Hurricane a comin

In September we had Draco hauled out had her bottom painted.  We had here hauled out in Arapaho North Carolina at Wayfarers Cove, this is near Oriental North Carolina.  It was skinny water getting back into the cove but we made it in with a north east wind.  Spent time visiting family and friends for a couple weeks in Illinois while this was being done.  I was not living on the boat in the boat yard in rain and 90 degrees.  When we got back around Sept 28th were watching the weather and found that hurricane Joaqin may head this direction.  So we pulled into Northwest Creek Marina in New Bern NC and we docked up here until the hurricane was gone.  We have never been in a hurricane before so we prepped the boat and waited.  We had lots of rain bands go through and some light winds but nothing other than local flooding.  We were lucky that the hurricane turned east out to sea.  We were prepared to evacuate.  The docks flooded over our knees so we had to wade to the boat for 3 days.  There was water in the marina building here about 8 inches for a couple of days and the crew here was right on top of the clean up.  Thank you Northwest staff for making everything easy before and after the storm.  We will be here for another week then we are headed south.  We are meeting up with our buddy boat Spindrift, we will cruise down the coast with them for 6 weeks.  I am sure I will have more to tell once we get out and about again.
As you may remember from my last post that we had ripped our mainsail.  We are anxiously awaiting our new main, in fact it was supposed to ship today.  Keep your fingers crossed.  It has been an expensive summer with getting the bottom painted and a new main.  This week the weather here has been in the 70's and cool at night.  Sunny everyday, you could not ask for better weather for October.  Kooper jumped ship this morning and we found him on the next boat over, silly ole cat,  the boat had floated to far away from the dock he could not get off he was over there throwing a fit.  Joe had to get on the other boat and carry him off. Luckily no one lives on that boat.  We have to keep a better eye on him.  TTFN

Measuring for new main sail

Island Pictures

Light House on Hunting Island

Hunting Island South Carolina

Mom and Baby Cumberland Island

Beached Cannonball Jellyfish

Horseshoe Crabs Cumberland Island Georgia

Sand Dunes Cumberland Island Georgia

The Golden Ticket

Continuing my story
We spent a very quiet night in the anchorage just outside of Charleston.  Next morning we prepared to leave it was cloudy and it looked like it would be a nice day.  Off on the ICW we went with the tide today we should make good time.  About 2 hours into our journey I looked behind us and I see a Coast Guard boat coming up on us.  I calmly take over driving so it doesn't look suspicious so Joe can go shut something down below just in case we get boarded.  And what do ya know we are going to get boarded!!  The Coast Guard boat pulls up beside us, I power back the throttle, they ask if we have gotten boarded recently,  I tell them no not on this boat, we had gotten boarded before when we were in Hawaii on a different boat.  Joe takes the lifeline down and we invite them aboard. Now we know they are out here to keep everyone safe so there is no need to get our hackles up.  We smile and say we are glad they are around,  and we proceed to cooperate in every way possible. There are two Coast Guard officers and a County Sheriffs Deputy on our boat and two more Coast Guard on the boat that stopped us. They tell me to resume normal speed and they drop back and proceed to follow us during our inspection.  They are very thorough and go through everything on the boat that needs checked, the head, life jackets, flares, whistles, air horn, all our documentation for the boat and others.  After about an hour they say we pass all the inspections and hand us a THE GOLDEN TICKET.  They tell us that we are good for a year so if we ever get stopped again within the year all we have to do is show our golden ticket and we should be good to go.  We say our thank you and wish them a good day and they are off.  After they leave we high five each other for passing the inspection.
That afternoon we are motoring along and we see storm clouds brewing ahead, our next anchorage is about 5 miles away, right where we are heading we look at our charts and we pull over in an anchorage because we do not want a repeat performance of the day before storm situation. We read in our cruising guide that this spot is buggy, boy was that an understatement, we get mobbed by bugs and mosquitoes it was like being in Minnesota at dusk.  We have to totally close up the boat and it is hot and muggy.  Muggy and Buggy all at the same time NOT a good combination!!! The fly squatter comes out and the bug spray is deployed.  I do believe we killed all the little critters.  They must not have seen humans for a while because the were relentless little suckers.  So sad such a lovely place to anchor and we can't even sit in the cockpit to enjoy our cocktails.  The storm we saw never did reach us but it is better to be cautious of these things. 
Our next stop is Southport North Carolina.  TTFN

Painted Water

Seeing old friends and stormy stuff

We pull anchor head through Watts Cut at mid tide we make it through the channel have a few more shallow spots but we are with the tide, heading for Charleston.  We are meeting up with our friends from Chesterfield Missouri, Denny and Shara Taylor.  They are on the east coast searching for a boat and happen to be in Charleston South Carolina to look at some boats.  We go have BBQ the first night they come and pick us up we have a nice evening visiting.  Next morning we get picked up at St. Johns Island Marina, wonderful place to anchor and they have beautiful facilities complete with restaurant and pool.  We go to another marina where we look at a Beneteau with the Taylors. Then we head over to the ferry landing and we buy tickets to go out to Fort Sumter, where the civil war began.  We board the ferry and get the tour and history of the Fort, it was worth the tour.  It is extremely hot and we are all done in and hungry when we get back to the van. The four of us head back to St. Johns Marina and have dinner at the restaurant there.  We say good bye to the Taylors they are leaving for Annapolis the next morning in search for their dream boat.  We hang out in Charleston the next day and take care of some business.  Next morning we head in to get fuel, water and ice.  Head out to Charleston Harbor put up the jib as our main is ripped beyond repair.  Yes we have to buy a new main sail it will be a huge expense.  Sailing across Charleston Harbor we run across a youth sailing school in their opti's.  It is blowing 12 to 17 and these little kids are out there having a ball.  We are looking to make the 6:00 opening on the bridge we are headed for then anchor for night.  Well we make it to bridge around 4:30 and we have to wait on the bridge meanwhile we anchor and wait as 6:00 approaches the skies start getting darker from the east and we hear rumbles of thunder.  We approach the bridge and the bridge master informs us that bad storms are approaching and that he will not open the bridge due to the storm that is about to hit.  Wind gusts of up to 40 we found out soon enough.  We turn back up the channel and it starts to rain hard we try to get farther but the storm is so bad by now that we can hardly see and the winds have piped up to gusts of 40 torrential rains.    We finally get an anchor down but we are in too shallow of water and the storm pushes us up on a sand bar.  Joe was smart enough to leave the motor running and in gear with the wheel hard over so we do not get pushed ashore.  I was hoping we do not have to call Tow Boat.  We are hammered by the storm for about 30 minutes then it starts to clear.  Bridge Master calls us and says he will open anytime we are ready.  We inform him that we are aground and we will be a while till we figure how to get off.  It took some doing and Joe crawled out on the boom, we pushed it all the way out and he was bounced up and down on it and he heard a pop.  He popped a rib out of place.  I could tell he was hurting but he kept working to get us ungrounded.  We finally got off the sand bar and we went through the bridge anchored just other side of bridge for the night in a very quiet place.  It has been a very interesting week.

Sail Problems

First day from Beaufort, July 20, we are heading north out of St. Helena Sound towards the Edisto River and Watts cut.  We know we have to make Watts Cut before low tide.  So we are sailing along have both sails up the wind is with us today. Pretty uneventful day until ...... we get to the entrance to Watts Cut.  The winds have picked up to about 15 to 20 during the day and when we go to drop sail we jibe and our main sail rips.  As we prepare to drop the main it tears more and more.  Nothing we can do at the moment.  Then we are trying to to furl in the jib and the spinnaker line gets wrapped in the sail and it is flapping and snapping like crazy Joe finally gets it unwrapped and we try to head into Watts cut.  It is now close to low tide and at the entrance we touch bottom we are afraid to just plow through the rest as we will have to wait for the tide to come in and we do not want to run hard aground.  So we turn around and head up a small creek where we know there is enough water to anchor for the night.  It is getting dark and it is time to quit for the day. We will assess  the damage when things are calmer.

Hangin with Mr. Kooper

In blogs past I introduced you to our cat Kooper.  We adopted him when he was 5 weeks old and he has been a pretty good cat. He has lived and moved around Illinois and moved to Florida to live with Tim while he was in college, then he moved back to live with us after college, so he has been around some. Those of you who are not cat people are probably thinking there are no good cats.  LOL.  Kooper is 10 now and has adapted to living on Draco rather well. Guess he did not have a choice in the matter either.  He didn't much like boat living at first and hid a lot where he could find hiding places. Hatted hated hated it when we fired up the engine and tried to make himself very small when we did.  During rough weather he has gotten sea sick a few times but now seems to have gotten the motion of the boat pretty well.  We have sliding cupboard doors for access to shelves, not in the galley, and Kooper looked at me one day and wanted me to open the door to let him in I told him no but if he could open it himself he was welcome to get in there.  Well he got scared one day and pushed open the cupboard door and crawled up on the shelf and hid in there everyday for weeks when we started up the engine.  We called it his hidey hole.  He started slowly coming out when we were at anchor and coming into the cockpit and checking out the boat.  Now he has the run of the boat and most nights when we are at anchor he just sits on the bow and looks around.  Actually he usually stays out all night.  We set anchor turn the engine off and yell down to Kooper that we are done for the day and he comes out of whenever he has chose to hunker down that day.  These days he lies under the table in the center of the boat. When we got back to Lady's Island Marina in South Carolina we docked up for the month and we have to watch him very closely so he doesn't get off the boat.  If you were on a boat for 12 weeks and got to a dock you would want off too.  It was good during the day but 2 nights after we docked he jumped ship onto the dock and we lost him.  We looked everywhere for the entire day but could not find him.  Last time I saw him he was on the boat about 2 A.M.  We were sick with worry and did not know if would ever see him again.  Next night we went to bed but sleep did not come easy because we were missing our little guy.  Joe got up around 3:30 A.M and went looking for him again.  I hear him come back and he has an orange fur ball in his arms, alive but hurt, tears were shed that we had our buddy back.  Kooper was unable to walk his back legs would not work.  We had to wait until the vet opened to take him in and get him checked so we kept him still and warm until then.  He was in bad shape.  It kept going through my mind that we were going to loose him.  Once at the vet's office they examined him, took an x ray and determined that he had a broken pelvis and that it would heal on it's own.  Thank God.  They sent us off with pain meds and said he would heal up on his own just fine.  We will never know how he got so badly injured. We are sure it ate up a couple of his 9 lives.  He did develop an abscess

on his side that the vet missed I treated it for a week and it finally dried up and went away. Now 4 weeks later he is doing great and we are hangin with Mr. Kooper again. 

Dumplings for Breakfast

Just got back from the local farmers market.  I invited a couple of the ladies here that do not have cars to get around to go with me.  Had to go today there is a lady there that makes homemade Chinese dumplings that melt in you mouth.  Guess what I had for breakfast?  Yummo! Not a conventional breakfast but nothing about cruising is conventional. Also went out to St. Helena Island to Barefoot farms and picked up a pound of fresh caught shrimp to cook for dinner tonight.  Shrimp season just started here so we can buy them pretty cheap.  We also have fresh fruits and vegetables readily available and locally grown.  I love the low country.
The other night we went to my friend Jude's house for Italian food. It was a wonderful evening with lots of wine and delicious food.  Jude entertained us with endless stories about growing up in an Italian family in Boston.  She has the full Boston accent and she is hysterical,we laughed for hours  I told here she should be a stand up comic.  Jude has two rescue dogs on was quiet and sweet the other would not come near us and barked the whole time we were there.  Oh well.
It has turned very hot and humid here now and it is hard to stay cool during the afternoon hours.  We usually find an excuse to go to the store or someplace in the truck to get into some air conditioning.  Guess is the price you pay for being in the south and it isn't even full out summer yet.  We plan on hauling the boat out sometime in July up in North Carolina to paint the bottom.  And work on the stuffing box.  That should be fun.  NOT!!!! Hope to see our friends in Carlyle and St. Louis very soon.  TTFN.

Never ending projects

The boat projects continue.  Joe mounted the solar panel on top of the dinghy davits today.  It was attached to the lifeline on the port side of the boat.  It limited our view while sitting in the cockpit and it was a hazard at times coming into a dock.  We have also finished installing the cleats and painting the anchor.  Teak has been sanded topsides and I am putting 5 coats of varnish on it to help preserve the color and I will probably put a couple more coats on it in September just for good measure.  We have the dinghy on land and Joe has cleaned it up and put some epoxy on the bottom scrapes.  All in all we have been moving right along with the never ending list of things to do on the boat.
Tim, Morgan and Zelda came up to have a picnic with u on the beach at one of the parks just north of here.  It was nice to see them again.  
To our friends and fellow sailors at CSA we hope that the Sailing for Veterans Regatta is a huge success this weekend.
To the A Cat sailors who were in Florida racing Joe has been following your progress online.  Some great shots of the racers.
TTFN

Wild Horses

I am sitting here in the cockpit of the boat listening to music and I was reflecting on the 3 days we spent at Cumberland Island.  Cumberland Island is right on the border of Florida and Georgia.  It was recommended to us to make a stop there on our way back up the ICW.  It was worth the trip.  Even before we got to our anchorage spot we spotted a wild horse out by the salt marshes,  and directly in front of the horse in the water were dolphins.  What a beautiful site that was to see them both together.  They were too far for me to get a photo.  After we got settled at the anchor spot we deployed the dinghy and went ashore, camera in hand.  Stopped at the park office and talked to the ranger.  He told us about all the walking trails that we could explore.  So we set off for a 3/4 mile hike across the island.  We were immediately plunged into the oldest seaside forest in the country.  All around us were live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, fan palms and wild plants growing so thick you had to stay on the path.  It was a peaceful and pristine place to stop.  Very rare theses days to find a spot as untouched by commercialism.  After 5 days on the boat we were ready for a break.  I told Joe I wanted to hike till my legs fell off.  Walking under the shaded canopy of the trees was relaxing.  We past camping spots where you could not see the next camp site as there were so many fan palms.  When we got to the other side of the island it open up to snow white sand dunes some 2 stories high.  We walked on a boardwalk walkway through the dunes and it opened up to a beach deemed a national seashore park.  We looked down the beach and there was a herd of wild horses.  I was so excited.  We hurriedly walked toward them.  They have been exposed to people watching them as they let us get closer I started taking photos.  Most of them were mares and there was a yearling and a foal.  What a treat it was to get to see wild horses ON THE BEACH.   Awesome.
Next day we toured the Carnegie Mansion on the Island. Most of the buildings were still there but the house was a brick skeleton, it had burned down many years ago.  And what happen to be in the yard area more wild horses.  It just could not get any better.   After our tour we went on the boardwalk over the salt marsh and ended up walking through the sand dunes again  then we made our way up the beach and back to the boat.  My legs were pretty tired we had walked almost 5 miles.  Next day we moved the boat to the north end of the island and next day we did some more hiking there.  We were hoping to see alligators that were rumored to be there but no such luck.  But we did see some wold spotted hogs and piglets.  Cumberland Island is by far one of our favorite places we have been to.  If you want to visit there you cannot get there by car you need to take a 45 minute ferry ride.  It is highly likely we will be stopping there again.
We are now in Lady's Island South Carolina.  Doing boat projects and hanging out in Beaufort.  TTFN

Daily stuff

Let me tell you what happened to us in Lake Worth.  Well you know we anchored there for the night. Same spot we anchored in on our way south.  About 2:00 in the morning we woke up and the boat was listing heavily to starboard, 18 degrees to be exact.  We did not panic we sat in the cockpit for a while and decided there was nothing we could do so we went back to bed. Braced our feet across the v berth so we wouldn't roll sideways and went back to sleep waiting for the tide to come up. As you can imagine we did not sleep much.  But we got up early pulled anchor and proceeded along.  There is always something.  It was a beautiful day and we had 8 bridge to go through we headed to Peck Lake.  Wind were high when we arrived we did not even deploy the dinghy.  We were both tired from the last 3 day so we just sat on the boat and read.  Next stop was Vero Beach, we stopped there before too, needed provisions.  But before we got there we turned left at the wrong bridge ran aground, storm coming with high winds,  someone in a dinghy stopped and try to help after we got off the grounding.  Then we went to the next bridge and turned there and moored up in the marina.  Stayed a couple of days, spent an afternoon at the beach,  got ate up buy no see ums, nasty little bugs you can't see coming and the are stealthy to they attack in the middle of the night.  My legs looked like I had pox. 

On our way to Titusville we had to come up the Indian River near NASA we encountered small Islands along here that we named Flamingo Flats,  pink flamingos everywhere, Pelican Perch.  Also we saw at least 14 Manatee on our way through too.  Some were right next to the boat playing.  That was most excellent to see them.  Onto to Titusville Municipal Marina for night just to get a break from the winds.  We normally would have grabbed a mooring ball but with NNW winds 15 to 20 you do not want to be in the mooring field.  Staying at the marina was a treat we had electricity for first time in 8 weeks, we have a small inverter to charge our cell phones and computer on the boat.  It is amazing what you can adapt to when needed.   So we got out the cofee maker, toaster and even the microwave worked. Joe needed internet to work too.  Winds were still strong the next day and storms were expected we pulled into New Smyrna Municipal Marina early the next day and again we have electricity two days in a row. Woop! woop!  Good thing to as it was 92 degrees and we needed a fan to keep cool.  Went out for Pizza, Panheads,  yummo! Next day we are waffling back and forth wether to leave or stay, storms again.  We check the radar 20 times and we decide to leave.  we waited until one storm cell passes we cast off and get ahead of the weather.  We got rained on once it cleared up and was a nice travel day.  Anchored up in Daytona Then to Fourt Matanzas Inlet.  We saw a bobcat on the beach when we arrived,  I took photos.  Next day we toured Fort Matanzas something we did not do on our way south.  It was pretty cool.  Now we just left St. Augustine and we are anchoring out tonight.  Saw a pod of dolphins near one of the bridges they had a brand new baby wit them it was sticking it's whole head above the water, so cute.  Dolphins have been plentiful on our travels. Tides were against us this morning so progress was slow.  We pulled over and anchored up for 2 hours to wait it out had lunch now we are under way.  Our next major stop will be Cumberland Island it is on the Florid Georgia border.  Meeting up with Mike Pitzer and Tom Baker on Diva.  We hope to jump outside and sail up to South Carolina and buddy up with them.  I will let you know how that works out. TTFN

Bobcat at Fort Matanzas Beach

Hot Pink Tank

We are In Vero Beach Florida. Decided to stop here again on our way back north. We like the mooring here and it is quiet and peaceful.  Went to beach yesterday, city bus comes right through here and picks us up and then drops off is right at beach front.  It is nice when you don't have a vehicle.  After the beach we went in search of ice cream.  Found an ice cream shoppe, it was delicious, my second cone was anyway.  I was trying to juggle stuff around in my hands when my cone fell out of my hand and landed upside down on the floor.  I hadn't even had a bite yet.  Man did I laugh it was hysterical. Joe just looked at me and said Mary Mary Mary. The wonderful clerk at the counter made me up another one free of charge.  There isn't a day goes by that something happens.
While provisioning yesterday I came across a scuba shop.  Now if you remember I got a red scuba tank for Christmas.  But we needed another one so we can dive together. I found one at a good price I called Joe and he said to go ahead a get it.  Well you see my scuba equipment is pink and the red scuba tank just clashed with my stuff so I bought a hot pink tank.  Have to look stylish even when diving.  I think I will let Joe have the red one.  Joe just shook his head that I got the pink one.  Oh well!!!  He also said that if his tank was empty he was not going to be seen using my hot pink stylish tank and that if that happened I would have to scrape the bottom of the boat.  We will see if that will happen.

Starfish

We are out on the Atlantic today sailing north in the Gulf Stream outside Miami sailing towards Ft. Lauderdale.  It is sunny and 80 winds are about 5 to 10, we could use a little more.  Joe just informed me that our depth is 875 feet.  We have been in Miami and Key Biscayne for the last three weeks enjoying the wonderful weather and spending time with our sailing friends on Spindrift.  They left Monday to go back to Virginia Beach where they both live.  We miss seeing them in the mornings. Did I mention they had a runaway dinghy too.  Yes it ran away from their boat.  After that they could not tease us about rescuing ours after it ran away.  Had some good times with Rick and Sandy we plan on getting with them next fall and heading out to the big blue yonder.

Spent most of our anchored time in No Name Harbor, a popular cruisers stop going to and from the Bahamas. It was a nice calm anchorage but there was always one boat partying and playing their bang bang music way toooooo loud!  Last night was no exception. The beach in the park here is nice there is a shelter here, restrooms, a washer and dryer and an outdoor shower ( cold water, activated by a pull chain) refreshing after snorkeling or hiking. Park contains the original Cape Florida lighthouse, which we got to go up inside and get a birds eye view from the top.  Quite an amazing sight from 90 feet in the air.  It was 109 steps to the top,  good work out.  We did some snorkeling and found some conch and giant starfish, I will include pictures.  Mostly sea grass beds not too much coral but some small pieces and some sponges.  We did spend 2 and 1/2 days at Dinner Key Marina where we had the awesome experience (sarcasm) of being on a mooring ball there,  it was like being on a 36 foot rocking horse on springs.  Key Biscayne is not very protected on that side of the bay from any direction.  We endured only because our mail was being sent to the marina, and we were off the boat as much as possible.  Dinghy rides in were wet and rocky.  We will not stay there again.

 Internet has been non consistent here so it is hard to post my blog.  

We began to replace the starboard stern cleat but due to limited space to get our drill in the lazzarette we have put that on hold until we can get a smaller drill.  So we are without a starboard cleat right now.   All other boat project are on hold until we get electric to run power tools. 

The other morning we were sitting in the cockpit reading and our boat neighbor on their Beneteau 48, Buoyant, Lee and Heidi from New Jersey, Lee was tring to get his motor on his dinghy we were not paying too much attention but we heard a splash.  Joe looks up and says is that what I think it sounded like.  And yep Lee dropped his dinghy motor in the water and it sinks to Davey Jones locker.  Lee went and sat down didn't say a word.  About 10 minutes later Joe goes over and offers to dive down and recover the motor.  He gladly accepted help and Joe was successful in recovering the motor about 1/2 an hour later.  They offered to take us to lunch which we accepted and had a wonderful time over wine, beers and good food.   We have decided to put a lifting bridle on our own dinghy motor so this does not happen to us.  

TTFN

Day of the Iguanas and horses

Let me back up a minute from the last blog post.  When we Left Lake Worth Joe decided to change head sails from the normal 120 to the 150 jib due to the lighter winds.  Well the jib is buried in the v-berth under our bed and is a pain in the ass to get to.  But Joe was determined to use that sail so he tore up the bed and the entire boat he was also digging into the quarter berth for something I do not remember.  While we are underway he takes down our 120 and proceeds to put up the 150.  Well as all things go it did not go smoothly.  He pulled it up then it would stop and twist the track. Then he tried again and again and again and again etc.  A few choice words were floating back to me at the helm while this process was going on.  He was traipsing back and fourth from bow to stern trying different things to raise the sail.  He took a break in there somewhere to get water and cool down both his body and his temper.  He finally switched something around and forced it up and then it was too long.  We had never put this particular sail up on the boat before.  He then had to take it down again and remove the cables.  I think he had it up and down a total of 8 times but he finally succeeded. And I was not too happy about the mess he had left the cabin in so he cleaned that up after we stopped for the day and he made the bed too.  I was not going to do it I did not make the mess!!! 

Upon getting to our most rocky and lumpy anchorage in Miami we headed out in our dinghy for a look around they have canals here through the city so we could dinghy close to the grocery store or even get closer to the beach.  It is really cool, did not know that about Miami.  Next day we go to this small Island, Bell Island we found out later, near our anchorage I take my camera because we see a monument there and we are curious.  We beach park the dinghy get out and start to explore.  It has a nice beach area and paths that go into the palm trees and sea grapes.  We are just walking along and Joe is in front of me well I see something dash out of a hole in the ground and run up lickety split up the nearest palm tree.  It scared the shit out of me but I got a look at it it was a green iguana about 25 to 30 inches long.  I guess the live on the island and they have grown huge.  After I yell at Joe about what I saw we look up in the palm tree and we can just see his head.   After a few minutes we hear another one.  We then start walking slowly and stopped talking so loud.  I break into my australian accent about us stalking and finding giant iguanas about 20 minutes later Joe sees an iguana kicking sand out of it's den so we sneak up on it and I have my camera ready,  it's a big one about 30 inches, I get some great shots till he runs away into the bush.  Crique it was fun mate, that's a little Australian lingo, lol.
About an hour later we go to get a few provisions, we dinghy up the canal,  across the street from Publix walk across and shop walk back across the street and we are done.  Easiest provisioning we have done yet. we see more iguanas laying on the ledges of the canal getting some sun we even see one coming out of the drain pipe.  Later that day we are going to dinner and we show Rick and Sandy the iguanas near the canal.  When they went to Bell Island they did not see any.  We have since seen more, even today we moved to no name harbor and they are running all over the place.
We took one afternoon and walked down to the infamous South Beach with Rick and Sandy.  Wow were there tons of people there.  Could have been that it was Easter week?  HMMMM. We were also privileged to see part of a Grand Prix horse jumping event that was being held right there on the beach.  They set up a big arena right on the beachfront it was free to watch.  There were horsemen and women from all over the world participating even former Olympians.  What a great thing to happen upon during our stay in Miami.   I will post pictures of Iguanas and horses later.  TTFN

Rocky days

It has been a busy week for us.
First we got Draco ready to leave Stuart.  We are  heading for the keys.  The weather window is good so we are taking off.  Leaving with our buddy boat and now good friends on Spindrift.  Rick Flack and Sandy Parrish (and dog Twinkles).  First stop was Peck Lake a good anchorage, we have been to before, about 2 hours away.  We anchored here for afternoon and evening.  Joe and I went and walked on the beach looking for turtle nesting sites and the DNR had several marked out no hatching's yet. Left next day early and headed for Lake Worth still on the ICW, about 30 miles.  Had to go through 6 bridges and some pretty tight quarters with some very large boats.  Some of the boats were headed home from the West Palm Beach Boat Show. We anchored for night and took dinghy over to Peanut Island, took a long walk around the Island.  Found out later it used to be an emergency bunker for President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.  Went back to boat and Joe put on his snorkel gear and went under the boat.  While we were at Peck Lake we heard a scraping sound under the boat and though we may have caught on something but the underside of the boat was clear.  Joe scraped the barnacles off the prop and we were good to go.  Next morning we left at 7:15 A.M. and headed out the Lake Worth cut to the Atlantic Ocean we were finally going to get off the ICW and do some ocean sailing.  Sun was coming up on the clear horizon as we motored Draco out into the blue green ocean the winds were about 5 out of the north but we hoisted sail anyway.  Put a preventer line on the main and turned south.  As the day went on the winds got a little better and clocked around to the ENE but we got rocked buy some pretty serious wakes from bigger boats.  Things below went flying but we found out what we needed to stow away. We went about 50 miles at 4 to 6 miles per hour it took all day, motored into Ft. Lauderdale into Lake Sylvia.  OMG you should see the huge mega yachts and homes around the canals in Ft. Lauderdale. It was a long rocky day.  Looked at charts cooked dinner and went to bed early.   Didn't have the energy to launch the dinghy and look around just drooled in passing.  Next day got up left at 8:00 A.M. headed for Miami.  No winds today so we motored the entire way.
Going to bed will finish the rest of story which gets better tomorrow.  TTFN.

St. Pat's Day

Still in Stuart Florida waiting for a weather window to head south to Keys.
We rented a car last week and drove to Savannah to see Tim, Morgan and dog Zelda.  It happen to be St. Patrick's day so we went downtown to see the 2nd largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the USA second only to NYC.  Tim's Army unit ( Go Calvary!) were marching in the parade.   We only stayed for part of the parade then we headed to where Morgan works then went and had Cuban food.  No corned beef and cabbage for this girl,  blah.  Joe and Tim repaired our truck and Morgans car while we were visiting  I cooked and baked and took care of Zelda, she is a 5 month old German Sheppard, and a brat.  Just like having an overactive 2 year old that does not know the word no. But she is a cutie when she wants to be.  Sunday here at the Marina they had an end of season party. All of the people who spend the winter here are heading back north complete with burgers, dogs and $1 beer.  Today I sanded teak on the deck and put some varnish on it.  Only 4 more coats to go.it is not hard just takes time and a lot of taping.  Going over to our neighbors boat tonight they pulled in a couple of days ago and the have an Islander 36 like ours.  We do not see many of our model boats here.  It is cool to see what they have done to their boats and get new ideas for ours. So this is a short blog today.  TTFN

God Bless America Lollipop

New companionway doors

Rebecca, Carlie, Chuck, Joe

The weather here is still being most cooperative in the 80's almost everyday which makes living aboard so much easier.  The boat projects have continued.  After the 11 inches of rain we received here two weeks ago, and all the leaks we had, we decided to re seat all of the side stays, all the experts say this needs done every 3 to 5 years, when it rained the other day again we did not see any leaks so maybe that solved the problem, we can only hope. We finished up the new companionway doors that we built in Ladys Island. It is so nice not to have to pull the hatch boards out everyday. Complete with smoked acrylic windows and screens we can see right into the cockpit from below.  Now we just swing the doors open.  We put pull apart hinges on them so we could remove them whenever we want.  They look great.  Joe finished hooking up the hot water heater to the engine so now when we run the engine each day to charge the battery banks we have hot water.  He also changed the oil and cleaned the fuel filter system, I made myself scarce when he is doing that.  Last Wednesday we took the boat over to the fuel dock, Joe put on his dive gear and went under the boat to replace the zincs and scrape the bottom.  He said it wasn't too bad, that was good news, we will have to bottom paint this summer though and that means we have to pull the boat out of the water. We also took on water and washed the boat down.   Our water tanks hold 50 gallons of water and if we conserve we can last 2 weeks.  Which is not too bad.  We also have 2 - 5 gallon water containers which we fill also when needed.
Last week I got my hull cleaning products, buckets and scrubbers out put everything in the dinghy and cleaned the entire hull of the boat.  Took me a couple of hours the wind was blowing 15 to 18 so it was kind of wavy during the process but I finished what I could.  I could not get the black streaks off the sides so when we go to provision next time I will have to get something to clean those off.  Then Draco will get a much needed wax job.  After that is done it is on to sanding and staining the teak on the outside of the boat, 2 hand rails and an eyebrows and the teak around the companionway so it won't be too bad.  The maintenance project list is getting shorter at the top but we keep adding more to the bottom. it is nice to cross some off the list but the list never ends.
We had visitors last week as well from St. Louis. Our niece, Rebecca, nephew, Chuck and our great nephew Charlie came to see us, they were enjoying the Cardinals training camp in Jupiter Florida.  Only about 30 minutes away, they drove up and spent the night on the boat with us.  Charlie is 3 and he talked and talked, I think he will be a Cardinals fan for life.  He would be telling you something and then blurt out GO CARDS!!!! then he would continue on with what he was saying.  We were walking in downtown Stuart with them on Friday night and Charlie starts singing God Bless America. A few people looked at him and some even joined in the singing. We all got a good laugh out of that one.  Next morning when we were raising the flag on the boat we let Charlie pull it up and we all joined in singing God Bless America.
For some unknown reason Charlie was calling us all lollipop when he was playing peek through the hatches at us on the boat.  His little blonde head would stick through the forward hatch and say hey you lollipop,he was so cute. We had some tootsie pops on the boat so before he left I stuck one in his pocket and called him a lollipop. I hope he can have candy???  They left early on Saturday so they could get to the Cardinals batting practice and game against the Twins then they were heading for Tampa.  The time together was too short and we did not get to take them sailing but we hope they come back soon. Thanks for coming to see us.  That's all I have for today.  TTFN

Run away Dinghy!

Hey All
Well we survived and cleaned up the almost 11 inches of rain we received in Stuart on Saturday. Not all of it ended up inside the boat but we had some significant leaks. Wow what a deluge.  Next morning the laundry area here was waiting room only but we are now clean and dry inside the boat.  Our dinghy during the storm accumulated all that rain,  It was running out the back it was so full we ended up bailing it out with a bucket and we decided not to waste all the fresh water so we got the boat soap out it was still the raining but not as hard, we scrubbed, washed and rinsed the dinghy down then we started on the side of the boat we scrubbed off some black marks and rinsed it down with the fresh rain water from the dinghy.  When you are cruising you have to be creative at all times.
Oh the run away dinghy story (we really do need a name) we came back from shopping and I tied off the dinghy as usual, can't blame this one on Joe, to the side of the boat, we were going back in to shore in an hour.  I came on deck and no dinghy I called down to Joe and said where's the dinghy.  He came on deck and our dinghy was gone it ran away from home.  We looked around the mooring field and see it floating about 100 yards of our stern.  Oh and it had our brand new scuba tank in it that Joe bought me for Christmas.  I look over to our friend and boat neighbors, Rick and Sandy, and see they are getting into his dinghy and I waved him down he motors over and when I asked he if he could go get our dinghy we all have a good laugh.  They were kind enough to rescue our no name transport and bring it back home.  The 3 of them had great fun making jokes all night about our run away dinghy.
We left Stuart yesterday and headed about 15 miles south to Peck Lake, It is just off the ICW we anchored here not before we ran aground hard in 6 feet of water, our draft is 6.3.  ARRRGGHHH!
Other boats anchored here saw what happened and came over in there dinghies to offer assistance.  We tried to back off we tried to go forward finally other cruisers in their dinghies got our bow line and got us turned around and after about a 45 minute ordeal we were freed up and found and anchorage in deeper water.   Me and another guy were pushing the boat from our dinghies from behind.  It was our friend Rick who finally got us pulled free.  We sure did put on a good show for all the people anchored here.
It is a short ride to the shore, which is a nature preserve, jump onto shore walk about 50 yards and we are on the beach on the Atlantic ocean.  Going to beach today with a picnic lunch and a blanket.  DOLPHIN
focus Mary focus.  TTFN