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Melodeon at anchor
An ideal sunset from another time. Sunset. Slow...ing... down. Sleeping.
Cruising can be a pretty hectic, if you let it. Even if you don't... it can still be frenetic. So... now we're getting the idea to schedule quality time with nature; our natures and the bigger one outside our hull.
In terms of our progress we've been on a strict schedule, one day of motoring and 1, 2 or 3 days of hanging out in easy anchorages. Time to rest, heal, absorb, regroup, study, and internalize all the experiences... not to mention relaxing and reading a book.
Yesterday in Daytona Beach we had a high impact day when our pretty red anchor marker jammed around the rudder. The solution was to put out a rear anchor so Frank could dive under and winch the blighter out. It took 3 hours including breakfast. Frank says divers use a lot of calories. So diver's watchers!
Rather than 'lose' another day, we took a calculated risk, leaving at 10 a.m. instead of 7 a.m. with a long, @50 mile stretch of narrow, non-stop, shoaled up ICW channel ahead, with NO anchorages and a few bascule bridges. Feeling tired at 3 p.m. in the humid, 90 F
Daytona Beach anchorage
Don't bother going ashore for groceries...they're five miles away in the suburbs. temperatures, we called ahead and tried to enter a small marina on a side channel. Uh-uh! A strong current was very eager to swoosh us sideways down into the tiny bridge about 1000 feet upstream. After a split second decision, we did a frantic 6 point turn, with prayers and apologies offered blindly to our transmission... and escaped from the jaws of the nasty creek that could have gobbled us up and spit us out against the bridge.
A pervading fear for most cruisers (not those special ghostly creatures that sail swiftly by in the middle of the night as we do our anchor checks) is trying to get tucked in well before sunset. Navigating on th water has little in common with driving on a highway, unless you have impaired night vision and you're willing to rely soley on your GPS and a few bobbling reflectors and winking lights. Anchoring and docking are tricky at the bes of times. Coming in at night to an unfamiliar location has the added insanity of not being able to see a blinking thing. If you allow this to happen through bad planning, you have a nightmare ahead, usually with nobody to
Frank's diving
... while Ginger whines, and I listen to his air tank breathing on deck. blame but yourself for the consequences. But sometimes factors conspire to put you in this weak position, so you must keep recalculating to win this particular round with the great unknown.
Back to the task of making the run to St. Augustine, the tide had changed in our favour and we picked up a few knots of speed. We hyper-scrutinized every nook and channel, most of which have been filled with 'spoil' from dredging or turned into designer docks at private residences. After a couple of unsuccessful, semi-alarming flirtations with shoaled-up, wanna-be anchorages, we suddenly rounded a bend and recognized a place where we had anchored heading south months before. Sounds good but... this was the place where we dragged anchor, with a spilt second recovery before... Never mind, we can't really talk about that. So we quickly analyzed our options, threw out the anchor too close to the swift channel, pulled up the anchor, backed up, spun around, and re-anchored successfully further upstream; closer to the shoal (fighting fears of running aground a la Carolina Beach) but further from the channel. We reasoned that we now have our beefed up Manson anchor and a much smaller chance of
Our ship icon
Crawling along the chart plotter, looking for an anchorage in an indifferent canal. running amok in the night. Bonus. It was only 6:30 p.m. Still an hour and a half until sunset. Time to unwind with a normal dinner after an eventful 12 hour day. Still , we took turns sleeping in the pilot house, doing anchor checks and watching the man-overboard anchor marker on the nav. computer, just in case, thanks to our prior mis-adventure.
So today we slept in, admired the calm, picture-perfect day, had a late breakfast and gradually decided to stay put. This relax and recover concept sounds simple in theory but is more complicaed in practice. Frank made a new, cheap break-away anchor float which proved itself and did so in a few hours. We watched it float away, too lazy to deploy the dinghy to fetch it. Then he sorted his desk and the ropes on the deck, again. After he sharpened the clippers, I clipped Ginger who feels the heat terribly. This job takes about an hour with us both standing on the deck in the sun. After bathing, I swept and did a little laundry. We played quite a few games of Spite and Malice. We watched a huge pod of dolphins create a
Nearest neighbour
It's nice to see another boat, to check if they're swinging like you on your anchor. large fishing net, with really old and very young dolphins included. We also saw them leap way out of the water for the first time. We are conceited enough to think they might be taking a look at us, so we played them World Lounge music, 'Romantica' by Puta Mayo.
Then we let out more anchor chain and battened down for a windy thunderstorm that the National Weather Service robot dutifully and accurately predicted. The pounding rain effectively washed the remainder of Ginger's tenacious fur-clippings off the deck. The storm was followed by a welcome cool breeze, so we re-opened all the portholes to cool the boat off for the heat of tomorrow. Then we took some pictures and had a light meal (Frank had smoked oysters and I had cottage cheese) with yam salad. The dolphins did their evening fishing, we looked at charts and here we are...resting
The past few weeks have brought us close to St. Augustine. Maybe we will leap up tomorrow with bells on and try to figure out how to get even closer to that beautiful old city centre without getting swept out to sea or down a canal to another casual
marina. The St. Augustine inlet, like most inlets, is notorious for strong currents. The cruising guide cautions that there is so much shoaling the markers are constantly being moved, so your charts don't apply, while the amount and variety of markers requires local knowledge. By the way, there are 2 more bascule bridges in the middle of this; one of them under construction... or maybe it's finished?
Just when I thought the blog is all wrapped up, I was doing my last anchor check before scooting to bed, to grab a few hours before the new day begins... there was a huge flair of light and the thunder of big motors off our bow. Now what? Sure, a 150' giant is 'barging' around the sharp bend heading straight toward us. Did we anchor too close to the channel? Too late to do anythng now. I flash. He angles around the turn and passes by a mile, so to speak. The boat rocks, quite a lot.
Perhaps we'll just take a day off, like this was supposed to be and plan our strategy for Thursday.?..Friday? The weekend is coming. There might be live music in town, but how do
we get there? We'll decide it tomorrow. Right now the wind has picked up again...
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Kathryn
non-member comment
Love it!
Your journey amazes me; it is quite the adventure! I'd be a nervous wreck...tug coming toward me at speed. What if you'd been asleep? It all sounds like a dream come true and I'm very happy for you and Frank. My studio opened this weekend and it was bittersweet without Jim. My sister's came for the weekend and Judith came on Saturday and stayed over too. Visitors came to see what's been happening in yard and studio-gallery. It was nice but with a big piece of the dream missing. When you circle round to this part of the world, the gardens should be lush (I'm reworking the old ones in addition to the new ones), and the studio should be fully operational, although it looks nice now and smells like wood and peonies (which are beautiful right now). Miss you. Wish you could be here so we could celebrate our b'days together. Keep the words and photos coming....