Hanging Out in Coconut Grove, FL

We left Pompano Beach Tuesday morning 1/13/09. It was an interesting marina and a fun time, although the cross currents were a bit of a challenge getting into the slip. The marina was in need of some upgrades but close to stores and restaurants, and we were meeting new friends on another DeFever that Vicki and Norm know and they were staying there.

We usually back into a slip so that we can open the door on the aft deck and step off onto the dock. Unfortunately, when Rick backed the boat in, it came to a halt about 8 feet from the main dock. The bottom had silted over and we couldn't back any further. So, Rick turned the boat around and we went in bow first which worked just fine. Except this configuration left us with a small problem of how to get on and off the boat, since it was high tide and the front of the boat was about 4 feet higher than the dock! Daniel Blumenau, the dock master, found some wooden steps which we were able to use with much amusement to all.

So, I'm attaching some rather embarrassing pictures of us using the anchor as a step to get to the temporary steps on the main dock! You can see our friends on the other boats down the dock behind us waiting to see if they needed to break out the life preservers should we do the big splash.

We had a great time with all of our friends. Vicki fixed us a wonderful dinner the first night and we laughed and laughed telling boat stories. We ate at a Chinese place the second night...first time we've had Chinese food in weeks and weeks and it was grand.

Daniel, the dockmaster, was great! Rick had discovered that the dingy battery would no longer hold a charge, which is serious since the dingy is essentially the family car when anchored out. On Monday Daniel volunteered to cart Rick around Pompano until we could locate a new battery and get it back to the boat. That was way beyond the call of duty. Daniel and his wife, Yelena, live aboard their sailboat in the marina. His boat is really interesting and unusual in that it was once the "Pirate Ship" belonging to the famous Foxy of Foxy's Bar & Grill in the British Virgin Islands. Daniel spent 3 years in Venezuala fixing her up before heading north to replenish the cruising kitty.

We spent Tuesday cruising south in the ICW heading for Key Biscayne where Norm's sister lives. We had wanted to run outside to avoid all the south Florida bridges, but the weather was really lumpy and windy, so we played it safe and stayed inside. We planned to anchor in a little basin on the south end called No Name Harbor. Arriving about 2:00 we found several sail boats had already claimed most of the choice spots. Norm and Vicki found a good one and got hooked up. We wandered around the basin and tried a couple of spots but couldn't find room to set out enough chain to keep the boat from swinging into another boat or the mangroves, so we bailed out and headed for Coconut Grove, which is across Biscayne Bay from Key Biscayne and Miami. We found a good anchorage there, but will miss not meeting Norm's sister.

The weather Gods have been smiling on us almost the entire trip but yesterday it was very windy with showers. As we went through Fort Lauderdale which has a very, very large port, we saw Cunard Lines Queen Mary II and the Queen Victoria cruise ships which are both huge. There were also several other large cruise ships. As we passed by some of the passengers waved to us from what seemed like eight stories up.

Here is a picture of Tidehiker, Norm and Vicki's boat passing a container ship. We all felt like bathtub toys compared to the large ships.

Here is Lynnie following a sailboat and Tidehiker going very slowly waiting for a bridge opening. Lots of bridges along the way yesterday.

The next few days are going to be very windy so we left Coconut Grove on Thursday morning to find a place where we can shelter from the predicted 20 - 25 knot north winds. The Coconut Grove anchorage is pretty open so we don't relish being here during the blow. We want to get to Marathon on Vacca Key to get some new 'windows' or curtains made for the upper deck. Ours are so old that they have split in too many places to count and we can barely see out of them. So we've patched the splits with clear packing tape ... Clampet-style. That job will take about 2 weeks. Marathon is the largest and most populated town in the Keys so we hope to get some time to take in a movie and re-provision. We will stay in a marina and it will be nice to be on land for a while.

More later after we find a place to hole up.

Palm Beach Yacht Center

We arrived here on Monday from Stuart. Our intention was to get a couple of problems in the engine room fixed. We stayed here for several weeks in 2007 and we really have a lot of faith in the guys here. In the meantime, we have discovered a couple of new problems to deal with. If we are real lucky we can leave tomorrow afternoon but it may not be until Saturday. It's a boat!!

We don't have much else in the way of news. The trip from Stuart down the ICW goes through some very exclusive neighborhoods. We took a few pictures of the mansions. Some of the boats in front of the mansions are probably several million dollars. We wonder where all the wealth comes from.

Stuart, Florida with Lynnie's bud Patty!

Yippee, we got to visit with Lynnie's Jr. High school friend, Patty, and her husband, Jimmy. We had such a great visit. We haven't seen both of them for many years and it was fun. On the way, we passed a sailing school which was setting up a race course. It looked like fun.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and Patty met us at the dock. Jimmy and Patty, we learned, know everyone in Stuart, Fl. In fact, they know the owner of Finz restaurant which is located just off the ICW, in a pocket of water just off the St. Lucie river called the Manatee Pocket. We were a bit concerned about it because it has relatively low water but we got in just fine. On the way in we passed this Coney Island Hot Dog stand which seemed to be very popular. What a cool idea!!

Patty and Jimmy's friend, Frank, the owner of Finz Bar and Restaurant, suggested that we dock at his restaurant....GRATIS, as long as we came in for dinner or a couple of drinks. Of course, we were more than happy to take him up on his offer! We would highly recommend Finz as the food was excellent and the staff very friendly and helpful. Jimmy and Patty live about five minutes from here.

Patty and Jimmy were perfect hosts. They lent us their car so that we could provision. We found the local WalMart, Lowe's Hardware and a store where Lynnie could buy a few articles of clothing that she forgot to pack. What a treat it was to have a car.

Jimmy and Patty took us to their house on the golf course. It is a lovely Florida house. Then we went out to dinner on Saturday night. We met many of their friends, all of them delightful, especially Debbie and Bobby. We know why they love it here. They brought us back to Finz and the boat and from the boat we got to enjoy the band that Finz had playing that night. We did a little dancing on the deck, it was really nice. On Sunday they took us on a tour of Stuart and then we went into the downtown area where there was a free outdoor jazz concert. Jimmy and Patty are both football nuts so we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the games and yakking.

Tomorrow we leave for the Palm Beach Yacht Center, about 44 miles south. It always tickles me (Lynnie) to think that if we were driving we could be there in an hour. It will take us about 5 1/2 hours! We discovered that our refrigerator isn't working with raw water, but only with the compressor fan. Rick ordered a new pump which will be delivered on Tuesday and that, as well as some other problems will be worked on. We like this marina as we've been here before to have work done and they do quality work. Additionally, the staff, including yard manager Paul Gorney, have all become friends and we trust them implicitely.

After that, we aren't sure where we'll be. We need to spend some time working it out, but for right now a day at a time is working for us. From here we're thinking of heading outside down to Coconut Grove and Key Biscayne. Love to all of you!!

Happy New Year!!

We hope that everyone had a fun and safe holiday! We spent New Year’s Eve and day at a marina in Melbourne, Fl. We’ve been here a couple of times before and really like the town. There is a little Tiki bar at the end of the dock that serves good food so we went there for New Year’s Eve. Today we took our folding bikes into town. It is nice to have them aboard as they give us a chance to see some of the places that we stop at.

Since our last blog entry we have been making our way slowly south. After leaving Fernandina Beach the day after Christmas, we have stopped in two anchorages and a marina in St. Augustine. We always enjoy St. Augustine. We docked across from the old town. The dock master ferried us across the river for dinner, which was terrific and we took a cab back to the boat.

On our way south, we have gone under many bridges. Under most of them we just see concrete pilings, but in Daytona, they have boaters in mind, with these amazing mosaic images of sea life. It is very cool.

We caught up with our buddy boat friends, Norm and Vicki in the Titusville anchorage, which is just outside of Cape Canaveral, on December 29th. They came over in their dingy all decked out in party hats and they brought champagne! We had bought the 'world's best hot dogs' in St. Augustine. Each one weighed 1/4 lbs!! So, we had an early New Year’s Eve party where everyone got happy feet. It was great to see them again. They have gone on ahead of us again and we will hopefully start traveling together soon.

We’ve had some great weather since we’ve been in Florida. When we did this trip 2 years ago we were still wearing long johns, sweats and foot warmers in our sneakers well south of where we are now, so this is a welcome change.

Here are just a few pictures that we thought you'd enjoy. As we cruised through New Smyrna Beach, which looks like a lovely place, we saw a very small island full of pelicans. The kayakers were enjoying seeing them.

The next two pictures show why we are so concerned about tides and what they can do to boats if you don't pay attention!! The first boat is completely out of the water and on the mud. I'm sure they will both get off the bottom when the tides come in.

Merry Christmas from Florida!

We left St. Simons Island, GA yesterday morning. Our first task was to take on fuel. We were told of a place about an hour away that sold diesel fuel for $1.75. Most places are selling it for $2.50 so we were real happy to take advantage of the great price. We had not put any fuel in the boat since May of 2007 so it was time.

We anchored in another beautiful, quiet anchorage on the Brickhill River in south Georgia, just behind Cumberland Island with it’s wild horses and armodillos. As we turned into the river we saw another DeFever (the make of our boat). We had met the owners at the last DeFever rendezvous in 2007. We couldn’t get them on the radio because they had taken their dingy ashore to be with friends but we did catch up with them later by phone. It is fun to run into folks we know on their boats.

This morning we left the anchorage and crossed the GA/FL line. We wanted to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day in a marina, just more festive.


We are in Fernandina Beach, a historic town on Amelia Island, which is an interesting place whose claim to fame is their history. It is the only town in the US that has been under the rule of 8 different countries. We ate lunch at what was the first Customs House in the US. They also claim that the first saloon in the US was established here.


Tonight we are going out for dinner as tomorrow everything will be closed. Rick wants the ‘traditional’ Christmas dinner of hamburgers on the grill! The temps are warm, in the mid-70’s so we will enjoy them out on the aft deck.

Our next stop has not been determined yet. We’ll spend some time tomorrow coming up with a plan.

Well, after celebrating Christmas and just relaxing!!!

As we are writing this, we are listening to Christmas music on our iPod and admiring the beautiful tree that Jayne made for us with shells from NC beaches, thank you Jayne. To all our family and friends, we will miss seeing you this time but we both wish everyone a peaceful and happy holiday. And, of course, the big one…good health!!

We started this entry on Christmas Eve and are completing it on Christmas Day. We spent the day walking around the deserted town, doing laundry and relaxing, just as we had hoped. Here are a few shots from around town.

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Still Florida bound!

Just a quick update from Rickshaw. We stayed in a beautiful, quiet anchorage on our way to St. Simons, GA. We were all by ourselves and enjoyed the sound of pines and palmettos whispering in the wind. On top of that we had a beautiful sunset. We hope you aren’t too tired of our sunset pictures!!!

We left mid-morning the next day to take advantage of the rising tides. We aren’t used to leaving so late but there were at least four areas that were 4-5 feet at low tide which would cause us anxiety. So, we took it slow and didn’t run into any problems. That was, of course, until the storm hit. I think the temperature fell about 30 degrees in just minutes. We were going through a large sound which meant it was very open and that the water and wind were both much higher. It got very, very dark and it was difficult to see because of the strength of the rain. Luckily, it only lasted about 15 minutes which sounds like a short amount of time but when you are in it, it seemed like a very long time. But, if we didn’t have that kind of fun, what kind of stories would we have to tell??

We got into the marina at St. Simon’s island around 4:30 and got ready to have dinner with Rick’s grade school buddy and his wife, Gayle and Dee. They picked us up and took us to a great Italian restaurant. Then they brought us to their beautiful new home where we snitched some Christmas goodies and took a few pictures. Gayle also bought us a new coffee maker as ours died the day before yesterday. Thank you Gayle!!

Tomorrow we leave for an anchorage and then on to Fernandina Beach, which is just south of the GA/FL boarder. We will be in Florida, yea! It is supposed to be close to 80 degrees on Christmas. That is pretty nice to think about.

Leaving Beaufort, SC (finally!)

We had a wonderful day today and exciting, too! We left Beaufort, SC where we had been at a marina for a week. We’ve never stayed at a marina for that long, but we needed some time to get the boat and ourselves ‘together’. We got a lot of chores done and felt very good about leaving. These guys are called Ruddy Turnstones because they turn up stones with their beaks to find bugs, I guess. They are all on one leg to keep warm we figure. Anyway, they were our dock buddies in Beaufort. The boats below were in the Beaufort marina and showed their holiday lights!

The weather was beautiful as we left the dock at 9:00. It has been balmy and, for the past few days, the temperatures have been in the low 70’s. One certainly can’t complain about that! In SC and GA you have to carefully plan your route using the tide tables. There are numerous cuts that we have to go through. A cut is a man-made connection between 2 bodies of water. Unfortunately, both SC and GA have not been given the federal money they need in order to keep the cuts dredged. The draft of our boat is about 5 feet and some of these cuts don’t even have that amount of depth at low tide. So, we need to time our voyage to take advantage of the high tides in this area to get through without going aground, not a good thing.

The Captain and me with our morning coffee.

We had been doing fine and were slowly following a sailboat through one of the cuts. All of a sudden, one of the engines died. I guess we are getting used to the ‘things break on a boat’ attitude because neither of us spazed out! I took over the helm and Rick went below to see what the problem might be. He determined that the fuel filter was clogged and changed it and the engine was up and running in no time. Thank goodness for his diesel school training. (Ed. Rick: I had been watching the vacuum guages on the engines for some time, but they weren't indicating a problem until, of course, the port engine coughed and stopped. One learns something every day aboard a boat ...!)

Later we were going through another cut which would take us into the Savannah River which is a big shipping channel. We had noticed a Coast Guard helicopter going overhead for about 20 minutes but didn’t think anything of it. As we were getting to the head of the cut I happened to look up and saw a huge ship over the line of trees. It was making its way up the river. We knew we had to give way to the "big fella." As we turned the bend a small Coast Guard boat, with a machine gun mounted on it’s bow, came toward us very fast and hailed us on the radio. Nothing to make your heart pump fast when that happens! They told us to throttle back and stay where we were until the ship passed. No problem!! We were a bit surprised that the Coast Guard was helping to bring in the ship via sea and air but we guess that is Homeland Security at work.

We are now in an anchorage. It is a beautiful afternoon and we are the only boat here. The next two days will be a bit dicey as the tides aren’t really favorable for passage at the times we want to go so we may have to wait some of it out. Oh well, it is cruising and there is no need to hurry. Below, a dramatic sky as we cruised today.

Hanging out in Beaufort, SC

We have been remiss in updating our blog. Part of it is just getting used to the boating routine again. There are so many things to do that we haven’t left enough down time to blog. We have also been working on our boating plans. We are currently in Beaufort, SC. Here they pronounced it BEW-fort vs. the way we are used to calling our port city of the same spelling in NC, which is pronounced BOW-fort, the correct way, I might add!! These South Carolinians just do their own thing.

We have had so much fun traveling with our buddy boat. We love traveling with Vicki and Norm but for the short term, their travel plans have put them on a different pace than we need to be. So, we have decided to part company for a few weeks. Since we don’t have any particular commitments, we will take our time and head south at a more leisurely pace.


Since our last blog we have continued to travel down the Intercoastal Waterway from NC to SC. We have anchored out each night. It has been great. We passed this Coast Guard Bouy Tender Boat on our way. It may be hard to see, but they have 3 or 5 bouys that they are on their way to deliver onto the ICW.







This was a small anchorage in a creek off the ICW in SC. It was quiet and beautiful but very cold. Staying warm in a anchorage is a bit tricky. We don't want to run our generators all night so we run them enough to heat up the boat then turn them off and duck under 5 or so blankets on the bed.

We spent two nights anchored just south of Charleston, SC waiting out the weather. We were in a fairly protected anchorage but the winds were strong and we had gusts of 40 mph. The first night out our anchor dragged and we were awfully close to the docks on the side of the creek. We didn’t get much sleep that night as we kept getting up to check our proximity to the dock (well, one of us did anyway!). The storm provided a beautiful rainbow, actually a double rainbow, the next day. You can't see the entire rainbow in the picture but it was a treat to see.

You know you are in South Carolina when begin to see palm trees and all the Spanish moss hanging from the trees. Beaufort is such a lovely little town. Lots of history and beauty. The four of us took a long walk in the historic district. There are lots of small restaurants and shops.

The town has put a beautiful park near the marina. Norm, Vicki, Rick and I took advantage of the swings looking over the water. What a cool place. We'll probably be here a couple more days just hanging out and doing chores.

COLD DAYS ON THE WATER

(But we realize that we might not get much sympathy from many of you today given the US weather report)

We are currently south of Myrtle Beach, SC. We spent two nights at anchor at Wrightsville, NC. We don’t run our generator at night, which is what provides heat, so we run it until things are warmed up and then turn it off before we go to bed. We have 4 blankets on the bed and that works great until you turn your head on the pillow in the middle of the night and you hit the cold side! Wakes you up pretty quickly.

Last night we stayed at a marina in southern NC because Rick’s son Matt was coming home from being in Atlanta for 3 months. We wanted to see him before we headed south. Matt picked us up and we had a great seafood dinner in Calabash, NC, just down the road from the marina. Calabash is famous starting the NC fried food business. So, we had a great visit and lots of fried food.


Here are a few pictures of our trip down the Intercoastal Waterway.


We anchored in a beautiful spot off of the Waccamaw river. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 70's. Hard to believe after the last two days.

I don't know about you...but this sure looks like a outhouse!

Little River, NC

Capt. Rick with his warm cruising clothes!