65 Million Gallons?

Our 12 days of isolation were wonderful.  We left Fernandina Beach and traveled south to explore the St. Johns river.  

Jacksonville was an easy city to transit.  The waterway is wide and deep, and there are few bridge issues.  In fact, the only bridge we would need to wait for is the railroad bridge you can see open in the distance (the brown bridge span is sticking up on the left side of the picture).  Yay, if that RR bridge stays open we can cruise through with no delays...this is where Keith starts humming, ‘hi hopes, you have high hopes, high apple pie in the sky hopes’

Oh well, the train only takes a few minutes to pass, and the bridge opens automatically after it passes.

Of course there is plenty of room under this bridge, but from this angle I felt like I should hang back and let the ‘Bob Hope’ pass under the bridge first.  Rule #1...stay out of the way!

This is the most elaborate boathouse I’ve ever seen.

A very wet osprey shaking the water off before digging in to dinner.

Fort Gates Ferry is the oldest operating ferry in Florida.  It has been in operation since 1853. The small barge & push boat design can transport two vehicles at a time.  If you are visiting the Ocala National Forest this $10.00 ferry can save you a 40 mile drive.

The northern part of the St Johns River is a very large body of water, but approximately 35 miles south of Jacksonville it narrow significantly into a beautiful winding river with plenty of interesting sights.

First place award for most elaborate osprey nest.  Chesapeake Bay osprey would be very jealous of the Spanish moss curtains!

Ever since we left the Keys we have had serious withdrawal from our ability to snorkel in clean, clear water.  Thanks to information from our friends Ken and Barbara, we planned a visit to Silver Glen Spring (located off Lake George).  I feel no shame in confessing my ignorance on this topic, but my experience with springs consisted of tiny rivulets of cold clear water that usually flow from a mountain or hillside.  I had never experienced this...

This is a spring?? Are you kidding me?  AMAZING!  Sixty-five million gallons of crystal clear water (that happens to be 72° year round) comes out of the ground every day!  Keith dove down to the spring head (about 20 ft deep) and was propelled back to the surface by the force of the strong flow. The water creates such a strong current that gravel at the bottom dances like popcorn as the water shoots from the four foot opening.

We found a large school or striped bass (rockfish) hanging out at the spring.  You can see the depression that leads to the spring head  in the background of this picture.

This is the Google Earth view of Silver Glen Spring.  The actual spring is deep, but the depth from the sandbar to Lake George is only 3-4 feet.  The run that carries this fresh water to Lake George is a half mile long.  Boats (with shallow draft) can easily anchor, or beach, anywhere along the run.  A float-line clearly separates the boating area from the swimming area.  Luckily, we visited this site midweek in the ‘off’ season, but we have been told that during holiday weekends in the summer up to two thousand boats have tried to cram into the half mile shallow run.  The spring is also accessible by land, so the swimming area can get very crowded.

There were few swimmers that ventured into the deep water over the spring, but it was a funny sight to turn around and see the legs of the people hanging out on the sandbar.

Keith spotted this hogchoker sole.

We had to anchor in Lake George and bring the Whaler into the run.  There’s our wonderful little tender awaiting our return.

The run looked like an alligator nursery.  We saw several small gators along the shore.

This is where the run connects to Lake George.  Here the water is still crystal clear, but when we reached that sign we were floating in coffee, once again.

I have been a little behind in blogging, but this post catches us up.  That last picture was actually taken two weeks ago. Since that time Keith and I returned to Fernandina Beach, left Right Hand in a marina, rented a car, and drove to Maryland for our week of nonstop doctor appointments.  We will return to the boat and continue our journey north early next week.  If you are a MD friend waiting to meet up with us, we should have the boat here in mid May.  Hopefully, we will be able to hold some (Covid safe) open boat events so we can visit with all of you!

Lunch with Wild Horses

We’ve been in Fernandina Beach for three weeks, and will probably remain here for two more weeks before continuing our migration north.  Keith was able to get his first vaccine shot soon after we arrived, so now we are in a holding pattern until he can get the second shot.  Additionally, we will be driving to MD next week for planned doctors appointments (since we haven’t seen our doctors in 2 years).  

Clearly my ‘planning’ was a little off in my thought that we might have the boat in MD during the second week of April, and therefore I scheduled 14 appointments...for every type of check-up you can imagine.  Oh well, this is the best place for us to leave the boat since my son will check on her regularly.  Hopefully, I will be able to get the one-dose vaccine the week we return, and we can head north with confidence, and our masks!

We have enjoyed our time here, and had an opportunity to take Anna on a second boat trip...this time to Cumberland Island during her Spring break.

Of course, the best way to start a trip is to be boarded by the Coast Guard.  It has been a little over a year since we were last boarded, and I think they needed to practice trying to get the boarding party onto a moving boat in windy and rough conditions.  They originally asked me to maintain course and speed, but after several failed attempts they asked me to slow down.  After several more failed attempts they asked me to put my vessel in neutral.  Then...Success!  A large party of 6 came aboard and after a thorough inspection of our vessel and safety equipment we were given our second gold sheet (that means we passed👍).  

This retirement life we live has certainly helped us to appreciate the wonderful National Parks we have access to explore.  We anchored on the west side of Cumberland Island (just over the Georgia state line), and took the Whaler to Dungeness dock.  Most people visit this site by ferry, so we feel incredibly lucky to have ‘front row’ access to such a fabulous place.  The green highlight shows the route we took on our adventure.

Immediately upon leaving the dock area you enter a beautiful path surrounded by large live oak trees.

We walked to Dungeness Ruins, and had our picnic lunch on the lawn.

The ruins are of a mansion built by Thomas Carnegie (brother to Andrew Carnegie) and his wife Lucy, in the 1880s.  Unfortunately, Thomas died two years after its construction, but Lucy and their 9 children lived there.

The mansion was last used in 1929 for a wedding of a Carnegie daughter.  After the Crash and the Great Depression, the family left the island and kept the mansion vacant.  The mansion burned in 1959, in what is believed to have been a fire deliberately set.

Today wild horses roam freely. After lunch we walked around to the front (marsh side) of the property.

At the marsh we were greeted by mud crabs.

Tens of thousands of mud crabs.  As you approach, they run across the mud flats and disappear into their holes.

We hiked through a fairly extensive sand dune trail to find a wide expanse of beach, at low tide.  We quickly discovered that many organisms were stranded by this low tide.

Stone crab claws are worth a lot of money around here!  I’m not sure why we could just pick them up. They didn’t seem to be nearly as feisty, or as fast, as the blue crabs we are used to wrangling.

Have you ever seen a sea cucumber?  These two are in distress due to their beaching predicament, but they show evidence of a defense mechanism that many people find hard to believe.  Sea cucumbers have the ability to jettison a portion of their intestines when they feel threatened.  This behavior is thought to either scare the attacker, or confuse them with an easy meal while the sea cucumber escapes.  The sea cucumber will regenerate the intestines in a few days.  We did relocate these adorable cukes to the ocean...hopefully they survived. 

I have found many empty Stiff Pen shells on the beach before, but this is the first time one contained a live organism.  We stuck it upright in the sand and waited. “If we are very patient and very quiet it might open a bit so you can have a peek inside.”  Yes, we both got to see our first Stiff Pen...it resembled an oyster, but has a creamy yellow color...SUPER COOL!!  And as soon as we touched the shell it snapped shut😁

We had a fabulous week beach combing, baking cupcakes, playing games, and doing craft projects.  I think she might have been a little disappointed in my grandmom skills on our first trip, but I’m pretty sure I earned some grandmom ‘cred’ this week.  It was sad to take Anna home, but she was going on another trip, and we needed to start our isolation before our trip to Maryland.

...right after we meet up with our friends on Northwind...

It was so wonderful to spend an evening sharing great food, good stories and happy times with Ken and Barbara, and it was so exciting that Bill, Mike, Ryan, and the boys were all able to join us (clearly their boat holds way more people than our boat can accommodate👍). Also, very thankful that the vaccine provided a much safer environment!  One of the best parts of this cruising lifestyle is meeting new people and forming long lasting friendships!

At this point, Keith and I headed south to explore the St. John’s River.  We will be isolating for 12 days before our trip to Maryland, where I will safely visit my Dad for the first time in 18 months...I am sooo excited!

Let’s Have a Spa Day

Lately, it seems like every post starts with me apologizing for my tardiness in posting...however, this time I have a good reason...Anna😁

Our youngest grand daughter joined us in St. Augustine.  However, before we get to Anna’s story, let’s backtrack to cover the time between my last post and St. Augustine.

We have traveled over 350 miles since our last post.  We left Key Largo and headed to Miami.  About 2 miles from our anchor spot we both heard a thump-thump against the hull.  It was a clear day, with clear water, and neither of us saw any debris.  We slowed, looked around...checked behind the boat...nothing, so we continued.  After anchoring, I looked over the stern and saw a black line drifting out behind the boat in the current.  I’m so glad there is a diver on board to handle this type of issue👍

This beautiful sunset picture might lead you to believe we were in a peaceful and serene environment...don’t be fooled.  From the moment we dropped the anchor we missed the Keys!  Everything felt hectic, tense, and inconsiderate.  It started with a wakeboard boat pulling someone in circles around us while Keith was trying to dive under our boat.  We had a dive flag up, but I’m sure no one in Biscayne Bay had a clue about what that meant.  No one followed rules of the road, or even displayed any gestures of common courtesy.  The radio chatter (that went on well into the night) was full of yelling, cursing, and threats of face pummeling.  It felt like we fell through a black hole after weeks in the laid back Keys.  Little did we know that in a short 48 hours we would feel like yelling, cursing, and doing a little pummeling of our own...we didn’t of course, but we were tempted.

Our sincere hope was for a weather window that would allow us to pass offshore from Miami to Stuart, which would effectively bypass a two day - 43 bridge (30 need to be opened) nightmare...as you can see from this forecast we missed our chance, and we were not going to sit here for a week hoping for improvement.  It looks like we will have to do something the we swore we would never do again...

“We both agree that we will never take that route again.  The next time we need to transit this area it will be in the ocean!” Quote taken from January 2020 post.

And so I began preparing for a 2 day, 43 bridge transit...ugh!

I meticulously follow the route and note every bridge we will encounter. This shows the first bridge we will encounter (on the second day of this journey) is Linton Blvd bridge.  We can clear this bridge (the * means we must lower our antennas) with a bridge clearance of 30 feet.  We need a minimum of 24 ft clearance with our antennas down and 32 with them up.  Also, this plan shows that we will encounter this bridge 1 mile from where we lifted anchor.  The next bridge, Atlantic Ave., will be in 1.3 miles and we can not clear this bridge so the document shows the schedule of opening, which is on the 1/4 & 3/4 hour, and instead of clearance the channel used to hail the bridge tender.  Easy peasy...right?  Actually, day 1 went very well.  We cleared 25 bridges in a distance of 40 miles, in just over 10 hours.  Day 2 started out strong, but things deteriorated at the Southern Blvd bridge.

It was a very windy and choppy day (even in the ICW).  This is where I begin a bit of a rant...so if you don’t feel like ranting with me, please skip to the water picture😉

Timing was perfect to make the 10:15 opening at Southern Blvd.  Two boats were waiting for the open on the windward side so I offered to hold back and let them through first, as is customary.  However, at 10:15 instead of opening the bridge, the tender announced that due to a motorcade out of Mar-a-Lago he would have to hold the opening until they were clear.  The only thing I have to say about this is...UGH!!! I can’t believe Mr. T ruined my perfect bridge mojo!

What started out to be a doable 15 minutes to cover 1.8 miles ended up being an undoable (for us) 7 minutes to cover 1.8 miles.  So instead of catching the 10:30 opening for Royal Park I was now looking at the 11:00.  Covering 1.8 miles in 37 minutes can be a leisurely float on the ‘lazy river’ on a nice calm day, but we did not have a nice calm day!  Winds were on the nose at 20-25, which required at least 6 mph movement to keep the bow pointed in the direction we wanted to travel.  

Needless to say, the next 37 minutes were not fun. I spent the last 15 minutes holding station close to the bridge, which required a LOT of transmission and throttle work.  Again, two vessels were awaiting passage on the windward side, so I told them to come through first and I would hold back.  I passed through at 11:03, and was happy to see that I was easily going to make the 11:15 opening of Flagler with only .7 miles to cover in 12 minutes.  

Flagler was the last bridge I needed opened before my helm duty was over...so I was happy.  I thanked the Royal Park tender for the opening and bid him a great afternoon.  To my dismay, he returned with a question wondering if I was going to pass under Flagler.  I replied, yes!  He proceeded to scold me for requesting an opening “when I didn’t need one”, and added that the offense carried a “$10,000 fine”.  

He told me to consult my chart!  I was momentarily confused.  I created our travel/bridge plan two days prior, and looked at the height of every bridge.  I had a system to indicate if we could pass under the bridge without an opening, and placed an asterisk in front of the bridges that required lowering antennas in order to make it under.  Had I made a mistake on these two??  

By this time I was trying to hold station in front of Flagler in tight quarters, with high winds, while dodging three other boats in the same situation.  I still managed to open the info window for each bridge and saw the vertical clearance was stated at 21 feet.  At the same time the Royal Park tender radios me and asks for my documentation number and owner’s name.  Now my patience level is going down while my blood pressure is shooting up. 

I respond and tell the man that I am confused, because my chart shows a 21 ft clearance for both bridges while I need 24 ft with antennas down (on a perfect day, but would need at least 25 in this weather) and 32 ft with antennas up...maybe he has confused me with another vessel.  In fact, one of the vessels that passed through was a much smaller Grand Banks.  He responds that ‘Right Hand’ is the vessel he is talking to, and proceeds to tell me that his visual sighting technique showed I had 10 ft clearance and did not need an opening.  I wanted to reply that I think he is either drinking on the job, or that he needs a remediation course on how the read the inch-high-private-eye telepathic height indicator he was using...Clearly the instructions he read on the Cracker Jack box were missing a few steps!

Luckily, Keith stepped in and took the mic, as I was still battling at the helm, and he could tell my fuse was getting short. Incidentally, the Flagler tender did not question my open request.  After Keith argued with the guy for a few more minutes, and as I recognized his fuse burning down...I told him to just give the guy our documentation number and name...I would love to see this guy in court!  

Thankfully, Flagler opened on time and we proceeded through with the parade of boats.  Of course all of the boats around us heard the altercation, and all they could do was shake their heads and give us the reassuring 🤷🏻‍♂️ living emoji symbol.  We will keep you posted if we hear anything else about our $10,000 fine😡

Even after the headache of the bridges we were able to confirm that selecting the inside route was the right choice.  This was the view of the ocean as we passed an inlet, and the Coast Guard was announcing 7-9 ft waves outside...yikes!

There are always interesting sights in the canals.  This boat has more than double the horsepower of our boat in just one of these (450 hp) engines.

We are happy to see continuous dredging operations.   Perspective - the claw is not going to eat the guy.

Make sure you stay in the channel!  At high tide this looks like a huge, open bay...but at low tide you can see all of the oyster bars.

Life through the eyes of a 4 year old (soon to be 5) is always interesting.  Anna met us in St. Augustine so she could become crew for the next leg of our journey.  We spent the first day exploring St. Augustine where the trolley ride was a big hit.  Upon our return to the boat, she wanted to have a water squirting dance party on the top deck.  We agreed that was a great idea, as long as she wore these wash clothes on her feet so she wouldn’t slip off the deck😉...you missed a spot.

Due to Covid, and our travels, it had been over a year since we had seen Anna...so getting reacquainted was interesting.  Conversations were enlightening.

The first day on the boat...

Anna: Grandmom, let’s have a spa day on the boat

Me: what kinds of things would you like to do

Anna: we could soak our feet and put cucumbers on our eyes

Me: we could soak our feet, but I ate all the cucumbers and we won’t be going to a store for at least a week

Anna: oh, [long processing time to comprehend] well we could put on princess dresses

Me: I don’t have a princess dress, but you can put yours on

Anna: [light sigh] well we could paint our nails

Me: I don’t have any nail polish

Anna: [heavy sigh with eye roll] well we could put on makeup to look pretty

Me: I don’t own any makeup, and even if we got some, I don’t know how to put it on. I think we look pretty without makeup

Anna: [exasperated sigh with extensive eye roll] well what can we do for a spa day

Me: we can soak our feet, sip hot tea, and I will give you a back rub.

Anna: [slightly unenthusiastic] fine

That night at dinner...

Me: Anna, why don’t you eat a few bites of your chicken, your muscles need some protein

Anna: that’s alright Grandmom, I don’t really like muscles, they aren’t very pretty

Me: [exasperated sigh with extensive eye roll] I know you are excited about our kayak trip, but you can’t paddle a kayak if you don’t have any muscles.

Okay, I guess little muscles will be alright.

Sharing my world...priceless.

At the first sign of an insect bite, she was ready to retreat to the boat spa, but the oysters captured her attention.  As we approached exposed oysters, they would snap shut and shoot little geysers of water into the air.  Very cool, and good for a lot of giggles!

On her second boat trip she got cucumbers, and brought her own polish for some stylish toe nails. We have hyphenated her name, she is now our ‘boat girl- princess!‘

Hoping you can share your joys with loved ones.

Floating Face Down

The last week of February was a wonderful week for us.  We had the blessed opportunity to spend several days floating face down.  Mafia movies might lead society to believe that floating face down is a bad thing, but no, no, no...let me shed new light on this amazing position.

We left Key West on the morning of Feb. 24, with the intention of anchoring at Big Pine Key.  We were still buddy boating with Seaquel, and planned to enjoy a few more days snorkeling together.  Our trip was less than 30 miles, so by early afternoon we were getting close.  

Since the conditions were so calm we decided to move our snorkel plans up a day, and headed directly to Looe Key (the blue circle) with the big boats.  Looe Key is a reef located 4 miles offshore, but has accommodations to provide easy access to the reef.  There are numerous mooring balls, and both Right Hand and Seaquel easily secured a ball for an afternoon of snorkeling.

The first thing I did was launch the drone to get a ‘lay of the land’ before we entered the water.  Immediately, I spotted this shark about 200 feet in front of our boat.  Enlarge this picture and tell me what you see.  I’m sure it is the way the water’s surface is reflecting off the shark, but I swear it looks like this shark is tied up with rope. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until I downloaded the drone pics, a few days later, so I couldn’t double check.

As I was flying the drone back to the boat, I spotted this shark swimming up behind this sailboat.  We had the mooring ball right next to this sailboat.  I decided that too much information might be a bad thing, so I landed the drone and got dressed for snorkeling. I can pretend I didn’t see sharks.

There was a lot of life on this reef. Probably the healthiest reef we have seen thus far in our trip.  This is where I would like to challenge my grandchildren to dig out those fish identification cards I sent you and start identifying!

Many of the fish here were also larger (this fish was over 18 inches long) than the reef fish we have seen in both the Bahamas and the Dry Tortugas.

Visibility was still a little cloudy, but many of these fish allow swimmers to get very close.  I had the feeling right away that these fish expected us to feed them, and it didn’t take long to see the proof, because that is exactly what was happening.  A person on a small boat, moored nearby, yelled to us to come closer if we wanted to see a lot of fish...then he threw a handful of bread in the water and the water erupted with hundreds of fish.  Yikes...I did not want to be anywhere near a ‘feeding frenzy’!  No one should be feeding the fish here!

We have never seen a whole school of Blue Tangs!  Unfortunately, about 30 minutes into this snorkel trip the battery died in the camera.  We saw fabulous things, but didn’t get pictures.  A reef shark swam right past. A nurse shark was resting on the bottom, and the winner of the day was a green moray eel.  I have never seen a moray eel outside an aquarium, but this guy just swam right under us like a beautiful ribbon flowing across the bottom.

After this wonderful excursion we dropped our mooring balls and headed to Big Pine Key to anchor.

The next morning we decided to follow Gail and Eddie to snorkel a reef that is only .5 mile off the coast (the red circle in the first picture).  This time we left the big boats anchored and we took the dinghies.  This location also has mooring balls to protect the reef from damaging anchors. However, about a half mile from the site the Whaler died.

 Oh my...thank goodness my personal mechanic is always close by!  It sounded like it needed fuel, so we checked...yep, there is fuel in the tank.  Next step, squeeze the ball to pump fuel through the line.  Problem identified...fuel is spilling out of the top of the fuel filter.  As it turns out, the top of the fuel filter rusted through, and it was less than 6 months old.  Keith was able to bypass the filter and connect the fuel line directly to the outboard.  Back in business, after a few short minutes.  In the mean time, Eddie and Gail noticed us missing, and doubled back to check on us. It’s so nice to have buddies👍

Visibility was still a little cloudy, but this site was much more shallow so we were closer to the organisms.

The parrot fish were amazing!

Sea urchins were huge.  The spines on this guy were at least 12 inches long.

There always has to be a trouble maker.

We saw thousands of fish at this location.

I LOVE floating face down!!!

After this wonderful morning snorkel excursion we returned to our boats for lunch and a rest. However, since the weather conditions were predicted to change with high winds forecasted for the next few days, we decided to make a trip to town that afternoon for a provisioning run.  I have mentioned in the past that this life has a lot of wonderful parts, but it’s not all dolphins and rainbows.  Everything we need to accomplish requires more planning and energy than the same activity on land.  Let’s take a look at grocery shopping.

We took the Whaler two miles across the small bay and entered this canal system.  We left our dinghies at a marina (at the red dot) for a $5 fee, and walked one mile (blue path) to the Winn-Dixie.

The canals are very long here.

For Keith and I this was mainly to restock fresh fruits and veggies, so we each left the store with a backpack and a bag. However, this was a major provisioning trip the Gail and Eddie so the wagon was in order.  We actually tried to get an Uber back to the marina, but no Ubers were available (which is a very common occurrence in small towns).  So...a one mile hike carrying our supplies is how we roll! 

Once we get everything loaded into the dinghies it’s a two mile ride back to the boat. At this point the acquisition of groceries is similar to the land based job.

Bring everything in, unpack, and put everything away (yes, Keith and I both have a bit of a sweet tooth).  After our morning snorkel excursion and the afternoon provisioning trip we are exhausted...BUT it is definitely the good kind of exhausted!

Sadly, on the morning of March 2 we waved goodbye to our friends on Seaquel as we started our northern migration.  Again, there are a million things that are wonderful about cruising, but one of the down sides is that the lifestyle can be a bit lonely.  I know that due to the pandemic many people have experienced loneliness, but when the world returns to normal...this will still be our normal. With that said, we really loved being able to spend so much time with Eddie and Gail...and we missed them before they were even out of sight!

Putting this blog post together has given me time to reflect on how lucky I am to be able to spend my retirement years living like this, but it also makes me feel a little guilty.  I can’t shake the thoughts associated with a radio call we heard the morning we were leaving Key West for the Dry Tortuga Islands.  As we were pulling the anchor we kept hearing the Coast Guard making an announcement for all mariners to be on the lookout for people in a raft.  Sometimes, the original announcement is lacking detail, and leaves a lot to the imagination.  

Within 30 minutes the picture became much clearer when a captain called the Coast Guard and asked them to pick a different channel for a conversation.  The Coast Guard asked the person to go to 22 alpha (which is their ‘none’ emergency channel)...of course we listened.  The captain explained that he was directly outside the main channel leading into Key West and he sees two men in a homemade raft constructed from styrofoam and wood. They have water jugs tied onto the raft and they each have a paddle.  They are flagging the boat, but neither man speaks English.  The captain then explains that he has paying customers on board his vessel and he does not wish to be involved.  He gives the Coast Guard the coordinates of the raft, and signs off.

Many things passed through my mind at this point...particularly, how desperate must one be to get into a homemade raft and float 90 miles across the ocean.  How could anyone possibly think that would be a good idea? Considering all of the resources and safeguards we had in planning our 70 mile trip, this news made me feel a little like a wimp. 

I thought for sure the Coast Guard would pick these people up (considering there was a station within 5 miles of the coordinates) but apparently they did not find them! A more detailed message was broadcast on channel 16 ALL day.  

“The Coast Guard has received a report of two males in a handmade raft of foam and wood, traveling out of Havana. All mariners are advised to keep a lookout and report any sightings to the Coast Guard”.  So my questions are...how do they know they came from Havana, and what happened to them?  This experience also opens the door of, “what would we do?” That topic can fill a whole blog post on its own.

I know it’s been a tough year, but please remember how incredibly lucky you are!