Cumberland Island and St Marys,GA

 We travelled 100 miles in the Atlantic and came in at Cumberland Island, GA.  Cumberland is the most southern Georgia Island, and is a beauty.  It is mostly a national park, where wild horses roam free.  It can only be accessed by boat, so we anchored by the park's office and did some sightseeing on the nature trails, and huge beach.  From there we went a few miles  up the St Marys river to the town of St. Marys.  The small town is rich in history and recently opened a small marina so boaters can enjoy the town and its great waterfront with bars, restaurants and museums.  It is the home of the Atlantic nuclear  submarine base for the US, Kings Bay Navy Submarine Base.  It is on the ICW, and the inlet we came in, is dredged to 50' and is how the subs access the Atlantic.

These dolphin were a hoot!

Can you spot the Sub?

At the Sub museum. 

St Marys is an old town with lots of history.  

Who knew the Acadians stopped here?  

Us at the town dock with a 39' Mainship, my first Trawler.  

Folk lore or fact?? 

Royal terns on Cumberland. 

Horse poop everywhere, but I did  not get pictures of the horses... 

Rangers office-Cumberland. 

Yikes!

This guy came speeding out of Jacksonville and although I had the right of way, I yielded.....

Headed north on the AICW

 Well we are back onboard and finally headed north on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICW).  The AICW runs from Norfolk, VA to Key West, FL.  Since it mainly accommodates pleasure boats, maintenance is chronically underfunded, and there are issues.  North of Charleston, there are spots that are only four feet deep at low tide (tide range is about 10').  In North Carolina, there is a bridge being repaired, for months, and we cant get under it.  Soo, we must improvise, along with a ton of snowbirds headed north. Fortunately we subscribe to several boating sites, such as Waterway Guide, and the Great Loop Association which keep us informed of the problems.  Our current plan is to run offshore around these trouble spots, but that means several trips of 50 plus miles in the open Atlantic.  The passes out into the Atlantic can be tricky, as some are not dredged, and the charts are routinely off on the depth.  Also they are shallow compared to the Atlantic Ocean, and waves can become dangerously high especially if the tide is against the wind.  So we have to watch the tides and weather, and plan accordingly.  

Electronic navigation has become more sophisticated and there is an app for everything.  Want to know the tide schedule?  Tide Times app.  Aqua Maps and Navionics have apps with electronic charts with marina, anchorages and updated hazards via Waterway Guide, and other users.  My iPad is faster and clearer than my mounted displays.  Want to know the exact best path for the AICW?  Google Bob423, and download the track on your iPad!  Dockwa is the app for reserving marinas.  For us older folks, it is almost to much information-but we use it....

We finally left Ft Pierce yesterday, after being there three weeks, while we went home, and had some work done on the boat.  I had the oil changed in the main engines, a job I used to do myself on the old boat.  My 3406 Cats each take about 15 gallons of oil, and I have nowhere to store it or to dispose of it, so it is just easier to have the marina folks do it.  And we had a terrible odor in the boat, which turned out to be caused by a blocked vent line from the holding tank (where the sewage goes).  The tank was venting into the bilge, instead of outside, ergo the stench.  For those of you who own a boat, you know that engineers who design the boat have no concept or care for those who have to maintain the boat.  One of my boats had a bilge pump that was not accessible, without cutting a hole in the floor.  You know where this is going.  The vent line was put in before the walls, and tie wrapped.  There was no way to get to it, so the workers had to run a new line and condemn the old one.  It took them many billable hours to do that, but the stench is gone, and we have no problems pumping out the holding tank now (Florida has an app to show you the nearest pump out station!).  Life is good again, but my wallet took a hit.  The joys of boat ownership...

Meanwhile, we are presently docked at Eau Gallie, FL.  It is part of the city of Melbourne, and is the old part of town with lots of arts and craft shops, and neat restaurants.  We really enjoy these types of stops much better than the glitzy marinas surrounded by oversized homes and condos.  Eau Gallie used to be its own town, and a shipping hub in the early 1900's but rail service supplanted waterway shipping, and the town shrank, until it merged with Melbourne.  Now it has an eclectic vibe.  Our marina owner lives at the marina, and it is a small but well run affair.  

We head north towards St Augustine tomorrow, but will anchor out the next two days skipping St Aug, as we did that in 2014 on our loop trip.  Our next big stop will be Savannah where Walter and Trish will join us.   Until then!  

Eau Gallie Yacht Basin

A waterfront assisted living home in Eau Gallie.  We might end up here-it looks nice. 

The marina neighborhood.  

While walking the docks at Ft Pierce I came across this boat-It is our old Moondance!  It is renamed, but still had the homeport as Houma.  It definitely evoked fond memories, and I lingered some time there.  

This old map was in a museum at Ft Pierce.  I had never learned about the violent suppression of Native Americans that took place in Florida.  The small museum in Ft Pierce had tons of artifacts and history of how Florida was formed and settled.  Probably conveniently left out of my school  history books..  Notice the Brigadier General?  The only president from Louisiana.  

These redheaded lizards are everywhere.  

Banyan tree.  

Ft. Pierce, FL-a good crossing!

 Well the weather gurus were correct and we had a good trip from Great Sale Cay to Ft Pierce, FL on April 1.  Coincidently, we made the same crossing April 1, 2014 when we did the loop.  Must be something about April fools day??  

We have decided to leave the boat here for a few weeks, and have some maintenance done while we fly home.  There is a shipyard here that can fit us in and take care of our list, so we opted to leave it with them instead of going farther north.  We plan to resume our travels north May 1. 

It is approximately 170 NM from Green Turtle to Ft Pierce, so we broke the trip up into three segments.  Segment one was a short hop to anchor at Allan's and Pensacola Cays.  There is a decent anchorage there and great snorkeling nearby.  Also there is a creek full of turtles making for a nice dinghy excursion.  From there we went to Great Sale Cay which is an anchorage commonly used to jump off to or from Florida.  Running about 12 knots, it took about 10 hours to Ft Pierce from Great Sale.  The gulf stream had only about a 2' chop.  So we will fly home from Orlando and my next blog post will hopefully be as we are headed north! 

Sunrise, April 1.

We cleared customs via our ROAM app, and struck the Bahamian flag.  I miss the Bahamas already....

The ubiquitous Brown Pelican-a good sign that we are back in Florida.  

The old Coast Guard station in Ft Pierce. 

At anchor-Allan's and Pensacola Cays.  

My last underwater pictures as I wont be doing and diving the rest of the trip.  This is a juvenile Dusky Damselfish. 

A Blue Tang and finger coarl. 

Spanish Hogfish

Four Eye Butterflyfish. 

Soft coral garden. 

Adult Dusky Damselfish. 

Banded Butterflyfish.  

Rock Beauty. 

Grey Angelfish.

Turtle creek-can you spot the turtles? 

What a great last day in the Bahamas! We are now back in the thick of urban living.  Have to learn how to drive a car (not a golf cart) again, not get run down while walking, and drive on the right....  Ces't tout until May.  

It is time to head back to the States.

One of the common themes this winter has been the weather.  Here in the Abacos there has been a cold front coming through about every week.  Fortunately, most have not had much rain or lightning, but the winds pick up from the south before the front, and they clock west then north as the front passes through.  That makes for short weather windows to cross from the States or go through the whale (the passage from Marsh Harbour to Green Turtle).  It has made for extremely pleasant temperatures, and most days have been sunny and mild.  The wind, however, has been a nemesis.  Yesterday the wind was mild, but the sea still had 7-9’ rollers from the stout north wind from the past few days.  Yesterday around 8:00 am we heard a Mayday call on the VHF radio.  A 40’ sailboat attempted to cross the whale and the boat was swamped by the rollers as they crested when hitting the shallow (10-20’) water in the whale passage.  The sailboat did not have enough power to battle the cresting waves and swamped.  All of us at the marina were glued to our radios as the rescue played out.  At first a 60’ motor yacht spotted three survivors in their dinghy.  Due to the rough seas, they could not transfer from the dinghy to the yacht, so the yacht took the dinghy in tow.  Then the tow line broke and the yachtsman could not find the dinghy due to the steep waves.  Luckily a rescue boat set out from Baker’s Bay, and found the dinghy and towed them to calmer waters.  The sailors were brought to our marina and had to book passage to Nassau to go to the American Embassy to get new passports so they could re-enter the US.  What an ordeal! 

With that thought in mind, there is a small weather window opening April 1.  We plan to cross to Ft. Pierce, FL that day.  We will reluctantly depart Green Turtle Saturday and make our way to a staging ground to cross over.  Hopefully the weather gurus are correct!  If not, we will divert to West End on Grand Bahama and wait. 

Even though we haven’t been able to take the boat out much since Ken and Allyson left, we have made the most of our stay.  We explored the island by golf cart and went to many beaches where we were the only souls there.  One of the nice things about boating is the comradery with other boaters.  We made new friends and enjoyed dock tails on each other’s boat.  As usual we have met people with connections to Houma/Thibodaux and have mutual friends.  It is a small world. 

The boat to our port is a Viking sport fisherman and it charters out.  We made friends with the captain and mate, and they told us it was even too rough for them to go out the whale this morning.  To our starboard is even a bigger Viking.  It is run by a nice captain and mate who are employed by the owner.  They took his daughter out a few days ago and scored a big Wahoo in the rough seas.  They earn their money! 

Alexis and I chartered a bottom fishing trip during one of the calm days and scored a mess of strawberry grouper.  We have had a steady stream of fish and lobster while here, and eating has been what we do….

We both have thoroughly enjoyed staying in the Abacos for three months.  In the past we have always gone south to the Exumas, Eleuthera, and the Berry Islands.  This year staying in the relatively protected Sea of Abaco, we completely unwound.  I read over a dozen books, and we enjoyed the slow pace of staying in one area.  The Abacos probably have more nice restaurants and bars than anywhere outside Nassau.  We have sampled too many of them!  It is time to return to the US!

 

Captain Eddie Bodie was great! 

Why I don't own a sailboat..

 

Steak night and a blood moon rising at GTC.