foleyisland.com

Welcome to our cruise sail blog.

This could be the story of your normal American family who had it all, a big house, great jobs, wonderful kids and we could keep riding that ‘American Dream’ forever. But, we didn’t. It would have been easy.

But easy is when you fall asleep. We took a different route.

We’ve included all our photos and blogs for a year into a single page. So, while you read this, all the good stuff is slowly buffering into your browser. If you are on broadband, and if you read this slow enough,  you can continue to scroll through and not notice that this whole paragraph was placed her so that a year of our life could adequately write to your computer while you read it.

Not quite a seamless experience, but it’s the best we could do without breaking it up (like we did before) in a bunch of chapters. And yes, we hope while you are still reading this, the rest of the log has been buffered.

Shameless, yes…but we’re glad to have you visit!

OK, job done.

The Calypso, the boat of choice for our cruise

Often, while cruising in our sailboat “Anonymous,” we had the pleasure of meeting other cruising folks. Most often they were retired. In almost every case they would remark how wonderful it was we had our children with us, and how they wish that they didn’t wait till retirement to go cruising, but did it with their own children before they grew up. We cruised “Sebatically” which is a way of saying ‘every weekend or vacation we could.’ But we got the point, we were at a point in our lives where we could do what they wish they could have done. We had the fortune of working from home, so we understood the freedom they desired. But we really couldn’t take advantage of it at the time. Both Don and Melora still had work to do, and at the time it would be too difficult to maintain a business at sea.

The Foley Family on the Anonymous, pre-cruise days (spring 2002)

As a cruising family, we thought it would be a goal ’somewhere down the road’ to sell off our stuff and sail off into the sunset. And if we were going to do it,  we had a deadline. We wanted to head off before our girls went into high school. But we also needed to to it when we could be in solid communication with the world. We still needed to work, after all. Melora and Don have rotated their positions as major ‘breadwinner’ through the years and it was Melora’s time to take a break. This time, however, would include the new task of homeschooling.

As the girls grew older, cell communications became better. In a ‘perfect storm’ they met at the last possible year. We could do broadband cellular communication just as the girls were finishing middle school. We had to go. We’ve been working to this moment for a long time. We had no debt, our savings could cover us for the year if needed it without touching our reserves. If there was one thing we knew, it was that we couldn’t spend the rest of our lives saying “I wish we would have…” We had no choice. The time was now. Fish or cut bait.

We decided to fish.

This was not, by any means, an impulsive decision. We had worked towards it for years hoping it would work out. We often joked that, if we couldn’t go cruising at least we would have no financial worries and some cash to spend. Fortunately, it worked out.

The Anonymous, an Oceanis 350 and a great boat.

The Anonymous was a great sailboat, but only had two staterooms. The Calypso was a catamaran and would have a separate cabin for each of the girls and a full sized queen in the main stateroom. Size matters when it comes to sailboats and you have two kids, a wife and husband and a dog and cat.

In 2004, we sold our Beneteau “Anonymous” on which we’ve cruised the southern coast, and bought an ocean-going catamaran. Our dream boat. Little did we know, back in 1996 we were actually touring the factory floor in Maryland when our boat was on the line.

Below: Calypso where we found her on the hard. Her specs were everything we wanted. Don asked his nephew Kevin to check her out, and then flew up from Atlanta to Baltimore to confirm. The boat looked good, and the surveyor said she was sound. The adventure would begin from here. But, at the moment, it was fall and winter was setting in. In the spring Don would would return and move her to a marina that was a favorite of ours when we sailed these waters years ago.

How are new home looked, at first glance

In the spring we took her out for a “shakedown” cruise. The marina dropped her back in the water and we sailed her in the local waters checking out the systems. Everything looked good. We did pull out the existing head and replaced it with a composting unit that had good reviews. More about that later. Meanwhile, we had a great time on our shakedown.

In the water at Green Cove Springs

Mom and Rugg, stern view

Morning coffee at our ‘old’ marina

Ginny, scrubbing the decks

Savannah working a project on the docks

For some reason, the swans loved us

One of our trial cruises, Rugg and Ginny on watch

Hot chocolate in the morning

Keeping the boat ship shape

The boat is hauled again. We have installed the new head and have replaced any minor system problems we’ve had. It’s not a new boat, and we know that. We know every used boat has issues. But now this ship is ready to sail.

Savannah, Destin and Ginny

In the meantime, we also drive down to Virginia Beach to visit cousin Destin (above) , who is heading off on his first tour of Iraq. This would be early in the ‘war’.’ He would continue to do three tours, two in Iraq and one of Afghanistan, but come back home. Later, down the road, we’ll cross his path again. Or at least one of our vehicles would.

So the ’shakedown’ cruise is over. Everything looks good. We decide that everything is in order and decide to push on. The house goes on the market…

But prior to this we’ve begun packing all our stuff in storage containers on shelves in the basement. In all, we will have bought 175 plastic storage boxes. We filled them all.

Our house, a nice place to bring up the girls, but it was time to go.

And it didn’t take long. Fortunately we sold the house before the market head south, at the time it was the highest sale price on the street. Those days wouldn’t last long.

This wasn’t a boring house. It had wonderful gardens that we built from the ground up (see Garden blog), had 20 foot ceilings and also a kick-ass 10′ home theater (screen measured in feet, not inches) but still, it’s suburbia and suburbia gets stale. We were also about five hours from the beach, and at any given time, our sailboat, the Anonymous, was between five and ten hours away, depending on where she was docked at the moment. We knew after our cruise we would want to settle down by the ocean. [and we did, we walk on the beach every morning and visit the beach every night]

Our West Garden in Spring.

The gardens would involve building walls from 22,000 lbs of Tennessee field stone. What was once a brown mud scab of earth, we turned into a wonderful garden.

The main garden, we had five gardens in all.

So we set out. It wasn’t hard to choose where to begin from. Although we were Floridians, we had cruised the waters of the Chesapeake bay for many years. It would be Fall when we set out, and once we found the boat we wanted on the Bay, we knew if it would be in Maryland that would be our jumping off point. Everything lined up.

We hired movers to help out, and we put all our stuff in two storage units down the road. Our boat called us.

The big jump

The Calypso was waiting for us when we got to Maryland. We hired someone to put the name on the side of the boat before we arrived. Shortly after buying the boat we made a long list of possible names, and when Calypso came up, I downloaded the John Denver song and played it for the family. That closed the deal. The song matched our goal for a journey of education and enlightenment.

“Calypso” on the stern

Our official mailing address now was a mail service called St. Brendan’s Isle in Florida, where we registered and were now officially Florida residents. All our mail would be sent there and every week or two we’d have it shipped to our next port of call. The system worked great. For insurance we signed up for Blue Cross and Blue Shield, who had a ‘traveler’ plan that allowed us to go to any doctor in any state.

After arriving at the Solomons we refit the boat and provisioned, this took about a week. Most of the systems were in good operating order. The biggest task was replacing the head. We decided to try using an AirHead composting toilet. We grew wary of trying to find pumpout stations in the Anonymous, and with a crew of four we usually had to pump out every-other day. So we ripped out the standard head and replaced it with the AirHead.

With the boat provisioned and everything set, we set sail out of Solomon’s Island and head north east, our first anchorage would be across the Chesapeake Bay somewhere on the Choptank River. Shortly after we left our marina Don got some revisions on a cover he was doing for Discover Magazine, so in the middle of the Bay, far from anywhere, he would make and post his revisions with Melora at the helm. The new cellular/computer communications setup was given it’s first real-world challenge, and it worked perfectly. This would allow Don to keep working on the trip.

Our first anchorage on the Little Choptank River.

By late afternoon the winds were kicking up as we entered the Choptank River. A half-dozen boats were already at anchor at the mouth of the Little Choptank, but they were still pretty exposed to the chop from the wind. Their drafts wouldn’t allow them to go any further up the river. The good ship Calypso glided by them and with its 18? draft continued up the river for another mile to a wonderful protected little lagoon. Our first anchorage in about 3 feet of water was a delight. Like we would often do, we found a public ramp on our chart and anchored near it. This would make walking the dog easy, with a good place to land and public property to walk on. To get to shore we used our 10? Avon RIB (rigid inflatable boat) with a small outboard motor. This would be our transportation workhorse for the entire trip.

Rugg heading in on his first anchorage. He loved the dinghy and had no problem jumping in and out.

In the morning we head out. We put the boat on remote control and enjoyed coffee sitting on the foredeck with the whole family. Our next destination would be Annapolis. With the wind perfect, we set sail and head north.

Our first morning underway. On the Choptank we put the boat on remote control and slowly worked our way downriver.

Jana, the art director of Scientific American had a boyfriend with a house on the water with a nice dock. His Hinkley was out being repaired and they kindly offered us some dockspace and we took them up on it. Around six we fell of the Bay and head up river to his house.

Melora using Bill’s Kayak.

We had a fantastic time a Bill’s place and they offered for us to stay a second night and we quickly took them up on it.

Calypso at Bill’s Dock.

Our next run was from Annapolis to Rock Hall, just a little up the and across the bay. It was a windy day, and we sailed under one reef in the sails, we cruised into Rock Hall and a marina called the Sailing Emporium, one of our favorite stops on the trip.

A great shot by Melora

Rock Hall is a small fishing village that most likely is on the edge of being discovered, we hope it won’t be ruined by development. The marina had bikes for us to use, so we’d ride into town for provisions and run the dinghy to waterfront restaurants. A great place. We stayed for several days. We decided the the AirHead couldn’t keep up with 4 people, so we ordered a LectraSans waste treatment system and an electric head. They showed up the next day and Don installed them. A cell phone that went for a swim was also shipped to us during this layover. Also, at Rock Hall Melora, who had previously given notice from her marketing job, had her last official day. Her laptop and cell phone were backed up and shipped out and the girls homeschooling would begin.

Fisherman statue at the Sailing Emporium.

We used Calvert for our home schooling. They bundled everything the girls would need into a package. All the books, CDs, even paper and colored pencils. It cost about $750 for each bundle, but we considered it well worth the cost.

With fresh provisions, a new cell phone and a new head, we set out for Still Creek Pond, a little up the bay, where we’d pick up my nephew Kenny, who would spend a few days with us as we worked our way to Cape May.

Still Creek Pond

We took the Calypso up Still Creek Pond as far as we could, and then Don ran the Dinghy a couple miles further to pick up Kenny and to visit shortly with his sister Dee Dee and husband Jim. Back at the boat the kids all jumped off the boat and went for a swim.

Kenny watching a movie with the girls.

After a swim the three went forward and watched a movie. DVD movies and TV series often provided relaxing entertainment after a day our on the water. On some occasions we’d swap DVDs with other boaters.

After pulling anchor on Still Creek we continued our way north to the C&D canal, which connects the Chesapeake with the Delaware Bay. Years ago the removed the locks, so the current can be swift. The best thing to do is to plan your arrival so the current works with you. We nailed it, and made our way through the canal in a couple hours with the tide going slack when we were in the center, so we pretty much were pulled in and then pushed out. Going against the current the entire way could double the length of the trip.

Melora at the helm going through the C&D canal.

Once we exited the canal we worked our way to an anchorage at St. Augustine Beach in Delaware, where there was a public boat ramp. It looked perfect, as it was sheltered by a long stone breakwater. We discovered later that night that the breakwater went underwater at high tide, and with a strong south wind we had quite a bumpy night. On our next stay we’d anchor further north of the ramp and closer to the small island and do just fine. Lessons learned.

It was a great anchorage, nuke plant in the background.

The next day sail was incredible. With full sails up in 15-20 knot east winds we blasted down the Bay, stopping only once for lunch at a desolate seashore in New Jersey (who would of guessed) to walk the dog. We ran the whole day under sail and made it through the canal and to Cape May before sunset. A big storm was coming (hurricane Ian?) and we wanted to tuck in somewhere. We stayed at Utsch’s marina. Hands down the best bathrooms on the trip.

Cape May

The marina is a 20-minute walk from downtown Cape May, but that was fine, it gave us lots of exercise. At least three times a day we tried to get off the boat and go for a long walk. The marina is next to a great restaurant which had a ‘diner’ side that had a fantastic breakfast menu. We stayed her for five days. The storm was pretty intense, but we had great shelter. At the end of our stay, the design director from Discover brought his family down and we went for a sail for the day.

A classic Cape May victorian.

Of course with Cape May, it’s all about the houses. We never tired ofstrolling through townand looking at all the restored victorians. We put Kenny on a ferry that hauled him to Lewes Delaware, where my sister picked him up.

Lewes

When the seas settled down, we head back out again. This time we’d be crossing the Delaware Bay to Lewes, a favorite town of mine from childhood vacations. The seas were swelling at the mouth of the bay, with an outgoing tide running into a south wind. With six foot swells it wasn’t long before we dropped sails, cranked on the diesel and quickly pushed ourselves to Lewes. The town was just as I had remembered it.

The town dock, Don had this picture in his head from the first day we began to plan this trip.

Lewes is a great town. Good food, nice people, controlled development. We walked all over the place. The town dock is a ‘first come, first served’ place where you go to city hall and pay for your stay. I think it was a buck a foot. Such a deal. We spent one night here.

A WWII era sub-watching tower.

During World War II, german submarines wreaked havoc on coastal shiping in this area, to help defend against them a series of watch towers were built along the shore. Two towers could triangulate the position of a sub so aircraft could bomb them.

Bower’s Beach

The next morning we head out again, this time going north. The winds and tide weren’t going to give us the powerful run we had going down the bay, so in the afternoon we tucked into an inlet at Bowers Beach. At first we went to the left fork of the inlet, but the current was powerful and the power lines that crossed weren’t on our chart, so we didn’t know how low they were. Instead we fell back and went up the fork to the north. The water was incredibly shallow and you could tell the people on shore were waiting for us to go aground, some even shouting warnings. But we ghosted through over 2? of water and made our way to a cool little sheltered lagoon where we spent the night.

Sunset at Bower’s Beach

Our daily ritual after dropping anchor was to run our solar shower bag up on a halyard on the foredeck. Every morning we’d place a full bag on the coach roof of the cabin and by the end of the day it was pretty warm. The six gallon bag would give us just enough water for the four of us to get a shower. It was a refreshing way to end the day. Our other tradition was to have anchor down at four o’clock so we’d have time for a walk and to cook dinner before it got dark.

Mom and Rugg head back after a morning walk.

After a peaceful night we head out again, once again ghosting over the shallows for a couple miles, then turning north to head back to St. Augustine Beach. Anchorages like that were exactly why we wanted a Gemini for this trip. She took us places that no other cruising boat could.

St. Augustine Beach (again)

The next night we put in at St. Augustine Beach, this time dropping hook further north and by the island. When the tide came up we were protected from the swell and slept well that night. In the morning we head back through the C&D. On our way we came across a sailboat that had just run out of fuel and was sitting in the middle of the channel. We threw them a line and began to tow them while Don pumped some diesel into a jerry can for them. It’s a good thing we put them under tow, a minute later a huge barge came around the bend and there was no way it could have changed its course, things could have gotten pretty ugly. They were soon underway and we followed them until we came across a fuel dock a few miles down the canal.

Helping out a boat that ran out of fuel in the canal.

After getting through the canal, we stopped at a state park in Maryland for fuel and then head to Rock Hall for the night. The next day we sailed up Spa Creek and dropped hook off Annapolis. This is the perfect sailing town and it wouldn’t be right to not spend at least one night here. Don grew up watching the boats and their crews coming in and out of the town wharf and knew he’d be doing the same one day. It was the weekend, so the party-boat crowd was in town and it wasn’t unusual to have to crawl over two or three dinghies to get to the dinghy dock, but that’s part of the gig. For moments like this we were glad we carried a 20? cable for locking up the dinghy. It would come in useful often.

Annapolis at Sunset

We did some minor provisioning and picked up Don’s sister Dee Dee, she’d join us for a couple days as we were heading back to our starting point at Solomons Island before continuing south.

St. Michaels

With Annapolis behind us we head to St. Michaels. While underway I put our AirHead up for sale on the Gemini website, and a fellow Gemini owner who was interested in them agreed to buy it. He had a dock at his house near St. Michaels and offered for us to spend the night. So our next stop was at his house, an easy day sail away. The weather was great and the sail went well, just before sundown we sailed up Broad Creek and landed at his dock. We all went out to dinner and shared stories about our various adventures. Our host, Dave, and his wife, would also be heading south soon and we’d cross paths with them again.

Thomas Point Light, just south of Annapolis

With another great day sailing, we head south to Solomons Island again, and back to Spring Cove Marina, our starting point and also where we kept a sailboat back when we lived in Virginia. It’s a wonderful marina and has a great staff. We drove Dee Dee back up to Annapolis and spent the next week re-provisioning and tweaking shipboard things that we had issues with.

Brian Jaques signs a book for the girls.

Don also installed a satellite dish on the back of the boat. The girls hit the local museum and caught a book signing by Brian Jaques, author of the Redwall series.

Ginny makes an otter friend.

With the boat in fit shape and provisions stored, we parked our cars in the back of the yard and head out, this time we’d keep the nose pointed south until we got to Key West.

Smith Island

We weren’t big fans of Smith Island, we couldn’t find a good anchorage, and when we stopped at the ‘free dock’ the locals told us we couldn’t stay there, in spite of what all the cruising guides said. Finally we had to take a slip at the only marina…owned by the mayor. We just rolled our eyes and paid the slip fee and left the next morning. Not a happy little town, kind of a gloom held over it.

Tangier Island

This is an island we’ve heard a lot about while living in Virginia, but never visited. It was a short distance from Smith Island, so we got in early. We got a slip at Parks Marina, I think it was $5 a night. What a bargain. We stayed here for two days and completely enjoyed the place and the hospitality of the residents, who spoke an interesting old-english dialect. We walked the entire island and feasted on their food. The character of the town changed the second the last ferry boat of the day hauled off the tourists. All the locals came out in their golf carts and stood at the street near their houses and talked. Milton Parks, who owns the marina, shared his life story with us and was a treasure to spend time with. He’s the only marina owner who offered us free dockage if only we’d stay for another day!

Images from Tangier Island

And finally, Milton Parks on his fishing boat.

Our next destination would be Deltaville for a night and then onto Hampton Roads. Don had just landed a huge 3-page illustration for WIRED and needed to find a good marina for a couple weeks to focus on the project. We found one at Salt Pond with great rates ($5 a foot for the month, last time we’d see a rate like that). We could have tried to make Hampton in a day, but the wind was up and a good chop was still on the Bay. The reason we stayed an extra day at Tangier was because a storm had moved through. We’re fair-weather sailors, have no doubt. When we see a big blow coming we run for cover. That’s one of the luxuries of being a coastal cruiser.

Deltaville, VA

There’s a reallllly long underwarter bar at the mouth of the Plankatank River, right off of Stove Point, but once you make it around, there’s a great deep water anchorage with great coverage in any kind of weather. There’s also a marine on the west side that has a dinghy dock for $5 a day. While all the other cruises heading in for the night continued the mile-long drop to the south to stay in the channel, we slid over the bar with 3 feet underneath us and had dropped anchor and were winding down for the day when the other boats entered the harbor.

We dinghied ashore, put the $5 in the honor box (the marina was closed) walked the dog and then called a cab to take us to Deltaville for dinner. $10 each way. Well worth the expense.

Looking for indian arrowheads on”Arrowhead Beach”

I’m not exactly sure where our lunch stop was the next day. The chart showed a deep inlet at the mouth of a river on what looked like a marsh island. It was pretty deserted, but as we dropped anchor we saw a little shack down the beach a bit. We went ashore to walk the dog (yes, we always picked up after him) and strech our legs. Looking at a chart now, I think the body of water behind this island was called Winter Harbor.

A few minutes later two men came walking down the beach, I was sure they were going to tell us we were tresspassing. But instead the introduced themselves and said that they rented the shack once a year. Then they told us a highlight of the beach was, for some reason, there was a preponderance of arrowheads. We searched for a while in the areas they showed us and found a few. Very cool.

We had lunch and pulled anchor and head to Hampton and the Salt Pond.

Melora checking the charts off Hampton Roads

Navigation of the Chesapeake Bay is pretty simple. In clear weather you can usually see both shores, only once or twice were we at a point in the center where we couldn’t see either shore. There are also light-houses all over the place, as well as marked bouys, it would be hard to get lost. Although we had 3 GPS systems aboard, usually we used these to keep track of our speed and distance to our next anchorage. On far runs we would set up a waypoint and then set the autopilot to follow the track. The autopilot was on pretty much all the time in open water. On restricted waterways, like much of the ICW, we’d have to be at the help. But even with the autopilot on, that doesn’t mean you can go for a nap. The crew-on-watch stayed in the cockpit, with a few exceptions.

We preferred to keep track of where we were on an old-fashioned paper chart. If in doubt, we could check the lat/lon on the GPS to the lat/lon on the chart. The GPS was so accurate, that if we needed to, we could tuck into most any anchorage at night without worry. But since we dropped hook at four (OK, sometimes five) each day, we didn’t have to worry about it. We used three key charts on this trip. One of the Chesapeake, one of the Delaware and a chart book that covered the ICW from Virginia to Florida. We also had a handful of guide books that would help with finding marinas and good anchorages. The internet was also useful, we usually checked out a marina online before calling ahead for reservations. While this is commonplace these days, on this trip having broadband wireless communications at sea was less than a year old, and one of the things that allowed the trip to take place at all.

Salt Pond, Hampton Roads, VA

We pulled into our slip at Salt Pond and a member of the marina staff was waiting for us, helped with the lines and told us about the facilities. It was a great marina. New floating concrete docks, a very nice nautical restaurant right next to us and clean facilities. It wasn’t particularly close to anything, but that would be fine. When in the Solomons we drove one of our cars down and left it. More on cars later.

Melora giving Rugg a bath at the SP Marina

Don dove into his project for WIRED and the girls went off and explored. We would stay for just over a week, but because of the cheap monthly rates, we booked the slip for the whole month. It was now early October and we wanted to keep moving south, but we’d soon be in North Carolina, which, at the time, was the only state on the East Coast that didn’t offer the broadband wireless service he needed. Before they head out, this projected needed to be 100% done, because in a couple days they’d be crossing into North Carolina.

Ginny photographing a turtle at the Virginia Beach Aquarium

The overall experience was great and we’d be happy to stay the the Salt Pond Marina again.

Data Communications

The resulting file for WIRED was 270mbs, so we drove to a Starbucks to use Don’s T-Mobile WiFi service. The original plan was to have four internet connection options. Primary was the cell phone with broadband access (worked great and was how most of the work was done), second was a paid T-mobile account (Hampton Roads was the only time we’d use it) third was a Net-Zero dial-up account if we needed to plug-in somewhere (never used it) and third was WiFi Poaching (very handy, but unpredictable, used it mostly to check e-mail while in North Carolina and we didn’t have broadband access). Of course, for voice, we had cell phones. We chose the Samsung 650 model for two reasons. #1 is that it could be powered AND have a data hookup at the same time. This would be important, as we’d be online for hours at a time. #2 was that it allowed for an external antenna connection. We bought a magnet-based trucker antenna with a 10? cable that fit the phone, and when in far-off spots we’d put it topside. It worked great. Witih the exception of N.C. we always had internet and phone access. We had 650s aboard, one for data only, one for Don’s business and then the family phone. When Don’s laptop was online with his phone connection, he could share the connection via WiFi to the other shipboard laptops (everyone had their own laptop). It still is amazing to us how well this system worked.

Norfolk and the ICW

We have had enough experience with sounds to know that outgoing tides and incoming winds can create some serious vertical and very square swells. But looking at the charts, once we left our marina, the only place would could put in for the night would be at the top of the Dismal Swamp Canal. So, in nice clear weather we head out. How bad could it be, besides, unlike some sounds, this one was only a few miles across. Right. We took a beating like we’ve never taken a beating before. The boat handled it just fine, but the crew got smacked around good. Not only the crew, unfortunately the camera Don had been using most of this trip and all of our travels on the Anonymous, got loose and flew across the cabin. Even though it was ‘ruggidized’ it didn’t stand a chance. While it took about an hour to make it across the sound, it felt like three or four. The biggest problem was that the wavelength was so short that we couldn’t just ‘roll’ over them, we bit into them, tried to keep from racing down them and burying the foredeck and once we thought we had a rhythm going, the confused waters would change their patterns. Next time we cross it, we’ll definitely wait for slack tide, no matter what. But we survived and most of the crew slept as Don worked the boat through the Elizabeth River and to the locks of the Dismal Swamp. No photos for this segment!

The Dismal Swamp

We thought we had missed the last lock opening for the day and were prepared to tie off to some piles on the side of the canal and wait for the morning opening. But the lockmaster saw us out there and took pity and opened up the lock and let us and one more late straggler through. We ran our lines loosely through the cleats on top and back down again. With a crew member taking a forward and aft line they would pull as the water in the locks slowly raised, thus keeping us snug as the swirling waters from the inlet valves filled the lock chamber. Once on top we hopped off and talked with the lockmaster.

The lockmaster was a fun guy who shared his stories with us, as well as coffee and doughnuts.

He was a great guy who showed up his ‘conch garden’ filled with conch shells-turned-into-horns. Cruisers from the islands brought them back for him to add to his garden. He invited us over for breakfast and coffee in the morning and then went about the task of opening the canal side of the lock to let us move forward.

Messing around in the Conch Garden

The sun was going down, but fortunately he gave us permission to use the dock usually reserved for the park services’ tour boat. We tied up and settled in for a well deserved rest. The only excitement for the night was when Rugg saw some ducks near the bow of the boat. The water was thick with duckweed and looked like solid ground. Splash. While it was the first time he jumped off the Calypso, it wasn’t the first time he jumped off one of our boats to go after a duck.

We traveled in a line of boats down the canal, sometimes chattering on the radio.

We had coffee and donuts in the morning and then head out for the day. We were told that it would take the entire day to get through the canal (17 miles?) and that if all went well we’d make Elizabeth City just before nightfall. There are two ways to go down the ICW from Norfolk, one is to take the modern dredged channel that we passed before heading to the locks, or you can take the Dismal Swamp Canal, surveyed by George Washington and certainly a national treasure. One good reason to go is also that it’s very possible that future funding will be cut for this national park, and it will be abandoned. Not every boat can go down the canal, it’s shallow by most standards (5 feet?) and narrow, the overhanging trees you have to work around could be a challenge for some boats.

Ginny at the helm in the canal.

Halfway down the canal is a rest stop on I-17 that shares it’s facilities and a dock with travelers on the canal. We pulled over here to walk the dog. Nice place. We didn’t stay long, and dock space was limited.

When we reached the end of the Dismal Swamp we had to wait for an opening. We tied up to a bulkhead and walked the dog. Back aboard we noticed a dangerous log in the water and Don went to move it to the side for an approaching boat, using the dinghy. Melora, meanwhile, was talking to a fellow cruiser ashore. Rugg didn’t take kindly to being the only person on the boat, and sure enough….splash. He swam to the back of the boat and we helped him climb up one of the two sets of stairs we have aft. Silly dog.

Elizabeth City

Sun was setting as we cruised into Elizabeth City. We were welcomed by a couple gentlemen bearing gifts for the girls. It’s a tradition for a welcome committee to bring roses to the cruising women stopping at their city. Dockage was free and we head into town for the night. What a great place and what wonderful people. We would have liked to stay for a second night, but we were now in North Carolina and didn’t have communications. We had this grand plan of how we would get through the state in five days and we needed to stick to it. I had a deadline with Harcourt School Publishers with four illustrations in less than a week. The idea was that I’d finish them during our ‘communications blackout’ and post them on the other side. We couldn’t have known it would be almost a month before we’d leave the state.

The Sea Nettle underway on the Alligator River.

The next morning we head down river and into the Alligator River, where we would fuel up and then start looking for an anchorage for the night. At dusk we ran across our friends from Maryland who bought the AirHead, they were dropping hook for the night, but we needed to go further up river to a boat ramp we saw on our charts. We made arrangements with the crew of the Sea Nettle to meet them in Belhaven, N. C. the next night.

We found a nice protected anchorage and run Rugg ashore through an interesting, if not a little spooky stream that twisted through a swamp for a mile or so. Back at the boat we put a stern anchor out to keep the boat facing the same direction and pointed the satellite dish to the southwest and watched a Gator football game, the primary reason for us to install the dish. It worked great. Usually we’d watch TV at a marina, but if the conditions were right, watching at anchor wasn’t a problem, you just needed to figure out a way to not swing at anchor.

Belhaven, NC

With daybreak we head to Belhaven. We lucked into a slip at the River Forest Marina and our friends showed up shortly afterwards. The marina had golf carts for the slipholders to use, so we ran into town and did some minor provisioning. Then, as a surprise, Don booked Melora a room at the River Forest Hotel, which was associated with the marina. It was a grand old plantation-style house. Don had a long night of work ahead and wanted to give her a well-deserved break. The two Gemini crews got together for dinner aboard the Sea Nettle for dinner and then Melora went to her room and the girls watched West Wing on Dave’s boat (he invented Follow-me-TV for cruising boats to have satellite dishes on their boats) and Don got to work. For the first time on the cruise, Ansel cat got off the boat and explored the docks. With the girls back aboard we settled in for the night, and for breakfast ate at the hotel with mom.

The weather was great, and soon we were in Pamlico sound. The sails were up and we were cruising along nicely. The girls were in their cabins, Mom spent the day reading forward and Don was completely enjoying the days sail, after being restricted to rivers for several days. We were heading to Oriental, N.C. and were on-track with our schedule.

And that’s when things began to get interesting and a major bump in the road would occur.

The best laid plans of mice and men…

About an hour before making port in Oriental, the Calypso was cruising south on a gray but comfortable day. Most of the crew was down below snuggled up with a book. Don was in the cockpit enjoying the day and playing with the sails. Tightening up the jibsheet ith the starboard winch drum he felt a sharp pain in his side. It went away for a few minutes, and then it began again. Soon he found himself in considerable pain and went forward and dropped the sails and called to Melora to help out. The pain continued and grew as they found a spot in the anchorage off Oriental, they dropped hook and went ashore, but soon Don was back at the boat to lay down. The girls had dinner and brought back a sandwich. The sun went down and Don was out of commission, but figured it was something like a bowel obstruction and it would clear. Savannah got out the cruiser’s medical book and gave a diognosis of appendicitis, but we ruled that out. The pain was too wide spread and there wasn’t any vomiting.

The next morning, after a sleepless night for Don, they girls pulled up the anchor and head for Beaufort. We weren’t certain of what was going on, but we new there wasn’t a hospital around to take Don to if we needed to, but there was one down the sound in Beaufort. By the time we got to the town, Don couldn’t move from the bed and the girls brought the boat in by themselves and tied her off. At midnight Don couldn’t take the pain anymore and told Melora he didn’t think he’d survive the night. The ambulance crew had some fire fighters help remove Don from the boat, he couldn’t stand or walk, and in a few minutes he was in the county hospital in Morehead City, next to Beaufort. Doctor Brady Way was called in and confirmed the MRI readings, the appendix had not burst, but had leaked all over and Don had a major infection roaring through his abdomen. In a few hours he’d be in surgery, and the resulting recovery would take almost a week in the hospital and almost two weeks before he’d be strong enough to sail again. The doctor later told Don that if he hadn’t come to the hospital he would have been dead within a day. Yikes.

Melora’s parents immediately drove in from Rome GA and helped out with the girls while Melora took over as Don’s patient-advocate. The girls would go to Rome while Don recovered in the hospital.

So, no pictures from this chapter. None were taken. But, you got a map! We’d go back to Georgia for Halloween in our old neighborhood and then to Rome for more recovery time. It would be the second week of November before the doctor gave done permission to get underway again.

Note to cruisers. We signed on with Blue Cross Blue Shield before we left. We made sure we had a “traveler” policy, which was indicated on our cards with a small suitcase. While I did end up doing some haggling about what I thought BCBS was trying to work their way out of, in the end, once I paid my deductible, they paid the rest, as it should be. So, I paid out $2,000 for a $17,000 hospital bill. So, I’m currently a fan of insurance, best money I ever spent. The community was wary of cruising sailors, which is kind of understandable (as would any transient might pose a payment issue) . But while I wasn’t able to communicate well, my wife let them know WE ARE COVERED. We received the best of care.

Despite the illness, in hindsight we did have some good times in Beaufort and Morehead City. We had our favorite coffee house we hung out (free-WiFi) and the marina staff, although swamped with a tuna-fishing tournament, bent over backwards in letting us keep a prime t-head slip through the whole event. While Don recovered in Rome he caught up on some of the work he fell behind on, and a fellow illustrator helped him out on a couple projects.

Sunset off Swansbourgh, our first night back out again.

It didn’t take much to get back into the swing of things. The only slip up was on anchoring. We’re proud of our anchoring techniques, but on the deep, hard, swift waters off Swansbourgh we should have put out a killet on our anchor and put out all of our chain. But we didn’t. Fortunately, no harm came of it, though the next morning we were about 200 feet from where we anchored. What should have clued us in was watching another boat fail to anchor three times before leaving. This would be the only time on our trip that we dragged at anchor.

We head south again towards SouthPort, but we’d make one stop along the way. The log notes called the anchorage “New River” for lack of anything else. It was a shallow anchorage, well covered, but thin. A small dredge island was to our north, and in middle of the night we swung around enough that our rudder was hitting the ground. Don hauled it up and we continued the swing. Mostly it was just a place to get some rest. It was nice having small dredge island to walk the dog without worrying about being on somebody’s property. We put in with two other boats that night.

Rugg enjoying boat life

Routines

Some of the constantly new environments found in cruising, we found, could be set off by staying to our routines. We’d drop the anchor, back it down (to set it) and double check that all the factors that applied when we picked the anchorage on a chart earlier in the day, still applied. The weather, wind and tide were all key to our anchor set. Tide charts and radio reports were our key source of information. Also, the charts would indicate what kind of bottom you had. Sometimes if a set didn’t hold, you’d look at your anchor on the second try to confirm you bottom. Being a shallow draft boat with all anchor rode, we had no problem with our main 35 lb CQR anchor. We could lay down 50 feet of that most anywhere in a shallow area and take any kind of blow. That was another nice thing of having a crazy-shallow draft boat, ’scope’ was never an issue.

Our stern rail (above Rugg) from the left. Blue jugs are fresh water, the outside trash can next to it, then a spare propane tank and then our second BIG cooler. Above it is our outside grill. In front of the water jugs is our folding fresh water line-on-a-reel, which we use when we pull into port to hook up to fresh water. To the far left, above the jugs, is our satellite dish. We really nailed living aboard. It was our home.

Then we’d shower and cook dinner. Usually we fired up something on the grill. On days right after we had provisioned we’d have fresh steaks or chicken. Then we’d have some packaged chicken and ham. In addition to this we’d have fresh veggies on the early days and slowly revert to canned veggies. Starches were easy, we often had flavored rice or pasta of some nature. Carbs weren’t hard to burn off in the course of a given day.

To store all this we had our fridge in the cabin, which had a small freezer and a few feet of fridge space. Dairy products and meats took the priority here. On the back of the boat we had a huge, efficient igloo cooler which held everything else and we usually kept cook with blocks of ice during our re-provisioning. Orange juice on the bottom, bags of salad on top and everything else in-between. We usually provisioned for a week for fresh goods, and kept enough in our dry goods storage so we could go several weeks.

So, our anchor would be set, the anchor light would go on and we’d run the dog ashore. And we’d string up the shower if needed. By this point the days were getting shorter and colder and the showers would be fewer or focused on the next marina. If we were in a town, we’d all go and stretch our legs and see the sights. If we were in the middle of no-where, usually Don and Rugg would go ashore while Melora would start on dinner.

At night we’d pull out a TV DVD series we’d be watching. At this point, I think it was the Waltons. We’d watch one show and call it a night. Melora would go forward to the main cabin and the girls off to their own. Don would stay up for an hour or two working. Before bed time he’d turn up the radio so Melora could hear it and wake her up (if she wasn’t reading) and tell her that he was walking the dog and he’d be on channel 16. He’d take the handheld VHF radio, turn on the lights to the dinghy and Rugg would jump aboard and they’d go ashore. Once back, Don would check the weather again and adjust the anchor set if needed, and head to bed.

In the morning, the first thing the first adult away would do is to make coffee. We ground fresh coffee (starbucks) and boiled water. We’d use a french press to make the coffee and then the adults would sit out on the cockpit seats and watch the rest of sunrise…usually in some really cool place that we didn’t focus on too much when we slid in the day before. Rugg would get his walk and then we’d have breakfast.

We’d look at the chart and figure out the game plan for the day. Where would we stop for lunch? Was there a boat ramp? If we made 50 miles (our usually daily maximum) where would we stop for the day? Would we need water? Fuel? Showers? Provisions? Sometimes we’d do a ‘hit and run’ where we just dropped anchor. Other times we’d stop at a marina for the night to enjoy a shower and tank up on water. Other times we’d stop for a couple nights, move the car, re-provision and take care of any boat issue that needed resolving.

We’d program in our waypoints on the ICW, not so much for navigation, but because it would tell us at our given speed, how long it would take to reach that point. On the ICW it’s kind of hard to get lost. With the chart book flipped to the proper page, the waypoints loaded and the dog walked (sometimes we had breakfast underway) we’d head out. You find that you tend to travel in ‘packs’ and it wasn’t unusual on the ICW (if this wasn’t understood, it’s the IntraCoastal Waterway) for us to get to know a few ‘packs’ while we traveled. We often talked on the radio and would meet up after dropping anchor.

Our lunchtime routine was to try to find a place to stop and walk the dog and have lunch. We usually had lunch on the boat because going ashore would take too much time. Sometimes a ramp wasn’t available at lunch, maybe earlier, maybe slightly later. So Melora would take the helm, Don would configure the lines on the dinghy and call Rugg on, he’d drop off his control line and head to some place that looked good. After the business was done, he’d catch back up with the boat, hook on the control line, drop back and snug in. The Calypso never lost pace and we’d continue down the line. If we saw a drawbridge ahead, regardless of where we were, we’d od the same. While the Calypso waited for an opening we’d be catching back up, sometimes on the other side of the bridge.

Once we were hailed by a fellow boat behind us during the day to tell us how much they admired the skill we had in this little dance. We did have it down to a science and if we saw an opportunity to get Rugg ashore, we’d take it.

So, general lack of photos here. Don’s camera is dead and he still isn’t big on picking up and using Melora’s fancy new Nikon digital camera. This would slowly change and at Christmas he’d get a new waterproof camera.

Southport, NC

Almost nothing remarkable here. We do the Cape Fear thing and dance among cargo and fuel ships. It’s getting cold and we put in at an unremarkable marina in Southport for the night. They do have WiFi, which is good. At this point not a lot of marinas have this, and Don needs it to upload his work. It costs $5 a day to use the Wifi, but the slip costs $60 and…well, such is life. We fuel up and re-water, I believe we catch a Gator game and then the next day we push on.

Melora, at the helm. Again. Man, she’s good at this.

Myrtle Beach, SC
We’re heading into South Carolina now, after waiting for half a day so a ‘pontoon’ bridge can move, we head continue south into South Carolina and Myrtle Beach. Don has some memories of Myrtle Beach. His grandmom lived in Wilmington N.C. and they’d come down here when they visited. It’s bizarre now, the strip is covered with concrete and neon. The waterways still look great, though. Somehow escaping the rampant destruction of over-development. It’s like living in two separate worlds. We take a marina because we need to water, fuel, provision and move the car. Because of our little stay in Beaufort, it’s now cold. On our first morning the metal ramps to the floating dock have frosted over, making it incredibly difficult to go up the ramp. We have our A/C on the boat and small cabin heaters to keep us warm, but it’s now below freezing at night. Yikes again.

And south we go. At the time we were told about a free dockage at Myrtle Beach, and we passed it on our way. I’ve since learned that this is no longer the case. Cruising sailors spend big bucks on their stops, and along the ICW where there is no place to anchor, free docks not only have communities where they spend money provisioning, they also have places where they spend money on fuel, laundry, restaurants, cabs…etc. Even if they aren’t over-night stops (which are great) even the ones that allow a few hours will reap the benefits. Migratory cruisers are not deadbeats.

Most are retirees or wealthy folk able to afford life on a boat and have plenty of money to spend. A few, like us, are actually working folks who don’t mind spending money for services provided. Deadbeats are out there, we’ve seen them. Generally, they don’t move much. They find a spot, drop anchor and stay until someone chases them off. That’s fine with me. They hurt the reputation of cruising sailors. They’re looking for a cheap place to live and are hardly related to sailors and cruisers, but unfortunately look much like us. Their boats, by our standards, are unkept rotting hunks of floating debris with no respect for the craft. We hope that the landslide folk understand the difference. But, as leaches on society anywhere, they’ll find the loophole and eventually screw it up for us too. Sigh. We see it all the time.

The marina on the Waccamaw River

We tuck into a marina on the Waccamaw River. In the middle of no-where, but not what we expected. A VERY clean place, modern, nice docks, great restrooms. Very, very unexpected. And very welcome. Wish we wrote down the name in our log. But, I can’t imagine there are many like it. The staff is great. We fuel up, water up and rest for the night. Perhaps not the most exciting stop we’ve had, but one we still remember on these tanic waters of the Carolinas.

Southward in the morning. These waters are usually clear of the clutter we’ve seen, and from our experience, we’ll see again in the near future. While there’s nothing to stop at and see, we like that. Open water, open rivers.

A trawler on the river in S.C. for some reason both captains of the good ship Calypso looked it it and said “if we had to go on a powerboat, that would be the one.

When we were in Cape May one of our slip-mates was a powerboater heading south. They had a daughter in South Carolina who had a condo in Georgetown and told us we should visit the place. Thus noted, when we came up to Georgetown, we plotted a course to the town center. And we as we learned, it was a good call.

Sunset at Georgetown

Granted, it was a bit of an industrial town, but the town center was all-dock and welcoming to cruisers, and there were a lot of us. We docked and walked the dog and then walked through the city. The waterfront seemed centered on cruisers and visitors, the docks actually ran off shore and small portals led to shops. Very cool. We could stay here for several days if it wasn’t for the fact that we were running behind and it was way too cool in the evenings for most of the crew. The town had a good vibe. And all the cruisers we talked with were great, and interestingly enough, they all had dogs. Dogs are the universal uniting factor between humans.

At anchor, somewhere

We love this one. We head south from Georgetown and couldn’t find anything solid to lock in on on the charts. So we dropped hook in..no place on the charts. The tides told us we’d have someplace to walk the dog, and we did. But it ended up being an oyster dredge in the middle of a swamp on the ICW that would be available for only a few hours. Not to brag, but we timed our anchoring, and departure on this very special area just fine. Rugg must have thought we we nuts, but we dropped hook in tidal inlets that would give us a small space to let him do his stuff at night, and again in the morning. Otherwise, there would have been no dry space. He didn’t care. He did his work. World’s best dog. Again, the late-night runs took on a special feel. While Don may have been “walking the dog” we were in a world that few would experience. Walking the dog took us to a place few would experience. Every moment, every second was intense. We were surrounded by swamp grass, the moon hung over us. A shallow oyster bar offered the only solid ground. Wow. We loved it. Those late night runs…Don and Rugg couldn’t get enough. They were on top of their game. Few would ever know what they experienced. And that is what this was all about.

Charleston , S.C.

We worked our way through the last drawbridge and then into the Charleston Sound. We’ve been here before. Don was part of the team for National Geographic that covered the recovery of the CSS Hunley. He was there on the barge that that worked through the details, he was there when it was raised, and he was there in the lab, on several occasions (often inside the sub) as the archaeologists did their work. His work was the first that documented, through exacting science (two years in the working) what occurred that distant night. Shortly later, his animations would follow the same course of events for the National Geographic Channel. When they sailed into these waters, they felt at home. Most cruisers were plotting their course through the harbor. Don and his crew did the same, but paused for a moment to capture the history of the moment.

At dock at City Harbor. What a cool place.

Calypso would dock at the City Marina for several days. It was a big marina, but the staff did a great job. We got our mail, free (we did tip well) shuttles to local areas and we did our best to dive into the history of the city. We spent two days here, but we could have spent a month easy. The office got us our mail, the restrooms were great. While the girls explored the city Don worked on his projects. We met the local boaters and, as usual, shared our stories. The best part of being a crusing sailor is the stories that you would hear (or tell) some great stuff.

With our kids at our side, like our travels with the Anonymous, without a pause, most cruisers would say “we wish we did the same with our kids.” In fact and largely in part because of the visits we’ve had on our previous boats, we knew this, and that was exactly why we were here.

We stayed in Charleston three days. Part of that was Don’s work, the other part was moving the car.

Another lesson and something that played part of our trip. A car? What does that have to do with cruising?

Here’s our story.

Cars and cruising

The idea was that we’d leapfrog our two cars as we drove down the coast. We’d move one forward and then when we got to it, we’d go get the other one and then move another one forward. It didn’t take long for us to find how impractical it was. It just took too long and wasn’t worth the benefit. So we left our Explorer in Hampton Roads. Melora’s nephew was serving a tour in Iraq and was based in Norfolk. When he came back back from his tour, he picked it up and drove it to Illinois to visit family before heading back out on his second tour of Iraq. It would stay in Illinois through the winter and spring and we’d pick it back up after the cruise the next summer.

So that left us with the van. We’ve done this before with the Annonymous, after a few days of sailing, Don would grab a bus and go get the van. The great thing about I-95 is that it travels the coastline and you can usually get a direct run from port to port. We had the van loaded down with extra supplies in the car top carrier, stuff like dog-food, kitty litter and winter coats, so it also gave us some storage space. But still, shuttling around to get it took time, which usually meant another day at a marine, which usually cost from $50 to $70 a night. In hind site we should have put both cars in storage and used the money we’d save on cabs. Later in the cruise we’d drop off the van at Don’s brothers house and do exactly that.

We were popular among other cruisers though, and would help them with provision and supply runs. When were at a marina for a week or a month, we will admit it was nice having a car to get around. While Don worked the girls could go explore. Later we’d have folding bikes and use them to explore our surroundings.

A small cruise ship is grounded.

On our run between Charleston and Hilton Head we came across a small excursion cruise ship that runs betwen Savannah and Charleston. The area was poorly marked and shoaly. He left the channel and ran aground. We found the channel and radioed him with the depth so when he got free he knew where the deep water was.

Hilton Head

Dan the fireman was a guy Don often communicated with via an online sailing forum. He lived in Hilton Head and gave us some instructions on local anchorages. When we cruised into Hilton Head, the wind direction and the low tide made the anchorage impractical, so we head to his marina to put in for the night. We talked with Dan for a while and met his fiance. A year later he’d be in our neck of the woods looking at boats and we’d let him use the Calypso as a hotel room.

We at at the marina restaurant and Melora and Don hit the marina hot tub while the girls watched a movie. A storm moved through the area that night and we were glad we weren’t in the exposed anchorage.

The next day we stopped at Beaufort S.C. and used their free dock to visit the town and have a fantastic lunch at a waterside restaurant. If you’re a die-hard cruiser, you may have noticed we eat out a lot. That was part of the plan. This wasn’t a camping trip. While we ate most of our meals aboard, we often tried to enjoy the local establishments.

With lunch done we head to Savannah (Thunderbolt, actually) to put in for the night. We met a great cruising couple there, we’d visit with them again in Key West and still stay in touch. A photographer Don and Melora knew from their Gainesville days lived in Savannah and he came by for a visit. When we kept a boat down the coast a bit he came out with us for a sail a couple years earlier, and it was good to see him again.

We did some minor provisioning and boat repair/cleaning and head out the next morning.

Golden Isles Golden Retriever…Rugg

Cattle Pen Creek

Off of St. Catherine island, a pretty deserted area on the Georgia coast, we found a small protected creek on the map and worked to that. A big storm was going to hit us that night and we wanted to get out of the open marshes. The creek was perfect. We put out two anchors (couldn’t use too much chain the the creek or we’d hit the sides) with two killets (chain weights that hold the chain horizontal) and tucked in for the storm. We played cards and watched some more Waltons as the storm lashed around us. We were far up a winding creek and escaped the brunt of the storm. For a few hours a tugboat came off the ICW and dropped it’s anchor about half a mile from us. The big tide swings in Georgia waters make for some deep cuts in these little marsh creeks.

With the dog “walked” on the only twenty square feet of oyster dredge available, we head to Brunswick. We were now sailing the in “Golden Isles” region of Georgia, our former sailing grounds. For several years we kept the Anonymous in Brunswick and we loved the area. We pulled into the Brunswick Landing, our former marina, for a couple night stay. It was Thanksgiving and we cooked up a feast. Later, the crew of a huge sailboat that had been there years earlier when we docked there, invited us aboard for a tour of the unique vessel. They bought it at an auction for an incredible price. The massive ship even had a transom that lowered for a helicopter on pontoons (that didn’t come with the boat) to be stored.

With Thanksgiving over, we sailed to one of our favorite places in the world, Cumberland Island, and spent the night. We wanted to get to south Florida for Christmas, and the nights were cold and days rainy, or we would have spent more time here. If you every get a chance to go here, take it. For non-boaters you can catch a ferry that leaves from St. Marys in Georgia. Only 300 people a day are allowed on this 17-mile-long island. It features perfect beaches, ruins of the Carnegy estate and the famous wild horses that roam all over. There’s a campground and a visitors station as well.

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Fernandina

The St. Mary’s river separates Georgia from Florida in this area, and after you leave Cumberland and head south, the first Florida landfall is Fernandina. We called the Yacht Basin in Fernandina home for a while with the Anonymous. The the city dock is our favorite, though. There’s also a great anchorage with good protection just off the docks and you can come ashore and use the facilities for a dinghy dock fee. Don’s done this when sailing solo.

It’s slightly egotistical, but it’s pretty cool to sit on your boat and have hundreds of tourists milling around the dock to come by and gawk at your boat and ask questions about where you’ve been. That’s one of fun parts of Fernandina. The other is the town and the endless supply of quality restaurants. There’s also a cool bookstore we always cruise through. Reading is a big part of the cruising experience and our motto since we first got married is “there’s always money for books.” A great thing about marinas is that most of them have a captain’s lounge that includes a lending library. Drop off a book, pick on up. Drop it off at another marina when you’re done with it. Not all the reading choices are great, but it’s still a cool practice. We spent two nights at Fernandina and then continued down the ICW.

Although we’ve sailed through this area several times over the years, on this run we discovered a fantastic new anchorage. There’s a national park on the Fort George River that has an old plantation house on it. Just east of the dock to the park is a great anchorage, it’s deep, but very swift. The river goes between the ICW and the ocean, so along with the swift current, you get some good tidal ranges to. Anchor in the deep water on the south side. If it’s high tide when you get in, a few hours later you’ll see that nice big river to the north turn into a massive sandbar as the tide goes out.

We met some cruisers here that’d we tag along with for several days and run into again later down the road. If you stop here, do yourself a favor and stop at the park.

Casa San Marcos

St. Augustine

Without a doubt, our favorite town. The family has had some great anchorages and memories here. If we anchor out, we also do so north of the Bridge of Lions. It’s shallower, but we’ve always had shoal draft boats, and to the south there can be hundreds of boats. To the north, you get to watch the sun set over the fort. When Don was a kid he always dreamed about being one of those boats at anchor off the fort, and everytime he drops anchor here he’s got a big smile on his face.

On this trip we only had two days in St. Augustine and part of that was getting the car, so we took a slip an the municiple marina. This is a great place. Good showers, nice laundry and direct access to downtown. The floating docks are in good shape and the fuel docks professionally run. While the food is generally hit-or-miss, generally it’s expensive and fun. We love the ghost tours and exploring the fort.

We provisioned and ran some of our fellow cruisers around since we had the car.

After two days we continue winding down the ICW, passing Fort Matanzas, another spot we like. Don did an cutaway illustration of the fort for the National Park Service a few years back and we enjoy stopping at the fort. You can anchor to the east of the fort, but the river that goes out to the ocean is swift and tidal and the bottom is hard sand.

Daytona

Not our favorite cruise destination, but near one of the central bridges there’s a huge boat-ramp and when we arrived it was deserted all night. It’s well-lit and the anchorage is good, but not too protected. We had a calm night, fortunately. The next morning we head out for the Mosquito Lagoon.

We’ve always wanted to drop anchor in the Mosquito Lagoon, which is just north of the Kennedy Space Center. But the body of water is very, very shallow and very open. The conditions have to be perfect. We jumped off the thin channel and made a run through 3 to 5 foot deep water to the land several miles to the east. This is a thin strip between the lagoon and the ocean. Even with our boat, we were about a mile from the shore when we had to drop anchor. We looked at the situation and the dog-run that would be requied and decided it was going to be a bumpy night. So we pulled anchor and head back to the channel. We went through the Haulover Canal and sprinted to Titusville. We dropped hook in the lee of a causeway for the night.

Maroon Island

In the morning we gave the girls five minutes to pack up some stuff and then we put them in the dinghy and marooned them on a nearby island. We bought a paper in Daytona and Melora and Don sat in the cockpit reading the paper and drinking coffee while the girls scratched out an existence on their deserted island. At least for a couple hours. The radioed us when they got bored, we picked them up and finished the short sprint down the river to Merritt Island, which is would become our boat’s home-base months down the road. We’ve stopped at Harbortown Marina before with the Anonymous and like the place. You can’t get any better protection than the man-made hole dug out of the side of the barge canal. We met with local friends and got the car back from St. Augustine. We’d spend three days here before heading out again.

The girls survived literally hours on their own here.

Sebastian

Our first night out of Merritt Island we stopped at Sebastian. Our favorite restaurant had been wiped out by the hurricanes a few months earlier (it’s rebuilt now) so we just stopped for the night. There’s a couple nice islands on the east side of the ICW, and our draft allows us go tuck in pretty tight. There’s a boat ramp and it’s just a short walk to shops. We spent one night here.

Vero Beach

This is a great place to stop. The city runs a mooring field and the town is very cool. We’ve been through here before, so we knew if we ran the Dinghy up along the houses and then along the road, we could get to a small shop to top off our provisions. It’s a nice little run. Almost all the houses around here had blue tarps on the roofs, the damage from the hurricanes that came through in September began to be more evident as we head south. The city docks were damaged, and one of our cruising friends had gotten here several days earlier and got some work on repairing them. There’s a restaurant under the bridge that was a short walk away and the food was top notch.

Fort Pierce for a month

The hurricanes wreaked havoc in this area, and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better as we head south. The Harbortown marina in Fort Pierce was hard hit, but they had a couple slips open and the rates were reasonable (around $14 a foot for the month). We’ve been further south and paid $18, but we knew that the marinas in the Lake Worth (Palm Beach) were wiped out and the few that could be found would charge an arm and a leg. Besides, even if we didn’t like the marina, it was coming up on Christmas and we had planned to take a break for a couple weeks and visit friends and family in Georgia and Cocoa Beach. The accomodations were OK, the bathrooms were pass-able, the coverage was good and the security seemed fine. This was important because we’d be leaving our boat un-attended for a couple/few weeks. For cruisers, this was actually a decent spot, up the road a short distance was a grocery store (Publix?) and a West Marine.

We cleaned the boat (decorated for Christmas, a small tree on the settee table and lights in the cockpit) doubled the lines and got in our van and head out for a while. We used the break to do a variety of things, visit old friends, Don bought a new high-end 3D program and tutorials and learned how to use it (it’s still his key 3D program to this day) and did Christmas in Georgia with the grandfoks.

With all this done we arrived back on the boat well rested and ready to head out again. And better yet, Dad got a new waterproof camera, and we all know what that means. MORE PHOTOS IN THE BLOG AGAIN!

We did hit some of the local spots, and with that we’ll say…hmmm, Don’t think we’ll be moving to Fort Pierce anytime soon. The downtown seemed to be trying, but the town was still pretty rough. Great state park on the inlet, though. And we did drive up to Vero Beach to hit that restaurant under the bridge again. This is an odd area. Soon, to the south of us, would be the modern ruins that is South Florida. To the north of us is laid-back Florida. Usually we relegate this position to Stuart, but after coming back to Florida, we’ve moved the line up the coast a little bit. This, is with exception of one spot that we love and would soon be visiting again. That’s next. And, with MORE PHOTOS! Thanks for the present guys!

Peck Lake. Take a deep breath if you’re heading south. This is your last taste of calm boating until you get to Key Biscane.

Peck Lake

This is our third time dropping hook in Peck Lake. Since our first time, we learned that this is a must-do spot to drop the hook and relax. There is good deep-water and shallow water anchorage, and we’ve found that once you make the marker (19?) you can scoot back up a bit, and if you have a shoal draft you can get away from the crowded anchorage.

The nephews chow down on deck.

The cool thing about Peck Lake is that your landing to the east gives you a spit of Atlantic beach without any development. An odd little pontoon boat drops off locals from a nearby development, and some locals zip their run-abouts up to the beach, but we’ve always found it to be a great place to relax. Look for the tower as a landmark to run your dink ashore.

Dinghy run go pick up the crew.

We dropped most of the gang off on shore and later ran back to gather them up.

Don’s brother and family came up from Lake Worth to hang out with us for the day. We hit the beach and ate on deck and had a great visit. Don and Terry’s youngest (Ginny and Spencer) were born a hours apart, and not that we’re a competitive family…but Don won.

Terry, Don’s brother with one of our two dinghies. Rugg on top. Funny dog.

You’re in Hobe Sound, which is north of the Jupiter Inlet. Hobe sound, in our opinion, is the last normal place on the ICW until you’re back in the waters south of Miami. This will change over time, we’re sure. But Hobe sound is great. We’ve anchored on both sides of the drawbridge on different runs and enjoyed both.

Jupiter Inlet Lightouse. The water REALLY is this blue.

Jupiter Inlet

Usually an inlet doesn’t get it’s own spot, and we didn’t anchor here (most headers, by the way, are anchorages or dockings, if you haven’t figured that out). But there’s something about Jupiter. We used to think the magic changing of colors had to do with us entering the tropics, but by now, we just figure there’s some odd phosphate mine up the river. But still, the incredible blue color of the water makes it look like the film on our cameras went wacko in a camera left on the dashboard of a car. But the color, for whatever reason, is real. And we’d like to pretend it has something to do with entering a whole new environment.

Clearing Jupiter’s bridges, Ginny on the foredeck.

But, we also have the experience that tells us that everything between here and Miami really needs to be done on the weekdays, and NEVER a holiday weekend. If you’re cruising the area, that’s our one piece of advice. Hit the area on Monday (even if you have to wait half a week) and get the hell out of here before Friday. Seriously.

Lake Worth

After we worked our way through the concrete jungle that began at Jupiter Inlet, we jump out into Lake Worth. We’ve been through this area a couple times before and we beeline for a good anchorage in some bizzare “If you anchor here, you won’t get fined, if you anchor there, you are hozed” world of Lake Worth. There’s a storm coming and we want to lay out the scope in this VERY crowded anchorage. We do so and get through the night just fine. You don’t want to be on the north end with a south wind, but the storm was from the north and we did well. There’s a make-shift dinghy dock used by many of these ’semi-permenant’ boats, and we tied up with our 20? cable. Don’t trust your boat with just a rope line here. On the good side, just a few blocks to the west there’s a Publix and these WONDERFUL people have an open water pipe near the store. We provisioned (spending big $$) and used their water to fill our portable cans. I hope they always leave that water line open.

While we were here, a kayak dealer that Don called on the side brought by a little surprise. For Melora’s birthday (a few days later) he’d bring by an Ocean Kayak, the same type she had fun with at Bill’s place in Annapolis. Terry hooked us up with the guy and he did great. Showed up on the side of a road, took a credit card imprint and gave us a wonderful kayak we still use to this day. Happy Birthday Melora. We’d do two nights here while waiting out the weather and provisioning.

The weather sucked during these days and Don didn’t feel too set with the ‘waterproof’ aspects of the new camera. So no photos. He’d get over that. Soon.

Deerfield Beach

After getting through the nutcakes than ran huge boats up and down (but never going out into the ocean) in Lake Worth, we worked our way through the ICW and associated draw bridges to a marina at Deerfield Beach. A very small marina with very limitted dockage, but we snuck in, got the last spot (a fuel dock, I think, but this is something we became pretty good at). BUT, it had a heated swimming pool. Best memories of this nice little place are…the pool, a clean tiled shower, filling up the fuel and water and not having anything else to do but rest. It was a dock directly on the ICW. RIGHT on the ICW, which meant docking involved a 10 degree cut to the starboard, reversing and throwing the lines on the dock. After two stormy nights on Lake Worth, it was a welcome spot.

The Compass Rose, one of our cruising “flock” at anchor in Lake Boca.

Boca Raton

Normally, you might think that the Foley’s would hate this little pond on the ICW surrounded by condos, but by now we had re-adjusted and settled into the south-Florida mindset. Plus, we needed this funky little chunk of water. Don had some deadlines for National Geographic to meet, and it had a great city boat ramp nearby. The shops in Boca, while ‘hoyty’ were very nice. There was actually a high-end butcher on Palmetto (the drawbridge to the north) a few blocks away.

Don had to stay aboard and work, but his brother lived a short run away, so the crew stayed overnight at his place while he plugged through is deadline. And then, the weekend came. One boat after another came in and dropped anchor. By the end of the day the entire lake was filled with boats.

Lake Boat gets a little crowded on the weekends.

But it turned out well. All the boats around Don were members of the local sailing club. He put out his fenders as they all closed in, and suddenly dozens of dingies surrounded the boat near his. It was a chili cook-off and the boat next to him (by this time, litterally tied off to him) was the host boat. They invited Don aboard and he got to meet dozens of sailors and he got to chow down on the spread. Another great night of cruising. What a funky night.

We stayed here one more day and then head south again. Boca may have been a lot of concrete, but the local ramp, the city cops who looked the other way (no dogs) the shops and the chili party all added together to make it a pretty enjoyable experience.

For Christmas the folks bought everyone folding Dahon bikes. Terry (an avid biker) serviced the bikes and when the family came back, they also brought the bikes. Better yet, they also took our last car. From here we’d be sailing and biking. We loved it.

Ft. Lauderdale

If you were to listen to the marketing professionals, Fort Lauderdale is the south-east Sailor’s paradise. We actually had a great time in Ft. Lauderdale, but we’d never mistake it for a sailor’s paradise. It was, however, a boater’s paradise.

Our home for a bit at the city 7th St. Docks.

We made a HUGE mistake of hitting the New River on the weekend. It may have been a Sunday. We survived, but there are two things to keep in mind. One is to NEVER go up the New River on a weekend. The second is to REALLY pay attention to the tides. We’re used to playing tides. But in south Florida we didn’t think it would be as bad as what we’ve done from Georgia to Virginia. Nope, it wasn’t worse, it was just amplified on a thin ribbon that wound through a populated city full of boats. And when we say ‘boats’ we mean ships. Yes, in south Florida, tides still matter.

The docks had two parts, one north and one south. We took the one to the south, and loved it.

We worked our way up river to our city ancorage on 7th street. But we couldn’t take the slip until the tide slacked. The current was running around 7 t0 9 knots. We tied off downstream a bit in an area that was being developed to wait for the “2 p.m. slack” that the dockmaster told us to wait for. Of course, he was right. At 2 p.m. we untied from our warf and coasted over and tied up. We took the south dock, which we were told was less “desirable” but we loved it. It was next to the bridge, but we had our own little park. After a couple days we got used to the sound of the draw bridged and loved the privacy of our spot. The city marina had VERY clean restrooms and, considering the fact that we were in the middle of the city, was very secure. The dockmaster was a little nutty, but he was also very good and took care of all of us like we were family. By the time we left, I wished that all dockmasters were a little nutty and did as good of a job as he did.

Ft. Laud Haircut

Captain Don’s hair was getting pretty long, so he suggested that maybe his crew could cut his hair. They sat on our bench on our little park and cut away. They did a, umm, they cut his hair. While the captain would wear a hat going ashore for a while, we’d find a nice little shop in Key West that some of our fellow sailors used that would, should we say, ’round things out.’

Ruggy in heaven. A coconut is a ball with food inside.

We adapted to being surrounded by concrete. It’s a different world. Instead of bitching about it, we explored it. The family hit the local shops, museums and restaurants and enjoyed all. We also had some serious work to do. Our LectraSans unit died, but there was a Fort Lauderdale service department that worked with us. We also changed all our engine and transmission fluids. In addition to this, we met up with local Lats and Atts cruisers at the dock. Our stay here was very busy. The bikes were great, we rode to marine and motor shops to get gear we needed.

Our head was repaired, our engine was ready to head out, we’ve provisioned and we’ve rested. We really did like our odd little chunk of earth here, and the friends we met, but it was time to head south again.

Waiting for ’slack time’ wasn’t a question anymore. After a couple weeks of watching yachts get absolutely screwed, we knew how to play the river. When our time came, we bid Joel farewell and continued our journey.

Through the cabin, heading down the New River.

Going up or down stream, listen to your radio and figure out where the Jungle Queen is. The tour boat takes up most of the river and doesn’t give. We met her coming in and going out. Otherwise, if you navigate the river going with the tides, and NOT on a weekend, you’ll be fine.

And now we head into paradise. Just get through Miami first.

—

Heading to Miami on the ICW

Miami (not an ancorage)

There may be many that disagree. Most likely thousands, if not more. But in our opinion, after you do Fort Lauderdale, it’s best to go out on the ocean and head south, or, if on the ICW, do so on a weekday. But whichever you do, you can make Key Biscane in a day. We’re not ’south beach’ people. Play your cards right, and you end up in No-Name Harbor the next night. Again, the key here is to not end up in No-Name on the weekend. We went through this area mid-week on the ICW with no problem.

Heading away from Miami. Note the satellite rig and our trawling set.

At the end of the day we tucked into one of our favorite south-Florida anchorages, No Name Harbor. Meanwhile we’d face a bridge tender who absolutely ignored our hails. The first time EVER underway. When a big ship came through, he replied and we ran the same opening. Arg.

No Name Harbor

Carved out by private interests in another generation, the harbor is now a state park. While it seems like it’s a tropical island, you can ride on a bike for a couple of miles and provision at a big grocery. Or by Guchi shoes. You’re on Key Biscane.

We dropped hook and took the dinghy ashore with our bikes. The yellow arrow is the Calypso.

No Name Harbor is build for cruisers. The seawalls to the left of the photo above allow for us to dock and tie down our dinghies. There’s a state-contracted cuban restaurant in the park. There’s a bike rack we’d chain our folding Dahons to. The idiot powerboaters would show up the next day, but this was a nice way to dive into the “Keys”.

The Lighthouse

Bill Bags Cape Florida State Park

While we may have dropped hook in No Name Harbor, we were actually part of Bill Bags State Park. The next morning we dinked ashore and hauled up a pile of odd black bags. With military precision, we unloaded the bags, and quickly assembled the folding bikes like we had done it a thousand times before. It drew a small crowd, and the girls hopped on their bikes and head south. This would be a scene we’d repeat for the next day. A folding bike, it seems, is a small marvel.

A view from the lighthouse.

We explored the grounds and the history of the area.

The girls at the light house keepers house.

We all took the long path up the lighthouse and it as worth every step.

The lighouse lens.

The current keeper told us of the adventures, and trials, of the previous keeper. A great tale indeed.

Savannah at the top of the light

The whole family walked up this tower, listening to the stories of centuries gone by.

Ginny and Mom exploring the history through a portal in the lighthouse.

We rode our bikes on the winding trails of this Cape Florida’s Bill Baggs State Park. If you need to provision, there’s a grocery store a short bike ride into Key Biscane. There’s also a nice little restaurant on the cove.

The girls and the bikes.

Sunset on No Name Harbor

We spent two days anchored at No Name before we head south again.

Key Largo

It could be argued that Key Biscane is the first of the Florida Keys, but we always considered it to be Key Largo, where we’re used to leaving the mainland by car and continuing down AIA towards Key West. In a boat you head down the long stretch of Biscane Bay. There are some cool smaller keys to the east that we’d like to visit sometime, but for this run we needed to keep pushing on. After getting through the drawbridge we went a bit further and dropped anchor off the Holiday Inn in Key Largo. At the time you could pay a docking fee of $5 to land your dinghy for the day. This would soon end, on the way back north a month later, the dinghy dock was closed. We don’t know where else in Key Largo cruising sailors can stop. Such a shame. The waters are thin here, and the trick is to anchor in sand, and not sea-grass. It’s agaist the law to damage sea-grass beds. You’re also in the Keys now, which is zero-discharge zone. So we switched over from our waste system to the holding tank.

But we could stop and did. We biked to get provisions at a Wal-Mart down the road a mile. After the night we hauled anchor and continued on our way. A big storm system was going to move in the next day, so we decided to find a marina to put into for a couple days.

Plantation Key

We lucked into a spot at the city dock in Plantation Key. We’d have good weather for the day, so we head over to the heated city swimming pool next to the marina and had a blast swimming and jumping off the diving boards. We had the whole pool to ourselves.

Our slip in Plantation Key

The marina was nice. Basic, but good showers and a nice laundry. Lots of live-aboards which added some interesting character to the docks. Between storms we got some nice walks in and visited with our fellow boaters. After two nights here the skies had cleared and we had great weather again. Our weather window from here to Key West would be perfect.

Great day for sailing

A view from our dinghy

We had our sails up, the weather was great, so Don gave the helm to Melora, got in the dinghy and ran around the boat to get some photos (above) of the Calypso under sail. We’d run under sails the whole day, one of those classic moments in paradise.

Long Key

We crossed under AIA and past the old Flagler railroad bridge and into the Atlantic Ocean, the weather looked good and we figured we’d be in the lee of Long Key for the night, even if we’d be out in the ocean. It worked great, we had a nice swell-free evening and a memorable anchorage. It would be memorable, not only because it was beautiful, but also because it was Savannah’s birthday.

Under A1A and by one of Flagler’s old bridges.

There’s a state park here with a small campground, but otherwise not too much else. The water was crystal clear, and we anchored in a sand bed in about 5 feet, it felt like floating on a sheet of glass.

Our anchorage.

The waters were very thin, so our anchorage was about a mile off shore. Usually we don’t like being exposed like this, but the forecast was good and the water was pretty glassy, so it worked out well.

The dinghy run

We all piled into the dinghy and went ashore to explore and to walk the dog. Then we head back to the boat to settle in for Savannah’s Birthday dinner and to watch a great sunset. Our favorite sunsets where when we all go up to the cabin roof and snuggle together with a blanket and the Rugg Dog.

Another great sunset

Savannah’s Birthday party, she got an iPod!

The dog run. As noted before, this was part of the ritual. Here on Long Key we capture the whole moment for you. Don pours his coffee in a non-tip cup and climbs into the Dinghy. Rugg Jumps in and we cast off. We start the motor and head to the beach. On some morning Don doesn’t get out of the Dink (unless Rugg leaves something to pick up). Once we’re on shore Rugg jumps off, does his business, jumps back on and we head back to the boat.

Heading to the beach

Ahhh, terra firma

Back to the boat and a waiting crew

Marathon

After a great night anchored out in the Atlantic we pulled our anchor up and head south again. In a few hours we made it to Marathon and took the east channel entrance (shallow draft boats can do that) and came out into the famous Boot Key Harbor. This is a well-protected harbor with no exposure to the sea, so over the years it’s become the home thousands of sailboats, some short term, some long term (until they rot and sink). There were no moorings available, no surprise this time of year, so we dropped hook in a shallow spot. Again, the great thing about a catamaran is that you can take spots nobody else can. The harbor is full this time of the year, and to snag a good spot…or any spot at all…is great after a day at sea. The next choice to to drop hook in the lee of the island out in the gulf or Atlantic and hope for a calm night. Even then you’re faced with a long dinghy ride into down.

The anchorage in Boot Key Harbor on our arrival

Lots of cruising sailors stop at Marathon and call this home for the winter. The protection is great, if you can get a mooring you’re set, and it’s much, much cheaper than Key West. Our favorite part was that there was a West Marine we could dinghy to, reasonable showers (coin token operated) and best of all, another online sailing buddy lived here and ran us into town for provisions in his car.

Sunset in Boot Key Harbor

We gave the girls a set of color Sharpies to decorate the dink, we didn’t worry about anyone stealing it.

Mom and Rugg enjoy the sunset on our second night here.

Oh, what a handsome dog indeed!

But we would find one singular reason for dropping hook here. On our second day we went to the Keys Fisheries for lunch. Standing in line trying to decide what to order, we overheard a couple guys behind us. They left Tampa this morning and drove here for one single reason…the Keys Fishery Lobster Rueben. Being a Rueben fan, Don couldn’t walk away from this. The sandwich cost $12, but MAN was it ever worth it. Absolute heaven. We sat around the small wharf on a picnic table and watch the giant tarpon swim in circles. It was a great memory, and the food was, for a odd concrete block building with a hole in the wall they shoved the food through, some of the best we had on the trip.

There was something cool, but yet a bit sad about Boot Key. The barnacle encrusted rotting boats with the generator on the back running all night long outlined part of the problem. The other was developers who were planning to (and have since) shut down a famous bar and eatery (the food actually sucked) to turn it into a condo, and to the east, the island of mangroves was soon to become a new development. It was almost like it was being destroyed by two opposing forces. What will be left, remains to be seen. The city is doing it’s best. By putting in a mooring field and having a pumpout boat available (which we used) is the step in the right direction. I hope this place will be here for cruising sailors 100 years from now. How it’ll survive itself…we don’t know. We stayed here two days before heading out again.

Heading out of Boot Key. Interesting place. We’ll be back.

The next morning we head out by the same channel we came in. Next stop would be Bahia Honda, a state park not too far away.

Bahia Honda

A few years back they knocked out a second of the old Flagler bridge to the south of Bahia Honda. This allowed cruising sailors the ability to tuck into one of the two small man-made harbors that were built for the construction of the 7-mile bridge. Bahia Honda is a state park overlooking this bridge, and we were looking forward to making landfall here. We hailed them on the radio and requested a spot in their harbor. They granted the request, and under sail for the day we worked our way through the blue key waters. The weather was perfect, as it had been for the past several days. We slipped through the narrow harbor entrance, not much bigger than some marinas we’ve been at, and tucked up to a seawall.

Into the gap. Before they opened it, only powerboats could use the state harbors.

The trail to the old bridge.

Melora enjoys the view.

A view of the gap.

Gotta love those palms…the Foley girls in the tropics.

Dad does what he does best…his afternoon nap.

Savannah with dive gear.

Ginny went for a snorkel in the small bay.

Our seawall for two nights.

Our short stay on Bahia Honda was really the kind of carrot we’ve been looking for on the whole trip. Blue water, great weather, nice walks on a small island, some history mixed in. We had a grand time. We would have stayed here for several days more, if there wasn’t one small glitch. They didn’t allow dogs. Since we were a ship at sea and they didn’t ask on the radio (they were supposed to) they said we could stay the night. Given the circumstance (we loved the place, and our boat was on the other side of the harbor from the dockmaster, who was in a building far away, we fudged a small lie. The next morning Don went to the dockmaster and asked if I called my brother to pick up my dog, if we could stay for the night. They said yes. Terry didn’t answer the phone. Darn. It was a Saturday. Who would have guessed that someone who’s business makes a bulk on their income on the weekends wouldn’t have been at home. Technically, we nailed it though. We loved the place and spent another night here. I’ve heard since that they allow dogs. As always, we clean up after him and he NEVER barks. On our little seawall we weren’t the only ones smuggling dogs in. It’s pretty funny to watch adults (us included) running their dogs undercover to the woods a few feet away.

This park really is a national treasure. They have a campground as well as cabins. If the weather is good, it’s great for kayaking (we did) and swimming in its protected cove. We had some great walks and will certainly come back again. Key West will be fun, but this really was the best ‘tropic island living’ experience we had so far. Also, as a side-note, we had no problem with cell phone communication through the keys. On several occasions during this run Don would post real-time photos to his favorite cruising website while being 3 or 4 miles off shore.

But we now had a goal. We found a slip in Key West (very rare) for the whole month of February and we needed to get in and claim it. Phone calls are one thing, reservations are another, they cruising sailors in the slip with payment or they’ll let a slip go to someone else in a couple days. Time to get to our goal.

Big Pine Key

Another perfect day at sail. Winds and water both work together in harmony for the kind of Key sail that people dream of. This is our fourth day of sailing in the Atlantic under perfect conditions. Don sits on the cabin roof with the chart, the remote and a handheld GPS, it’s a warm January day, straw hat on and a golden retriever by his side taking it all in. The girls are below reading and the Calypso is sliding with the autohelm maintaining the ships position. Life is good. Heck, life is GREAT.

The not-so-illusive Key Deer.

We provisioned in Marathon with enough food for a week, but with our short stay in Bahia Honda we’ve got only one more stop before we get to Key West. It’s Big Pine Key and the allusive (they’re not allusive at all) Key Deer. Plus, we have to walk the dog. Most folks would just do a run to Key West, but we need to stop a couple times a day, and there are only two keys left we can easily stop at. We decide to hail in the protected waters to the south of Big Pine Key and to poke around a bit.

Old roads, mobile home pads, and deer.

We don’t have a chart right now, but to get to our anchorage we worked around Munson Island and then tucked up between Big Pine Key and Little Torch Key. Again, with our shallow draft we sailed past other boats and dropped hook just shy of the causeway. The winds favored us on this anchorage, but we wouldn’t want to be here with a south blow. We ran the dink into an odd little cut near the road. Something must have been here once, but all that was left was a deep cut and a great place to dink into. Just the same, the boat was in the open. We pulled it around to the side near the bridge in a thicket of mangroves and locked it up to a thick trunk so it wouldn’t be visible from the roadway. We went ashore on an explore with the camera to find some dinner and Key Deer. We found both. Not too far away there’s an old mobile-home site that is grown over. We were told that the park service buys all sites up for sale so to reclaim the land. And that’s where we found the dear. The roads and pads are all still there, overgrown, but there. It’s kind of like a ghost-town without any town, just the roads. We got some pictures and then head off to a nice Chinese dinner. Like other places in the Keys, this one had the strange feeling of a mixture of decay and development.

We stayed here for the night and have a very comfortable anchorage.

Hawkes Channel

The photos look like the color balance is off. It’s too blue. But that’s what it’s like. Again, we head out and sail south and the weather is perfect. We’re making about 7 knots most of the day and all of it under sail. The girls home-school and then head to their cabins to read, dad is up on the cabin roof with Rugg. The autopilot works the boat to the next waypoint and Don keeps watch and check the position on the hand-held GPS.

Hawkes Channel runs in the Atlantic along the keys. It’s deeper, holding off of the coral reefs of the islands of the Keys, but there are more reefs to the south, which help keep down the swells of the Atlantic. It’s not a man-made channel, but a natural one. We avoid the ‘official’ channel marked by bouys, because these are marked on chart maps and huge mega-yachts plug in the numbers and just run the channel. We run on the inside of this natural boundary to avoid them. You can see them a few hundred yards away keeping to their computer programs. A few coral heads pop up here and there, and we know where they are. We work to the inside or the outside of them when needed. Our GPS doesn’t tell us about coral heads, our chart does. While we run on autopilot in these waters, we plot our own unique course. It’s much better than just sticking to the channel and getting battered by mega-yacht wakes. Plus, the scenery is much nicer.

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Final leg of the trip, we plot a course to Key West

We dropped sails and head north into the current. Both Don and Melora had been to Key West many times, but always by car. To head into the port on your own sailboat for the first time…well, let’s just say that the feeling that “YOU MADE IT, YOU OWN IT” just slightly covers it. Lots of people go to Key West. Most drive. Way too many come on cruise-ships. But to sail into Key West on your own boat. And to do it after sailing a couple thousand miles. Nobody, nobody can ever take that away from you.

We hailed the marina and they gave us our docking instructions. We tied up in a small wharf that would have it’s own interesting vagrancies. It would be our home for the next month, but it wasn’t some funky Key West aged dock full of woody characters. We took a berth at the Key West Hilton. But, as we would find, it would give us all the old Key West charm many times over, as we would make friends with schooner captains and crew and hit the town like few other have. Don would comment as he threw the dock lines off a year later as “the best month of the best year of his life.”

Our first of two slips.

Key West

While we paid through the nose for our slip at the Hilton, by comparison it was one of the best deals in Key West. Slips are paid for the day or for the month. By the day, while we cruised, it was common to pay between $1 and $2 a foot per night for transients. For us, that meant something between $34 and $70 a night. For a monthly transient (non-year) rate we paid anywhere between $5 a foot (Salt Pond) and $18 a foot. When we hit Key West the rates…um…changed a bit. But we saw it coming. For our stay at the Hilton we paid $60 a foot. Gladly. It’s a nutty price, but to us, it meant that we’d be paying the cheapest rate for real-estate in Key West over the course of the month. And Don had some great projects and got out some serious billing while we were here, so it was worth every dime.

A view from our future slip to our exiting slip.

For other cruising sailors, you either locked into a cheaper $40 a foot marina before they were all booked, got a mooring WAY early in the season or you anchored out. We didn’t want to spend a month worrying about the weather and dinghying ashore to walk the dog several times a day. No, our time in Key West was about resting, working (for Don) and having fun. We did all three in right order.

Our first bulkhead sucked, and was great. It sucked because the PWC (personal watercraft) rental was directly to our starboard. Everyday, actually about four times a day, people who had never operated a water craft (usually from the cruise ships) would rent these things and bumble about a few feet from our boat. It drove Don crazy. When one slammed into our boat he went to the Dockmaster and demanded a new slip. And we got it.

A cruiser’s view of the new Key West

The thing that was great about the slip was that two tall ships shared our wharf and a couple times a day their crew would hang out and walk around the slip and we began to make some good friends. By the time we moved from our “pinball palace” we had gotten to know the captains and crew of the tall ships and they would pave the way for us to have a grand time and grander memories in this wonderful town.

It didn’t take long for us to get into the grove here. We had, more or less, a “room” at the Hilton. We had full access. That meant the heated pool. The hot tub, and for Don … the executive office suite with broadband WiFi (still new in these days). We also had showers, fresh hotel towels and of course, limited access to the docks. It was paradise at the cost that most of our mortgages cost. Cheaper if you factored in the pool, hot-tub, electric and WATERFRONT ACCESS. Again, very likely the best deal in town. On top of this, if you wanted to have some fun, Duval Street was one block away.

But for us, this isn’t what made Key West special. While we enjoyed these, there would be two other things we had much more fun with. The Schooner Liberty and her sister ship the Clipper Liberty. Before we jumped to the other side of our concrete harbor, the crew of these two ships would become our close friends, and for our entire time in Key West our time would be spent hanging out with, having dinners with and generally partying with these folks.

But, let’s start at the…um…beginning. Makes sense. When Don and Melora came to the keys (separately) decades before Mallory Square was a different animal. In the 70’s it was a hodge-podge collection of street performers. Now it was a “rent the space of paved brick” in front of hotels with ice cream and t-shirt ground level shops. Very Odd. But the same cast of interesting locals could still be found in these rationed squares. And at sunset they all opened shop and it became the Key West Circus.

Savannah and Bounce learning the basics.

Since we’d show up every day, it didn’t take long for our crew to involve themselves on a first-name basis. Savannah, and then Ginny, would have fun with our closest show, Bounce and Ulla.

Ginny and Savannah would become the ‘pigeons’ and have fun with it.

It wasn’t all fun and games, of course. We didn’t have a car, so we locked up our bikes near the boat, and would use them to ride to the stores for provisions and would quickly find where the locals bought their food. Almost every night we’d fire up the grill to cook some fresh fish.

And there was work. Every morning Don would load up his laptop and to the hotel’s business center (the docks didn’t have WiFi yet) to work. This month would turn out to be a profitable one, with a dozen deadlines from key clients. The girls would come by a few times each day to check their e-mail and visit. In an odd contrast to the party atmosphere around him, Don would have one of the best single months of his career here.

Savannah and Uncle Jim, our own sunset.

But, if anything would earmark our time in Key West, it would be sunsets. At five, Don would leave the office and head back to the boat. We’d pour a drink and walk over (as slip-holders we had access to the cruise-ship wharf) to a great spot to watch the sunset. Behind us on the other side of the marina would be hundreds of people lined up to watch the sunset on Mallory square. And there would be about a dozen of us in our own space (our crew and the Liberty crew). As the month grew, so would the size of the sunset crew.

Front row seats.

We didn’t miss one. Not a single sunset. Some were just a fun way to end the day, but in other cases there would be magical moments that we’d all remember.

Jacob plays the violin. The ship’s carpenter would become a good friend.

On one of our sunsets, Jacob the Carpenter on the Libery brought out a violin and played during sunset He didn’t play well, but that was OK. Savannah listened for a while and asked to try. She had never played a violin before (and it was obvious that Jacob was struggling, he had just bought the violin days before). She picked up the instrument and played through the rest of the sunset, with all of us in amazement. It was a special moment and we all knew it.
He handed her his violin. He said “this belongs to you.” She still has it to this day.

One of the great KW sunsets. Every night had one.

The sunset cruise schedule would rotate between the Liberty crews and we’d have a full attendance at sunset each night. Twice through the course of the month we’d all see the fabled ‘green flash’ at sunset. It wasn’t hard to claim, on both nights there was absolute silence for a few seconds followed by somebody saying “did you see that.” Only twice, and each time, yes…we all saw it.

Our home for the next few weeks.

Our dockmaster, Dennis, moved us to a better slip, away from the clue-less tourists. We had made friends with our tall ship friends and had a great spot to spend the month on a nice floating dock. We threw out our bumpters and tied up tight. One interesting angle about this dock was that our neighboring boat would account for how we slept through the night. The Hilton dock, at the very end of the wharf, was also the home of one of many visiting cruise ships. They would come in the middle of the night. If we had a southern swell, it would stop. Very nice. We liked having cruise ships acting as a breakwater. In the morning a couple thousand people would walk down the ‘public’ wharf and it was always a great show.

Rugg Dog, the Key West Comfort Dog

Rugg liked it too. He was the Key West companion dog. On our walks everyone that owned a Golden would see Rugg and pet him and tell us about their dog at home. Given that a single cruise ship had 2500 people, Rugg was never without attention. Ever. Really. If this dog had a tip cup (common in KW) he would have made more than Don.

Our fellow cruisers played for us, and made another perfect night.

Memorable nights piled up. You almost felt sorry for someone in Ithica who worked the night shift at the Pump and Go. One of our favorites was a small sailboat that pulled up for a few nights. They were here for some kind of music fest, but for us, at sunset, they pulled out their violin and guitar and played on one of our sunsets. Again, the tourists were at bay behind fences, and we sat on our wharf with the crews of the Liberty and while they played, we watched the sunset. Few people will ever have an experience like this, and we enjoyed it almost every night. The same stage, different players. As much as we’d like to yearn for the ‘Key West’ of the past, we found a little nook that offered something that wasn’t of the past, yet wasn’t commercialized. It was (and hopefully for others still is) a little snapshot of Key West as is and will continue to be. Small little undefined pockets of individuality that hope to be unique, but want to be discovered. Key West is the the original reality show without a camera.

Don’t tell anyone, or “KEY WEST” will be the next reality show.

Key West Jim. The best seat in the house.

Don’s brother-in-law Jim came down for a visit for a week, and we think he had a good time. It didn’t take long for him to get into the groove of the routine. During the day he’d do the tourist thing, and at night we’d cook dinner and watch the sunset.

Our new dock, we slept better and it was a shorter walk to the showers.

Directly off our dock is the “Truman Complex”, in ‘the day’, they called this the Key West Whitehouse. For a long time it belong to the Navy. Eventually it became public and the complex was sold. The area is still rich in history and the public is still allowed to walk the streets, even if the houses are now private. The couple we met in Savannah rented a loft in the Truman complex every year, and shortly after we arrived, we met with them again. Their grandchildren visited every winter, and were the same age as our kids. For a week the kids would hang out and explore the island.

The Key West Follies…the best of all of us.

While our goal of setting sail before the girls hit high-school age was noble, there was one little detail cruising sailor who should follow our suit should note.

Braces

In the middle school years we hit the same road bump that most parents face. Braces. Being good parents we signed our kids up for the best care. Our doc did the his duty, x-rays, fitting, pre-exams and all of that. While I did my best to explain our plans to our Ortho, he pretty much set out HIS plan for any kid.

Savannah shows her teeth.

For the first year we did just fine, but after that we head out. Ortho visits every six months would be hard for most cruising sailors, but we were cruising the south. Our arch allowed us to get back to the office on time. Sure, it was a long drive, but we still did it. When we hit the Keys, however, and knew we’d be living in Florida (more on that) we finally signed off of our doc and found one in central Florida. No free ride, with a couple years done…we were going to start again from (financially) from scratch. Again, such is life.

The gathering of the crews, a daily event.

Our days would be full of small adventures on the island. Shopping at the local stores (not the ones the ones the tourists would go to) and finding the best deals. Don would work in the office suite at the Hilton and the girls would continue to explore and cover the ship’s needs. We’d have fresh fish and produce every night. It didn’t take long to figure out where the pickup with the ‘good stuff’ or which store had a fresh shipment of produce was.

Jacob and Don, another sunset

The girls continued their school. Don went to work every day. The tall ships head out every day. But in the evening the Calypso’s grill would fire up. Dinner would be served (usually local fish) and when the sun began to set, we’d all meet again at the wharf. Every night.

Life on the island. Note the Liberty Schooner to the left and the cruise ship on the wharf.

Don and Melora celebrated their 17th anniversary in Key West, Don bought Melora a necklace made by a local craftswoman.

Our home in Key West. Not the hammock.

It’s a dog’s life in Key West

Of the many highlights of our visit was our sunset sail with the crew of the Liberty Schooner. The captain invited us aboard for a sail and we took him up on it. It wasn’t too crowded of a night and we had a great time. The crew, who by now knew our crew, let the girls help run the ship. They hauled the lines and took the helm. One by one we invited the crew of the Liberty over to our boat for dinner and got to know each one, and their story of how the ended up here. Great kids all. To this day we still stay in touch with some of the crew of the Liberty.

Ginny hauls a halyard on the Liberty

Savannah raises the sail.

Ginny runs the helm of a 32 ton schooner

Another great day on the water. We’d hang out with the crew, hit the bars with them (they knew all the good spots) and enjoy their company during our time on the island. They were young, but they were also hand-picked. They knew their jobs and weren’t just wanna-bees picked off the island. They were experienced sailors from around the country and, while incredibly nutty off the job, very focused on the job. The girls would crew on the boat during our stay.

One of Don’s favorite moments was the night we all decided to watch Captain Ron in the Schooner. Don brought over the DVD and we all kicked back to watch the flick.

To understand this, you have to understand that the movie “Captain Ron” is the cruiser’s “Caseblanca.” It’s a hugely quote-able movie and it takes a cruising sailor to really love the movie. As a tradition, Don watches it once a year. So to sit back with a few drinks (the only way to watch the movie) and shout out the lines in the crew deck of a schooner docked in Key West…well it just was about the best screening of Captain Ron that may have ever occured.

Ginny sounding the horn at sunset.

It’s a tradition for sailors in the southern waters to blow a conch horn at sunset. So we’d bring our own, or borrow one from the Liberty and sound off at sunset.

Food

We made the early mistake of buying a few provisions near Duval Street. The famous road was just a block away from us, and EVERYTHING was expensive. It didn’t take long for us to learn where the locals shopped. Our bikes were instrumental in our daily foraging. The local fish shop was great, and a source of many of our meals. But we also found the ‘guy with fresh fish on the back of his truck’ as well as the Wal-Mart a couple miles away. Within a short period of time we knew every street on the island and how best to hunt down what we needed. Since it was nearby, and kind of fun, we generally got on our bikes and went out to get food for the next dinner. The home-run was when the Key West firecracker shrimp were running. It’d be hard to find better food.

Another great sunset. The crew of the Liberty

The Calyspo Crew and Liberty Crew in Ginny’s berth.

One of the perks of making friends with the crew of the Liberty Clipper and Schooner was getting free access to some of the local tourist attractions. One of the skipper’s wives worked for one of the primary tourist companies, and he presented us with tickets to some of the local attractions. One of those was the Wrecker Tower. It’s actually pretty cool and worth the price of regular admission.

A view from the tower.

Mallory Square, near our boat.

The Green Flash

There’s this fabled moment about a sunset in the right conditions. Just as the sun hit the horizon, on rare occasions, there would be a subtle green flash. Up to this point in our life we had never seen it. Key west and specifically Mallory Square, was known for this event. As noted, we watched the sunset every night. Not for green flashes, but just because we loved the sunsets. One night while watching, just at the moment of sunset, the usual chatter stopped…and someone said “did you see that.” And we all quickly jumped in about the green flash we just saw. This happened twice during our stay.

Another in a series of sunsets.

The Party

We were planning to head out at the end of the month. The girls all had ortho and doctor appointments in Cocoa Beach, so they’d drive north and Don would take the boat up the coast. When the Liberty crew heard we’d be heading out soon, they planned a party aboard the Liberty Clipper, the flagship. Hearing that, we rode our bikes up to Wal-Mart and bought 20 good quality T-shirts and a box of ink-jet transfer paper. For a day we made “Calypso” T-shirts, borrowing an iron from the Hotel (Dennis had the hotel bring us an iron…what a great dockmaster).

Rugg Parties down

One of our crew members that was always welcome aboard either of the Liberty ships was Rugg. If there wasn’t a paying customer aboard, the Liberty crew loved having Rugg come aboard and hang out. I think some of them missed the simple things at home, like having a dog to play with. They’d never admit it. They were young and in the middle of one of the best times of their lives (even if they didn’t know it). Rugg was the ships dog for that month and they loved him. So it was only natural on the night of the party, he had free run of the ship.

What a great place for a party!

And then there was the great pig-foot debate. The writer will pause here for a moment to remember what the bet was, but one of the crew members said he’d eat a certain number to win. And, I think he did.

Ahh, the pig-foot challenge

Savannah and the crew, great ladies

Foley crew at the helm

Good food, great night.

And a great setting.

And not a single person was thrown overboard that night.

We absolutely knew we were experiencing a very unique time with this crew. We’d hear from a couple of the crew over time, and they would feel the same.

Wrapping up the month

There were things to do before heading out. We needed to provision the boat for at least a week, fuel up and pump out. We ran the boat over to the other side of the island that had fuel and waste facilities. On the way we cruised by the Liberty Schooner about to head out for the day. Savannah was crewing that day, so we took some photos and head to the dock.

Liberty preparing to head out for the day.

The Libetry Clipper and the Liberty Schooner (girls aboard, just docking from a cruise)

The last sunset.

We had retrieved the van from Don’s brothers and Melora and the girls head up A1A to Cocoa Beach. Don cast off the lines and picked up the radio and hailed “Sailing vessel Calypso heading out of the Hilton harbor, all concerned or conflicting traffic we’re standing by on 16.” The crew of the Liberty Clipper stood on rail and gave a salute and the Calypso head out through the harbor entrance and out into the sea. On our way the Calypso crossed paths with the Liberty Schooner and gave another hail.

Liberty Schooner on the last pass. Fairwinds.

With that, the Calypso rounded the island and head east. For this run Don spent most of the time in the ocean. He’d set the autopilot, keep watch, read a couple books and tucked in each evening just before sunset to the local port. Because he was sailing solo, he never left the cockpit unless he needed to. When he did, he wore auto-inflating safety gear.

Don’s waypoints.

Key West, day one.

Newfound Harbor (Big Pine Key)

Channel Key (anchored in the lee of a small island on the inside)

Tarpon Basin (Key Largo, dock now closed)

Barne’s Sound (anchored off a causeway)

No Name Harbor (two days, deadline delay) out to the Atlantic.

Lake Boca Raton (three days, broken draw bridge, bad weather) out to the Atlantic. Here he provisioned in a driving rain thanks to another cruiser from his favorite internet forum. The bridge was waiting on a part, and it could take a few days, and we had 20-30 knot squalls from the south. Once the winds dropped he left through the inlet (testing the waters for other cruisers tired of waiting for the bridge repair) and reported shoal depths every 30 seconds to the dozen sailors with deeper drafts.

Lake Worth one night, then out to the Atlantic.

Fort Pierce (anchored north of the inlet) the rest on the ICW.

Grant (anchored off the islands)

Merrit Island…home base.

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Settling Down

We rented a place in Ocean Woods until the property we bought (and leased) in Harbor Heights became available. Both were next to each other, so we often walked by to check things out. Finally, we moved into our house and within a few days the girls began the fall term at Cocoa Beach Jr/Sr High School. The timing was perfect, and we began the next phase of our life.

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We’d sail the Calypso in the local waters through 2007, but she was a cruising boat and not a day sailor. In 2007 we decided to sell her and to get a boat for the local waters. The good ship Calypso had been our home for a year and had given us a lifetime of memories. She is now somewhere in Canada with her new owner. We wish her, and her new crew, the best.

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2010 update

Ginny graduated with honors from Cocoa Beach High School this spring, and in the Fall will begin at USF.  Savannah, who also graduated with honors from CBHS, has just finished her freshman year at USF. Both girls graduated from the same barrier island high school their father graduated from…a few years earlier. This sets the pace for the ‘next phase’ of Foley cruising.

We began planning ‘the next phase’ of our life last fall. We bought a Beneteau Oceanis 390 (much like our 350, but a few feet bigger) and in December began fitting her out. Then we’ll be heading out again. Maybe not for long cruises, but the “Cool Change” will visit ports along the east cost as we continue our cruising tradition. We will, however, keep our ‘land home’ this time.  We do have two kids to put through college, so we’ll always be working and within cell phone range and docking within a reasonable distance to the nearest airport. Both Melora and Don’s careers will be a primary concern with the girls off to school, so whatever is needed to ‘keep the sharks fed’ will be done.

But we both have a good deal of experience on how to focus on the job at hand, but still keep life interesting.

But, our year was memorable. And for anyone who is on the fence thinking “should we do it” the answer is…

we can’t tell you.

Cruising in style costs a fair amount. This mean access to marina laundry to access to fresh water. We have lugged 5 gallon containers of fresh water…so we know.

It is, very much, a ‘you get what you paid for world’ when you are cruising.

Our new boat, Cool Change