Greetings from the crew of Sojourn. We wish you a safe and blessed X-mas! Be safe and follow your dreams!
We are currently anchored in Miami Beach, Florida and enjoying the warm, humid and rainy weather. This is sorta the end of the ICW road for us and planning our Nassau, Bahama crossing from here. Our cell phone will probably be shut off permanently as the roaming costs are too high. It’s been awhile since we had the time or the internet connection to update the blog, but this cruising stuff is more hard work and time consuming than you might think. Here are some thoughts to share:
– We didn’t have any good weather windows to go out into the Atlantic since leaving St. Marys, GA so we went down the ICW for all of FL. So we traveled to St. Augustine, Titusville, Melbourne and Vero Beach. It takes time to figure out a city and know how to find laundry, food, fuel, water and marine parts! A few of the days down the FL ICW we were able to sail without motor which was awesome! We continue to see that MOST sailboats don’t even try but because of our little diesel motor we have to try anything. One day we went 42 nm and had to have 18 bridges raised. So GA ICW has the windy channels and FL has the excessive bridges!
– It looks like we have changed our plans and going to keep going south possibly to Venezuala, Panama and Central America. So the Canadian Maritimes we may visit this summer once boat is secured in the warm climates. So know we need to purchase other charts and read the Passages South book in order to know how fast we need to travel. Which brings us to boat insurance issues. We are looking at other/cheaper providers with fewer restrictions.
– We arrived in St.Marys, Ga. the weekend prior to Thanksgiving and took a slip for a couple of very good reasons. First we were having a new heat exchanger for the diesel sent there and we needed to disassemble the engine in order to replace our leaky, rusty one. Its amazing how your living area turns into a diesel workshop! In settled conditions I might attempt doing this while anchored but the forecast was for a very nasty storm to come through the area with gale force winds gusting to 45 knots. If you recall the storm that worked it’s way up the east coast and plagued the Thanksgiving day parade in New York, that’s the same system that was forecast for our area. The other reason was that it was cold and damp and the heater felt mighty good while plugged in at the dock. St. Marys has for the past 6 years hosted a Thanksgiving day dinner for any and all cruisers who happen to come to town during the holiday. The people of the town provide the turkeys, hams and a hotel proprietor provides the dining area for what was estimated at 120-130 people (50 cruiser sailboats). The boaters provide all the side dishes, desserts and their own beverages. Two of the boats were in charge of organizing the different foods to be brought so there were not gaping holes in the menu. It truly was a feast and a huge success. They not only provided the Thanksgiving meal but we had a few cruisers happy hours, free access to a couple cars and internet access at the welcome center. A very nice place!
– Now that we are in Florida you see houses with lawn statues vs trees and mangroves. Coconuts are seen in the ICW vs crab pots!
– In Vero Beach we saw a x-mas boat and land float parade. Weird thing for us northern winter folk. The Vero Beach Marina has 3 boats per mooring @ $11/night – so it can be a social event even away from shore. They also have a donation accepted free bus that takes you to various spots. This is the spot that we also saw the Endeavor space shuttle launch through some clouds. We also went to a Cinema to see Casino Royale – Tom’s choice but interesting.
– I pulled out the sewing machine again to modify our cockpit rain cover and do other repairs. This is the second item besides the bike that I am glad I brought.
– While in Ft. Lauderdale, FL we anchored at Lake Sylvia near some very wealthy homes. The city continues to have a 24 hour anchoring mandate and sometimes will write citations. This city is the MEGA LARGE motor yacht center and has a no wake/idle speed motor restriction. So we were taking our dinghy with 4hsp outboard to the public landing and got a $65 ticket. We were shocked that they would do this as in FULL THROTTLE (which we weren’t) it stirs up less wake than any large power boat at idle speed. But this Sergeant Allen had a real power thing going and also pushed the 24 hour issue in our face as well so we decided that we REALLY didn’t need to spend any more money in this city – so we immediately dinghied back to boat and left for Miami Beach. This is where we really had A LOT of rain so wasn’t a pleasant experience. Tom did help another cruiser pull his diesel engine out to put back together and await the new one. We met up with Amicus (Kataya, Mark and children Cedar, Lamar) for dinner as they are waiting to cross to Bahamas – getting abit frustrated with the strong North and East winds!
– Saltine (Mpls boat – Scott and Donna) has a friend in Titusville so they invited us along to see the Kennedy Space Center which was very AWESOME. Especially in light of the upcoming launch. We also had dinner at his sisters townhome in Melbourne and had nice warm LONG showers.
– Just this AM we met Lori Bennett on this Benneteau “Sunrise” which Monica mentioned they would be in our area so that was a real surprise as we just took a chance and knocked on their boat since we didn’t remember the name. Small world.