May 1-9, 2000 -- We're Never Going To Get Out! On May 1, I started doing laundry, and discovered that our washer/dryer stopped drying. After talking with Splendid, we performed some checks and discovered that the dryer wasn't blowing air. We took the deck box off, and then took the washer/dryer lid off. We took off the dryer motor and discovered that the squirrel cage had sheared off! We ordered a new one. Since laundry could not be done, we focused on our teak. On May 2, the Fredrickstad was pulling out while I was lowering our sonar. We decided to check it out, and discovered that the sonar was offset by 36 degrees. After discussions with Wesmar, we were informed that there was a software fix that could be performed and that took care of the problem. On May 3, we had Henri and Anne over for Pizza. Their work has been completed, so they are planning to pull out sometime in the next two days. Our squirrel cage came in, but we were unable to get the tip off the motor. We put WD40 on it, heated it, freezed it, beat it, and cussed the hell out of it! Totally unrelated to this incident, I developed an ear ache. On May 4, we took the motor to the machine shop where they were able to remove it, by cutting the old spindle then prying the sections apart. Henri and Anne came over in the morning and said good bye. They then headed toward Vero Beach. Henri called us each hour to see what the range on his VHF was. On May 5, we decided to rent a car for the weekend. We needed to do some running around and get more sandpaper, perishables, a new fender for the boat (for some reason we seem to only be able to keep two or three at time, it seems that every time we turn around one is biting the dust). On May 6, we did quite a bit of running around to get the items we wanted to pick up. On May 7, we had cocktails with Paula and Bill on Wave Dancer. They had returned Thursday. On May 8, my ear ache still wasn't getting any better, and we were going to register the boat & dink in Florida. Since we have a Florida address, this would make life simpler than keeping it registered in DC. This did not work out since the place we had to go to, was closed on Monday. We started looking for a DOC in the box for me. Instead we found a doctor and I saw him right away, almost first thing in the morning. We talked a bit about cruising, and he asked what drugs we carried on board in case they where needed. I made a second appointment so we could talk with him about a med kit. The freezer guys started the freezer install. On May 9, we registered the boat and dinghy in Florida, then went to the doctor's office. He prescribed the necessary items we were missing for our med kit. We came back to the boat, put a load of laundry on, and found that our washer/dryer still isn't drying. Perhaps we (meaning me) hooked something up wrong. The freezer guys are almost done with their install! Since we knew that we were close to leaving, we (meaning me) sat down to plot our courses from West Palm Beach to Norfolk, with the various potential stops we could make

After having worked until 10:00 PM last night, the refrigeration guys were back at it this morning at about 8:00 AM. They finished welding the system together, then performed a pressure test. They found a couple of leaks and fixed them, then it was time to put a vacuum on the system. Surprisingly, the system vacuumed down quickly and it was time for the refrigerant to be loaded into the system. After a second round of checks, the system was left to run at noon. Since they were there with the refrigerant, we asked them to check the condenser unit for our port and starboard staterooms. We figured that it was simply low on refrigerant. Unfortunately, the system had a good charge; it was the stator motor that had sheared the piston! We are now down an air conditioner. Being that we were so close to leaving, we had the problem documented, since it is covered under warranty and decided to address the problem up north. At 2:00 PM, our freezer crossed the freezing mark. We retrieved our food from the storage unit, and loaded it on the boat. At 3:00 PM, we talked with our yard supervisor and essentially checked out, then with a lull in the wind moved the boat out to anchor. We spent the rest of the afternoon running our generator to completely cool the freezer and food down below zero and starting to get the boat in some semblance of order and ocean ready. We knew that there was a possibility of a window, so we also made sure to check the weather. Just in case our weather window materialized, we pulled out our jacklines and harnesses and tossed them in the middle of the main saloon. At 11:00 PM, we felt comfortable with the weather forecast, though unsure of how organized the boat was. We postponed making our decision to go or stay until morning

At 5:30 AM, the alarm went off. We both headed up to check out the weather forecast. According to the weather faxes, we would have winds of no greater than 15 knots, consistently in the right direction, and waves no higher than 2 feet. We decided to go for it. We then began the flurry of activity that always happens at the beginning of a cruise, no matter how prepared we try to be. Mike ran the jack lines while I placed tethers. (The jack lines allow us to move all over the boat using our harnesses and tethers.) At 1030 GMT (GMT time is 4 hours ahead of EDT), we weighed anchor and slowly made our way out the Lake Worth inlet. While Mike piloted the boat, I grabbed some essentials and got them settled, including the log book, binoculars, and the "oh shit" bag. Once out of the inlet, we made a left turn and headed north, planning to miss the Bahamas. At 1110 GMT, the S/V Timonee called us. Joanne and Bob are heading north to Annapolis after having wintered in Key West. We set up an impromptu contact schedule with them, we hailed each other every few hours. At the end of the conversation, we noted our first flying fish of the trip. I went below, and fixed us each a bagel for breakfast, and wonder of wonders, I didn't get sick! Though, it is hard to get sick when the seas are pretty much flat! The winds were lighter than forecast, and what wind there was, was blowing out of the northwest, instead of the southwest! After breakfast, I headed below since Mike took the first watch. Besides, it was nice being able to 'sleep in,' since I hadn't been able to do that in months! The rest of the day was punctuated by watch changes and eating. For some reason, we were both extremely hungry this trip. At 2015 GMT, we were joined by a little bird. He landed on the aft seating area huffing and puffing. He sat there for a bit, then went up to our solar panels. We were 16 miles from land, he should have been huffing and puffing! Shortly after that, he took off again. A little while later, Joanne on Timonee called to tell us about the little bird that came to visit them! Mike doesn't think it was the same little bird, but my description did match 'her' bird. Mike plans to tape one of our cards to the next bird that lands on the boat. Mike realized at that point, that he had not yet done the ceremonial call of the dolphins. He promptly stood up and called, "Here Flipper, Flipper, Flipper!" At 2207 GMT, we made the decision to review what is in our CD player. One of my relaxation CDs played -- "Ocean Surf". This was not what Mike needed. Little did I know that I would be getting a dose of this later on. At the change of watch at 2230 GMT, we furled the stay sail and reduced the jib for the night, then I went below for some sleep. At 2345 GMT, Mike spotted a dolphin! He obviously heard Mike's call from earlier. Mike also noticed the wind dropping further, and decided that he would need to put the jib away. The rest of the night passed uneventfully, more or less. I had been on watch for about an hour during the darkest part of the night (you know, right before dawn, literally) when I started hearing the horn of a buoy. Immediately alert, I checked the radars. There was nothing there. I scanned the waters to the horizon, nothing. I pulled out the night vision binoculars and scanned again, nothing! Then the horn changed into Trisha Yearwood. At that point, that damn relaxation CD was coming out! So much for relaxing me. Just before I went off watch, I heard a Security call made by the Carrier JFK stating that they would be performing circles to port 10 miles off of the St. John's river sea buoy. I duly reported this to Mike, then went to bed. At 12 miles from the carrier, Mike noticed that we were heading right towards it, and started altering course to avoid it. At 1245 GMT, on the 12th, Mike was hailed by the carrier with a request that he stay 3000 yards off. Mike fumed for the next several hours about the fact that it was a naval craft and should have issued instructions in nautical miles, which he understands. After unsuccessfully trying to calculate 3000 yards, (1.5 nautical miles) he gave them about 1.25 nautical miles, and figured they could deal with it. At 1332 GMT, Mike saw a huge sea turtle that he swears was 10 feet long. At 1400 GMT, Mike saw a war ship 4 miles off our port beam. At 1421 GMT, Mike saw a navy frigate of some type off our port beam 3.5 miles. We were definitely close to Jacksonville. I came back on watch, and Mike proceeded to regale me about his experience with the carrier. That was when he learned that 3000 yards is 1.5 nautical miles. He 'harumphed' and reiterated his opinion that the navy should speak nautically, shiver me timbers. At 1600 GMT, we saw a sub. We thought at first it was a freighter, then something alien, then finally, we knew it was a sub. We touched base with Timonee who planned to head into St. Augustine. They would make the run to Fernandina Beach tomorrow, and would meet us then. At 1800 GMT, we dropped anchor. We had made it from West Palm Beach to Fernandina Beach in 30 hours 30 minutes, and traveled 258 nautical miles under our keel from sea buoy to sea buoy. We never saw winds above 18 knots apparent (probably 10 knots true) and seas were never above 2 feet. It was a very good trip indeed

Mike got up at 7:00 AM, EDT, and started working on our small generator, Tink. The generator needed his fuel filters changed. Since I am allergic to diesel fuel, Mike does the filter changes; of course this means I do the heads when they need work. I woke up at 8:00 AM, EDT and immediately fixed breakfast. During the Cruisheimers net, I discovered that Mike on Sweet Dreams is currently in the town of St. Mary's, approximately 2 miles up river. He decided to put his dinghy in the water and go wandering around and come visit us, among others. Not to be outdone, Mike relented and we put our dinghy in the water as well. We then focused on cleaning up the boat from the offshore passage. It seems that everything gets pulled out on a passage, and rarely gets put away. The next thing we know, it is noon! We called it a day, had a quick lunch and then set out on our dinghy to meet Mike. We made it about 100 yards from the boat when we saw him tooling up in his dinghy. We stopped in the middle of the river (out of the channel), chatted for a bit before heading back to Nightwinds, where we chatted some more. He is quite an entertaining fellow, being a single hander and all. This isn't something either one of us would want to do! Around 2:00 PM, he headed for home, and we took a tour of the anchorage. We noticed that a new boat had come in, and since we were expecting Timonee, we decided to take a closer look. It was, so we headed over to introduce ourselves, in person this time. We only meant to stay a minute, then let them recover from their trip. I think we wound up gabbing for about 20 minutes or so. It was kind of like we knew them already. It is amazing how fast bonds form when you are the only 2 voices in the dark at sea. We have met a lot of boats this way and it is always the same. After that, we headed up into the Tiger River (ala marsh) to look around a bit, then back to the boat. We flipped on the TV and found every cooking show on to be quite fascinating. It was definitely time for dinner! Mike made killer enchiladas, and then we watched Galaxy Quest. Finally, we did the nightly ritual of partially raising the dinghy to keep the bottom from getting fouled

Today, we had plans to visit Cumberland Island with Bob and Joanne on Timonee, as well as Mike on Sweet Dreams. We also considered heading to the north side of Cumberland Island to visit Arcturus and Cetus, but quickly nixed that idea because of the distances involved. Throughout the morning, we tried to hail Sweet Dreams, but could not raise him. At 11:00 AM, EDT, we decided to head over to Cumberland Island, hoping to meet up with Mike and some of his friends. After comparing notes about what we were each bringing, we picked up Bob and Joanne and headed north into Georgia (all of 2 miles). None of us had ever been to Cumberland Island, so it was a bit of a feat to figure out where the 'public' dinghy dock is; we found out later that we never did. After stopping at the first dock and asking around, we were told the second dock was where we wanted to go. We passed the second dock and asked the folks on China Moon where the public dock was. They were headed to the beach, so we followed them back to the second dock. We tied up the dinghy and began exploring Cumberland Island. We walked a path south to a renovated ice house turned museum. The walk along the trail was nice. We enjoyed the BIG trees, spanish moss, lack of bright sun, and a view of the water (as if we don't get enough of this cruising). We came out at the first dock we had tried to come into in time to see a navy submarine being towed out of its pen towards sea. (Pictures will be forthcoming.) We got sidetracked by a group of horses, and took several pictures of them, along with some deer. Then, Joanne wanted us to pose so that we could be a 'nice backdrop' to the tree she was taking a picture of. The trees are REALLY big here; the one she got a picture of was about 12 feet in diameter. We wandered through the museum, which was OK. It did a fluff history of Cumberland Island from pre-Columbus times to present day, in about 20 pictures and maybe 50 sentences. After cooling down in the shade of that old oak tree (isn't that a song?), we headed toward the ruins of Dungeness, the oldest building (now ruin) on the island. We arrived at the ruin in time to catch the tail end of the history of the island and how it became a national seashore. We also learned that Dungeness was the original burial place of Light Horse Harry Lee, father of Robert E. Lee. We wandered around for a bit before heading down the trail again. We passed by several ruins made of wood, past a collection of old cars that have rusted out, and down to the cemetery of Nathaniel Greene, his wife and where Light Horse was buried until Virginia moved him up there. Bob thought he heard an alligator splashing down the hill in the swamp, so he had to investigate. We let him. Mike and I bravely watched the rear quarter as he went toward the sound. He never did see anything. After the alligator/fish noise identification procedure was officially placed in the X-Files, we decided it was time for a change of scenery and headed towards the beach. Big mistake, well not really, but after trudging for miles in deep sand, at least a couple of hundred yards, we decided we had all seen beaches before and turned around. Almost delirious with thirst, we staggered out of the raging Sahara Desert to sit at a picnic table in the shade of another old oak tree. We broke out snacks and soda, cooled down and munched and talked. Finally, we had all had our fill of Cumberland Island, so we headed back towards the dinghy. Along the way, we saw and photographed an armadillo! Never having seen one in person, I thought they looked rather like a cross between an opossum, rat, and a turtle. When we got back to the dinghy, there was a little note in it that said that the dock we were tied to was for loading and unloading only. You would think they would have signs for this! We piled in the dinghy and headed back for the boats. We dropped Bob and Joanne off, making plans for cocktails at 6:00 PM, EDT, then went back to our boat and had an early dinner. Bob and Joanne came over and we spent the majority of the evening talking, not really drinking. We were all tired from being in the sun all day. Rain started falling around 9:00 PM, EDT. You know, the regular Florida rain shower that happens almost every day. At 9:30 PM, EDT, everyone in the anchorage was blasted by winds of 60+ knots! The winds didn't build to that, they just hit. One second, we had winds of 15 knots, the next, we were heeled over by 20 degrees with the boat rounding up into the wind as sailboats are designed to do when they get over-winded. The winds blew for about 2 hours, we fired up the engines to help take the strain off the anchor while we deployed a second anchor, shortly followed by a third. By the time we could see again, the anchorage was slightly rearranged. Several boats had moved, both voluntarily as well as kicking and screaming. All in all, the harbor came through fine, if a bit shaken. Almost every boat suffered some kind of cosmetic damage from ripped bimmi tops to broken antennas to paint scraps and bent stanchions; though there were no injuries. The boats at the marina faired worse than those at anchor. Many people stayed up for several hours conversing on the radio and generally reassuring each other, while keeping an eye on weather and anchor. Mike crashed from his adrenaline rush about 1:00 AM, EDT, while I stayed at the radio until almost 3:00 AM, EDT. It was a night we could have done without, but we came through it OK, and helped develop our confidence in the boat, knowing that it handled it fine. Though, all in all, this is not an experience either of us wants to duplicate, inshore or offshore. What a day!

On the 15th, we started working on the clean up. Bob and Joanne came over, as did Jim on Moonglow and Mark on Matahoonie. So there were lots of supervisors while Bob dived on our prop and Jim's anchor chain. We worked with Bob as well as we could, and eventually got the chain to within 1 wrap of coming completely off our prop and shaft when he ran out of air in his tank. A little bit later, Bob and I headed in to town to get his air tank filled. From the marina office, we called the one dive shop in Fernandina Beach. Unfortunately, their compressor was not working, and wouldn't be for several days. However, the dive shop did loan tanks for $8.00. We headed out and picked it up. After we got back, I dropped Bob off on his boat, and I headed back to ours. At the next slack tide, Bob came back over, and Jim joined us from Moonglow. In short order, Bob had our prop and shaft completely free. While he was down there, he checked our other prop for possible damage as well as our rudder. Fortunately, there was no damage. Jim, Mike and I worked Jim's anchor chain up to our bow and tied it off for the night. On May 16, we decided to get our anchor situation cleaned up. We tried to raise our danforth anchor. We got it high enough to see that it was completely fouled in anchor chain. There was no way for us to unfoul it ourselves. We called Boat US who sent out a boat to help us with this problem. It took us the greater part of the day, but we finally were able to get our anchors untangled, and retrieve Jim's anchor and chain. Once everything was up, Jim and the tow boat headed to his boat to get his ground tackle aboard his boat while we moved our boat to reanchor for the night. (note BoatUS, unlimited towing for $99, covered this whole thing, boy we where glad we got that last year) It was another physically exhausting day. In the late afternoon, we talked with Bob and Joanne on Timonee about the possibility of leaving in the morning to move to Charleston. We decided to buddy boat with them, just to make sure that if anything did go wrong with our boat, they would be close by. We decided that it looked very promising for tomorrow, and if we did leave, we would plan to leave at 11:00 AM

We woke up in the morning, to a bright beautiful morning. It was definitely the day to leave. Mike and I went through the boat, making sure that everything was prepped for us to leave. At 1500 GMT (11:00 AM EDT), we raised the anchor and followed S/V Timonee out of the anchorage. Going out the inlet, we experienced wind against tide. It was a pretty bumpy trip, and had we not been following Timonee, we probably would have turned around and waited another day or three. But, since they were following them, and they didn't seem to be having a problem, we figured we would tough it out. Miraculously enough, almost as soon as we made our turn north, the ride got more comfortable. We had 10 knots of wind on our beam. We put out a partially furled jib and full main (so we did not run off and leave Timonee) and continued to motor at 1000 rpm. We were making about 7 to 7.5 knots, speed over ground. After we found that we were comfortable with the motion of the boat, I went below to start the water maker and get our cameras. We were going to get some pictures of Timonee underway. We accelerated until we were just a little bit ahead of them, getting pictures of their boat at all angles. It worked well; we finished out the rolls of film that we had needed to use since January. Before heading down for my off watch time, I fixed us both some lunch, and set out chicken for dinner. Close to sunset, we decided to drop our speed a little bit, and get our sail plan set for the night time run. Timonee turned into the wind and dropped their speed, I did the same, Mike woke up at that point because he heard the engines slow. He thought something was wrong. After assuring him that nothing was wrong, he decided he was far to awake to go back to sleep, so I headed below to fix us some dinner. It turned out very well, we had sort-of chicken fajitas (this would be cut up grilled chicken without the peppers and onions). At 2308 GMT, we saw dolphins, and Mike didn't even call out for Flipper! We decided not to go forward to watch them from our bow, so they swam at the side of our boat where we could see them from the fly bridge. It was a pretty quiet night. At one point, the winds increased to about 20 knots, but that only lasted for about an hour, and as I had predicted, the winds dropped again to 10 knots. Around 0300 GMT, the winds started clocking, until we were in a run. Unfortunately, with a beam sea and winds on our stern, we had no support, and we started rocking as much as 15 degrees to each side. There is nothing wrong with this, it's just not enjoyable. At 0510 GMT on May 18, we were hailed by John and Patricia on S/V Haven. They wanted to say hello, and find out where we were going. We chatted with them for a little while, and then they drifted to far behind us for us to see. The rest of the night went smoothly. Just after dawn, we started seeing signs of inlets. A series of sport fish boats cut across our path. Several came very close to us, we still wonder if there was anyone at the helm of those boats, or if they were on autopilot while their owners were getting things together elsewhere. We tried to hail several of them, but no one responded to our hails. As we got close to the Charleston harbor inlet, we saw a fleet of fishing boats. We spent quite a bit of time dodging them as we made our way to the buoys that would guide us in. After we got into the inlet, and the seas settled down, I went in the pilot house to plot our course to the anchorage. I engaged the autopilot, and saw, immediately that we were a bit off course. We had been having problems with our autopilot steering the boat since West Palm Beach and could not figure out what the problem was. I looked at the autopilot compass, then at the GPS calculated course heading. They were off by almost 20 degrees! Then it dawned on me. When we redid our storage, we placed several steel items in the same locker as our autopilot compass. As soon as I pulled those items out, our autopilot started behaving again. We headed to the anchorage, and discovered there really wasn't any room for us there. We called the City Marina, and tied up there at about 1300 GMT. That evening, we took Bob and Joanne out to dinner to say thank you for all of the work they did helping us get our boat in order in Fernandina Beach.

On the 19th, we had two priorities, take advantage of being port side to, to sand and get armada on our teak, and to get our film developed so we could pass the pictures on to Bob and Joanne. In the morning, we took care of the teak, then around lunch time, headed into town. We caught the courtesy van in to town and dropped off our film. Next, we went in search of lunch. We found a great little pizza place that did great food at reasonable prices. We then headed back to the boat since we still needed to wait for our film to be developed. Late in the afternoon, as we were headed out to get our pictures, we both realized that we didn't know which camera store we had dropped the film off at! We took a guess and took the trolley into town. We found the place pretty easily, and then returned to the boat to check out our pictures. Once back at the boat, we took it easy for the rest of the day. On the 20th, we planned to take a day off. We put a coat of armada on the teak, then headed off to take the tour of Fort Sumter. We decided the line was to long, and we would do the tour another day. We headed back to the boat and relaxed for the rest of the day

I woke up in the middle of the night with the chills. I figured that I was getting the flu again. I also figured I would deal with it in the morning and went back to bed. I woke up in the morning with a fever, and as soon as I started moving, a pain in my lower abdomen. I came into the main saloon, and sat down in a bit of pain. Mike took my temperature and we pulled out our Mosby's Health encyclopedia. After working through the diagnosis, the instructions were to seek medical attention immediately. The courtesy van took us to the emergency room at the Medical University of South Carolina. They checked me in, did some blood work and took x-rays. The doctor told me I definitely had appendicitis, and my appendix would need to come out. I was taken down to the anesthesiologist and knocked out. I woke up around 5:00 PM, EDT; I was ravenous. Mike got me a roast beef sub from Subway. I ate that, as well as the dinner the hospital brought. Around 2:00 AM EDT, my fever spiked at 103.8. A resident doctor came to check me out. He didn't feel that things were completely out of line with what had happened. However, he instructed the nurse to give me a dose of antibiotics and encourage me to do some walking and breathing work. He also told me that the hospital would be keeping me an extra day for observation. I did some walking, then returned to bed, was given some pain medication and then slept for the rest of the night. On May 22, I had breakfast, then continued walking and breathing. The day was pretty routine, I would use the breathing machine, then walk the hallways for a while, then I would nap for a while. Mike kept me company all day, doing laps with me, and occasionally stepping outside to smoke a cigarette. After Mike went home, I continued walking and breathing. Finally the nurse ordered me back to my room and then brought me pain medication. On May 23, the hospital released me. Mike and I left the hospital around 9:30 AM, and walked to the Eckerd Drugs in the next block. We filled my prescriptions, then went back to the boat where I promptly collapsed. Later in the day, Bob and Joanne stopped by to see how I was doing and then headed back to their boat. I spent the rest of the day staying quiet I had had a big day

On May 24, I felt 100% better over the 23rd. I could actually walk all the way to the little convenience store and back. We spent the day much like the time I was in the hospital, we walked, we ate, and we napped. On May 25, we looked over and saw that Jolly Moon had pulled in. We went over to say hi, and to invite them for cocktails with Timonee that evening. We spent the rest of the day pretty quietly. Everyone showed up around 6:00 PM, EDT. It was a fun evening. On May 26, the weather window we had been looking for appeared. Timonee and Jolly Moon took advantage of the window and headed for Wrightsville Beach. We couldn't make the trip yet, and have talked off and on about taking on crew to help get us around Cape Hatteras, we will see how I am doing after the weekend. The Capital Yacht Club sent a fruit basket; it was nice to be remembered. Our mail was also delivered from the mail service. On May 27, Arcturus and Cetus came by to meet us and see the boat. They arrived around 4:30 PM, EDT. We had a lot of fun talking with them for the afternoon. After they left, I spent a very quiet evening. On May 28, Mike checked the battery water, and I spent the day recuperating. I am much improved, but still, every now and then, I move in just the wrong way, and I know I am still recovering