Poised

4.26.08 Jupiter, Fl - at dock

We made it into Jupiter a day early (Thursday) which was a good thing because our todo list of things to do before heading to the Bahamas had grown to two single spaced pages. We've been living on the boat at the marina where our friend Bob Bruce keeps his boat at Johnathan's Landing in Jupiter. We've been able to run lots of errands, including West Marine (3 trips), Albertson's, the liquor store, the hardware store, the car parts store (oil for oil change), the dive shop (new goggles & snorkels), etc., etc.

We've forgotten to take any new pics here, so I just have a few from the 800 mile ICW voyage to post. The picture above is at a typical anchorage, with an ICW marker in the background. As you can see, the weather has been spectacular with lows in the 60's and highs around 80. Those windows surrounding the cockpit which were so valued up north are now too hot, so they're no longer there.

The pic to the right shows the wide expanses of water we've passed, again with a typical ICW marker. You steer the boat between the markers or find yourself aground in just a few feet of water on either side of the "ditch". So you have to pay attention. But Otto helps immensely with keeping you in the channel. You can see our dinghy raised on the davits on the stern. This day we forgot to replace a plug after inflating her, so she has a flat on starboard aft end! The outboard rides on the dinghy so all we have to do to get to shore from an anchorage is lower the dinghy and pull the starter cord twice.

This is a picture of our chart navigation screen. The GPS plots the position and direction of the boat (green, at bottom) and shows where you will be in 10 minutes (green dashed line). Here we're crossing the North - South Carolina boarder (and celebrating!). The red line is the route of the Intracoastal Waterway. This flat screen is up in the cockpit so we can view it while cruising. It is linked to the laptop down on the chart table which is actually running the software and contains all the charts.



Andy flies in tomorrow (Sunday) and Monday looks like a great day to cross the Gulf Stream and transit the 60 miles to Great Bahama Island. We are looking for winds from the south which will flow the same direction as the Stream. Winds from the north whip up a nasty chop going against the 3-4 kt northbound current, so we don't want that. Nor do we want big seas left over from a big storm somewhere in the Atlantic. But Monday looks good at this point, so we'll hope to find a wifi spot in the Abacos from which to post another update. We're both anxious and excited to make our first real ocean crossing in Mystique!

Beautiful Weather, Great Progress

Tue 4/22 Titusville, FL (Cape Canaveral in sight)

Since our last post, the weather has taken a GREAT turn for the better. Whereas at the beginning of our trip we were huddled under full cover of our cockpit bimini with all windows up to protect us from the cold and high winds, we now are enjoying 60 degree nights and 80 degree days, with light winds and cloudless skies. How wonderful! And the boat (and our bodies) continue to work on a high level, so life is very good.

We've made great progress since Charleston and are now a day ahead of schedule, able to relax and catch up with downloading pics and posting to the blog. I've added a couple of sample pics here, but as usual, you can view the rest on our Flickr site (see link in previous post).

The next stop after Charleston was Beaufort, SC (beu-furt) where we anchored and went ashore by dinghy to walk around the quaint town. They have completely re-done the waterfront into a wonderful 2-block long park, with the greatest pirate ship playground ever. A dad and his two young kids were in full imagination mode, yelling commands and "aarrrrggggg"s intersperced. But it was still cold and windy.

The next day we weighed anchor with the outgoing tide and rode down to, and past, Hilton Head Is with all it's beautiful waterfront mansions. We anchored the next night at Isle of Hope, just SE of Savannah. No running aground in the ICW like we did last spring, and no 5-day stop for engine repairs like last spring either;-)))). Then down the ICW again to a quiet and peaceful anchorage at Back River, GA which was out in the middle of the marsh and MILES from civilization. We could hear an occasional "whoosh" around the boat as dolphins rose for air. What a wonderful sound to wake up to!

At 7am on Thr 4/17 we took advantage of slack tide to exit the ICW to the Atlantic. There were 10kt winds from the NW most of the day and we got the sails up and set the autopilot for South. 10 hours later we pulled into Fernandina Beach, the northernmost town on the FL coast. We docked, fueled, pumped out the holding tanks and filled the water tanks. Oh, and did a grocery store run. It's so great to find $10 1.5L wine at the grocery stores here! It felt good to get everything ship-shape.

We're averaging .8 gal per hour, or 7 mi/gal on diesel, which costs $4.15 to $4.30/gal! We cruise comfortably at 2,000 rpm at 7mph, or faster when needed at 2,500 rpm at 8mph. That's a slow way to travel 800 miles, but it's also very relaxing when the weather is so nice.

Having "Otto", our new autopilot, with us on this trip has made a world of difference in our comfort level. Last year we hand-steered all 1,000 miles northward, having to concentrate much of the time to stay within the 30-40' wide channel that is the ICW. Now Otto does all the work, and all we have to do is either set a "track" for him to follow on the chartplotter (he shows you the cross-track error or how far off track you are which is usually within 15' of the track), or manually guide him using either 1 or 10 degree turn buttons. The screen shows a course arrow ahead of the boat which shows you which direction the boat is going according to the GPS, whether you're in cross currents or not. So the whole steering process is so much easier with Otto aboard. Otto also has a remote assistant, Remo, which is a wireless remote that we can use to control the steering of the boat from wherever we are aboard.

From Fernandina Beach we went 'outside' again for another beautiful day on the Atlantic to St. Augustine where we anchored and explored this historic and beautiful city. Then on to another remote quiet anchorage, then to the marina at New Smyrna Beach where we got a ride from a fellow cruiser to Wal-Mart for a few things, then on to our current anchorage at Titusville. We can see the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center across the channel from here. It's HUGE! But we decided not to take the day and do the tour so we can get to Jupiter on Thursday, a day earlier than scheduled.

Nuts!

We're in Titusville, FL where we have great internet access. So I just spent the last two hours writhing of our adventures and uploading pictures, and the whole thing just went "poof". We need to get moving now (11:30), so I'll have to re-create the blog post at some future stop. Sorry! But we're having a great trip, with us and the boat in good health, and gorgeous 80 degree cloudless days. We'll be in Jupiter Thursday, a day ahead of schedule.

We did post new pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandjcornwell/sets/ if you want to take a look at what we've been up to.

Some warmth and some cold - yet again.

Tonight, April 14, finds us in Beaufort, SC. (Beaufort NC is pronounced BOW-fort. in SC they pronounce it Beu-fort). Everything is going wonderfully!! Yea. Since Surf City we've meandered down the ICW through a really wonderful cedar swamp called the Waccamaw River. It's south of Myrtle Beach and instead of golf courses (there are supposed to be over 120 of them in the Myrtle Beach area), the Waccamaw river is really wild. We loved it last spring and so too this time. We anchored in a beautiful cove with another boat - and awoke to some fog, so took off again. By the time we were out into the main channel, we couldn't see ANYTHING! So thank heavens for the GPS, radar and a very slow speed we wound through this swamp in the fog - very eerie and mysterious. It was short lasting and finally the sun came out and we were reminded how wonderful that can be.

We spent 2 nights in Charleston - love that city! We were invited to attend the symphony with the daughter and her boy friend of C-15 friends from Denver - the Harveys. Yes, everyone, Joyce has a good one in Wayne!

We had to leave Charleston in the dark at 5:30 this morning to make a bridge opening on our way to Beaufort. A little cool today. Tomorrow we will head to Savannah - over 370 miles in 6 days! We are really loving Mystique - and, yes, Samantha is also having a wonderful time!

No time to post more pics, sorry. WiFi is spotty and slow most places, or we're just having too much FUN!!


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Southport, NC: Success! 113 miles in 1st two days.

Wow, it feels good to be on the 'road' again!

We launched Mystique on Friday and celebrated Steve's XX'th birthday at the Grocery restaurant in Beaufort.

The weekend was spent cleaning the boat outside and in, and putting stuff away, including all the groceries for the trip.
You can see from the pics what a mess it was. To view all the trip pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandjcornwell/sets/72157604445971208/

On Monday we got the new batteries installed and checked out all the other systems- refrigerator, fresh water, heads, engine, generator, navigation chart-plotter, the new autopilot installed last fall, etc. Everything worked!!!

Tuesday, we set off the cruised 63 miles, which is a lot at 6 - 7 mph. We landed in Surf City (yes, really) where there was a fish house right next door. So we bought a sack of clams and a sack of shrimp and had a feast on the boat after walking over to the Atlantic and strolling the beach. This pic of Jan was taken at the fish house:






Today we made it through a cold, drizzly morning and broke into our first warmth as we cruised down the Cape Fear River near Wilmington to Southport. It felt great to warm up and enjoy an evening walking around the town and eating seafood with a couple we met on the boat next door. Here's a pic of Mystique parked between two gas-guzzlers:





So we're off again tomorrow with another good weather day forecast. We should be in SC soon! We plan on picking Andy up in Jupiter, FL on April 27, then heading over to the Bahamas in tandem with long-time cruising friend, Bob Bruce.

'Till next time, hope you're all well.