8/16/2013–Brunswick, Ga

Several years ago when we decided to make our way through the Panama canal and get up to the US East coast, the idea was to take Sunny up the intracoastal waterway and do some exploring of this side of the country. Both Tom and I were raised in California, and except for a couple of business trips, neither one of us has seen much of this coast. At the time though, we didn't realize how hard that would be in Sunny. The intracoastal waterway is a combination of natural and man-made channels traveling from Florida up to Norfolk Virginia. It makes for a safe and scenic way up the coast, through swamps, quaint towns, meandering rivers, etc. The charts we had showed a minimum depth of 12 feet all along it and a minimum bridge clearance of 65 feet at high tide. Sunny has a draft of 7 feet and a mast height of 65 feet (once all the antennas on top were removed) so we thought "no problem". Unfortunately it appears that our charts have not been updated with the true depths and bridge heights. The dredging is another unfunded government mandate, required by law but without a budget. While some cities dredge through their limits, it seems nobody picks up the areas in-between. Shoaling has reduced the depth to less than 6 feet in many places. Friends of ours going up ran aground at least 6 times, each in the middle of the channel, and they only draw 5.6'. Plus a number of cruisers said that there are several bridges that are well less than 65', even at low tide.

Well we made it up to Georgia by hopping out to the open ocean, going north a day or two to an inlet we could get in, then ducking back in. Very tiring and not a good way to see anything interesting. We figured we had three choices; not do any sightseeing, keep frog-hopping up the coast, or do the seeing with another vehicle. We briefly entertained the thought of trading in Sunny, but all the things that make her hard for the East Coast, make her a good blue water boat and since we plan on moving on someday, the thought of trading her in didn't last long. So we decided what we needed was a van conversion or a small RV that we could travel around and camp in. I called up my Mom for advice since she has been RVing the last four decades and she said come get her RV! She was going to sell it since it's gotten too hard for her so it's ours if we want it. So instead of flying back to Georgia, we did a cross country road trip.

Here’s our land yacht :-)

Her name is “The Paddy Wagon” (from my mothers old cat).  She’s 22 feet long, a perfect size for getting around but with enough room to spread out inside.  We’ll be exploring in style.

Cheers,

Carolynn & Tom

6/6/2013–Brunswick Ga

We got to our summer home; Brunswick Ga a couple of weeks ago.  It was good to tie up someplace without thinking we’ll have to cast off for another offshore passage the next day:

Please Mom, not another overnight:

It’s nice to be someplace where we are only a short bicycle ride from a major supermarket (Winn Dixie), but Sunny is not the right boat for the East Coast.  She’s too tall and too deep for any but the major entrances, and forget the inter-coastal waterway!

All is well here, though there is a big tropical storm; “Andrea” bearing down on us :-0  We just doubled up on our dock lines and fenders and are on good floating docks a couple of miles inland, so we should be fine (fingers crossed).  The brunt of the storm will hit here at 2am (of course).

Next week we are going back to California to celebrate the birthdays for both our mothers

Cheers,

Carolynn & Tom

5/6/2013–Key West then Marathon Florida

While we were in Isla, I (Carolynn) did a one day trip to Chichen Itza.  I’ll do a separate post on that as well as our trip from Guatemala to Mexico.

We left Isla Mujeres for the Dry Tortugas a couple of weeks ago. 

We were having an ok passage, motor-sailing in light winds with a strong current pushing us along.  Then at 4am the first night (why do bad things happen in the wee hours?), the engine temperature alarm started screaming.  I quickly shut the engine down, which rapidly got Tom up.  A quick trouble-shooting showed our alternator had committed suicide, taking all the belts and some other important looking pieces with it.  Tom started the sweating/swearing/clanking repair while I tweaked the sails, trying to keep us moving roughly in the right direction and as stable as possible.  After a couple of hours, Tom was able to work his “Macgyver” magic and we could restart the motor.  There were scary “tinking” noises and we were not making any juice for the batteries, but we were going forward.  We went into severe energy saving mode; no radar, internal lights, stopped charging the ipad’s  :-0

We pulled into the Dry Tortugas after about 52 hours, for the last 12 hours we had everything on our nose, wind and current, but still a decently fast passage.  We decided to anchor in a small bay away from Fort Jefferson to avoid the crowds. 

We were the only boat and had lots of room.  A few hours later we see a seaplane leaving the fort and taxiing (semi-flying) very fast toward us.  He went past our port side (pretty close), stopped and turned around behind us, then took off into the sky past our starboard side. 

Now we have been buzzed at anchor by big powerboats, pangas, dingys and lots of jet ski’s, but this was the first time we’ve been buzzed by an airplane!  We double checked our charts and this is a designated anchorage so we were legal. The pilot was probably just giving the passengers a close-up view of our beautiful boat

I wish we had the time and inclination to go ashore and explore the fort but we needed to get to civilization and get things fixed.  The next morning, since we were still in severe energy saving mode, we pulled the anchor up manually!  Thankfully our windlass has a manual function so we can use a winch handle and slowly crank it, no hauling the chain up by hand, but it’s still a lot of work!  At the last step, using the “kedging” function, I screwed up!  I was turning the anchor at the roller when I accidently hit the mechanical switch.  The winch handle spun around and smacked my leg really hard; OUCH!!  Nothing broken but that’s the biggest boat bite I have every gotten (the picture doesn’t do it much justice). 

Oh well, we pounded into the wind from the Dry Tortugas to Key West and pulled into a marina.  A couple of days here is as expensive as a whole month at Mario’s in Guatemala!  Over the next week, we ordered some parts and Tom was able to get us back and running, making power underway and no more scary tinking noises!  We were in the middle of tourist-ville, lots of fun people watching but pretty noisy.  We didn’t really do much except work on the boat, a provision run to Winn Dixie (wow! look at everything available!), and a few walks around the old town. 

Once everything was fixed and we had a weather window, we went to Marathon.  Tomorrow we’ll do an overnight to Fort Lauderdale.

Cheers,

Carolynn & Tom

4/19/2013–Isla Mujeres

Sorry it’s been so long since an update, lots going on.  I’ll start with the condensed version then add details and pictures later. 

In the last entry we had just gotten to Isla Mujeres.  Very soon after we arrived I got terrible news about my brother and we quickly got the boat tied to pilings in a marina so she would be safe with just Tom on board and I headed to California.  Luckily I got back in time to tearfully say good bye, I’m tearing up even now.  I stayed about a month, helping my mother distribute Chuck’s stuff, clean the apartment and arrange the memorial. 

Back in Isla, we were going to take off right away for Florida, but a group of our friends from Guatemala showed up so we delayed to get caught up and party.  We’re getting underway this weekend.  We’ll be checking out today and leave Saturday or Sunday (April 20th or 21st) for either the Dry Tortugas or Key West.   Sorry this post is such a downer, I’ll put together a better one with pictures when we get Florida.

2/16/2013 - Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Yesterday we made it to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Took a few hours to check in and once legal, went back to the boat and slept a long time... When we got up this morning, the cold front that had been predicted had started to hit and the north wind was picking up. Right now we have about 25-30 knots in the anchorage, hopefully it's close to max. We've been watching boats drag all around, luckily caught before any damage was done. We're well hooked but not getting off the boat until probably Monday. Then we'll start to explore :-)

Cheers,
Carolynn & Tom

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We're in Mexico

A quick update, we have gone from Guatemala to Mexico, with only a few stops on the outside of Belize. We would have liked to explore Belize further but our boat has an almost 7 foot draft and most places we can't get into. We made the decision to try to get to Isla Mujeres, Mexico pretty quickly. We just came off an overnight passage from hell! We left Long Cay (Belize) with the idea of an overnight to Cayo Norte (farthest southern atoll of Mexico) but misjudged the current and the wind. We only had a tiny scrap of jib out but had 25 knots from the south-east and couldn't keep it much below 8 knots! We blew by Cayo Norte at around 2am. Unfortunately it was not one of the better passages; we had 6-8 foot beam seas, anything that could possible be dislodged went flying, Tom broke his little toe and I have a head cold. Our exhaust system started pouring water into the bilge and one of our bilge pumps stopped working (it worked fine when tested at the dock a couple of weeks ago). But we made it safe and only a little battered into Espirto Santo. This is a big bay on the mainland of Mexico with no civilization other than a tiny Mayan village on it. We're planning on another overnight to Isla Mujeres this afternoon. Why is it we do this again :-)

We'll stay in Isla Mujeres for at least a few weeks (months?), licking our wounds and finding the best street tacos.

Cheers,
Carolynn, Tom & Ginger (who says she is abandoning ship at the first opportunity)

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2/6/13 - Back in the ocean

We escaped the river :-) We hit the bar at the Rio Dulce entrance going about 6 1/2 knots, slowed into the 2's at the worst of it, but made it over unassisted. We did have "Hector" following along side us in a big fishing boat to give us a tug if we stopped, but we were able to power through. The bottom of our keel is quite clean. We'll slowly move north/East up the outside of Belize, reaching Isla Mujeres Mexico in a couple of weeks. It's good to be moving again!

Cheers,
Carolynn & Tom

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