherine's lap. Behind Katherine is her husband Ryan with Kinsey (2) on his shoulders and Zoe sitting next to Kath. Julie's husband, Michael is balancing the twins' sister, Clare on the back of Zoe's chair. Newlyweds, DB and Natasha are on the right.

Monday in St. Augustine

A day to regroup. We decided to leave the mooring and take a slip for a day so we could hose down all the salt we picked up transiting the inlet and to work on figuring out why our GPS and autopilot choose to cut out every so often - - - like yesterday from just before the race ended until we pulled into the slip this morning.
Jay rode his bike over and he and Dan spent several hours and several calls to Raymarine customer service before they got it straightened out - - - WE HOPE. It works now anyways. I was busy writing yesterday's blog and manning the control panel as the switches were on and off about 40 times or more! Jay left around two and Dan got back to his original task, washing down the boat. I walked across the bridge with Maureen and Glen to Jay's house, left Glen preparing dinner, and Maureen and I went shopping. Everyone convened at Jay & Pegg's for spicy chicken tacos a la Glen. What a treat! Pete and Kathy leave tomorrow to fly home for Thanksgiving, and the rest of us will start prepping for Thanksgiving at Jay & Pegg's.
~~~_/)~~~M&D
After taking a slip for one day at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina, we watched these busy herons and crane fish off the docks. They didn't care how close we came.

THE RACE

We were determined to make the start of the Commodore's Cup race on time this year, because two years ago we were late to the start. Jay and I went to the 10 o'clock skipper's meeting and picked up course info, scratch sheet and dinner info. We were back aboard and crews disseminated (boys+Jay on Sevilla, girls on Brunelle) in time to make the 11:30 bridge opening. Unfortunately we were rushed enough that I forgot to turn on the on-line GPS and the SPOT tracking. I would have liked to be able to see just how we tacked and the distance we actually traveled over the 6 mile course. When we headed out, we were discouraged that our rating was much lower than Sevilla's (higher is better) and were worried whether we would be able to maintain the difference necessary to beat them on corrected time. We figured we had to give them 30 seconds per mile, or a total of 3 minutes over the 6 mile course.
Once outside the rough waters of the inlet, we raised the main and shut down the engine and realized most of the wind we encountered on the way out was engine driven. We barely had enough speed on to tack! We slowly made our way over to the starting area and studied the line to determine the best approach. When it was our turn (the spinnaker class started 10 minutes before us) we lined ourselves up and were closing in on the line when we heard a horn. We hardened up and thought we were a little late, but charged ahead. We were just settling in to the groove when we heard another horn....THE HORN, oops, we had started on the 1 minute to go horn! When we finally realized we were over early, we tacked around and re-crossed the line .....last. We tacked away from the rest of the fleet fairly early to avoid "dirty air" from the boat in front of us and seemed to be on our own.
Turns out it was a good move because we arrived at the windward mark miles ahead of everyone in our class except for a Hunter 50 (water ballast, 8' draft, sleek looking thing!) who wasn't listed on the scratch sheet, so we didn't know how we stood with them. The rest of the race was two reaching legs, and the wind had picked up a little by then, so we finished around 3:30, less than 2 minutes behind the Hunter 50. We all cheered and were ready to head in when the radio squawked at us - it was the race committee asking us to go pick up the windward mark. OOOOKay we'll go. We fired up the engine and headed east. As we approached the mark we noticed there was one boat rounding in and two more coming up behind us headed for it! We called the committee boat and they verified that there just might be a few more boats, just wait there. Well we circled for almost an hour and contemplated just how we would tackle our chore once the boats had rounded.
Finally around 5:00 the last boat rounded. We positioned Kathy sitting on the rail with one boat hook and Betty on the cockpit coaming with another and Maureen right behind her ready to grab whatever came her way. It took two passes, but on the second one, Kathy hooked the line under the thing and Betty was able to transfer one of the big rings on the corner to Maureen, she hung on for dear life, but it wasn't budging. With the engine in neutral, there was no need for me to remain at the wheel, so I jumped over Maureen and grabbed one of the rings on the outboard corner of this pyramidal monster and heaved. We got it over the lifelines and it took up the whole cockpit! Maureen spent the next half hour wrestling with it trying to deflate it while the rest of us worked on hauling in the miles and miles of anchorline! Once we finally got it aboard, I started up the engine and it took most of the trip in to get all of it under control, air out, lines coiled. WHAT a great crew!!
It was fully dark except for the full moon when we came through the Bridge of Lions at the 6:00 opening and crept through the mooring field to our mooring. Dan was waiting there at the mooring buoy to lend a hand. I shut down the engine at 6:15, and by 6:30 we were all in dinghies heading for the dock on our way the the trophy dinner. It was in full swing when we arrived as it started at 6:00! There was still enough good food for us and we were still chowing down when they started announcing the results. We still weren't sure if we had succeeded in beating the Hunter 50 on corrected time, so it was a long wait as they started with 7th place! When they announced Hunter's Child in 2nd place, we knew we had won! An exciting day for all, but far more satisfying for the girls!

~~~_/)~~~M&D

While the girls had to return and re-cross the starting line (we were over early) Sevilla sailed off to the north with lots of testosterone and too many "cooks" so they finished on hour after we did!

We finally tamed the thing and delivered it to Jay to return to the Yacht Club.

GIRLS RULE!! Our crack female crew won first place in the non-spinnaker class of the Commodore's Cup (7 boats in our class) held by the St. Augustine YC offshore on Sunday.
Top left clockwise: Betty checking out the starting line, Kathy took the helm all the way out through the rock-n-roll inlet. Maureen and Martha check the set of the sails. Sunset as we powered back in after being sent by the RC to retrieve the windward mark...we had over an hour wait out in the slop for the last two boats to round the mark! Maureen wrestles with the BIG YELLOW THING while Betty works on pulling the crappy 80 feet on anchor line aboard. CENTER: THE WINNERS!

Here is the official St. Augustine Yacht Club picture depicting Margo, the Rear Commodore of Sail presenting the crew of Brunelle with the 1st place plaque.

Saturday in St. Augustine

Everyone has been hearing about Sailor's Exchange, this great mecca for an amazing amount of used and some new marine STUFF, so all eight of us were set to descend upon the place this morning. Dan dropped me over at The Anchorage Motel dock so I could go get our car and Jay and his car to transport all of us to Sailor's. With all nine of us in the store at once, there was barely room to move around, but move around we did and everyone found treasures that couldn't be passed up. Dan found two of my dad's books which he told me to buy so I could autograph them for whomever! Well with both books on the counter, Maureen proclaimed she wanted this book because it was written by her friend's father. Little did we know that the owner of Sailor's Exchange was a great fan of Bill Robinson! He ended up giving us all incredible deals on our purchases and had all sorts of questions about the GREAT Bill Robinson. I had to laugh, because every other time we have been in there, we use Jay's name to try to get deals----little did we know! The morning wasn't complete without a trip to West Marine, and we all dropped another bundle! Jay then lead us to Hurricane Patty's for a very atmospheric and delicious lunch out on their deck.
The girls decided to ditch the guys and do a little shopping in the afternoon. We hit Christe Blue's consignment shop and enjoyed looking, only Betty had any success, but it was fun anyway. Then off to the Publix to get a few things, especially the makings for sundaes. We had decided to eat aboard our own boats for dinner, meet in downtown St. A after dinner to watch the lighting of the Christmas tree and all the decorations on the square, and then head across the Bridge of Lions to Jay and Pegg's for dessert. I actually think I overdosed on chocolate. I didn't think that was a possibility! Pegg finally arrived home just as we were finishing up our sundaes. She had been gone since Thursday taking part in a cross Florida relay run with twelve other women. They had done very well, so she was glad she had taken part in it. Tomorrow is THE RACE. Two years ago Jay had signed Brunelle up to sail in the Commodore's Cup sponsored by the St. Augustine YC, so when the race was postponed from last Sunday to this Sunday it seemed inevitable that we would race again. This time the CCYC has two boats entered in the race, Dan has convinced Glen and Maureen that Sevilla should also race. SO it's going to be the boys against the girls! We'll report on it tomorrow.
~~~_/)~~~M&D

As I walked up the dock at The Anchorage Motel I noticed this blue heron. He let me get pretty close before taking off.

Saturday evening was the tree lighting ceremony on the square in downtown St. Augustine.
My little camera doesn't do too well with low light without a tripod, but you get the idea of the crowds and lights.

Overnight from Savannah to St. Augustine

We did our calculating and decided that it would take 22 hours to go from Thunderbolt (Savannah), out the Wilmington River Inlet and on down the outside to the St. Augustine safe water buoy, so we scheduled our departure from the Bahia Bleu Marina for noon on Thursday. The weather was predicted to cooperate and we knew the moon was close to full. The ride down the river was easy and we noticed that the Catalina-Morgan 440 named Andiamo! was still tied up at the Savannah YC. We had seen her on our last trip two years ago and done quite a double take. Once out of the inlet, it was a straight shot for the buoy off St. Augustine, 137 statute miles (we were using statute miles because the ICW is calculated in statute miles.)
There was more traffic during the night than we had seen on our last offshore leg, but only one vessel caused us any concern. We spotted a large cargo ship heading across our path as we approached the entrance to Jacksonville. Thanks to AIS we knew the name, size, destination, speed, course etc of the ship and Dan called them. It looked like we would be less than half a mile from them if we each continued on our current course. Dan decided to cut back our speed and head 10 degrees to the east to make the gap between us larger. Worked like a charm. The ship was only doing 9.4 knots, probably because all vessels 65 feet or larger are required to travel at 10 knots or less as they pass through the North Atlantic Right Whale habitat. Their migration puts them off the coast of Georgia and Florida during November and December.
We arrived at St. Augustine's safe water buoy right at 10:30, and were surprised just how sloppy the entrance became when the outgoing tide met an onshore breeze. It wasn't blowing any more than 10-12 knots, but it was enough to have us rolling all over the place on the way in. Once we passed the jetty, the slop stopped, but the current kept our progress to a crawl, so we didn't make the 11:00 opening at the Bridge of Lions. We split with Andiamo as we entered because they have a slip at the Conch House Marina in Salt Run and the rest of us are taking moorings south of the Bridge of Lions. We made the 11:30 bridge opening and picked up our moorings. After lunch aboard we dinghied across the harbor to The Anchorage Motel and Marina with the hope of making some arrangement to tie up our dinghy as it is a short walk to Jay and Pegg's from there. The tie up fees are pretty steep, so we will have to work something else out, but they let us use it for today. Jay met us there and drove us and our dirty laundry to his house. We washed it and ourselves and were joined by all our group for dinner. Early to bed. Tomorrow we adventure about town.
~~~_/)~~~M&D

As we departed from Bahia Bleu Marina, we passed by Thunderbolt Marina and spied Neon Rainbow our nemesis from our rudder incident two years ago.... we're glad we are going outside from here. We also passed a working fishing boat as we went out the Wilmington River inlet. It was an easy exit with plenty of buoys. We settled in easily for the second overnight voyage of the trip.

Very little sea-life activity on this trip. We spent about half an hour sailing through a fleet, flock, flotilla (?)...don't know what you call the thousands of funny looking jellyfish that surrounded the boat. ....I just spent half an hour looking at over 1,000 pictures of jellyfish on the web and NOT ONE looked like this one!

Sunrise was a long time coming with the bank of clouds that hung on the eastern horizon.

Our peaceful moonlit trip offshore culminated with a wild ride through an outgoing tide at St. Augustine Inlet. We haven't rolled this much since the Neuse River! We made it through the Bridge of Lions and took a mooring in the newly established mooring field sponsored by the city of St. Augustine. They put us at the southern end of the field right next to a sandbar, but we did have enough water. We were welcomed by yet another harbor dolphin.

A tour of Savannah

I'd hate to jinx it by talking about how lucky we have been with the weather, but just have to comment on our perfect day in Savannah. Temperatures in the 60s and 70s all day and bright sun made our day in town quite enjoyable. Our joint decision to take the Trolley Tour of town turned out to be a good one. We started around 10:30 and got off four times along the way to do our own touring and for lunch and wound up back at our starting point a little after three. We then walked to city market but were disappointed to find it to contain lots of little eateries, but little else. After having gorged ourselves at Mrs. Wilkey's Boarding House at lunch, food was the last thing we needed!
The cab ride back to the marina proved to be almost as informative as the Trolley Tour. Our driver was full of enthusiasm for his city (he had attended the same elementary school that his mother and grandmother attended) and was also very knowledgeable about the history and architecture of areas not visited by the Trolley. We all assembled aboard Andiamo for cocktail hour but no one was interested in eating anything yet! We all retired to our own boats around 6:00 and we finally ate a few crackers around 8 pm. No need for dinner tonight. Tomorrow we plan to head offshore again for an overnight that will take us all the way to St. Augustine. SPOT will be tracking us, but I doubt we'll have phone signal until we hit St. A.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

We all spent the day soaking up the atmosphere in Savannah. A 10 o'clock taxi ride took us downtown to the river front at the Town Hall where we all agreed that a Trolley Tour would allow us to see the sights while letting us to get on and off at will. We started by seeing the golden dome of Town Hall that is supposedly featured in any picture of downtown Savannah. Dan and another unsuspecting passenger were asked to sing "Moon River" as we passed by the statue of Johnny Mercer, we all helped a bit, but it was pretty awful! Next we passed the park bench where Forrest Gump ate his box of chocolates. There are 24 squares in Savannah and we went by most of them, they each have a significant feature, often a statue, and all quite beautifully landscaped.

One of the destinations of the day was Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House, famous for the best in southern cooking. We had to spend an hour standing in line outside before being seated family style with 24 different dishes on the table. The staff kept the bowls full as we all chowed down. AMAZING! We had heard about this place from Dick and Jean Citron and they were right that it shouldn't be missed.

After our sumptuous lunch we felt the need to walk and enjoyed this park with wonderful old trees and this spectacular fountain before hopping back on the trolley and finishing the tour.

We certainly heard a lot about SCAD Savannah College of Art and Design. They are famous for having re-habbed many old buildings in town always maintaining the character of the exterior but making the interior usable and efficient. Dan's cousin Steve Bliss is Dean of the School of Fine Arts at SCAD, but was in Austin, so we missed seeing him.

Skull Creek to Bahia Bleu Marina in Thunderbolt

We headed out VERY early because weather predictions had rain and thunderstorms arriving in Savannah for the afternoon. We only had 26 miles to go, so we were pretty sure we'd be safely at the Marina when storms hit. As it was we could see "weather" all around us, but we escaped all of it except for a fair amount of wind. We had gusts over 25 as we crossed the Savannah River. We sweated our way through the Fields Cut after reading and hearing all about terrible shoaling. We weren't far from the cut when we gave a "slow pass" to Hinckley Talaria 55 and while talking to him asked him for a report of the depths he encountered as he made his way through Fields Cut. He called back several times and did warn us about a thin spot as you exit the cut. When we got there, there was a sailboat aground with his jib rolled out trying to heel him over enough to sail off. We tried passing him to port but found that was the WRONG side, luckily we backed down quickly and while we were backing he sailed off. He drew 6'4", so we followed him through!

The rest of the trip went quickly as we had picked up some current at that point and we arrived at the marina by 11:30 am. After settling in, we adventured a little in the area with a trip to River Supply, a marine store. We actually couldn't find anything we needed! Back at the marina we showered and gathered on the marina's screened porch for cocktails and then back to the boat for an early turn in. Tomorrow we head into Savannah proper.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Red sky in the morning.....We were up and underway by 6:30 this morning in a rush to beat the thunderstorms fore-casted to arrive in Savannah this afternoon. Dan was delighted to see that my d... flowers were shedding- - -one of the drawbacks of sailing with a flower lover! As we left the Calibogue Sound and turned right into the Cooper River, I spied the Daufuskie lighthouse nestled in the trees. I always have had trouble remembering how to pronounce it, but not anymore. A little note in the Waterway guide explained how it got the name. Early settlers, describing where they lived, would say it was "Da Fus Key" (the first key)!

We passed several docks along the Cooper River, but only this one was the congregating spot, the others were free of birds. This pelican could barely be bothered to get out of our way as we slid past him.

We were very glad that we had already crossed the Savannah River before this guy went by. The channel is deep, but pretty narrow.

B&B Seafood, Mosquito Creek to Skull Creek, Hilton Head

Love all these creek names. We actually noticed more "no-see-ums" on Mosquito Creek, and haven't seen a single skull since we've been here! Another beautiful day with an easy trip through the windy (long "i"--- not to be confused with windy) creeks and canals of SC. We did run across a few "thin" spots, but we never had less than 9 feet of water, and that's plenty for us. The guide books are full of shoaling warnings, but we hit most of them at high tide, and with a 6-7 foot tide range, we were covered, so to speak. The wind was non-existent for most of the day, so we were happy to be able to roll out our jib for the final 5 mile stretch as we crossed Port Royal Sound on our way into the Hilton Head Island area when the wind speed read 5-8 knots. The rest of the "story" is covered in picture captions, so g'night.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Morning at B&B found the Billie B already gone from the dock, it also found a white egret "fishing" in the bait trough. He succeeded in snaring a minnow, flew to the nearest piling and proceeded to drop it! He continued to look forlorn as Dan headed back to the store for just one more pound of fresh shrimp. A pair of vultures were busy watching his progress, but we got away safely!

Here we are again. We pictured this same day marker last time, with the same amount of mud surrounding it!

We had an hour and a half wait at the Lady's Island Bridge in Beaufort as construction on a nearby bridge has changed its opening policy. We idled and enjoyed a Bloody and our fresh shrimp! Not a problem.

We still arrived at Skull Creek on the north end of Hilton Head Island by 4:00pm and anchored in a little elbow off the ICW .

Charleston to B&B Seafood

Departure from Charleston was at 7:30, partly to make the Rt. 17 Wappoo Bridge before nine when it stops opening on demand (on Sunday anyways) and to make sure we would get to B&B Seafood before the store closes a 5:00! We easily made both of our goals. The trip this time was much cheerier as the sun was out and of course we had company all the way. Two years ago it was dreary and cold most of the day. We had called B&B on Saturday to assure ourselves they would be open on Sunday and asked about the possibility of rafting. The dock there only holds two boats, so we wanted to put the two 40 footers on the dock and tie the other two alongside. B&B had never run across a request like that, but were willing to work with us.
We arrived around 3:30 which gave us plenty of time to figure out how many pounds of shrimp to buy. We got a communal four pounds for tonight's joint dinner and each boat bought some to freeze, that is except Brunelle. We don't have freezing capacity, and the small freezer we do have is reserved for "rocks" - - - an important part of our provisions! We split up the duties, Betty and John worked on Shrimp Cocktail and Kathy and I put together a shrimp, rice, veggies,
feta, dill and tomato dinner. All in all, we are eating hearty. There is no power on the dock, so we nestled down early snug in our sleeping bag nest.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

As we departed from Charleston Harbor Marina, we spotted our lunch spot from yesterday (top left) and you can see why it's called Fleet Landing. We rounded the peninsula that is Charleston downtown and caught a few pictures of the stately homes along the river. We also were happy that American Glory passed us and squeezed through the Rte. 17 bridge before we got there!

This is the process of trying to capture a picture of a river dolphin. #1. Darn! #2 Arrgh #3 Not again! #4 He's there, but ...not that exciting. #5 Finally!

This guy did this little bobbing dance four times, I'm sure he was counting the number of Catalinas that were passing his little corner of the ICW!

We keep trying to tell Maureen (who has memorized BRUNELLE - Bahamas Bound, our blog turned book) that the book is NOT an itinerary, just a log of our last trip, BUT we do seem to keep following it pretty closely! ....including stopping at B&B Seafood. We did throw them for a loop when we asked if we could raft at their dock, but the girl that runs the store called the boss and got permission, so raft we did. We tied up right behind Billie B. and bought prodigious amounts of shrimp and a few lobster tails for good measure.

Saturday in Charleston

Amazing Dan was back aboard dumping the clean laundry he had already finished washing and drying on the settee when I tumbled out of the bunk this morning! I folded. We headed into Charleston (our marina is across the Cooper River from the city proper) on the water taxi this morning at 11. That got us there in time to get an early lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon adventuring. We stayed as a group through lunch and then went our separate ways to see the sights and do a little shopping. Dan and I visited the market downtown and then went on a search for a hardware store (we're talking Dan now, you understand) as we had already determined that there wasn't a West Marine anywhere nearby. We did find one, but discovered we had almost everything it had to offer! Our next stop was Harris Teeter, which rivals Whole Foods for being an enjoyable grocery experience, and bought much too much to have to carry back, but we managed. We caught the complimentary 4:15 shuttle back to the Charleston Harbor Marina & Resort in order to be back in time for the CCYC southern branch Italian Dinner. Besides the eight of us CCYCers, John and Betty had invited their friends, Dick and Jean Citron. They are living aboard their 79' power cruiser Absolutely and we had met them in River Dunes. They are veterans of this migration stuff and had lots of tips for us. All in all a very enjoyable evening. We are off early tomorrow in the hopes of re-creating our coup of two years ago ----tying up with the shrimp boats at B&B Seafood where we got the best and freshest shrimp we'd ever had.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

The ride over to Charleston on the water taxi was worth the price because the guys running it recommended this great restaurant. We enjoyed great southern and seafood dishes at Fleet Landing, a converted Navy depot turned trendy eatery. I had a Fried Green Tomato BLT, not like anything I'd ever eaten! Amazingly delicious.

Dan was up early and captured some birds. I don't think the two seagulls are overly impressed with the audacious display by the cormorant. Here is an ibis, looking very snooty. The reason the crane has his beak open a bit is he is busy swallowing a silvery minnow which unfortunately didn't show in the picture.

You can't imagine how disappointed I was to find that this was the best example of gum sticking I could find as we walked around Charleston this afternoon. The phone pole I pictured two years ago was CLEAN!!! So I guess some traditions do die.

Georgetown to Charleston

We've had a friendly running argument with Pete about whether to use knots and nautical miles or MPH and statute miles when discussing and planning our travels. The ICW is measured in statute miles,Pete has always used MPH, etc. but the rest of us have had our knot meters and GPSs set to record knots and nautical miles! Well we had to do some hard calculating for today's trip because we had 60 statute miles to come and we had to make sure that we arrived at the Ben Sawyer bridge (about two miles from the entrance to Charleston Harbor) before it closed at 4 PM. Usually it is closed from 4-6 for rush hour, but the guide books were saying that it would be closed from 4-12 for maintenance! There is no way to accurately predict the currents (once you leave the Georgetown area) as they change constantly with each new creek or inlet you pass, so we pushed hard and used jibs whenever possible and made to the bridge by 2:40pm. A big sigh of relief. It took us another hour to reach our slips as we were fighting an outgoing current of 1.5+ knots all the way up the river! We decided to join forces and all ate together aboard Brunelle. Tomorrow night is Italian night - - in honor of CCYC's Italian night that we will be missing, so John and Betty are hosting us all. Doesn't look like will starve anytime soon....or lose any weight!

~~~_/)~~~M&D

I missed this series of pictures when I unloaded the camera after we arrived in Georgetown. This fishing boat was hovering at the sea buoy at the entrance to Winyah Inlet and I was fascinated to see a guy working out on one of the booms. They set out the nets as we skirted them to enter the inlet and then steamed off to the north.

The 6:45 departure from Georgetown had as witnessing yet another beautiful sunrise. We powered out past Georgetown's paper mill and joined the continual parade heading down the ditch. There are more boats this year than we encountered on our trip two years ago. We also saw several different birds. I neglected to get a picture of several Ibis, but did capture hordes of sandpipers that took over several of the long piers that jut out into the creeks and waterways of SC. I also captured this kingfisher (he was barely visible in the dead tree on the shore) and was pleased that our new camera allowed me to blow it up enough to actually identify him!

Here we all are nestled comfortably at the Charleston Harbor Marina and Resort. We are across the river from Charleston proper, but there is free shuttle service into town for marina guests. As peaceful as it looks, there is quite a current ripping through here, but there are breakwaters all around that keep the wakes and chop from bothering us. This IS a busy harbor.

The USS Yorktown is our neighbor. We hope to get a better look at her tomorrow.

Relaxing in Georgetown

Everyone looked bright and well rested this morning... a good night's sleep does wonders. The day was gorgeous and we took advantage of it to do some washing down of salty decks and Dan worked on troubleshooting John and Betty's running light problem. The solution was they needed to be replaced, luckily under warranty, so new ones are being FedExed to Charleston. Dan opted to change the oil and do a few other engine chores as did Pete and John, so the girls decided to head to town to look around (Glen and Maureen had headed in earlier.) The walk was a pleasant one, past several lovely old homes and took us to Front Street, the main drag. We saw several people lining the streets with expectant looks on their faces and realized it was Veteran's Day and a parade must be in the offing. We chose to walk back along the River Walk and were just leaving the end of it when we heard the announcer start the parade. We walked back toward Front Street and watched several bands, ROTC (high school groups), antique cars, service groups etc. march by. We couldn't stay long because we needed to get back to go out to dinner at Lands End, a good seafood restaurant right next to our marina. Tomorrow is a 6:45 start, so I'm off to bed.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

Kathy Bruzik caught this amazing picture of us as we were watching the sunset and waiting to see the green flash. Both Dan and I are pretty sure there was one that night!

I need to make a correction. Katherine pointed out that she noticed snouts on many of the porpoises pictured in yesterday's blog and questioned whether they were tursiops truncatus (better known as bottle nosed dolphins) our not. Most of what we saw were bottle nosed dolphins (a mammal) not porpoises (also a mammal, but with a much stubbier snout and thicker body. I was wrongly under the impression that the only true dolphins were the fish dolphin and people calling Flipper types dolphins were incorrect. Not so, if you want to learn more, here is the link Katherine sent.

The only boat we saw today was this USCG boat that was in the Veteran's Day Parade in downtown Georgetown!

River Dunes to Georgetown, SC

I was glad we had sent out our nightly SPOT signal to family members (we get a copy too) because I clicked on it to find out where we actually were! We arrived here in Georgetown at 8:20 pm after an overnight passage from River Dunes, and the unlighted approach to this marina (the only one in Georgetown with any dock space left) was not our favorite part of the trip!

The conditions were perfect for our first trip "outside", so we left River Dunes after fueling up and headed for the inlet at Beaufort. We were able to sail down the Neuse, and through a bit of the Adams Creek canal, and enjoyed an easy passage through the crowded harbor area of Beaufort/Moorehead City and were out the inlet around 3 PM. The breeze was perfect, 8-12 out of the NW, and we all rolled out jibs and motor-sailed through the night. It is a great comfort to look back and see three sets of running lights all night long! Well, 2 1/2 sets anyways.... Andiamo found that the breaker would trip every time they tried to turn on their running lights, so they were visible only by their steaming light, but they kept in close to the pack and we didn't encounter anyone until we passed within a mile and a half of a tanker (easily identified by AIS) without incident around dawn this morning.

We rounded Frying Pan Shoals (off Cape Fear) at daybreak and headed further west. It isn't possible to head straight from Beaufort to Georgetown because the Frying Pan Shoals stick WAY out from Cape Fear, so it adds a bit of time and distance to the trip.

Today dawned bright and brisk and breezy. We had quite a ride until early afternoon when the wind, which had come around to the NE, started to quiet a bit. The waves were sometimes a little rough, but we were willing to accept them because they brought pod after pod of porpoises that spent hours, literally hours playing in our wake and jumping to ride our bow wave. Hence the preponderance of porpoise pix. We even had a few that followed us in the inlet in the evening. As has been our luck with the inlet here, we had to fight the current all the way up (11 miles) to Georgetown, but we wanted a quiet dock to tie to for the night. Everyone else has turned in, but I wanted to send this off while I could! Tomorrow we plan to stay and enjoy Georgetown and give Andiamo a chance to work on their running lights. Maybe tomorrow I will figure out how to send the video of playful porpoises to the blog. It (whoever it is) told me the video exceeded the allowed size of megabytes, oh well! ~~~~~~~~~~_/)~~~~~~~~~ (extra water under our keel this leg) M&D

It started at River Dunes, Oriental, NC. We all prepared to head our separate ways. Martha started the day with her last luxurious River Dunes shower-please note the four spray jets that tickled and massaged. Then she and Dan saw Jay, Pegg and Mom off from their cottage. Around 9 AM all four boats headed for the fuel dock before heading out as the next leg would be a long one. Out the canal-like entrance and on down the Neuse to Adams Creek. Then it was out the inlet at Beaufort around 3 pm and offshore we went for our first overnight passage of the trip.

Hopefully you are ready to be bored to death by a plethora of playful porpoise pictures...here they are.

A Deviation (also known as a Dullenkopf plan) Thursday-Monday 11/4-11/8

As mentioned earlier, we headed back to PA to pick up Dan's mom and drive her back down to River Dunes to await Jay and Pegg who will drive her the rest of the way to their home in St. Augustine, FL. The trip home was on a dreary and rainy Thursday, but the company of the McElderrys made the trip easier. We arrived at their house in Edgewater, MD to find their son and his girlfriend stocking the refrigerator with dinner and food for the weekend! A very welcome treat. We stayed to have dinner with John and Betty (thank you Paul and Jess) and headed out around 6:30 (hoping to miss some of the rush hour traffic - - - no such luck) The dreary conditions had followed us up the coast and had made a mess of rush hour and it continued until we were around Baltimore and well up into PA. We got home around 8:45 after having left the boat 12 hours before. The rest of the northern sojourn went easily and we got Dan's mom packed, vetted with the doctors, and ready to go early Sunday morning. We took a leisurely trip back south with many stops to keep old joints moving and bladders empty and also included a dinner with Amy Bliss in Washington, NC just before arriving back at River Dunes. We had signed up for a two bedroom cottage on the grounds and I spent the night there with Grandma Peddie. She was very concerned that Dan was suffering on the boat, but we finally convinced her that he had heat (there was a frost advisory for Sunday night) and would be very happy back on the boat!

Today was beautiful, sunny and warm, so we drove to Oriental and enjoyed a lunch on the deck of the Oriental Deli & Grill right along the waterfront and paid a visit to a marine consignment shop that had more junk than our basement! Jay and Pegg arrived around 4 - enough time to get the lay of the land before we all headed to the Club House for our "last supper" at River Dunes. Everyone heads out tomorrow morning - - - headed for Florida (and beyond). Some by boat and some by car. No contest about who will get there first, but WE'LL have more adventures to be sure!
~~~_/)~~~M&D

We return to River Dunes, near Oriental, NC, with better weather than when we left on Thursday!

Rainy day at River Dunes

No SPOT, no track, no photos. A very relaxing but dreary day. Everyone (Andiamo, Pekabu III, Sevilla and Surprise) all came aboard Brunelle for Bloody Marys at 11 and we spent at least two hours swapping stories and sharing ideas. Some people did laundry during the afternoon, but we are driving home tomorrow and will save ours until we get home! We feel like college kids coming home for the weekend with all our dirty stuff! We all also opted to dine at the clubhouse again. You can't beat good food at a reasonable price and all the atmosphere and camaraderie availble there! We even had live entertainment tonight. A guitar playing singer entertained us during dinner. The rental car is slated to arrive at 8 tomorrow morning, so we probably won't write again until we return Sunday night or Monday. Until then....~~~_/)~~~M&D

Belhaven to River Dunes

Our goal, when leaving the Chesapeake, was to reach Oriental (River Dunes in this case) by Nov. 4th so we could leave the boat and drive north with the McElderrys. They have a wedding to attend and we have a delivery to make. Dan's mom, (Grandma, Peddie, Thelora) is going to drive back here to NC with us in our car and Dan's brother, Jay, will drive up from FL with Pegg and they will drive her and the two cars back to St. Augustine. The boat will stay here at River Dunes until next Tuesday when we will continue our progress south.

We have been pushing pretty hard to accomplish that goal, and exceeded our expectations and arrived here on the 2nd. River Dunes is an amazing place, with all sorts of amenities, so we hope the two boats not abandoning ship to go north will enjoy their respite. The trip from Belhaven was quick and only a little rocky. The Neuse River chose to be a nuisance and we had a roly-poly ride. We were glad that the turn into River Dunes cut the ride toward Oriental short by several miles. We arrived around two and were welcomed warmly by JC the dockmaster, Ed and Connie Dooley (CCYC and C-400 friends) and Dick and Jean (?) good friends of the McElderrys. They immediately all told us about the nightly dinner served at the Club House - how good it was and also how reasonable, so we decided to try it out. Still no AT&T service, but they do have wifi. We resorted to signing up (and paying) for a Skype phone number: 717-739-5845. It will ring on our computer whenever we have signal. Hopefully that will make reaching us easier when we can't use cell phones. It is a local Spring Grove, PA number. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, so we'll probably just hang out and relax!
~~~_/)~~~M&D

Dan prefers sunrises!


Saw our first shrimp/fishing boat working the river as we left Belhaven.





Catalina owners took over the Club House at River Dunes for dinner. DeFever 44 owners, Bob and Sue Hodes, who are traveling with Ed and Connie Dooley (C-400 Surprise) took the picture. We also met C-470, Onward's owner and crew (also pictured.) The McElderry's were dining with friends elsewhere.

Alligator River to Belhaven, NC

There were fewer miles planned for today, so we didn't head out until 8:30 am. Actually got to have a relaxed breakfast before leaving. Dan was up before dawn anyway and got a neat shot of a tug pushing a barge loaded with sand that slipped past our anchorage just as the sun broke the horizon. The ride down the canal was mostly uneventful, we did wander a little close to the shore at one point and ran aground. Luckily it was a "soft grounding" and we backed right off and were back in the "parade" heading south. The one excitement was the anticipation we and several other boats in radio range felt as we approached the Wilkerson Bridge. It is one of the two fixed
bridges on the ICW that doesn't meet the Army Corps of Engineers standards of 65'. It is listed at 64'. The VHF radio traffic was hot and heavy with everyone waiting for a report from someone who could tell us all just what the height of the bridge was today. Luckily it read 65' on the tidal boards at the base of the bridge and Andiamo made it through!
We rolled out the jib for the ride down the Pungo River and were debating whether to anchor in Pungo Creek or Pantego Creek. The wind is predicted to be NE 10-20 tomorrow. We decided that Pantego would provide more protection, so headed in there. Three of us anchored, but Pekabu III needed fuel and Belhaven's three marinas were dry, so they headed to Pungo Creek for fuel. They were back "in the fold" by 3:30.
We put the dinghy down, picked up Maureen and headed into town. We wandered a bit and found a few things we needed at the Ace Hardware store---some flashlight light bulbs and wi-fi. I was able to retrieve several emails on my iPhone, but didn't have time to send many. We also found an ice cream store and indulged. On our way back to the boat, we stopped at Andiamo and enjoyed a glass a wine while we borrowed John's Verizon phone that DID have signal to return some imortant missed calls. Tomorrow we head for River Dunes, just outside Oriental. We expect we'll have signal tomorrow.
~~~_/)~~~M&D

Early morning scene at the bend in the Alligator River where we spent the night. The sand barge was slow moving, but had enough of a head start that it had traversed the AR/PR Canal before we caught up with it.

Scenes from the Alligator River/Pungo River Canal. Not much shore activity, just lots of snowbirds heading south. We are seeing more this trip (a week later than 2 years ago) than last time... and we thought we were leaving late.

This time, we brought up the rear.