One of our goals as we traveled north was to anchor out more often instead of staying in marinas. One obvious reason is finances, as our cruising “kitty” is limited, marinas can get expensive. But another reason is that being at anchor is generally more peaceful and comfortable – the boat points into the wind so the motion is more natural and breeze travels through the boat more easily to keep us cool. Our first night, we anchored in the north end of Lake Worth – all went well. Eric and the kids took the dinghy ashore to do some fishing while Karrie stayed on board and relaxed.
On Memorial Day, we traveled just a short distance north to Stuart, FL, and anchored in Manatee Pocket Cove. We met for an early dinner with Paul Gulsvig, Karrie’s high school choir director, and his wife, Jane, who happened to be in the area visiting their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. It was wonderful to see them and meet their families, and visa versa. Eric took a group via dinghy to tour the boat so they could see how/where we live. It is times like this where Facebook is a great thing- without it, we wouldn’t have known they were in Florida and would have missed the opportunity to connect.
From Stuart, we traveled north and anchored out several times, stopping periodically at marinas to get fuel, showers, laundry, and fresh food. The anchoring was going well, with not many boats still south it was easy to find anchorages with lots of room. Karrie and Eric celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary anchored off of South Daytona Beach, with Ava and Reed made us a lovely dinner! Reed caught a fish but it wasn't big enough to eat.
We were traveling via the ICW again, but this time we were fortunate as the wind was from the perfect angle for sailing on a broad reach for 3 straight days, along the long straight stretches past Cape Canaveral area and beyond. It is so much quieter and enjoyable to have the diesel engine off. We are still seeing dolphins every day, ospreys, herons, egrets, and several manatees.
We stopped early one day to stay at Marineland, a marina associate with a dolphin sanctuary. They also rehabilitate sea turtles, sharks, and rays. It was educational and fun, with all of us learning so much more about the animals we see every day on our travels. Dolphins are amazing! They can turn off half of their brain at a time to “sleep” since they can’t ever fully sleep or they would drown.
We made our “insurance mandated” destination by June 1st and promptly "slowed down" per our commitment to stay on Island Time.
We spent 3 days anchored off the north coast of Georgia's Cumberland Island. We were the only boat or sign of civilization for as far as we could see, except a few distant lights over the marsh grasses and the occasional passing mast of another sailboat on the main channel. We spent the days relaxing, reading, playing games, and exploring in the dinghy - pretty much the epitome of what we'd all envisioned for cruising life. The silence was broken occasionally by the splash of the large tarpon (fish) jumping or the heron squawk as it flew by. During one dinghy ride, we saw several dolphins beaching themselves at low tide, to clean their skins and presumably keep them smooth/fast.
Just north of Cumberland is Jekyll Island, a former playground/enclave of the rich and famous from the late 1800s, and early 1900s. The historical buildings have been well maintained and are scattered among the Spanish moss covered live oak trees. The marina we stayed at (and also anchored across from) had loaner bikes - the entire island can be easily covered by bike and there are very well maintained bike paths to use. We explored the historic district as well as did some grocery shopping and sight seeing. Great exercise as well as fun and educational. There was also a pool for cooling off and Ava and Reed met some local kids to hang out with as well as a 10 year old boy from another cruising boat.
After 3 days at Jekyll Island, we traveled toward Beaufort, SC. Two great anchorages, again both in marshes far from city lights made star gazing fantastic. Ava declared that the star gazing was one of her favorite parts of our trip so far. We are getting good at figuring out how to anchor in the "Low Country" rivers. They are characterized by swift currents and very high tide changes (8ft) so getting the anchor set properly when you know the boat is going to swing 180 degrees at least once or twice during the night is an important skill to have. We had a squall with 40 mph winds come through at one anchorage and everything held fine.
We are now set up in Beaufort, SC at a beautiful place called Lady's Island, just off Factory Creek. We've got boat projects to do and paperwork to catch up on so will likely stay here a week or so. The people are superfriendly, the city has a lot to offer in addition to the stuff we "have" to get done, so we are in no hurry to move on.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for your patience as we got caught up on our travels! We will try to post more frequently now that we have better internet access again.
2 Comments
Henry, Wendy, Jasper, Maaren, and Kirsten arrived from the Netherlands on April 25th and took a taxi to meet us as Palm Cay Marina. The weather was great, the cousins immediately jumped in the pool and played all day while the adults caught up and made a plan for their two week visit while sipping Bahama Mamas!
Provisioning for 9 people was a whole new dynamic, luckily the marina had a loaner car that we could take to the supermarket and stock up! Every nook and cranny on the boat was filled with supplies and we were ready to head out to other Bahamas Islands. After a couple of days of getting using to time zone for the Breda Sandersons, we sailed east with a following sea/wind toward Highborne Cay in the Exumas. Part of the trip we sailed across the yellow bank, so named for the color of the water created by the relatively shallow depth. In addition, coral heads dot the bank so we had several “lookout” people on the bow, ensuring the captain knew when to alter course to avoid the dark spots in the water… usually coral heads that if hit, could cause boat damage. With all that help, we made it safely through, no problem. We elected to start our Exumas adventure at the Highborne Cay marina. Most of the boats there were large motor yachts from Nassau or Cayman Islands or BVIs – it was impressive to see them all. The cay is privately owned and well-appointed and maintained. Included in the stay at the marina was use of all facilities, including loaner bikes (for adults and kids) to explore the island, stone barbecue pits and shelters with large picnic tables to eat meals outside, a beautiful beach on the south end with paddle boards, lounge chairs and floaties, and another lovely beach on the north end of the island with hammocks, volleyball courts, and more paddle boards for our use. Much more than a typical remote Bahamas Island would ever have but we weren’t going to complain about having all that at our disposal! We stayed at Highborne for 5 nights, partly driven by the weather. Unfortunately, there were several days straight of rain and thunder, so we opted not to try to travel further south toward other Exuma Cays at that time. We made great use of the shelters provided to have meals and play games, as 9 people on a small boat can get quite crowded at times. Some highlights of the stay at Highborne were fishing, snorkeling, riding bikes around all the paths and trails, swimming, watching the nurse sharks feed at the dock by the fish cleaning station, and playing lots of fun games. One favorite was when each person was given an alternate identity, taped to their forehead. Taking turns, we each asked questions about ourselves to try to guess who we were. Great fun! After looking at the weather forecast, which was for more storms and high winds later in the week, we opted to head back to Palm Cay instead of further south in the Exumas. It was a disappointment, for sure, but one of the realities of sailing is that weather is one of the biggest drivers of destination. We had a good trip back to Palm Cay, with larger seas than the trip over but still got to sail most of the way. Back at Palm Cay, we made use of the marina amenities, including a lounge where we celebrated Maaren’s 12th birthday! Ava and Kirsten had made great decorations for the boat as well as decorated the cupcakes. Maaren made sure all the other people around us in the lounge got cupcakes as well. In addition, the big Bahamas Festival called Junkanoo was happening while we were there. A famous body painting artist had a exhibition at Palm Cay and the kids got to see all the dressed up dancers as well as get some body paint of their own! The only downer of the stay at Palm Cay was that Reed fell and broke his arm. We went to a local clinic and X-rays confirmed a fracture of the humerus, just above his elbow. With a temporary cast until he could see a specialist the following week, we were looking at 4-6 weeks of restricted activity and no swimming. He was pretty bummed out, especially given our plans for the last days of their visit. Our last few days with Breda Sandersons we spent at the Atlantis Marina in Nassau Harbor. One of the big attractions for staying at the marina was the very large water park that was included with dockage fees. Eric and Karrie and Jasper took turns hanging out with Reed while others went on water slides with a tunnel that dropped through a shark tank! Everyone slept well each day after all that exercise. The two-week visit flew by and before we knew it, we were waving goodbye as the taxi took the Breda Sandersons to the airport. They are already making plans to visit us again in 2016! NOTE: The pictures below are not necessarily in order as they are from 3 different cameras and Weebly can be a pain to reorganize them. If you look at a map, it becomes clear that while Bimini is part of the Bahamas, it is quite far removed from the majority of Bahamas Islands. Our next big leg of the trip would be to make the 130 mile sail to New Providence Island (NPI), home of the Bahamas largest city, Nassau. The trip would take about 30 hours, our first overnight trip. We had motivation to get to NPI as Eric’s brother, Henry, and his family (aka Breda Sandersons) was meeting us there for a two week visit.
The weather cooperated nicely with calm seas and just a little wind on our nose as we headed east. The first part of the trip was across the Grand Bahama Bank, an impossibly perfect blue expanse of water, 70 miles across, almost uniformly 11 to 12 feet deep. This uniform depth and crystal clear water creates the impression of sailing across a swimming pool with no edge in sight. We didn’t see much in the way of sea life, although a pod of whales (pilot or some other small species) passed us in the late afternoon. Around 4pm, the clouds rolled in and a steady drizzle/rain started to fall. A few boats passed us traveling west, including a very large sailing yacht that was kind enough to provide us via VHF with a state-of-the-art weather forecast for the rest of our trip. The skies cleared and darkness fell as we left the bank and turned south east into the deep Northwest Channel. A beautiful crescent moon and a blanket of stars was our company for the remaining 60 miles to Nassau. Ava and Reed slept soundly below while Eric and Karrie traded 3 hr watches for container ships and other traffic – luckily there were none to worry about. We made great time and arrived at the western Nassau Harbor entrance around 3am, a little too early to travel through the harbor so we slowed and circled a bit, until it started to get light in the east. Around 5:30am, we entered the harbor, just ahead of the 4 cruise ships we could see lining up in the distance to make their day stop in Nassau. The sunrise was beautiful! We transited through Nassau Harbor, exiting the eastern side of the channel and headed around to the southeast side of NPI toward Palm Cay Marina. The marina came highly recommended by other cruisers we met in Bimini as a safe, inexpensive yet beautiful place to wait for guests and/or favorable weather to cross to the Exumas or other parts of the Bahamas. It definitely lived up to expectations! With the boat safely docked, the kids enjoyed the swimming pool and beach cabanas while Karrie and Eric caught up on lost sleep from the overnight crossing. After some rest, we got the boat ready for the Breda Sandersons, arriving the next day! |
AuthorsWe are Karrie, Eric, Ava, and Reed Sanderson. Our house is in Seattle but our home is wherever the four of us are...and for the next two years, our home is Night Music, a Tartan 37 Sailboat. Archives
June 2016
CategoriesDO YOU WANT EMAIL NOTIFICATION FOR NEW BLOG POSTS?
Sign up below! |