April 8-9, 2021 Off shore St Augustine to Beaufort SC

 Thursday, April 8, 2021. Day 123.

At 1:30pm, we entered the ocean from the St. Augustine inlet, and cruised about 9 miles offshore on our way to Beaufort, South Carolina.

The day time offshore was OK, not necessarily fun, but OK. I was able to edit my blog for about an hour without any motion sickness. Off shore segments are long and to me, rather boring, but they have a purpose. Ocean passages eliminate several long days of intense steering in narrow ICW channels which is very wearing on the captain ( I’m not crazy about them either ). So, the ocean it was.

I was patched and “wristed”, and, actually was able to sleep well between my watches. On this trip, unfortunately, Captain Roland did not sleep very much or very well. He had to make a couple of course adjustments during my watch (I hated to awaken him, but no real choice), to avoid freighters, especially near Savannah (which had been the case going south so no surprise ). When I was on watch through the day and night, I listen to books and played solitaire on the phone and checked the radar and our speed and a few other dials. I was sorry to miss both the sunset and sunrise, both on Roland's watch, but happy to get some sleep.

Captains note: this is one of my favorite sunset photos. it has not been altered or enhanced at all, this was the actual colors, was amazing..

The crossing was calm (for the ocean); the wind maybe 10 to 15 knots

Friday, April 9, 2021. Day 124.

When I awakened, we were in Port Royal Sound on the way to Port Royal Island which is surrounded by the Broad River and the Coosa River. Beaufort is on the Beaufort River which winds through the penninsula. At 10:18am, we were back on the ICW. It was interesting in the morning to pass Hilton Head, and Parris Island. I’ve never been to Hilton Head nor Parris Island, (unlikely I will ever go to Parris Island).

It was not easy getting a slip in Beaufort but we did manage to get one at Safety Harbor in Port Royal. We had preferred the Beaufort marina but they were booked solid until September 2021!

Kadey Krogen owners have a group of current and former boaters who volunteer to be harbor hosts. They offer to help with information and, in some cases, even transportation in their areas. They invite Kadey Krogen owners and other boaters to reach out to them when the boaters are visiting their location. I reached out to the Harbor Hosts in Beaufort, South Carolina and in Charleston, South Carolina. This was the first time I tried reaching out to a Harbor Host and I didn’t know what to expect for sure. Vicki and Mac, from Beaufort responded and we discussed getting together. Mac has been fully vaccinated and Vicki was getting her second vaccination in a couple of days. We all agreed to wear masks and to keep the windows open in the car. They had a giant four person pick up truck.

We docked at Port Royal Marina at 11:45am and I was thrilled that the overnight was behind us. I showered and dressed and went for a walk and hoped to have lunch at the marina restaurant “Mark 244”. We heard they were serving soft shells, and we love soft shell crabs. The area in which the marina and the restaurant are located it is very cute; small neat homes, beautiful foliage, very cool but casual and accessible and very natural. When we approached Marker 244, we were told it was an hour wait and by the way they were out of soft shells. We made a reservation for 6pm (they said they were getting another three crates of soft shells for dinner) and we went back to the boat and had leftovers for lunch.

The restaurant was obviously a lunch place, there was an hour wait an it was packed at lunch. At dinner, not so much. We were one of the few occupied tables and learned that they serve soft shells, one way only: fried and on a bun – we had waited all this time for a sandwich! It was however the biggest soft shell Roland had ever seen. We had our traditional rose wine (the prices, interestingly enough, are high for a glass but quite reasonable for the whole bottle), so of course, we drank the whole bottle.

Dinner was a bit early so we walked to the supermarket about a mile away and bought a few things back to the boat. I confirmed arrangements for tomorrow with Vicki and Mac. They offered to pick us up at 9:30am to go to the local farmers market, take us to a supermarket or other stores for any provisioning and then, to tour Beaufort. They had recently sold their Kadey Krogen 39, “Confetti“, and bought a house. Keeping in touch with the Kadey Krogen family was important to them, and they knew our PO's (prior owners), and our boat. All of us were looking forward to Saturday, and our first Harbor Host experience.

Returning north March 31-April 1, 2021

 Wednesday, March 31, 2021. Day 115.

We had planned an offshore passage to save a couple of days. Due to the endless number of bridges on the ICW in the Miami area, the inside trip can take forever! Last night the weather forecast was good, so I put on my patch and we secured the dinghy, the paddle boards, and everything else on the boat. We got up early in the morning; I took a pill, and put on the wrist bands, and, at 7:27am, we ventured out into the ocean. Unfortunately it was not to be. Although the weather report had said the winds would cooperate and the ocean would be doable for me, it was not the case.

The chop was heavy. Magic Moments was pounding on the swells, water was spraying on the windows, the glass bottles and dishes were clanging. We knew that we would have to be very careful opening all the cabinets after this to avoid breakage.

It was too rough; it was not fun. We turned into Miami and entered the north channel, surrendering to the reality that we would not be going offshore.

It was beautiful in the channel, and my stomach was calming down; I removed the wristbands. When we were 85% through the channel, a Miami Dade police motor vessel with blue flashing lights approached us and via radio said the channel was closed and forced us to turn around and go out and re-enter the south channel. The officer said the channel is closed when there are two cruise ships in the channel. Please note that the channel is huge, the two cruise ships were docked, no one was moving, there was no signage or other indication of any restriction and we were essentially through the channel!

 This was extremely annoying because we had to turn around and go out the whole way, and reenter in the south channel; we lost a couple of hours and it threw off our timing for the bridges (and there are LOTS of bridges).

Traveling near so many bridges so close together, causes the radio traffic to get crazy. The radio sounds like a cacophony of messages: announcements from the coast guard, boaters, and marinas, requests for openings, responses by the tenders; it is endless, loud and also unclear sometimes who is addressing whom.

After passing 16 bridges that required openings, and a few we could motor under, we anchored in Boca Lake (approximately 4:15pm). It was tight and very crowded, with a big sandbar (obviously a rather shallow area). 

 We anchored one hour before low tide, with only 3.1 feet under the keel, and a nearby neighbor trawler who complained that we were too close. I thought he had a point. Captain Roland felt that we were safe. Roland is attentive, careful and knowledgeable, and, in this case, he was correct. At 5:40pm, after watching, observing and calculating, tide, wind, and current, Captain Roland confirmed that he was satisfied with the anchorage.

As I’m sure I mentioned previously, one of the fun things to do while cruising the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICW), especially in this area, is observing the homes from mega mansions to old style Florida; some classic with round columns, some with square columns, tiles, arches, modern, mediterranean, and eclectic.

In addition to enjoying the view and the landscape and the passing homes, checking boat names is also a kick. Two favorite boat names of today: “Drifting Coconuts“ and “Yachta Yachta”.

Another note of the day: at 8:am we passed our 1900 mile mark on our adventure, and, more importantly, neither of us have thrown the other overboard, nor jumped ship!

Thursday, April 1, 2021. Day 116. April Fools’ Day.

I am not sleeping through the night; awakening from time to time; not sleeping well does not make me happy!

We left early, and went under the first bridge of the day, at approximately 7:20am, and then the Spanish River Bridge a little before 8am. Minutes later, with a phone call alert, we passed Ann and Richie on their balcony in Highland Beach. It was great to see them (seriously social distanced...with binoculars!), and to wave and talk on the phone; Richie took a great video of Magic Moments as we cruise by and also some stills (one of which was with me on the bow in full Devigi.....the only way to cruise no matter the weather!). Very cool!

At the 15th Ave. Bridge in Boynton Beach we had to wait way too long. The bridge tender (I grade her very low on my list of bridge tenders), opened at an odd time and thereby messed up our ability to get through the bridge that was a mile away for its regular schedule, so we lost another 30 minutes.

We were trying to make the next bridge in spite of the hold up on the 15th Ave. Bridge by my least favorite bridge tender, and, as we were cruising at a rapid speed for us, Enosis, the sailboat behind us (way too far behind us), radioed the bridge tender for the Ocean Avenue Bridge and asked that he hold the bridge for him when he opened for Magic Moments. The result was that the bridge tender didn’t open for us at the normal opening time, he waited for Enosis to arrive 20 minutes later, and, then made us wait until the next scheduled opening. We lost another 40 minutes. Circling around, wasting time and fuel and increasing the risk of collisions; not my happy place. Enosis called us on the radio later and apologized for his request to the bridge tender recognizing that he held us all up unnecessarily. Kind and generous Captain Roland blamed the bridge tender, forgiving Enosis.

I steered on and off passing the beautiful homes. The passage was lovely, we had sun, a gentle breeze, and gorgeous homes to see as we steered from the flybridge.

At Boynton Inlet, the current was rough and the whirlpools resulting from the ocean intersecting with the ICW, made steering tough so the captain took over. When we went under the Lantana Bridge on the 10:30am opening, the bridge tender radioed to Captain Roland that he was cruising too fast through the bridge. Our cruising speed is really slow, and that was a surprise.

Several bridges later we approached 707 Bridge which opens on request. The tender opened the bridge only partway, just enough for us to get under, but shorter than full opening. This was amazingly unusual. Every tender tells every captain, to not enter the wooden fenders until the bridge is fully open, and this one only opened part way. The reason: there was a lot of heavy road traffic, Magic Moments is not that tall (25 feet), so we could get by with a partial opening and the time to hold up the traffic (reduced time to open and close) was minimized. We were quite surprised and wondered if that was verboten in the bridge tender manual.

Most of our travel was from the flybridge until the early afternoon when the wind picked up dramatically and suddenly, at 3:40pm, the rain started.

At approximately 5pm, we anchored; it took a second try to get the anchor to grip (not all bottoms are created equal). 20 bridges (15 on request), the timing and the stress, today was a long one. We plan to stay two nights at Peck Lake; we need some R and R!