Garthkiser.com

Sorry, still no way to update the site, but we are taking plenty of photos, videos and notes about the experience. Our camp is looking spectacular, by far the best on the island. Sarah has posted some photos on her site. Sarahhandyside.com

Just wanted to put out this quick update that we are alive and well living on a tiny undeveloped island by Key West, called “Christmas Tree Island” by the locals. Much has happened and a more extensive update will be posted this week.

We love you!!!!

Monday 12-28-09:

Got that pesky charting software(OpenCPN) figured out this morning, the problem solved with a single click of the mouse. Some thoughtless programmer was at fault for turning the “show soundings” option off by default, but I can’t complain too much since the program is free.
Entered the light green waters of the Gulf of Mexico late this morning, passed and surrounded by a massive exodus of small local motor boaters. The entourage was heading out from Fort Myers to enjoy the 75-degree cloudless day. At least 100 vessels overtook Gonzo, quite a difference scenario from the peaceful norm of the past several days. Actually, this is more traffic action that we’ve ever seen. This mid-holiday period may be the most popular boating weekend of the year in Southern Florida.

We spent the afternoon following the straight shoreline south from a distance of a couple miles, watching dozens of highrise apartment buildings pass by for hours. We knew the wind was going to pick up to 20mph by late afternoon, but what we didn’t know was that Gonzo would have to pass through an inlet less than 50 feet wide in 6-foot waves, surrounded by steep rocky banks on either side. This was Gonzo’s most extreme near-death experience since Sarah and I took ownership.

The extreme close call took place near the city of Naples, in a tiny channel called Doctor’s Pass. Flanked by large structures on both sides, the little gap in the shoreline is all but invisible until within a mile of approach.

It looked bad from that mile. White foam everywhere.

It looked miserable from a half mile. Waves breaking across the entire channel.

A quarter mile and I gave Gonzo a 50/50 chance of survival. Forty-five-degree rock embankments several feet high on either side And then the gust came.

Sarah desperately wrestled the helm as I fought frantically to get the engine down and on. The sudden gust leaned Gonzo at even sharper of a degree than the rock embankments. A glance up from my efforts at the engine and I reduced Gonzo’s chances of survival to no better than 25 percent. Sarah had lost helm control in the gust and the bow was headed straight for the embankment, now less than 15 feet away.

I intensified my efforts at the engine, but the effort of keeping myself from getting thrown off the boat was too much in itself. Turning back around, fully expecting to see the bow crushed against the rocks, I was fully surprised to see that Sarah was close to regaining control!

“I’ve got it! Get your hands off the wheel!”, she yelled as I briefly grabbed hold. I did so and she completed the task. The water then calmed from insanity to near-smoothness within a few more feet. We had done it! Probably many years it has been since a sailboat sailed into Doctors Pass under such conditions. I just wonder how many boats have perished there, having gone out on a calm morning and tried to return on a rough afternoon. Many, I suppose.

Inside Doctor’s pass is a quarter-mile square of water bordered on the ocean side by residential towers and on the other three sides by individual upscale private dwellings. Even surrounded closely on all sides by walls, the wind still howled across this little body of water. All of our earlier efforts were only rewarded by the anchor  line getting stuck around the keel. A problem that required another 20 minutes of struggle.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 26° 10.692’ – 81° 48.629’

Tuesday 12-29-09:

Getting out of our little hole, Doctor’s Pass, was effortless in comparison to last night. The wind was just enough to allow for sailing but not too much as to affect the waves much. Three-foot crests spread out over 50-foot periods, a light and peaceful rocking motion. Another benefit to wide waves is that the engine can still be used if needed, the propeller will not spend half its time uselessly out of the water.

Sailing 20 miles south through the Gulf, we slowly floated towards Marco Island all morning, which is the next clump of highrise apartment buildings on the horizon after Naples. Come noontime we passed through Capri Pass on the island’s northern side, taking up an anchorage in Factory Bay.

Sarah was feeling ill and did not accompany me into town. I docked the dinghy under a nearby bridge because the stingy Marco River Marina was unquestionably out of the question. “Dinghy dockage is $5. No use of the showers OR facilities.”, an unfriendly male voice declared over the phone. Had they just let me sit in the lounge and check email I probably would have paid it. Down with Marco Island Marina.

This northern periphery of Marco Island appears to consist of manufactured land masses. The Google Earth view shows intricate mazes of canals, some in near swastika shapes. This is where the boating public builds their comfortable homes and private docks. Marine traffic is near constant.

A half mile walk through the clean, modern city and I discover a McDonalds. A middle-aged female employee strikes up a 10-minute conversation as I eat $1 double cheeseburgers. Her opening line, “Somebody could fold you up and put you in that suitcase”, referring to the black rolling piece of luggage that I’d bought along to put groceries in.

The groceries conveniently come from a big name-brand supermarket just another block away. Every cashier has a bagger except mine, a tall slightly unkempt young man. “I guess it’s just the luck of the draw”, he replies to my observation, “Or actually, it’s because all the other cashiers are female right now”, he says on second thought.
“Yes”, I add, “there are some benefits to being female.”
“Yeah”, the cashier continues, “I wish I had titties.”

With too much to fit into the suitcase, the return trip to Gonzo is quite uncomfortable, alternating a 2-gallon jug of water and the suitcase handle between hands every few feet. A rolling suitcase is normally a rather comfortable transportation method, but not when 20 additional pounds of stuff is in sacks tied to the handle.

The tide has lowered in my absence from the water. What had been a 3-foot difference between the water level and the platform under the bridge has now become nearly 5 feet. Razor sharp shells along the platform wall cut a six inch gash in the yellow fabric of the kayak. It was only by sheer luck that the cut did not extend any deeper than that. The inflated rubber hull is still fully intact.

Tomorrow, we go searching for our island! We are here, at the area known as 10,000 Islands!

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 25° 57.794’ – 81° 43.435’

Sunday 12-27-09:

Departed Labelle early this morning. Someone had uncleated one of our lines from the dock overnight. We’d both heard suspicious footsteps at some late hour, but hadn’t thought much of it because the person(s) had walked away after spending just a moment by the boat. There had been late night partying at this park both Christmas night and last night, and the woman who owns the nearby bait shop claims that crack dealers live in the neighborhood. The crack dealing was likely an exaggeration, but there is definitely a general rowdiness. The culprits behind this uncleating probably just stood back hoping to see Gonzo drift into the docks so Sarah or I would have to come out and fix it. However, there were at least three other lines holding us into place, so the pranksters were disappointed.

Continuing down the Caloosahatchee River required the cooperation of 3 moveable bridge tenders and one lock tender. “Approach cautiously”, the Franklin Lock tender warns over the radio, “There are about 6 manatees hanging out by the gate and they might be locked in with you.”
“Back it down. They’re right underneath your boat”, the man warns as we approach the gate, so I put the engine into idle and coasted into the lock. The water’s surface showed some sizable disturbances, but the manatees underneath were hidden behind the sun’s glare.
“Do the manatees have to pass through the lock or can they pass by it another way?”, I ask the lock tender.
“No”, he replies, “the lock is the only way. They’ve been passing through here for the entire 30 years I worked this lock.”
“So”, I enquire, “Do you open the lock just for them sometimes?”
“Yeah sometimes we do”, he says, “They know what to do. They’ll hang out at the gate till we let them through.”
At least one manatee remained locked in with us as the lock lowered the water level 3 feet, but again, all that was visible was the disturbance on the surface.

2:30PM, we arrive at the city of Fort Myers public marina, called the Fort Myers Yacht Basin. We buy 5 gallons of the $3.50/gallon gas for the opportunity to fill the water tank and keep the boat on the dock the rest of the afternoon. Showers, however, cost an additional $5,  making the total cost of the stop nearly $24. The washing machines and dryers are at least cheap, and the free wifi is fast. The showers are hot and relatively spacious.

A fellow cruiser that we’d met in Titusville, Colin, appears in the laundry room. He spent about 9 months making his boat from scratch in Beaufort, SC and has spent the past few weeks bringing it down to Fort Myers. His son lives here, who will ship off to Kuwait on Saturday. He has another son in Fallujah, Iraq.
While the 17-foot  homemade boat is obviously homemade, it is also quite sturdy, built in the style of a small fishing vessel. The cabin is quite tiny but there is plenty of deck space. Quite impressive to have completed the boat in such a short time and having taken it such a distance. Colin reminds me a lot of our old friend Lane in New Orleans, and they are even both skilled carpenters.

Sarah and I departed the marina at sunset, anchoring behind a small island a few hundred feet away. I spent the evening unsuccessfully battling an open-source marine charting program. The software will soon become necessary because the coverage of our paper charts ended upon our crossing of Lake Okeechobee. Getting by without charts will no longer be an option once we’ve left the sanctuary of this river for the wide open Gulf of Mexico.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 26° 39.190’ – 81° 52.454

Thursday 12-24-09:

At the St. Lucie Canal’s western end, the Port Mayaca Lock is left open when the water level of Lake Okeechobee is equal to that of the canal, which was the case today. Several construction workers were in the lock chamber on a barge doing some kind of maintenance, leaving only a narrow gap of space to pass through, but more than enough for Gonzo’s 8-foot beam.

The semi-triangular-shaped lake is roughly 25 miles from north to south and 20 miles from east to west, an expanse of water that put up quite a good fight today in 15mph easterly winds. Having not checked the marine forecast, just the land-based one, the lake’s ferocity came as quite a surprise. Considering the winds had been nearly calm this morning, the skies almost perfectly sunny and temperatures in the mid-70’s, I’d expected that Gonzo could hope for motor sailing at best. But no, instead she got some rather extreme moments over the 4 hours spent crossing Lake Okeechobee.

The winds began to let themselves be known a few minutes after our passage through the lock, out into the open waters. Within 2 miles from shore we experienced 10 knots and two foot waves, building up to a full 15 knots with 4-foot waves 4 miles out. The dinghy, thrashing about on the port side, had to be hauled up on deck, a very awkward task when the boat is leaning and bobbing sharply. The occasional rouge wave covered the deck in spray from bow to stern. A white cap occasionally jumped into the cockpit, dousing our backs with surprisingly chilly water.

But what great weather for this extreme sailing! Quite a good time!

There are two marked channels for navigating the lake, one that crosses the lake and another that follows the rim. Most of the channel crossing the lake only has marker posts every few miles, so it is not possible to navigate on sight alone, a compass or GPS is required. Following our cheap little Wal-Mart compass at 228 degrees proved sufficient for the crossing, then the marker posts became more frequent as we neared the lake’s western shores. And it is entirely necessary to follow the marker posts at the western edge, because shoals can be as shallow as 2 feet even several miles out. (Even at the lake’s center, the maximum depth is only 14 feet.)

The continuity of the open water was only occasionally broken, with the sighting of the occasional rouge weird duck or floating green mass of vegetation.
“Those plants have no roots!”
“Yes, they are very liberal plants!”

The engine stayed off during 90 percent of the crossing, until the winds began to become unstable again as we approached the western shore. The channel that crosses the lake does not actually cross it entirely, but rather meets back up with the rim route after 20-something miles, a saving of about 10 miles over sticking entirely with the rim route.

This intersection of channels is at the little town of Clewiston, after which comes 12 miles along the rim route. To the south of this 12 miles is an endless levy, mowed to perfection at the top and rocks or concrete bricks placed neatly along the base. The north side offers more variety, swampland dotted with spoil islands, all full of various large birds that I hate. And two wretched new species have suddenly appeared, a large ugly black crow-looking thing and a large ugly cockatiel-looking thing with a black body, brown head and a tall tuft of feathers protruding from the top of the head.

Oddly, the charred remains of decades-deceased forests line both sides of the canal here, both behind the levy and out in the swamps. Not a single limb remains on the trunks, which are all blackened along their bases. I assume this dead forest is a remnant from before we humans took control of the lake, building levies and locks to control the water levels, flooding out the forests. As for the old trees being charred, I can only assume that grass fires have taken place during times when the marshes were exceptionally dry.

Arriving at the western end of the rim route late in the afternoon, we anchored just outside the town of Moore Haven in a part of the canal that is rarely used, nestled in a swamp just past a complex of RV parks and campgrounds. This at first seemed a very peaceful spot until massive swarms of mosquitoes emerged from swamp immediately upon sunset. The atrocious little insects covered the cabin windows by the dozens, especially attracted to the white parts of the whitewall tires on my bicycle. With such a barrage, there was no keeping all of them out. Many were able to squeeze in through tiny cracks in both hatches. I went on murderous rampages at various points throughout the night, leaving a trail of guts spread throughout the cabin.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 26° 50.840’ – 81° 05.429’

Friday 12-25-09:

Sunny Christmas in the 80’s. Showers by afternoon but I’m not complaining. Passed through the Moore Haven lock this morning and then the Ortono lock later in the day. Wish we could’ve given those two lockmasters Christmas presents but I don’t think we had anything they’d have wanted. Just as the roads don’t close on Christmas, neither do the waterways, so lock and bridge masters must still report for duty.

Considering the holiday, we didn’t travel all day, stopping at 2:30 in the town of La Belle. The town’s free dock was full but the new aluminum docks at a country park on the other side of the river were empty. The docks are in fact so new that no rules have yet been posted. The absence of law was for us the go ahead to tie up there for the night. Barely was there room for Gonzo, as the docks were designed for smaller boats, but she just squeezed in with a foot to spare on either side.

We then walked across the drawbridge into La Belle, where a sign at city limits advertises the annual “Swamp Cabbage Festival”. Whatever a swamp cabbage is, it must taste better than it sounds if these people are willing to throw a party every year for it.

Considering the small town appearance from the water, downtown La Belle is surprisingly developed with two supermarkets, a half-dozen fast food restaurants and two liquor stores, among many other things. Of course, though, mostly everything was closed today. From a movie rental store we purchased two “pre-played” DVD’s for $2.99 each, then a large plastic bottle of rum and a large plastic bottle of whiskey from one of the liquor stores.

Christmas dinner was at the only restaurant open. And can you guess what kind of food it was? Chinese, of course. At least with my family, eating Chinese on Christmas seems to be becoming a tradition. It stands to reason really. They make everything else for us, so why not also our Christmas meal?

Back aboard Gonzo later, we watched the Oliver Stone movie “W”, which in my opinion was historically accurate and fair to the embattled former president. I’d like to watch the movie with someone from 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future and hear their response.

Dockage GPS coordinates: 26° 46.182’ – 81° 26.611’

Saturday 12-26-09:

Carl, in his mid-60’s, is a medium-built man well dressed in cowboy attire from head to toe, a full but crackling voice that sounds even older than his age. He’s speaking to Sarah, in the best southern accent one can imagine, on the McDonald’s patio as I emerge from the building with breakfast. A conversation ensues for the proceeding 30 minutes.

Upon hearing out story, Carl shares his;
He left Florida for Oregon in the 60’s with $17 cash and a tank of gas. Soon he found himself with nothing but a blanket, a machete and a shotgun, traveling with bums.
“I always felt safe because I slept with the machete and the shotgun under my blanket.”
He met the one and only true love of his life there, Maurice, just before he was drafted.  Soon after he entered the military, Maurice sent him a package containing a letter and a gift. The gift was a billfold he’d always liked, the letter stated that she had married another man.

Of the billfold, he says, “It was like the one Maurice had but it didn’t have that snap that women’s billfolds always have. I didn’t want one with that snap because I didn’t want people thinking I was……one of THOSE guys, that I was……FUNNY.”

“Maurice?”, I ask, “Was she a white woman?”

“Hell yes, of course!” Carl states emphatically, “She sure wasn’t no coon! I can’t even bear to think of kissing one of them. They got lips like inner tubes.”
“But someday I’d like to go back west and find that Maurice. Thinking about her still hurts me now.”

If I hadn’t been sitting at a modern McDonalds watching modern cars go by, I might’ve thought I’d slipped through some time portal. But no, Carl was really here, and despite his lingering prejudices, he has a big heart, handing over a $20 bill and refusing to take it back, offering to buy breakfast if we’re ever in town again.

Sarah and I then walk on to the town’s little library for wifi access before getting started with the day’s many shopping errands. The task was to prepare for the habitation of an uninhabited island somewhere on Florida’s southwest coast in a few days. Four stores met those needs; Family Dollar, Ace Hardware,  Goodwill and a little bait shop.

Ace Hardware was the main supplier, of many things including a 22-inch machete, handsaw, plastic sheeting, twine and a 30-foot x 6-foot section of screening. Sarah looked really funny carrying a hatchet around the store but we decided against the hatchet because small sandy islands generally don’t contain large pieces of wood.

“It looked on the security camera as if somebody was carrying a bazooka in here”, a Goodwill clerk says upon my entering with the role of screen over my shoulder.
“No”, I respond, “and I don’t think that the Goodwill would be much of a terrorist target anyway”. Some nearby customers chuckle to themselves. Clothing is buy-1-get-one. My purchases include a brimmed white hat with a snap pocket on the top. Across the front it reads, “Florida”. Sarah buys the most hippyish sundresses imaginable. Wearing those, nobody will ever believe she likes cheeseburgers.

Finally, at the bait shop, we obtain a casting net and a filleting knife set, returning to the boat with $130 left. This blog should get much more interesting over the coming days.

Monday 12-21-09

Our time on the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway has finally come to an end. After a third day spent traversing the wide waters of the Indian River, we made our final turn of the great ICW at mile number nine-hundred-and-eighty-seven. For nearly seven weeks, from Norfolk, Virginia to Jensen Beach, Florida, the ICW has been our home. For the next few days, the Lake Okeechobee Waterway will become home, cutting across the central portion of the state to its western shores on the Gulf of Mexico.

The entrance to the Okeechobee Waterway lies at the St. Lucie River, which dumps into the Atlantic Ocean just south of Jensen Beach. We found overnight refuge in a busy little body of water called Manatee Pocket near the town of Port Salerno.  Not a manatee yet to be seen here, but plenty of sport fishermen in their million-dollar toys. The shorelines of Manatee Pocket are an endless mass of marinas, private docks and comfortable waterside residences. A system of narrow canals connects many more private residences to the Pocket, with the result being near-constant traffic.

Not knowing where to land a dinghy, we tied ours up underneath a small bridge. Approaching around the town of Port Salerno are expansive mobile home retirement communities with their signature asphalt drives and perfectly maintained plastic Wal-Mart landscaping accessories.
Downtown, we find a very reasonably priced meal at the Whistle Stop, a tiny diner-style building where one can eat while sitting on a bar stool. We chat across the bar with the cook as she prepares our delicious chicken wraps. Her daughter ran off to France to join a sustainable-living farm, marrying a Dutchman in the process.

Not quite ready to get back on the boat yet, we each drank up two $1.50 Pabst Blue Ribbon happy hour drafts from Coconut Bar, a building not much bigger than the Whistle Stop. The bartender, a short and stout female, has worked here 8 years. Just a few locals, half wearing camo gear, sat around the bar. A few more locals, also wearing camo gear arrived during our short stay. Although the patrons numbered less than a dozen, their screeches and hollers were immense.
“Wow, I’ve never been in such a rednecky place”, West Coast-raised Sarah says profoundly over the twang of juke box country music. “I mean I knew they must exist but this new for me.” I’d repeatedly prepared her over the proceeding weeks as to the very southern country nature of Southern Florida, but nothing could have really prepared her other than seeing it for herself. Those who have never been here think ‘Miami, Key West’, and are caught entirely off-guard by reality, especially when traveling to the rural sections of the southwest coast.

During the return row to Gonzo we inadvertently spy on many households along the waterway, people chatting at tables, watching TV‘s in gazebos, people being generally normal as is considered normal here. Without exception, the living room of each home contains a Christmas tree. On the water, the only lights come from underneath the clear plastic bottom of our kayak as we mercilessly run down large numbers of tiny phosphorescent creatures.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 27° 09.235’ – 80° 11.745’

Tuesday 12-22-09

Day off from cruising, instead spent milling about the town of Port Salerno. The Sailfish Marina allowed us to use their facilities in exchange for docking our dinghy at the regular rate, $1 per foot, made possible by a friendly office clerk over the phone. The clerk was there upon our arrival, a woman in a black business blouse with matching skirt and an rather deep voice with an odd drawl to it. She had the receipt already printed, $8 and change, stamped “PAID”.  I’d misguessed the actual length of the little kayak, telling her it was 8 feet over the phone when it was actually more like 11.

Showers were hot and a strong wifi signal was available under a gazebo furnished with picnic tables. An oversized forklift was constantly at work nearby. As marina members arrived to use their boats, the lift would enter a hangar-sized warehouse and emerge with the appropriate boat, retrieved from massive shelving inside. As soon as one boat was lowered into the water, another would arrive and the lift would pull it out of the water, return it to its spot on the shelves.

A very healthy swarm of various large birds loitered around the fish cleaning tables, used by the returning fisherman to clean their catches. An adult egret stood right on the cleaning table. A blue heron, at least 3 feet high, stood just next to it. A dozen fat pelicans watched closely from a nearby dock.
Then came the dinner bell, in the form of a young man with an orange shirt and a tub of large grey fish. Feathers and wings flew wildly as each bird simultaneously converged in the water below the cleaning table. The scene climaxed each time the young man threw in some unwanted portion of the fish, creating a disturbance not unlike that of a UN food truck arriving to some starving African village.

Lunch from a rather expensive little Mexican restaurant downtown that is disguised as a very cheap Mexican restaurant downtown called Taqueria El Mariachi, located in a little run-down strip mall containing 3 or 4 businesses, all Hispanic-run. A single employee was ever present in the restaurant lobby, a pretty teenage girl who spoke no English other than “Thank You”. Sarah ordered in Spanish for both of us and the waitress understood immediately. Delicious, but $16.

A trip to a “Discount Beverage Shop” a half-mile from the restaurant was foiled by the fact that the only beverages the store sold were wine and beer. Florida is one of THOSE states, hard liquors only sold at state-approved stores.
But we have a backup plan; nearly a half-bottle of rum still remains on the boat. “The sky sure is 3-dimensional today”, Sarah observes as we sit out in Gonzo’s cockpit at sunset with drinks in hand.

Wednesday 12-23-09:

Underway soon after sunrise in 70-degree sun, up the St. Lucie River several miles to the St. Lucie Canal, eastern gateway to Lake Okeechobee. Locks are positioned at both ends of the canal, about 20 miles apart, to control water levels. The canal’s eastern entrance is the St. Lucie Lock.

Access to this lock required a 20-minute wait while a boat coming from the other direction was lowered back down to sea level, about a 12-foot difference. Another 20 minutes for Gonzo to enter the lock and be raised, then came an afternoon of peaceful motor sailing down the mostly straight and narrow waterway. Only rarely did another boat pass and the shoreline was primarily rural.

Unlike the swamps we’re now so familiar with, the terrain surrounding the St. Lucie canal is quite higher than the water level.  Boat wakes have eroded the entire shoreline to a sheer drop, bringing entire trees down with it. The shoreline vegetation is of an impenetrable thickness, hiding place of many shy animals, big and small.

Every few hundred feet among the wilderness is a pumping station, presumably how the canal water level is kept up during dry times. Some stations are comprised of multiple tractor-sized diesel pumps and fuel tanks the size of vans, while other stations are relatively tiny and nearly overgrown. I only witnessed one station in action, a large one whose roar could be heard from quite a distance.

Not making it completely through the canal by sunset, we anchored in a small intersecting canal underneath high-tension power lines. The power company’s maintenance road was our opportunity to take an evening walk, which conveniently included a cement ramp leading right down into the water. At least 2 large snorting animals made their presence known in the bushes, so we didn’t venture far from a wide mowed swath of grass by the water. Someday I’m going to have to fight a pig. It’s just a matter of time so I better learn how to do it.

Having dinner in Gonzo’s cockpit, flying fish leaped all around, making flights some feet long and some feet high. The general practice of these fish is to make several consecutive leaps at a time, encompassing a total distance of roughly 15 feet. Why a fish would wish to do such a thing is a mystery to me.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 26° 59.853’ – 80° 34.983’

Wednesday 12-16-09:

Sailed on big north wind along with the current all day. Maybe a nickel of gas consumed when firing up the engine for two brief moments while awaiting the opening of draw bridges. Using the engine under movable bridges is a matter of both safety and courtesy. It’s only polite to go through at a decent speed, not making everyone wait longer than need be. As for safety, I just don’t feel entirely comfortable passing under a bridge without knowing the backup power of the engine is at hand. Even if it’s not needed, it’s still always reassuring to have it in the down position and turned on. Sudden changes in wind or currents could potentially push Gonzo into the sides of a bridge or another vessel passing underneath at the same time.

Most of our day was spent in the North Indian River and the Indian River, an inland body so wide that there is relatively little daily change in currents or tidal levels. The currents are usually against Gonzo half the time, and tidal differences only cause problems, so the absence of these things was welcomed. However, any big body of water is susceptible to rough times during high wind, and the wind was nearly blowing a gale by late afternoon.

Arriving at the city of Titusville, near the home of the space shuttle, we passed the sailboat Tranquility. As you may remember from August, Tranquility is home of Leighia, Cameron and family, whom we sailed with to New York City. In a great coincidence, only yesterday evening had I called them, thinking that we would maybe seeing them in West Palm Beach in a week or so.

“Tranquility!” I yelled as loudly as possible over the roar of the waves and heavy bridge construction. Cameron poked his head out the hatch as we passed by. A text message followed a moment later, “Dudes, you’re not stopping?”. Our conversation last night had been entirely by text message and I’d failed to realize how close Titusville was till this afternoon, so no meeting plans has as yet been arranged.

Considering the awful condition of the Indian River, our plan was to anchor on the south side of the town’s swing bridge. Most of the bridge span sits on a skinny artificial island, which would offer great protection in this wind direction. However, the bridge operator couldn’t open again for another hour due to the construction.

We were forced to throw down an anchor and thrash around for an hour, during which time Cameron made quite the wild arrival in his dinghy. The little inflatable boat was nearly airborne on a couple occasions, even as it sat unoccupied alongside Gonzo. We agreed to try and meet up later on Tranquility, but the wind remained blowing just as hard after dark and I called to cancel till tomorrow. The kayak just couldn’t handle it.

The story was quite different on the south side of the bridge, though. The waters were relatively calm. Barges anchored to work on the new fixed bridge offered even more protection. Only one problem; our anchor wouldn’t stick where we wanted it to. There was a narrow strip of deep water near the town shore but the mud there was like Jello. The anchor did eventually catch but only after sliding out of the deep water. Probing down with a pole, I discovered there only to be about five feet of water. If the tide had changed just a foot, or if big waves had developed here, then we would be sitting in the mud again.

Good mud  under deep water was found a few hundred more feet from shore. We were then forced to land our dinghy upon big rocks at the base of the new bridge. More convenient landings sat further to the north, but the waves there pounded the shore fiercely.

At least a Burger King dinner was available on shore. Working class communities are the best ones for boaters, as all the cheap amenities are often right near downtown. Titusville is just that and a bit more, as it actually has a bit of a seedy feel to it. On a couple occasions, men standing in shadows on corners tried to get our attention. After dinner it was a walk in the rain 1 mile to the “Coin Laundry Supercenter”.

The dirty clothes got clean as we used the wifi, which is when it was learned that the computer’s power adapter has adapted to not working correctly. An error message pops up each time it’s plugged in, something like, “The AC power adapter type cannot be determined. The battery will not charge. Please connect a Dell adapter.”
I’m assuming that the adapter is supposed to somehow identify itself to the computer and that identifying device has broken. So very convenient for Dell; design a system to only charge on one kind of adapter, an adapter that is of course also made by Dell. Hopefully they’ll go down with Bank of America.
However, the computer does still run on the adapter even though the battery isn’t charging, so I’m thinking somebody has surely made a hack available online to get the battery charging again.

A man with a South African accent walks in to the Laundromat and asks that I help him move a heavy oak office table into a business next door. I oblige and the task takes just a few short moments. The man had been previously attempting the task with a small female.

We arrived back at the dinghy to discover that the wind had switched to the east, meaning it would be against us again. This also meant that the bridge no longer offered protection from the waves. At least it wasn’t raining anymore, and the wind had died down to about half its earlier speed.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 28° 37.060’ – 80° 47.950’

Thursday: 12-17-09

Conditions north of the swing bridge had improved immensely due to the change in wind direction, so we moved Gonzo there this morning in order to be closer to the Titusville Municipal Marina. The facilities there turned out to be entirely reasonable. Showers are listed as being $5 but the actual charge is only $2. The daily dinghy dockage fee is also listed at $5 but the actual charge is nothing(unless you stay for more than a few days).

It is impossible to buy a can opener in downtown Titusville. Save-a-Lot; no can opener. CVS; no can opener. It seems that can openers are an endless source of misery.

The remainder of our day was spent using the screened-in marina lounge for its intended purpose, lounging. With the corner television turned to the Weather Channel, we sat together in the center of the room at a wooden table, lighted Holiday tree(city property) to our side. I continued reading “The Path Between the Seas” while Sarah giggled to herself at the laptop. Upon my computer usage time, she went to work writing in her journal.

5PM. A brief return to Gonzo for the deposit of a few groceries and toilet paper. A large bottle of wine and a lemon meringue pie remained with us on the return trip to the marina, where a party was just getting underway under a covered dock at a boat yard next door. Leighia and Cameron had invited us to the event, a gathering of a-dozen-or-so live-aboard sailors.
The mastermind of the event was Rhanna, a documentary filmmaker who had touted the night as a “musical bbq”, instructing all attendees to bring not only food and drink, but also instruments. Two tables pushed together at the center of the dock were covered end to end with a variety of snacks, wines, bongo drums, recorders, a mini-guitar, and a thumb guitar, among other unknowns.

Over the first couple hours of socializing, the only hands to touch the instruments were of Maya and Fynn, the two young children of Cameron and Leighia. Maya sang an obscure Christmas carol repeatedly while Fynn hit the Bongos in no particular order. Sarah and I spent much time conversing with Rhanna, whose obscure documentary filming experiences span the globe. She was doing a piece on fly fishing in rural Russia when Gorbachev was kidnapped.
“How would you feel about having cameras on you all the time?”, she asks upon hearing of our plans to build a hut on some middle-of-nowhere uninhabited tropical island.
“Sure, no problem.”, we answer.

Mist occasionally blows underneath the roof. The music steps up as the wine bottles drain. My bugle solo gets much fanfare but Sarah’s singing with the guitar puts those brass screeches to shame. Patiently, she spends at least an hour helping Maya put some order to her Christmas carol, writing down chords to accompany it.

Friday 12-18-09

Much overnight rain. Burger King lunch. Heavy south winds with the possibility of tornadoes meant that we spent another day at the marina’s screened-in lounge. The room was nearly always empty till a loud group of boaters invaded our table with a bottle of wine late in the afternoon. Rains resumed immediately upon our return to Gonzo.
I finished the 600-something-page book “The Path Between the Seas” tonight. Highly recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in history. So much learned in the building of that canal, and not just about engineering. My copy of the book has fallen into three pieces but I’ll gladly send it Media Mail to anyone who’d like it. First to ask, first served..

Saturday 12-19-09

South down the Indian River all day, under full sail thanks to a 15-20 westerly.
Gas used = $0. Distance traveled = approx 40 miles.

Quite chilly, though, till midday. Our friends on the sailboat Tranquility were still anchored in Titusville as we departed the city at 10AM this morning. Soon down the river we passed what I believed to be a space shuttle hangar. The huge rectangular building appeared to have the NASA logo on the side and looked like the space shuttle hangar I’ve seen in pictures. It was my one chance to stow away and I missed it.

Anchored near the town of Melbourne, having our nightly fight with that stupid aluminum hook. It just won’t stick in anything except the hardest of bottoms. And then we awoke just before dawn to the loud banging of the keel. A sudden sustained 25mph wind had blown us hundreds of feet towards shore. Considering the big waves kicked up by that wind, leaving the boat there till morning could have torn the keel through the hull. Getting back into deeper water was a 30-minute struggle in 40-degree air. The solution was to raise the keel a few inches and then aim the boat so that the wind hit it from the side. The tilting of the boat plus the slightly raised keel was enough to keep us off the bottom long enough to travel into deeper waters.
We re-dropped the anchor nearer to the bridge span, where the holding was discovered to be good. We’re really sick of our anchor, needless to say.

In other news, I caught Sarah having a fight with the rudder today. This is noteworthy after all the fun she has recently been making of me for fighting the jib and the galley cupboard. I witnessed her violently shaking and yelling at the rudder today when it became stuck.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 28° 05.098’ – 80° 34.899’

Sunday 12-20-09

Slept in till 9, allowing the chilly overnight air to warm a bit. Sailed until noon under a 15mph northerly, then motorsailed for the day’s remainder as the winds steadily lessened.
We were at ICW mile 932 when turning on the engine today. Other than for anchoring or passing under bridges, the last time that the engine had been used was Dec 15th at ICW mile845. That means nearly 90 miles of progress on sails alone. It’s not all too often that a sailboat can do such a thing in narrow channels such as the ICW. At least a tank of gas saved thanks to Mother Nature‘s cooperation..

I mentioned the other day that our laptop computer’s power adapter will no longer charge the battery(it will only run the computer). Today we realized that the problem is more complicated than that. The adapter will work fine when plugged into Gonzo’s power inverter, but will not charge the battery when plugged into real AC. It is entirely unforgivable for Dell to have intentionally designed a system that only works with their adapter, but downright evil to have designed the identification system in that adapter so cheaply that it malfunctions. The identification system must have been damaged by the power inverter(inverters create square waves while real AC is a rounded wave). On real AC power the adapter tells the computer that it is not a Dell adapter.
And of course Dell will not fix the situation since they first sold our computer to a third party distributor. Down with Dell. Down with Bank of America.

South on the Indian River again all day, anchoring just south of Vero Beach. Sitting out in the cockpit at sunset with rum and Cokes in hand, we watched hundreds of blackbirds line up on a power line stretching across the channel.

Note: The animals act increasingly suspicious. The weird ducks(aka cormorants) continue to suddenly pop their heads out of the water, side-eyeing us while glancing back and fourth at rapid speeds, instantly reemerging or flying away. The dolphins, often well in excess of 200 pounds, pop up and snort next to the cockpit, disappearing within a second. Things are seriously shady around here.

(oops, forgot GPS coordinates)

Thursday 12-10-09

Anchored next to a 300-year-old fort this afternoon in the country’s oldest port city, St. Augustine, Florida. Rowed under Bridge of Lions to the city marina. Paid $10 dinghy dockage fee, which includes usage of the facilities. The showers were fabulous and the boater’s lounge wifi was fast. No complaints today because we needed to use the facilities, however, the city should offer a lower fee for those boaters not needing access to the showers or lounge. This is especially annoying after hearing a marina manager complain about boaters tying up dinghies in unapproved places along the city’s waterfront.

The Google search, “St. Augustine drink specials”, revealed a 3-year-old comment on an entertainment site. The comment celebrated a wonderful promotion entitled “Drinkin’ with Lincoln”, offered at a local bar called the Giggling Gator.
Considering the age of the comment, we only half-expected the Giggling Gator to still exist in this day and age, but luck was on our side tonight.
“Hello Giggling Gator”, the bartender says on the phone.
“Yes”, I reply, “Do you have any drink specials tonight?”
“Drinkin’ With Lincoln”
“What does it mean?”
“$5 all-you-can-drink drafts from 9-11”

It just kept getting better. Glancing at a map revealed the bar to be just a few blocks away.

We set off on foot through the beautiful holiday-lighted city, the brightly lit spires of massive ancient buildings rising all around us down King Street. A passing trolley of carolers sang “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree”.
“This is weird”, Sarah observed, “This can’t be for real.”
But it was, and so was the Giggling Gator.

Only three or four others were seated in the little old building, all locals. One dollar Tecantes held us over till the special started. On stools next to us were Marty and Rayna, an architect-turned-waiter and a middle school art teacher. Soon arrived was Louis, a janitor with a troublesome lesbian roommate that he was about to kick out later tonight after having gained some liquid courage.

My dad and Clara arrived sometime after ten o’clock, having been en route from Illinois since early this morning. A drink or two more then came a very late dinner at the Village Inn, a Denny’s-style establishment a short distance away. Travel to the restaurant was in the fam’s new white minivan. Had somebody told me years ago that there would someday be a new vehicle in the Kiser family then I would have told them they were insane. But insanity has now become reality, almost, as the van was actually a “program” vehicle with 14,000 miles. But still, for the man who spent years driving around in a 5000lb 1972 Pontiac station wagon, this little white van is quite a revelation.

Limited visiting time on this first night of our reunion, as everyone was exhausted from the long day’s travels. And for Sarah and I, the exhaustion had been enhanced by at least six Drinkin’ with Lincolns. My dad and Clara opted to sleep in their van by the marina, which had a mattress in the back. Sarah and I rowed back under the bridge to Gonzo.

Friday 12-11-09

Who knows what people have been throwing or sinking into the water by the fort for the last three hundred years, but our anchor was stuck on one of these mystery object this morning, probably a chest of pirate goody. Much tugging on the anchor line got nowhere. Using the engine also appeared to be going nowhere until Gonzo had gone in a complete circle, then the chest of gold finally released its grip.
We’ve read that a trip line should be used when anchoring in potentially snaggy waters, such as near 300-year-old forts. I don’t yet know exactly what a trip line is, but think it involves placing dynamite or C4 under the keel.

The lift bridge was opening as we freed ourselves, but the operator said that there wasn’t time for Gonzo to pass, making us wait a half-hour for the next opening. Serving him right, his bridge got stuck for five minutes on the way down. Another movable bridge is under heavy construction just parallel to this one, which I think is the city’s original bridge, the Bridge of Lions. Boats passing through these days are greeted to plenty of action, including welders’ fireworks displays

My dad and Clara meet us at the city marina dock, two new bright yellow life jackets in hand. We take the docking opportunity to fill a gas tank and unclog the galley sink using the pressure from a garden hose. Then we set sail! The original plan had been to take Gonzo into the ocean for the first time today, but a fifty-something degree wind blowing at 15 to 20mph changed those plans. The fam would have to get their sailing experience in the ICW instead.

And even the inland route was far from pleasant, with our two hours on the water spent tensed and hunched from the cold. At least the wind did allow for pure sailing, no motor required in the southerly direction. I lowered the boom to allow for more room in the cockpit and it was by far not an entirely unpleasant experience. And considering it was 16 degrees when my dad and Clara left Illinois, this was tropical.

There were a couple snags, though. Dolphins distracted me from a red channel marker and I hit bottom, hard. Then back at the dock the engine wouldn’t restart. I’d paid for an hour of dockage to give the family a tour of Gonzo’s nooks, crannies and routines, then come time to leave, no engine. At first seemed Sarah the culprit, having flooded the engine by squeezing the primer bulb when the engine was already hot. She was guilty until proven innocent, until a joint investigation by my dad and I revealed that the real problem laid with the kill switch.

He discovered that there was no spark in the spark plug cable. I noticed that water was dripping out of the kill switch. Two plus two equaled four, wiggling the switch resulted in the engine’s brief return to life.
A 12-inch long sea turtle came to investigate our investigation.

“It’s having a salad!”, Sarah exclaimed gleefully as the rounded creature slowly lifted its greenish head from the water to take bites of algae from the dock base. The flippers flipped slowly and methodically against the waves and current. Sea turtle was oblivious to any distraction. Nothing would interrupt this salad, not even a shell rubbing from Sarah or being repeatedly bashed against the dock by waves. It was almost as if us humans were invisible, as if Sarah’s hand on the shell was a gust of wind, as if my camera 4 inches from the face was just another part of the dock.
Those videos of divers riding wild sea turtles; they must be for real.

With relatively little visitation time and a good wind, fixing the kill switch could wait. Sarah and I raised the jib, sailed Gonzo to the anchorage just south of the marina. We all then take a delicious Chinese buffet lunch, seated next to an old woman in a pink bath robe. “Well there goes that meal”, the woman says to the man seated across from her after leaning over to puke discreetly in the corner, “Somebody will have to clean that up.” In the bathroom, the word “Chink” is scratched prominently into the paint of a toilet stall.

Then to Castillo de San Marcos, the big old fort downtown. Built in the late 1600‘s, the fort still appears today in great condition, the main tourist draw of the town. The structure remains almost entirely original, made of coquina blocks. This type of construction involved molding countless tiny fragments of coquina shells into large blocks, the result being a material that does not shatter upon being hit by cannon fire.

Many rooms and passageways(one two feet tall) inside the fort are open to the public, intentionally left dark and mysterious. Only a bit of sunlight streams in through the small windows, with much of the light coming from the florescent bulbs behind informational displays. Especially in the rooms without windows, the soft yellowish florescent reflects off the coquina in a very pleasantly eerie way.  As one can imagine, ghost tours thrive in St. Augustine. For the late-night crowd, there’s even a “Haunted Pub” tour. But the only thing scary, however, is probably the price.

“Get off the cannon please.”, a ranger yells at a young group of foreign tourists on the fort roof. The “active“ photography  of the cannon does not cease, then a moment later, “GET OFF THE CANNON!”. The ranger then stares Sarah down as she sticks her hand through a hole in a lookout wall. A sign on the wall reads, “Notice that some of the original red paint remains here. Please help protect it by not touching.” The rangers expression further darkens upon seeing my dad gently glide a finger across the red paint.
“This is why people write a punk song about mud”, I tell Sarah for the 10th time since arriving at the fort, an expression she also repeats to me on just as many occasions.

We walk down to Flagler College, probably one of the most magnificent buildings in all of Florida. Built by Henry Flagler, a colleague of Rockefeller, in the late 1800’s as a super-luxury hotel. The building remains today in all its glory. Millions of dollars in grants and donations have helped restore the building to its original splendor, intricately painted cathedral ceilings and all. Just the initial stroll into the courtyard at once leaves one staring in awe, turning in slow circles taking in the grandeur. Still an amazing inspiration today, but imagine what those viewing it in the 1800’s would have thought!
Walking into the main lobby only intensifies the admiration.  The floors alone here required 150 men working three shifts a day for two years! The only people building such expensively-detailed structures today are Saudi princes.
Maybe more amazing than the building itself is the fact that the outrageous oil fortunes required to build them are still being made over 100 years later, even thought the world has been technically able for years to develop other means of energy production.

Sit in marina lounge using wifi. In record time, my dad falls asleep in a wicker chair. Conscious one second, snoring the next, no exaggeration. Purchase wine(3 for $10!). The night’s end finds us at an Econo Lodge, which will be shared with Sarah and me for two days. It’s just great to get off the boat for a change, after having not spent a night away for nearly two months.

Saturday 12-12-09

Free almost-continental breakfast. Breads, doughnuts, coffee and juices. The hotel manager steps out of an office with a 12-inch-tall white cockatiel perched calmly upon her left shoulder.

Returning to the city marina, my dad and I make a laborious kayak journey against the current to Gonzo. The journey is further enhanced when a light rain develops.With the hotel and its facilities, there’s no longer a need to be paying $10 a day for dinghy dockage. The kayak can be deflated and stored in the back of the van as long as it can be reinflated later. Hence the need for the return trip to Gonzo, to retrieve the pump.

Many of the boats anchored near Gonzo are entirely derelict, an observation that came as quite a surprise considering the close proximity to downtown. Hatches missing, cabins half flooded, sitting crooked in the water, hulls green with algae. One sailboat even had a gaping tear in the aft section of its fiberglass, only kept afloat by a tarp that had been wrapped around the hull to keep passing waves from flooding it.

We attempt to take a shortcut back by landing the dinghy along the town’s seawall, but that plan is thwarted by the low tide, leaving a wide muddy swath between the wall and the water.

With the rain now falling harder, we made our way 14 miles south in the van to Fort Matanzas. The Matanzas River inlet is the “back door” to St. Augustine. The fort was built here in the 1740’s to protect the city from invaders wishing to sneak in and attack the city from the south. Also made of coquina blocks in the same style as its much larger sibling fort downtown, Castillo de San Marcos, Fort Matanzas has largely remained original, with extensive restoration work having been done in the early 1900’s

Probably the only reason the structure still existed at the time of its restoration was no doubt due to its island location, between the mainland and the waterway that has since become the ICW. Otherwise, people surely would have robbed it of every usable brick and block over the years it sat unused. Access is granted only by boarding the tour boat that docks at park headquarters on the mainland, a few hundred feet away.

Most of the benches on the dual-motored pontoon-style boat were wet except for the innermost edges. The captain was an entirely butch female accompanied by a more feminine female and a slightly feminine male. The females were dressed in ranger attire, while the male was dressed in the attire of a period soldier, a functional musket included.

Docking across the waterway, the women remained under the shelter of the boat while the man provided the tour. Festivities began with a firing of the musket. “I was hoping to shoot one of the cannons for you”, said the tour guide, but unfortunately none of my cannon volunteers showed up today. It takes at least two people to fire the cannon.”
“I’ll help you!”, one of the tourist quickly offers.
“No, it’s a state requirement that you go through bi-annual cannon school.”, answers the guide.

Cici’s Pizza for lunch, a national all-you-can-eat buffet chain offering at least a dozen different kinds of pizza’s. The cost, just $5!
We take advantage of a break in the rain to further explore downtown. A woman selling photos in a town pavilion approaches me and Sarah from behind as we browse her table. In each of the many pictures appears rays of sunshine striking various objects.
“What kind of lens did you use to take these?”, I ask her, noticing the odd pixilation.
“My cell phone and my third eye.”, she answers.
Not quite having caught the last part of her sentence, I reply, “Oh, a cell phone.”
The woman is quick to correct me, “AND my third eye.”
And of course, as anyone can imagine, her description continued on in much greater detail, “These are pictures of Rainbow Bridges. They are gateways to the other side, the universe that the world will convert to in the year 2012, at the end of the Mayan calendar. Anyone who can‘t see Rainbow Bridges by then will die. I even see flames shooting from the ground at times, which is quite disturbing when you‘re driving.”

In exchange for the entertainment, we buy a $2 postcard sized print.

The annual parade of lighted boats is about to start at 6PM, but so does the rain. We sit in the van waiting it out, my dad snores in an instant, as if someone simply flipped the sleep switch. The falling water teases repeatedly, quickly becoming steady again after each lull.
Temperatures in the upper 60’s, but not quite warm enough to be comfortable wet. Change of plans, we’ll see a movie instead. The first choice had been “The Road”, based on a book I read, but that flick was unavailable even in the town’s 16-screen cinema. Instead we chose “2012”, which coincidentally happens to be about the world’s destruction at the end of the Mayan calendar.
This movie was all very realistic except when a live giraffe was carried underneath a helicopter through the Himalaya’s without earmuffs. If you’ve seen the movie, then you’ll get the joke. It is at least worth watching for pure entertainment value.

Sunday 12-13-09

Repack van. Checkout of Econo Lodge.

“Some things you just don’t ask.”, my dad’s words in a hotel parking lot near St. Augustine Beach after having just been denied parking permission from a clueless clerk inside. The only reason he’d asked in the first place was in response to my question, “Have you ever been towed?”.

He reparks the van elsewhere while Sarah, Clara and I begin walking down a long brand-new boardwalk to the beach in near-80-degree sun. Portions of the walkway are surrounded by water covered with a solid bright green layer of duckweed. The perfectly flat, brightly colored surface offers the illusion that one could walk right across it, but anyone trying to do so would quickly realize their mistake upon finding themselves in the stagnant water underneath.

A few private cars drive up and down the spacious beach, allowed to do so with the purchase of a permit. The people are as sparse as the cars, just a few here and there, The total number of people may have been great, but were barely noticeable with so much available space.
The tide lowering down the long gradual slope of the beach left a wide wet swath, leaving anyone walking there to appear a saint, the illusion of walking across open water.
“It looks like a sea mushroom.” my dad says of an odd lifeless creature found washed up. More solid than a jellyfish but of the same clear slimy appearance, the strangeness had a base that looked as if it was once attached to the sea floor.

Denny’s lunch. We have a bet, for entertainment purposes only, as to how long our waitress has been a waitress.
“I’ll ask her”, Clara readily agrees.
“Well lets ask after we get the food, in  case she thinks we’re making fun of her.”
But the truth is that nobody would ever think Clara was making fun of them, even if she was, and the waitress answers quite happily, with whomever guessed closest to 30 years having won the bet.

We struggle to find downtown parking amid the heavy weekend tourist crowds, eventually finding a resting place for the van near the magnificent Memorial Presbyterian Church. The towering building was constructed in just six months by Henry Flagler, the builder of the old super-luxury hotel we’d looked at on Friday night. The reason for the haste was that Flagler’s wife was seriously ill at the time. He wanted a place for her and he built one in grand style. Anyone would guess that construction must have taken a decade or more, as the building shows no signs of haste whatsoever.

We enter the old super-luxury hotel, now Flagler College, through a back door just as a tour is starting. We follow the tour from the lobby to the courtyard, then back inside to the dining room, all fit for a king.
“I notice you don’t have a tour sticker”, the especially cheerful young student tour guide says with a smile to the last two people to enter the dining room, “Would you like to pay to join the tour now?”
Sarah and I slither off to a corner, out of sight until the guide resumes her speech. As for my dad and Clara, nobody would suspect them anyway, and if they did, Clara would just use her mind control on them.

The students at Flagler College must be some of the luckiest students in the world. Where else could they find such luxury, and for basically the same price of a mid-grade state-run school. In all of the remaining years of my life, there is a good chance that I will never dine in such a room as the one here. Even the Vatican can’t have much on it. The original thousand-dollar-a-piece chairs have been cleverly replaced with identical fakes, but the rest is as it was since the 1800’s. Absolutely perfect in every detail.

Moving on to the equally fantastic and nearly as spacious ladies parlor. “This is the largest piece of white onyx in the northern hemisphere”, the tour guide says of the mantle, “The chandeliers are all Austrian crystal.” The list of extreme luxuries goes on and on. The ladies parlor is not open to the general student population, its doors unlocked only for tour groups and special events.

“All the bums come out as soon as it gets warm”, Sarah says of all the dirty men milling about with backpacks in the town square. True enough, there had been only one or two out in last night’s tepid wetness. “Let me see a kiss!”, one of them yells up a sidewalk at Sarah and me. We oblige. The old man cheers.

A white straw hat sits on top of a downtown roadside pole for the third straight day, a hat which looks like it would be just perfect for sailing. “But after three days”, we observe, “it would be like taking a relic from the Titanic.”. Only a photo is taken. However, upon closer inspection, this was a nasty hat anyway.

We drive the van to the water’s edge, inflate the dinghy and say goodbye. The family reunion had come to an end. My dad and Clara watch from the seawall as we row off into the light of sunset. We find the hook end of a boat hook along way. One of Gonzo’s boat hooks just so happens to be missing the hook end.

Monday 12-14-09

Wore shorts and short sleeves for the first time in nearly two months. Warm even at sunrise.

Bypassing the engine kill switch was so easy, unplugging a single connection, but the quick fix revealed that the underlying problem may be more complicated than just a bad switch. The engine started instantly upon disconnection of the cable, then I expected it do die again once the cable was reconnected, but no, it just kept running until I pressed the kill switch!
As far as I understand, pushing the kill switch completes a circuit that shuts off the engine. The spring-loaded switch is only in the “closed” position when pressed, which would explain why disconnecting the cable allowed the engine to start. Then it gets confusing. All evidence had pointed to water damage having caused to switch to remain stuck in the “closed” position, which meant that then engine should have died as soon as the cable was reconnected.
And no, it wasn’t a fluke. The same thing happened in multiple tests. Still, there is a chance that the universe is playing a practical joke on me, that water just so happened to be moving around in the switch at certain times as to make this unlikely scenario appear to be occurring. However, considering that this unlikely scenario passed three tests, the odds are strongly in favor of it.

Departed St. Augustine.

Sarah lost my green bath towel, my only bath towel  probably in revenge for my having shed hair into her purse. I’d hung the towel on the lifelines do dry in the southerly breeze, to bask in the 75-degree sunlight. Little was my innocent fuzzy friend to know what Sarah had probably been plotting for days, maybe weeks.
“Your towel fell off”, she calmly called down into the cabin as I sat typing on the laptop. I went to the bow with a hook, desperately scanning the water’s surface as Gonzo circled around the supposed crime scene, but to no avail.
Sarah had most likely ripped the peaceful cotton entity to shreds an hour or so earlier, tossing the severed limbs over her shoulders with an evil grin, mentioning the absence only now in a premeditated attempt to hide her transgressions.

With good potential anchorages very limited in this part of the ICW, we chose a canal leading to a cement factory. The Skipper Bob guide reads that the canal is a popular anchorage where boaters should use two anchors to keep themselves from swinging into the center of the canal and blocking barge traffic from the factory. A sign, “Keep channel clear for barges”, was entirely overgrown, leading to the probability that that barges are no longer present. Factoryish sounds could still be heard in the vicinity of the factory, however, so we did use the second anchor just in case.

Soon following Gonzo was two trawlers, then a sailing catamaran, then finally one more sailboat. Not as much as a ripple in the water all night long, and relatively little tidal difference. It was almost as if we had a bed on land.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 29° 29.837’ – 81° 08.830’

Tuesday 12-15-09

A new boat breakfast invented; grilled bacon and cheese sandwiches. The deliciousness made possible by the modern advances of generic Velveeta and pre-cooked bacon. As you may remember from the supermarket, both items are sold unrefrigerated.

Heavy fog. I run Gonzo aground within five minutes of departing the anchorage. Sarah takes up a watch position on the bow, coffee in hand, directing me towards channel markers and away from crab pots and logs. The widespread fog turns into just occasional fog banks by late morning and we return to our regular routine; one in the cockpit one in the cabin. The sun becomes hot to the point of sweating, but the fog banks never entirely dry up, constantly replenished by the ocean and pushed in on an easterly wind.

Daytona Beach. The tops of oceanside residential skyscrapers protrude from the ground clouds. With the cost of real estate so high($1 mil for a little fixer upper lot), the most economical method of large-scale construction becomes the skyscraper.

An especially heavy fog bank moves in from 3 till 4PM. Visibility of less than a quarter mile blocks all channel markers and all reference points, including land. Sarah retakes her lookout position on the bow as I focus my attention to 150 degrees on the compass.

“There’s a tanker”, she says without emotion. The mass had appeared from nowhere withinin seconds, lumbering again into nothing within a moment of passing. The country sheriff speedboat appears in the same fashion, but at many times the speed. The uniformed driver suddenly cuts away upon sight of Gonzo, passing within 25 feet and never slowing down. Quite an example they are setting, in heavy fog with “Slow – Manitee Area” signs posted every few hundred feet.

We take up anchorage near an ocean inlet by the town of Isleboro, spending the sunset hour exploring an uninhabited island just north of the anchorage. I school Sarah on ant lions, expending much effort in catching a victim fire ant. The ants were no dummies, quickly jumping off my scooping leaf each time I scooped one up. Finally success. The ant lion did its job. But, we didn’t stick around to watch for two reasons. The bugs were biting and some descent-sized creature was rustling around in the bushes.
“I think it snorted”, says Sarah.
“OK, lets go then”, I reply, “we have to Google ’how to fight pigs’”.
However, this may have not been a pig. Probably just a raccoon, based on all the tracks in the island sand.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 29° 03.636’ – 80° 55.943’

Sunday 12-6-09

Crossed St. Simons sound under sail, arrived at noon to Jekyll Island in search of gas. A phone call to Jekyll Harbor Marina revealed that the cost of showers was $20!
“That’s like a whole month’s water bill!”, complained Sarah.
Needless to say, no such marina was about to get our business. Gas would have to be purchased from some gas station on the island.

Getting the anchor to stick was an hour-long battle in the worst holding we’ve yet experienced outside of Annapolis. Gonzo just kept sliding along in the heavy tidal current as if the anchor wasn’t even down. Maybe a nearby butter factory is expelling excess product into the waters.

Our fourth anchoring attempt was partially successful. While Gonzo did stay firmly in place, the position was far too close to the shore for comfort considering the 6-foot+ tidal differences. A second anchor was used to keep the boat from swinging even further towards shore.

We dinghied to a nearby public dock with a large sack of garbage and one of the two portable gas tanks. A group of young fishers on the dock however informed us that the only gas station on Jekyll island was closed.

Walking inland from the dock revealed a quarter-mile-long gravel road winding through swampland. At the end was a desolate highway, on the other side of which was a marked nature trail.
“Want to take the trail?”, I ask Sarah.
“Why not, it’s not like we have anything better to do.”, she replies.

The trailhead enters a southern wonderland. Overhead is a canopy of wide trees, moss dangling down several feet from all the branches. On the grounds surrounding is an impenetrable spread of low tropical plants. Snow-white birds lurk silently in the bushes, standing over two feet tall.

Nearly a mile of winding trail and we arrive to another highway, across from the closed down gas station.
“Closed for Remodeling”, the signs outside the 50’s-era station read. We proceed across the median, which is strewn with wires connected with copious amounts of haphazardly-applied electrical tape. This is somebody’s hasty version of a Christmas display, with the loose wires all running to thousands of lights hung high into the mossy trees.

The display matches the town perfectly.
“It’s like they never realized there was any other season than summer.”, Sarah says of a small strip mall where nearly all the businesses are closed, having sold swimwear or souvenirs during the tourist season. “Going out of business sale”, a big read sign reads outside a pharmacy. Inside the pharmacy, even the shelves are for sale. And this appears to be the entire town, a strip mall across from a big beachside convention center.

There was still some life left. The convention center was packed with the gatherings of an insurance company. A tiny IGA grocery store was open in the strip mall, as was an even smaller food store called Flash Foods. A liquor store would have been open had it not been Sunday in Georgia.

Two restaurants were spotted. Zach’s was out of business but two doors down Zachary’s was in business. The small handsome dining room contained only one other group of customers, a young family seated at a booth. The smiling young waitress served us up two absolutely delicious meals, both sandwiches with fries.

A walk over to the ocean was quickly thwarted by a cold howling wind. We got only as far as the stairway leading down to the sand before turning back, headed instead for the little IGA. Two people worked the register while only one other customer was present.
“This is like Reedville”, Sarah said of the slim pickings of dusty overpriced goods. Being almost entirely out of food, we were forced to spend $27 on a package of pasta, a few cans and a 12-pack of coke.

As expected, we found Gonzo resting in the mud at low tide upon our return. There was at least a foot of water still surrounding, though, so at least we could row all the way instead of trudging though mud. Passing over especially shallow areas, our oars became stuck in the mud, emerging stinky and black.

Monday 12-7-09:

Awoke before dawn with Gonzo in the mud again. A diesel engine roaring down the ICW was followed by the sounds of a huge approaching wake, the waves crashing towards us. The collision with our grounded vessel was a violent confrontation, sending shockwaves through the hull as the heavy lead keel bashed the sides of its chamber. If we’re again to let Gonzo ground out at anchor, then it has to be in a more protected area. Such a banging of the keel could potentially crack the fiberglass hull.

With no other option available, we finally reduced ourselves to patronizing the Jekyll Harbor Marina for $33 dollars worth of gas. Despite the fact that they attempt to charge boaters $20 for showers, the staff is quite friendly.
“A lot better now that I saw you”, the old man dockhand replies to Sarah’s, “How are you?”. And indeed, she was looking quite nice in contrast to the gray skies, with blonde pigtails protruding from underneath a green head scarf.

Then came the crossing of the sound south of Jekyll Island, a swath of water wide open to the ocean. Four foot waves rolling in from sea were severely disrupted by the swift inflowing tidal current. The result was 4-foot chop, a miserable experience in any little boat.
The engine was useless here, with the propeller rising high out of the water as Gonzo rode down each passing swell. There was however, a sustained wind strong enough to keep us moving against the current at 2 to 3 knots.

The dinghy, hung from the lifelines on the starboard side, ravaged itself. The slip knots it rested in threatened to asphyxiate the nylon and rubber hull to the point of no return. Leaned hard to starboard under sail, massive swells overtook the kayak, pulling it down hard against the heavy force of Gonzo’s buoyant return from the swells.
I was tossed back and fourth like a rag doll at the bow for ten minutes while wrestling the waterlogged dinghy up on deck, out of harm’s way.

The early afternoon remains chilly, but becomes calm as we traverse narrower waters approaching the Florida-Georgia border.

“I need you to help me out for a minute”, Sarah calls down from the cockpit. Having been staring at a computer screen in the cabin for the past two hours, the terrain outside was vastly different than it had been. Water for at least a mile in every direction, we were somewhere in the sound at the Florida border.
“I can’t figure out where I’m at.”, Sarah continues, “I see marker red number 2 there, but I can’t see any other markers.”
She was lost, annoyed. So was I.

My frustration intensified hers. She retreated to the cabin to sit in silence as I piloted the boat in a general southern heading until determining our location. As it turned out, Sarah’s mistake had been to think the “red number 2” she saw was a red number two located three miles ahead. This is a commercial shipping route where multiple marked channels converge, indeed confusing. Without a GPS-overlaid mapping system  onboard, confusing routes can require putting the trusty Wal-Mart compass to work. With the charts, the compass and the land-based TomTom GPS, we can never get lost for too long.

And then we were there, Florida! Inter-Coastal Waterway mile seven-hundred-seventeen was the border, at the beautiful town of San Fernandina, a wonderful place for any ICW cruisers to stop. We anchored near the city marina and landed our dinghy there in the late afternoon. The charge for two showers, a very reasonable $2.14, served up in private rooms under powerful steaming-hot showerheads. Two thumbs up for San Fernandina.

And it just kept getting better. Wal-Mart is located less than two miles from the city marina. Our walk there took us down the main street, which prompted recollections of Santa Barbara for both of us. The Spanish influence still seems to extend beyond the name, at least a bit.

The scene of course changes as we near Wal-Mart, as the sidewalk degrades to brown sandy lawns. The colorful storefronts are replaced with brick housing projects. We discover the Wal-Mart not to be of the “Super” kind, just the old-fashioned regular kind with its 4 or 5 isles of non-refrigerated foods and a single cooler of refrigerated ones. (Actually, I don’t remember the old-fashioned kind having any foods at all.)

Hungry. Must eat first. “Are there any fast food restaurants nearby?”, I ask the Wal-Mart greeter, an elderly female.
“Kentucky Fried Chicken is right down there”, the greeter says, pointing out the doors.
“How far?”, I ask.
“Well, you can smell it right out the door”, she answers behind an almost imperceptible grin.

We devour a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in minutes, sitting in a neglected franchise of peeling wallpaper and filthy bathroom sinks. The general friendliness of the working public here strikes as I bite into a steaming chicken breast. The old weathered woman at the counter had smiled, as had the very young pretty one handling the chicken, as had the very young man working in the drive-thru.

We decide to do our much-needed shopping at the store next to Wal-Mart, a Winn Dixie Supermarket. The friendly trend continues. A inquiry about taxi service results in the naming of all three local cab companies. The cashier, about to graduate high school, engages in over ten minutes of sailing small talk.

Our purchase, $179, a six-foot-long receipt, mostly canned goods on sale. “Thank you very much. Ya’ll have a good evening.”, says a young employee who issues us a Winn Dixie shoppers card.
The cab driver is no exception, a 50-something year old private contractor in a minivan, a former fellow cruiser of the ICW.

Returning to the marina, we transfer our purchases from the van into a complimentary bright yellow wagon, then transfer them again to our faded-yellow stained inflatable kayak. Aboard Gonzo, we drink boxed wine to a $2.50 DVD about Enron, purchased along with the groceries. The disk was bought under the assumption that it was a documentary, but not so. This was an incredibly cheesy dramatization, even summed up at the end with a monologue as the main character jogged through a park. If you’re one of those weirdoes(like Sarah) who enjoys watching movies you can laugh AT, then this is surely one to add to your collection.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 30° 40.353’ – 81° 28.077’

Tuesday 12-8-09:

Gonzo spent the day at anchor in San Fernandina.

We finally discovered a cause behind a long-frustrating problem this morning, the problem of water in the bilge. That revealed source was none other than the galley sink!
That annoying bilge water, pumped a couple times per week in excess of five gallons, had recently taken on a putrid odor. Rain water doesn’t smell that way and the water Gonzo floats in rarely smells that way. This left only one reasonable suspect. The food particles going through the sink water, had they found there way into the bilge, would surely start to smell eventually.

The investigation involved pulling out the galley cabinet under the sink, revealing a pool of slimy brown sludge water. An electric bilge pump is located under the sink, its drain hose coupled to the sink’s drain hose. All suspicions were confirmed when I lifted the float switch to activate the pump. The slimy water went straight up into the sink! The pipe leading out through the side of the hull was plugged, leaving water to pool up in the sink basin until it became high enough to overflow the ant-siphon on the bilge pump drain hose.

So this may explain why a dish draining tub sat in the galley sink when we bought the boat. The tub had since been recruited to hold the spare anchor, but today it reverted to its old use. Until we get around to unplugging the drain pipe, the plastic tub will be the temporary solution. No water down the sink means no sink water in the bilge. There is still the problem of rain water getting in the bilge, but rainwater isn’t rotten and can be dealt with at a later date. Funny to think about all those times we pumped the bilge only to pour the pumped water into the sink.
Dinghied to the city marina mid-morning. Spent the day using wifi in the Captain’s Lounge, a room of floor-to-ceiling windows located in the same building as the showers. Quite a perk for just $2, which includes not only wifi but a large television, a comfy sofa, matching chair, a table and a  corner desk. A coffee machine sits under the TV, all the necessary coffee accessories beside it.

The few other Captain’s Lounge occupants were mostly peaceful and quiet until late afternoon when a boisterous group occupied the table with a bottle of wine, screeching wildly at each other without a moment’s pause. Taking our queue for departure, we returned to Gonzo. I bathed the hull with a scrub brush, sitting in the dinghy, as Sarah prepared a dinner of generic Spam sandwiches complimented with generic Velveeta.

Seventy-five degrees today, 80 forecast for tomorrow. We got south.

Wednesday 12-9-09:

“South winds 15-20, gusting to 30, Some thunderstorms may be strong”, so said this morning’s forecast. Having witnessed extreme inconsistencies in numerous recent National Weather Service forecasts, we spent some time considering whether or not to stay at anchor for the day. Remaining would have meant remaining until next week, because my family is planning on driving down to meet us Friday morning and there is not another convenient meeting point until St. Augustine, two days away.

A decision was made, changed, made again and changed again. We would be going. A south wind meant that the sails wouldn’t be up anyway, so 30mph gusts could be dealt with. But, they probably wouldn’t happen anyway, and if they did, they would be 80-degree gusts.

Ominous clouds transformed to perfectly clear skies. Perfectly clear skies transformed to ominous clouds. Some wind gusts were 10 degrees colder than other wind gusts.
“It’s like swimming”, Sarah says, “When you swim into a certain spot that is a lot colder or warmer than other spots.”
Not too many hundreds of feet above our heads was a threatening layer of cold air, occasionally poking at us. The wild air temperature swings continued, as did the changes in cloud cover, but Mother Nature never came through on any of the threats.

We take an anchorage at 3PM, noticing that no other good spots will be available for another 20 miles.
Drop anchor. Fail. Pull up anchor. Drop anchor. Fail. Pull up anchor.  Move 500 feet away. Drop anchor. Success. Drink rum and Coke on bow. Anchor fails. Pull up anchor. Drop anchor. Success. Drink another rum and Coke on bow.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 30° 19.824’ – 81° 26.242’

Monday 11-23-09:

The predicted “widespread rain” never arrived, no more than just a couple random drips, and the temperature was much warmer than expected, around 70.
Continued down the primarily rural Waccama River, surrounded by a desolate winter scene of leafless trees. The entirely deciduous makeup of the forest was a change from the last couple week’s scenery of swamp grass and short evergreen trees.

The Wacca Wache Marina passes by to port. I switch on the GPS, obtain the phone number and call. Our request for showers with purchase of gas is granted! Some men who had passed Gonzo yesterday in a trawler are stuck on the dock there, waiting for the arrival of a new water pump.

About our land-based GPS, the TomTom, it has proven very useful for finding things such as marina phone numbers and libraries, but it’s a funny thing using it on the water. Fifty feet from the Wacca Wache docks the GPS claimed that the marina was 2.5 miles away, because that would have been the case had one went to the nearest road then driven to the marina.
As for Wacca Wache, they get an A+; friendly staff, gas at automotive prices, an attractive restaurant and complimentary showers.

5PM. We enter Georgetown under a fine mist, still not enough moisture to soak anything, though. Anchor behind the island at the end of the channel, between the island and downtown Georgetown. Tie up dinghy at marina dock. Stroll down the town’s attractive boardwalk, several hundred feet long. Track down wifi at a little bar called Castaways where 4 or 5 locals sit around watching “Cash Cab” and trying to answer the questions. Order two beers and fries. Total $6.

I network the new laptop to the old one, hoping to share the wifi connection, but the router won’t allow it and I’m thereafter unable to connect to any wifi signals at all. It would seem that wifi routers don’t like users to share connections. To restore service to the laptop, only later did I discover that the solution was to turn off the “share internet connection” feature that I’d turned on. Then no wifi router any longer had a problem with me.

Tuesday: 11-24-09

Low clouds and mist hovered all day in the 60-degree air, the colossal factories at the edge of town half-obscured in a combination of their own vast emissions and the hanging clouds.

Sarah celebrated her 27th revolution around the sun today. The festivities kicked off with a Burger King lunch, then came two hours spent at the Georgetown Library.

Strangely, this library features a “Game Room” where patrons can play a variety of different video game systems. Such a room seems to defeat the purpose of a library. One can only assume that it was created to keep youths off the streets, and it also appears that an effort is being made in the room to offer instruction in the design and programming of games.

A group of troublesome youths waiting for computer access chose to alleviate their boredom by hassling Sarah and I under their breaths from afar. The comments were only occasionally audible, common juvenile phrases such as “nappy headed hoe”, etcetera. Looks like the game room concept might have been a brilliant idea if this caliper of individuals is the norm around Georgetown.

Wifi access at this library is stupidly limited to two hours, controlled with a time-sensitive password system. If such effort and expenses are being put towards keeping kids off the street, then it makes no sense to limit their wifi time, which in many cases could be entirely more constructive than the game room.

Slept the afternoon away back on Gonzo, the day not being too pleasant for sight seeing. Sarah got her birthday dinner from a tavern on the boardwalk called Buzz’s Roost. Only three other patrons present, all seated around the bar, two of which were the manager’s parents. The other patron, Don, used to be the manager. Rough wintertimes for businesses on the boardwalk, or so it would seem.

Don, now a self-employed salesman of used bar/restaurant equipment, was our conversation for the evening. He sat for hours listening to our stories, asking for more and more until we could think of no more. He ended up buying us a few drinks(well drinks were 2 for 1), then a friend of his ended up buying us a few more. I use the word  “friend” there loosely because the two loved to hate each other. The friend was feeling especially blue after just having attended bankruptcy court this afternoon and loosing the boardwalk business that he owned for years.

Then somebody brought an absolutely massive live lobster to the party, setting it atop the bar. This of course attracted a few more people, with the grand total of bar patrons eventually maxing out at about 10. More drinks were bought for me and Sarah, by a young commercial fisherman wearing a big straw hat and dark sunglasses.

The lobster squirmed and shook its tail as everyone took turns for photo ops. Luckily it wasn’t of the kind that has claws or some fingers surely would have been broken. In all of my life I’ve never seen such a lobster, remarkable not only for its size but also for its brilliant colors, incredible patterns of orange, red and black. The weight was roughly 5 pounds and the diameter 2 feet. When left undisturbed, the only parts moving were the multiple creepy layers of its mouth. If you’ve never looked a lobster in the mouth before, just think of the movie alien. That’s where they got the idea.

My dinner never arrived. The bartender apparently only heard Sarah’s order. But by the time I realized the error two PBR’s had already suppressed the appetite. With the help of all the free drinks, our grand total for the entire evening came to just $36.

After 4 hours the alcohol had taken its toll. Unable to finish our last two free drinks, we returned to Gonzo for immediate sleep.

Wednesday 11-25-09

Late start, 10AM, leaving 7 hours of travel time. Follow Waccamaw River to Winyah Bay, turn south into the Estherville Minim Creek Canal. Slow progress all afternoon against an unfavorable tidal current of two knots. Not even one page of charts completed, fifteen miles or less(a good day for us would be two pages, 30-40 miles), .

Pass North Santee River, South Santee River. Spot first wild tropical swamp plants, including  a palm! Up until this point, all tropical plants have been restricted to yards.

Enter Fourmile Creek Canal, surrounded by perfectly flat marshes as far as the eye see, with only the occasional tuft of evergreen trees rising here or there from the grasses. Anchor for the evening behind a small island at the mouth of Casino Creek near ICW mile marker 425. These little islands of evergreens had been intriguing me all day, and Sarah agreed to an expedition in the kayak. Entrance was tough, the banks protected by a fortress of thick brush, but the center was everything I’d hoped for. Under the big pines was a cushy flat bed of needles, nearly as soft as our memory foam.

The oasis was however full of giant mosquitoes in swarms, landing upon us in the most threatening of poses. The mosquitoes I’m used to are not only smaller, but of a less threatening appearance. The hind legs of these are much longer than the front legs, raising the rear end of the insect like a muscle car posed to dig into flesh at high speeds. These giants are however more bark than bite, slow and awkward compared to their smaller counterparts, easy to swat even if the person swatting was extremely drunk. However, I would imagine that their behavior is much more coordinated in warmer weather. Today saw only 60 degrees and isolated showers, never a bit of sunlight.

Hours of reading to one another after beef stew and a mosquito genocide. Our current book is called Rule Britannia by Daphne Du Maurier. Initially, I’d almost given up on it, but now it has grown on me, about a union between the US and the UK that turns out to be a US takeover bid. But it’s not a political thriller by any means, told from the perspective of a rural household.
I‘ve also been reading another book, The Path Between the Seas by David McClullough, which is non-fiction about the building of the Panama Canal. The book was a gift from our fellow sailing friends Conrad and Sally back in Annapolis, highly recommended by Conrad. At 600 pages I had at first been suspicious of its readability, but was pleasantly surprised. So many small tidbits of intriguing information thrown in along with the main points, an entire history of the Panama Canal from 1870-1914. Very well written.

(Reader Steve mentioned in a comment that he liked to follow our progress on Google Maps, so I will try to remember and include the GPS coordinates of each night’s anchorage.)

Anchorage Coordinates: 33° 06.183’ – 79° 23.534’

Thursday: 11-26-09

Gonzo was nearly sealed into her anchorage this morning. Being at low tide, the water at the mouth of Casino Creek was not quite four feet. Some minutes of wallowing the keel back and fourth through the mud eventually led to escape. I must someday wire power to the electric keel winch, then such wallowing would no longer be necessary.

The lifting of a 40-degree heavy fog reveals perfectly blue skies and a rise of 20 degrees. Sometime midday we remembered it’s Thanksgiving, and what we were thankful for was the sun, not having seen much of it for quite a long time. Such a perfectly clear day hadn’t been seen in weeks.

The ICW led through rural marshes all day again, usually nothing to be seen but grass for miles around. Our anchorage was the Toomor Creek, arriving early enough to do some marsh exploration in the dinghy. A hopeless maze of narrow channels winds relentlessly through the tall grasses. As the sun sets we follow one such channel till it ends 200 feet into the grass, then follow another several hundred more feet.

An attempt at taking a shortcut back to Gonzo is met with resistance as the chosen pathway degrades. We push the kayak through the weeds until the bottom starts dragging, then the only thing left to do is turn back. Trudging through the muck on foot wasn’t an option, because disturbing swamp mud is a stinky and messy affair.

Back near Gonzo we explore a tiny island made entirely of shells, the sound of our footsteps as if walking across a mountain of broken dinner plates. A few rusted hunks of metal lie at the island’s edges, completely covered in shells.

We finish the book Rule Britannia as the winds outside suddenly pick up to 20mph.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 32° 51.864’ – 79° 43.212’

Friday: 11-27-09

“That sounds like rain.”, I say.
“No, I think it sounds like grass blowing against the hull.”, Sarah answers.
“Is it just me or is Gonzo sitting crooked?”, I continue.

The weight shift of my emergence from bed causes the angle to suddenly steepen.
The sound hadn’t been rain, or grass, but rather the crunch of shells.
Gonzo had drug anchor in the wind overnight and was now settling onto the banks of the seashell island as the tide lowered!

The keel and aft portion of the hull had settled firmly into the shells. The steep lean had brought the bow completely up out of the water. Had the weather been nicer I would have taken the opportunity to clean the bottom, which was almost exposed down to the keel on the starboard side. But no, this had to happen when it was 35 degrees with winds gusting to 15mph.

I hop off onto the seashell island and start snapping photos as another sailboat approaches. A man named Neil is on board alone, who offers to pull us off.
“No thanks”, I yell back across the water, “We can just wait for the tide to come back up because I don’t want you to risk getting stuck while trying to help us.”
He insists, “I might have enough power to pull you off if we connect a line to the top of your mast.”
I accept, “OK, but just let us go if it is going to cause yourself any potential problems.”
“Don’t worry, I will”, he smiles, “but I’m not even sure yet if I have enough power to pull you off.”

Neil went over and beyond helpful here, because there was serious risk of his getting stuck as well. The current was strong and low, the channel extremely narrow. He brought his bow nearly all the way to the seashell island, then quickly ran up from the cockpit and threw me a line, running back to the cockpit and throwing the engine into reverse just before impact.

At Neil’s instruction, we tied his line to our halyard. “Now hold on!“, he yells, cranking the throttle in high reverse. The shrouds creak as the top of our mast is pulled down towards the water. The glassy sound of the seashells reverberates through the hull as Gonzo begins to slide off the island.
Progress halts. Neil kicks up the throttle even harder. The mast lowers even further, leaving Sarah standing on the side of the cockpit and me standing on the bow toerails, nearly completely horizontal now.

‘With the keel now pushed up into its lift chamber’, I think, ‘I hope the counter balance is still sufficient to tilt the boat back upright once it’s in deeper water.’
Progress resumes. Another couple feet of sliding and Gonzo does slowly right herself, back in deeper water. Sarah quickly starts the engine and motors away from the seashell island.
“That always works”, Neil yells over as we throw his line back, “I’ve been there myself, a couple of times.”
“I think we owe you dinner in Charleston”, I say.
Neil declines, “Thanks, but I’m going right past there.”

He motors on ahead down the ICW, then turns around a few minutes later.
“Hey, I forgot to take a picture!”, he says, “What’s the point if I go all the way to the Bahamas alone again and don’t even take any pictures?”.

We all snap some photos of one another, then Neil continues on ahead again. Sarah and I continue another three hours towards Charleston in the frigid wind. Cold seems to affect our brains as it does an insect’s body, shutting them down. We barely speak or move, arguing often when we do. Must get warm.

Just before noon Gonzo enters the open waters where the mouths of the Cooper and Ashley Rivers combine and flow into the ocean at Charleston. The massive Cooper River bridge passes to starboard, a cable-supported span hundreds of feet high.

Our anchorage is the Ashley River, near the James Island Expressway Bridge and the city marina. Sarah barely speaks all afternoon, doesn’t take a single photo as we walk about downtown. Not even a large sausage pizza from Norm’s Pizza snaps her out of the blank stare.

Charleston is indeed one of the most beautiful cities we’ve been to south of Annapolis. Magnificent church spires rise all over town among fabulously refurbished hotels, restaurants and a grassy central square of several square blocks. But, too cold to spend another day sightseeing. Must get south.

The temperature falls quickly with the late afternoon sun. We board bus 30 to the Citadel Mall and attempt to see the movie “The Road”, but the theatre there is not showing it. I was interested in the movie after having read the book and Sarah was interested because she likes the lead actor.

Instead we did some grocery/supply shopping at Target, unfortunately on this infamous busiest shopping day of the year. Upon checkout we forgot to get change for the bus, which Sarah requested at the customer service counter.
“Sorry, you have to buy something or I’m not allowed to give change.”, was the reply.
“Well here’s my receipt with the time and date printed on it. I was JUST here.”, Sarah insists, but to no avail.

The attitudes of society are ever changing, always leading up to some tipping point. If the next moment of truth isn’t due to economic reasons, then it will be in response to the general sterility developing among the populace. The collective unconscious is crying for help, a desperate unheard plea in the everyday actions of world leaders and store clerks.
(forgot to write record anchorage coordinates)

Saturday 11-28-09

Slept in late, awaiting the departure of 30-something-degree air. Would have had breakfast at the Charleston City Marina restaurant had they not tried charging us $5/hour to dock while we ate. Gas and water would hold out longer, so off we went, turning southwest down Wappo Creek. Several sailboats were leaving town at that same time, all of which had to wait for the next half-hourly opening of the Wappo swing bridge.

Then the rest of the day was calm, clear and nearly free of traffic other than the occasional small pleasure fishing vessel. The landscape mostly rural. Our brains and bodies returned to us as temperatures rose into the low 60’s.

The ICW channel widened considerably upon entering the Stono River. Slow progress against an inflowing tide, not even 20 miles completed for the day. Late afternoon came the Wadmalaw River. Seeking out a protected anchorage was quite difficult due to the tide, which was at its highest point at sunset. The high tide floods over many of the creeks in this area, making it impossible to tell where the creek actually is. What would normally be a small winding body of water becomes a wide open swath of water, just inches deep outside of the creek.

The solution was to anchor just off the ICW channel on the Wadmalaw, where the water was surprisingly 40 feet deep. And there Gonzo sat in the calm waters for the evening under a bright partial moon, nearly a half-mile from land in every direction.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 32° 40.116’ – 80° 14.216’

Sunday 11-29-09

My 9 to 5:
North Edisto River, Dawho River, North Creek, South Edisto River, Ashepoo River, Rock Creek, Coosaw River.
When not at the helm, I spent the warm sunny day polishing the fiberglass in the cockpit and occasionally flipping over a foam bench pad that has been out of its cover drying on deck for two days.

This Southern South Carolina section of the ICW continues to be awesome winding mess of rural marshy waterways, maybe the coolest part of the entire trip so far. Today’s journey also featured mud flats at low tide this morning, with some flats several hundred meters square.

But there is one drawback to all this wide open space; no gas stations, often not even a single road for miles. Leaving Charleston yesterday without filling the second tank nearly turned out to be a very poor decision. Gonzo’s prognosis looked utterly grim till mother nature suddenly threw out a helping wind this afternoon, a sustained southwesterly of over five knots. That along with a favorable tidal current and the engine was able to be shut off for the rest of the day, conserving those last precious two gallons of gas.

The free push kicked off as we entered the largest body of water seen today, the Coosaw River. That wind was still blowing nicely at sunset when the anchor was tossed out into the middle of the Coosaw, at a point in which the river was at least a mile wide.

We are now close enough to the city of Beaufort that the remaining gas should be more than enough. Estimated arrival by noon tomorrow.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 32° 30.594’ – 80° 36.375’

Monday 11-30-09:

A strange soft sound, barely audible, had emanated from the keel all night, something like raindrops splashing upon it. That’s what it sounds like when the anchor line wraps around the keel. At some point after dark the tidal current had reversed, swinging us back the other direction and around the line. What a nice morning surprise. However, what could have potentially involved someone swimming was fixed by motoring the boat in a circle opposite the direction of the entanglement.

Sarah piloted into the Beaufort River as I began installation of a new lamp in the cabin above the keel table. Approaching the city of Beaufort around noontime, an aging female voice from the city marina answered my radio call, “There should be plenty of room for you at the dock, if not let us know and we’ll find some space for you somewhere.“

Beaufort, South Carolina is one of those few cities on the east coast that’s extremely friendly to boaters, just as Annapolis, MD, Hampton, VA,  and Elizabeth City, NC are to the north. A free floating dock is provided, which can be used anytime except between the hours of 1AM to 6AM.  One-dollar showers and a small coin-operated laundromat are very tidy. The old lady on the radio is just as friendly in person. A pretty young smiling woman escorts guests to the showers(but doesn’t bathe them). Beaufort gets an a+.

Down at the docks we met long-haired Jim, a goody-natured hippieish fellow of some fifty-something years. Jim was carrying a 12-pack of Bud Light cans, two of which he shared right then and there. Upon hearing of our plans to visit the liquor store across the bridge, he handed over $13 with the request of a bottle of rum. We agreed to meet up again later on Jim’s boat to make an evening of it.

Considering the city’s efforts to make us comfortable, we paid $3.19/gallon for their marina gas, also taking the opportunity to fill our two spare 5-gallon water jugs. The tide was at its lowest then, making the ramp down to the floating marina docks sit at such an angle as to be nearly impossible to ascend with heavy containers of liquid. The task was accomplished using a complimentary wheelbarrow, laboriously hauled up the ramp by both of us at the same time. The low tide had exposed at least six feet of the seawall and pilings, surfaces entirely covered with countless jagged shells.

It just so happened that a BB&T Bank was located three blocks away, meaning that our final boat show paycheck could be cashed, mine for $884. And now, as is the case with so many other banks, I will never deal with BB&T Bank, which again charged $5 to cash one of their own checks. That’s a total of $20 paid to them to cash our four checks, checks drawn on a very lucrative business account from which they no doubt receive hundreds of thousands in deposits every year. I can only hope those extra pennies earned someday costs them the entire account. Down with BB&T, down with Bank of America, down with Old National Bank. There are probably others I’m forgetting, down with those as well. But ESPECIALLY DOWN WITH BANK OF AMERICA! Like I read somewhere recently, it went something like ‘the government will throw you in jail for stealing a loaf of bread, but steal millions working for a bank and the government will protect you’.

Lunch from The Marketplace Sandwich Shop, a fabulous little downtown eatery staffed by the most friendly Chinese woman who has designed her small space to perfection. I then leave Sarah at the library, remove my bicycle from Gonzo’s deck and pedal across the swing bridge to Bill’s Liquor, yet another Beaufort business with an extremely friendly female staff. The purchase comes to $43 and includes three bottles of rum and one 12-pack of Coke.

Dropping the liquor back off at Gonzo, I notice the lowering sun and decide that it would be most convenient to anchor before dark. Many other boats have taken all the space nearby the dock, so I’m forced to go over a quarter-mile away. Then noticing that Jim’s boat is nearby, I drop off his bottle of liquor on the return dinghy trip to shore. Meeting Sarah back at the library, we remembered that our clothes were still in the dryer at the marina. Upon clothing retrieval we sat on a public swing bench for an hour as I accessed a wifi signal. The city has provided a dozen or so of these bench swings along a stretch of green park, truly one of the most public-friendly waterfronts anywhere to be found.

My plan to anchor Gonzo before dark had been a bit premature, as the bicycle was still on land. But the inflatable kayak can handle anything. Two hundred pounds of groceries hadn’t sunk it last month and the bicycle didn’t sink it tonight, nor did the 25-pound sack of clean clothing. Sarah boarded the rear seat first, then I sat the bicycle across her lap. The front tire hung in the water and spun during the row long back to Gonzo, against the inflowing current.

Onboard, I prepared a pot of pasta, which we took over to Jim’s boat along with some rum and Coke. Jim’s hatch was wide open, his lights were on and his dinghy was alongside, but no Jim. I yelled, got no response, knocked on the hull, got no response.

Sarah and I instead ate the entire pot ourselves, drinking rum and Cokes as light rain began to patter the deck above. Too bad about not getting to hang out with Jim tonight. Guess I should have waited till later to deliver his bottle of rum. Would have been great to hear more of his stories, include details about the time in the 70’s when he found a huge bale of floating marijuana and sold it for $15,000 to fund further sailing adventures. His 30-something years of sailing adventures in this steel-hulled boat have taken him nearly all the way to Trinidad and everywhere in between.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 32° 25.769’ – 80° 40.803’

Tuesday: 12-1-09

Exactly one month since departing from Annapolis, Maryland, we finally crossed the Georgia border this afternoon. The day’s travels took us through the Port Royal Sound, Skull Creek, the Calibogue Sound, Cooper River, Ramshorn Creek, New River, Wright River.

And then, the Savannah River!

Nearly all this progress was done on sail power alone thanks to a stiff northerly wind. The engine remained shut off from dawn till dusk. Sailing through the multiple bends in the ICW required both of us in the cockpit all day, with constant sail readjustments being needed. I did at least find the time to finish installation of the new cabin light above the keel table. The previous light there had been a rechargeable LED floodlight, annoying because it would only hold a couple hours of charge at a time. The new light is wired into the lighting system, connected to Gonzo’s onboard batteries. This is kind of a big deal.

The sun slips away as we near the city of Savannah, Georgia, located down the Savannah River 8 miles off the ICW channel. We had considered for days whether or not to take the detour required to see this famous city, only making the final decision after seeing that the weather forecast mentioned possible tornadoes tomorrow. Bad weather meant that we would need to sit in a protected anchorage for a day, and we didn’t want to sit in the middle of nowhere. Savannah it was.

Traversing another 8 miles before total darkness required full engine power with both sails up and a inflowing current. This was certainly the fastest Gonzo has traveled since our ownership, at least 12 knots, maybe even 15 at times.

However, it turns out that Savannah is not a friendly city at all, at least not to pleasure boaters. A call to the city docks only revealed, “The docks are full”, no information on other alternatives offered. The city’s only waterway is the Savannah River, a commercial channel, so I assume that it is standard policy to be unfriendly to pleasure boaters in an attempt to keep the waterway clear for big ships. This would explain the seemingly negative attitude about Savannah in our Skipper Bob Guidebook.

Too bad the local government can’t arrange some hospitality, because just the passing glimpse of downtown is enough to make anyone want to see more. They could really cash in by directing boaters to anchor on the other side of the island across from downtown and putting a dinghy dock there. On the other side of that island is a wide open stretch of water used as a sediment trap, with charted depths of at least 18 feet. It is within a mile of downtown and connected with a massive cable-span bridge.

Turns out that the city is even more unfriendly than we’d initially realized, as the city docks were nearly empty when passed just before dark. We continued past the high-rise hotels and beautiful historic buildings, under the massive bridge into the city’s industrial section. Dozen’s of massive cranes there unloaded massive container ships, containers stacked up to six high. Keep in mind that each container on such a ship is the size of a semi-truck trailer. The industrial Savannah River shoreline is a nonstop flurry of beeping machinery and scurrying trucks operating among mountainous mazes of shipping containers. Quite a sight, but like a small shipping village compared to where the ships are loaded on the other side of the Pacific. Let me just say, if you ever get to Hong Kong you must get on a boat and see how the world gets its stuff.

Completely dark now. Navigating the river on the light reflected from the industries, using our own little handheld spotlight whenever necessary. A tugboat blows its horn at Gonzo, not liking our non-linear path down the river. We turn off into the first tributary channel, at least five miles past the downtown bridge. It’s a small river that leads into a wildlife refuge. We anchor a half-mile into that river where another small tributary branches off it. The strange beepings of the industries carry over the swamp grass all night long, not a second’s pause.

But we’re in Georgia!

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 32° 08.626’ – 81° 07.754’

Wednesday 12-2-09:

“What if the town doesn’t actually exist?”, Sarah asks of Port Wentworth, which according to our GPS was located on the shore of the Savannah River just a half-mile from our anchorage. Her suspicion was warranted, based on the fact that the shoreline appeared to be a solid mass of industrial complexes. The GPS insisted, though, also claiming that a public road was within 20 yards of the river.

A long row in the dinghy confirmed that the GPS was indeed the enemy. No road in sight. But not being easily discouraged, we noticed that one of the industrial lots appeared abandoned, with the only structure there being a jet-sized hangar with damaged walls. A patrol boat passed by 4 times, then we made our dash as it continued on, climbing atop a cement wall and stashing the dinghy inside the hangar.

Most of the hangar’s cement slab floor had become one giant puddle, with a dry strip to the edge. Portions of the walls were melted. We cautiously emerged on the other side of the structure, headed across a flat open landscape towards where the town was supposedly located. The dirt was charred under the weedy terrain, meaning that whatever had been in this industrial lot must have been destroyed in some colossal inferno.

The only other things remaining at the rear of the lot were stacks of wooden pilings, but some intact structures remained at the front, including what appeared to be a few inhabited office buildings among a grove of trees. We passed silently by, behind what appeared to be an abondoned facility for loading rail cars.

We passed a guard shack. A raincoat hung inside and a light was on beside a chair, but no guard. Beyond the shack was a rusting padlocked gate, on the other side of which was a narrow driveway. Across the driveway was an abandoned railroad bed, ties and tracks removed, running through a forest. Household trash lay strewn along the path, including rotting Halloween jack-o-lanterns, a good sign that the old railroad bed connected to a public road somewhere.

Sure enough, we soon arrived to the outskirts of a public sports park on the edge of Port Wentworth. The town did exist after all, kind of at least. The GPS led us to Maggie’s Café downtown, but no lunch there, just an abandoned building with a flaking cheeseburger mural painted onto the front wall. The next block was strewn with clothing and baby furniture, all scattered down the sidewalk around a construction dumpster.

Then finally came a business that was actually open, a gas station with a sign reading “pizza and subs”. We both ordered cheeseburgers and fries from a very vocal Asian clerk. “You want that all the way?”, she yells with a smile.
“No, just medium please.”, I respond.
“NOOOO”, she yells, “All the way mean mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, pickle.”
“All the way then”, I confirm.

The food is delicious. So is the wifi connection.
“You want Pepsi refil?”, the woman screams as we finish our last few bites, “I not charge you again.”
A familiar customer arrives, an old man, whom the woman happily screams at for 20 minutes, “I have party every year for husband. He not care. I divorce him.”

Looking for the peace-and-quiet wifi of the library, we progress on down the street, coming to a small rectangular one-story building with broken out windows, doors closed permanently. “Book Deposit”, a fading sign on the brick wall reads above a slot. If there had been any doubt before, non remained, Port Wentworth is a dying town. The Savannah city busses don’t even come to town even though downtown Savannah is just five miles away. No wonder the town is dying. Maybe Savannah is trying to kill it to make space for more factories.

Nothing left to do, we walk back to the water. The tide has lowered several feet, leaving us to launch the dinghy from a muddy shore instead of the clean cement wall. The current and wind are miserable, all against us. We barely made it to the shore across the channel, where some kind of large earthen dam cuts through the wildlife refuge.

We pull the dinghy through thick brush and walk the steep mowed hillside along the dam, towards Gonzo’s anchorage. Some kind of quail-looking bird angrily squawks at us from under a tree. Fire ant mounds everywhere. We stumble along the steep incline, carrying the weight of the dinghy between us, ever watchful not to step in any mounds.

Near Gonzo there’s a break in the thick brush of the shoreline. A culvert there spills out smelly grey water. Stinky, but successful. Only momentary success, though, as Gonzo is sitting in less than two feet of water, resting on the muddy bottom.

At first it appeared the anchor had drug, as the surrounding terrain was different. But no, the change was just do to a dramatic tidal difference in the water level that had exposed many new patches of swamp grass. This is why people like to buy new charts every year, as our old tattered one given to us for free by a fellow sailor claims that the water here is 18 feet deep.

And low tide was not to come for two more hours!

We sat in the cockpit drinking rum and Coke as a football field-sized mud flat exposed itself all around, Gonzo planted firmly in the middle. No wonder the water had seemed so still overnight! Now this is what I call a protected anchorage!

Never having been in a mud flat before, I poked and prodded at the mud with the six-foot handle of a broken boat hook. Like quicksand, the pole could be shoved three feet deep with barely any effort at all, then another foot with effort. Taking a look into the keel chamber revealed that the keel was also firmly planted deep in the mud.
A clam lay on the mud’s surface, which appeared to spit out a stream of water when tapped its shell with the pole. I retrieved the clam and bathed it, hoping to induce more of a show, but this unappreciative clam showed no further signs of life. I quickly grew bored and threw it back.

Sarah and I spent the dry season, about two hours, reading to each other from the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, given to us by fellow sailor Bill in Beaufort. Then the rains came.

Not wanting to get wet for no reason, we decided to just leave Gonzo in the mud flat another night. If we didn’t even know we were grounded last night, then a second night couldn’t hurt. And actually, sitting in mud is probably easier on a boat than sitting on stands in a boat yard.
Not a single strange sound to be heard all night, other than those continuous odd-pitched beeps from the container ship loading facilities.

Thursday 12-3-09:

Dawn escape from the mud flat at high tide. Proceed down Savannah river as three container ships are being loaded, as a tanker is being escorted to the turning basin by two tugs. The tanker returns, passes just before we make our turn back onto the ICW.

From Savanna there’s an alternate route to enter the ICW, under which a 35-foot fixed bridge must be passed. I’d crudely measured the mast this morning in anticipation of the bridge. With no measuring device available, I’d used a black sharpie to mark the six foot point on one of our docking lines, using myself as the six-foot reference. The docking line was then raised up the mast via the main halyard. The marked black line dangled down to a point, from which I lowered the halyard to take another measurement, and another and another. The six-foot line segment fit on the mast four times. That equaled 24, feet plus another six feet down to the waterline. Gonzo was approximately 30 feet tall.

Even with room for error she would surely fit under a 35-foot bridge. And room for error was important considering that the tide was nearly at its highest point. The tip of the flexible radio antenna did scrape underneath the bridge, which came as a surprise, considering that the antenna is less than three feet tall. This means that Gonzo is actually between 32 and 33 feet. We have now learned that any bridge charted to at least 35 feet should be good enough for Gonzo, as long as there are no waves.

Although both the wind and current were unfavorable all day, we still progressed through a number of Georgia rivers, creeks and sounds, all surrounded by vast marshes. Also unfavorable was the temperature. Sixty degrees in the wind, even with sun, is never good enough when on the water. Actually can feel quite cold after you’ve sat in it for a few hours straight.

Anchored in Queen Bess Creek, just off Bear River. I’d picked this anchorage upon noticing the tiny island next to it, which we explored just after sunset. Landing the dinghy upon the muddy banks at low tide, we entered the lush interior of tropical plants. Then the most unsettling sounds came as we neared the island’s center; snorts and grunts, very low-pitched snorts and grunts, and a LOUD rustling in the bush! Our visibility was limited to less than 20 feet due to both the falling light level and dense foliage, but two things were clear; whatever was making the noise was getting closer, and it was large.

I’ve never seen or heard a wild boar in the wild, but I have experienced them in documentaries several times. Tonight’s creature never showed itself, but I can only assume based on sounds that it only could have been a wild boar. But on an island only 300 feet in diameter? How would it sustain itself? Hell, what do I know about wild boars, except to stay away from them when unprepared for confrontation.

Sarah and I huddled together on a fallen limb for a moment, then quickly made our way back to the dinghy. Having a second look at the chart, I saw that the name of the island was Bear Island. Could it have been named that because somebody years ago mistook the boar for a bear?

Then looking further into the issue later tonight, I read in our cruising guide that some of the nearby islands are inhabited by alligators, wild horses and pigs. The guide only mentions the larger islands being inhabited, but obviously there is more to the story.

After dark there were not only owl hoots coming from the island, but also odd screeches. Bear Island is a strange and mysterious place.

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 31° 50.341’ – 81° 08.418’

Friday 12-4-09:

Getting an anchor to stick may require spells and potions, or at the very least, it is a dark science. An overnight glance out the hatch revealed a barge growling down the ICW, meaning that not only had the anchor drug, but that it had drug around a 90-degree bend in the creek, with the outflowing current back towards the ICW channel. (The barge was never close enough to be a threat, but its existence just made the dragging instantly obvious).

Dragging around a corner is odd, though, so this may actually just be a case of abduction with poor replacement.

Anyway, it has inspired a new entrepreneurial vision; anchor shaman. I will publish book of spells and potions to cast on anchors, in the hopes that they will stick. I’ll sell a kit that includes a magic wand that doubles as a boat hook. For a fee, I’ll show up at your boat and cast the spells, mix the potions, personally. The cost; $100 per foot.

The islands roun’ here are inhabited by a few lone wild pigs, and the waters by numerous playful dolphins. The big sea-dwelling mammals had made their presence surprisingly clear on several occasions yesterday afternoon, surfacing next to me with sudden snorts as I stared absent-mindedly towards the horizon. As one can imagine, such an unexpected disruption in the middle of nowhere comes as quite a surprise. These dolphins are getting their kicks by harassing me.

Like a Sea World show, but where the human is on display, the activity continued through this morning, with dolphins leaping vertically at 90-degree angles and appearing to enjoy Gonzo’s company immensely. On one occasion it even appeared that the propeller would tear through a parent and child, but as always, dolphins aren’t stupid. Probably, the ones in captivity report back telepathically to the wild ones on the current state of human affairs.

‘They like the double-flip-walk-on-tailfin thing’
‘Obama increasing troop numbers in Afghanistan’
‘Tiger Woods busted’

Concerning the possible overnight abduction, I now have a suspect(s).

Today’s journey crossed us through St. Catherine’s sound, in lousy weather. Not soaking wet, not bitterly cold, but just lousy. Must get south. Tonight we sit hiding in our mud hole, a deep but very narrow little creek which almost drains completely during low tide. Ah, our mud hole. Clams, they may be highly intelligent after all, growing their own house and all.

Coleman heater on, chili mac consumed, rum and cokes in hand. We could live in this mud hole for a month if needed.

Why are there two bars of signal strength on the cell phone here? There is nothing, anywhere. Is building cell phone towers that cheap now?

Oh…no…..it’s the dolphins! A new government conspiracy uncovered! I’ll spear you all in the name of patriotism!

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 31° 30.942’ – 81° 17.940’

Saturday 12-5-09

Staying anchored in our mudhole for the day was the alternative plan had the all-night rains not stopped this morning.

Our progress south was swift on sail power alone except for the two hours spent crossing the Altamaha Sound against heavy wind and current. Motor on full speed, still going almost nowhere.  The mainsail was beaten badly enough to send one of battens crashing down into the cabin. (Battens are strips of metal woven into the sails to make them stiffer.)

Resuming favorable wind and current south of the sound, swift progress continued. The engine was then again only necessary during sharp bends in the channel with head-on winds. Due to the extreme wind speeds, up to 20 knots, the jib also had to be taken down on the bends in order to keep its violent flopping from causing damage.

All hands required on deck all day. Plenty of sailors go alone in such conditions, even on boats twice the size of Gonzo, but life is just so much easier with that extra pair of hands.

Tonight’s anchorage is just north of Brunswick, GA, meaning that Florida could be only a day away!

Anchorage GPS coordinates: 31° 11.917’ – 81° 25.451’