CHAPTER ELEVEN: GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS

CHAPTER ELEVEN: GEORGIA ON OUR MINDS

We did it! We cruised out of Florida today, after being in that state since early May. Hurray! Nothing against Florida or their two faced Governor or their “Master of Make Believe” Senator (his parents were NOT fugitives of the Cuban Revolution; they came to Florida several years before Castro), but we are Soooo happy to be in Georgia. Despite the heat factor of 105 today in Jekyll Island, Georgia is such a welcome relief. We had to leave Florida before July 15 according to the boat’s insurance company, and we can’t return until November 1. This is to make sure we don’t jeopardize Slow Motion by having her in Florida during the tropical storm season. Oh, you heard about Debby, the tropical storm that sank our neighbor’s ship a few nights ago? Shhh, don’t tell the insurance company, or they’ll ban us from Florida for an even longer period. Crying real crocodile tears over that prospect. Seriously, we want to spend time in the Keys, and some of the marinas in North Florida were inviting and worth another visit (NOT Melbourne). But right now Georgia is on our minds.

The Jekyll Island marina offers a courtesy car and courtesy bicycles to get around on the island. There are 20 miles of bike trails. There are a lot of restored mansions, built by the Astors, Rockefellers and other .001 percenters, I mean really rich people, not hoi polloi like Romney. And there are wildlife parks too. Jekyll Island has a lot to offer. I would like to return here when the heat factor is well below 100. Did I mention that the marina has a swimming pool too? I don’t know how we’re going to fit all the activities we want to do into three hours tomorrow morning, but we’ll see what we can do. Early afternoon, we’re heading to the source of Brunswick stew, none other than Brunswick, Georgia. Oh yes, a hearty pork stew, when you’re drowning in your own perspiration and toweling off every 2 minutes. Doesn’t that sound yummy? I’ll be looking for some not so famous Brunswick ice cream, or just a simple Brunswick popsicle will do.

The traveling today was a bit hairy in the ICW. It only took four hours to go 32 miles from Fernandina Beach to Jekyll Island. But at times the channel was very narrow and not well marked, and we found ourselves in depths of 4 feet for a few short periods. Can you spell “run aground”? At other times, as we crossed large sounds and inlets leading directly to the Atlantic Ocean, we fought currents and we had few navigational signs to direct us across these waters. Fortunately, for part of the time, there was a boat a mile or two in front of us, and as long as she didn’t run aground, we were able to follow her path. We came very close to the Atlantic Ocean at St. Andrew Sound today, the closest a boat on the ICW comes until Norfolk, Virginia. We passed our second nuclear power plant, so we know that Florida has at least two, one in St. Lucie and one near Amelia Island. We also passed a well-protected naval base for nuclear submarines, which had a degaussing apparatus. That’s my new word for the day. Ask Art what it means. There were the usual few jerks that roar past you at breakneck speed, causing your boat to rock in their wake. They most likely have the same driving patterns on land. And there were a few courteous boat pilots, who announced their intentions to pass portside or starboard side. There was a smattering of fishermen, shrimp boaters mostly.

Bird life now includes a few pink flamingoes, some more egrets and pelicans, and the occasional heron or heron-like bird. The porpoises love to play with our boat, rearing out of the water just in front of us or just to the side of us. No manatee sightings. They must get a better retirement deal in Florida.

Industrial life perked up at Fernandina Beach, which has two huge paper mills, one at each end of town, both spewing out waste products, but our guidebook assures us that with the “help” of the EPA, the “waste products” are not nearly so plentiful or so toxic. So everything is “green” in the world of paper making, apparently. That doesn’t explain the huge pipes going from the plants into the ICW waterways, but it’s probably just “gray water” or water from the highest quality of recyclable paper. At any rate, two working paper plants mean jobs, and they’re hard to come by in Florida and elsewhere – so keep making those reams of paper!

Art and I went “out” to dinner – yes, our second time in three nights. There’s a restaurant, Sea Jay’s, at the marina that offered crab chowder. It was so thick with crab, there was hardly room for the chowder. And buttery, omigod. As someone who has not gone completely “native”, I ordered a hamburger. I’m holding out for the Chesapeake Bay butcher paper tables and the stacks of crabs that come all hot and spicy to those tables – and keep coming and coming and coming.

A word about air conditioning. We have air conditioning on the boat. I hate air conditioning. I love air conditioning today, but will probably hate it again in the future. It is Art’s lifeline. There have been a few minor disagreements over air conditioning, when, where, and how much. But today, as I said, I love, love, love air conditioning. Maybe that love/hate line is really close after all. Or maybe the heat has changed the molecules in my brain. Whatever it is, it’s great to be in sync with the Admiral on this seminal issue.

About disagreements in general, you can’t have as many on water as you have on land. There is clearly a hierarchy based on who has the most knowledge about boating. I am at best an apprentice and Art is, well, an Admiral. This can be very frustrating to a wordsmith trained to argue, as well as a feminist who insists on equality in all phases of my life. A certain measure of inequality appears inevitable, when only one of two persons has the knowledge and training necessary to make the key decisions. While I was fully capable of making the argument to the Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, I am not yet able to make assessments about what speed to run the boat engines to save fuel, what maneuvers to make to dock Slow Motion, what lines to use first to tie up the boat at the dock – just about any decision which protects our safety and the safety of the boat. The Admiral will always of a huge edge in the maritime knowledge and experience department. But I’m working to close the gap at least a little bit. Wish me luck.

CHAPTER TEN: LOOSE SLIPS SINK SHIPS

CHAPTER TEN: LOOSE SLIPS SINK SHIPS

The meteorologists all said that Tropical Storm Debby was headed to Texas to “do Dallas”. So we kept moseying up the Florida Coast, expecting some rain from Debby’s progeny, but not a visit from Big Mama Debby herself. She came full force into the St. Augustine Municipal Marina Tuesday night, with 39 mile an hour winds and lots and lots of rain. The winds changed direction completely, from the southeast to the northeast. So while we were protected from the winds the night before, the winds were coming right at our bow on Tuesday night. Art was up 4 times Tuesday night to add more lines and adjust the ones that were on Slow Motion. At one point he saw a ship on the other side of the bridge that is 40 yards from us, and the ship appeared to have lost its mooring and be heading straight for Slow Motion. He went to the marina office to ask for help, and the staff called the police, who said: “What do you want us to do?” The marina staff said “Well, it’s your bridge, you might want to protect it.” The police said “ Call the Coast Guard”. No one was called and no one came, and, lucky for us, the ship stayed on its side of the bridge. You can see the bridge in the photos we posted for this Blog.

Little did we know that just three slips away, a greater drama was unfolding. A boat very similar to ours had pulled bow first into its slip. We were in stern first, because that’s what Mother Nature dictated when we went into the slip, even though we had been told to come in bow first too. The bow first boat had its stern exposed to the 3 foot waves that the wind had whipped up. And the three foot waves started coming over the stern. Dick and Karen, who have had their boat for 6 months (although Dick has captained boats for the past 50 years), were inside. Dick had gone out to check the lines on his boat, and he saw the water coming over the stern. His bilge pumps were working, but not fast enough. He had three hatches that were supposed to remain closed, but they all opened and started floating. Karen woke up and found 6 inches of water in the salon. She called every agency to come with pumps immediately. The marina staff showed up with a little pump. The Army Corps of Engineers slept soundly at the end of the pier. They have big pumps. They were clueless. Karen is kicking herself for not thinking of them. They would have had to do a study before doing any pumping, however, so they couldn’t have saved Dick and Karen’s boat. It sank. They got off and watched their “baby” go down under the force and weight of the waves.

The next day, Wednesday, we awakened to leaden skies, threatening rain, and a little less wind. We walked off the pier to get supplies – and, as we passed the three sailboats that had arrived shortly after we did,  we saw the top of what was once a boat like ours sticking rakishly out of the water. It’s a sickening feeling, like seeing a house burned to the ground or destroyed by a tornado. But for this boat, the damage was still being done. The current and wind were pushing the bow under the floating cement dock, crushing the starboard side of the boat. The so-called helping agencies that were not around when they were needed in the middle of the night showed up to do an environmental assessment to ensure that no diesel fuel was leaking into the muddy, murky waters of the marina. This is indeed important, but could they have shown the same alacrity it trying to prevent the disaster of the boat sinking as they showed in trying to prevent a spreading fuel disaster? Fortunately, little, if any, fuel escaped and a diver stuffed any possible holes with to prevent leakage.

There are photos we posted of the sunken boat, some taken from the bridge we are near (Bridge of Lions) that show the sunken boat, the three sailboats and Slow Motion. Today the crane came on a barge to lift the boat out of the water. That was quite an operation. The lead rescuer was a sixty five year old diver, whose job was to check out the position of the boat under the dock and to attach a huge sling under the hull of the boat to try to lift it up. According to the marina guys who know this water, it was not an easy job. The rains had filled the water with all kinds of dreck and visibility was extremely poor. The yuck factor was also very high. After hours of tireless effort under a very hot sun (yep, Debby is torturing some other marina now), they raised Dick and Karen’s boat. Nothing is salvageable. I wish there were a happy ending. But there it is.

The moral of this story is always to be vigilant and to expect the unexpected, especially the potentially disastrous unexpected.  Or, always go into a slip stern first. The Chapter Ten title, Loose Slips Sink Ships, is the best I could do in the pun department.  Actually, the floating dock, which is usually a great help during storms, turned out to be very harmful, ergo, “loose slips”. Once the ship started sinking and knocking into the floating dock, the floating dock rose up with the waves and the ship’s bow and starboard side slid under the foam underbelly of the cement-topped floating dock.

Today we showered and washed clothes. And Art made eggs and green peppers, toast and bacon for breakfast. We pumped out our poop line. And we called marinas for the upcoming week, through July 4, to check on availability. Georgia here we come! One more night in SA, and one night in Fernandina Beach, at the St Mary’s River border between Florida and Georgia. Then it’s on to Jekyll Island and Brunswick and places I have never heard of like “Two Way Fish Camp.”

The photos we posted show a lot of St. Augustine’s offerings. I walked around the town a lot while Art worked on his data processing job. And I rode the red train to places that were a few miles away. Then yesterday morning, in the wind and rain, I went to the black and white lighthouse, 219 steps, 14 floors. Climbed them. Was nearly blown back down the stairs once I reached the opening at the top. Still, a view worth the climb. As the other photos show, St. Augustine has a lot of “the oldest” in its city limits. It is the oldest city in the USA. It has the oldest street in the USA. I think it has the oldest cathedral in the USA. It has a fort that has never been taken by a foreign power. It has Ripley’s believe it or not – the log cabin made entirely out of one log, part of a redwood tree, is depicted in the photos. It has four rooms inside. The replica of Michaelangelo’s David is hidden demurely behind some very, very tall and thick bushes, because Floridians do not celebrate the nude body, apparently.

 I got hung up on door photos for a while, then gardens, brick streets, “Spanish moss” (which is neither Spanish nor moss), churches, statues (shrimpy Ponce De Leon, 4 feet 11 inches, who didn’t allow anyone taller than him to work on his ship), and of course, the egrets that feed off our back lines and squabble just like kid sisters. As you look at the photos, check out the white wood house, which is where Martin Luther King, Jr. spent one night. He had to move every night to avoid assassination. (It worked for a number of years.) This was part of the Freedom Trail throughout the South. It is in an area of St. Augustine called “Lincolnville” or Lincolntown”, formerly the all Black part of the city.

The only restaurant I can tell you about, besides DQ (yummy mocha shake), is the Nonna Trattoria on Aviles Street, the oldest…. I ordered an Italian sausage sandwich to go for Art, and everything about it was good – the bread, the sausage, the green peppers, and the onions – he reported.

The other photos we posted show you scenes from our fifth day on the ICW. We saw a gaggle of shrimp fishers (or is it a “murder” or a “covey”?). We saw lots of color coded deck chairs. The first ones we saw were one blue and one pink. Okay, that’s easy. The blue and pink duo continued for some time. Honestly, is nothing sacred or out of bounds when it comes to sex stereotyping? Then we hit a blue chair and blue chair dock, with the chairs very close together --  hmm, a definite statement. And then we got to the docks with pink, blue, lavender and green – you figure it out. Diversity?

Art has placed a temporary ban on bridge photos. I LOVE BRIDGE PHOTOS. I particularly love the bridges that open just because we ask them to. That’s when we need a working stereo and some triumphant music as we pass under the raised cement sentinels. We went through the Overhaul Canal, which had a great bridge. Art let me keep that one in the photos. Mostly, on our fifth day, we were traveling alone, the only crazies to try to outrun the storm to St. Augustine. Except for the sailboats who tagged along behind us. I’m piloting Slow Motion for longer stretches, as the Admiral deems my piloting a work in progress. We still travel between 6 and 8 miles an hour, so bicyclists can race us and win most of the time. That speed is fine with me, checking out the pelicans, cormorants, egrets, manatees, porpoises and the occasional, odd human, like a man with an ice cream boat or a surfboarder with a paddle and a dog balancing on the board. I wish we could all go that speed through life. Slow Motion is not just a boat name for us – it’s our current way of life.

Mostly St Augustine Pics

CHAPTER NINE - DEBBY DOES FLORIDA

CHAPTER NINE – DEBBY DOES FLORIDA

SLOW MOTION LOG, JUNE 25, 2012:

We’re surrounded by tropical storm Debby. She’s bringing lots of wind and rain to St. Augustine, and we’re feeling her power in our slip in the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. We raced with Debby all the way from the Adventure Yacht Harbor Marina, north of Smyrna Beach, to St. Augustine, and we beat her by minutes yesterday afternoon. Art did a perfect job of docking in wild winds and currents right next to a bridge he thought he was going to be driven against. The guy on the dock who helped us tie up said: “Okay.  Take a deep breath. Let it out, and now you can relax.” For the most part, the folks at the marinas we have visited are really helpful and very pleasant.

There is one exception to that, and he deserves a short paragraph. “Phil” at Melbourne Yacht Harbor Marina in the City of Melbourne is a most unpleasant character. He was pretty useless at helping us dock, and we really needed the help of someone with some expertise. We had to back into a narrow slip again. Then all the locks on the ladies’ room were broken. I found a necklace in the shower room and gave it to him – no thank you from him. He advertised that they had Wifi. They do not, and I told him, and there was no discount. He is a one man operation, and he acts like he inherited the job. He had given us an evaluation form to fill out, and I filled it out noting his deficiencies and the defects at the marina. I also noted that we would not be returning to his marina, in response to a question.  As we were leaving the marina, an unidentified male voice came on the EMERGENCY CHANNEL (16) of our radio: “You have a lot to learn, you have a lot to learn…. You will not be missed.” What kind of person does that? So I contacted the Chamber of Commerce by email – they’re not open on Fridays – and started writing about this incident, but they didn’t leave enough room for the entire message. They probably deserve each other. DO NOT TAKE YOUR SHIP TO MELBOURNE, FLORIDA.

Thank God we stayed at the friendly Titusville Municipal Marina the next night, where “Aunt Bee” (Andy Griffith Show) runs the store and the office. This is a marina where most of the people appear to live full time on their boats – even moreso than at Nettles Island. Aunt Bee helped me arrange to rent a car to go visit the Kennedy Space Center. It was kind of strange being on land for a whole morning, driving on top of bridges and causeways, instead of under them. Unfortunately, the Kennedy Space Center opens at 9 a.m. and charges a lot for a visit, and everything takes at least 2 hours, and I had to have the car back before noon. So I saw the outside of the Kennedy Space Center and the outside of the Astronauts Hall of Fame (opens at noon) and a lot of beautiful scenery driving through the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. This is a depressed area, with the space program taking a back seat to two wars in faraway countries. My Enterprise agent used to have a skilled position making the tiles for the defense contractor for NASA. Of his company of 10,000, 7,000 have been laid off, and the company’s going to go out of business.

Manatees! Aunt Bee had them! They were gathered at the dock, and then Art saw a bunch eating seagrass near our boat. Did you ever see the Kevin Bacon movie, Worms? I think the manatees played the roles of the monster worms. They appear harmless enough, but must weigh a ton – underwater hippos.

It was hard to leave Aunt Bee and the great showers in Titusville, but we need to get out of Florida. And already on June 23, the weather reports for the East Coast of Florida were looking very iffy for a boat our size. So we left at 11:30 on June 23 and headed up to Adventure Yacht Harbor, a place run by Jim with the blonde Afro. He was a big help at the dock. When I told Jim we were from California, he asked if we had come through the Panama Canal. So our greenness is not showing quite as much as it did a few days ago. Jim advertised Wifi and he had Wifi. (Same with Aunt Bee).  Jim’s Marina had the first covered docks I had seen, and he had a lot of smaller boats under the roofs, out of the water. The docks were not in good shape. But we had a sturdy new dock at the end of the marina, easy for departure the next morning. This marina had an open air restaurant right next to the docks. Art fully enjoyed fried oysters and shrimp and half of my huge hamburger.  And the egret next to our table just stared at our food until it was gone.

We took off from Adventure Yacht Harbor with some trepidation, because the weather map for all of Florida had suddenly turned bright green (inches of rain), with spots of orange and red (drenching rain). We left a little before 8 a.m. and planned to reach St. Augustine by 3 p.m., hoping that the high winds and thunderstorms that were predicted for the afternoon would hold off until then. Well, we lucked out. The storm kept pace with us. Fortunately, we had a current behind us most of the time and arrived in St. Augustine before 3 p.m. This was a tense day of travel, constantly looking at the skies and waiting for the first clap of thunder.

I know this traveling is supposed to be tension free, but so far, as we learn a lot every day, we have our tense moments. Art’s worst moments come when he approaches a dock. I feel that tension too, and when I’m steering Slow Motion, I’m still not relaxed. Boat travel is a real test of any relationship, not only because of the tension related to keeping the boat afloat and in the middle of the ICW and docking it without crashing into a piling, but also because of the 24 hour closeness you experience. You do everything on the boat together to make sure that the trip is smooth. When you dock, there is a short break to take a shower at a marina, but then you spend your evenings together on the boat, planning for the next day’s excursion. I have never had this much closeness before in my life. So there are adjustments. Both of us need our quiet time, and we’re learning to appreciate that. As I write this Blog, Art is in the cabin sleeping or using his iPhone. I don’t have anything funny or witty to say about this, just that we’re a work in progress. As we learn more about Slow Motion, we are learning more about ourselves – and that’s a good thing, right? Enough with the philosophizing.

Today I did a little exploring of St. Augustine, as Art did computer work. Tomorrow I’ll find out more about the First City, weather permitting. The atmosphere is like a residential area of New Orleans. The “Old Town” is covered with brick roads and paths, and the buildings are Spanish in style. The people are friendly, except the guy at the Post Office. But so far I think I’ve met transplants from Kansas City, Chicago and San Diego, no natives. Maybe the natives know better than to come out in the rain.

And so to bed – with the sound of pounding raindrops on my head.

Day 2 Pics

CHAPTER EIGHT – THE PORPOISE OF OUR TRIP

CHAPTER EIGHT – THE PORPOISE OF OUR TRIP

Last night the gale force winds rocked Slow Motion, which was tied well at various points to the dock. You could hear the lines straining against the wind. This was as close to nature as camping, almost. The winds kept up all night into the morning, and then the rains came. Intermittently, we had brief respites but for the most part we were in a major storm. No way we were going out on the Intracoastal Waterway under those conditions. Mostly the 45 mile per hour winds were the deterrent. We will cruise up the ICW in the rain, so long as the winds are below 10 mph and there is no lightning.

Here’s the silver lining in these storm clouds. Slow Motion continued to throw perplexing numbers at us, as we headed north yesterday. What was the transmission gauge telling us? Did we need a new filter? Did we need a new transmission? What about the readings on the two main fuel tanks? Why was the starboard side engine fuel gauge down a lot and the port side engine fuel gauge still at full? There’s a connecting pipe between the two tanks, so the fuel should be used equally, unless…. Unless what? So Quigley Mobile Marine showed up at 8 a.m. during the storm to go down into the engine room to check on the transmission and the fuel tanks. What did he find? A whole new and different – and very serious-- problem that needed our immediate attention: our “shaft brushes” were severely worn. Okay, new marine term: “shaft brushes”. As I learned today, a very bad thing –electrolysis-- can happen to your propeller shafts and propellers if the brushes are worn and not in contact with the propeller shafts. Basically, your $3,000.00 propellers slowly dissolve in the ocean water. Oh really? Yes, really! Did the boat surveyor mention this in his report? No. Did the repair yard bring this problem up? Of course not. But blessed Quigley noticed the worn out brushes. Then he went to town 10 miles away and returned with new brushes and installed them. All before noon. Ka-ching! (but a reasonable ka-ching).

Then the fuel tank polishing guy – yes, they polish fuel, who knew? – arrived to find out why only the starboard fuel tank was working. Well, a miracle happened between last night and the time of his arrival today. The gauges on both the starboard and port fuel tanks were nearly identical, showing that fuel had been used from both tanks. AND THERE WAS NO NEED FOR A REPAIR! AND ROBBIE THE FUEL POLISHER DIDN’T EVEN BILL US FOR THE HOUSEBOAT CALL! Could this be the beginning of a new era with Slow Motion? Could this be a fluke? Could this be magic? We just knocked on every bit of wood we could find, bade Robbie goodbye, and celebrated like it was 1999.

Okay, we’re not stupid or naïve. B O A T actually stands for Bring Out Another Thousand ($). We know that now. And we know that there will probably be daily concerns about boat parts, although some boat owners say they have gone for months without a repair. We’re not that lucky. But in that shining moment when we were told that the fuel tanks were working properly and there would be no repair bill for them, and no bill for checking on them, we rejoiced. And we decided to try to relax the rest of the day.

As we were relaxing on the sundeck, we heard the sounds of fins hitting the water, turned and saw porpoises playing around, diving up and down, racing from point A to point B – just off our boat. We also observed two pelicans on the pilings next to neighbor’s boat, as the pelicans were in turn observing us intently, particularly our hands. I know you can watch the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel and see the wonders of nature. But when you’re just sitting on your sundeck, enjoying a minimal repair expense day, and nature comes right up to you – it’s a great feeling. These porpoises were dark gray and 5 to 6 feet in length, and they loved to play together. After a while, we noticed twosomes in about four different places near our boat.

As we walked to the little grocery store on the dock, we saw a whole school of fish (about 12 inches each) swimming between boats. Art posited that they were hiding from the porpoises. Much of what we saw as “play” may very well have been hunting and feeding. It is quite shallow 10 to 20 yards away from our boat, and the porpoises would have an easy time getting food in this area. They were breathing hard, as they arose out of the water, so the fish they were chasing must have given them a little bit of a battle. And the pelicans just kept watching. That was kind of unnerving, what with their huge mouths and hooks on the end of their beaks.

The folks at Nettles Island are a mixed bunch. There is the hard working repair person (Quigley). There is the long bearded guy who helped us dock, who was fishing today “for something to do”. There is the grocery store owner, who sells everything, including chocolate mint chip ice cream in sugar cones. There is the voice on the phone, who is the marina guy, who we never see and whose door is always locked. There is the guy with the yellow lab mix, who looks well acclimated to boat life. There is the “southern belle” or “slut” with the two young men, who left in a huff this morning – she had a wheelbarrow full of stuffed Gucci bags – while the boat they had been on was perhaps repo’d by some guys from out of town. There are people who are living on their boats here, a completely different community than Soverel or Marina Bay, where most of the boats were unoccupied and many were up for sale.

One last item: Boat names. There is a boat named Perseverance tied up near us, and one named Tryst. My favorite, of course, is Lady Ann. There will always be an Osprey in this area. We followed Encore under many bridges our first day on the ICW. What would you name your boat?

The photos we are posting after this blog are from our excursion yesterday past many opulent areas, as well as wildlife refuges. We hope you feel a part of this watery adventure.

About “comments” to the blog, it appears that you have to have a google account or gmail account to post a comment. You might ask google about this. I know that the one comment we received (Thanks Brenda!) came from someone who has gmail. When we decided to do the blog, we consulted other bloggers (like Dorth in Abu Dhabi) and they said this google blog is the easiest to do. Except for posting comments by readers, that has been true so far. Thank you so much for reading and for letting us know how you’re doing. With any luck, you will be with us on Slow Motion one day.

CHAPTER SEVEN - SLOW MOTION'S 2nd DAY ON THE ICW

CHAPTER SEVEN –SLOW MOTION’S 2^ND DAY ON THE ICW (Intracoastal Waterway)

Wait until you see the photos from today. We’ll download them tonight if we have time. The weather was much more dramatic, going from sun and puffy white clouds to menacing dark clouds filling the skies to the west, then the east. Few boats joined Slow Motion in the afternoon on the Hobe Sound or the southern part of the Indian River. So we “enjoyed” the impending storm mostly by ourselves – and with the pelicans that sit on many of the pilings on the sides of the ICW.

We started out at 11 a.m., because we had – you guessed it – a repair to make. This super-efficient Aussie fellow showed up at 8 a.m., obtained oil for our transmission and a new blower in the engine compartment, and installed it. While Soverel Marina was a bust, except for the shower, the people who fix boats around there are aces.

There was a stiff current most of the day, as various inlets (Jupiter, St. Lucie) flowed in from the Atlantic Ocean. We were just a few sand dunes away from the ocean part of the day. There was another parade of mansions along both coasts, but intermittently the local, state and federal governments have carved out some wildlife refuges and parks. Does the Tea Party oppose money for these beauties? They’re the best part of our government at any level. Oops – soapbox – gotta curb that tendency.

From time to time the Admiral gets called away, to open windows or perform some bodily function, and then I sit in the captain’s chair and actually steer the boat. It sounds easy, but with tricky currents and winds, you always have to correct your path to stay in the ICW. If you deviate, you may end up on a sand bar – hate to think what the rescue would cost. I picture the Italian cruise ship lying on its side in what appears to be shallow water, the captain in a boat with his lady friend and 100 plus passengers left to fend for themselves.  I don’t want to turn Slow Motion on its side. Art and I are both somewhat tense at times, as we face new situations each hour. (Memo to self: get a neck and back massage in St. Augustine). Today had a lot of new features, with the winds and the rains. Also, we had to get off the ICW and take a private channel, with shallow water on both sides, to get to our marina for the night, Nettles Island.

Nettles Island is what a marina should be like. We were greeted like royalty by a long-bearded fellow, ready to take our lines and help us dock. Then a second fellow came along to help us too. No problem with a tight fit today, as you will see by the photos. We are lined up alongside a long dock – lots of lines going in all directions. The winds continue to blow, but thanks to the folks who helped us and to Art’s rearranging of most of the lines after they left, we are secure. And Art put three fenders in place, so we are not hitting any wood from the dock or from pilings attached to the dock.

This end-of-the-day docking job is pretty tricky. I have a lot to learn about the ropes (lines). Still can’t reliably tie a clove hitch knot. I may need to take a remedial knots course.  So you’re thinking to yourself perhaps: What part of this journey is FUN? There’s a lot of vigilance involved in the steering part, and a lot of skill involved in the docking part, and a lot of knowledge involved in the line tying part. And the darn ship keeps showing her age and running up our credit card balances. Then there’s the added expense of $1.50 to $2.00 per night per foot for the services at the marina. Yikes! We’re pensioners! Those of you who own homes know that they often become “money pits” too. Or even as a renter, you probably put a lot of money into a car, presents for loved ones, or into pets or travel.

So this is our travel adventure. Flying is not much fun anymore. Traveling by car is limiting and expensive. There is always hiking, but then you have a different set of worries – weather, accidents, bears, bugs, illness in a remote place. So when you compare boating to the other ways to travel and see the world, it becomes more and more attractive. You have time to check out the passing scenery. You wave to everyone else in their boats and feel an immediate sense of community. You choose each day where to go and what to do. You have no airports, bus stations or railroad stations. You have no crowded highways. You feel a breeze in your face (or a very strong wind) all day. You watch the weather change in front of you. You can outrace storms. You can stay and enjoy a sunny place. You get to visit historic places like St. Augustine for as long as you want – no hotel costs, no plane tickets. You get to make your own meals. All that’s missing are the “free” marinas we had heard about. They may be mythical, but we’ll keep looking. Art has urged me to try to bargain for lower rates – me, who couldn’t sell Girl Scout cookies, except to a city councilman who had to buy them for political reasons. But I’ll give it a try, if it means we can continue to live on the boat and travel and see the Atlantic Coast.

Yes, we really miss our puppies and our family and friends and neighbors. This is why the Blog is so important to us, to keep connected with you and keep you in our lives. Please keep us in yours.

First Day Pics