Back on the Boat, Departing Brunswick, Georgia

 I am writing this on November 1, 2023. This was supposed to be the day we left Brunswick Landing Marina, but you know the saying: The plans of a sailor are written in the sand at low tide. Weather always dictates our plans. We had a strong cold front coming in today, so we left yesterday, and moved the Boat 37 nm to Saint Mary's, Georgia. Saint Mary's has a good anchorage with excellent protection from the north. So, we will sit here and enjoy some cooler weather for a few days until it is comfortable to move further south. The low last night was in the 50's and the high today was only in the 60's. It may actually get down to the high 40's tonight. No worries though, it will be back to the 80's by the middle of next week. 

I did want to take some time to write about our wonderful time during the months of September and October. In my last entry, we were in Brunswick after the hurricane passed by, and we were getting some new canvas on the boat. It was certainly hot and humid in Georgia during early September, but we really enjoyed our time at Brunswick Landing. 

This manatee was hanging out at the dock enjoying the fresh water provided by another boater.

Here is the new canvas fully installed. We took it down the next day to wait for our return.

The sunset views over the estuary are beautiful in Brunswick.

They opened the new North Bath house while we were there. It is very nice and for us on dock 15, the walk to the shower was much shorter.

Our neighbor left, which gave me the opportunity to take a picture from the starboard side of the boat. Shortly after this shot was taken, a 58 foot Beneteau Sailboat took its place. Our 40 foot boat looked so small compared to those much larger boats.

I spent the mornings walking in the historic neighborhoods. My goal was to walk 3 miles each day. We also took a trip to nearby Jekyll Island to check out the beach.

This is the old City Hall in Brunswick

I really liked this one.

These buildings just have so much character

I have to do another "Kim on a beach" picture.

It was low tide so there was plenty of sand to walk on. We found lots of shells including about 20 full sand dollars. We cruised right by this beach yesterday on our way south.

We left Georgia on the 10th of September and headed to Arkansas to see our grandson, Connor play football. This is his first year playing, and by the end of the year he was showing signs of understanding what he was trying to accomplish from his linebacker position. I have been into athletics my entire life and I can't tell you how much I love to watch my grandchildren taking their shot. I was very excited to hear that Cameron had joined the wrestling club. I was able to relive some of my younger years when I was able to watch one of his first practices. Wrestling was my sport in High School. We did have to get down on the floor of the living room after practice to show him a few things. I sure hope he sticks with it. 

We then went back to Missouri to watch Will play soccer. He was not starting on the JV, but did get some playing time. The highlight was when we got to see Will score his first High School goal. I don't know who was more excited, him or me. We started watching the Ozark High Varsity Soccer team matches that were played after the JV games. The Varsity is one of the top teams in the state. We became big fans and did not miss a game until we left. They are the top seeded team in their district and we are hoping they make a run at a state title. The cool thing is that Will got to work out with those boys each day and by the end of the season, was gaining skills and confidence.  

The video above is of Will's goal that was scored on a penalty kick. 

We spent our weeks in Arkansas on Mondays, Tuesday and Thursday at Will's games in Missouri and every other Friday night at the Ozark High Football game to watch our Senior, Isabella perform with the Band. 

Isabella is the flute player standing at the 40 yard line. 

We also went to two of her band competitions. One of which they were the overall winner. 

We were asked to look after the kids for three weeks, while our daughter Shannon and her husband, Brian went on a cruise to the South Pacific. It turned out to be one of the best times of my life. The kids were awesome and all we did was spend some quality time with some of our favorite people on the planet. The only problem is that I now miss them terribly.  

We were planning to leave Missouri around October 15th, but we delayed that by a week to see as many of the kids activities as possible. Did I mention we had become big fans! We had to hurry to get the trailer winterized and everything ready for our departure. On September 23rd, which was our youngest grandchild, Amelia's birthday, we left Ozark and made one more trip to see Connor's last football game. He recorded his first solo tackle of the season and played very well. On the 24th, we made the 14 hour drive to Brunswick. 

We put in a few long days getting the boat ready for sea. Unfortunately, I came down with a bad cold on Saturday and I had to slow down to get well. I had been watching the weather and I really knew we should leave early, but I felt so bad that I thought getting well was more important. We were still undecided Monday night. I awoke Tuesday morning feeling much better and decided that today was the day. We got the boat ready and departed at around 9:30am. 

Another beautiful sunset in Brunswick, the night before we left. 

This was our neighbor the entire time we were there. Jack purchased the boat the first week we were there and was yet to take the 65 foot Steel Schooner to sea. 

SHIFT ready to go. All sails on, full of food, water and fuel. Wood treated, stainless polished, Decks washed. Engines serviced and all checks completed. Wish us luck!

It was a 37 nm motor trip, but we went under the 185 foot bridge at Brunswick.

It was a beautiful day with a high temperature of about 80F.

We cruised by Kings Bay Submarine base. There is a Ohio Class sub to the left in this picture. That boat is almost 600 feet long. 

Our anchorage in Saint Mary's, Georgia.

Beautiful evening, but the front arrived at about 2 in the morning, but we didn't see much more than 20 knots of wind and about a 20 degree drop in temperatures. 

To our stern is the town of Saint Mary's. It is a cool place with lots of interesting history.

Well, that is how we spent the last two months. In my next entry, I will write about our plans this cruising season and what is next for us. Thanks for reading. 

Time for an Update after Hurricane Idalia

 I have been asked to provide an update after our recent experience with Hurricane Idalia. I will start this entry by telling you that we are safe, and SHIFT received no damage from the storm. I will write about the experience with the storm, later in this entry.

In my last entry, we had just arrived at Brunswick Landing Marina in Brunswick, GA. It was June 27th, when we arrived. We quickly settled into a routine of social activities here in the marina and living on the boat in air conditioned comfort. The only problem was that it was HOT, Very hot and humid. 

Here is SHIFT in her slip at Brunswick Landing surrounded by two 65 foot boats.

We enjoyed the fireworks on July 4th right over the marina from the comfort of the club house 

Kim playing Bingo in the clubhouse. We had fun, but never won a game.

Nice sunset over the marina and the estuary beyond. 

We were getting tired of the heat and we had big plans to find some cooler weather. We prepared the boat for the coming hurricane season by removing the canvas and the head sails to reduce windage. We then talked to a couple of companies about replacing our very tired canvas. Kim has been dong a great job keeping it together, but we decided that now was the time to replace it. We left the marina on July 13th and made the 14 hour drive back to Missouri over two days. It wasn't much cooler in Missouri when we arrived, but the lower humidity was very noticeable. We then got the truck unloaded and then we turned our attention to our planned trip to Colorado for a family reunion, and celebrating my fathers 92nd birthday. 

On July 18th we drove to Ozark to pick up our grandson, Will. Then on down to Arkansas to pick up our son, Michael and his two sons, Connor and Cameron. We had 6 in the truck for the two day drive out to Colorado. We shared a VRBO with our daughter Shannon and the rest of her family while we attended the family reunion. We had an amazing time seeing everyone.

My Mom with two of her great grand children, Case and Colby

The whole family had a great time visiting around the pool at my parents complex.

I don't think it all could have worked out better. 

I think we had 33 people there. I love my family and we are so lucky to have Mom and Dad still with us. 

We left the Denver area on Sunday, July 23rd and headed to the mountains for a couple of days camping. I think the boys had fun hanging out and doing some fishing. 

We really did camp in tents. It was so cool and comfortable that I did not want to leave.

Three of my grandsons.

We love the mountains.

This was my view while having my morning coffee.

The guys even went swimming in that lake. 

Connor caught a nice trout. Will is fishing in this shot. I gave them both their first of many fly fishing lessons.

We drove on from Colorado to the DFW area to see Kim's Mom and Dad. It was great to see them and I know the boys really enjoyed the time together. 

We then went back to Missouri to rest. We drove almost 3000 miles on that trip. 

We got a visit from our good RV friends Dick and Cathy. It is always so great to see them.

I got an invitation to go to a famous Hard Enduro motorcycle race with my partner Bob. It was a good time and I was glad Bob talked me into going. 

All of the top factories had big rigs at the event called The Tennessee Knock Out

One of the riders making his way around the very technical course. 

My partner Bob and I hiked all over that beautiful piece of property near Chattanooga, TN.

This is a shot of Rachel Gutish, who is one of the top female riders in the world. She was at our ranch just the week before to teach a riding school for women riders. 

The time was approaching that our new canvas was going to be ready and we wanted to be at the boat when it was going to be installed. At the same time we were watching a storm that was forecasted to form in the Gulf of Mexico. Our grandson, Connor had his first football game on Monday, August 28th. The storm was forecasted to come right over Brunswick on the 30th. So, in our normal style, we drove to Arkansas to watch Connor play. He played very well. Then we left our sons house at 5 am and headed to Georgia. We arrived at 8 pm and got to work making sure the boat was ready. We slept on the boat that night in light wind and woke up to news the storm was making landfall and heading our way. 

SHIFT stripped of windage and ready for battle. We doubled all lines and hoped for the best.

Nice and calm at 7 am.

This large boat on our starboard side was a blessing and a curse. The wind came from that side and it blocked much of it. The bad news is that it was tied too loose for the conditions and those two fenders were pressed up against us, which was then pushing us hard into the dock. Our fenders stayed in place and we did not get any rub damage. 

The rain and the wind picked up and it was time to get to shelter in the club house.

We were lucky that the storm took a more westerly track than what was originally forecasted, which had the eye of the storm coming right over Brunswick, Georgia. Normally being on the eastern side of the eye is a bad thing, but Idalia was strange, because the bad side was the northwest side. We recorded a 44 knot gust here on the boat (I left the instruments on), but another boat that was more exposed recorded an 70 knot gust. 

We left the boat during the storm and went to a club house here on the marina property. We could not have been more comfortable. We watched the storm from the comfort of a recliner. I did go out in about 40 mph winds to check on the boat and that is when I saw the big boat pushing on us, but there was nothing I could do. We did lose power for much of the day, but that was a minor inconvenience. Power came back on at 7 pm. Brunswick Landing Marina lived up to it's reputation as a great hurricane hole, but there was some damage to the docks and two large boats when the wind shifted and came right down the river. Another marina not far from us sustained significant damage and lost a number of boats. We were glad the worst  was over when the winds dropped down to around 25 knots by 8 pm. We went back to the boat and slept well. 

We woke up the following morning to a cool and comfortable day. The canvas company came about 11:00 and started the installation of our new Bimini and Dodger. 

Yep, we are changing the color to dark blue. We included some window covers for the fresh isenglass. 
They had to take the connector back to make an alteration. 

The color turned out a little lighter than Kim wanted, but I like it. Now we just have to change the rest to match. 

Well, that is about enough for this entry. We are heading back to Missouri until around mid October. (unless another hurricane comes to Georgia) We have soccer, football and band to watch and I can't wait. I love this time of the year, and love to watch our grandchildren perform. Have a great fall!

Destination - Brunswick, Georgia

 After being at anchor in Daytona Beach for June 22nd and 23rd, getting pummeled by thunderstorms, we decided it was time to get moving. We left Daytona on a beautiful Saturday morning. I normally don't like to travel on the ICW on the weekend due to the weekend boat traffic, but we decided to make an exception and head for the relative safety of the mooring field in St. Augustine. 

We left early enough that there was very little other boat traffic for the first few hours. The weather forecast was calling for scattered thunderstorms, but so far the radar was clear. After a while we noticed another sailboat that we recognized on AIS just a few miles in front of us. It was "Southern Cross", the boat we had seen a number of times on this trip. We spent much of the morning with our genoa deployed and current behind us. We were moving along at over 6 knots. 

A beautiful morning cruising along the ICW between Daytona and St. Augustine.

There is one spot that is notorious on this section of the ICW. The Matanzas river inlet has some shifting shoals that can move overnight. We had a track that was not too old, but I knew I needed to pay attention in there. As it turned out, I was able to watch Southern Cross go through there on AIS. I was alarmed when I saw his boat speed over ground drop to 0.0 for a few minutes. After a bit, they got going again and cleared the area. I called them on the radio and asked if they had gone aground. They did, and then gave me some good instructions to make it through safely. When we got to that point, I followed their instructions exactly and we never saw less than 8 feet of water. Other cruisers are awesome!

From that inlet on to St. Augustine was fairly easy except that we had to open one bridge. The bridge tender made that very easy by timing the opening perfectly for our speed. I never touched the throttle. The only problem was at that point the current turned against us. We also saw a thunderstorm show up on radar. It was not long before we saw the black blob come over the horizon. We were seeing the lightning and then hearing thunder. It looked bad, but we might be able to make it to the marina before the storm hit. At this point it feels like everything slows down. The miles feel like they are coming slower and slower and the storm is coming faster and faster. We made it to within a mile of the marina when we got it with a 35 knot gust and the rain came down sideways. I had put my raincoat on, but below the waist, I was soaked in seconds. SHIFT handled it with no issues and just plowed ahead. My only concern was visibility. We turned on the running lights and carried on for the last mile. The thunderstorm passed quickly, so we only had to hold for a few minutes when we arrived at the marina. We called them on the radio and they assigned us ball #1. That is the closest ball to the marina. We pulled in to the mooring field in a light drizzle and no wind. Kim got the ball picked up and we were home for a couple of days. 

At that point, I only had two things on my mind. A hot shower and a pizza. After getting things squared away on the boat, we got the dinghy down and headed in. We both took long hot showers and then headed to St. Augies for a pizza. We have been to St. Augustine twice in the past 15 months, so there was not too much of a draw to go sight seeing. 

We saw this beautiful house and thought of our son, Mark. I think he would like this house. 

We went to church at the Basilica of St. Augustine the following morning and then took a walk around town. It was a hot day with no thunderstorms to cool things off. 

This is a picture from our mooring in St. Augustine. That is the Bridge of Lions. We are in the portion of the mooring field south of the bridge. That would mean that we would have to open the bridge to move north. 

The sailboat in this picture is an Island Packet named "Bakitha". They were behind us the following day and anchored right next to us at Cumberland Island. Unfortunately, we never met them. 

We noticed in the forecast, that there was no thunderstorms forecasted for the next few days. There was a high pressure dome that was settling over the SE US and this was bringing hot and stable weather. We discussed our options and decided to head offshore on Monday morning. We had a number of options. We could sail overnight and go all the way to Brunswick or we could stop short at either, Jacksonville or the St. Mary's inlet. 

I was up before the sun on Monday, June 26th. I was getting the boat ready to go when I heard the horn signaling that the bridge was about to open. I called them and they told me that we could make it if we left now. We made that bridge opening and we were now on our way north at before 6:30 am. We went out the inlet with no issues and then turned north. We had good wind on the beam for the first three hours and cruised along comfortably at about 6 knots. It felt so good to be sailing offshore again. 

We had a nice sunrise on our starboard side as we headed north. 

We were not alone as we cruised north. There were a number of other boats that had the same idea as us. 

We called the marina in Brunswick and asked them if we could come in on June 27th. Or reservation for the next 4 months started on July 1. They said that would not be a problem, so we just needed to decide if we were going to stop for the night or not. 

The wind made that decision for us. After 3 hours of great sailing, it dropped out to almost nothing. We finally gave up and started the engine. We cruised along the calm Atlantic Ocean for a while and then decided to head for the St. Mary's inlet. We could stop there, and get a good nights sleep, and then sail on north to the Brunswick inlet the next day. The wind forecast was much better for the following morning. 

The only problem was that the tidal current was against us when we arrived at St. Mary's. It was a very slow ride coming into the anchorage at Cumberland Island. We were under 4 knots for much of the trip. 

Sunset at Cumberland Island

After a very restful night, we were once again up early and moving out. I had looked at the tide tables and saw that if we did it right we could get current behind us for both the outgoing at St. Mary's and the incoming at Brunswick 5 hours later. We just needed to average 5 knots on the 25 nm sail.

The plan worked perfectly! We had strong current behind us as we left the anchorage and out the inlet. We turned north and had 15 knots of wind right on the beam. We were moving along nicely at between 6 and 7 knots. It was so nice to have the motor off and going that fast. It was the best sail we have had since we left the Bahamas. 

Cruising along at 7.3 knots in around 18 knots of wind. SHIFT was in her element. It was a great way to end our sailing season. 

We made the inlet on the rising tide as planned and we sped the 13 miles from the inlet to Brunswick Landing Marina. We called them on the radio and they met us at our slip to help us get tied up. We were now in our new home for the next 4 months. 

We will stay on the boat for a couple of weeks to do some repairs and maintenance. Then we will leave the boat to go visit the family all across the country. It is now hurricane season and BLM is an excellent hurricane hole. The hurricanes generally follow the warmer water of the gulf stream. Brunswick is as far west as you can go on the eastern seaboard of the US and still be on the coast. We are praying this place keeps our boat safe. We will prepare the boat expecting a storm to come and hope it doesn't. 

This blog will slow down now as the sailing will stop. We have big plans for this next year. Check back in November to see where we go next.