Adventures of a cruising couple aboard a Tartan 37 from Beaufort, NC to the Bahamas.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Ahhh Vermont! Last night the rain on the metal roof sang us to sleep and this morning the sun came out as we sat on the porch sipping coffee. Yay! Happy, happy, happy!
The Ferguson Family is gathering for our annual 4th of July reunion in Vermont. My mom (who is a very independent 96 years old) is camping in the cabin next door with my sister and brother-in-law, Nancy and Tom, from Tucson, AZ. Our daughter Karen, her husband Drew and our granddaughter Clara are staying here in Middle Cottage. We miss son Finley this year (had to stay in Greensboro and work) but lots of cousins are gathering in the five other cottages.
Here is the inside of the cottage we're staying in.
Penelope Harrold and Clara Steen hanging out on the porch after a day of swimming.
Brother Tim and Sister-In-Law Sara came for an afternoon.
Clara still in her pajamas.
Jean Ferguson--my mom--documenting everything!
Monday, October 15, 2012
Well, sometimes you have to stop sailing and take care of things at home. Both of our cruising trips were preceded by a quick-fix project of nailing a new tarp on the old garage roof. Now is the time to really do something about that GARAGE!
Here we are ripping off the layers of old tarps and replacing with a sheet metal roof. We hired a great friend--Charlie Boardman--to help us know what needed to be re-built and what could be saved. And then to teach us how to do it! We started in the middle of September (2012) and finished a month later.
As you can see--lots needed to be replaced. This is Charlie on the ladder.
And here's the new roof going on over the old one. John and Charlie are up there together---such a team!
Then new hardie board
Then new hardie board was added.
Charlie added the new people door on the side. John and I assembled and installed the big car door on the end.
Finally we painted and painted!
Ta-Daaaa!
So---now let's do someting else. Think we will go camping in the handy dandy camper John made for our minivan. Yay!
On March 28th we left St. Augustine and motor/sailed north to Charleston, SC. It was a nice clear day and a very pleasant passage. We anchored in the Ashley River right across from Ashley Marina, Charleston, SC. It took us two or three tries to get the anchor set where we wanted it and then we just crashed.
We shared a piece of the ocean with this towboat and huge barge.
And the sun comes up over the ocean after sailing through the night.
The next morning, March 29, we called our Charleston sailing buddies Laurie and Rob Kramer (s/v Moon Shadow) who we'd enjoyed being with in Marathon, FL months ago. Well, as luck would have it, the Kramers were docked in Ashley Marina and were happy to come get us in their dinghy. Wow! What nice folks! We spent the rest of the day and evening getting caught up with them and visiting their beautiful Charleston house. Then we wandered around Charleston with them----fun, fun, fun.
John and Rob in Griffon's Bar.
Laurie and Penny in Griffons.
Laurie and Penny on the Kramer's front porch.
What a nice Charleston house!
This morning Laurie call and said that Rob would come get us for coffee and homemade pumpkin muffins aboard their boat. Thanks!
The four of us from Moon Shadow's nicely varnished toe rail.
Ahhh-- it was mighty nice to come ashore in St. Augustine. We spent the first day getting our boat and ourselves cleared through US Customs. Then we reconnected with family via email and telephone. After that we treated ourselves to some terrific meals, great music, first rate showers, quality laundry, great grocery shopping and --alas--a very disappointing basketball game Sunday night.
We were so tired, we forgot to take many pictures. This is all we have of St. Augustine:
We shared a table at Harry's Restaurant with this nice little lizard.
I got to attend my favorite Episcopal Church in St. Augustine.
Alcazar Cafe' . This used to be a huge indoor swimming pool a hundred years ago. The cafe' is set up in the deep end of the pool. And the food was fabulous!
Three years ago we were lucky to ride the Gulf Stream for three or four days and nights straight to Beaufort, North Carolina. This time we could not find a weather window big enough to do that much sailing in the Gulf Stream, so on March 22 we sailed west (northwest) from Bimini to St. Augustine, Florida. So far we had been able to sail every day of our trip home and we were hopeful that this passage would be all sailing too. However, sometime during the night of March 22 the winds died and we had to turn on the engine. In the morning we tried launching the spinnaker in the light air, but the sail went crazy wrapping around itself such that it was quite a challenge to get the thing unwrapped from the furled jib and down on the deck. After that we resigned ourselves to motoring on to St. Augustine.
At one point we were moving long with about 20 dolphins--all of us going about 7 or 8 knots! After it got dark the dolphins beside our boat kicked up an impressive light show with the phosphorescence in the water. Here they are:
Our original calculations had us arriving in St. Augustine sometime in the daylight of March 24; however, things got confusing and we found ourselves facing a night time arrival at St. Augustine. Entering any harbor--even ones you know well--is tricky business and really should be done during daylight hours. But it was 2AM in the morning of March 24 with no moonlight when we arrived. Captain John said we could sail up and down in the ocean until the sun came up, but we were so very tired he decided to try picking our way into the harbor. It was going well until we came upon a huge dredge barge with tentacles of pipes all over the inlet channel--yikes! We got the dredge boat on the VHF radio and he told us to keep the barge and all its tentacles to our starboard. Of course it wasn't quite that simple, but John did a terrific job of getting us safely into the harbor.
We found a vacant mooring ball at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina and tied up and slept like dead people. The next day we started working on clearing through US Customs.
Oh my--what a nice place Bimini Sands Marina/Resort is! We rented a slip for a couple of nights and had access to internet, a fresh water pool, laundry, and a great little grill for breakfast and lunch. Also there was free bus transportation to an affiliate restaurant at the end of the island--so nice!
Here's John posing with a terrific breakfast sandwich made with thick slabs of yummy Bahamian bread.
We connected to internet and enjoyed the pool as we planned our big ocean crossing to the states.
Thought you all would enjoy this sign posted on the docks at the fish cleaning station. It asks folks to be sure that all the fish guts they dump into the water sink----and stay sunk. But the best line is hard to read in this picture. It says, "puncture the eyes, gut, swim bladder, etc." Nice huh?
On March 18th we headed out for a wonderful sail north long the Exuma Banks. We spent the night of March 18th anchored in the lee of Norman's Cay. Again we did not leave the boat--just got a good night's sleep and headed out first thing in the morning.
So March 19 and 20 was a non-stop, through-the-night sail across the Exuma Banks south of New Providence Island (Nassau), the Tongue of the Ocean, and across the Great Bahama Banks to Bimini. The sailing was terrific--honestly the best sailing of the whole trip. John did some serious fishing along the way and we had a couple of terrific meals of Spanish Mackerel.
Ahh--the sun set on March 19th, but we kept sailing northeast to Bimini. And, what a lovely night sail it was!
At about 3PM on March 20th we sailed into South Bimini to rest and plan our passage across the Gulf Stream to Florida.
