April 21 22 Charleston SC to Wrightsville Beach NC 155 7 Miles

We left at 10 as planned, but I screwed up reading the tide table so the tide was against us on the way out of Charleston, though weakly. We put up the main in the inner harbor and jibed it several times on the way out, past Fort Sumter where our Civil War began. Actually it began in SC, earlier, with the thinking of Calhoun, on the theory of states rights to "nullify" federal authority, a doctrine now becoming popular again among the lunatic right in this country.

We turned left as soon as we reached the first buoy after the end of the seawall and put up the genoa as well. This was before noon but the wind was too weak and too far behind us, to move the boat with  any speed, so we motor sailed, mostly motored, until about 1:30. I even had taken down the mainsail. I had not realized how much of the first 109 mile long part of this passage, was more easterly than northerly and so the projected five to ten knots of west wind was behind us. Then came wind, much stronger than projected and a gift to us. I was able to get up half the mainsail, with double reef in it, and continued with the genoa. The wind built behind us and we were screaming along at seven to eight knots with peaks at 8.9. And with the wind about 120 to 150 degrees from our bow, we rolled a lot from side to side, most unpleasant. Lene felt a bit nauseous though she did not lose her food. We had a delicious cold dinner -- no cooking with the rolling. It was warm and sunny by day and reasonably warm at night, with no rain. But during the night we got some slow speeds, less than four knots and even though I did not put up the genoa again until near daybreak, it was this night part, as well as the first few hours, where we lost time

After dinner, at 7:30, we replaced the genoa with the small jib, a safety measure for nightime sailing in big waves, and were still making over seven knots with just the small headsail and double reefed main. We had put on the preventer to prevent accidental jibe of the mainsail, and with the small jib sliding back and forth we took it in and sailed under just double reefed main. The preventer was a good thing because the wind had shifted from off our starboard quarter, to off the port quarter during Lenes watch. We were sailing "by the lee" -- the way you get that accidental jibe. When I got up at one (Lene let me sleep late) we jibed the main and continued on toward the turning point - off the tip of Frying Pan Shoals, which extend many miles out into the Atlantic from the Cape Fear River. We saw very little traffic: Two big freighters passed us at quite respectable distances -- closest point of approach being miles away -- and one sailboat overtook us, headed for Beaufort. I saw his lights and estimate he was 200 yards off our starboard side, moving a fraction of a knot faster than ILENE. Prior to the close passage I had a radio conversation with him to confirm what each of us was going to do.

Once around Frying Pan, at about 4 to 5 am, we turned north to Wrightsville (The Masonboro Inlet) and the wind came up from our port quarter to its beam and even forward of that. This second leg was only 32 miles and wind speed varied considerably during the leg, as, consequently, did boat speed.
It is hard to get good pictures of a night passage so at least I have the long awaited dawn.

Masonboro Inlet is easy, wide, well marked and flanked with seawalls. Once in, it is easy to get to the anchorage area and we dropped at 1:30, only 90 minutes "late" compared to our projected schedule that would have averaged 6.5 knots. Nice homes line the bay side of the barrier island.

We put out a lot of chain because there is lots of room and 20 knots were predicted for this evening. But by 4 pm it was howling at up to 40. We visited Wrightsville and made the reciprocal of this same ocean passage, to Charleston on our way south last fall and hence felt no need to lower and raise the dink to stretch our legs in Wrightsville. Tomorrow: Beaufort NC, about 80 miles and if the forecast comes true, a beam reach  or close reach from the port side, with five to fifteen knots.
I  tried to take a photo of the pod of dolphins playing under and around our bow, taking the Ipad up there, but they are way faster than ILENE at eight knots. I took maybe 50 shots and only one, a video of less than one second, caught a dolphin. These were not the slow graceful swimmers in the ICW but racers amidst the big ocean waves. I couldnt get the video into this post but it is on Facebook. I did manage to neither fall off the boat nor drop the camera.
Ilene is a true member of this crew and a solid citizen on overnight passages. She grumbles a bit and still relies on me, and I have to admit I like the  second part of that. She is even taking an interest in the charts, tides and weather. I couldnt make this trip without her, physically, mentally or emotionally. We have some chores that each of us do most of, but both of us do many of the chores. She said she liked our 25.5 hours together.
On our honeymoon on the old ILENE, in August 2002, we spent a pretty terrible 36 hours in a noreaster off the coast of Maine  The boat got beat up (torn sail, water inside through the dorades, compass light out) and we got beat up too. After a good nights sleep Lene asked, "Where do we go next?"  I replied "God, I married the right woman!"  And that has become truer with each passing year.

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Leading Up To The Departure Sept 22 to October 7

Time to say goodbye to the Harlems mascots -- though these birds can get nasty when not given what they want. They come every summer. The white ones are the parents, and the darker ones were born this year and are full size but not yet white. God willing, they will return to the Harlem in 2015 before we do.

During the period of this post I had only three sails totaling only eight hours and all in light to nonexistent winds. One of these was aboard ILENE, with Stu and Barbara. Stu is a Past Commodore and they recently sold their power boat so, being boatless, I was able to seduce them to sail with me. We went to the fuel dock in Port Washington to fuel up, round trip about six or eight miles, and it took us four hours of pleasant conversation, with a delicious lunch, except we motored half of the way.

I had planned to participate in the Harlems annual Take Veterans Sailing Day, and with Ilene away had slept aboard in anticipation of that event the next day. But the engine would not start, probably because I had burned up all of the four gallons of fuel in the starboard fill fuel tank in the process of removing the final water from that tank. Howard, in his mid eighties and very intelligent and spry, helped me "bleed" the air out of the system and change the Yanmar fuel filter, which had a bit of water in it and no fuel. Howard had spent a harrowing, storm tossed ill fated week aboard ILENE in the fall of 2010 during which major damage was done, which will be the subject of a post some day when I have no current news to report. Yet Howard was willing to sail with me again! We sailed his 28.5 foot Hunter, "Covered Call" for a few hours, and because both of us are veterans, we "sort of" fulfilled the mission of the day, though all of the American Legionnaires, our Clubs actual guests, had been taken out aboard other boats by then. The boat moved very well in light air and was a pleasure to sail. I was able to better attach the tack of her genoa and pull it closer to the furling foil to give that sail a better shape using bits of light line that Howard had aboard.

The third and final sail of this period was on "Jazzsail" with Lloyd and Rhoda. I had a good time working most of the time aboard whipping the ends of their lines.

As contrasted to the three brief sails and two days with overnight sleep aboards, there were six work days (totaling only 23.5 hours), including two with Ilene as helper. Her forte is organizing and things are now put away. Hopefully I will be able to find them! We loaded a lot of stuff aboard, cleaned inside and out, took her to the dock to fill water tanks, readjusted the davit bar, finally figured out a way to add air to the dink (using the old foot pump from the prior dink with the nozzle of the current dinks pump) and did miscellaneous bits of electrical, carpentry and marlinspike work including rigging a true preventer (of accidental gybes) system.

As of October 7, the last day of ILENEs "first season" of 2014, I have 66 "Work" days, and 27 "Other" days but only 50 "Sailing" days (on which I sailed and/or slept aboard). But during our second season, October 8 through December 31, God willing, we will add 85 more sailing days, bringing 2014s total sailing days to 135.

Key West, Here we come! Im psyched!!

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January 22 26 Five Lay Days in Marathon Zero Miles

Mike and Bev are in the Marathon Community Theater -- operating since 1944!  Well, they have only been in it for seven years; he is an actor and she is lighting crew. We went to their production of "Harvey". Actually, they drove us there. They had to be there early which gave us time for pre-theater dinner at the nearby Cracked Conch Cafe. I pigged out on conch chowder, conch fingers and key lime pie -- and a local beer! If you are going to eat native, go all the way. (ful disclosure: the conch comes in from Turks and Caicos and most key limes are not grown in the Keys.)
Other friends drove us to the local Publix, a little over a mile away, at which we stocked up on everything except Boars Head cold cuts; they sell -- for $3 less per pound than anywhere else -- at the nearby liquor store/deli, where we stocked up. Cab ride back: $4.00
We volunteered to help kids make "projects" out of materials donated by Home Depot, as part of a Family Fun Day at the adjacent municipal park, but the event was cancelled due to adverse weather. It didnt actually rain but threatened and there was a strong wind. We had a mango pancake breakfast on ILENE with Marsha and John, of the Saga 43, "Remora".

Nice folks and we compared our boats; theirs is six years younger and some improvements were made but other good features had been discontinued. They are from Houston and had sailed across the Gulf.
Around noon, the wind came up very strong and our anchor dragged -- a very bad thing in this crowd. We would have gone aground or crashed into other boats (even floating at one knot, ten tons can do a lot of damage to both boats). Luckily we saw it, got the engine and windlass on and Lene steered, I picked up the anchor and we moved to a slightly better location where we dropped again, let out more scope and held while the boat hunted back and forth, getting close, fifty feet, from "Selkie",

an aluminum hull from Cork, Ireland. Selkies captain came over in his dink and we invited his son and daughter, age six and ten (and their parents) over later, to play with our felines.
We were more lucky than a nearby boat, behind us -- facing the wrong way and heeled over -- that dragged into the sandy mud.

 Fortunately, they were afloat again the next morning. We would like to be on a mooring which is more secure against dragging, but no one is leaving until a weather window opens up for the Bahamas.
The daily radio net on VHF channel 68 creates a community among the boaters. It has a section called "Activities": movies,  theater, daily specials at restaurants, archery lessons, bible study, astronomy, meetings on human trafficking, passages to the Bahamas, etc. get announced. I asked whether anyone else sailing with cats wanted to  get together to share stories. But we had to leave our radio and did not get the replies, if any, which were to be shared on Channel 69 after the net. But next day s/v "Mardi Gras", from St. Louis, MO, with Barry and Linda aboard, hailed us while leaving Marathon by yelling, and gave us their phone number, so we could later exchange cat stories. Their stories were about Pearls swim one night when she got distracted while chasing a moth, and the crazy obscure hidden places in Mardi Gras  in which Pearl was able to trap herself. Similar to our cats adventures with variations. Their blog is sailmardigras.blogspot.com. We may see them in Key West or the Tortugas.
Our new pencil holder arrived and is installed. Lene hadnt liked the idea until now. I had thought this would be useful for several

years, to avoid having to open the hinged top of the desk and look under it for a pencil but didnt get one until now.
The movie "Red Dot On The Ocean" a documentary about Matt Rutherford, was shown on a sheet hung at the outdoor Tiki Lounge, next to the main marina building one evening. Matt, who had a troubled past with school, family, substances and the law, sailed an old Vega 27 -- a 27 foot boat -- around the Americas, departing from Little Creek Virginia and returning back there 309 days later, including west through the northwest passage above Canada to the Pacific and around Cape Horn -- (1) alone, (2) without stopping or going ashore and (3) on a short budget. He was met twice by other boats who brought him food and a replacement hand powered water maker. He had essentially no spare parts, sails, etc, and when he got back the boat was filthy and almost everything was broken, except his spirits. The film was highlighted by the presence of its director and producer,

Amy, from "Mary T", on a mooring. Needless to say this movie was appreciated by the audience, including us. Free admission! A real treat.

Technically, we are in Boot Key Harbor, formed by Marathon to the north (on which Route 1, the black line, runs), Boot Key to the South and Vaca Key to the east. We entered between the two red dots in the upper left (The upper one is a green buoy) and motored 1.2 miles east to between R"16" and R"18", shown just below the word "MARATHON."  From here it is a .6 mile dinghy ride, first continuing west and then north to the the land jutting south from Marathon by the buoy "5B". The greenish spot extending just below 5B called PA is a shoaly sea grass area, too shallow for even the dink. Thus, the harbor has room for expansion if people have the money to spend and the Corps of Engineers would permit this large squarish area, perhaps 200 yards on each side, to be dredged.
One morning we dinked through Sisters Creek which is the other entrance to the harbor, for dinghys and boats of up to four feet draft, to visit Sombrero Beach. The Creek is shown on the southern part of the chart and separates Boot key from Vaca Key. The water at the beach was warm enough for barefoot wading but  the air was cool enough for the sweatshirt. When I was in Key West for antisubmarine training in the fall of 1965, the type of seaweed that lines the shore here was made wet by daily rain and rotted in the intense heat, giving off a sulfurous gas that peeled the paint from peoples houses! No such problem here.

The municipal marina is next to the city park where they have tennis courts and shuffleboard courts and equipment and probably lots of other things, available for rent, if you can call it that, because they are free.

Readers may recall my friend Hugh, from my navy days, who sailed with me with his grandson, Levi, in Boston Harbor in early August 2013 and who visited us with Levi in NY in 2014. Learning that we were to be in Marathon through this blog, he put me in touch with his Machetonim (Yiddish word to describe ones childs in-laws), Beverly, who lives here. We contacted her but our first proposed meeting had to be cancelled by us due to excessive wind making the dink ride uncomfortable, and to be here in case of dragging.
We have spent two, non-consecutive days aboard here due to high winds. In the later, our extra scope and the shifting direction of the wind put us in the channel and we were directed to move and did so, to a new spot about .2 miles further from the marina. Our plan calls for us to stay here a few more days.
When I drove to and from Key West in 1965, the keys were largely unpopulated, just a few bars and low budget motels is all I recall. The place has filled in with the rest of Florida.

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ovember 22 and 23 Two Lay Days in Fernandina Zero Miles

Pretty lazy lay days. We had a delicious breakfast with Dean and Susan

followed by a very productive shopping trip at the multi-vendor farmers market. We are looking forward to boiling the likes of home made sweet potato fettuccine -- the eggs and other filler replaced with the pureed potato.  Afternoon and evening plans were replaced by the threat of a storm so we hung out on ILENE with some cleaning and polishing and a quiet night at home. The rain came, and heavy, but not until about 2 am and continued until morning.
The second day was warm, with a very light shower in the evening. After bailing many gallons of rainwater out of the dink I visited the Amelia Island Museum of History,

located in the former county jail and took its 2 pm "eight flags" tour. The ninth flag, except that they did not have one, would have been that of the  matriarchal peaceful people, the Timucuans, who the Europeans wiped out. (The Seminoles, who married with escaped slaves -- slaves escaped to the south, to the Florida wilderness, where the Spanish left them alone -- came later, from the north.) The Spanish wiped out the Huguenot French saying: "not because they were French but because they were Protestants" and held the island several times, including, for a period after the Treaty Of Paris, which ended our war of independence. That treaty gave Florida to Spain for their help to the new republic against the British. Various pirate regimes were established. David Levy Yulee campaigned to have the Florida Territory become a state and was the first US senator from Florida (and the first Jewish senator in the US senate) when Florida was granted statehood in 1845. But Florida was the third state to secede, in 1861, so its first period as a US State was short lived. Yulee (a nearby town is named for him) also built Floridas first big railroad, which ran from Floridas Gulf Coast northeastward to Fernandina, a deep water port, to permit the transport of goods from the gulf states to the Atlantic without having to go all the way around the peninsula and the keys by boat. But it was finished just in time for the Civil War and sections of rail were removed by the Confederacy to be used in more strategic locations. You get the idea that no one really cared that much about Florida until tourism put it on the map. All of these "regime changes" were accomplished without a shot being fired.
Flagler offered to build a spur of his east coast railroad to Fernandina but the existing tourism on Amelia Island was so good in the 1890s that the town fathers declined his offer, much to their chagrin, because the tourism industry relocated to southern Florida until the 1990s when it returned here. What made the museum so enjoyable was our docent, Bobbie Fost, a history professor who knew and loved her subject, shown here under a depiction of the eight flags, in chronological order.

The museum has much more to offer so if you want more, ask me  -- or visit yourself.

After returning to the boat to pick up Lene, we dined on interesting dishes at "29 South" with Dean and Susan, and plan to head over to St. Marys tomorrow morning, less than seven miles.

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December 22 24 Three More Lay Days in Velcro Beach Zero Miles

The Vero Beach Art Museum is quite good for a town this size. The highpoint for me was an exhibit of the history of Haitian art, led by docent Phoebe.

She told us how the native artists were given materials and opportunities -- but without any training, classical or otherwise -- to develop their own natural, primitive art forms. This was done by a conscientious objector to WWI who fled there. We were told the history of that blighted nation from its colonial days under the French, its slave revolt, and a series of despotic rulers with occasional harmful US interventions, plus more than its share of natural disasters. All of this history plus the voodoo tinged Catholicism is captured in the art.

And having purchased a steel barrel-head based wall sculpture of gekkos by a Haitian artist in Swansboro, NC, we were pleased to note several works of this genre in the show.

The Mckee Botanical Gardens was less thrilling. The place had its heydays in the 30s when it also featured a zoo and was quite popular. Having been closed for decades, it was reopened in the 90s and provides a very pleasant oasis of quiet solitude with not very much labeling of the trees. McKee specializes in water lilies.

These pads, with raised rims, are 18 inches across.

Two beauties: Lene with orchids

"The Old Man" having fallen, is a life source to other plants

Pink powder puffs is what I call these

I got ten times more questions about this Maine tee shirt than about any of my other shirts. Seems everyone who has ever been anywhere in New England wants to strike up a conversation. Maybe its the large font size.
We had lunch at McKees Cafe and used two buses to get back to ILENE where I polished more stainless,
Our last day here involved a bus ride and .8 mile walk to a movie theater to see Birdman and Wild. Admission for seniors $5, refillable popcorn $2. Our first movie since NY. I liked Wild better; it involves one persons trek of the Pacific Rim Trail, and i somehow identified our boat camping with that long-distance camping experience; no I have not given the plot away.
And we had to buy a new boat hook because the old one now lies on the bottom, after the metal pole slipped out of its rubber handle under strain. Dinner was at Riverside Cafe, about 3/4 of a mile by dink. I love commuting by dink and the live music was nice but the food, unremarkable.
Oh, and you havent heard me whining about how cold it is. Thats because we have have gone from three quilts over the top sheet to zero and opening hatches to let in cooler air.
And ever since St. Marys GA, freight train whistles have been our companion most every night. South Florida was developed as a result of the railroad built by Flagler and freight trains still run along the coast.
Six nights in one place is a long time for us.

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22 ft sailboat plans

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