Palm City, FL to HOME!

After spending 3 days relaxing and partying in Palm City with our friends Gina and Eric, we left their dock at 8:30 AM on Tuesday. They made the trip with us on their own yacht "Southern Star", a Gulfstar 49 motor yacht. We arrived at the St. Lucie Lock just as it was locking through a west bound boat, so we had to wait for an hour to lock through. One side of the lock gate wasn't working, and as the locktender opened the other side of the lock gate to fill the lock, there was a lot of turbulence. After locking through over 70 locks this summer, this was by far the most unpleasant. Crossing Lake Okeechobee was uneventful; the Army Corp of Engineers doesn't recommend the Rim Canal route so we crossed the middle of the lake. We spent Tuesday night tied to the dolphins east of Moore Haven Lock, had a dinner party on Southern Star and watched the election results. As we departed for home on Wednesday morning, Southern Star continued to Clewiston and returned to Palm City by way of the Rim Canal, and they reported no problems with debris or depth. Good news, as the rim canal route is far more scenic than the mid-lake route.

Southern Star crossing Lake Okeechobee and tied to the Dolphin

It's great to be home. Now we have enough yard work and settling back into the house to keep us busy for weeks.

Okeechobee Waterway to home at Ortona, FL

We logged almost 5,000 miles and 8 months on this voyage. Mark would prefer to continue cruising but I'm looking forward to settle back into land life for awhile....Saturday we attended the Turkey Creek Yacht Club fall picnic, and Mark was tagged by a neighbor for his first boat electrical job since returning; it took only 3 days for them to find us home.

Fernandina Beach to Palm City, FL

This week the wind continued to be robust; it didn't affect our travels in this part of Florida ICW, but at the end of the day we took time to find a more protected anchorage. Our anchor was fouled on a chain/rope ball as we departed Fernandina Beach on Monday morning. It took us 30 minutes to get the chain off the anchor and cut the rope off. Not a fun way to start the day, but fortunately the rest of the day went smoothly. We dropped anchor at St. Augustine's Salt Run in the early afternoon and settled in for a windy night of NW 25-30.

White pelicans, St. Augustine lighthouse

St. Augustine waterfront, unique (haunted) house on the waterway

Tuesday brought us to Daytona Beach, another short and easy day on the waterway. The only exception was the Volusia County Sheriff was conducting potti patrol in the area and boarded every boat that passed by.
Mark's Mom and Dad came to see us at Daytona Beach on Wednesday with several care packages of goodies, homemade brownies, pecan tarts, and magazines, etc. We went out for lunch, walking on the beach and grocery shopping. A busy day that went by fast, and as always we felt so loved.

Joyce, Mark, Mom & Dad on Daytona Beach

We left Daytona Beach early Thursday with plans to get to Cocoa to meet our friends Evelyn and Mike for dinner. All went well and we had a nice evening together with great Mexican food and catching up.

Things that entertain us
Friday was another breezy day. We ended the day in the safe harbor of Faber Cove at Ft. Pierce. We traveled a short distance on Saturday and came to our friends Gina and Eric's dock at Palm City in the early afternoon. That night Gina prepared a delicious dinner to welcome us back. On Sunday they invited a group of friends over for a music party. The food, refreshments and music started at 2 PM, with guitars and banjo playing, people singing; the food changed from appetizers to dinner then desserts, 25 people, had a wonderful time until 10:30 PM.

Gina, Eric and grand-daughter Emma

Gina and Eric's dock, Sunday afternoon party

Eric, Neal, Jerry and Mark jamming

From here we are only 72 miles away from home. We decided to linger a couple days longer and will now arrive our home dock on next Wednesday.

Our homeward voyage continues, this week we traveled 292 miles.

Dewees Island, SC to Fernandina Beach, FL

Yeah! We are back in Florida waters and that means we are getting close to home.

This has been a week of paying close attention to weather, even cruising the ICW, the coast of South Carolina and Georgia many wide open sounds, so it can get nasty in a hurry if the wind is blowing. We departed Dewees Creek early Monday morning along with three sailboats. The weather was cool, sunny and calm, an easy day on the water. When we got to about 20 miles from Beaufort, one of cruising boats (Monk 36) that Mark knew was broken down on the waterway. They had called Sea Tow, but didn't know when they would arrive. So we anchored for Mark to give some help. As they're getting ready to come pick up Mark by dinghy, Sea Tow arrived. We decided to meet them in Beaufort the next day. We up anchor and traveled another 5 miles to anchor on the Bull River for the night.

Sunset at Bull River, the Georgia marsh

We arrived at Beaufort City Marina early Tuesday morning to buy dinghy gas and fill up water tanks. After anchoring Mark went on the Monk 36 and in two hours he got their engine running. We spent the rest of day just relaxing and went for a walk and grocery shopping. The weather service was forecasting a strong Nor'easter starting on Wednesday and lasting through Friday. So we left Beaufort early Wednesday morning and decided to go to Herb River at Thunderbolt, near Savannah, for the storm. We arrived at 1:30 PM, had our anchor well set, went for a dinghy ride, then the wind started to blow...and by Friday we had some gale force winds. So glad we're safely at anchor.

Gray looking day, beautiful sand bar with birds

We left Herb River at the crack of dawn on Saturday, the wind had calmed down but the sky was gray. The only good part was that the current was in our favor, where the waterway is thin we had high tide water. We dropped anchor at South River along with a sailboat "Charisma", Steve and Denny from England. They've called us along the way to warn us of some trouble spots and asked us if we're the boat that they've read about in a magazine. We invited them aboard for drinks and to see the boat. A nice change after being couped up for two days.

Charisma at anchor and sunset on South River

Today was a beautiful day, light wind and sunny. We followed Charisma out of South River this morning. While Mark navigated through some tricky spots, I enjoyed the changing scenes of the Georgia marshes, the seabirds and dolphins. A sailboat ahead of us ran aground, and we skirted around the shallow spot. He motored off just as we were passing, and followed us the rest of the day. We arrived at Fernandina Beach at 4 PM, went for a walk in town and Charisma invited us aboard for drinks and a tour of their boat. So happy we are getting close to home!

Brunswick bridge, seabirds and an old boat wreck on Jekyll Island

Our homeward voyage continues, this week we traveled 262 miles.

Morehead City, NC to Dewees Island, SC

This has been an exciting week on the waterway. We departed Morehead City Monday morning, it was sunny and beautiful. When we entered Camp Lejeune we're notified that the Firing Range will be active in an hour, the area was busy with radio traffic and military patrol boats. We met up with tugboat called Mi-T-Mo and followed him through 3 timed bridges to arrive at Wrightsville Beach before sun down. The weather was warm and sunny so we decided to stay an extra day at Wrightsville Beach to enjoy the beach and dinghy exploring the surrounding creeks.

Island for sale, military patrol boat at Camp Lejeune

Timed bridges

Full moon at Wrightsville Beach anchorage, beach

We left Wrightsville Beach late Wednesday morning to time the tidal current on Cape Fear River, and had a fast ride to Pipeline Canal anchorage, a short 4 hours travel day.

Thursday was a trying day through 4 bridges, two were timed and two on request. The Barefoot Landing Swing Bridge had a new operator and instead of opening on request we waited for over 20 minutes while trying to hold the boat in the current and wind. We ended the day anchored in an oxbow near Enterprise Landing on the Waccamaw River, arguably the most beautiful part of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Waccamaw River

We had a leisurely breakfast on Friday and traveled 15 miles down the Waccamaw River to one of our favorite anchorages at Thoroughfare Creek. The Waccamaw River is one of prettier sections of the ICW, it's peaceful, a wonderful place for bird watching. While waiting for the passing cold front we dinghied around to explore the creeks, drifting with the engine off to hear the birds sing and watching the alligators swim near shore. We also met our friends Barbara and Phil at Reserve Harbor Marina, they took us to their home on Pawleys Island for us to do laundry and grocery shopping. We also went to see a custom golfcart show event and the Georgetown Wooden Boat Show. A fun filled day with activities, good food and great conversations.

Barbara, Phil, Mark & Joyce, Golfcart show

Georgetown Wooden Boat Show

Wooden boat building competition and finished boats

We left Thoroughfare Creek early Sunday morning, a breezy sunny day. It's a busy day on the waterway, many are local boats going home after the Georgetown Wooden Boat Show, but most are migrating boats going south. We're pleased to be out of ICW when we dropped anchor around 4:30 PM at Dewees Creek. Our week ended with the most gorgeous sunset on the sawgrass marshes.

Sea birds on the waterway
Our southbound track continues, this week we traveled 252 miles.

Portsmouth, VA to Morehead City, NC

We decided to travel the Dismal Swamp route when we departed Portsmouth, for we like the quiet of the swamp, and the wildlife. Due to low water levels, the locks are only opened twice a day at 9 AM and 3 PM, so we positioned ourselves to lock through at 9 AM on Monday. While we're inside the Deep Creek Lock we heard three boats calling on VHF pleading the lockkeeper to wait for them, we waited for 25 minutes then the lockkeeper told the boats that they'll have to lock through at 3 PM since they're still waiting for bridges. So our day on the swamp was just as quiet and beautiful as we've expected. We also stopped at the NC Welcome Station for a visit to time the South Mills Lock at 3 PM. We finally arrived at Elizabeth City, NC around 6 PM.

Dismal Swamp Canal

Elizabeth City is one of most boater friendly cities. They provide free docks, the Visitor Center and the Rose Buddies host daily wine and cheese parties when there's more than 4 boats in town. The mayor came to meet and welcome us to his city, and the Farm Fresh Market picked us up to go shopping at their store. We also enjoyed seeing the new Museum of the Albermarle.

Elizabeth City waterfront docks

We left Elizabeth City early Wednesday morning and had a good calm day on the Albermarle Sound. We anchored at Pungo River that night.

Sunrise on the Pasquotank River

On Thursday we went up the Pamlico River to Washington, NC. It's kind of out of way when you are heading south (34 miles off the ICW), but it's well worth a visit. The town provides two nights free docking, and there are many restaurants, interesting shops, board walks and a new Estuarium. We came here to celebrate Mark's birthday and to meet some friends. Our lunch at Mimi's Cafe was delicious.

Washington waterfront docks and big homes

Washington High School homecoming night parade

We left Washington on Saturday afternoon for Bath. It's a lovely small town, this afternoon we came in for it's protected anchorage from a Nor'easter that have been blowing for two days.

We should have stayed in port Oct. 12th with weather forecasting NE 15-20. We left Bath at the crack of dawn and the trip down the Pamlico River was comfortable, but by the time we got to the Pamlico Sound-Neuse River junction the wind was blowing nearly east at 20-25 with higher gusts, a uncomfortable ride for an hour until we headed into the Neuse River. Our down wind direction on the Neuse River was comfortable although the wind was around 25, the conditions improved even more when we got into the Adams Creek Canal. At this stretch we got passed by five go-fast boats, I guess the news of oil prices going down had powered up their go-fast egos again! We dropped anchor at Spooner's Creek at Morehead City at 4:35 PM. It's time for a drink.

Go fast boats that wake us

Shrimp boat going to work, and more boats in a hurry

Our southbound track continues. This week we traveled 274 miles.