May 26 - 27
Thursday morning we got an early start from Wrightsville Beach anchorage. Again, we had strong South winds, which helped us a lot with motorsailing in the ICW, again exceeding 7 knots a good part of the day.
We made real good time and Thursday evening we are at Casper's Marina in Swansboro. We walked a couple blocks to "downtown" Swansboro for dinner and turned in early.
Tomorrow, Eureka finally returns to Carteret County, having left on October 31, 2010.
A great experience for the boat and for me. We've seen a lot, learned a lot, and done as much sailing as we wanted - for a while.
I've been on Eureka for 56 days since October 31, 2010. Although not a lot in the eyes of true cruisers, I think that is about enough for me right now. Maybe next week I'll be ready for a sail to the Cape.
Thus ends another adventure.
May 23 - 26
We made it well up the ICW on Monday, eventually anchoring about 6 miles North of Georgetown, SC in a secluded, quiet anchorage.
Tuesday, we continued up the ICW - the winds are still howling offshore (and we've gotten in some good sailing even in the "ditch"). We stopped at Barefoot Landing in Myrtle Beach. It is Bill's 66th birthday, and we celebrated ashore at T-Bonz.
An early start Wednesday gets us up to Wrightsville Beach. An incredible amount of mileage for being in the "ditch" We had strong winds from the South and we were able to motor sail with speeds over 7 knots, which helped, and everywhere we hit the tides just right.
Thursday we are continuing up the ICW (the winds are still to strong to mess with an offshore passage). Today, we had a pet dolphin spend quite a bit of time with us.
May 17 - 22
Tuesday, May 17 to Sunday, May 22
Tuesday morning we got an early start from Bayside Marina in downtown Miami, headed out to the Gulf Stream to take advantage of the current to get a boost in speed. The weather is excellent
About the time we got settled in the Gulf Stream and started seeing 10+ knots of GPS speeds (about a 4-5 knot current), we realized that we didn't have enough fuel to make it overnight, so we had to come back in about mid-day through Hillsboro Inlet and get fuel. We made an amazing 30 minute turnaround (we know because we made the openings at the Hillsboro Inlet bridge). We headed back out. By now the winds were blowing up to 20 knots (out of the East) and we were taking a beating. So we decided we'd better not make this our first overnighter.
We eventually went into Lake Worth Inlet with a tide that looked more like a mountain stream.
While taking our sails down, the furling line for the main became untied in the spool, and all of a sudden we couldn't take the main down. Strong winds, strong current and getting dark.
Joe went on deck and for the next hour or so, and worked on trying to get the line squared away. Eventually, after dark, we just dropped the entire sail, had a couple drinks, some supper and went to bed. We'll work on it in the morning.
Wednesday morning, we got up early, got the main sail squared away and took off back outside to again take advantage of the Gulf Stream being so close to shore.
We stayed about 20 miles offshore for a long overnight, with pretty sloppy conditions toward dawn.
We caught a nice tuna and we had it for supper while sailing in the Gulf Stream.
Fresh Tuna
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| Sunset in the Gulf Stream |
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| The helm at night |
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| St Augustine waterfront |
We eventually came in the Ponce de Leon Inlet Thursday morning and motored up the ICW to St. Augustine where we refueled, got water and picked up a mooring ball at the city marina and slept very heavily. We were worn out. We had covered nearly 200 miles from Miami.
Friday morning, we headed out early for another overnighter, with a good weather forecast, planning on making it to Savannah Ga. We sailed a good part of this section in excellent sailing conditions.
We had excellent conditions overnight Friday night and about midnight decided to make our destination Charleston, SC rather than Savannah Georgia. We had again covered about 200 miles in 36 hours.
While 20 miles off shore, a pretty little bird came to visit and spent an hour or so with us. I don't know how he flew this far and where he was going, but he was one brave little guy.
We had been out of phone contact since Friday morning. Joe was monitoring a situation at home that required him to get home as soon as possible. Saturday, as soon as we got phone coverage, I called our friends from Asheville, Bill and Jan, who had started the trip with us in Marathon Florida to see if they could meet us in Charleston Sunday so Joe could go home. They were at their lake house at Fontana Lake, but they dropped everything, went home and left early Sunday morning, arriving in Charleston by noon. We got some groceries and Joe took their car and headed home.
We enjoyed a nice leisurely Sunday afternoon, took a cab downtown had a nice dinner and crashed for the evening, planning an early departure to go to Winyah Bay (near Georgetown) on the outside.
Monday morning we started out at 6 am, but as soon as we got out the inlet, we hit 20 knots of wind (the forecast was for 10-15 knots). We immediately knew we weren't going to beat ourselves up in those conditions so turned around to go up the ICW.
As soon as we started up the ICW, we came to a bridge that is closed until 9 am (we arrived near the bridge at 7 am).
Now we are sitting on anchor waiting for the bridge to open at 9 am. A frustrating start for the remainder of the trip.
May 16-19
After a week of phone conversations with Jay, Monday morning, Joe and and fly out of New Bern at 5:30 am to Miami.
By 10:30, we are at Hurricane Cove Marina and Jay is waiting for us. We drop the boat in the water and do a thorough check of the engine. It works perfectly, no overheating and no grey smoke.
We take Jay to lunch at a great Cuban restaurant and he drops us off at a grocery store (and waits for us) to do some quick provisioning for our trip North.
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| My new "best friend", Jay |
We take Eureka down the Miami River through downtown Miami.
We had planned to spend the night at anchor out in the harbor, but because we had not had the chance to get the refrigeration precooled, we decided to go into Bayside Marina, get hooked up to shore power, get the boat squared away and take off early Tuesday morning.
May 5-7
Marooned in Miami
Well, we ended up with some pretty serious problems with our overheating engine.
Fortunately, we made contact with Jay Kaminer, owner of J's Marine Engine Service. Jay is our savior.
He worked on the engine Thursday, changing out the "U" water/exhaust mixer and cleaning the heat exchanger.
On Friday, we got ready to leave, "hoping" that we had solved our problems. Unfortunately, that dis not happen and within a mile or so, we had overheating problems, so we promptly returned to Bayside and called Jay. He was there in a few minutes. After some checks, we determined that the problem was serious enough to warrant hauling the boat.
Between 11 am and 5:30 pm Friday, we moved the boat to Hurricane Cove Marina up the Miami River, had it hauled, picked up a rental car, unloaded the boat, and started driving North - arriving back in Beaufort Saturday night.
Now, it's up to Jay to fix it. Again, thank goodness we found Jay. He's a great guy, and knows engines.
Ends up we have to spend two nights at Pennecamp Moorings. The wind picked up overnight and we were facing 20-25 knots on the nose to go up Hawks Channel - not a good thing. But we enjoyed our stay.
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| Bill at his best |
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| A long trip through the mangroves to get to Hawks Channel |
We started having some engine overheating problems on the trip to Elliott Key and they intensified today to the point that we could only run about 2000 rpm - about 4.5 knots - without overheating. This will not be satisfactory for the trip to Beaufort. Bill and I checked everything and the water impeller twice.
But to no avail. I called Mike, our mechanic in Beaufort and he suggested that the heat exchanger may be clogged. We are now at Bayside Marina
not a not a bad place to have maintenance issues. We've found the parts we think we need and tomorrow morning we're going to tackle something new. We'll either leave tomorrow or be here quite a while. May 1
After getting underway this morning, we found the winds to be NNE, which means basically that we were on a very close haul trying to go NE in Hawks Channel. After about an hour of this, we reminded ourselves we are retired and don't have to do something if it isn't fun, and clawing along in 15-22 knot headwinds wasn't fun.
So we have ducked into Largo Sound and are moored on a mooring owned by the John Pennekamp State park. Its very comfortable with a good breeze. We're going to call this a "lay" day. It may be that tomorrow will also be a "lay" day unless the winds clock more easterly tonight and lay down - which the forecast says ain't gonna happen.
We'll see
April 29-30
We are making our way up Hawks Channel, probably covering 70 miles in the past couple of days.
Tonight we are anchored behind Rodriguez Key near Taveneir and Key Largo - very near to where I had my first ever sail over 2 decades ago with a departed friend, Chuck Traughber. Chuck owned a 41 foot Morgan and he was a patient teacher who really turned me onto sailing. I'll never forget the first time the boat "turned over" (heeled). When it got to 10 degrees, I just knew it was going to turn over. Chuck was a great guy.
Yesterday, on a whim, we went into Duck Key to Hawk's Cay Marina and Resort. It was quite a place. A "very" upscale resort. We had our choice of three pools, one with salt water and sand, one for kids, and one for adults. It also had a "dolphin pin with 3 dolphin who did some great interaction activities with people.
We had dinner and breakfast ashore and enjoyed every minute.
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| Hawk's Cay Marina |
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| A "Big" Mackerel |
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| Cleaning the mackerel |
April 26-28
Tuesday morning we left Bahia Honda to sail to Looe Key for snorkeling. The seas were rather rough at first, but we moved to the inside of the reef and enjoyed a couple hours of great snorkeling, until the barracuda scared the ladies off.
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| Key West |
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| Galleon Marina and Resort |
Thursday morning, we made the decision to head back North (actually East in this case) to home (Beaufort).
Eureka left Beaufort in early November heading South with no particular destination. She has seen a lot of water and a lot of adventures in the nearly 6 months as she made her way to Key West. Hopefully, the trip back North will be a lot shorter time.
We probably sailed more today than ever - probably 6 hours with nothing but blissful, quiet sailing tacking up Hawks Channel to Newfound Harbor where we are anchored tonight.
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| The crew in emerald waters |
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| The Captain checks the sails |
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| Little Palm Island Taxi |
A very interesting view of the diners on Palm Island as a Key Deer strolled by
About sunset, another boat anchored nearby
April 22 -25
Bill and Jan Bass drove down to Beaufort from Asheville earlier this week and we left on Friday morning in a rental car for the trip to Marathon to pick up Eureka.
An uneventful trip down, staying overnight near Jacksonville Florida and arriving in Marathon late Saturday afternoon.
We settled in Saturday evening with a pleasant breeze and started acclimated to warmer temperatures.
Sunday we went back to the Dolphin Research Center for another fun filled encounter with the dolphins, which we all enjoyed.
Sunday afternoon we provisioned for the trip and left around 10 am Monday.
Nice winds around 15-18 knots and great sail.
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| Dave saves the dinghy |
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| Jan enjoys Buffet |
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| The Ladies relaxing |
