Geoose
Traveling with Wayne and Karen Joined: February 23rd 2007
Logged in: January 12th 2012
Logged in: January 12th 2012
Travel Blog Posts
Sail South 2009
These are images of maps of overnight stops on both of Wayne and Rick's cruises aboard Amber Lee II.... read more
March 31 - April 2 The Road Home We completed our packing and were ready to start the long trip home at 10:30 AM on Wed. March 31. We made it across the Florida boarder to southern Georgia the first day. Our trip took us around Atlanta and through Chattanooga and Nashville TN. We had dinner the second evening in Paducah, KY near where we started our trip on Kentucky Lake last October. The last day we had a good tail wind as we drove up the length of Illinois. It would have been a good spinnaker run if we had our mast up. We finished our 1,500 mile road trip in Baraboo at 3:30PM on April 2nd. We will be with our loved ones for Easter. Rick and Wayne are still good friends after being ... read more
Wayne at the Helm
March 30 Day 23 Clewiston to Indiantown 36 miles traveled Rick and Wayne are very efficient sailors. We started the day by sailing directly across Lake Okeechobee. It is 24 miles across the lake and we sailed the whole way. With 15-20 mph wind on the beam it took 4.5 hours to make the crossing. We called Indiantown Marina to request to be hauled out tomorrow, Wednesday morning. They told us that they couldn’t get to us until Thursday unless we could be there by 3:00 PM today. We had to motor 10 miles down the St. Lucia Canel after leaving the Lake. We made it to Indiantown at 2:45. Amber Lee was sitting on the trailer by 3:30. We transferred a ton of stuff from the boat to the truck. We had the mast lowered ... read more
Nice Home in Naples
March 27 Day 20 Naples to Ft. Myers Traveled 52 miles We started the day by sailing with several other boats that were headed out to the Gulf for a sail boat race. They all went to the start line and we continued north towards Ft. Myers Beach. We had east winds again so were able to hoist the gennaker and have a fun sail for several hours. The wind died about 1:00 PM so started up the iron spinnaker and motor sailed for the rest of the day. Since this was a Saturday and the weather was beautiful everyone in Ft. Myers was out on their boats. We had very congested waters in the channel where we entered the Caloosahatchee River. We were traveling at 6 mph and every one else was going 30. And ... read more
Sunrise at Little Shark River
March 24 Day 17 Marathon to Little Shark River Traveled 46 miles It’s time to head north. The winds are out of the east so it looks like we have a window to cross Florida Bay and go up the west coast of Florida. We had the sails up and pushing us at 6 mph towards our destination by 8:30 AM. Within 2 hours we were out of sight of land. I hope our navigation skills with the gps gets us to where we want to go. We were able to hoist the genniker in the afternoon and keep it up for about 3 hours. It got a little breezy as we passed Cape Sable on the SW corner of Florida. We were at our anchorage at Little Shark River in Everglades National Park by 4:30 ... read more
Norseboat
March 21 Day 14 Marathon We are still tied up to the City Marina and it’s time to get the laundry done. Since no one has volunteered to do it for us we went to work and had clean cloths by noon. While doing our laundry we met more people from Wisconsin. Pat Duffy is from Portage and Steve Krug is from north of Eau Claire. They are on a catamaran and do some chartering. We then loaded up some ice in the ice box, pumped out the holding tank and headed out. We made a short trip to the West end of the anchorage and dropped the hook. It was then nap time. Cooked salmon on the grill for dinner. March 22 Day 15 Marathon to Bahia Honda to Marathon 20 miles traveled The ... read more
Kwy West Home
March 20 Day 13, Marathon to Key West to Marathon by bus.50 miles each way. All can rest now that Rick and Wayne are back from Key West. We behaved ourselves and acted like senior tourists. We took the conch train around Key West to see the many sights and learned the history of the Island. We went to the ship wreck museum and found out that from1850 to 1900, salvaging ships wrecked on the Florida Reef was a major source of income for the Island. For a-wile Key West was the richest city in Florida. Then the Government installed aids to navigation and put Key West into a depression. That's just like the Government! We also visited Mel Fisher's Treasure Museum. Mel Fisher is the diver who found the sunken Spanish Armada off Florida’s coast. ... read more
Leaving Duck Key
After talking to several bog subscribers I found out that some of the blogs never got published or just disappeared from the blog. I will republish some of these blogs. Please disregard if you have received these before. Thanks, Wayne March 17 Day 10 Duck Key to Marathon 17 miles After a rainy morning catching up with chores on the boat we headed down the coast to Marathon which will be the furthest South we travel by boat. We didn’t have much wind so we motored most of the way. Along the way we saw our first porpoise. We watched about 5 of them swimming around the boat. We stopped and just watched them for about 20 minutes. When we entered the harbor at Marathon at about 5:00 PM we knew we had reached sailors paradise. ... read more
Cormorants on Sticks
March 16, Day 9 Tavernier Key to Duck Key 25 miles Last night was a little bumpy on the hook. This morning it was blowing about 30 mph in the harbor where we were anchored. We survived and at 9:00AM motored to the fuel dock and tied up. Since the Marina was closed we hauled our 6 gal fuel container to the nearest gas station. Of course that station was also closed and didn’t appear to be opening soon. Since the wind was blowing in the right direction at less velocity we decided to just sail until we found a marina with a fuel pump. We figured we had enough fuel for a few hours of motoring. We had a wonderful sail and crossed under highway US 1 and were now sailing in the Atlantic Ocean. ... read more
North Miami
March 12 Day 5 Traveled 30 miles by bus, metro train and taxi. When we got to Key Biscayne, captain and crew were ready to jump ship. The boat head (toilet) developed a leak and the experience was not pleasant. When we got to the marina we pumped out the holding tank and went to work fixing the head. This would be a candidate for the “Dirty Jobs” show. We installed a rebuild kit but the leak persisted. Rick then found a crack in the head pump. What do we do now? Fortunately brother Harold called about that time and offered to look up the phone number for West Marine in Miami on the internet. We did not have internet access at this marina. We called West Marine and they did have the parts we needed. ... read more
