Bahamas Bound

  Pick up spot. Forty years ago, my parents took Kim and I to visit my Aunt and Uncle Debbie and Ray on their 40 ft sailboat moored in Urbana.    They had made a few winter sailing trips to the Bahamas. I remember being so intrigued by the fact that you could “comfortably” spend long periods of time on a sailboat, exploring distant lands. I remember being so amazed that a boat had births, a head, and a galley. A spark was ignited in my head that    eventually I could    do something like that one day. But my dream never involved being able to have an adventure like that with my soulmate. This trip has been a sincere dream come true that exceeded all expectations from 40 years ago.    Jessica and I met up with Debbie and Ray at the marina not far from their home here in Beaufort, South Carolina. They let us do laundry and took us to a PetSmart to stock up on dog food. They also took us to the Walmart and treated us to a dinner of Chinese food ...

  Well, we stayed on the dock from the crab shack restaurant overnight and woke up to about 10,000 no-seeums in the cockpit, so we threw the dock lines on the boat and took off in a hurry. We had a lovely sail for a half day beside Hilton Head and the Beaufort River. We picked up a mooring ball and Jessica went shopping in the boutiques on the riverfront while I changed the oil in the diesel engine. We ended the daylight hours with a nice stroll through the historic antebellum style homes on the riverfront. Looking forward to seeing my aunt and uncle Debbie and Ray tomorrow since they live here in Beaufort, South Carolina. Debbie and Ray inspired me to get involved in sailing about 40 years ago. They sailed to the Bahamas numerous times so we are looking forward to sharing stories tomorrow.

  Relaxed at the helm  We left Georgia this morning and made a nice 60 miles north to the outskirts of Hilton Head on Daufuskie Island.    The 8 foot tidal fluctuation in Georgia creates currents that are very strong either in favor or against us. It seemed to even out throughout the day and we made our typical average time of    six knots. We had our eye on a crab shack because it had such good service and a nice atmosphere from our previous trip on the way south.    Six months ago, we got a picture of Jessica and I laying in the crab shack bath tub, so we were bound and determined to repeat the picture tonight. Well, not exactly the same as a dolphin on the bow in gin clear water, but still pretty cool.  

  Is Jessica sleeping or smiling?  We made our way up the intercoastal waterway through the first half of the Georgia marshland. It takes two days to traverse the rivers and canals through Georgia in which there are no amenities whatsoever. It is so beautiful! We are anchored on the Newport River and we took Ali to what looked like a sandy beach from afar, but turned out to be just oyster shells. Tonight we’re gonna grill burgers and corn on the cob. OK, so I do not like to complain however I need to explain this video Jessica took of me at the helm. I was super focused on my surroundings and the chart plotter because it was low tide and a super shallow area and the shallow water alarm kept buzzing, and I was hunting around for the deepest water I could find so we would not run aground. At the same time, there was a large barge being pushed by a tugboat right in front of us (taking up the entire channel) so I was having to pay super close attention to navigate, and all I wante...

We left the dock outside of Jacksonville this morning and made our way north. The wind and the tide driven current was against us all day, but we still were able to make 60 miles to St. Simon’s Island. We took Alli to shore and walked around the beautiful live oaks and stretched our legs.

  We are still in the Jacksonville area because this northeast wind has been blowing Methuselah into the dock for 5 days straight.    PredictWind app promises lighter winds tomorrow so that we can get off of this dock finally and make some miles north. We took a couple walks with Alli and of course played a few games with the kiddos on the catamaran again. We started out with Mexican Train and Uno and then somehow the kids separated us so that Jessica had to play shoots and ladders and I played chess. But it looked like Jessica secretly liked shoots and ladders from her childhood years. Then one of the kids ran out of fishing line on his rod and reel so I spooled him up with some 15 pound monofilament. Then a couple on a troller had us over from  some much-needed adult conversations.  Jessica, Alli, and Wally.

  Well, today we have felt the most wind which has kept us from traveling north. We made the most of it and met up with the 8 kiddos again on the catamaran. This time they invited us over to their boat to play Mexican train dominos. Once again, we were amazed at their maturity. For example, in the middle of an exciting game of Mexican train, the nine-year-old girl got up from the table and went to stir the potatos that were boiling. Then, the eight-year-old boy attempted to stir them a few minutes later, and she politely told her brother that they have been stirred recently. Another example is when Dad hollered down to the older teenage boy that he needed some onions to go into the shepherds pie. The teenager immediately jumped off his iPad and started looking around for the onions. He politely asked for his brother that had just stirred the noodles to hop up from the seat to look for onions, even though he was playing a game. Everyone worked together as a family to get their dinne...