We started from Cricket Cove marina in Little River SC at 6:45 AM.

Well, this morning we ran aground big time. The edge of the channel caught the starboard side and spun us into the bank before we could react. The keel rode up over and into the bank forcing the nose a foot and a half or more out of the water. We leaned way over as the port side rested on the bottom.

We were ripping along at 10 mph and hit so hard the refrigerator doors opened and we had food (fortunately still in the containers) clear to the back bedroom. I was jerked out of my seat just like when the Enterprise was attacked on Star Trek, except our control panels didn’t shoot fire and sparks. I went down and pulled up floor hatches in the engine room to check the hull and for incoming water. Looked OK to me.

The tide was coming up, so in about 45 minutes the boat leveled out. I restarted the engines and after a few minutes of gunning them (and feeling for any vibrations from a bent prop) we backed off. As we continued we monitored the engine temperatures in case a cooling water intake got clogged. I can’t say we came out of it without a scratch because I haven’t seen the bottom yet, but everything seems great.

Seen just after we started out.

Fishing trawlers seen on the first part of our trip.

This guy stayed in one spot right at the edge of the channel. Not sure what he was doing.

The ICW gets close to the Atlantic here, just across the sand bar.

Of course if we would have hit a rocky bottom it could have been different, but most bottoms are mud or sand. It appears this boat will take a lot, and the keel, which goes deeper than the props, especially the front of the keel, seems to get it first.

The times we have run aground might have been avoided with better watchfulness, but it’s hard to keep 100% on top of things 100% of the time. This happened just north of mile 330. The passage there between the red floating marker 76 and the edge of the channel where we hit is very narrow. As we sat waiting for the tide I saw locals missing that red marker by only a few feet as they passed.

Anyway, once you’ve run aground a few times, it no longer seems such a scary prospect.

I’m sure you are wondering who was driving when this happened. I ain’t saying.

Beautiful homes in beautiful settings. The ICW gets better in the northern part of South Carolina.

This morning it was off to Cricket Cove Marina at mile marker 345, just north of the dreaded rock pile. We got here at 2:15. Yesterday we were with the current most of the day. Today we were usually against it, so our actual speed (SOG: Speed Over Ground) was around 8 ½ mph. As we neared our marina it changed so we were with the current. Fortunately when current is present most marina dockage is along it, either with or against. When the current comes from the side it gets a lot harder to do almost anything. Today I just had to use some reverse thrust periodically, or a bit extra throttle on whichever engine was in reverse as we maneuvered. I still appreciate the engine controls working. They should hang together until we get to Washington at mile 150 + 30 off the channel. Then Greg will make sure all is OK.

Northern half of SC ICW has tree linked banks. Many nesting birds along the way.

This was one of our better travel days. The ICW in Florida is towns, cities and people and boats out having fun. Georgia is more marshes and flatland. A lot of wide open space. Now we’re seeing forests and taller trees. Many of the homes are in beautiful treed settings. The boat traffic dropped to almost nothing when we got to Georgia and remains that way in South Carolina. Today we passed one slower boat in the same direction and one local small cruiser passed us. Somedays we have seen only one other migrating boat, sail or power, in motion. I think we may be a little earlier than the main northward migration.

The Socastee bridge is one of two where we needed an opening. Both opened right away.

Traveling almost everyday is an unusually fast way to do things on a boat and will not be how we do the rest of the loop. Even so, the afternoons and evenings have given us enough time in our one night stops to relax and enjoy things. The travel part itself is more relaxing than last year, when we were still trying to learn how not to wreck the boat when docking and otherwise wondering when we would run aground. Even the weather is better. Last year coming up (in August) was hot most of the time. Now it is cool but comfortable most mornings, just right much of the day and going to change into light clothing for the last two hours.

We’re not near the town here, so will just catch up on this and that, including this blog.

Approaching our Georgetown marina. We picked the marina closest to the old town.

I thought we had been to Georgetown before but we haven’t. The name sounds familiar, I guess. We just have one night here after Charleston. We started before 7:00 and landed at 2:00.

It’s just a block from the marina to where the old downtown starts so we tidied up and went out. The main street is just up from the river with old buildings on both sides. Those that back up to the river now open onto a new river boardwalk as well as onto the main street.

Sue in downtown Georgetown. Definitely worth seeing.

Sue was floored by the cuteness of downtown and kept commenting on it. It is genuine. The buildings really are old, but fixed up well. Some of the shops actually contained interesting stuff too, a double win. There is even a free maritime museum. Georgetown is on a major ocean inlet and is a historic port. It still is a port for large ships: just turn left instead of right as you approach our marina and instead you’re in a large ship basin with freighters docked at its end.

We just had to shop. Fortunately living on a boat limits that. If she finds a shirt I would look great in (according to her) I just ask what she will throw out to make room for it in my closet. She did get me a hat. There was a place for it on top of the other hats.

We found a suitably elegant Italian restaurant (it had tablecloths) for dinner to finish up our outing. Georgetown is definitely on our list when we come up the ICW next year.

Star Gazer at Charleston Maritime Center. Not many other boats here.

We left Beaufort at 6:45 (getting light a bit earlier), got through the dreaded Ashepoo cutoff and made it to Charleston with both engines and our main depth sounder working all the way! A lot of good scenery and good weather on the way as well.

View forward and to the right as we left Beaufort

Near the end of the trip we entered the narrow 2 ½ mile Elliot cut. It exits into the quarter mile wide channel on the west side of old Charleston, with the big City Marina straight across. Tides conspire to make a current up to 4 knots here. It was 2 ½ knots in our direction when we went through. We could see the water rippling and thrashing along the banks. There is a drawbridge in the middle of this channel which we can slip under. That’s fortunate, because stopping and waiting in front of it with all that current behind would be difficult. A great ride with nice homes all along both sides.

Almost to Charleston. Entrance to Elliot Cut. Current grabs you right there.

Charleston City Marina was full, so we went on around the peninsula to Charleston Maritime center on the other side. It’s a small marina only for transients. Not many boats here even though it’s high season for tourists in Charleston with normally very nice weather. They tell me it’s because they can’t take the really big boats and the tide changes make for pretty strong currents that take you to the edge of their small basin quickly if you don’t keep on top if it (and have both engine controls working).

Sue likes to drive the first shift.

We got in before 2:00, called Green Cab and went into the city. We shopped around some and took a horse carriage tour, our second. They have 4 or 5 different places the tour might go, so it was new to us. This is the most common way people see the old town except for walking, since it is so small. The tour finished just in time for us to walk to Magnolias for dinner. I called for reservations after we left Beaufort and they were full, but someone cancelled right at 6:30. Our marina is close enough that we walked back to our boat.

Charleston as we exited Elliot Cut. Catholic cathedral steeple on the left.

We’re here all day Tuesday, but the weather is a bit cool, with a brief shower or two possible. Tomorrow it’s off to Georgetown or Wilmington. Hopefully everything keeps working until Washington, where we get a once over.

These handles both shift and throttle both engines. Today only the left one worked. The right one beeped.

Did I just say something about how wonderful all these boat electronic gadgets are? Yesterday we left Walberg Creek and felt a lurch crossing St Catherine’s Sound, essentially on the open ocean. The engine controls had misbehaved, kicking the engines into idle while they beeped and flashed a red light. I messed with them and got everything working again. I found the manual for the controls learned how to turn off the beep and we continued on, arriving at Savannah before 1 PM for one night.

It was a good thing the controls were working because two boats had problems and could not leave our destination marina. We did have a reservation, so they moved boats and made space along a face dock. They know our boat’s length because they worked on it last August and left us just barely enough space. I looked once we got in. My bow was two feet from the bow of the boat in front and my swim platform rails were 4 feet from the dinghy hanging off the rear of the one behind.

We just had the afternoon, so we took a cab to the old town, walked from square to square and down along river street. We ate at the Kayak, a small sandwich and soup place which is a favorite of ours.

Many shops and restaurants are on one side of River street and on the other side…

This morning I got us away from the dock and into the channel so Sue could take over. I was nearly finished straightening out the lines and fenders when I heard the beeping again. This time I couldn’t stop the alarm or get things working. The starboard control handle controlled nothing. The engine just idled in neutral. We continued on with one engine

Arriving at the City Marina in Beaufort SC we got to practice our line tossing so the marina staff could pull us in.

I then called the company that sells the controls in the US. He had an engineer from Italy, where they make them, call me. I had to hunt down the recording unit that was behind a ceiling panel in hallway outside the engine room. The engineer used a history from this to trace things down to a bad cable connecting two of the actuators. Actuators actually push and pull the throttles and shift levers in the engine room. I went down and wiggled that cable and sure enough, I could cause the problem to come and go.

Actuators on the engine room ceiling actually control things. Control cables are blue.

We’ll replace the cable, a standard type, in Charleston. In the meantime I took it off, cleaned it up (it looked OK to me but I did it anyway) and reconnected it. A dry run showed everything working with no error beeping. But will they work Monday when we leave for Charleston? You end up learning all kinds of things on a boat.

This is the only other boat I’ve seen here today. It came by before sunset, but didn’t stay.

Today (Thursday) we are anchored at Walberg Creek for the third time. There was no else one here when we got here at 1:40 PM. I just now checked at 4:30 and it appears we’ll be alone here tonight.

7:00 AM is the earliest time we have decent visibility, so that’s when we left Jekyll Island. There was a thick fog forecast to burn off (it did by 9), so we travelled a bit slower than usual. We had occasional glimpses of ICW shores and could see day markers if they were within 50 feet.

Our depth sounders tell us we have enough water under us. The electronic chart shows where the channel shores and the day markers are supposed to be. The radar shows where they really are, which fortunately is nearly always close to their chart positions. We had to run more than 2 miles across the main Brunswick shipping channel in this fog, but AIS showed us there were no large ships anywhere around and the radar, which can pick up the day markers from miles away, would also show those as well as all the other boats. Without this equipment we would not have set out, but since it was a low traffic day (we didn’t detect anyone else) it was safe.

We’ve been on a mooring ball or at anchor 6 of the last 10 nights since leaving the DeFever rendezvous. Now that our boat’s systems are straightened out its often just easier. The weather has cooperated with days just right and cool nights so we did not use any AC, which requires we run the generator if we don’t have shore power. We carry enough supplies to last us. The last time we took on fresh water was 8 days ago. Sue has used the dishwasher and the washing machine at least once and right now our water is still at 60%. We did take on fuel at Jekyll marina yesterday because the price was pretty good. The last time we fueled was November 11 on the way down to Lantana. We don’t have to worry about the holding tank getting full because we now have a treatment plant on board. We could have easily gone without getting groceries yesterday at Jekyll, but then would have missed out on a fun golf cart trip. Well, I was out of bagels and OJ.

Savannah on Friday, then we’ll arrive in Beaufort SC on Saturday. Easter Sunday will be at Baptist Church of Beaufort, 3 blocks from our marina. Looks like good weather for walking to church that day.

Croquet anyone? Players on Jekyll Club Hotel grounds.

After 3 nights on a mooring ball at St. Augustine we spent one more night (Tuesday) on a ball at Fernandina, FL near the northern border. We crossed into Georgia around 7:15 AM Wednesday morning and soon passed by the naval Kings Bay Submarine base. No submarines visible but the guard boat was out in the middle of the ICW as always. We use the eastern side of the ICW there. The Navy gets the rest. As we approached the base we heard reveille from the base and just after we passed they played the Star Spangled Banner at exactly 8:00.

We got into Jekyll Harbor marina in the south western part of Jekyll Island today at 10:30 AM. I would have liked a longer run but the tide was fast going out and I won’t pass the northern ¾ of Jekyll Island on less than (preferably on the way up) half tide. Each day the tides advance about 40 minutes, so we will have more tide to use on future days of this trip. There are some areas along the Georgia ICW that we must have tide assistance to cross, so if half tide going down comes at 11:00 AM, like it did today, we can’t cross those areas after that.

We used the day to wash down the part of the boat facing the dock and drive one of the marina’s 3 electric golf carts to the grocery store. On the way back we passed through the island’s historic district where the Rockefellers and others used to stay in the summer.

Houses we toured last year in the Jekyll Island historic district.

We especially like the old Jekyll Island Club Hotel. We thought about eating dinner there. It’s really elegant and you have to dress up. The hotel would have someone pick us up and drop us off if we wanted to do that, since the marina is only a half mile away, but we decided to eat on the boat. Next year when we do the Chesapeake the trip up this way will be much slower, and we will definitely do that. So if you plan to be with us then men should bring a dinner jacket. Unless you’re my size, that is. I have an extra one.

Star Gazer in the Fernandina Harbor mooring field

We’re on a mooring ball off Fernandina Harbor Marina at the north end of Florida. Sue maneuvered the boat while I grappled with the lines to get us attached. Worked a lot better this time. We’ll cross into Georgia early tomorrow.

Making a schedule on a boat is usually a mistake, so we will not try to hold too rigidly to any schedule after mid April. Still, we have an overall plan for our trip. Obviously the time to be way up north in Canada is in the summer, just like we are down in Florida in the dead of winter. Spring is when we go up the Atlantic ICW, up the Hudson and start into the Erie canal. As fall comes and it gets colder we will be heading south on the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers. The loop is normally done counterclockwise, because going up those rivers against the current in the spring could be difficult.

Here is what we plan:

• Leave Florida late March. (looks like we will make that one)
• Arrive in Washington, NC April 15 for 1 week of work on the boat.
• Travel northward to Norfolk, end of the ICW, at end of April.
• Be in the Chesapeake bay by early May
• Arrive in Albany, NY (past New York City) in late May.
• Travel the Erie Canal in late May to Early June.
• Mid June to early July in Canada on the Trent – Severn canal.
• Mid July into the Georgian Bay / North channel of Lake Huron
• August Travel Lake Michigan from North to South.
• Be off Lake Michigan and in Chicago by end of August
• Travel the eastern rivers in September & October.
• Arrive in Mobile Bay around start of November.

It’s possible we’ll be delayed at the Erie canal. Historically it has opened as early as April 1 and as late as June 5.

Our friends from Australia, Keith and Gayle Holmes, will be joining us June 1 until mid July, just in time for some heavy locking in the Erie and Trent – Severn canals. My sister Sharon and Paul Trepus are currently planning to join us mid to late July when we will be getting near Michigan. Paul’s brother and sister in law may join us as well during this time. Sometime in August our grandchildren are coming before their school starts.

After that Sue and I appear to be on our own unless we hear from some of you.

Since we saw much of the ICW up to Norfolk last year we are racing through at the moment to get to Washington, NC for some scheduled work on the boat. We are just taking a few non travel days in St Augustine, Savannah, Charleston and maybe two other towns on the way there. Our grand plan for next year is to spend a number of months on the Chesapeake bay, so we may travel more than we stop there as well.

Sunset at Fernandina Harbor with our looper flag flying from the bow.

We plan to slow down once we reach New York harbor, since it may be a year or so before we get that far north again. Let me know if anyone wants to join up with us for part of the trip down the rivers. It’s usually pretty easy to fly into a nearby airport where we can pick you up in our rental car or you can get a one way rental to where we are.

Sunday was clear and cold, but with jackets and the sun we had a great day around the city. I dropped the dinghy in the morning and we were off to Memorial Presbyterian Church for Palm Sunday. We got there 15 minutes before the 11:00 service and the place was packed. As we’ve gotten older we appreciate the traditions of some of the old churches in America with the pipe organ and the older hymns. I’m not sure we can make the service in another favorite, Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah. I think at our current pace we may be past Savannah by Sunday. We may be in Charleston, though.

After church we went to our favorite St Augustine restaurant, Café Alcazar. It’s the restaurant in the old swimming pool I wrote about before. I had Artichokes Giovanni and Sue had the Catch of the Day (mahi mahi). I wonder about people who often put a picture of what they eat on their Facebook page, but Sue insisted I get a picture. It was really good.

We spent some time in the Lightner Museum that we also visited last time and just walked around the town. We’re staying tomorrow also and will go through a number of house museums just south of the Lightner that we haven’t seen yet.

While we’ve had the dinghy down several times before, this is the first time we have used it for the normal dinghy purpose, as a taxi to shore while at anchor. St Augustine is one of the more expensive marinas to stay at, about $150 per night for a boat of our size. The mooring ball is $20 and includes free pump out from a mobile station and use of the dinghy dock, where we parked ours all day today. We’ll be anchoring out more often now that our boat’s systems are set up for it.

At the DeFever rendezvous one of the speakers said “At any time there are about 5 things wrong on your boat and you probably know about 2 of them.” Last night Sue turned on the water at the kitchen sink and got nothing. I checked a bath faucet and got the same. The breaker was on, so what was wrong. I called Greg, got a bit of advice and whacked the pressure sensor that turns the pump on with a screwdriver handle. The pump is working great now. How did he know that?

Star Gazer in the St Augustine City Marina mooring field.

We’ve reached St Augustine and are on the south eastern most mooring ball in the mooring field just to the south of St Augustine Municipal marina. You can see this on Google maps, satellite view. Enter the marina name and just look at the dots on the water south and a little east. It was from the water taxi for this mooring field that captain Bill Slattum, our training captain, took the picture I started this blog with.

Starting north from New Smyrna

It was nice and sunny (once the sun came up) but quite cool for Florida when we started from New Smyrna Beach at 7 this morning. 67 was the high today. DeFever friends the Satterfields from Bella Mare, also just up from the rendezvous, helped us away the dock. We really appreciated the work Greg did to set up our downstairs drive station. Cozy no mater what weather outside. By 10 we were upstairs with all the isinglass closed. No wind that way and a bit of a greenhouse effect so we were comfortable there.

We may have some cold days as we go north. Good thing we can drive from here.

Overall it was a great travel day with enjoyable and varied scenery all the way. Life along the Florida ICW is really nice. We see a lot of it from great homes and people camping, fishing and just playing in general on shore and on boats. Not only that, but the main depth sounder worked well all day! There were a few incidents, however.

I set off the horn by accident when the binocular strap caught the switch as I lifted them. Two days ago I gave a loud blast when the binoculars hit the switch as I set them down. One common use for the binoculars is checking out nearby boats. A bit embarrassing to give them a loud blast while I’m at it. That horn is so loud I have another one for giving toots in marinas where I don’t need the sound to carry for a mile. I’ve got to get out of the habit of setting the binoculars on the dash.

We ran aground and bounced out two or three times just south of St Augustine. For those boaters following this it was rounding green floating marker 81C. It’s a strange feeling when bouncing in a 45,000 pound boat. I now understand the phrase “shiver me’ timbers”. It wasn’t too bad since we noticed the depth getting less and had slowed down to a crawl in that area. I wondered how this had never gotten into the Active Captain hazard base. Nothing showed up on my iPad. Later I realized I had turned off display of hazards and a few other items to concentrate on scanning for any drawbridges I might encounter when planning the trip the night before. This hazard was marked and I had at least a good chance of avoiding it with the provided advice. Another thing for our starting out checklist.

We used this taxi Saturday. We are at the far end of the mooring field.

The other was Sue’s heroic effort in getting that heavy rope and connection up from the mooring ball with the boat hook. This was actually the first time the two of us have done that, since there was a marina guy passing by who helped us a few days ago at Vero beach, and before that was months ago with our training captain Bill helping. We’ll have to practice that so Sue can drive the boat while I get the connection up.