sittononthebeach.com

SYL tied up in slip 44 at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina just after 1PM florida time.   We thought about taking a mooring ball, but we want to see the town tonight so stepping off the dock is favorable to a windy dinghy ride.  GOOD choice… the people and facility here are both superb.  Large concrete floating docks, very helpful and knowledgeable marina personel….  every one I have met welcomed us to St. Augustine and offered assistance.  You can tell right away if “there is a light on” inside someones brain when you first meet them.  To explain my point…. the far end of the spectrum would be the large teenage girl that takes your money at KFC.  Normally she cares a hundred times less about your life than she does the itch shes scratching behind her ear with her greasy fingers……  the lights are “OFF” if you know what I mean.  No matter what you say or do… you cannot affect that persons life.  I’m just saying… some people are on, some are off to the outside world…. here they are ON!  In St. Augustine everybody we have met so far.. even the guys fishing next door in a bass boat have been absolutely gracious.

The North wind is blowing today.   We left Pine Island with a slight 1 knot or less counter current in the ICW but a 6 to 10 knot cold North wind behind us.  With only 14 miles to go I drew out the jib and ran one engine.  We managed just under 5 knots… good enough as we piddled around waiting on the current to switch…. our jib cancelled out the slow Northbound current nicely.   The “Bridge of Lions” marking St. Augustine’s town center opens on the half hour so we meandered below the bridge for 20 minutes waiting for the 1PM opening.  The wonderful marina is located on the South side of the historic bridge.

Plugged into shore power, Linda fired up the convection oven and reheated some of her home made pizza and assembled some great nachos….  We are warm, tied up facing the cold North wind so it and the waves go right around us without effect.  Pretty nice I have to say……

The slip is a bit expensive (70 bucks with power) so the meal we ate on board helped cancel out dock fees.   Another meal or two onboard and we will be back to even.  Walking right off the boat into town is certainly a big plus.  Here in St. Augustine where getting off the boat is a big part of the attraction docking seems to be a good choice, given the freindliness and grace of the people… it’s an excellent choice.

8PM   The famous “City of Lights” here is nice, but not as good as I expected…. especially after seeing J’ville at night.  The art and tourist shops are better here, and more of both but  the “dockside” feel of Jacksonville is pretty special.  If your travelling by car… I’d vote for St. Augustine, if by boat it’s a toss up. 

This place has a quaint New Orleans feel to it, small pubs and courtyards… almost hidden restraunts off the main drag… brick streets, but it’s by far cleaner and less risquet than the big easy.  The party atmosphere is here…. but instead of strip shows on Bourbon Street they have museum quality artwork and more eclectic shops than you could ever visit in a day.  We saved the second half of St. George Street for tomorrow.  

Tomorrow we will ride the trolley about town and hear about the city’s history.  All the shop owners and restrauneurs are just genuinely so happy you are here.  It’s a very comfortable and welcome feel.  St. Augustine… so far I am impressed.

SYL   Rusty

Jacksonville Landing

SYL at Public docks in Jacksonville

Jacksonville Landing at Night

Jacksonville Landing

We got up this morning to intermittent clapping on the boardwalk here in Jacksonville. Rusty knew what it was about. Apparently a marathon was started at midnight last night and people started appearing at the finish line around 8:00am. Now it was freezing last night. I just don’t get it, but my hats off to those determined individuals who run. We thought the current would be against us until about 1:00pm but upon rising we found a favorable current, threw off our lines and left. We have had our coffee and now I will go fix the captain breakfast.

I feel better today than I have felt in over a week. You don’t know how bad you feel until you finally feel good. I missed most of Jacksonville but we were anchored in a beautiful spot so not all was lost. I am going to try to figure out how to post a gallery of photo’s today……we will see.

4:44PM We easily managed the 43 miles to Pine Island today. Our anchor is down in a secluded creek behind Pine Island, 10 miles or so from St. Augustine. We had a favorable current for all but an hour or so of the trip. The ICW goes by miles and miles of beautiful homes between the St. Johns and St. Augustine Inlets. Palm Valley has some high priced real-estate along the Eastern shore.

A couple we met (on a DeFever 41) in Jacsonville were anchored here when we arrived. I dropped the dink and said hello. We might go over for a drink before dark.

Linda is cooking us a steak. We took them out several days ago, but had trouble not eating sushi every day… lol. I’m looking forward to St. Augustine. It’s the oldest city in the United States…. not just Florida… but the whole US. There is a historic trolley ride, and the city still has it’s light show going along the waterfont.

Steaks are here…gotta go.

Rusty

Jacksonville Florida
SYL is at Jackson Landing in the middle of town, the big floating dock provided by the city is free. We tied up in front of Sushi KoJa where we had lunch and dinner yesterday. The food and prices are quite good, I expect we will repeat the process before we leave.

Jacksonville is a historic port town built around the St.John’s river. The city founders did a great job of building “on the water” attractions and activities. It truly is a boat friendly place, I imagine the summer is packed with boats and waterside events at the outdoor bandstand here in the middle of Jackson Landing. The Gator Bowl (3 miles down river) also has a park and free docks right next to the stadium. They love their Jacksonville Jaguars.

Across the river on the South shore is a cultural center, science museum and from what we can see from here nice fountains and other attractions. The fellow that plans the lighting here must be a fun guy. They don’t just make it where you can see to get around Jacksonville…. they use every color light you can imagine splashed on the bridges and tall buildings to create a truly picturesque nightscape. I didn’t know Jacksonville was such a “destination” I’m glad we came.

Last night I did find out a trick you should know when docking alongside in the river. Tie your boat up facing up river…… I know it sounds obvious, but the current flows strongly in both directions here. Last night we bucked a bit tied stern to the current. Today I’m going to move 50 yards up the river close to a gazebo that juts out into the water. I imagine the current will be easier tucked in behind the outcropping.

Well, my coffee is on the table. We had some rain last night with the passing front and it’s still cloudy but the winds are down around 10 and the sky is getting lighter. I’m hoping for a nice weather day.

5:30PM      The day did clear nicely.  Linda and I untied and made our way across the river….. we filled up with gas and looked at the science museum.  It was OK but nothing to write home about.   We re-tied SYL back at Jacksonville Landing about 70 yards up river from our previous spot.  After more sushi I hopped the skyway to the convention center for the boat show.  The show was OK, but as I expected it was mostly flats, wakeboard and fishing boats with a few trailerable cruisers in the mix.  I always enjoy boat shows no matter what the size.   I spent about 2 hours then wanedered back to the boat.  I brought us some spicy wings and onion rings in for dinner so Linda didn’t have to cook.

After careful study…… the thing I like best about Jacksonville is the free eventside docking, the second thing would be the varied places to eat right here on the water.   We almost always did take out and ate on our boat.  One of the places told me to call it in and they would deliver to the boat.  That’s pretty cool.   My third favorite thing about Jacksonville is the Maratime Museum.  The waterfront is a very popular jogging location… so people watching us watching them is also part of the fun.   The few that stop and talk are enjoyable.  I like sharing stories with other people and how where they live.  I’ll talk to anybody about anything.. I like to smear happiness and joy on anybody that will stand still long enough. 

A couple that tied up at the dock a bit ago just came by.   They have a mid 1980’s 41′ DeFever powerboat.   I met them when I went over to help them tie up.  That’s the part of cruising we like best…. the people.

We might leave here tomorrow afternoon.  My research tells me St. Augustine has a trolley tour of town and their “city of lights” ends Tuesday night.  It looks like something we may want to see.  After a run to the grocery, we will probably wait for a favorable tide (around noon) then move down the river 15 miles to the mouth, then Sunday make the run either inside on the ICW or outside depending on weather to St. Augustine.

Sea Yawl Later !!   Rusty

The morning is clear and cool, but not too cool.  We didn’t run the heater last night so the cabin was 63 this morning.  Nice under the blanket but a little chilly getting up at first. 

The tidal range here is amazing.  This morning it’s high tide and I can see the stripes on the pavement in the parking lot, at low tide you can’t see the cars in the second row at all.  The sea level varies 7 to 9 feet twice a day. 

Brunswick has a wide range of sea birds flopping around in the harbor, there are the normal cormorant diving birds and sea gulls, a few pelicans, but oddly crows caw from the trees every morning and there is a neat looking duck that’s always swimming about.  The ducks are black with a large white crest that starts on top and goes behind his head.  They are about the size of teal but they also dive like a cormorant.  Just before they dive they fold all that head gear back to make them streamline.

The marina is tucked in a couple miles from the coast up the river.  The geography gives us a super calm anchorage.  Even when the wind is singing in the standing rigging there is little more than a ripple on the water.  Consequently people from all over the US (especially the Eastern seaboard) leave there boats here during the hot summer.  Sailing season starts about now and ends for most folks with the start of hurricane season.

There goes one of the white headed ducks…. they are wary little birds.  If your outside they don’t come that close to the boat.   With the pronounced white feathers on their head they are very distinctive.

John and Carolyn just walked by going for coffee with some dock mates.  They said they are having their bottom cleaned Thursday so they won’t leave when we do if we go to the Jacksonville boat show, but would catch up with us soon.   That means we will probably leave early in the morning for J’ville.  Our first stop is a remote anchorage 10 miles North of Fernandina in Delaroche Creek.  We stopped there on our way here and marked it in our book as a nice stop.  It’s wide open so there shouldn’t be any bugs but lots of wildlife.   We saw dolphins and lots of waterbirds.  You can tuck in behind a sandbar so the current isn’t bad and your totally away from tugboat traffic.  You have to putt around and check your swing radius depth clocsely because of the tidal range is so wide.  If your in 6 feet of water when you anchor at high tide, you’ll be 1 foot up on land at low tide.   Once we get well into Florida we won’t have to worry about radical tide swings.

This is day one…. day one of no more stinky holding tanks!  We officially christened the composting head today.  I know.. I know…. talking about such facilities may be taboo.  But when it’s such a nice change I felt it very note worthy…. and then again, think about who your reading here…  I find very few subjects far enough off limits that I can’t express them fun enough to not cause flinching.

Off to wash the bow of the boat…. oops back inside.  There are biting gnats that swarm thru in the morning and evening.  I’ll wait to wash until they go hide.

7PM… well there was a short “no gnat” window today.  With no breeze they were quite the pest.  We did get our laundry done and I washed part of the bow but the bugs were terrible so I didn’t finish.  We had a great evening meal, filled the water tank and are set to go in the morning.  There are a few things to do first light.. but not many. 

I suspect we will get away around 8AM Florida, 7AM Texas time.  We have many great anchoring options on the way so we will go as far as we want to and stop.  The two legs to Jacksonville are short 40 mile runs.  If the river to J’ville is flowing in off the ICW… we will shoot home quickly the last 18 miles Thursday.  If not we will have current to face.  According to my gps we will have an early shot at good current, but as the day goes on… not so much.

Tomorrow is our first opportunity to sail!   The wind (if any) should be from a favorable direction.  I’m off to check weather again.  Earlier today we had 2 1/2 days before the possibility of rain.    The ICW is never much of a challenge weather wise.

Sea Yawl Later !!

Today was a fun day… The morning was warm so a lingering fog wandered through the marina over the cool water until 10AM.  Ducks swimming about made the only ripples on the water…. no wind.  Before noon the sun broke through and produced a superbly sunny day.  Our time was spent warm and bright with good company (our dock 5 buddies).

Linda and her new running buddy got manicures and pedicures today….. while John and I eased SYL over to the fuel dock and filled her up.  While we were there we pumped out the tank.  One of the chores I did today was to clean up the dock area…. I had thrown stuff off the boat to wash or throw away… the new head was in a box there too so I had quite a pile to go thru.  Today I cleaned up the “off boat” work area then broke up the huge bail of peat moss into six 2 gallon containers (6 months worth)….. the rest of the peat moss I gave to the grounds keeper.  We kept over half the 8.00 bale but really didn’t want to store the last $3.00 worth.

We have sort of decided to go to the Jacksonville boat show this weekend.  I thought about sailing there, but Linda, Carolyn and John want to drive over and back so we can all hang out here longer.    I’m 50/50 on it… so whatever everybody else wants to do is fine with me.  Friday night Ron White is playing live there at the dock, but tickets are $160 to $240 each…. I really thought about going anyway… but I am sure he’s more vulgar live than we can stand.   We have to “put up” with a bit of it to enjoy his humor on TV… but I bet his live performances get way on down there….. so as much as I enjoy him I think we’ll pass.

I’ll probably put the head in tomorrow.  The tank is empty and I’m ready to leave it that way!   It was fun to drive the boat again…. man those motors are running sweet and the new throttles are a joy to use.  No ethanol in Brunswick Marina gas…. !  I bought a lot of it even filling our jerry cans in case the next place has ethanol in it’s gas… maybe I can keep the carbs clean all the way home.

I’ll have the boat ready to head out tomorrow if Linda is.   It’s an easy two day run (80 miles or so) to J’ville.  I figure they will choose to drive to Jacksonville and hang out here longer.  Luckily all I have to do is Peddle…. she generally does most of the steering and I like it that way.

Sea Yawl Later !!  Rusty

I did almost nothing productive on the boat today…. Our freinds took us shopping so we did some provisioning, but the only work on board today was loading the groceries we bought…. nary a screw or wrench was turned by my hand or any other on SYL today.

I’d like to get her compounded and waxed, but it seems expensive here, I may check in St. Augustine when we go thru there (some day)… lol.  Our sailing destination and departure date still seem to be as undetermined as that lost flight of WWII planes in the Bermuda triangle, and we are good with that.   

I was looking online this evening at Brunswick attractions… we may just have to hang out here a while.   “Skipper Bob’s” ICW travel guide is a great resource, we followed it loyally on the way here.   We parused it this evening to see what local (winthin a day or two’s sail) attractions might be fun… but it looks like Brunswick is the place to be for a 100 mile radius.  We probably won’t rush off as soon as we are able, but then we may do 2 or 3 days of sailing sun to sun in order to get further South.  As I’m thinking about it… being further South in February is probably the right choice.

John told me that the Marathon Florida anchorage is packed, no room available for more boats.  Marathon is the typical jumping off place to the Bahamas for some and a popular end destination for others.  I guess everybody is waiting for the “perfect” crossing weather.  I am leaning toward going bay to bay from Biscayne Bay to Card Sound then South by bay rather than by open water.  There’s some spots I’d like to hit on the way down like Gilberts and Alabama Jacks.  Who knows….   oops, did I just catch myself planning… I know better than that….

SYL!!  Rusty

The projects are getting smaller and smaller.  I got the new head out of it’s box, it will be an easy install.  I read the instructions last night.. so we are good to go.  Removing the old one will be harder than putting this one in.

Our new friends John and Carolyn took me to West marine and the liquor store today and offered to bring Linda to Wal Mart tomorrow for our final shopping run.  We pretty well have everything we need, but there are a few items we didn’t think of the first trip that need to be added to the ships stores.

Tonight we had a great dinner with our new freinds.  Linda made jumbalia and grilled vegetables, I did one of my stand up chickens.  It took forever to cook the chicken because the grill here at the marina struggled to get up to 300 degrees.  I had to cook the chicken for 2 1/2 hours… but it came out as good as always.

John and Carolyn were great company.  Their boat is georgious, shes a new Catalina.  I’ve been invited on board but honesly I’ve been so busy I haven’t taken the time for the grand tour…. maybe tomorrow. 

I did the hands and knees Comet scrub down on the back half of the boat today in preparation for the evening festivities.  It seems like it takes an event for us to get the boat cleaned up.. so we are grateful for the company this evening…. we had a wonderul time.  These guys had some sories to tell.  If we hadn’t asked them to come over we would have not gotten the boat polished up tonight….. Tomorrow will be nice as we reap the benefit of a clean and orderly cockpit.  We have transformed it from a work area to a living area again.  Linda and I are truly both enjoying our boat even though we haven’t left the harbor.

Man…  I’m trying to think what we have left to do… other than the head and scrubbing the front of the boat I guess we are done!  All of that is light work.

SYL !!   Rusty

On every lucky boat there is always a winch or two on board just in case you need it… my boat has several scattered about….  Today was the day I chose to service all my winches.

I’ve done good, I’ve got them all satisfied except one……  I have a kit just for the anchor windlass.  After I get done with her I’m quitting for the day.  That’s a lot to do in one day for any man.  Winches… you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them………

I think I’ll change oil in the Honda generator before I tackle the windlass.  It’s supposed to get cold in a day or two.   Of course we are still plugged in to the dock so electricity is free flowing right now but the Honda is something easy I can mark off the list of things to do before we go.  We re-installed the jib and reset the lazy jacks today too, so she is ready to motor or sail down the river…. at our leasure.

One thing that didn’t work out as I expected was the lift off hinges required to remove the access door behind the new head.  I bought some nice stainless hinges that lift off their pins to remove the whole door…. but they won’t work because the door is inset into the wall so you have to open it 1/2 way to clear the jam… which negates the purpose of the special hinges.  Anyway, I’m going to remove the pins from the existing hinges and put loose fitting drop in clips in the hinges so we can remove the door easily without cutting it.  I’ll live with that a while and see how I like it.  If that doesn’t work I’ll do the Ted Cook thing and make it easy to use by dividing the door into top and bottom sections.

Back to work…. Rusty

The upgrade was not without blood letting and multiple trips under the boat … but by golly we have new throttles.  They are sweet!   A big part of the process was learning how the new throttle box works and getting it set up right.  The motors idle great, when I drop them in gear they don’t die now… how good is that!

Getting the spacer and new throttle holes drilled was a chore.  I dry fitted everything so it would be nice and straight when I glued it down.  The spacer is mated to the boat using 3M 5200 and screwed down on all 4 corners.  The blood letting came trying to get the box to square up in the hole.  The jab saw caught me once on the finger trying to get the fiberglass corners clearanced under the spacer.  No biggie.. no band-aids… just a paper towel dab and it’s all good.

So….. I am a functioning boat again.  I can actually leave the marina without fear of dock rash.  Tomorrow I’ll either start on the new head install or begin the wash down….  I suspect the washdown will be next.  Removing bird droppings and cleaning up my work site (the aft cockpit) will make SYL look sporty again.

We have some new freinds – A nice couple (John and Carol) from St. Louis just arrived in Brunswick and tied up to dock 5.   They introduced themselves today…. they are on a brand new Catalina.   Their intent is to head South about the same time as SYL so we may have a buddy boat down the ICW toward the Keys. 

I’m very pleased about my progress and Linda is accomplishing as much on the household.  I feel we are ahead of the curve on our quest to motor South.  By Monday we should be ready to go, thats about a week ahead of my original departure date.  Our new freinds will probably give us a ride for final provisioning.  We could go with what we have now, but one more trip would fill in some blanks that would make life more fun.

OH, by the way I turned on our “SPOT” tracker today so if you click on “where is SYL” on the right side of the page then zoom out about 5 clicks you’ll see where SYL is located.

Sea Yawl Later !!   Rusty