On the move again - after 5 days in St. Augustine

Just a brief recap of our busy stay in St. Augustine. We awoke refreshed on Wednesday morning ready to face to world, but more importantly, ready to face the Customs and Border Patrol officers in Jacksonville. We buzzed over to Jay and Pegg's house early and put in a load of laundry so we could be back at Camachee Cove Harbor Marina to pick up Andiamo and Pekabu III's crews at nine. We arrrived at the office of the CBP without incident and proceeded to watch at least 10 different CBP officers try to figure out how to process the three boats!

Their first question was "Does anyone speak German?" because they were having trouble communicating with a man who was trying to pick up his car. His English was so-so and they didn't like his "plan of action" anyway, so he watched us come and go and was still standing there waiting when we finally left on hour and 15 minutes later! We had every paper needed and every "i" dotted and "t" crossed and it still took forever! We left there with LBO (Local Boaters Option) cards that SHOULD allow us to do the check-in over the phone in the future.

Pegg had planned a gala evening for all so we made our way back to St. A and over to Jay and Pegg's. Added to the crowd were cousin Andy Bliss, his mom, Aunt Jane Bliss, who were down visiting from New England, and two friends of Pegg's. Pegg declared it a Dark n Stormy evening, so we brought all the fixings and had a great time!

Betty, Erin, Pegg, Martha, Deb and Kathy enjoying the evening.

Pegg was excited to show off her new Androsia fabric tablecloth to all of us.

Thursday and Friday were spent getting boats clean and laundry done AND putting in new Engine Mounts in Brunelle. Dan enlisted help from brother Jay and cousin Andy (who is 6'10" - and had fun trying to snuggle down next to the engine!) and they got it accomplished in fine order. Dan also tried to install a flexible coupling between engine and shaft for the second time, but it still doesn't fit.

What with all the engine work going on, I stayed clear of the boat most of the time and enjoyed visiting and shopping and partying! Saturday Dan washed down the boat, filled tanks and put things back together down below while I did laundry, finished provisioning and joined Pegg at an Easter extravaganza at her friend Judith's house. It's an annual event for all her friends and neighbors and their daughters. There were several craft stations for the kids and TONS of food for all the adults. I couldn't resist making a tissue paper flower (hey girls, remember folding kleenex into accordions, sticking them on bobby pins and then "fluffing them out"? Well this was with full pieces of colorful tissue paper. The Easter bonnets were cute. She had taken a paper plate, cut out the center and glued a paper bowl on top. The creations were adorable.

Easter bonnet making plus my tissue flower lower right.

We had our last dinner at Jay and Pegg's and are ready to head off Sunday morning, this time inside as far as Fernandina Beach. ....I'm turning the sailboat around .....~~~(\_~~~~M&D

Facing the Gulf Stream -the Banks to St. Augustine

Leaving the anchorage near the Lily Bank at sunrise.

After a very comfortable night anchored in the middle of nowhere, we had a hearty breakfast and weighed anchor at 7 am. There wasn't a breath of air and the waters were glassy for the first 6 hours of the trip. When we left the bank I had plotted a slight zig zag course that would take us over to the center of the stream west of the rhumb line to St. Augustine and then we would head more northerly than the course to St. A for around 80 -100 miles before turning to the northwest to move out of the stream and head for St. A Inlet. It took a little doing to convince Pete that going and extra 10 miles or so would actually save us time, but he finally bought into it. It took a LONG time to finally reach the axis of the stream, but after making 7 + knots for hours we immediately shot up to 9 and then 10 knots by following the axis of the stream.

We didn't ride it as long as planned because the wind shifted from SE to S and then SW and freshened quite a bit, so we angled back NW more and drove on through the night with the main up, still doing 9 knots for much of the time. Daylight had us still 7 hours from St. Augustine, but that would get us in around 1 or 1:30 pm and the tide would be going in at the inlet, so we were fine with that.

Unfortunately no one had mentioned a series of small squalls that we would encounter as the wind made its way from SW to NW Tuesday morning. John picked them up on his Satellite Weather Program and we got sails down before they hit and rode them out without too much difficulty, but after a long night, no one really wanted to face even a little adversity! All had quieted down by the time we entered St. Augustine Inlet and we made it through smoothly. Everyone took a slip at Camachee Cove Yacht Harbor and here we sit with our yellow "Q" (quarantine) flags up waiting to take a road trip to Jacksonville tomorrow to go through customs. Nobody had any big plans to go out dancing tonight, so it's no big deal. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

What would an ocean voyage be without a little entertainment.

These guys didn't stay as long as our first experience with dolphins, but they were very playful and loved riding the bow wake. I loved they way their bodies sparkled in the crystal clear waters.

Later in the day we had another visitor, he made the rounds between all three boats, but Dan put out food and water for him, so we had him visiting for quite a while. I think he is a seaside sparrow.

Andiamo before the storms and after!

At least being quarantined didn't keep us from taking showers ashore!

Powell Cay to the Lily Bank

We had set a 7 am departure time but told Pekabu and Andiamo that we would probably leave at 6:30 and head straight across to Great Abaco to the town of Cooperstown to see if they had OII (Out Island Internet) since we still had a few days time of OII. We arrived just off the town as sun began to rise back near Powell Cay. Dan was below finding signal and I was trying to capture yet another sunrise when I heard a tremendous splash right behind me (near the bow of the boat). I turned around and abandoned the sunrise for a while to watch a pod of dolphins also welcoming the sun!

Yet another sunrise, this time Powell Cay is on the left.

Not just humans enjoy sunrise. These dolphins seemed happy a new day was dawning. The guy on the left is rolled over with white belly up and fins raised in praise!

I made a quick post of pictures from our adventures on Powell Cay and we headed west. The other two boats joined us as we headed out onto the Little Bahamas Bank. We were considering anchoring at Great Sale Cay and then leaving around 3 am to make the trek up the Gulf Stream to St. Augustine, but we also had in mind that we might anchor on the edge of the bank (about 25-30 miles past Great Sale Cay) and then could leave at sunrise. The latter won out and after a long day of motoring dead into the wind (3-6 knots) we anchored in 9 - 10 feet just below Lily Bank. It is an eerie feeling to drop the hook without any land in sight and feel secure! But we did! ~~~_/)~~~ M&D

Dan's shirt matched the color so well I just had to center him in the middle of the Lily Bank! That was our view - 360.

Powell Cay

Short motor trip (what little wind was on the nose) of 11.5 nm to Powell Cay. A beautiful uninhabited island (except for a rusty old crane abandoned in the cove.)

Powell is famous for beaches and shelling and we enjoyed both.

While I was busy picking up shells Dan waded the shallows and got pictures of a crab, starfish, strange looking fish and a translucent wormy thing that made little holes as it wiggled.

We are up early and off for Sale Cay which will be our last stop in the Bahamas. See you stateside in a day or three! ~~~_/)~~~M&D