Month: March 2015

A five hour cruising day from St. Augustine to Daytona found us in busier waters and making our way under lots of different bridges. So far, we’ve only had two bridges that needed to open for us — and in both cases we lucked out with timing. The bridges were opening almost exactly as we arrived. Today, our bridge travels were more interesting. We passed under several fixed bridges — which means they do not open. You are either under the height limit or you take the nearest cut into the ocean to avoid it. The ones we passed under were 62-65 feet high — no problem for Dot.Calm. The bascule bridges presented some challenges. “Bascule” comes from the French word “teeter-totter” based on how these bridges open, using a small motor to move a counterweight that lifts the bridge. The really low ones we encountered — less than 12 feet clearance — were no problem at all. A call to the bridge tender, and up she goes. But two of the bascule bridges had clearances close to the height of our boat. We estimated the height of Dot.Calm including all of the electronics on top to be around 22 feet, but to be on the safe side, we radioed the bridge tenders that we were 24 feet. In one case, the bridge tender obliged with a speedy lift of the bridge. In the other, the bridge tender told us that a bigger boat had gone under “her bridge” an hour or so before with no problem and that we should just forge ahead. All well and good, except the tides in Florida can change pretty dramatically in “an hour or so.” We moved up to and under the bridge cautiously and made it without a scrape, but with a good deal of trepidation. The ICW shows the many sides of Florida from multi-million dollar heaps to stretches of wilderness that looks as though no one has ever set foot on it. In between are condo developments of every stripe, some that look like Italian villas and others like public housing plus more modest single family homes and one double-wide mobile home park.

Sun! Warm! Nice! A perfectly lovely day for enjoying the top deck without having to huddle at the driving station to avoid cold breezes. Roger and Will headed into St. Augustine’s old town to capture photographs of potential painting scenes. Roger declared that the morning’s light was “painterly” and they took dozens of shots that may be turned into watercolors for Roger’s ICW series. Ann and Cliff couldn’t resist lazing on the top deck, luxuriating in the warmth and enjoying the views. They spent a little time cleaning, too. Salt air = salt grime and only a good scrubbing can wash it away. Dot.Calm looks pretty spiffy in its slip at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. We are all happy with a slip rather than a mooring on the headwall (which is what we’ve had most of the time until now). In the slip we are protected from the slap of waves on the hull and the motion set off by the wakes of passing boats. Very comfortable. Playing Mexican Train at the big round table on the top deck is a treat — and our trains don’t get too squished either. St. Augustine has a robust tourist trade with parades of trolley tours nearly nose-to-nose on the road in front of the marina. The marina also has a fair number of tour boats in the form of pirate ships (those groups looked and sounded like they were having a blast!), galleons, three-masted schooners and just plain two-decker tour platforms The small back streets are filled with shops of every description along with local restaurants. We noticed how many of the restaurants had live music which drifted pleasantly into the streets. Had an late lunch/early dinner at Harry’s (New Orleans inspired cuisine) and then hiked (nearly a mile!) to the ABC Liquor Store. Good exercise following a chocolate bread pudding with ice cream indulgence.

We are officially in the “real” Florida….mega-houses, mega-yachts, inattentive (and sometimes just plain rude) boaters, stretches and stretches of houses and boat docks along the ICW. Quite a change from the mostly remote and rural passages we’ve made so far. We all enjoyed the warm sun and clear skies — but it was still coolish. Fernandina Beach, although in Florida, is wonderfully quaint compared to the crowded surroundings you encounter near Jacksonville and on to St. Petersburg.  Pictures tell the tale of today’s journey.

A bright, beautiful, blue-sky morning greeted us this morning accompanied by a brisk wind off the water. We started our morning with a healthy serving of carbohydrates from a Fernandina bakery — cinnamon rolls, berry muffins, chocolate muffins and zucchini muffins (I told you it was healthy!) Cleaning was the first order of the day. The boat needed a wash to get rid of a salty rime and the spotted windows and Roger and Will took care of straightening and vacuuming the inside. Spent more time on Fernandina Beach’s main shopping streets and also wandered down many side streets to look at historic homes. Nearly 50 blocks of the downtown are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The variety of homes is astounding ranging from cute cottages to magnificent mansions and everything in between. Queen Anne gems sit side by side with compact Craftsman homes with Italianate-styled mansions tucked in here and there. And, of course, there are a handful that are in dire need of attention. We were invited in to an open house by a real estate agent even after we told him we were definitely NOT in the market. It was listed for $365,000 and probably needed another $500,000 worth of updating. We could tell the renovation rules here are not as strict as Charleston — the kitchen in this home featured an awkward diagonal cooking island and the closets looks as though they had been carved out of other rooms. Tonight we are dining at David’s, supposedly the nicest place within walking distance. Last night’s dinner is worth a mention: Ciao for Italian. Food and service was spectacular. They should just warn you that every serving feeds a family of four! We brought leftovers back to the boat and will dine in style aboard on another night.

P.S. ADDED SOME PHOTOS TO YESTERDAY’S BLOG AS WELL.

Caught some luck with wind and wind direction for our departure to Fernandina Beach crossing St. Andrew’s Sound. Wind at 13 knots and from the SSW which created some low chop, but nothing scary. Forecast for tomorrow includes peppier winds and a northern persuasion, something definitely to be avoided.  The dock hand at Golden Isles Marina remarked that the sound can get “pretty snotty” in any north wind.  Glad to miss that experience.  Next leg of our trip was about four hours and we encountered some pretty skinny water at low tides.  I tried to get a couple of photos to demonstrate, but they do not quite capture the stomach clenching feeling of watching the depth sounder show shallower and shallower water.  We were also treated to some new wildlife displays — wood storks (which I did not manage to capture on film), white pelicans (which the books say are quite rare) and wild horses (on a island nature sanctuary).  We also saw many other sea birds and the pleasant sight of dolphins slipping easily through the choppy water. Fernandina Harbour Marina is nestled between two gigantic paper mills and is much nicer than that sounds. Wind is up, so no smell. The town itself is charming and compact — something like we expected in St. Simon’s! Lots of independent stores and restaurants, friendly people and relaxed attitudes. Roger got caught in a downpour while strolling downtown and was invited up to take shelter on a beautiful front porch by one of the Fernandina residents.  Stopped in to a bar (shock!) called The Palace which dates from the late 1800’s. The bar itself was designed by Adolph Busch and features carvings of semi-clad maidens and a huge mirror. A tin ceiling and intricate mosaic floor are all original and it really is a bar….no food, no snacks and a distinct hint of spilled beer and cigarettes wafting about. Also, much nicer than it sounds. We’ll spend two nights here which will give us time to stretch our legs, spend some $$ at West Marine and relax aboard without any crewing tasks. Dinner at a local Italian bistro called Ciao tonight, a nice change of pace from our usual seafood spots. And I’m sure we’ll get in a few games of Mexican Train.

A beautiful, still morning in our secluded New Tea Kettle Creek anchorage. Cliff was up at 2am to check on the anchor at high tide and spent an hour or so “enjoying” the quiet dark and the stars that finally appeared. (They were no where to be seen when we went to bed because of a thick cloud cover.) He heard alligator bulls sending out raucous love calls, bullfrogs doing the same and the gentle swish of the creek current wrapping itself around the boat. For safety sake, we kept the deck lights on and I’m sure looked like a UFO to anyone with a view toward our boat. We learned that we were moored in a marsh and not a swamp despite the bellowing of alligators.  Swamps are populated with trees; marshes feature grass.  The specific grass here is called cordgrass and it feeds, protects and otherwise nurtures an abundance of marine and animal life.  The water was glassy and nearly still as we ate breakfast as it was slack tide; the water ripples soon multiplied announcing a change in the current before we had the dishes washed. The cruise to St. Simons was mostly gray and it started to rain as we made the long u-turn into the water leading to Golden Isle Marina. Hot showers and fresh clothes were the first order of business before taking a taxi into the village of St. Simons. The shopping/restaurant area was a bit of a disappointment with mostly touristy tee shirt and souvenir stores and pretty ordinary looking restaurants, though Barbara Jean’s Restaurant’s claim of having the world’s best crab cakes was enticing. Fortunately, a salesperson Cliff encountered was polite in responding to his question as to whether there might be a shopping area with a Prada or something like that nearby. (Prada? Cliff?) She didn’t seem offended and answered, “You’d think with all the money on this island there would be. But nope.”  We decided dinner back at the marina was a better bet and it was a good choice. We will have an early start tomorrow morning in order to cross St. Andrew’s Sound before the winds increase or decide to take a northerly bearing. We’ve been warned about how nasty the waters in the sound can be. In fact, our friend Ron Greeley advised us to stay put until weather turned fair. “Sell the boat if you have to,” he advised. We are taking his warning to heart!

I’ll skip the weather dramatics and just say that the sun finally appeared as we were about to cook hamburgers on the outdoor grill. Hooray. It was gray nearly the entire trip from Savannah to New Tea Kettle Creek anchorage, except that it started drizzling as we made our way off the ICW and into the creek. We debated about eating inside or out….and the emerging sun and bright breeze made up our minds. Dinner al fresco. Beautiful. Peaceful. Amazing. Ahhhh. The 60+ mile trip to this evening’s anchorage (this means not a marina….we are in an area with no services, no dockage and no shore access at all) was quite enjoyable despite the grey weather. We realized how close we were to the Atlantic Ocean when we saw waves breaking on the shoals in Sapelo Sound. We were treated to visits by dolphin for our entire trip — small groups surfacing several times in a row and then, seemingly, disappearing into the depths. You saw yesterday’s Keith Haring cartoon drawing of dolphins and, hopefully, noted their beaks. These beaks are one of the distinguishing characteristics of dolphin compared to porpoises; porpoises have a rounded, beak-less face. Here are some others: dolphin travel in groups while porpoise roam in pairs and trios; dolphin are larger — 9 feet or longer is not unusual while porpoise are rarely larger than 7 feet; dolphin vocalization can be heard by humans, but porpoise make sounds that are above human listening ranges. Both of these mammals echo-locate — which means they identify objects around them by bouncing sound waves off of them. The area where we are moored is filled with birds. We saw a flock of two dozen white egrets take flight as a group from the grassy march as we arrived. As sunset approached, the near shores were filled with red wing blackbirds and their meadow calls. We watched lesser terns, royal terms and cormorants (or maybe they were anhingas?) diving as pelicans glided barely inches over the water. I missed seeing some sort of furry animal cross one of the rivers — we guessed a muskrat, since it is unlikely that either otter or beaver roam these areas. We did some research and found out that there are 200,000 alligators living in Georgia…..sure hope they prefer other areas. Dinner on board consisted on grilled hamburgers and a Whole Foods pasta salad. Tomorrow’s breakfast will require actual preparation — dill egg salad with smoked salmon plus fruit salad.

 

Gray, but not raining! A day to explore Savannah. First to the Jepson Contemporary Art Museum specifically for an Andy Warhol print retrospective, which was terrific and featured a number of other “pop art” luminaries. The exhibit had a number of Warhol’s most famous pieces including the camouflage series, the Liza Minnelli portrait and the Marilyn Monroe series. Another gallery featured an exhibit titled “The Visual Blues,” focusing on the Harlem renaissance with a musical backdrop of great jazz tunes. Swiss-born artist Katja Loher presents wildly creative video compilations focusing on endangered insect species that pollinate much of the food crops humans rely on. The videos “seem” to show bees, bats, hummingbirds and other species, but turn out to be costumed humans. You have to see them to understand how complex and amazing these dance-like performances are. We’re on a cruise, after all, so our next stop (after some refreshments, of course!) was the Ships of the Sea Museum, housed in a Greek revival mansion in the central city area. Intricate models of sailing ships, steam paddle-wheelers, passenger ships (including the Titanic), military ships and all manner of boats, mostly named “Savannah” are the focus. The gardens are worth visiting all on their own. Dinner at 700 Drayton, a restaurant housed in a historic mansion which is part of a hotel named, appropriately, The Mansion, was terrific. Elegant and delicious and leisurely enough to be a perfect ending to our day.

Well, since it snowed in Chicago yesterday, I suppose there’s no complaining about a little bit of rain and some cloudy skies. A coolish trip from Hilton Head to Savannah with the excitement of crossing the busy, commercial Savannah River and seeing many beautiful river-front homes along the way. We are moored on the forward dock at Isle of Hope Marina which is several miles outside of Savannah proper. It is quite different from Harbour Town. Isle of Hope is small and quaint with modest power and sail boats (with a few exceptions that you’ll see in photos) arrayed in straight dock rows perpendicular to the river’s current. We are on the face wall which means the current runs along our length, creating a constant, yet irregular, lapping sound that we’ll have to get used to at bedtime! I’m thinking it might be restful. Spent the afternoon along the river walk area of Savannah after lunching at Vic’s on the recommendation of Roger’s daughter Kim. Good choice! Appetizers of crispy calamari, crawfish beignets and crab cakes and then full lunches that will hold us until breakfast tomorrow (maybe).

Harbour Town Yacht Basin at Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head is the Ritz Carlton of marinas. Wow! The boats around us are gorgeous and there are townhouses and condos encircling the harbor. Several clothing stores and the usual tee-shirt emporiums are nearby, but the grocery store is a half-mile away. Fortunately, Will and Roger borrowed the courtesy car in Beaufort and made a grocery run so we are well supplied. And, as Will noted when he explored the various storage areas on the boat, most of them were filled with cases of wine. This place has a very yacht-y feel — a perfect setting — if only the weather had cooperated. Despite grey, cloudy skies and some rain, the temperature is mild. A good day for catching up on some chores like laundry (I am pretty certain we were the only crew in the harbor that does its own laundry!) and stowing away a variety of things that did not find themselves back in the right spots during our first days of cruising. Also a good day for playing cards and Mexican Train with Will trouncing the rest of us as usual. Roger and I spent some time reading the electronic version of the NYTimes and lamented about the state of the world while enjoying our privileged perch. There is something about cruising that makes the realities of the world outside our tiny orbit seem far away and not as pressing or distressing. Not sure if that is good or bad. For now, we are focused on our here and now and that is very, very good indeed.