Progress on the east coat

So here we go, from St Augustine the need to go North, there's things to do besides enjoying ourselves. Stopping along the way looking for safe anchorages meaning protection from wind and waves as best we can. Our route does take us through some very shallow spots so the weather and timing tides has to be a consideration along with bridge opening times. Not all of the bridges open on demand, or locks either. The plan is to get into Deltaville Virginia so we can haul Pearl out to anti foul along with the other maintenance. As we have visited lots of cities on a road trip and on the boat we won't really be stopping in many.

Playing with reflections

Here is our log for a little while.

Friday May 12th.

Off we go to Alligator Pass Florida, not too far today, didn't see any alligators. 

N 30° 34, 577  W 81° 28, 232

Saturday May 13th

There is a storm on its way so it was a long day, roughly 90 nm miles 

N 31°39, 56 W 81°12.537 Off St Catherines Islands North Newport river. Georgia. Peaceful night

Sunday May 14th 

Set off at 07:00 picked up fuel at Isle of Hope marina, we came here for fuel here the last time we passed by, nice folks. 74 nm miles today Now in South Carolina.

One of the many swing bridges we have gone though 

Getting shots of wildlife is challenging to say the least, when the boat is always rocking.

Monday 15th May

We had a slight delay, the port engine wouldn't start.

Forgot to say we were in Beaufort in an anchorage  so we took the dinghy into town.

Tuesday 16th May

The tide was dropping and we had to get through the really low spots at 

Mc Clenanville.

 Beaufort visit

These houses have lots of steps to enter inside

These horses know exactly where to stop, he is looking at the white line

Wednesday 17th May.

Now north of Charleston

Bucksport Marina, again a great place on the Waccamaw river. We have stayed here before and its very reasonably priced.  Fuel bought here has a Boat Us discount for fuel too so we filled up. The owners son took me to supermarket and brought me back, all part of the great service and hospitality here.

On guard! baby chick in that nest, hiding

18th May we stopped at South Harbour Cove, Southport its very shallow, doubt we would come here again. Idiots on fast boats rocked us about.

May 19th 
We had set the alarm for 03:30 so we could get past the shallows but again the port engine played up. We really wanted to get past Wrightsville beach and through the silly times for the bridge openings. Didn't leave until 05:25 We were heading for Mile Hammock, an anchorage we had been to before with some military activity to watch but, not much happening this time round.

He's not interested in us one bit, they normally complain, very loudly

May 20th Saturday.

Lifted the anchor, I managed to get covered in slime and mud from the anchor

Heading for Oriental or there about. We caught the Onslow 08:30 bridge.

Dropped the anchor in Cedar creek at 14:22, there was a bit of a blow but we were fine. N34°52.812 W076°41,442

May 21st Sunday

72 nm today dropped the anchor at 16:16 hours  N35°40, 502 W076°06, 254 

May 22nd Monday

07:15 start 12:50 finish at Public Creek, very close to where we were attacked by bugs the last time we came here. We watched a few barges and tugs pass by. 

N36° 17, 214 W075° 57,818

All different ospreys in various places

 May 23rd Tuesday
Off to Norfolk Virginia, 06:50 we went through the Great Bridge lock, and through Norfolk. Not a day we would like to repeat, the weather turned nasty, so did the sea. Wish we had stopped in Norfolk at Hospital point as we would have been much safer. The wind howled around 27 knots and the sea took us on an awful ride, bucked and rolled us with its 6 foot plus waves. So much for the forecast 5 -10knt wind and 1 - 3 ft waves.  Lesson learned: never trust the weather man !!  We had to take a very dramatic turn into a small anchorage. It was such a relief to be inside Phoebus Bay, out of the main river.

We do see some odd sights, they are on a sandbar

Guess this target was hit a few times then, this was where we passed by on a non firing day 

Wednesday 24th May
Well we did have an early start which wasn't intensional, fishermen woke us up around 05:30 asking us to move as we were over their unmarked fishing nets. So off we go at 6 in the morning back out into the main river with terrible weather again heading for a safe spot. Thankfully we pulled into an anchorage not too far away. We headed in as far as we could which was very close to Langley, headquarters of the CIA, the George Bush Centre for Intelligence. There just happens to be a runway where military jets take off and land so it was sometimes a little noisy. Quite spectacular though, watching the F35's screaming overhead.
So we sat out the weather for 3 days until the storms had passed.

This is what we had coming through Coinjock, the automatic foghorn and radar worked very well

These idiots come past us so fast however he did slow to around 15 knots instead of the 30 plus he was doing when we saw him on AIS. Still caused us to rock around.

This little fella bought his lunch with him / her while hitching a lift

Saturday 27th May
06:30 start and its almost mill pond conditions and we are very happy to get to Deltaville. Roughly 33 Nm today, tied up on a dock by 11:40. Fishing Bay Marina welcomed us, and actually remembered us from our previous visit.  It's almost like a second home to us. Now is the time to settle for a few days before the work starts.

The following blog will be about our stay in Deltaville.
So its BFN
Glenys and Don
M/Y Pearl

Crossing too the US and St Augustine

Time to cross

Sunday May 7th

The “weather window” has arrived. We have Sirius weather on the chart plotter now which shows live, and forecast weather plus other sources on the internet which says we will have a little wind 6 to 10 knots and a 2 to 3 foot sea. Great!

Off we go then, heading on the east coast of the US and trying to get as far north as we can then while we are far enough out from land be carried by the gulf stream which increases the speed.

Just how wrong can these forecasts be ? All the expense getting Sirius weather, what a wast of money. Everything it showed was wrong, so much for live weather. The monthly contract will be cancelled along with some ear bending.

Well, at first on the Bahamas banks we enjoyed the trip until the wind increased to 24 knots, the sea increased to 4ft then 5ft so let just say it wasn’t very pleasant at all. So the expected trip to get as far north changed to lets just get to somewhere calm where we can clear in. At first we considered Cape Canaveral but tide times, bridge times, nowhere to anchor and going inside the ICW in the dark was out.

Monday May 8th 17:00

So we slogged on to St Augustine, what a relief when we found the entrance. I called the marina and they said there was a mooring ball available very close to the Bridge of Lions, phew!

The bridge of Lions is very pretty when its lit up at night.

We cleared in by phone and rented a car to get to the CBP office way out of town at the airport. There is no bus service or transport close to the office and a taxi was way too expensive. This office and officer was nothing but a pain. 4 3/4 hours later we had cleared in. So slow and as its a small airport, planes have priority. The officer threatened others there that if they hadn’t cleared in first by phone that they could be fined 5000 $.

A quick trip to the supermarket for fresh goodies, it was so tempting to buy too much, well we do call this “the land of plenty”.

Off out for some provisions and a walk

St Augustine is a place we have visited before when we did the land trip we quite liked it then. There was a cruisers night at a bar in town so we went and met fellow cruisers, there was free food, live music and the drinks were happy hour prices too. On the way back we went passed a bar with an open mike night, the music was great, there was a fantastic ukulele player Matthew Brian Kirkland he writes his own music, check him out if you are interested. I met Mathew and told him about me learning to play he was pretty encouraging but I wasn’t sure if I should continue or throw my ukulele overboard as I could never be as good as him. It was such a pity everyone was so loud in there the poor artists were sometimes difficult to hear.

The old town is in a old walled area lined with all kinds of gift shops, small museums bars and restaurants. The area outside has lots of art galleries which we browsed around.

A great place to walk, no cars here

An original old wooden building now selling ice cream and coffee

This place is in the old town

So is this, the original old wooden school house

The Fort wasn’t too far away from where we were, we didn’t visit as we had been there before.

The Fort from the boat

 We walked to the Lightner Museum, such a shame it was about to close when we got there but we did wander around the gardens.

Maybe one day we will return to take a look inside

So many things to see around St Augustine, we weren't sure if this was original or a copy

Lots of horse buggies around but this one is for the "girlie friends"

Not too far from the boat the streets are full of places to eat, gift shops, art galleries, antique shops, banks. We had fun exploring.

This was in one gallery, weird stuff

This I found amusing, it was on the door of a bank

I have lots of pictures of St Augustine but way too many to post on here.

Ok there are lots of other blogs to do yet and at the moment the internet is only via the telephone. So we have to go ashore with the computer in the dinghy.

So its BFN for now

Glenys and Don

M.Y. Pearl