Day 2 at Virginia Key

We’ve been listening to the reports on ocean conditions, and they say as of now the waves out there are about 10 feet. That’s not what we were hoping for. After spending the day in an anchorage off Virginia Key, we’re now planning to hop over to Dinner Key and pick up a mooring there, where ideally we’ll wait for the conditions to be right to cross over to the Bahamas. If the ocean doesn’t show us favor any time soon though, we’ll head down to the Florida Keys instead.

In the meantime, here at Virginia Key, the greatest portion of my day today was spent learning how to row Captain Ken’s dinghy to and from the shore a few hundred yards away. It was a windy day, which made it a little more difficult. After hours of struggle, getting pushed back to shore by the waves and having the rows consistently fall out of their slots, Captain Ken came out to help.  a few hours later, I had another go at it and finally managed to get the dinghy going forward. Do I get a sailor’s badge or something? No, just a little more self-assurance. I have a history of learning simple things the hard way.

Even as I was struggling to get off shore with the dinghy though, I could have counted my blessings because not too far from me there was a sailboat that ran aground and was in worse shape than me. It was there when we got here yesterday and stayed aground until this evening when a motor boat helped pull it out. 

So here we are just off the coast of Miami waiting for the hazards of the sea to wane, and the sailboat was a reminder of how unforgiving even the calmest waters can be. 

Every day continues to bring new experiences. Sometimes I think of the life I left behind in New Jersey; I’m starting to miss my friends and family. I had a pretty comfortable, secure lifestyle and steady work before I left. Everything was going smoothly. But that’s exactly what bothered me. I felt like it would all be torn from my grasp against my will, and then I’d have no idea what to do. That’s why the moment I feel too attached to something, whether it be a lifestyle or a TV show, I let it go for a while. When I come back to it, I then see it anew and appreciate it more. Every time we make a decision that could be life changing, there are things that we have to let go of. Sometimes they come back to us, sometimes they’re lost forever. Either way though, we’re a better person for it because we took a chance and expanded our hopes of what our lives could be. 

Hello Miami

It’s a good thing we didn’t let the torrential downpour in Boca Raton keep us from moving south this morning, because if we did we then wouldn’t be relaxing in a cove off Virginia Key with Miami as a backdrop. I almost want to say we have arrived, but this is just another check point. We’ll wait here in Miami until the ocean is calm enough to cross over to the Bahamas. If it doesn’t look like a window to cross over is coming any time soon, we’ll head down to the Florida Keys instead, which isn’t too shabby of a Plan B if you ask me.

On the Gold Coast, just about every five miles there's a low bridge we had to signal or wait for before they would open. Many of the bridge tenders were easy going, accommodating people who were happy to open the bridge for us. Some of them even had a sense of humor. We heard their interactions with other boaters around us through our radio. In northern Florida there was a troller ahead of us who wasn’t sure if he could make it under one bridge, and he asked the bridge tender his opinion. The bridge tender just told him to come up closer, adding ‘I don’t mind opening the bridge if you think you can’t make it. I get paid to open and close the bridge. So just come on up and we’ll have a closer look.’

He wound up making it through okay.

In Fort Lauderdale, the bridge hailing was so commonplace that the people calling the bridges seemed to create a culture of their own with the bridge tenders. You'd think the city would be more accomdating to boaters and build bridges higher so more boats can pass underneath, considering that the city is known as the Yachting Capital of the World.

 Just about every minute we’d hear people requesting the next bridge’s next scheduled opening, while bridge tenders told boaters to ‘stay clear of the fenders’ near the bridge. They won’t open, even if they’re scheduled to, unless a boat is approaching, of course. But sometimes the bridge tenders will give boaters the benefit of the doubt and prepare to open even if the captain that called them isn’t in sight. “This is Atlantic Avenue Bridge, getting ready to open for a requesting vessel,” we heard a bridge tender say on the radio. ‘I don’t see you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not out there somewhere.’

The short conversations on the radio give us two lone stars a bit of extra company along the waterway that sometimes never seems to end. But once we hit Miami we ran into a little bit of bad company. It was nothing extreme really, but it was a little frustrating when we came to the Venetian Blvd. West Bridge just a few minutes past its scheduled opening at 1:30 pm , and they refused to stay open for an extra two minutes for us. We had to circle around the bridge for a half hour for its next scheduled opening. All is well, though. We were making good time. By 2:30 we found our anchorage in Virginia Key.

Once we were settled in we went for a swim. The light blue water seemed to wash away the long days of meandering through marshes, enduring long straightaways, choppy sounds, and congested city canals along the ICW. Yes, I know it was only about a 10 day voyage, but jumping in that water was as refreshing as seeing the ocean for the first time.

 Virginia Key, near Miami. Captain Ken photos.

 Replica of Blackbeard's pirate ship. 

 Fort Lauderdale.

Day 10: Entering the Gold Coast

The water is getting bluer and it’s getting hotter as we cruise down Florida’s Gold Coast, where waterfront houses try to outdo each other in size and luxury. After a while, after passing through Jupiter and Palm Beach, and by the time we reached Boca Raton, we got tired of saying ‘Wow, look at that house!’ because we knew five minutes later we’d be saying ‘Man, look at that house that’s even bigger.’

The over-the-top sleek yachts in this area are called things like ‘Sexy’ and the party boats treat the ICW like a main street. Half the bridges are too low for 18-foot tall Avalon to pass under, a paddle boarders, water skiers, kayakers, and sunbathers on little boats have little concern for the speeding jet skies and sporting boats that zip by them.

It really is a different world down here, and it’s only going to get crazier when we reach Fort Lauderdale and then Miami tomorrow. I can’t even anticipate what it’s going to be like. But then again, every day seems to present new surprises, new scenery, and new challenges. Every night our anchorage has a completely different theme to it. Yesterday, we anchored right on the south side of a bridge in Stuart, and tonight we’re parked in Lake Boca Raton with pastel-colored condominiums, resorts and modern mansions all around us. When we came into the lake at about 5:15 pm it was packed, then the weekend boaters slowly left. Now we practically have the entire lake to ourselves with the city all around us.

So we started at 8:15 am today, cruised for nine hours through congested waterways, and ended our day after covering about 60 miles. The small wake zones, boat traffic and bridges slowed us down significantly.

Here are some photos from recent days.  

A mansion on the ICW around Palm Coast, one of many along the Florida's stretch of the ICW. Captain Ken photos.

 The cross at St. Augustine.

St. Augustine, FL.

A pirate ship performing for audience in St. Augustine Harbor.

Mansion near Delray Beach

 People on a shoal beach in the middle of the ICW near Delray Beach

Florida mixed with rare treats and troubles

The state of Florida is beautiful, especially the coast. That's why so many people live here. That's also why they have so many restrictions on the waterway. There are no wake zones within no wake zones. There are private communities that create their own waterways off of the ICW, which are perfect places to anchor, but transients aren't allowed to anchor there, and the ICW needs dredging in numerous places. Today we often encountered five feet of water under our boat, which draws about three feet and ten inches.

Despite these obstacles though, we traveled 95 miles today, the farthest we've traveled yet in one day. We passed Daytona Beach and Cape Canaveral, but could't catch a glimpse of the speedway and only saw the NASA assembly building from a far off distance. Our departure point today was a small creek called Factory Creek that we got lucky finding right beside a Sea Ray factory in between St. Augustine and Palm Coast. Tomorrow we should reach Palm Shores and the next day we should come to Palm Beach. A few days back we passed Isle of Palms. Getting these towns mixed up has been common for us.

While anchored in Factory Creek we had no Internet signal from our phone's hotspots, which was strange because it was in the middle of  suburban area. We left that anchorage at sunrise and cruised down the waterway to about five or ten miles south of Cocoa, which is historically the birthplace of surfing in the U.S. That kind of follows a trend because we also passed the birthplaces of auto racing in Daytona Beach, and of the U.S. space program in Cape Canaveral, and yesterday we passed the first city established in the U.S. when passing St. Augustine.

It was tough finding an anchorage tonight because our route ended on the Indian River, which is long and wide and has just about no tributaries or creeks running off it. We're now anchored on the east side of the mile-wide river, about 200 yards from the shore, where peacocks have been screaming all evening. It's not annoying though. We've encountered plenty of terns, pelicans and cormorants, and even a few ospreys, egrets, and blue herons, but this is the first encounter we've had with peacocks on the trip.

No telling what you'll run into on the ICW

Today had a number of memorable sights ranging from wild horses to top secret Navy vessels. After exiting our anchorage at Umbrella Creek, we came into St. Andrew Sound, a wide open body of water that peaks out into the ocean. Traversing the sound was the closest we've gotten to actually going out on the ocean on our trip so far. The five miles or so of the sound had a modest chop, which was manageable but tough enough to indicate that it wouldn't be wise to go out on the ocean today.

After St. Andrew Sound, we approached Cumberland Island National Seashore, home to loggerhead sea turtles, hogs, armadillos and horses. Rumor has it that generations ago, when the caretaker of the horses died, she specified in her will that her horses be allowed to freely roam on 9,800 acres of government-protected wilderness on the island.  

Captain Ken photos and video.

As usual, but still not to be taken for granted, pods of dolphins swam all around our boat today, especially up the St. Johns River to Jacksonville, where we're now docked. As I promised, here's the video of a few of the bottle nose dolphins riding our port side waves.

Perhaps the most startling sight of our trip so far came in Kings Bay, Georgia, near the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. As we passed the base, a Navy security patrol rode beside us carefully monitoring our movement. I thought his concern was a little over the top, that is until we saw what was coming ahead of us just peaking out over the top of the water: a Trident submarine, a boomer, headed right toward us. They hailed us on the radio and told us to move out of the channel and stay 500 yards away from the sub.

I don't know how often these giants come through the waterway, but every boat we heard on our radio seemed to be like sitting ducks, clueless as to what they should do, as the boomer approached them. 

After passing Kings Bay and Cumberland Sound, we crossed the Florida-Georgia Line and approached Fernandina Beach. The city has what look and smell like wood pulp factories on either side, but despite this heavy industry the quaint city in between boasts a beautiful marina and downtown. 

We went about 10 miles up the St. Johns River to dock in Jacksonville, since it offered a much wider and better selection of marinas. We're now docked at Arlington Marina just north of the city, with downtown Jacksonville in sight and just a few miles from our starboard stern. It was a short ride today in very pleasant, sunny weather with some wind, but not as bad as the first few days of our journey. 

Check out our route to The Bahamas by clicking this link:  http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0C1dIKKjpcsEsymIKfDqGpvAJ5LqtFYtY

You all travel with us. May the road rise up to meet you too!

Got through toughest part of ICW

Today's leg of our journey took us through perhaps the two toughest parts of the ICW, Hell Gate and Jekyll Creek, Georgia. After leaving last night's anchorage on the Vernon River, we luckily reached Hell Gate at high tide. The small cut links two huge sounds right by the ocean, and the water is only five feet deep in places. To avoid the shoaling on either side of the narrow cut,  you have to zigzag and squeeze between several markers while staying at a relatively low speed, since a boat draws less water when going slow. At the same time though, you have to maintain a fast enough speed to fight the currents. After we passed through with some difficulty, we noticed how appropriately named Hell Gate was.

We then safely passed through most of the major sounds of Georgia, including St. Catherines Sound, Sepolo Sound, Altamaha Sound, Saint Simons, and Jekyll Sound. Before Jekyll Sound though, we came to sneaky little Jekyll Creek at low tide. the water was never deeper  than 13 feet, and the creek itself was never wider than probably 100 feet as we navigated down it.

Just before Saint Simons Sound, two dolphins came and swam beside our boat. We've been trying to get good pictures of at least a few dolphins, but this close and long encounter gave us the chance to take a video. If I don't post it today I will tomorrow.

We found a beautiful anchorage across the Jekyll Sound, called Umbrella Creek. It's surrounded by vast expanses of marshland and has the ocean just off in the distance; serene seclusion.

So in all today we cruised from 8:15 am to 6 pm, covering about 85 miles. Tomorrow we'll be entering Florida, which is about 30 miles away. At this rate we should be in Miami in about five days. From there we will cross over to The Bahamas as soon the weather permits.

Here are some photos from the past few days. All are by Captain Ken except the pelican.

                                               A southern mansion in Isle of Hope, GA. Captain Ken photos

                                                   

                                                                            Osprey on Port Royal, SC Bridge 4/14

                                                                                        Pelican in central SC

                                                                    Parris Island, SC. 

Chillin' after 85 mile, 10 hour trek 4/15

American Cruise Lines' American Star anchored in central Georgia marshes 4/15. We've been playing tag with her down the coast since she left from Charleston, SC. 

Docks at Isle of Hope

The day we crossed into Georgia

We started cruising at 7:40 a.m. today and went about 85 miles on the ICW  from Upper Rock Creek, SC to Possum Point, GA, just outside Vernon View. It was raining about half of the day, towards the late afternoon, and we anchored at about 5 pm just before it started to thunderstorm. Possum Point is a peaceful anchorage with Vernon View, a suburb of Savannah, on the eastern shore.

We passed Parris Island and Hilton Head, SC in the afternoon. The islands are fairly close to each other, but are complete opposites, and have no association with Paris Hilton, as far as I know. Parris Island, as many know, is the recruiting center for the U.S. Marines, and Hilton Head is a wealthy resort area with world renown golf courses, like Spanish Wells and Harbour Town, and celebrities. My dad trained as a Marine at Parris Island, and as we passed the island Uncle Ken told me stories about visiting him there, and other stories about the harshness of platoon leaders in the 1960s. The island seems drenched with hard times, and has its own potent character that stands out in the middle of the otherwise placid, historically hospitable South Carolina Low Country region.

After passing the Georgia border, we soon encountered a barge while crossing the Savannah River. It looked like we were on a collision course with it, so we turned around quickly to give it room to pass us, then continued to cross the river. It was fascinating to see the barge up so close, but frightening when considering the danger of being so close to such a large vessel on such a big river.

We've passed several quaint towns like McClelanville, Andersonville and Beufort, SC, as well as Isle of Hope and Vernon View, GA. We stopped at Charleston a few days ago as well. The city marina of this southern gem, the Holy City, was the only marina we've stayed at so far.