Happy Easter

Sunday April 24, 2011

Happy Easter from St. Augustine.

The Easter Parade in St. Augustine has a Spanish flavour with lots of horses and pirates.  Surprisingly there was not a single marching band.  Oh well, a pleasant divergence.

Still no word on my dinghy repair parts; hopefully they will arrive by Tuesday.

St. Augustine, FL

(Friday April 15 - Dist: 53.0 mi; Avg Speed: 9.0 mph; TTT: 5:55 hrs)

St. Augustine is the oldest city in America, if you do not count the American Indians.  The old downtown is restored or kept beautifully.  The architecture is amazing with a strong Spanish influence followed by British architecture.  The streets are extremely narrow and the buildings are right on the edge of the streets.  Most are one way streets because two cars could never pass.

The marina is right in the heart of old St. Augustine.  This is the view from the Ale House across the street; great blue cheese chips for an appetizer with their micro brewery beer that they serve.

The Marina is very well managed, especially for a city run facility.  There is lots of staff which is a necessity because of the swift currents that rip through the marina.  It is as challenging as docking at Hoppies on the Mississippi River.  My docking was even more challenging, almost impossible because of a computer error.  Whomever accepted our reservation entered 21 feet as our boat length instead of the 41.  We were assigned a smaller dock that is only 35 feet long and 15' wide.  Well even with the fast current and the afternoon wind I squeezed our 14.5 foot beam into the 15' slip.  Only after did they realize their mistake.  Oh well, a much finer effort than I displayed in Stuart where the wind and current caught me by surprise.

We have been walking the town and taking the tour trolley to pick up some of the history; a really interesting place.  It is a good thing too, because my dinghy repair is waiting on a replacement tube from Mexico.  It was stuck in a warehouse at the US border on Friday so it may not get here until next Monday or Tuesday.

We did rent a car on the weekend and visited the World Golf Hall of Fame on Sunday with our friends from Bade Boomer.  It was very interesting.  It is hard to believe that there is so much money invested into this tourist site.  It is very well done; we spent a good half day there and enjoyed our whole time.

Well we have to go out and find Todd and Paula-Sue from Ocean Breeze; they have finally caught up to us again.  I am sure that we will be able to share some stories over a nice adult beverage.  I'll add a few more random photos for your enjoyment.



Narrow streets in the old town.

 

St Augustine Beach

St Augustine Light Station

Halifax River Yacht Club, Daytona Beach, FL

(Wed April 13 - Dist: 48.6 mi; Avg Speed: 7.8 mph; TTT: 6:10 hrs)

We needed a couple of extra days in Titusville to do some mundane tasks like laundry and getting the boat bottom cleaned.  I was pleased, especially after hearing that another boat's zincs were eaten up, that the zincs on Q's End were still good and the boat was not too, too bad underneath.  There were barnacles on the rudders, struts, trim tabs and props and unfortunately on a two foot section where I rubbed the bottom paint off near the bow.  Otherwise, the bottom paint has been holding up real good; thank you Clarence.

Since everyone else has left us in their wakes, we spent these last few days alone but not for long.  "Bade Boomer" from Michigan and an original member of the "A" Team, was also headed for Daytona Beach and although they could not get into the Yacht Club, they are close enough that we are spending time together.  Happy hours last night was at a Tiki bar at their marina and we partook big time; 12 Yeungling drafts and a number of Coors later we had dinner at the Blue Grotto.  The restrooms were like a NY city disco with flashing lights, see through counters and loud music.  Strange but neat.  The food was good too.

Anyway, the building in the top photo is the new club house for the Halifax River Yacht Club.  This yacht club experience is a thousand, no a million times, better than our experience with the Pentwater Yacht Club.  Brian the dockmaster was most helpful and informative.  He gave us a tour of the facilities and ensured that we had information about the surrounding area.  HRYC has been continuously in operation since 1896.  The old club house was replaced just 5 years ago.  This is wonderful even though we have yet to take advantage of the heated swimming pool or the restaurant.  Hopefully we will rectify that this evening.  For now, we are headed to Daytona Beach, the beach that one sees on all the post cards and photos about spring break.

This last photo is the view from our boat; not too shabby.  Have I said that I like this place??

NASA - The Kennedy Space Center

Sunday April 10, 2011

Can you believe that I cannot sit in the back seat of a car yet experiencing weightlessness was not a problem what-so-ever.  It was a hoot.

Linda and I spent the whole day here and enjoyed it immensely.  It is very well done: the visitors complex has informative and interactive displays as well as two 3D IMAX presentations, while the bus tours have views of the working sites and buildings. 

Endeavour still sits on the Launch Pad but this is as close as we could get. Here is a commercial photo from an earlier launch. 

There were so many interesting facts and sights that I can't do them justice.  I will just post a number of photos to give you a taste.  Everybody really needs to visit the Kennedy Space Center.

I must tell you though that I docked the Orbiter perfectly to the International Space Station and Linda is still lost in space somewhere.  I did not fair so well landing the Orbiter though.



Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)



Canadarm

Appollo Rocket Booster




Rocket Garden at Visitors Complex



Titusville, FL

Friday April 8 - Dist: 68.1 mi; Avg Speed: 10.2 mph; TTT: 6:40 hrs)

It was a perfect day for cruising up the ICW.  The winds were calm in the morning and as it started getting warmer a slight breeze came up.  We were expecting a fairly long day so we just sat back and enjoyed the ride.  At a particularly wide part, I did open it up a little ("feed the twins" as Richard on Finally would say) and we picked up an hour of time but then paid dearly at the fuel dock.  We needed 280 gallons and at $4.07 per, we went over the thousand dollar mark for the first time.  Ouch!  I will be watching the throttle for awhile or at least until the pain of this fill up passes.  At least the Cdn dollar is cooperating.

Rob and Debbie from Lady Royale and Linda and I went for an air boat ride on the St. John's River.

 It was great fun and very, very interesting.  This fork of the river meanders every which way and is really only navigable by air boat; and every one in this area has one.  It is primarily cattle country contributing to Florida's standing as the state with the most cattle.  Texas, I learned is third, behind Oklahoma.  This area floods every year, some year's worse than others, and it is easy to understand why.  It is flat, no hills what so ever except those built by the Seminole Indians hundreds of years ago.  The other interesting fact is the number of alligators in the area.  In the adjoining picture, I count 8 gators.  Blow it up and see how many you can find.  It is reported, by the Wildlife people, that there are approximately 900 alligators in each mile of this part of the river.  We had no problem spotting them in the water but it was too hot for them to be on the banks of the river.  They do not like to go above 80 degrees.

We did have enough water to get into a Cyprus forest.  This as a close as we got to looking like the Everglades.  It was neat; no sound could get by the dense Cyprus tree trunks especially since the sound got diffused by the root looking bases of the trees.  The line on the second photo is height of one of the reason floods in the area.  It is a bit weird when you actually have that line at eye level and can see every tree with that same line as if made by a ruler.

This pip squeak is three years old already.  No problem for me, yet.

Tomorrow we visit NASA, The Kennedy Space Center.

Jones Fruit Dock

(Thursday April 7 - Dist: 49.6 mi; Avg Speed: 8.7 mph; TTT: 5:50 hrs)

Jones Fruit Dock was owned by an elderly gentleman who ran a fruit stand so boaters could get fresh fruit while on the water.  He allowed boats to overnight with little or no amenties but when he passed away a couple of years ago overnight docking was discouraged.  Just recently the county is trying to re-open the dock and just yesterday, Rho-Jo and Lady Royale were the first to deposit their $20 for dockage.  We were the third and it was nice to tie up to a dock rather than anchoring somewhere nearby.  The stars seemed brilliant that night.

The actual travel from Stuart to here was peaceful and uneventful; some really nice houses, some not; plenty of islands and interesting shoreline, dolphins, pelicans, fish jumping, etc.  A great day for cruising. 

Stuart FL

(Monday April 4 - Dist: 38.0 mi; Avg Speed: 8.3 mph; TTT: 4:25 hrs)

Greg Norman's place on Jupiter Island.  Our travels from Riviera Beach to Stuart on the ICW took us by numerous homes of the rich and famous.  Fortunately for us Rick a friend from Ottawa and currently wintering in Stuart was able to give us a colour commentary along the way.  It was a hot and windy day which made the leaving and docking rather exciting but the ride along the route was very interesting.

The Tiger Story:

This is Tiger Woods' place as seen from the water.  As you see he has taken great pains in the past couple of years to hide his place from public view.  He has succeeded; very unimpressive.  Here is more of the story.  Tiger's exwife Elan used to be the nanny for Jesper Paranavik; his place is the one with the purple roof.  She of course then moved in with Tiger.  Now since the divorce she has purchased a 17,000 square foot home on one of the most prestigous golf courses in Florida.  Not bad.

The town of Stuart is a neat little town with plenty of shops and restaurants.  We enjoyed the Monday night specials at Duffy's and tonight we are being treated to a BBQ at Rick and Lynne's.  Life is still good although the water looks like s!#@, rather brackish.

Back in the U S of A

(Saturday April 2 - Dist: 67.2 mi; Avg Speed: 10.2 mph; TTT: 6:45 hrs)

The last 3 remaining boats from the "A" Team, (ie. Finally, Rho-Jo, and Q's End) were dubbed the "Three Stooges" but the others.  We had studied the weather, especially the wind and the waves, and decided that Saturday was an excellent day... the winds were forecast to be 2-6 knots from the east and south-east....good for us.  We left at 6 AM in the dark and headed for the mainland.  The seas were good, nice and calm.  The sunrise was beautiful...then we hit the Gulf Stream.  The winds were only 5.8 knots but they were coming from the north??? why we have no idea and obviously neither does Wind Finder.  The waves were on our starboard beam so we were rolling  from side to side.  Some even got as high as 4-5 feet but most were 2-3 footers.  It was a gentle roll but still enough to make Linda and I queasy despite the 2 doses of gravol.  Anyway we made fairly good time for going trawler speeds and it was never bumpy nor splashing

seawater on the fly bridge just the steady f!$#'n back and forth.

Calling US Customs and Immgration went smoothly as our Boaters Registration numbers from the NEXUS program worked like a charm; no inspection and no further reporting.  We were cleared before the Americans in our flotilla.

We will soon start the next part of our adventure which is to travel the ICW up the Eastern Seaboard of the US.  We are re-provisioning today and will head to Stuart for a couple of days and hopefully a golf game with Rick and Lynne.  It will be good to visit with our friends from Ottawa.

Past that the only sure target is St. Augustine where I will be getting the dinghy fixed.  The only other obligation is to explore and have fun.

So long Bahamas and Old Bahama Bay Resort.

Old Bahama Bay Resort

(Saturday March 26 - Dist: 56.0; Avg Speed: 9.2 mph; TTT: 6:05 hrs)

Life here at the resort is tough...so many things to do.  Here the gang

had just completed a snorkeling session on the small reef just off this beach.  Beautifully colored fish everywhere and a number of sting rays, one which was quite huge.

We also have a Hobie Cat at our disposal and Joey and I have taken advantage of it almost daily.  Yesterday in a stiff breeze we went as far as the town of West End...great fun in the wind.

I have learned to kayak and I really should do more of it as I need the exercise.  We are playing games daily as well and of course there is the obligatory Happy Hour(s).

 And finally life is pretty laid back here in the Islands...it has been a great visit.  After a week here we are going to head back to Florida when the weather is good for a crossing.  Five of the boats left on Tuesday and got beat up pretty bad.  We are hoping for a much smoother ride.