Annapolis, MD - Exxon Valdez Redux

Unbelievable! At 9:30 this morning we were in the Rhode River, about 12 miles south of Annapolis. We had started the engines and Kevin was just getting ready to bring up the anchor when BEEEEP! The oil alarm on the port engine started going off. We shut down the engine and went below to investigate the engine compartment -- oil was everywhere! Kevin looked down and said "I can't believe this - we lost another oil gallery plug. This is the EXACT SAME THING that happened last year two days before your parents came to visit over fourth of july." An oil gallery plug is a small metal plug shaped like an eraser. For whatever reason, Volvo presses these plugs into the engine block instead of using threaded screws. Last year when this happened, Kevin and my dad actually drilled a larger hole, threaded it, and plugged up the hole with a threaded plug. Luckily Kevin had purchased more threaded plugs than he needed last year, so we would theoretically be able to get this fixed today before heading to Annapolis. I was sure glad we hadn't pulled the anchor up - at least we wouldn't have to go into Annapolis harbor on one engine.

So we got to work. First things first: we had to clean up the oil spill in our engine compartment. We had lost about a gallon of oil, and some of that had found its way down into the bilge. Luckily it wasn't enough to kick on our automatic bilge pump, which might've discharged it overboard (which is totally illegal). So to avoid creating an oil slick, Kevin disengaged the bilge pump and we used a hand pump to suck out 2 gallons of oily bilge water. Ew. Then Kevin contorted himself into all kinds of acrobatic positions trying to mop up the rest of the oil out of the engine compartment. Now we (meaning Kevin of course, since he actually has machine shop experience) were ready to drill the hole and insert the new threaded plug. All told, everything (cleanup, drilling, etc) took about 3 hours, including a break for lunch. We started up the engine and let it idle while we were eating, then checked the plug -- no leaks. By 1:30 we were on our way to Annapolis as if nothing had happened.

Getting into Annapolis is tricky; it's a big-time sailing town so not only did we have to watch out for other large boats but there were nearly a hundred ten-year-old dinghy sailors zipping around in dinghy races. (These are small sailing dinghies, not like our inflatable zodiac-type dinghy). Kevin was at the helm and after threading his way around three or four separate dinghy races, he also had to run the gauntlet through a large posse of jetskiers leaving the harbor. Finally we motored up Spa Creek and under the bascule bridge. We originally had arrangements to dock at one of the local boatyards for the week while my parents are in town. But when I called the guy said gruffly, "Um...things have changed since you called. We don't have space for you right now, I'm gonna hafta move some boats." So instead of waiting around while the guy shuffled the marina around, we just picked up one of the city moorings. I called the guy back and said, "Hey, you don't have to move those boats anymore, if it's okay with you we'll just stay on the mooring for the week." The docks at the marina looked like they were in pretty bad shape anyway, so it's better this way. The moorings in this section of Annapolis are out of the way of the main harbor so it's much more peaceful and scenic, and it's just as close to downtown as the marina would've been.

Solomon's Island, MD

Finally a day without rain! We were up at the crack of dawn and on our way by 6:30 am just rearing to get somewhere other than Reedville. Solomon's Island is a town just off the Patuxent River. (I think whoever named all the places in the Chesapeake did it to maximize their scrabble score. Lots of x's, k's, and q's.) We went ashore (because we could! no rain, yay!) and visited the Calvert Museum, where they had exhibits on: the local wildlife (including real live otters!), the fossils found in the cliffs nearby (massive pre-historic whales and sharks), and an actual screwpile lighthouse that was built in the 1880's and then relocated to the museum in the 1970's when it (and the lightkeeper that ran it) became obsolete. (They were replaced by a solar-powered electric light.) Unlike the tall land-based lighthouses we are all familiar with, the Drum Point light was located a little ways out on the water, reachable only by boat. It looked like a hexagonal-shaped cottage on stilts. We toured it and were surprised at how many rooms it had -- the lightkeeper and his family used to live in it, so even though they were isolated there was lots of space, much bigger than most homes built at that time. Kevin was enthralled with the idea of living in a lighthouse like that and I think he's now actively searching on monster.com to see if there are any opportunities available in that field. (That's the lighthouse behind Kevin in the photo.)

Afterwards we walked around town a little -- we love this place since everything we could ever need is within a short walk from the water: post office, grocery, West Marine, and the liquor store all in a row. Can't beat that.

Reedville, VA - Yep, We're Still Here

Haven't posted anything because we literally have not left the boat for the past few days. I'm sure you've all seen the weather and have heard about the flooding in DC and Baltimore. Or maybe you haven't heard, but it is a downpour here. Anyway seems like every day it drizzles all morning and then around noon the wind picks up and the rain just starts coming down. We discovered the reason for this is what the NOAA weather service is currently calling "an area of disturbed weather south of Cape Lookout, North Carolina". I guess it has the potential to evolve into a tropical depression and that is part of what is bringing on such crappy weather. We are hoping it will pass soon but are glad to be in a safe spot with good holding (and you don't smell the fish processing plant as much through the rain. So there's that. Yay.) Cautious mariners that we are, we have just been staying put and reading way too many books. Both of us have read "Adrift", the true story of Steven Callahan who spent 76 days drifting across the Atlantic alone in a liferaft. It's a compelling book, but reading about his desperate attempts to fish and collect freshwater I found myself eating and drinking more than usual in sympathy. Think I gained a pound or two. We found it ironic that Mr. Callahan was able to catch mahi-mahi with a butter knife tied to a stick, while we still have nothing to show despite owning nearly $300 worth of fishing gear. 76 days adrift and he caught twelve of them. Twelve.

Reedville, VA - Something Fishy

Man, we are just getting schooled by the Chesapeake. The other day we had a rainstorm, then yesterday they predicted 60% chance of thunderstorms so we stayed put (clear skies all day). So today despite another 60% chance of rain, we headed north from Deltaville (Fishing Bay) to Reedville and we were sailing along fine but the wind just kept picking up speed inch by inch. The waves gradually got steeper. All of this is fine if you are going downwind, which we were, since the waves just kind of pick you up and roll under you. But when the time came to turn west to head into our destination we were taking 23 knots of wind and 4-5 foot waves on the beam, which is really uncomfortable. But at least it was sunny. All day, I might add. Kind of miss Phoenix where the weather is easy to predict and you can always trust the forecast.

So we are anchored in Reedville, which is the menhaden fishery capital of the US. There is a fish processing plant right as you enter the creek and even if you were blind you would know that it was there just by the fishy scent wafting through the air. We are downwind of the plant, so we are definitely smelling it (Boris is enjoying it immensely) but surprisingly it isn't too bad and is much more bearable than the paper mill that we anchored near in Georgetown, SC. Menhaden (MEN-hay-den) is a small herring-like fish that is too bony and oily to be edible, but it has so many other uses that it actually constitutes 40% of all US fish exports. We went to the Reedville Fisherman's Museum and they had a ten-minute video telling you all you ever wanted to know about menhaden, complete with the cheesy elevator music and 50's style narration. The fish swim in huge schools which can be spotted by low-flying scout aircraft. Then the fishing vessel hurries over and lowers two boats down. The two boats surround and enclose the school with a large net that is then pulled together at the bottom like strings on a purse (which is why the method is called purse seining). Then the big boat comes over and literally vacuums them up out of the net with a large diameter hose. Then its off to the Reedville processing plant where the fish is pressed for oil (used to make all kinds of stuff including margarine and cosmetics. Think about that next time you apply your lipstick.) and then the solid part of the fish is dried and ground into fishmeal which is used as fertilizer, livestock food, even Pounce Cat Treats which Boris gets every day. The rest of the museum had more exhibits on fishing, as well as a half-dozen restored boats at a dock outside, and a tour of a turn-of-the-century fisherman's home. Afterwards, Kevin and I were hungry for seafood so we went to a restaurant called the Crazy Crab for crab dip and beers. Hey, if we have to smell the fish we might as well eat some.

Fishing Bay, VA - Three Hour Tour

We spent the morning at the marina tidying up the interior of the boat and washing down the deck. We had a little lunch and then decided it was time to move on. The sun was beating down mercilessly, but we figured once we got going there would be a breeze since the forecast called for 10-15 knots out of the south. Oh, it also mentioned a chance of showers and thunderstorms. But it had also predicted showers for the past two days and it didn't rain. So we figured we'd be okay for a quick 30 mile trip. For those of you not familiar with literary devices: this is foreshadowing, folks.

We hoisted the mainsail and were cruising along for about an hour before we started to see a very dark, very fast-moving, mass of clouds ahead. It was so well-defined you could see the leading edge very clearly outlined against the shrinking patch of clear sky. And lightning. Lots and lots of lightning. Did I mention that this boat was struck by lighting twice before we bought it?

First things first, we lowered our sail and then Kevin slowed our engine speed, hoping to let the storm pass in front of us. But unlike the fast-moving brief squalls we encountered in the Bahamas, this was a full-blown thunderstorm that would last the rest of the afternoon. We were soon surrounded by rain and our visibility dropped to about 400 feet all around us. We put on our foul weather gear and the rain just dumped on us, coming down in sheets and being blown sideways into the cockpit by the wind, which gusted up to 35 knots. The lightning was everywhere and the bone-shattering thunder was never far behind. Usually when a storm like this hits we are at anchor, but there was no good harbor on the charts until we got to our destination and we'd gone too far to turn back, so we just had to stick it out. After about an hour of getting drenched the original GPS that came with the boat flickered off. Water must've gotten down in there and shorted it. Luckily we never use that GPS since we bought the chartplotter last fall which has built in GPS. Between the chartplotter showing us where we were and the radar showing us other ships and buoys, we were in pretty good shape even though the visibility was so poor. Both of us peered around into the rain to make sure we didn't hit anything or get tangled up in any crab traps. It was exhausting. Finally the rain let up a little as we approached the channel to get into Fishing Bay only to pound us again as soon as we were inside. Again, the chartplotter came in handy, helping us to see the channel markers, and we were able to find safe anchorage. Our trusty Delta anchor bit into the sandy bottom and we were able to take off our wet gear and get dry inside. We changed into dry clothes, cleaned up some drips of water on the floor (we have a leaky hatch in one of the bathrooms) and settled down for a dinner of nice hot soup.

Hayes, VA - Summer Solstice

We celebrated the first day of summer by finishing up our haulout chores (I touched up bottom paint while Kevin waxed the gelcoat) and getting the boat back in the water and back over to the slip. After the nightmare that was our last haulout (where the boatyard wouldn't let Kevin do anything and instead charged him a king's ransom to do the simplest things, and yet they still took four times as long as necessary to get it back in the water), we are so pleased with this boatyard. Basically we accomplished the same list of maintenance chores in two days (as opposed to 8 last time) for much less money (one-fifth the cost of our previous haulout). We plan to spend an extra night here since there are some engine things that Kevin wants to take care of (fixing an oil leak and troubleshooting a heat exchanger) and for that the boat has to be in the water. Plus all the guys who work here at the boatyard have been so helpful (even though this is a do-it-yourself yard) so Kevin figures he might as well work on engine stuff here in case he comes across something that might require a mechanic.

So today was the longest day of the year and it was also unbearably hot. Not so bad when the breeze kicked up but it was over 90 degrees with about 60% humidity. Pretty sweaty. Speaking of the summer solstice, does everyone know what that is? If you don't it's okay to admit it. Because we are discovering that there are many, many people who do not recognize the word "solstice" as English. Not only do they not know what it means, but they also don't know how to pronounce it. We have heard: "sol-tiss", "so-lis", "sol-sits", and my personal favorite "so-how-do-you-pronounce-that-anyway". When we named the boat, we specifically chose the name because we assumed (wrongly) that everyone would know what it was and how to pronounce it, even if we were in other countries where English was not spoken. So we are scratching our heads that somehow we managed to pick a name that some people don't recognize even though they talked about it on Headline News all morning today. I guess I can understand why people might not be familiar with it since the word is only used twice a year. By the way, for those of you reading this who didn't want to cop to not being able to pronounce it, here you go: SOUL-stiss. (Like SOUL-train only without the funky grooves.) And if you don't know what it is: it's either the longest (summer) or the shortest (winter) day of the year, as opposed to the fall and spring equinoxes where day and night take exactly the same amount of time. If you don't comprehend it just ask your local druid to draw it out for you.

Hayes, VA - Haulout Number Three

Yesterday we arrived at the Severn River Marina which was recommended to us by another couple who owns a Manta and has hauled out here several times. As we were approaching the marina, we radioed them and were given directions on how to get to the slip. Because we are a catamaran and are wider than most boats (21 feet wide versus, say, 13 feet wide for the average sailboat) we usually dock at face docks which are nice long docks where you just come in and tie up only one side, kind of like pulling up to a curb. However, this marina wanted us to pull into a slip (which is like a skinny parking space with two big SUV's on either side). As we approached, the slip started looking pretty narrow so Kevin was frantically hailing them on the VHF to make sure it was wide enough to accommodate our 21-foot beam so we didn't scrape ourselves up on the pilings. No answer. Finally, I just shouted, "Hey -- is the slip at least 22 feet wide?!", and the guy on the dock (who we later learned was named Dan, quite a character) yelled back "Honey, it's twenty-FIVE feet wide!". And in we went, and we only hit one piling (gently, of course!). It was nice to spend a night with the air conditioning on all night. Thank you, almighty Shore Power.

So this morning we got to play an even more exciting game. We had to get the 21-foot-wide boat into a 23-foot-wide travelift. Fun! Luckily there were three guys onshore helping to pull us into the slings, so our boat didn't even touch the sides this time. Yay -- three points! The boat was up in the air before we knew it (they made us get off the boat before they lifted it. Bah! Safety, schmafety!) and one of the guys immediately started pressure washing with a high-powered hose to get all the scum and barnacles off the bottom. Man, it looked so easy considering all the time we spent scrubbing the bottom by hand a couple months ago. (We have uploaded videos of the lift and pressure-wash.) After the wash, they put the boat up on blocks and Kevin and I got to work -- he to change the saildrive seals and replace the saildrive oil; me to repair the many scuffs in our vinyl bootstripe. Both of those items took the rest of the afternoon, including a side trip to Lowe's to buy metric Allan Wrenches (Curse you, Volvo! Crazy metric-obsessed Europeans!) So after a full day, we picked up the rental car and headed to the hotel. Ironically, we didn't know any better when we were booking online, so our hotel is in Hampton which is where we were anchored for the past two nights. Basically we're back where we started. Yeah, we're geniuses.

Hampton, VA

Today was the longest day ever. Actually, we've done longer days but today seemed so long because we had to go SO SLOW! Our average speed was about four knots because the Deep Creek Lock (at the end of the Dismal Swamp Canal) only opens at certain times and we left a little too early so we just kind of idled forward for the last few miles. It took forever! Plus we had to go under a lot of bascule and lift bridges today (drawbridges) while going through Norfolk so we had to slow down to wait for them to open. But finally we made it to Hampton, and after several unsuccessful tries we were able to get one of our anchors to set and are just hanging out in the heart of the downtown area.

Saturday night is a big night here. They close off the main street and have several bands performing live music, with food and drink vendors and all kinds of interesting stuff. We had dinner at one of the local seafood places and we both decided to have crab entrees (since we spend half our days avoiding the floats on crab traps) and a pitcher of beer, which is more alcohol than we usually drink in three days, so needless to say I am a little bit typey while I am tipsying this post. But I did remember to ask our waitress to do something rare: capture a photo of both of us at the same time.

Dismal Swamp, NC - We're Down With EYC

This morning we got an early start in order to make the 8:30 am lock opening. There were only two boats going through the lock so it went fairly smoothly. We were up at the front and the water came gushing in at a pretty good rate. I shot some video of it, but it doesn't do it justice because the water started coming too fast to keep filming and my attention was required elsewhere. After the lock it was only four miles to the Visitors' Center. Last fall when we went through the canal we didn't stop over, but the free dock at the visitors' center was packed with boats so it looked like it was the place to be.

Now we have three guidebooks that all talk about the Visitors' Center as though it is some kind of Dismal Swamp interpretive center. After we tied up and went in to check it out, we discovered that it was merely a rest stop for the highway that runs alongside the canal. Granted, a very NICE rest stop that catered to transient boats (free dock, free internet, book exchange, loaner bicycles) as well as welcoming car traffic to North Carolina. I guess the "interpretive" part is that they have a ten minute video that you can watch that talks about the history of the canal. That and about a thousand brochures about what there is to see and do in North Carolina (too bad we are on our way out.) We opted not to "interpret" the video but did love talking to the little old ladies who worked there who were very excited to have us staying the night and went out of their way to make us feel welcome. For most of the morning, it was just us and one other boat tied up at the dock. We seemed to be the highlight of the day for most of the folks traveling in cars. They all stopped by to check out the boat and chat. I guess if I pulled in to take a pit stop and there was a big ol' catamaran 50 feet from the parking lot, I'd want to check it out too.


Around 2:30 the fleet arrived -- six powerboats traveling together. The dock is only 150' feet long, so those boats that couldn't get dock space rafted onto (tied up to) the boats docked here. It was quite a circus, but we managed. Turns out they were all from the Eastport Yacht Club, and very friendly. (Eastport is right next to Annapolis). We got to know our "raftees", Jay and Patty, pretty well and for dinner all the boaters got together on shore and had an impromptu barbecue. It was nice to hear lots of advice about cruising the Chesapeake Bay and Annapolis area from some locals, although we repeated our life history so many times that I got sick of saying the phrases: "both computer programmers", "saved up our money", and "figured we'd do it now while we're young". We are thinking of concocting some crazy backstory instead -- like we won the boat in the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes or something. At the very least you'd see an increase in the number of magazine subscriptions.

Goat Island, NC

Not to tempt fate, but Alberto was kind of a non-event. We saw winds about 20 knots, occasional gusts to 30 knots, and lots of rain. Kevin had done a lot of research and picked us a pretty good hidey-hole at South Lake, we listened to the weather and areas only five miles away were reporting wind gusts to 43 knots. So we had a pretty good spot. Our only complaint would be the pesky mosquitoes. They waited until dusk to begin their assault on our boat. It was creepy, we had the windows and door open and you could see them swarming and hovering outside the screens, thousands of them, just waiting for us to open the screen door. Problem was, it was going to rain and one of us had to go outside to close the hatches. So Kevin got the OFF! and sprayed a preliminary cloud through the screen door to get them to retreat. Then, using the OFF! he laid down cover fire for the troops (me) as they darted outside into the onslaught of the enemy. Holding my breath (mosquitoes seek out the carbon dioxide) I slammed the hatches down and raced for the door as Kevin sprayed one last machine gun (er, OFF!) burst to get me back in through the door. The next morning, the cockpit was littered with hundreds of casualties. Ew.

We are now at Goat Island just outside the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. We plan to enter the canal tomorrow (they have to lock you through) and hopefully spend a night at their visitor's center which has a free dock. We went through the canal last fall and it was freezing at the time. Now the temperature is mild, and there is this amazingly sweet smell coming from the swamp. Yeah, I know, you'd think it would reek, but there are all these waterlilies all over the place and I think some of the trees must be sending out some kind of subtle perfume. It's actually really pleasant. Of course dusk hasn't come yet, so we have yet to discover if there are as many mosquitoes here as there were in South Lake.

South Lake, NC

[Kevin's Post]

Yesterday we traveled up the ICW about 50 miles making our way to what is one of the best protected anchorages in the area. It's a place called South Lake just off the Alligator river south of Albemarle Sound. It's more like a river than a lake, but we are 4 miles up the lake with good holding and wind protection from all directions. We're the only boat in here (for now) so we don't have to worry about other boats dragging into us. (I had a dream last night that my trusty airhorn ran out of air. . .) And the best part is we actually have a Verizon signal so we can easily monitor the weather without having to use the SSB. Alberto is 250 miles away and expected to pass slightly north of us late this afternoon. It has been downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression and we are expecting to see 35-45 mph winds as it passes. It doesn't sound like much compared to hurricane wind speeds, but it's still a respectable amount of wind. We've seen winds that high during squalls in the Bahamas, but it will be a new experience for us to see sustained winds that high. We're using our Fortress anchor as a primary this time as it is supposed to have better holding power in mud, but we have our trusty Delta standing by ready to deploy if we need a second anchor. It's drizzling outside with virtually no wind and we are just relaxing waiting for the weather to pass. For those of you who have been complaining about a lack of pictures (you know who you are!) here are some photos of some recent houseguests.

Where we are:
Lat: N 35 53.586'
Long: W 75 51.543'

Pungo River, NC

We spent most of this morning making arrangements for the haulout next Tuesday. Darlene sent me an email asking if we were going to come home during the haulout like I did last December. Sorry, no -- we are only planning on being out of the water one or two days to fix the saildrive seals and to put on some new sacrificial zinc anodes. Can't remember if I've explained this before but anodes are little bits of zinc that are put on important metal parts that come into contact with water so that the zincs corrode instead of say, your propeller or your engine (it has to do with the metal's nobility and zinc is like the least noble one. Or the most noble one. Or something. I was a poli sci major, not a materials engineer). Anyway, we have to special-order our zincs from England because our propellers have these custom cutters on them; in case you run over fishing line or a crab trap, the cutter will cut through the line instead of letting it wrap around your prop. The brand name of the cutter is the "Stripper", which makes me laugh. We had to call the guy in England to order them and he sounded like the guy from "The Streets" when he said "strippah". (Man, we hate "The Streets". What a no-talent band. Our satellite radio seems to play them incessantly, much to our irritation.) So we are planning to be at the boatyard in Hayes, VA by Monday. Hayes is right near Colonial Williamsburg, I'm trying to convince Kevin that it might be fun to go there or to Busch Gardens. But he seems to think that our time will be better spent actually doing work on the boat. Oh, alright.

Belhaven, NC - It's a Boy!

Named Alberto! No, Kevin and I didn't get a bundle from the stork; hurricane season has officially begun and the first tropical storm has been named. This morning we were listening to the weather and they were still calling it "tropical depression #1", but we just checked the weather again now that we're anchored and I guess the epidural kicked in because tropical depression #1 gave birth to tropical storm Alberto. Awww, isn't he cute? He is supposed to hit Florida tomorrow and probably won't make it up here to Belhaven until Wednesday. By that time we intend to be long gone.

Belhaven is supposed to be a popular stop among cruisers but I guess the author of our guidebook never went ashore on a Sunday. The place is a ghost town. All we wanted was to have a little dinner ashore. The guidebook only listed four places. Of those, one was out of business and two were closed so we ended up choosing (?) to eat at the River Forest Inn. It was a pretty building, probably dating back to the turn of the century, but we found the meals to be overpriced for the quality; I ordered the vegetarian penne which turned out to be undercooked pasta with sauteed red cabbage and two slices of tomato (no sauce, not even olive oil). Kevin fared a little better with his shrimp newburg. When he'd finished his dish, I just poured his leftover sauce over my pasta to give it a little flavor. I didn't even bother with the cabbage, what a bizarre ingredient choice. Next time we'll just eat on the boat since I can make a less than stellar meal without even trying and it won't cost us twenty bucks a plate.

Cedar Creek, NC

Today we saw some of the nastiest waves we've seen in a long time. We were entering Beaufort (boh-furt) Inlet and huge waves were coming at us from the left and right. Of course these weren't wind-generated waves, but the waves caused by the wakes of the huge sportfishers coming in the inlet. Prior to arriving at the inlet, we'd had a pretty calm day of motorsailing. The wakes in the channel weren't too bad, it was a pretty wide channel and we managed to get through it without getting rocked too hard. Funny thing is that about a half-mile in there is a no-wake zone and it was pretty ridiculous to see this big sportfishers racing in at 15 knots only to get to the no-wake zone and come to a screeching halt. Like those drivers who race to be the first one at the stoplight.

We anchored in a small creek off the ICW right near a very obvious shipwreck. There is a large wooden mast sticking up out of the water and it looks to be a fairly recent wreck. At night, you can still see its anchor light glowing on top of the mast; I wonder how that's possible since the rest of the boat including batteries are below the surface. Not sure why it sank, but we can definitely say that the holding here isn't great. It took several tries in different places for us to set our anchor, and in the middle of the night the wind kicked up and when we came out in the cockpit to check on things, we noticed that another boat had dragged all the way across the creek and run aground. They weren't hard aground and seemed to have no trouble getting off and re-anchoring. We're just glad it wasn't us.

Wrightsville Beach, NC

This is our third time visiting Wrightsville Beach and we have only just discovered that it is one of the most popular surf spots in the country. We took a long walk along the beach this morning and there were more than 50 surfers out there trying to catch the perfect wave. The town itself is reminiscent of San Diego, with piers and arcades and surf shops and people everywhere. We forgot that school is out, which means that all the local kids borrow the keys to daddy's speedboat and come barreling through the anchorage throwing up tremendous wakes that wreak havoc by rocking all the anchored boats. We watched the Coast Guard pull over two boats packed with kids and laughed when we saw the kids have to dig through lockers to count all the life jackets (you get fined if there isn't at least one life jacket for every person on board). Sweet revenge.

We *think* we have conquered our genset overheating problem. All of our genset coolant was left over from the previous owner and he wrote "50-50" on the bottles with a permanent marker. There is one sentence in the manual that reads "a 50-50 coolant/water mix will almost certainly result in overheating" (a clue!). So Kevin tried adding a little more water to dilute the coolant and then increasing the load (turning on the small air conditioner and then adding the big air conditioner) until the genset temperature stabilized at around 185 (meanwhile the temp in the boat got down to a frigid 72 -- go air conditioning!). So thinning the coolant with water seemed to do the trick. However, water mixing in with other fluids isn't so great, as we are learning with our starboard saildrive (fancy word for the thing that spins the propellers on the boat). The saildrive has its own special oil which you check regularly and somehow ours seems to have gotten a little water mixed in, which is not good. Normally to change the saildrive oil the boat needs to be hauled out of the water so that you can drain it out the bottom of the propeller shaft, but if the boat is in the water you can get about half of the oil out through the top with a pump, which is what we tried. The oil came out looking all cloudy and not at all like oil (not good), but we were glad that we'd at least be able to replace half of it with new oil until we haul out. And that's when things went wrong.

When we were in Charleston we had stopped in at Pep Boys to pick up spare saildrive oil and had bought four quarts of the stuff (75W-90). We did not realize at the time that two of the quarts we'd grabbed were actually 75W-140 Light Truck & SUV Formula, which had been mishshelved. Those numbers on the label mean something -- all oils are not created equal. Unfortunately we only discovered this after dumping a quart of Light Truck & SUV Formula into our BOAT! So once again we had to pump out the oil, but the consistency of the wrong oil was like honey and it proved to be as difficult as sucking a milkshake through a cocktail straw. Kevin's patience paid off and he was able to get almost all of the bad oil back out after a couple hours' work. But now we are thinking we will want to haul the boat out sooner than we'd planned so we can resolve the saildrive issue and try to figure out how water could've gotten in there in the first place.

Southport, NC

[Kevin's Post]
We got up at 5am today (no, we don't sleep in every day) in order to get under way at first light. We had planned to go out the Winyah Bay inlet outside up to the Cape Fear (Cape Fun & Games) river which is a distance of about 100 miles. One of the disadvantages of going outside on the ocean is that there aren't always a lot of places to come back in off the ocean. So once you're out, you're committed to staying out until you can get to the next good inlet. But the forecast was good, and with over 14 hours of daylight we were pretty confident we could make it all the way to Cape Fear before sunset. So at 6 am we hauled up our anchors along with about 50 pounds of Georgetown mud and got going. Within a few hours we were out of sight of land again for the first time since we crossed over from the Bahamas. It's pretty cool looking out and seeing nothing but water in every direction. Most of the day we were completely alone, with an occasional power boat zipping by at a distance of a few miles. We saw a few dolphins as we usually do. We tried to fish but caught nothing, also as we usually do. We did have some excitement when Amanda spotted what appeared to be a dinghy adrift about a mile away. Dinghies are expensive, and people are always losing them. Most sailboats drag their dinghies behind them and it just takes a knot to come undone or a line to chafe through and it's gone without you even noticing. We altered course to intercept it, but as we got closer we could tell it was just a pool-toy style raft that had probably washed away from one of the beaches 20 miles to the north. We decided we should probably get close enough to make sure nobody was in it. There wasn't, but hey you never know. We had a good breeze this morning, and were able to motorsail with one engine, but by the afternoon the wind had pretty much died so we had to run both engines to keep our speed high enough to ensure a daylight landfall. Then, of course, just as we are getting to land, we have 15-20 knots of wind behind us after it was too late to make any use of it. Tonight we are anchored in a creek near Southport, NC just off the Cape Fear river.

Georgetown, SC - Television Without Pity

It was calm this morning as I once again hoisted Kevin up the mast (using the electric winch, of course!). This time he went up there to eliminate the source of our halyard chafing whenever we sail downwind on a port tack (and yes, we are finally sailing often enough so that this would actually be a problem). The halyard (rope that holds up the sail) kept rubbing against the sharp edges on the glomex (the television antenna). If it were to chafe all the way through, the sail would come crashing down and we would have to somehow re-thread a new halyard up through the mast. So, given a choice between that disaster and not being able to watch network TV, we chose the latter. Sorry, "Antiques Roadshow" and "King of Queens" reruns! Not that we watch AR (okay...well only when there's nothing ELSE on...), and we love KoQ but it seems like whenever you turn on the TV you are bound to find at least one of those two shows on, no matter what time it is. So if anyone has a full season of a good TV show lying around the house, by all means feel free to send it to us. We are nearing the end of the first seasons of "Desperate Housewives" and "Veronica Mars" (oh wait, am I not supposed to admit that we watch and actually LIKE that show? Oops!) We accept DVD, VHS, and Beta formats. We would even trade, if any of you all are interested in the first seasons of "Desperate HW", "Nip/Tuck" (warning: each episode contains a few scenes of a realistically portrayed plastic surgery. Not for the squeamish.) or the only season of "American Gothic" (there are reasons it got canceled. Many, many reasons.) Oh, and just kidding about the Beta.

Georgetown, SC

We've added photos going back to Fort Sumter, and a video of the park ranger talk at the fort. Sorry it's sideways, we always forget when we shoot video that it doesn't work in portrait mode.

Well this stretch of the ICW has been chock full of 'gators. Whereas in Georgia we saw dolphins every day, seems like now we see at least one alligator a day. We know for sure there is one prowling around the anchorage here in Georgetown. It was less than forty feet from our boat this morning. Kevin keeps telling me that there is no way the thing is going to crawl up the transom steps and sun itself on our deck, but I'm not sure I believe him. It took a little convincing to get me into the dinghy to go into town this morning -- we could see the alligator just hovering about a hundred feet away, watching us board the boat. He disappeared once Kevin started the outboard though. When we got to town, we saw signs posted all along the boardwalk asking people not to feed the alligators. "Alligators", plural. So now we know there is more than one. Great.

Georgetown is a place that seems frozen in time. The main street looks like something straight out of the 1950's -- rows of shops with old-timey awnings, red brick sidewalks, a tall clock tower, and barbershops with candy-cane poles advertising "So-and-So, Master Barber. 40 years experience". There is a paper mill that looms large over the town, and it looks like a relic of the 50's, too. It's all rusted and brown and you'd think it would spoil the view of the waterfront, but to be honest it's so ugly that it could actually be considered picturesque.

We had lunch at a little cafe on the boardwalk. In true southern fashion they had an "FGT BLT" on the menu (fried green tomato), so we had to try it. It was okay, but a little too much. I know that when I order a BLT it's not exactly "health" food, but usually I tell myself that the L&T are vegetables, at least. But in this case the fried part canceled out the tomatoes so you can't even pretend -- they might as well have just deep-fried the whole sandwich (which they practically did, as it was served on Texas Toast). Honestly, I think the bacon may have been the healthiest part.

Minim Creek, SC - Semper Fi

Another day of motoring up the ICW through the South Carolina Lowlands. The lowlands are pretty, there is a lot of marsh grass and big country homes with long fishing piers in front of them. Weather-wise we are in the middle of a cold front so it's been raining a little and overcast. The persistence of the horseflies here is maddening. They just don't leave you alone. Back in the Home Depot in Charleston we picked up some flypaper and this flytrap thingy that claims to be irresistible to flies. It's kind of a plastic cup inside a plastic baggie and it has a lid so that the flies fly in and can't get out. You pour water in the baggie to activate the chemical scent inside. So today we put out the flypaper and decided to hang this thing in the cockpit. Kevin set it up and after a few moments I was like, "What is that SMELL?!" It was AWFUL and smelled like carrion or something. I guess it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what scent might be "irresistible" to flies: eau de poop. And of course motoring around swampy creeks with a baggie of stink hanging from the roof of the cockpit only does one thing: attract more flies. The old-fashioned flypaper was soon coated with flies but the trap remained empty and finally Kevin sealed it up in two ziploc baggies because we couldn't stand the putrid smell.

It was Saturday on the ICW and that means the powerboats come out in full force. There was a group of college-age kids motoring around in a small speedboat called "Semper Fi" towing a wakeboarder. Trying to tow the wakeboarder, anyway. The poor kid kept falling down and they had to keep stopping and circling back to pick him up. At one point they crossed in front of us and the kid fell down maybe 100 yards directly in our path. We avoided him but as we got closer I asked if he was okay. He said yes and that's when I noticed that he was trying to waterski with a beer in his hand. No wonder he kept falling down! Dumbass.

We were getting closer to our anchorage and I was at the helm when Kevin pointed out what looked like a tree branch floating in front of us. I turned the boat to avoid it and the thing started moving! When I realized what it was I yelled to Kevin, "Did you SEE that?" It was a juvenile alligator, between 5 and 6 feet long, dog-paddling up the creek. He disappeared beneath the surface when we got close. It was the first alligator we've seen from the boat. So we certainly won't be swimming while we're in this area. I wonder if that kid from "Semper Fi" knows what else is in the water with him?

Charleston, SC - Fort! Sumter!

Finally! We actually stopped running errands long enough to see the sights of historic Charleston. There aren't very many modern buildings within the city, there is some law on the books that you can't demolish historical structures so instead they get restored. For example, the garage doors on the fire department are too small to accommodate modern-size fire trucks but they aren't allowed to change them, so they just use smaller trucks. We saw ads for "100% Donkey-Free!" carriage tours (I guess there aren't enough horses to pull all the tourists around so they sometimes use mules, but discriminating travelers accept no substitutes!), but we opted for the air-conditioned bus tour since it looked like rain. They really packed a lot into the 90 minute tour, but it was good to get an overview of the city.

From there we took a boat (not our boat) over to Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. In case you can't think back to 11th grade history: Southern troops fired on a Union garrison that wouldn't leave even though South Carolina had seceded from the Union. There was a short "talk" given by one of the rangers and it was hard to keep a straight face -- for fifteen minutes the guy shouted the history like a drill sergeant..."For thirty-six hours! The bombardment continued! Major Anderson! Refused to surrender!". Small children in the tour group were scared out of their wits and a few started crying. I'm sure that guy has a heck of a headache when he goes home after shouting all day. Although it was cool to walk around such an integral piece of our nation's history, in the end (as Kevin put it): "You've seen one fort, you've seen them all."

We also checked out the largest residence in Charleston: Calhoun Mansion. At 24,000 square feet (no, I didn't mistype) it was immense. Interestingly, the family that built it lost everything in the stock market crash and they sold off all the furniture during the Depression to try to help pay their debts. So only one piece of original furniture is in the house today, but the current owner is what you'd call a "collector". He's got every square foot crammed with expensive and ornate knick-knacks, everything from oil masterworks to priceless antique furniture, even an altar from a church that he's set up in the house because "he liked the way it looked". It looked like he tried to cram the contents of five very different museums into the same house. He actually lives there when he's in Charleston which I can't even imagine -- I'd probably spill spaghetti sauce on a $50,000 persian rug or knock over a Ming vase or something.

Charleston, SC - Lasers are Cool

Kevin used the new infrared laser thermometer to troubleshoot the genset this morning. The problem we are having is that every once in a while the genset will just shut down while it's running (usually when it is hot & muggy and we are running the air conditioning). The first time this happened Kevin saw that the fuel line had air in it (air in the fuel line = bad) so we thought it had something to do with fuel starvation and kept scratching our heads since all the fuel stuff seemed to be in working order. But leave it to the laser to help us find the real problem. Kevin started up the genset and ran a small load on it (our battery charger and water heater). Temperature: about 185 degrees. Then he turned off those things and turned on our air conditioner. The temperature rose until it got to about 199 then he saw a small solenoid click and shut the engine down. Aha! The problem is that the thing is overheating with the AC on and shutting down on purpose so it doesn't get damaged! We are not sure what can be done to fix it, the previous owner already installed an extra cooling pump (now we know why) but at least Kevin doesn't have to keep messing with the fuel lines.

Meanwhile here we are tied up at Charleston city marina (hooked up to shore power so we can run the AC all we want to!) and we STILL have not seen a sight! Today we finished up running errands with the rental car (West Marine, Radio Shack, Home Depot, Big Lots -- no more rusty silverware, at least for a while, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart). We have spent over $800 on groceries and other supplies that we put off buying while we were in the Bahamas. We are all stocked up so hopefully for the next four months we will only need to go to the store for fresh veggies, bread, and eggs. I also stopped in at Fantastic Sam's for something I've been wanting for two months now -- a haircut. When we were in Marsh Harbor I was planning to get my hair cut but as we walked up to the salon a lady walked out with the most interesting hairdo I've seen in a long time: her hairline was shaved at the nape of her neck, it was braided tightly and pulled into a side ponytail that exploded like fireworks off the right side of her head. I wasn't sure if she was a customer or just worked there but either way I decided to wait until I got back to the states.

Charleston, SC

For the past two days the wind has been coming from the north (the direction we want to go) so we've motored up the intracoastal waterway and arrived here in Charleston this afternoon. We didn't stop here last year on our way south, so we are going to spend a few days here and see what the town has to offer. But first things first, we rented a car and hit Pep Boys, Petsmart, and Sam's Club. We had hoped to do a dinner & a movie date, maybe see X-Men or the Da Vinci Code (we've been out of the loop and have never heard of the other movies that are out right now). Unfortunately we were running around all evening (actually were one of the last customers to leave Sam's Club) so there wasn't much left of the evening to go to the movie theater. We did have a fabulous dinner at a little place called McDonald's (Kevin says nothing's too good for his new wife). I had something called a Quarter Pounder with Cheese (although I think in France they call it something else) and the fountain drinks were superb. Seriously, we were constrained by time -- it was close, it was cheap, it was fast. Given a choice Kevin would no doubt have picked someplace more upscale, like Arby's. On the plus side, Kevin has a new toy: an infrared thermometer that he bought to monitor the genset temperature. He's so excited about anything to do with lasers. So of course he's been using it on pretty much every thing in sight except the genset -- from the cat to the refrigerator door to his big toe. By the way, did you know that feet are colder than 98.6 degrees?

Beaufort, SC - Prince of 9-Foot Tides

We decided to go ashore this morning while it was still relatively cool. The Gullah festival was going on, which is a celebration of the traditions and customs that slaves preserved from their African ancestors and passed down thru the generations. They have had some great music -- jazz, soul, even steel drums. This morning as we walked past it was gospel. There wasn't much of a crowd (I imagine most folks were still at church) but those that were there had their hands raised up to the skies and were chorusing "Amen!".

We picked up a walking map from the visitor's center and although none of the tourist attractions were open on Sunday we did walk through the historical district to see the antebellum homes. Most of them were plantation-style, big white behemoths with double decker front porches and pillars galore. One of the nicest ones had a "for sale" sign so out of curiosity we looked it up on the internet www.jamesrhetthouse.com and the asking price was a mere 2.5 million. A lot of the other homes were familiar from the many movies that've been filmed here: "Forrest Gump", "The Big Chill", "Forces of Nature", and "The Prince of Tides".

After our walk we had lunch at a waterfront cafe called Plums (which we were told was a favorite of Barbra's when she was filming P.O.T. here). It was wonderful to look at a menu with reasonable beer prices ($2.50). We didn't order any (it was 11 am, too early even for us) but after five months in the Bahamas things here really seem cheap. We were back on the boat a little after noon, just in time to see the scads of powerboaters flock to this tiny sandbar beach across the water from us. Tidal difference here is 9 feet so half of the time this sandbar beach is underwater, but at low tide the beachgoers come out in full force. At noon, the tide was still going out and it was entertaining to watch the earlybirds all circling slowly in their pleasurecraft waiting for the beach to magically appear. When it finally did, it filled up fast -- we tried to take a photo but couldn't fit all the people in one shot so we cobbled several photos together using photoshop.

Beaufort, SC

We had another pleasant day motorsailing up the coast, tucking in at Port Royal Sound and motoring up the ICW to Beaufort (the one pronounced "byoofurt"). We covered 50 miles on the ocean which would have been about 80 miles if we had done the entire distance on the ICW, since the waterway doesn't go in a straight line. Once we got into Port Royal Sound, there were tons of skiffs, speedboats, and jetskis all enjoying the Memorial Day weekend sunshine. The weather took a turn for the worse just as we approached the anchorage, the rain started coming down just as we dropped anchor and right away the wind picked up. Anchoring in squall conditions is not ideal. Even less ideal is anchoring with the wind pushing you one way and the current pushing you the opposite way. Monohulls are heavy and tend to lay with the current, but we are a lighter boat and have a lot of windage so when the wind blows hard we tend to do a little dance around our anchor as the wind and current push us around. There will be an anchorage full of boats all facing the same way and we will be the only one facing the other way. It's funny unless there's not enough space between the boats -- that's when we worry about bumping in to someone (like last fall's encounter with Turnabout*). It's been a couple of hours since the squall passed and the wind has died down to nothing so we are laying like everybody else now. We plan to take the day off tomorrow and maybe try to do a little sightseeing here. They have some kind of Memorial Day festival going and we are anchored right near it and can hear the music from the boat.

Walburg River, GA

We left the marina this morning and decided to go "outside" (along the coast instead of the ICW) since the wind was favorable and we could sail downwind. It is a lot more relaxing to have the wide open ocean instead of trying to navigate from buoy to buoy on the waterway. We also hoped that once we left the inland waters we would be in a bug-free zone. Not so. It was like something from the X Files -- we had horse flies (those things can BITE), regular flies, dragonflies, one butterfly (pretty!) and swarms of this other kind of bug (black with a red head) that we're not sure what it was but apparently it's in the peak of its mating season. We were ten miles off the coast and these buggers kept flocking to our boat, crawling all over the deck and cockpit (and each other) in their frenzied little insect orgy. Then as soon as we got near shore, all the bugs disappeared. Creepy.

We are currently just inside St. Catherine's Sound and they have forecasted some strong winds and possible dangerously large hail (?!) for tonight. The winds have picked up (gusting to 25 knots) but so far no sign of rain or hail. We've got everything locked down and stowed just in case, although I'm curious if the hail will be big enough to keep our rum drinks cool. Maybe we'll set out a bucket to catch some.

Editorial Note

Hey everybody, we have posted photos going back to Treasure Cay from last week. Also we've added a bunch of new videos, so check them out!

Jekyll Island - Georgia, the Jungle

Watch out for that tree! This morning we packed a water bottle, lunch, and the camera and borrowed two of the marina's complementary loaner bicycles. It has been years since I was on a real bicycle (one that actually moved and wasn't stationary in an air-conditioned gym with a TV in front of it, anyway). We started down one of the unpaved woodland paths and it took a few minutes for me to stabilize the handlebars, I kept veering left towards the marsh and right towards the stands of live oaks. But I finally got the hang of it and we made it to the historical district without incident.

The tram tour was well worth it, 90 minutes of all the history you could stand. Back around the turn of the century, fifty of the nation's wealthiest men decided they wanted a place to "get away from it all" during the winter months. We're talking J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, Marshall Field, William Vanderbilt...they bought the entire island and pooled their money to build the Jekyll Island Clubhouse. The club was very exclusive and you could only set foot on the island if you were a member, a member's guest, or a servant. Over time, some of the wealthier families built "cottages" nearby to get even more privacy. Interestingly, few of the cottages have kitchens since most of the families took their meals at the clubhouse. During evenings at the height of the season, more than one-sixth of the world's wealth was represented in the clubhouse dining room. There's a lot of historical significance to the club...during secret meetings in 1907 the groundwork was laid for the Federal Reserve banking system. And the first transcontinental phone call was a party line call between President Woodrow Wilson in Washington DC, Alexander Graham Bell in New York City, Thomas Watson in San Francisco, and Theodore Vail (then AT&T president) right here on Jekyll Island (he'd intended to be in NYC for the call but broke his leg and had the cable set up specifically for the historic call). The club fell into decline following the Great Depression, and during WWII the sinking of several US ships by German U-boats right off the coast of Georgia caused the millionaires to seek out other vacation spots during the war years. After the war the state of Georgia bought the island and nowadays the clubhouse is a swanky hotel and the cottages are restored to their former glory for the tourists.

After the tour we had lunch in a shady spot then we headed out to the north end of the island to check out Driftwood Beach, which the tram guide had recommended as one of the "top 10 most romantic beaches in the US". I feel bad for our tour guide's girlfriend because I found the beach to have a very distinctive odor that pretty much quashed any romantic sentiment, and it really wasn't much to look at either. On the way we had taken a wrong turn and went through the forest primeval with mossy vines hanging across the path and mosquitos and spiderwebs everywhere. If you didn't know you were in Georgia you could've mistaken it for the Amazon. And when it started raining on the way back it seemed even more rain-foresty. We got a little damp but got back to the boat before it really started coming down.

Jekyll Island, GA

I talked it over with Kevin and was wondering if, now that we aren't in an exotic location like the Bahamas, we should keep posting so often. I mean, reading about the sights of a rinkydink small town in Georgia just doesn't seem to have the same appeal, does it? But we figured at the very least there would still be four people reading the blog (our parents), if only to make sure we are still afloat and okay. So we'll keep it up. Those of you who only care about our travels to faraway places should stop reading now and come back in January 2007 when we plan to leave the country again. Still reading? Good.

We left our anchorage at Cumberland Island and headed north on the ICW (ah, good old Intracoastal Waterway with your water the color of old tea and your multitude idiot powerboaters with massive wakes in no wake zones) to a marina on Jekyll Island because you are required to be at a marina to check in to the US. Checking in to the US is surprisingly easy. Last fall we applied for a customs decal which allows you to call a telephone number when you arrive in the country from wherever you make landfall (instead of having to go to a specific "port of entry"). So we phoned and less than an hour later, a Customs and Homeland Security agent was aboard and checking us in. He was a super nice guy and the whole episode was much less intimidating than we'd expected, despite the fact that the agent was packing heat in a hip holster. We weren't nervous; we had nothing to hide. The whole thing took less than 20 minutes and we were now free to move about the country.

We were surprised to discover that Jekyll Island is quite the tourist destination. Back in the late 1800's this was the playground of Rockefellers and Vanderbilts and they all had cottages here which you can tour, there is also a great beach, a water park, and miles of bike paths and nature trails criss-cross the island. We took a walk to check things out and quickly realized that we should've taken the free bikes offered by the marina. Tromping through insect-infested woods in 87 degrees and 79 percent humidity is no picnic. We saw enough to decide that we will stay an extra day to explore everything and headed back to the air-conditioned boat (hooray for shore power!).

After our walk we took a dip in the marina pool and then watched in awe as a 100 foot cruise ship docked at our small marina (it was small for a cruise ship but big compared to the rest of the small sail and powerboats docked here. It looked a little out of place. What was funny is that Kevin immediately recognized The "American Spirit" as the cruise ship that we'd seen often last summer in Narragansett Bay, traveling between Newport and Block Island. I thought, "No way it couldn't be", but sure enough we asked a crewmember and it's the same boat. It really gets around. Guess we'll be seeing it again as we make our way north.

Cumberland Island, GA

Last night I took the 9-midnight shift and Kevin had the midnight-3am shift. Not much happened during either of those; we didn't see many boats, the wind was very light, and we just scooted along in the Gulf Stream at 10 knots with sails up and one engine. However when I came on the 3am-6am watch, the wind decided to pick up to about 16-18 knots on the beam. Our speed went up to 11.5 at times and our comfort level went down a notch as the boat started to pick up speed. Unfortunately around 4:30 I altered course to starboard to avoid a container ship and by turning away from the wind, I lost our speed and couldn't get it back due to the angle of the wind (westerly) vs. where we wanted to go (north westerly). Solstice just does not point well into the wind. So our speed decreased to 7.5-8 knots. We had hoped to reach the northernmost anchorage on our list (Brunswick), and we were almost there but turned around for St. Mary's Inlet instead. Why did we turn around? In a word: cowardice. Mine, not Kevin's. We were only 2hrs/20 miles away from Brunswick but the waves had gotten bigger and we were really taking a pounding right on the beam. One hull would lift up on a wave, and then the other would follow a few seconds later, like being on a seesaw. After 38 hours of no sleep, I just couldn't take it anymore. My distressed shrieks and mutters of "ohjeezohjeezohjeezohjeez" finally got to be too much for Kevin. Even though he was willing to slog it out he turned the boat around and headed instead for the St. Mary's inlet that we'd just passed. It added an extra hour but going downwind was so much less terrifying for me.

But that was only the last two hours of the trip -- the rest of the journey was wonderful. This morning around 9am as we neared the continental shelf the wind and waves started picking up (on my watch again!), not big but hitting right on the nose, and in the chop the bow would rise on one wave and get smacked by the one right after it. Luckily the waves were maybe 3 feet, not huge but just close enough together to make some big splashes as they spanked the bow. All the splashing around our bow attracted a couple pods of Atlantic spotted dolphins. Maybe they thought we were some kind of dolphin or whale jumping up and down in the water and they just wanted to join the fun. They lapped us several times and began to play in our bow wake and it was like nothing we'd seen before. Usually dolphins just swim around the boat, jump maybe a couple times, and then take off to go do whatever it is that dolphins do in their spare time. But these guys were with us for a good twenty minutes just enjoying the ride and jumping in tandem in front of our bows. We just watched them dumbfounded until we remembered the camera! We tried to take a million photos but in every photo instead of seeing a magnificent leap all you can see is a nice splash with no dolphin anywhere. But we shot some decent video and we'll post it soon. We also had a small stowaway, a little brown and white bird who spent most of the morning catching bugs in the cockpit and looking for a spot on the boat that was out of the wind. The elusive mahi-mahi did not make an appearance on this trip. We did catch a couple pounds of seaweed that snagged on the hook every chance it got.

Interesting note: take a look at a small-scale chart of the southeastern US coast sometime. You'll be amazed at the number of spots where you see the words "Explosives Dumping Area" or "Chemical Munitions Dumping Area". You'll also be amazed at how big some of these dumps are. There must be all kinds of unexploded ordnance down there just waiting for someone clever with the ingenuity to dry it out and use it, most likely against us. Maybe the dolphins (and pilot whales, if they pass the IQ test) are stockpiling the stuff for their future bid to take over the world from the humans. I would not be surprised. Not at all.

So after 334.5 nautical miles in just over 40 hours, we arrived safely and were settled in by 8pm. We are anchored off Cumberland Island which is a nature preserve and has great hiking and wild horses but unfortunately we can't go ashore here. We haven't checked in with customs and immigration yet, and we have to go to Brunswick (38 miles up the ICW) in order to do that. So basically we are just here to finally get some sleep. We are both zombies, walking around like a couple of college kids during finals week. Remember when you would stay up for 36 hours straight to cram for an exam and then you'd go to class and take it (and get a slightly lower grade than if you'd really prepared) and come back home still wired and you'd want to sleep but were still too strung out on Mountain Dew and No Doz? Well that's how I feel right now. Say goodnight, Gracie.

Where we are:
Lat: N 30 46.204'
Long: W 81 28.254'

Gulf Stream, off the coast of Florida

There is a strange custom among some hard-core cruisers. At exactly sunset they blow a conch shell like a trumpet for some reason. It makes a long low bellow, kind of like a foghorn. I'm not sure where this tradition started or why, but it seems like any anchorage where there are five boats, at least one of the five will be a conch-blower. Kevin and I have toyed with the idea of blasting the air horn just to get into the spirit of things. Somehow we don't think the diehards would approve. Anyway last night at our final Bahamian anchorage, our friends on "Go, Lassie, Go!" (another Manta catamaran. Great name, huh?) put an interesting twist on the conch-blowing ceremony. At sunset, Larry climbed up on the bimini top, turned to face the sun, and proceeded to play the bagpipe as the sun sank below the horizon. It was a real treat because the man can play! His wife Stephanie is from Tipperary, Ireland but as far as we can tell Larry is American, so we're not sure how he acquired his brilliant piping skills. Tell you what, though: I'll take bagpipes over conch horns any day.

Today we were up and underway by 3am. We motored for about an hour but then the wind picked up a bit so we put up the sails as well. We motored with both engines and the sails all morning across the Little Bahama Bank, trying to make a quick run to the Gulf Stream. Once we hit the Gulf Stream our speed kicked up by a knot so we shut down one of the engines to conserve fuel. By the time we got to the axis (middle) of the stream we had picked up an extra 3 knots of speed. Which is good because the wind is so light right now that the sails are nothing more than pretty decorations at this point. The sea is flat and calm, so that makes for a nice passage, too. We're headed for anywhere from St. Augustine, FL to Brunswick, GA (I think I mentioned the four inlets in a previous post) but we won't make the decision of where we'll duck in until tomorrow morning. I am on my second Coke of the day, which is a lot of caffeine for me nowadays, so I am wired and happy that the trip is going so well at this point.

We spotted a pod of pilot whales around lunchtime. They are blackish in color and slightly larger than dolphins, instead of a dolphin-type beak they have a rounded snout and a huge bump on their forehead that makes it look like they have a massive brain. I'm not sure about whether the giant cranium means that they're as smart as dolphins but when we were at Sea World a few years back, they had a pilot whale performing in the dolphin show. So they are smart enough to get an easy gig performing tricks for mackerel in front of sunburned tourists. This group swam to the right of the boat before heading away behind us. Later in the afternoon we passed a second pod also swimming southbound. Kind of cool to be able to say we've seen whales on this trip. Granted, very small whales but whales nonetheless.

Where we are:
Heading: 357 degrees magnetic
Lat: N 28 19.648'
Long: W 79 43.945'
(Of course the lat/long have changed just since I've written this, since we are speeding along merrily at 9.5 knots)

Great Sale Cay, Little Bahama Banks

Well, here it is -- our last full day in the Bahamas. We motorsailed the 35 miles to Great Sale Cay. While we were underway, Kevin caught a small fish (a 14-inch Painted Mackerel) and cut it up to use as bait tomorrow (we are optimists and can already taste the delicious mahi-mahi steaks we are going to catch out in the Gulf Stream). We dropped anchor around 2:30 in the afternoon and are now preparing for our first overnight sail on our own. (We did quite a bit of night sailing last May but we had our delivery captain, Ed, aboard. This time it is just the two of us.) Kevin is changing the oil in our engines, and topped off the fuel tanks from our jerrycans (we will carry 15 extra gallons of diesel with us just in case). He rigged jacklines for safety (jacklines are strong lines that are secured to the boat, then if you need to leave the cockpit to adjust a sail or something, you clip your safety harness to the jackline which will prevent you from going overboard). Yesterday he scrubbed the hulls to remove growth (just to get that extra .025 knot of speed, wouldn't want a barnacle slowing us down!) Lest you think that I have been reclining with a book and eating bon-bons while Kevin does all the work, let me tell you that I have been busy too. I don't like to use the stovetop when we're underway, so today I am cooking two extra dinners that can be popped into the oven (chicken parmesan and baked ziti) without any hassle. I also helped rig jacklines and secured all the flotsam and jetsam in the dinghy. And cleaned the bathrooms and stowed everything where it belongs so we can find it in a hurry if we need to. So I'm sure when 8 o'clock rolls around we'll both be exhausted.

Forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday is still looking good. We have enjoyed the beauty of these islands and the friendly spirit of the people here. It's not an easy place to leave, but we are ready to go back to the US. We sure are looking forward to charging up our cell phone and being able to call our family and friends whenever the whim strikes (and to receive calls. Hint, hint!). We also can't wait to be back in the land of plenty where you can buy whatever you want, whenever you want it. I now understand why when people come to the US from other countries they get so excited about shopping. We've been almost everywhere in this country and supermarkets are few and far between, let alone a convenience store on every corner. The larger settlements have decent hardware and clothing stores, but they are nowhere near the size and selection you would find at a Home Depot, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart back in the States. When we were in Hope Town I picked up a local paper ("The Abaconian") and read an article about the local schoolkids' first trip ever to the US. Each kid wrote a paragraph or two about the highlights of their trip. The main reason for the trip was to see the King Tut exhibit at one of the museums and a lot of kids wrote about that, but one kid wrote about how great it was that they got to go shopping and she was amazed by her first trip ever to a shopping mall. She couldn't believe the number and variety of stores in one place. Can you imagine? Something that every American teenage kid with mall hair takes for granted. The Bahamas may be paradise but we Americans live in true luxury. Believe it.

Where we are:
Lat: N 27 00.707'
Long: W 78 12.198'

Crab Cay, Abacos

Today was jam-packed. We had spent the night at the cleverly named No Name Cay and were up early so that we could dinghy over to Pelican Cay and snorkel the reef there. It was some of the best snorkeling we've seen, lots of different fish and colorful corals. Back aboard Solstice, we packed up and headed over to Green Turtle Cay for lunch and a quick look around the town before continuing 20 miles north to Crab Cay. "Why the rush?" you ask. Well after listening to Dan, Dan, the Weatherman (actually Chris, but Dan rhymes better) we finally have our weather window starting on Monday. So here is the plan:

Tonight (Saturday) we'll be here in Crab Cay, then tomorrow it's 30 miles west to Great Sale Cay, where we will (Kevin will) change the oil in both engines and we'll get stuff ready to make the crossing. Then very early on Monday we will head west from Great Sale via Matanilla Shoal (the most northwestern point on the Little Bahama Bank) and onward to the Gulf Stream. From there it is north, as far as we can go in 36 hours since we only want to spend one night underway. We aren't sure how much of a boost we'll get from the Gulf Stream, so we will try for one of these four spots (whichever we can get to before dark on Tuesday): St. Augustine FL, Jacksonville FL, St. Mary's River GA, or Brunswick GA. Anyway the wind will be very light from the south, so we'll most likely motorsail with one engine. We will take three hour shifts on watch but it's most likely that we'll both be awake the entire time. A recently purchased half-case of Coca Cola (no Diet Coke to be found in Abaco) should ensure that we are fully caffeinated and alert.

We took a look at our Bahamian courtesy flag today. You fly a courtesy flag on the right side of the boat to show that you've "checked in" to the country. It never occurred to us to take it down during the squalls and after nearly five months, ours is shredded. The end of it is literally torn off and hanging by a thread. I sure hope we aren't stopped by any Bahamian Defense Force boats in the next 48 hours, since they would probably be irritated by the state of our dis-courtesy flag.

Where we are:
Lat: N 26 55.150'
Long: W 77 35.927'

Treasure Cay, Great Abaco

Yesterday before we left Marsh Harbour we headed for the fuel dock to fill up. Diesel prices have gone sky high since we last fueled up -- it was $3.99/gallon. For diesel. I checked our fuel log and back in May of last year we were getting it for $2.29/gallon in North Carolina. Yikes. So, in an effort to conserve precious fuel, we motored on one engine to Treasure Cay. We anchored outside the channel leading to Treasure Cay Marina and were the only ones there. The holding wasn't great (it took our anchor awhile to bite) but once we were settled in, we headed into the marina area to check it out. We found our friend Ken (who we met at the Jib Room) on his boat, the RX 2 Sea (Our Ecstasy - he's in the pharmaceutical business) and said hello. He and Kathy were planning to head over to the outdoor restaurant for pizza, and we told them we'd see them there. Kevin and I headed over to the marina to grab some drinks and a table. Ken and Kathy arrived shortly and we all had a nice pizza dinner.

They advised us to check out the beach here and so this morning that's exactly what we did. We headed over there early, around 9am, and walked along one of the prettiest stretches of beaches I've seen. The sand so soft it was like silk and the water was absolutely clear and bright turquoise blue. Even early in the morning it was pretty warm out so we both jumped in for a swim and then wandered around the resort village checking out the shops.

After listening to the weather on the radio this morning, the earliest we'll be able to cross to the US will be middle of next week. There is supposed to be a high pressure system at the end of next week, which should make for smooth, squall-free sailing. So in the meantime we are going to keep island-hopping here. We are heading off to No Name Cay this afternoon.

Where we are:
Lat: N 26 39.387'
Long: W yy 17.387'

Marsh Harbour - Rake & Scrape

So I have stumbled upon yet another used paperback that's been edited by the Profanity Police. Although this time they did a half-***sed job of it and stopped censoring after about 30 pages. Either their pen ran out of ink or they finally realized that they needed to get a life. I am hoping for the latter.

Kevin spent all day troubleshooting the generator's bizarre tendency to shut down whenever it decides it has had enough. We thought it was fuel starvation but after changing the fuel filter a few weeks ago we were still puzzled as to why it would just come to a screeching halt while it was running. Today, Kevin replaced the fuel pump (hooray for spares!) and now it seems to be working as expected. I say "seems" because the genset likes to wait until we really need it before it goes kaput on us. So the jury is still out on whether it is fixed or not.

All day it rained while poor Kevin was working outside on the genset. Finally the rain let up just in time for us to head over to the Jib Room for rib night. It was awesome. Usually at these BBQ nights you get only 2-3 ribs but the Jib Room pulled out all the stops and everyone got a full rack of pork ribs with lots of fixin's. We shared our table with a nice couple (Ken & Kathy) who have a condo up at Treasure Cay. We stuck around after dinner for the live Rake & Scrape band, called "Brown Tip". Rake & Scrape is a local style of music where the musicians use whatever is at hand, in this case saws that they raked and scraped (aha!) with a knife. Oh, and they also had a cowbell (I will refrain from any Will Ferrell jokes). Kevin and I think that calling it a "band" was kind of a stretch since really it was just three guys (2 saws and the cowbell) scraping in rhythm to CD's by the original artists. So I guess when I was in sixth grade and would hang out in my neighbors' garage playing "drums" on an overturned garbage can to Bon Jovi tapes, I too was in a band -- a "garage band", if you will. Although I am poking a bit of fun it was still really entertaining to watch the rake and scrape. The band had everybody up and dancing before you could even say "Party in the Backyard", which I am beginning to believe is the national anthem of the Bahamas. But the highlight of the evening was Limbo Man who humored all the drunk tourists as they repeatedly stepped OVER the limbo stick (seriously, it was mildly funny the first time but after fifteen people all did the same trick it wore out its welcome). Professional Limbo Guy did his best to make it look like it was hard work to go under the ever-lower limbo stick until he pulled out the isopropyl alcohol and lit said stick on fire at the lowest setting. As he inched his way under while lighting a cigarette, we all knew he'd been pulling our legs all along. How low can YOU go? Cue the rake & scrape band. And oh, okay, I give in: "More cowbell!!!"

Marsh Harbour - Abacos

(this is Kevin writing another post. Amanda had a great post written, but apparently when I unplug the laptop and we don't have the battery in, you lose everything. Who knew? So, as punishment, I have been tasked with writing a witty and informative replacement post.)

There's a pretty nasty cold front approaching from Florida expected on Wednesday, so have moved over to Marsh Harbour. Marsh Harbour is one the largest cities in the Bahamas (the largest in the Abacos) and has a large harbour (hence the name) with good protection from all directions. It seems everyone else had the same idea, and the harbour is packed with boats, there are probably about 100 boats anchored here right now. Marsh Harbour has pretty much everything you could need, several grocery stores, hardware stores, lots of bars and restaurants so it will be a nice spot to stay a few days make some last minute purchases before heading back to the states. The harbour has lots of sea turtles swimming around and we have seen a pod of dolphins as well.

The weather forecast said to expect squalls in advance of the front which is typical, but this front is supposed to be fairly strong which is why we wanted to be in the harbour. This morning at about 8:30 the sky to the northwest was extremely dark and we knew that a squall was approaching. So, we quickly worked our way through our squall checklist which we have written on a post it and taped to the chart table. Basically this entails getting our airhorns ready, turning on the vhf, unplugging the dinghy so it doesn't fill up like a bathtub, putting towels under leaky hatches, stowing anything which might blow away and a bunch of other things I won't bore you with. We were a bit concerned with so many boats in such a small area, everyone is really close. As the squall hit, the wind quickly built up to 40 knots (46 mph) and it was raining so hard we could only see about 50 feet. Usually squalls are short lived lasting only a few minutes, but this one went on for about an hour with sustained winds of about 25-30 knots. Nobody around us dragged, but it was still a bit nerve-wracking being so close to the other boats with the wind clocking 360 degrees as the squall passed. Fortunately everyone around us seemed to know what they were doing and were anchored appropriately. Now it is just kind of drizzling rain and overcast and we expect it to be this way through tomorrow. At least we are getting a Wi-Fi signal on the boat, so we surf the internet while we wait for the weather to improve.

Great Guana Cay, Abacos

This morning we opted for a change of scenery and motored the 10 miles north to Great Guana Cay. It is getting hotter here by the day, and we are getting eager to head back to the US and up north to cooler climates. Right now we are planning to stick around the Abacos for the next week or so, waiting for a good weather window to make our Gulfstream crossing. We expect to be back in the states before the end of the May and we'll update you on our plans before we cross.

Went ashore to explore the town and check out the famous Sunday pig roast at Nipper's beach bar and grill. Having been to BBQs on other islands, we were expecting a gathering of cost-conscious cruisers at a typical beach shack. But this particular pig roast seemed more like a scene from MTV Spring Break than a quiet sunday barbeque. I'm not sure where they all came from, but there were three or four hundred people there. They had a band playing, a huge pool with waterfall and wall-to-wall partygoers. We could barely navigate through the crowd. The band was playing "Party in the Backyard" which is a catchy tune that you hear in every restaurant, bar, and get-together in this country. Once it gets in your head you can never get it out..."Par-tee in the backyard, par-tee all night long, rake & scrape until the morning comes, we gonna party til the break of dawn". Repeat that about sixty times and you've sung the whole song. Anyway, we hung out for a while but had already eaten lunch so didn't partake of the buffet. We talked to another cruiser and apparently the place puts on a pig roast every Sunday and it is always packed like this. I can't even imagine what it must be like during actual Spring Break -- I don't think they could've fit many more people there.

Where we are:
Lat: N 26 40.242'
Long: W 77 07.373'

Aunt Pat's Bay, Elbow Cay

We are anchored in a spot called Aunt Pat's Bay which is weird because I actually have an Aunt Pat in Chicago (Hi, Aunt Pat!). This afternoon at low tide we dinghied over to Tahiti Beach which is a beautiful beach that is completely submerged by the tide most of the time. When we have a chance we'll post some photos.

The main reason we came over here was to go to the Full Moon Party at Cracker P's on an island called Lubbers Quarter. A little local history: Cracker P was an actual person, Paul John Simmons, who was born in Georgia in 1879. In 1915 after his family duck caused some trouble in the neighborhood, the Cracker got into a fight and (cue the Marley music. Or Eric Clapton, if you prefer...) shot and killed the sheriff. He did not shoot the deputy. A wanted man, he came here to Abaco and lived the life of an eccentric recluse until he passed away in 1954.

At the Full Moon Party we took advantage of the all-you-can-eat buffet and gorged ourselves on wahoo (WaHOO!) roast beef and bbq chicken. We got our money's worth out of the buffet but were again confronted with the $5 beer. So we drank sloooowly and spent much of the evening people watching, trying to guess who was a cruiser on a boat and who was here at a rental cottage. With the women it was easy...just look at the shoes. Sneakers? Cruiser. Clicky high heels? Socialite. Women wearing sandals or flip-flops required more thought depending on whether it was a pair of swanky beaded flip-flops probably too nice for ever setting foot on the beach (socialite. Does Manolo Blahnik make flip-flops?) or whether you had seen the same pair of shoes in the dollar bin at Target (cruiser). Another way to tell who was who was to look at the age...if they were young and fashionably dressed they were most likely to be a landlubber staying at a cottage; older folks who took full advantage of the Luby's-style buffet were most likely retirees on a boat. (As young unfashionably dressed folks, I'm not sure where we fit in). Of course the couple holding hands next to us threw us for a loop. He was an older gentlemen with distinguished silver hair and dapper clothes. She was a petite blonde, fashionably dressed and probably only a couple years older than me. Her shoes (sensible but trendy sandals) gave us no help. My guess is that they were staying on the megayacht.

Where we are:
Lat: N 26 30.392'
Long: W 76 58.982'

Hope Town - She's a Brick...LightHOUSE!

Hope Town is famous for its well-preserved red and white candy-striped lighthouse. There are so many shallows and reefs around Elbow Cay that, prior to 1864, most of the Hope Town residents made their living by salvaging from the many ill-fated vessels unlucky enough to fall victim to the reefs. There was a great public outcry when residents learned about plans to build a lighthouse, but despite their protests the construction of the lighthouse was completed in 1864. So all the professional "wreckers" and "salvagers" had to find new ways of relieving poor traveling chumps of their money (hence the overpriced beer). The lighthouse is a beautiful and fully-functioning landmark and is also one of only three oil-burning, hand-wound lighthouses in the world. At night, every two hours the lighthouse keeper ascends the spiral staircase inside (101 steps) and must hand-crank the weight on the light to keep it spinning (kind of like winding a grandfather clock -- he winds up a weight that then slowly descends and turns the gears to rotate the light). This morning we climbed the steps to check it out; the works inside were pretty impressive and the views of the harbour were breathtaking. We did find it strange that the interior walls were painted hot pink. I guess when they were done painting the red and white stripes on the outside they just mixed the leftover paint together to do the inside. Waste not, want not.

Last night we had planned on going to Cap'n Jack's since they advertised live music at 9pm on Wednesday nights, but after traipsing all over town all day we were just too tired. We were disappointed because we had wanted to listen to some local music, but from what we could hear we didn't miss out on much. Apparently the advertisement confused "live" music with "loud" music. We're pretty sure that the evening's entertainment was just a stereo system blasting the finest old-school R&B dance hits and hip-hop from the early 1990's. Either that or the band really had it's Will Smith and Sir Mix-a-lot impersonations down pat. I guess if you want to split hairs technically a DJ is "live", right?

Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abacos

I took a brief hiatus from writing the post, thanks to Kevin for the rare guest appearance. We are now on a mooring in Hope Town harbour which we think is by far the nicest place in the Bahamas. If anyone is planning a romantic trip to the Bahamas and you only have a few days, skip everything else and just come here. They have amazing beach cottages all decked out in lovely pastel colors in a small town that can only be described as a tourist haven. (There is no monstrous mega-resort here, but we saw adorable cottages for $900/week, cheaper than most hotels). Like Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, all the cottages have names and are spaced very close together so that the roads are too narrow for automobile traffic. The facades are all very quaint and meticulously landscaped with hibiscus, cape plumbago and hydrangea. It is like a Disney village on the beach.

Many of the locals here are descended from Loyalists who left America during the Revolutionary War so there is quite an ethnic mix of black and white folks here, more so than on other islands we've visited. We had heard an announcement on the radio for live music and happy hour at a bar called Cap'n Jack's so this afternoon we wandered over there to get the scoop. An old white man with a thin patch of beard under his lower lip was standing at the bar so we asked him when does HH start and how much are drinks. When the man answered we were mortified to discover that he was, in fact, an old woman. Glad we didn't call her "sir"! But as we walked away Kevin whispered, "Hey, maybe that was 'Cap'n Jack'!" I love this man!

We had lunch at Harbour's Edge restaurant overlooking the water, and stopped in at the Wyannie Malone Historical Museum. Wyannie (pronounced why-annie, in case anyone is looking for unique baby names) was one of the early Loyalist settlers here and she founded the museum way back in 1785 to preserve the history of Hope Town. They had some interesting exhibits dating back to the Arawawk Indians all the way up through modern times. Afterward we zigzagged among the narrow lanes to look at all the cottages and stopped in at Vernon's Grocery & Upper Crust Bakery. We had heard rumors about Vernon's fabulous key lime pies and wanted to buy one. The grocery store was well-stocked, but for whatever reason the owner had all the lights off and the only light source was a single window at the front of the store. So rather than explore the spooky darkened aisles (we didn't realize we'd need a flashlight to go shopping) we just bought our pie (which turned out to be fantastic) and a loaf of bread and left. We think we'll stay awhile here in the harbour, there's a lot to explore and we just want to be play tourist for a few days.

Where we are:
Lat: N 26 32.274'
Long: W 76 57.505'