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Neighbors came and brought goodies to a morning Bon
Voyage get together on the boat prior to casting off the lines. |
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Taking turns at the helm. |
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Toby wonders if he will ever get to dry land again. |
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We don't often get to sail in the ICW but sometimes
the wind is right and the fleet hangs our the laundry. |
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Waccamaw River
One of our favorite stretches of the ICW is the Waccamaw River
running south of Myrtle Beach to Georgetown, SC. While many trees are
bare, others display great colors. The vertical shadow in the photo is
Sunspot Baby's mast.
Running the ICW should be easy since it is all well marked, right?
Well sometimes the marks can be hard to find as seen in these photos.
Unusually high tides due to a new moon and a strong low pressure
system freed a lot of flotsam. Steering required full attention as
many large logs were floating in the river. |
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Usually we meet tugs and barges in narrow canals. We
don't know why we met this Coast Guard tug, Anvil south of
McClellanville in a wide channel. |
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Typical of most pet owners, we take lots of pictures
of Toby. Here he demonstrates what it means to be "dog tired." |
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Constant bearing, decreasing range with a container
ship in Charleston harbor? No, actually he is running a lot faster
than Sunspot Baby and we knew he was there well in advance thanks to AIS. |
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Our pal Jim, who lives on the Stono, waits at the end
of his dock to chat a while. |
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Sunset on Steamboat Creek |
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Waiting for the fog to clear so we can raise the hook
and get underway. This is in Beaufort, SC but similar scenes have
played out at many an anchorage. |
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We laid over a couple of days at Thunderbolt Marina to
let some rainy weather move through. Toby didn't miss a chance to get
off the boat, however, and on this walk Lynn does shore patrol with
him in the rain. |
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After an overnight run from Thunderbolt, GA to St.
Augustine, FL a fishing trawler led us through the Bridge of Lions
which is going through major renovation. Maybe as we return north in
the spring, it will be restored to its former beauty. |
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The site of our collision with the dock taken from our
position reporting page. If we zoom any further it is too grainy to
see well. The dock is semicircular jutting out from the sea wall. Wind
and current carried us in a little too hard. |
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The bagpiper standing at his bow offering a free
Thanksgiving Day concert to boats in the anchorage. We had a glass of
wine and sat in the cockpit enjoying the day. The font on his boat
name was a little too swoopy for our old eyes to read but it was a
beautiful green sloop. Later we feasted on roast pork loin,
cranberry and orange dressing, and baked acorn squash. A wonderful
thanks giving. |
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Haul Over Canal is a very short but scenic bit of the
ICW. There is a lot of wildlife but with the boat moving and without a
big zoom lens, we have a difficult time capturing what our eyes see.
We have included here an osprey and a heron in the trees watching for a
meal. We frequently see manatee in this stretch and Toby is on watch
for them as we approach the bridge. |
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Safely on a mooring ball, we plan to spend a few days
in Vero Beach. At sunrise the throng of rafted up boats indicate that
we are not the only ones that have this as a favorite stop. |
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Happy Hour Saturdays at Vero Beach. This is two days
after Thanksgiving and there were a lot of boats here. |
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John & Norma with their Rag Doll cat Bailey on
Happy Times. |
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These photos are out of chronologic sequence. They
were taken by John aboard L Ange X in Minnum Creek while we
were anchored there. We met him again in Vero Beach and he gave these
to us. Sunspot Baby anchored in the creek. The crab pot float off
the port stern is the one we saw. Check reports for the one we didn't.
Sunrise the next morning was gorgeous. |
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Lots of boats anchored in North Lake Worth when we
came in. They had thinned out some when we took this photo. |
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After departing Lake Worth inlet, we got to dodge rain
showers. At the top the line of them is clearly visible. George missed
the really heavy ones but we were caught by one of the lesser. In
the rain we got a nice fresh water wash down but visibility was
limited.
After the line of showers passed, the sun broke through and we then
had a nice day on the water down to Ft. Lauderdale. |
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We furled the Genoa just outside the Port Everglades
(Ft. Lauderdale) inlet and sailed in on the main assisted with the
motor. The tankers and cargo ships are huge compared to Sunspot
Baby, but look at them compared to the mega cruise ship tied up near
by. |
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We like to take a picture when we see a boat with the
name of one of the family. This huge sailboat near the 17th Street
bridge is named Georgia (our second grandchild). |
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Sunspot Baby at the wall along the New River in down
town Ft. Lauderdale. We have a constant parade. People and dogs
strolling along the River Walk and boats large and small passing.
George is on constant bikini watch. |
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We are getting good use out of our bicycles. We used
them to ride to a favorite restaurant, the library, and to the bus
terminal to check out schedules.
George can be seen trying to make sense of the schedule and waiting
for a bridge. |
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There are neat sculptures along the River Walk. Here
are two a giant stone ball and stone disk. |
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The Julia Tuttle bridge 55'. Sunspot Baby's
mast 51.5'. It always looks like we're going to touch. |
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Cruise ships lined up in Miami's Government Cut, the
main harbor entrance. |
