Coming to you from the Abacos



Bahamian coutesy flag on Salty Dog spreader



We’ve made it across to the Bahamas. We left Lake Worth (Palm Beach) last Friday morning at 4:45am with our buddy boat, S/V Autumn Wind (Ken & Kay). We had gentle seas and wind, unlike our last crossing. Cindy hooked a big Mahi Mahi about 8:30 in the morning. Big enough that we couldn't reel it in on the Penn 750 offshore spinning rig and the  stainless steel leader broke. It did jump up out of the water long enough for us to see the coloration and identify it. We motor sailed until 9pm and anchored at Great Sale Cay (pronounced key).  Ken and Kay told us after we’d gotten anchored that two hours prior they had hit something BIG and they thought it was a whale. They were a little shaken up, but other than that they were fine and Autumn Wind was as well. Got up Saturday morning and came the rest of the way to Green Turtle Cay, where we will remain until after New Year’s.

There will be a Christmas Day potluck dinner here with many cruisers in attendance. Haven’t decided what I will take yet, but there will be so many different dishes and we do so love these get togethers. We will miss being with our family on Christmas, but the next best thing is being with friends, both old and new.

We cleared in through Customs earlier today, so we are now legal to wander around and gladly display our Bahamas courtesy flag (picture above).



South African schooner - skipper aloft in 30K winds



Boat flying Austrian flag

 While we were waiting in Lake Worth for an opportunity to cross, and the wind was howling so much for a couple of days that we did not get off the boat, we had to find something to entertain ourselves – so one day we got out the binoculars and tried to figure out how many different countries were represented in the anchorage, by the flags they flew, as this is an area of staging for boats wanting to head to the Bahamas, as well as other islands south. We probably didn’t get all the countries, but here are the ones we did get; US; Australia; Switzerland; New Zealand; Canada; South Africa (believe it or not there were 3); Austria; Sweden; Norway and France. The next day, because the wind was still howling, we decided to count the boats that were dragging their anchors and had to re-anchor. That count got up to 9. Our anchor did not budge – thankfully. Some days you are the entertainment and some days you get to watch the entertainment.


We wish everyone of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Waiting for the illusive 'Weather Window'

We’ve meandered down from New Smyrna Beach to Cocoa to Vero and are now in Lake Worth (Palm Beach), anchored behind Jack Nicklaus’ house, or at least it is rumored to be his house – who knows?!

Vero Beach

Our humble Christmas Tree

We were in Vero Beach for a week and ran into a number of boats that we’d seen three years ago and many more that we didn’t recognize. We did get to view the Christmas Parade of Boats while there, as they came into the anchorage and turned around right in front of us – we couldn’t have had a better seat. Also managed to get to Riverside Café to watch the Auburn vs. S. Carolina SEC Championship game – GO AUBURN!!! Hopefully we’ll be somewhere we can watch them play for the National Championship in January.

Jeff’s gotten many of his projects completed, although as I’ve said in the past, for every one that is completed two more go on the list. We seem to have a terrible leak around one of the big windows on the port side of the boat, along with both large overhead hatches, which we found during the all-day rain last Wednesday. Today’s project is to dig out all the caulking and re-caulk before the rain comes in Sunday night.

The view from our cockpit last night

For the last couple of days it has actually been warmer – in the 70’s. That will come to a screeching halt – the warm weather that is – as the next cold front moves in.


Our plan is to hang out here in Lake Worth until the weather is right to cross to the Bahamas. Our course takes us out the inlet here and then across about 54 nautical miles of open ocean including the Gulf Stream to the banks. If the wind is from the North, the north flowing Gulf Stream kicks up high seas. So we need light winds from any direction but North for the Gulf Stream seas to settle down and enough time before the next cold front to be in a safe anchorage in the Bahamas. Best guess is conditions may be right next Friday December 17. Perhaps the next post will be coming to you from a tropical island!

Salty Dog is floating again and On The Move!



I know, I know, I know…………….I’m very tardy at posting.


Cumberland Island







Cumberland Island Beach









We launched the boat two weeks ago today and after a brief stay at the Fernandina City Marina we’ve made a stop at Cumberland Island National Seashore Park, which is always a great place to be – the beach is endless and it doesn’t seem to matter how many boats are at anchor and how many campers are ashore because you rarely see anyone else on the beach. We didn’t find any shells that we didn’t already have this time. Believe me when I say we have bags and bags from the last visit.



We also stopped at St. Augustine for the night and went ashore to see the Christmas lights downtown. The city had the lighting ceremony the night before we got there. They were beautiful, but I forgot to take the camera with me, so no pictures there.



Next stop was New Smyrna Beach, where we spent Thanksgiving with our family. My sister, Mindy, who you may remember is married to Jeff’s brother Carl, have good friends who own two condos out at Ponce Inlet. They graciously let Mindy and Carl have the use of the biggest one for the week – what a place!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has a million dollar view. It is a corner unit on the 8th floor, so you can see the ocean, the inlet and the ICW. It is a view you could never tire of. Thank you Donny & Shannon!!! We had a crowd of 17 for Thanksgiving Day and had a wonderful time. My sisters Mindy and Tina, as well as my Mom and brother-in-law Rodney did all the cooking and it was spectacular! What cooks they all are. We took a cruiser couple, Rick & Linda s/v Sojourner, with us for the day. I believe they enjoyed being with our crazy family, and Linda certainly pulled her turn at the kitchen sink – no one else was allowed to have her sponge! What a treat!! We met Rick & Linda 3 years ago when we were cruising and have stayed in touch with them since. They were passing through NSB and stopped for a few days.



Our Family



Rick & Linda s/v Sojourner



Last Friday was the lighting of Canal Street in New Smyrna, so a few of the boats in the NSB marina got into the mood and put lights on their boats as well. Salty Dog is sporting Christmas lights as well.



Canal Street @ NSB



We will be in anchoring in Cocoa this afternoon, then on ‘souther’ to wait for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas. Let’s hope that it isn’t a looonnnngggg wait.



Salty Dog w/ her Christmas lights





Some of you already know this and some do not, but we have a new passenger aboard this year – Chloe is a teeny tiny chocolate and tan wiener dog and weighs in at just over 6 lbs and is 9 years old. She is precious and doing quite well on the boat. She has been very quick to pick up on the way things are done on the boat. She knows exactly what the dingy is for – getting her to shore and grass. The morning we were leaving Cumberland Island I went to the back of the boat to raise the American flag and Chloe followed me back there, stood and looked at the dinghy in the raised position and then looked at me as if to say ‘I’m ready to go!’. I responded to her by saying that her car was not leaving the garage and she would need to go to the front of the boat and potty. She hung her head, turned around and went back in the cockpit. She knows where the potty area is, and has used it, but she’d rather not if there is a chance the dinghy is going down, but Savannah is the same way. Did I tell you that she also has napping in the cockpit down to a science.

Our new passenger

Perhaps now that I’ve broken the ice, so to speak with the blog, I will do better about posting.

Remember - you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

later









SALTY DOG has been ‘Put to Bed’ for a few months



 We are back home in Tennessee again – this time for several months. We hauled the boat out at Tiger Point Marina in Fernandina Beach, last Friday – which is where we’ve hauled it before. All went well, thank God! We were so proud of ourselves – we had everything off the boat and all our chores done by the time the yard guys came to lift us out. What an improvement over last time!! Now we just have to figure out what to do with all the ‘stuff’ we took off the boat and brought home. So far there are seven large rubbermaid containers sitting in the dining room – which we like to refer to as the “warehouse” and we haven’t unloaded everything from the truck.

It was sad to leave our new friends at New Smyrna, but we will see them again this fall on our way south and perhaps we can entice at least a couple of them to come along with us to the Abacos.

Sorry about the craziness of the pictures and the fact that one is on here twice - blogspot is all screwed up right now and I'm tired of trying to figure it out - I can't seem to move them or delete the extra one or put a caption on the last one - so I guess we'll just live with it!!!!!!!!!!



Larry - our social director





Savannah - just hanging out on the deck





Lisa - my kayaking buddy





John & Rick
our Dockmasters





Rick, Lisa & Dave





Jim & Cindy @ Jim's place (Malony's)



Now that we are home we have to start on the ‘at home projects list’. You probably won’t see any new posts to the blog after this one until we are getting ready to leave in the Fall.

Y'all have a good summer!!!

Manatee mating herd

WOW!!!!! I went kayaking this morning with Lisa (m/v Reel Lucky) and we always seem to have a good time talking and just communing with nature, but this morning we saw something neither of us has ever seen before. Lisa was out on the water by ‘Bird Island’ waiting for me and watched a large number of manatees (10 – 15) swimming right towards her heading for the edge of the island. That in itself was pretty cool since we usually only see one or two at a time. By the time I got out there the manatees had reached the shallows and were in a huge pile and I mean HUGE. We paddled pretty close and got a few pictures. I even had one manatee come right up to the kayak and stick its snout out of the water and look at me – I could have touched it had I not had the camera in my hands. I had heard it is mating season, but didn’t know about mating herds. Came back by the island on our way back to the boats, about 1 1/2 hours later and the ‘pile’ was still in the same place, then broke up abruptly with lots of thrashing and splashing. Glad we weren’t close when that started!

According to the ‘Save the Manatee’ organization this pile generally consists of one female and a dozen or more males. The female swims into shallow water trying to get away from the males. The female is ‘in heat’, so to speak, for up to 3 weeks and the herd will stay with her for the duration.

‘Bird Island’ is a very small bump in the water covered with mangroves and home to hundreds of Pelicans, several species of Herons and Ibis’. It is also breeding season for these birds and since I’ve never seen baby Pelicans I have been watching them with a great deal of interest. The adult Pelicans seem to keep the very young ones covered up and I’ve had to sit there for quite a while just to get a peek at them. They are all getting pretty big now and are fuzzy and white – not grey like the adults. Cute, cute, cute. Got some pictures of them this morning.

Last weekend we saw hundreds of ‘cow nosed rays’ out in the river. There were so many of them that the color of water appeared to be brown.  You guessed it – mating season for them too.  No pictures – sorry.


And that concludes today’s lesson on local wildlife.

GETTING READY TO SAY GOODBYE TO NEW SMYRNA BEACH

I’ve gotten a few reminders that we have a blog and I am not holding up my end of the bargain to keep you ‘informed’ - sorry. 

It’s almost time to say goodbye to New Smyrna Beach. Sadly, our time here is quickly coming to an end. We certainly have settled in and are quite comfortable. We have been here long enough that we are referred to as regulars in some of the places we go.

Living in a marina is pretty good. I should probably say at this point that it has been idyllic until a couple of weeks ago when the ‘local’ kids got out of school and began looking for something to do. There have been two dinghies, two bikes, numerous bicycle seats and all the lights and ringy-dingy bells stolen (off bicycles). One dinghy was recovered by the owner only because the thieves stole it during broad daylight and someone happened to see it going up the river, but the kids weren’t caught with it in their possession.

It looks like this entry to the blog is just going to be a hodgepodge of random thoughts about things around here and y’all know that I can ramble on with the best of them and not say much.

We’ve gotten some more of our projects crossed off ‘The List’ – man I love to cross things off!!! The only problem is that for every one we complete and cross off there are two more added – how does that happen??

It is pretty warm here and the a/c runs continuously. 'Salty Dog' has her summer dress on now. We’ve never used this awning, but don’t know what we would do without it now that we've discovered what a difference it makes. Thanks Dick & Judy  – we love it!!!!


Last Sunday Jeff’s brother and my sister (Mindy & Carl), brought their boat over here and we went out in the ocean several miles so Carl could feed the fish. We saw 4 or 5 large sea turtles and several stingrays – that was pretty cool. Came back in and stopped for a few hours at a place the locals call 'Disappearing Island', which is exactly what most of it does at high tide. It is a very busy place on the weekends and you can only get there by boat. It was estimated that on Memorial weekend there were 1000 boats out there, but I’m not sure I believe that, even though it is quite large. It is amazing how much stuff some people bring out there with them. There is all the usual stuff – umbrellas, fold-up canopies, chairs, grills, games of all kinds, but we came upon two groups that were noteworthy. I wish we’d had a camera. The first group had all the usual stuff and lots of it, as well as their own homemade portable bar – what a hoot! The framework was 2 inch PVC pipe with 90 degree fittings and couplers, none of which were glued together, just pressed in place. The frame was probably 6 – 8 feet long x 2 feet wide. The top of the bar was a piece of plywood that was rounded off to match the frame – a hole cut in the middle to accommodate the large beach umbrella that was being held in place with a 5 gallon bucket filled with beach sand. There were about 6 people leaning on the bar as though they were at the local pub - hey, gotta get your priorities straight. Mindy then pointed out that you have to break everything down and haul it off in the afternoon when it’s time to leave and haul it all away in a BOAT. I bet those people made two or three trips. The second group didn’t have the ‘usual’ stuff, but had a large hard plastic slide on a wooden frame. The slide was about 6 feet tall or so. The kids and dog were having a wonderful time being lifted up to the top so they could slide into the water. Don’t know how they got the slide there, as they didn’t seem to have a boat big enough to do so.

New Smyrna is home to one of the oldest Dairy Queen’s – bet you didn’t know that did you? It looks like DQ did back in the 60’s.


 

This is a picture of a McDonald’s (as if you couldn’t tell) in NSB as well – it also looks very much like the one I remember going to as a kid. Just thought I would share these pictures with you.


OK – I guess I’ve rambled on for long enough - gotta save something for the next time!

BOAT SINKING....................but not ours, thankfully!!!

Got up yesterday morning to walk to Riverside Park for Easter sunrise service, which by the way, was beautiful.

What a shock when I walked down the dock. A boat had sunk at the dock during the night! Everyone got off the boat unharmed – that is the upside. They had topped off their diesel tanks in preparation for leaving yesterday morning for the Abacos, so now there is diesel and oil everywhere. What a circus it was here, at least until it was determined that ‘they’ would wait til low tide this morning to try to raise the boat. We had Coast Guard, EPA, Boat US Tow Boat, and HAZMAT all here. And then word started traveling through town about the sinking so there were lots of gawkers showing up just to have a look see, plus it was Sunday and there were lots of people on their boats in the marina.

Today is a beautiful new day and all the players for the ‘boat raising’ are starting to show up. It should be interesting to see how this is done.

Well…………that didn’t work!!!!! All the same people that were here yesterday trying to raise the boat were here again. Boat US was the company hired to raise the boat – I guess because that is who the owners’ insurance is with. Three men showed up, one was the diver, who attempted to put a very long air pillow under the stern of the boat so they could inflate it and raise it enough so they could start pumping the water out. Instead of putting that in place yesterday when they were here, they waited til this morning and punctured a hole in it while putting it in place – no replacement, but it still helped. They did not check their pumps out before coming here and the largest and what would have been the one to use, would not prime. They tried using a small pump and appeared to be making headway but not for long. The boat started taking on water faster than they could pump it out and down it went again. The owner was less than pleased with their performance. He called a crane company, they showed up for a consultation and I guess that is the route he will take. Too bad we will not be here to watch, but we leave it in the trusty hands of our fellow dockmates.  It will be interesting to find out what caused the boat to sink.  We'll keep you posted.

On another note …………..we did get to watch the space shuttle take off this morning, right from the front of our boat. About 20 minutes before the scheduled launch we watched what appeared to be a very large, brightly lit plane go across the sky and wondered why the plane was traveling through airspace that I was sure should be closed to traffic. We found out after the launch that what we had seen was the space station and when the shuttle took off it followed the same path, as its mission was to hook up with the space station. Pretty cool!!!!! We haven’t seen a launch in so many years and forgot how spectacular that is!

Greetings from New Smyrna Beach

We’ve finally arrived in New Smyrna Beach!!! And thrilled to be here!!!! We got here shortly after lunch on Tuesday. We had a chilly trip down from Fernandina, ran aground at Matanzas Inlet and weren’t sure we would be able to get ourselves off, but we do have a lot of horses down in the engine room thankfully, almost took out a channel marker between Daytona and NSB, but made it safely nonetheless.

We made a visit to our favorite local pub “Maloney’s” Tuesday evening – they have entertainment on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, so we will be there again tonight. We can walk there, as well as many other places nearby. We made it to the beach today as well. It looked like a lot of people from waaayyy north are down here – they were swimming in water that was 57* - (I think spring breakers are starting to show up and what a hearty bunch they are!). That’s pretty darned chilly. We’re so tired of being cold – all we want to do is sit in the sun and soak up the warmth.

New Smyrna is quite a small town and has somehow been able to retain that small town charm. Everyone is so friendly and most businesses even have water bowls out for the customer’s dogs as well. We went into a NAPA store this morning looking for a belt for the alternator, and had Savannah with us, and the shop owner pegged us for ‘boat people’ because we were walking and had her with us. She had to stop and get a drink before we left and snatch up the peanuts he had out for the squirrels that frequent the store as well!

Savannah likes to go out to the dock closest to the ICW entrance into the marina in the late afternoon and watch the dolphins come in to feed. Yesterday afternoon we saw about six or so jumping and frolicking close to us. She knows when we say ‘dolphin’ that she needs to look at the water. She is also keeping tabs on the pelicans and herons that are using the docks for perches. One of these times she is going to go right off the dock and into water when she chases them.

Since we last posted to the blog we are very sad to tell you that Shelby is no longer with us. She is and will be sadly missed by us as well as Savannah. We will be sprinkling her ashes in her favorite places during our travels.

Don’t look for too many posting from NSB, as there is only so much we can say about the place, no matter how much we like it. Pretty much all we will be doing is continuing work projects on the boat, walking the beach and taking Savannah for long walks.

Below are some pictures of our trip down here.  One of them is a bald eagle, of which we actually saw three.  That was pretty amazing.

 To the left is the suspended bridge over the St. Johns River at the Jacksonville Port.  To the right is the St. Augustine lighthouse.  Below left is sunset over St. Augustine.  

SLOW PROGRESS AND COLD WEATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As promised………………

Here is the update on our progress or lack thereof on the projects on the boat. We are sooooo ready for this to be over! The boat has been in the work yard now since the week of Thanksgiving. Brian came down the week after Thanksgiving to help Jeff with yanking out the old generator and dropping in the new one (figuratively speaking) and the first part of that did get done that week – the old one did come out. But, as with many projects they don’t quite go as you envision – you find other things that need to be done as well. In our case we knew one of our a/c units had quit working and having no generator in front of them made it much easier to do that work. So – the generator replacement was put on hold til the new a/c unit came in and was installed. While waiting on that we decided it was time to move on to other things, like replacing all the thru-hulls, pulling out the opening ports and installing the new beautiful stainless steel ports which you can see in one of the pictures (we’ve gotten three out of fourteen done), stripping exterior teak of which I’m about 1/3 of the way through (I’m waiting for my skin to grow back over the ends of my fingers), finished wiring up all the new batteries and chargers, stripping off the bottom of the boat (which is done and waiting for warmer temperatures so we can barrier coat and paint), and I can’t remember what else. But there are other projects we haven’t even started yet – don’t ask what they are!

New Years weekend brought Brian back to the boat and he and Jeff installed the new generator – it is another beautiful piece of machinery. I’m posting a picture of the two of them putting it in place. This work would have been impossible without Brian’s help. He is so talented. We were so fortunate that he was able to come down again to help out. Jeff really enjoyed having him here to talk technical stuff with. I can listen when Jeff talks to me about that stuff, but have no idea what he’s talking about – he might as well talk to the dogs about it – they understand as much as I do about batteries, engines, etc.


The thru-hull replacements are almost completed, as we opted for having the yard remove the old ones and put the new ones back in – we just have to connect everything back up.

We are making progress – ever so slowly, although it doesn’t feel like that since there is still so much to do. It is like having an old house – you start a project and when you get into it you find other things that need to be done that you didn’t anticipate and before you know it you have everything apart! We are starting the re-assembly process now. What is slowing us down right now is the cold weather – it’s been in the 20’s in the mornings for over a week now and only warms up to the 40’s and the wind is blowing on top of that! I’m not working outside in that on scaffolding in the shade!!! I need some cheese to go with my whine! The temperatures should be going up by the middle of next week – at least for a few hours a day and hopefully we can move forward with the outside projects.

I think that about brings you up to date. I know this is boring stuff to a lot of you and believe me it's not exciting to write about either, but, that is what we are doing here.

Later alligator!