12/2/03 - Made it to Bohicket Creek Marina yesterday (mile 496) about 2pm. Had a dolphin follow along with us for about a quarter mile (see video on photo page), this was quite a thrill. Dave cooked a great meal onboard (veal osso bucco) and we settled in early because we had to get going early the next morning for Beaufort (and it was too damn cold to stay on deck after sunset). We left Bohicket about 7am (really cold this morning) and headed to Beaufort. Arrived there about 1:30pm and began a tour of the city. It's a beautiful city. A smaller and quieter version of Charleston with many old southern houses in perfect condition. This is also the city that was used for many famous movies (Big Chill, Forest Gump, Great Santini to name a few). Oh, and I promised Dave not to mention that he ran aground on the way to Beaufort (just some mud, so we powered through it quickly), so forget that you read that here.....

12/3/03 - Lazy start. 10 am departure for Hilton Head Island. Only 25 miles down from Beaufort. We got there about 1:30 after a cold ride. We stopped for the night at HarborTown Marina, right off the 18th hole at Heritage Country Club - a rather exclusive course. Dave did manage to hit some balls on the practice green (yes, he did bring his clubs along). Barbara was coaching his short game. Tomorrow we head off to Savannah.

12/4/03 - Cold and rainy day. Left Hilton Head in a cold, driving rain which lasted a couple of hours. Luckily it cleared up for the last hour to the Savannah area. Went by the cemetary featured in the book/movie "Midnight in the garden of good and evil", it's right on the waterway. Docked at the Thunderbolt Marina about 15 mins outside of Savannah (we read that dockage was unavailable in the city - WRONG!). We all took a cab into Savannah and then took a trolley tour of the city. I think I like this city even more than Charleston. The architecture is much more varied here. A nice mix of colonial, civil war era and victorian homes. The numerous squares in the city make it a nice place to stroll around (though in the summer, it must be unbearably hot). Another city with many good places to eat and drink!

12/6/03 - COLD! This is supposed to be sunny, warm Georgia. This morning's temp was about 32 (no sympathy from the Boston crowd weathering a winter storm). We are gonna miss the boat parade today in Thunderbolt (not to mention that every morning the marina delivers a half dozen Krispy Kreme donuts free - yum) but we need to make distance south toward the rumored WARM WEATHER!. We fueled up and left about 8:15. Wind is blowing about 15 from North/NW. We arrived at Walburg Creek just inside of St. Catherine Island about 1:20 and dropped anchor. Time to warm up and make the chicken soup for tonight.

12/7/03 - I thought that Georgia was supposed to be warm! Damn it's cold here. Needed 3 blankets last night at anchor. It was about 30 degrees. Got up early and headed out about 7:45. At least it was sunny out (but still cold). Had some favorable currents and made it to Jekyll Island (about 60+ miles) and docked Jekyll Harbor Marina about 3:30pm. Looks like we will stay another day here and explore the island by bike (supplied by the marina). Watched the Patriots clinch their division tonight at SeaJays restaurant here at the marina.Yeah!! (saw lots of snow at Gilette stadium!).

12/8/03 - Rode around Jekyll Island on bikes today. Toured the old "cottages" of the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Morgans and other old weathly families from the 20's (when this was a private island club). The Jekyll Island club hotel is a beautiful old building, very elegant inside. The other side of the island has a gourgeous beach. A really nice place to spend some time.

12/9/03 - Early departure today. Want to make as much ground as we could. Crossed the FLORIDA border about 10:45am and celebrated with a beer. Arrived in Jacksonville Beach about 2:30pm. Gonna wait out some thunderstorms and reprovision here tomorrow and head to St. Augustine on Thurs.

12/11/03 - Up early on a very cold (30's) morning and head out for St. Augustine. We arrive about 12:40 after waiting an hour for the bridge of lions to open. Have a dock at the municipal marina for 2 days. We went out to explore this oldest city in the US starting first with the Castillo de San Marcos; a fort built by the spanish to hold off the british. It changed hands a number of times (Spanish, British,Spanish, Americans). We then walkeed through the original city gates and through the restored spanish quarter (mostly gift shops). Then we walked to the Basilica Cathedral of San Augustine and Flagler College (previously the Hotel Ponce DeLeon - the first structure in the US built with poured concrete -a magnificent, ornate building). More touristy things tomorrow. Recommend the Mill Top Tavern in the old town for music and cheap eats.

12/13/03 - Arrived in Daytona Beach about 2:30. Plan on holing up here for thunderstorms tomorrow. The Halifax Harbor Marina had a christmas boat parade. About 18 boats decorated in elaborate light displays and singing crew. Beach was too far to walk to. Settled for a walk to local shops and restaurant.

12/15/03 - Cold morning again. Topped off the fuel tank before leaving the marina and headed down the ICW to Titusville. Had to go through an "interesting" canal (Haulover Canal) whose entrance was a bit on the skinny side with rocks on both banks. We anchored at Titusville about 2pm. You could see the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Cape Canaveral in the distance along with the shuttle launch towers. The coast guard announced that there would be a launch tonight and set up a security zone offshore for falling boosters. I waited up until 11:30pm but no launch happened (turned out there was an equipment problem - surprise - and the launch was scrubbed). The weather doesn't look good for a launch soon. This turned out to be a noisy place to anchor, the trains run along shore all night here.

12/16/03 - Finally a warm day. The sun was out most of the day and it was in the 60's all the way to Melbourne. We have T-Storms and high winds forecast (again) tonight and tomorrow so we are heading into a marina at Melbourne Harbor Marina for a couple of days. Walked to downtown and browsed the local shops.

12/18/03 - Another cold day in southern FLA (do you see a pattern here?). Got into the Ft. Pierce city marina about 2pm (interesting marina, one half is in strong current, the other half sheltered). The marina was right downtown, not that there was a whole lot to do downtown. Had a very good and very cheap dinner at "Max & Meg's" restaurant. Otherwisw te town was quiet in the cold weather.

12/19/03 - Adventures in undocking. Tight quarters and wind on the beam made for interesting boat handling this morning. Finally got out of the marina after about an hour of attempts and finally the help from a dockhand. (note to self: never accept the tie up on the wall all the way in Ft. Pierce marina). Fueled up and made our way to Palm Beach. More bridges to wait for on this section. Arrived in snooty Palm Beach about 3:30 and docked at Soverel Harbor Marina. Found a Barnes & Noble bookstore nearby and restocked the book collection. Then tried to find a "reasonably" priced restaurant nearby - took some doing. Nice italian restaurant (Carmine's) near the marina complete with the manager that dressed like a "wiseguy". Good food and good people watching. I guess that wealth does not always mean good taste. Gotta get out of here.

12/20/03 - BRIDGES! I HATE BRIDGES!!!! The distance from Palm Beach to Ft. Lauderdale is only 50 miles or so but there are 21 damn drawbridges between here and there. Each one on a different schedule or open on request. Usually it would only take us about 6 hours to go this distance. Today it took 8 hours. And then there are the idiots that drive boats down here. The only thing they slow down for here are the damn manatees (or should I say the signs that say slow down for manatees - or get a big fine). We were planning on going offshore for this section but it was just too rough and cold out there today. Remember I mentioned that wealth did not mean good taste? Well the houses along this section proved that. They build them big and ugly and way too close together. We arrived in the land of mega yachts (Ft. Lauderdale) about 4:30 and docked at the city marina just before the dockhands quit for the day. We are the smallest boat at the dock by far. We got cleaned up and went out and found a sportsbar nearby with a great happy hour and good food and decompressed. Oh, and the temperature outside is a balmy 45. (they promise that the warm weather will return by monday).

City of Ft. Lauderdale marina rates (2005-2006)

12/22/03 - A little excitement last night: a 50+ ft powerboat on the dock across from us had a fire onboard. I heard a weird screeching noise late in the night and went on deck to see what it was only to be almost choked on smoke drifting over from the next dock over. I also saw more than 4 fire trucks in the parking lot and many firefighters on the dock in breathing gear breaking into the hatches on the boat to check for people (no one was onboard). The screeching noise may have been a theft alarm going off - who knows.
The money here is not to be believed. We took a water taxi today (worth the trip!) and the captain had some interesting facts to share: This harbor gets an average of about 1400 mega-yachts here each winter season and they each spend about $300-400,000 on boat work here (2nd to tourism in income to the area). They also spend an average of 300-500 per day for dockage. He pointed out some of the "small" houses along the water. More than one of these monster houses had a "smaller" (only $2 million) house just for his yacht crew (which can't live on the 100+ foot yacht docked in front of the mansion because of some city ordanance). Took the water taxi across the ICW and visited Bluewater Books on Cordova Blvd to look for cruising guides for the keys (there aren't many) and maybe update some of our other books.

12/23/03 - Finally got to sail!! Haven't had both sails up and the engine off since North Carolina. Got out the Ft. lauderdale channel and put up the sails and lo and behold the mainsail wasn't a giant triangle of moldy fabric like I thought it might be. We sailed most of the way to Miami in the beautiful light green water until the wind died out and then motored up Government Cut into Miami harbor against a 3.5 kt current. Got into the MiamMarina downtown at about 3pm. The marina is right next to a shopping mall and a Hard Rock Cafe (don't eat there). The mall has many good restaurants..

12/24/03 - Christmas eve day in Miami. Rented a car and went food shopping. Then went over to South Beach and walked along the art deco district, stopping every so often for a drink and a late lunch. The old hotels here are nicely restored to there old style. Almost all have bars or restaurants along the sidewalk and they all try to entice you in with happy hour prices (though here happy hour just means it's expensive, not outrageous). Spent way too much time at a place called Mango's that had a great cuban band playing and then drove back to the boat. Oh, did I mention that we passed by a dead body in the middle of the street? Just a block from the hotels the police had an intersection blocked off and there was a body in the street covered in a sheet. The crime unit was there but we never found out what happened.

12/25/03 - Christmas Day. Returned the rental car. The shopping mall was open for business (most shops anyway). Guess the tourist business never rests. We cooked dinner on board and did laundry. A very exciting holiday.

12/26/03 - Grounded! It had to happen sooner or later. Made it all the way down here without going aground but it finally caught up to us. Tried to take a shortcut into a marina in Key Biscayne (it was marked on the chart as having enough water) and we ran aground in about 4.5 ft of water (twice). The first time we got off right away by backing off the way we came. Then we tried to find the channel again and ran into another low spot and got stuck pretty good. It took us about 30 minutes of kedging with the spare anchor to free us. (of course it happened at high tide). Once we got free, we traced our route back the way we came and went around to the regular channel to the marina for fuel and then headed down to the bottom of Key Biscayne to a small anchorage for the night.

12/28/03 - Oh the joys of cruising. Today we had to leave our somewhat quiet (except for the lunch crowd and the drunk powerboaters partying until early morning) anchorage of the last couple of days in order to pump out the holding tanks. We had to motor up to a marina about 5 miles away and use their self-service pumpout system. Once that wonderful chore was completed, we motored back down to our anchorage again and plunked ourselves back into our previous spot. Along the way back we saw a huge junior regatta going on in Biscayne Bay. There were at least 6 racing lines going on with hundreds of boats - Optis, 420's, lasers and 49'ers. Another exciting day on Koko. Tomorrow am we head down the keys.

12/29/03 - Left our anchorage in Key Biscayne about 7:30 this morning and headed out into Hawks channel and down the keys. The channel out went through "stiltsville", a collection of houses on stilts out on the reef in Biscayne Bay. They are now part of the national park system. The waters in Hawks Channel were very rough to start; waves about 4-5 ft and the wind was on the beam at 20kts. Thankfully this diminished as we went further. The water was a beautiful teal color and the day was warm and sunny, so it could have been worse. We arrived at Rodriguez key (just off Key Largo) about 2:30 and set anchor in 8.5 ft of water. It's a bit open to the east wind but one of the few places we can stop along the way with a draft of 5+ ft (and I thought the Bahamas were shallow).

12/30/03 - Finally a beautiful day for a sail. Winds from the east about 15kts, sun is out, the water is turquoise and warm. What else could you want? Got the anchor up, got the sails up, got the engine off and away we went down the keys at about 6.5 - 7 kts. After about 4 1/2 hours we furled them in and went under the causeway at Matecumbe key and went on the inside of the keys to find an anchorage. I have to keep reminding myself that it is supposed to be shallow here but when your anchoring in 7 feet of water at high tide (even though the tide is less than a foot), it gets a bit odd. Knowing that there is only about 6-8 inches or so under the keel at low tide takes some getting used to.

12/31/03 - Big swells and no wind made for a lumpy motorsail to Marathon (Boot Key Harbor). Grabbed the only available mooring in the harbor and went into town to reprovision (beer). Met some of our neighbors at the mooring. Two couples from New Jersey that have been here a week. Met them again at the new year's eve party at a local place called "Dockside Lounge ". A great blues band played all night and free champagne was handed out for midnight (yes, we actually made it past midnight this year!). A very "interesting" crowd at this party: some hippies, some bikers, some live-aboard cruisers and some preppy looking folks. A good night of people watching.

Note: recently me a bartender in Bar Harbor, ME that also works at Cabot's On The Water in Marathon - check it out.

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