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One of our favorite hangouts in Blackwater Sound was Gilbert’s.  We pulled up and found they were under major renovations projects.  They once small, quaint outdoor karanoke bar is growing and they are expanding…..big time.  Much of the expansion was still under construction but their new Cabana bar was up and running.

The new and improved Gilberts

Gilbert's

After their famous drink which I now can not remember the name, we left for Jimmy Johnson’s The Big Chill.  We heard about this place from the charter boat at Boca Chita.  Jimmy Johnson’s Big Chill is not set up for dock side large cat’s but they allowed us to “park” in a “no parking zone” since they were not busy.  I guess if you wanted to go to The Big Chill you normally would have to dinghy in.  The Big Chill was very, very nice and I suspect by the presentation of the food I saw being served it was very good….and very pricey.  Rusty went inside and looked at their “sports bar” at the encouragement of one of the managers and apparently it is also very, very nice.  If you are in the area and want a very nice, high end, dinner I suspect it would be a great place to go.  Again we all had a drink and we were on our way.

We left Boca Chita for a leisurely 16 mile sail to Card Sound to Alamba Jacks.  You really have to know that Alabama Jacks is there because it is down a very narrow, mangrove line channel.  It is known as a “biker hangout” but there was a conspicuously absence of bikers for probably a couple of reasons, one it was a weekday and two it was a misty, overcast day.  We pulled up to Alabama Jack’s dock and started our order with their famous conch fritters.  Sailboats there are somewhat of an oddity because of the shallow entry so we were greeted with a lot of looks and when we lefted we recieved lots of waves and good wishes.  Rusty’s ability to manuver

Karen and Rusty at Boca Chita

We left Scotty’s Landing and had a lovely sail for the 13 or so miles to Boca Chita arriving around noon.  There was a charter boat there and Rusty’ soon struck up a conversation with the Captain and his wife, swamping information and boat cards.

Sailing into Boca Chita

We debated taking the Ft Lauderdale Tour Boat or starting our sail.  All being sailors the vote was to SAIL.  The first part of the trip was motoring thru 8 more bridges but our experience was more like what we were use to…….pleasant and uneventful.  We arrive around 4:00 to Card Sound and Scotty’s Landing.  They were expecting thing to be slow so they agreed to let us just stay tied up to their dock for the night.  We had great hamburgers and then Rusty did a walk-about and found an awesome primarily organic neighborhood grocery.  We communicated via phone and eliminated the need for a trip to Publix the next day.  Only one little snag, it started a downpour as Rusty was checking out.  Karen to the rescue, she took two umbrella’s and her handy-dandy Iphone and met Rusty at the store.

The next morning we were off….

Last Bridge for awhile1

SYL at Scotty's Landing at Dinner Key

The slip at Las Olas was indeed perfect.  Karen arrived without much fuss other than the taxi driver was clueless about the where the City Marina was located.  Karen’s niffy app on her iphone brought her right to the dock.  I guess not many boaters use taxi’s so I guess it was not surprising the taxi driver was confused. Also a lot of things are named Las Olas in the general area.  The weather outlook was not great, so we debated  on what our next move was going to be.  We  decided to stay onboard and have homemade pizza and visit and reevalute in the morning.   It was really nice seeing Karen…

Yesterday was quite an experience.  If you are interested in a blow by blow go to our FB “Sitton On The Beach”.  I ventilated fairly often on there yesterday.  We had 27 bridges that required openings and most of them were restricted.  For those of you who may not know, restricted just means they have an opening schedule, usually on the hour and 1/2 hour or quarter to and quarter past the hour.  You would think that the restricted would be the most problematic but that did not prove to be true.  On several of the “on demand” bridges we had problems, unnecessary problems.  On every bridge I would call ahead and give the bridge tender a headsup we were coming and if any other boaters were with us.  On three different occasions I called the bridgetender, he told us to keep on coming, we could be seen coming for miles and then when we got there he stalled opening the bridge.  At the beginning of the day we had the main and jib sails up helping to maintain speed.  They were a significant help with a current that was running against us.  Sails up in a narrow channel are a problem however,  when you suddenly have to turn around in a narrow, busy space.  After the third time a bridgetender delayed ( for no apparent reason) we took our sails down.  The worst time was when we were nearly ran over by a tour boat…..I really don’t want to retell that story so if you want the gory details go to our FB page.

We have been traveling the ICW for many years and the rogue bridgetender was very unusual…….and it wasn’t even a full moon….I know I looked1

12:00pm  WOoHOo!!!   I left a pitifull plea with Las Olas Marina which was our 1st choice marina but who told us there was no room.  They found us a spot.  One the don’t normally rent because it is not at the floating dock and it is fairly shallow which is not an issue for us.  It is exactly where I wanted to be for a couple of days with Karen.  Tomorrow we will take the water taxi  which is $20.00 a day and you can get on and off and it gives you a little tour of the area.   It was suppose to be overcast all day and now the sun is shining brightly like it knows someone special is on their way here…….:)

Well, it is now 1:00 and we have been so busy I have not fed my poor husband and he is looking faint.  I think a grill cheese is in order……

Sea Yawl Later!

Linda

Good morning all,

It is Friday morning and we have been underway since light which was about 6:30am.  We had an interesting day yesterday.  We have been listening to the drone of the motors for days now and even though Rusty is a powerer boater by heart (I don’t think he would admit it) even he has had enough of the constant noise.  Yesterday we were motoring along the ICW and he noticed an outlet to the “big water” (Atlantic) and casually mentioned it.  I said, “Lets go” and we did.  There was a little wind and we could sail about 3 knts which was fine with us until we got “the call”.  Karen was coming.  Oh my Gosh we are soooo excited.  I said, “On with the motors”.  We considered going all night and had pretty much decided we would but then at dusk the winds completely died and to my surprise and much to my delight (I don’t like all nighters) he pointed SYL towards the St. Lucie inlet.  It is my job to look at “Skipper Bob” and charts and give Rusty the information he needs to decide where to anchor etc.  Since we had gone outside I had not looked at “Skipper Bob” that far down the ICW.  We just thought we would enter and find a place to pull over.  Wrong!  We accidently picked the absolute worse stretch of ICW I have ever been on.  It is very narrow and constantly changing so even Sea Clear which is usually very accurate could not be totally trusted as we found out. 

By the time we were well inside the inlet it was approaching dark.  We were following Sea Clear and the markers when we ran aground.  We were stuck and stuck good and it didn’t make any sense why we were stuck.  We were right in front of a red marker and according to Sea Clear we should be in 13 ft of water.  After about 45 minutes Rusty gets us off by backing out completely and going around.  Apparently we were trying to go over a shelf.  Sounds simple when writing it but it was not so simple when experiencing it.  Of course, there was a considerable amount of traffic that was coming in and most of the time their wave action was helpful but once it really grounded us in big time.  The only time I got a little concerned was when we found out we were just coming off HIGH TIDE.  I wasn’t worried about our safetly or the safetly of  SYL,  I was just concerned whether we could get ourselves off without help.  I thought it interesting no one stopped to inquire if they could help. 

We did get off but by now it was pitch black and then I started looking at the chart and “Skipper Bob” and discovered that there was no place to pull off for over 10 miles.  At a little over 5 knts at best that would be over 2 hours.  It was very, very dark and we found out our Q Bean was not onboard.  I had forgotten it had broken last trip.  Grannie, you saved the day.  The flashlight you gave Rusty for Christmas worked great!!!   We were very glad to have it. 

We spent the next hour navigating the dark, narrow ICW.  We read on the charts that the buoy’s are not charted because the channel is constantly changing.  The charts indicated that the water depth right outside the narrow channel was 1 to2 ft most of the way.  We found one 4ft spot and tried it but it was not large enough.  Finally, about 8:00pm I look over and see mast lights off to our left.  I look at the charts and it says the water depth is 1 to 2 feet.  I think outloud, ” I wonder what they know we don’t know”.  Rusty immediately responds with, “Hey” and does a hard left, slowly.  I am thinking, “Sheeish, I don’t want to do this”.  But as usual, Rusty made a good decision.  He sounds our way in and finds a good spot.  Shortly, we are hailed by one of the other boats, “Rum Time” who we had met in Georgetown, Great Exuma’s at the Cruiser Regatta last year.  They cautioned us about a sandbar, (which we saw on the chart) and told us of another way to navigate into what is called Pecks Lake.  With our draft we were fine so we were in for the night.  We had so much adrenaline pumping that we both had trouble sleeping.  About 1:00am we had a rainshower and I got up and took the rugs up and brought our seats in. 

That brings us to this morning which has been uneventful.  We have 72 miles to make today.  We have 7 bridges in the next 15 miles.  The first 4 are on request so they will not slow us down but the next 3 only open on the hour and 1/2 hour and they will slow us down a bit.  Ah well, we will get there when we get there.  Karen does not arrive until 2:00pm tomorrow so all is good. 

I have learned two important lessons from this experience.  One, I need to make a checklist just like you have on a personal aircraft that I check off  “BEFORE” any voyage other than a day trip.  If I had that checklist I would have remembered we did not have a Q-Beam on board and retified that situation.  Second,  “ALWAYS, ALWAYS check your guides and charts BEFORE changing coarse.  Another important tip is to ALWAYS check weather, which I did.  Funny, the forecast called for a 10% chance of rain tonight.  We had rain last night and fairly high winds this morning….I am glad we were not outside.  God continues to protect us…..

I have some pictures from this mornings sunrise but I can only post pictures with the computer that is running Sea Clear at the moment so I will have to post those later. 
Sea Yawl Later!

Linda

These Photo’s are of our anchorage at Rockhouse Creek and of us leaving that anchorage and going under Coronado Bridge.  We have to pass through numerous bridges and when looking at that number it might dissuade you from taking the ICW but we have not found it a problem in all the years we have traversed the ICW.  Get a Skipper Bob’s guide (realize it is not always current) and time your trip accounting for the bridges scheduled openings or more importantly that you do not arrive at one of their restricted times which is usually for morning and evening work traffic.  It is not hard to do and we rarely have to wait on a bridge.  It is really kind of fun to keep track of the schedules.  We also use Sea Clear which I highly reccomend.  It is a free software that with a UBS plug in device lets you know Exactly where you are on the charts.  We have found it very accurate and it takes a lot of worry out of traveling in areas with shoals or shallows.   If anyone has questions about either of these items or anything else for that matter, just contact us here, facebook or our email and we are happy to answer any questions.  Happy sailing (or motoring..lol)

We have been cruising long enough and far enough that for the Florida coast and the Exuma’s I thought I had seen it all. Correction!  This was so unusual that at first I was not sure WHAT I was seeing.  The Florida ICW is really beautiful.  It has untouched land but it mostly has very beautiful homes all along the ICW.  Frequently you will see some of these homes for sale.  The above pictured house had a “For Sale” sign posted which of course is not unusual…What was unusual is that on the roof of the otherwise well kept house was a Flock of BUZZARDS.  By the time I realize what I was seeing and grabbed the camera the best shot had passed me by but you can still see a few of the two plus dozen buzzards perched on the house as though they were waiting for the next tenant.   I am not superstitious at all but I don’t think I would enter a house to even look at it if as I approached the house I saw the roof littered with awaiting buzzards.   LOL!!