A day in St A

Any place is a good place from which to fish.
Ever wonder how the men get up on those high towers to fix the wires? Here it is and if you look closly you will see three men in the tower

Harmony in St. Augustine

For the cruiser: St. Augustine is a wonderful, historic place. Really good and inexpensive marinas around the back...upSan Sabaston. Skipper Bob talks about anchoring up there but there was not all that much room. If you anchor in the main anchorage, use two anchors about 120 feet apart to keep the boat from swinging too much in the strong currents which shift with the tides.

Catamaran Harmony in St. Augustine

That's right, we will be here for 2 days at the city marina just south of the bridge.

Harmony Letter

Hello Beloved Landlubbers,

It is 20 degrees warmer here in Fernandina Beach, on the dock, than it was getting through the lower part of S. Carolina and all the way through GA. It is SO much more comfortable now. Honeywind is moored across the water, close by. That Canadian couple (Pat and Emory) loved the marshes of GA. It is delightful to see this trip through their eyes. They are used to the foggy, rocky coast of New Brunswick and Maine. This has been heavenly for them. It is also fun to hear about our Revolutionary and Civil War history as Pat is learning about it. We have been finding ourselves at many of the same anchorages, docks or towns ever since leaving Norfolk on Oct. 8th. Yesterday Pat and I had a "girl’s day" in town, shopping from one end to the other. Christmas gifts were my excuse to take advantage of sales. But mostly we just ooohed and aaaahed over cute things we don’t have room for on the boats. Honeywind is a trimaran, which means a monohull with "wings". We expect to see each other again in St. Augustine in a couple of days.

Another treat yesterday was catching up with Tropical Impulse. Ed and Eileen are from our club in Keyport. They take their boat outside for many overnights so they make much better time than we do. They have been living aboard for 15 years and really know what they are doing. They were only on the dock for refueling and to pick up the mail they had forwarded here. After delicious scones that Eileen baked on board and some catch up on the news, she and I went into town while the guys did boat chores or whatever pleased them. (Someday I really have to get brave and use our oven!) I’m beginning to get used to the idea that we see more of Ed and Eileen away from NJ than at home. That is boat life! The next time we see them might be in Lake Worth, FL or even somewhere in the Bahamas.

Lew & I plan to take off toward the Jacksonville area this morning. It is overcast right now but this is supposed to clear so it should be a good day for being on the move again. We’ll probably anchor tonight then be on a dock in St. Augustine. We have to go to a dock again, even though we prefer to anchor, because our dinghy needs some attention before we can trust it to get us from a mooring field or anchor to a town dock. It hasn’t been run since last May. We’ll make sure it is fine, then have more options for our night stays.

Five days ago I was really ready to jump ship. The monotonous landscape as well as the long days of pushing to get out of the cold, as well as the 43 degree weather had "worn me smooth" as a good friend would say. It has gotten a lot better as the temps have risen. Also, this is so much more like a Vacation than we’ve had so far - at least since the Great Dismal Swamp, the Waccamaw River and Whiteside Creek. We’re looking forward to a few days in St. Augustine, one of our favorite stops last spring.

There is nothing like being in Florida on Election Day! What suspense!

We hope all of you are doing fine. Let us know your news.

Cheers from Florrie & Lew

Florida

Now at Fernandino Beach...Amelia Island at the north end of Florida. Rainy and at the dock. Spent a delightful day with Emory and Patty from Honeywind and Herb and Laura (a couple who emailed me about the blog and are looking for a boat for themselves to live on).

Jekyll Island, GA

Almost through Georgia and it is still cold. We are anchored at Jekyll Island (click on the title above for a map) and tomorrow we get to Florida...God willing and if the creek don't rise.

Holloween

We are at 31 35.491N 081 12.127W Google map it to see where we are. It is a lovely little creek off the ICW. Cruising Georgia is like taking a truck without a heater up a mountain in winter with switchbacks at 3 to 8 mph depending on current. After 3 days and 120 miles of travel you may have gone 50 miles as the crow flies. Major difficulty is boredom. Most of the scenery is marsh and the rivers are wide. How much swamp grass can you stand?

Isle of Hope near Savannah click here for map

We tried to get to Thunderbolt Marina but there was no room. The gods smiled on us. As we went by Thunderbolt, we could see crowded docks, hear lots of noise and it was poorly protected from wind and waves. On the other hand, Isle of Hope Marina is well protected with an anchorage next door, quiet and well protected. With a courtesy car we used to go to an excellent Spanish restaurant about 5 miles away.
It is still very cold, especially in the mornings. I am so tired of wearing socks.

Church Creek Click here for a map

Church Creek is about 20 miles West of Charleston after a windy path with currents 2 to 3 knots against us then 2.5 with us so we went from 3 knots to 9.2. What a ride. Last night was in a little creek 20 miles east of Charleston. Then we stopped over at Isle of Palms, SC and got gas, had a much too short visit with Bill Temple, a friend from High School, and got on our way. The visit was much too short but it was the best the circumstances would allow. Maybe on the way back.

Good services

As much as I complain, it is nice to deal with competent people such as John Pate whose email is FortAwesomeIII@gmail.com. He is the one you get the Winchbit from if you can't find it on EBAY. In case you forgot, the winchbit is the better bit for a drill to operate the winches.
The second person is the mechanic we just had. He laid on his magic hands and both engines and the electric charger now appear to be working. He came to our boat in Georgetown but also gets down at least as for as Isle of Palms and probably Charleston. His name is Sarkis Keuleyan at SeaTec Systems. Telephone 843-546-1401 and the website is http://www.seatecsystems.com He does engines and electronics and I highly recommend him. Click on the title here for a link to his site.

Waccamaw River

10/23/08 (click on title for a map)
Today we motored from Barefoot Landing, almost on the N/S Carolina border, down the Waccamaw River to Georgetown, SC. The farther southwest you go, the more cypress you see. These fascinating trees grow out of the swamp from a cluster of conical roots that eventually merge into straight, tall trees with small leaves. Most of them are dripping with Spanish moss. We passed Bucksport, one of Florrie's favorite spots in this Low Country. It is the area that inspired one of the pastel drawings in the slide show on this blog.
Here's an excerpt for Florrie's daily journal: We're moving too fast for me to make on-site drawings but maybe I'll be able to do some from memory. The cypress are spectacular. One old gray tree looked like a wraith with a gossamer cape and billowing skirts striding from the water into the forest. Another looked like an ethereal leaping dancer with her "costume" trailing behind. The moss looked like wafting hair. It was both spooky and beautiful. It took awhile for me to realize that the rounded triangular shape of the woman's heads were actually the abandoned nests of eagles built into the topmost branches of the near-dead trees.
There were also totally denuded cypress snags, trees so long dead they had no bark and were completely light gray. They loomed out of the water with holes big enough to look like tormented eyes and mouths. Limbs reached out like arms, twisted in grotesque positions. These also wore tattered moss "garments" that billowed in the breezes. Old cypress are often hollow so the trunks had deep dark gashes that accented the length. The effect gave the whole scene, even in mid-day, the effect of a forest full of Halloween specters. Imagination could run wild here. It is Tim Burton's Paradise!

Milwaukee drill

I have been asked about the drill bit I use for the Milwaukee drill (see one of the early posts about my favorite tool). It is called a "winch bit" and it is still on EBAY. click the title above for a link to it within the next few days or go to EBAY and search "winch bit" or "winchbit". It is soooo much better than the other bit for winches that it is worth the additional cost, about $50 including shipping. The other bit has a round shaft and slips under pressure so it does work under light load but not under the pressure I need to bring in a jib on a windy day.

Waiting out the front

(Local weather...click on title above)
We have a front coming through (long pants and even socks!) and are sitting at the dock at the Morehead City Yacht Basin. Google it and see the location. If you are too lazy for that check out the Blog below and click on the title to see a map of the area and specifically where we are. Winds are building and some rain. Small craft advisory until Monday then we leave. Hopefully the bridges will open as the winds are still predicted to be up to 25. Also hopefully there are no planned activities at Camp Lejeune until the reported ones on Thursday when we should be past there.
We have been travelling with a couple on a Catalina 42 so we are not alone.
The engines have been working...knocking hard on wood. We did have an overheating problem on the port one but with Florrie taking the helm while I put some more oil and coolant in, it and she responded well. Refridgeration is still kind of iffy. Both the fredge and freezer work off the same switch so we have a cold freidge and a less cold one. The freezer isn't really good enough to be called that but WILL keep ice for 4 to 5 days and the rum is holding out. It doesn't get much better than that.

Morehead City, NC

Here we are for awhile (click on the title to see the map). There is a front coming, probably tomorrow night, and we are tucked in for the duration of the passage. Looks like until Monday. We are safe and warm here and there isn't really a good spot for hight winds for 100 miles going south. Hurts the cruising budget but not as much as salvaging the boat off the rocks somewhere.
For those interested, the floating docks are in great shape, the showers are wonderful, the protection is amazing except for wind fron the NW but waves are blocked. It costs $1.75/foot daily or $8.50/foot weekly with a very good resturant within walking distance and you can "rent" their car for $10 for "a couple of hours".

Bonner Bay

We have no email or cell phone so I’m writing this in a word program to send as a blanket email later. We’ll see if the Broadband will work. We have Lew’s two laptops. This one gets broadband. The other gets WiFi. That might explain some strange transmission lags now and then.
This was almost a "girlfriend alert" but the day turned out better than the overly domestic drudgery of the morning. The refrigeration works 1000% better than last season but it is still a challenge! That is on my "Grump List". Yes, I started lists again but this time the "good list" is getting longer. For one thing, Lew & I seem to be getting along a whole lot better. Last trip was very stressful for both of us. At least this time around we have some of the contingency plans worked out ahead of each crisis. We’ve met a few people on their First Long Trip together. It doesn’t matter how many years they have been together, it is usually the trip from hell. The divorce rate is 25-30% after the first trip. Honest. But the second time, if you haven’t killed eachother, is actually a lot easier! Let’s hope I can still write this as easier by next April!
The boat is behaving beautifully these days. The weather has been fine. The two nights of higher winds we were on the dock/sea wall at Elizabeth City, NC. What a lovely, friendly town. I could stay there for a week! But we moved on. Last night we were anchored on the Alligator River, tonight we are anchored in Bonner Bay, about 20 road miles north of Oriental (which you might find on a map). Pretty soon, we need to be tucked in some place safe for the weekend because there’s "weather" expected. One of the Named Tropical Storms is supposed to make it nasty travelling for a few days. We’re probably going to try to stay at the Moorehead City Yacht Basin. It was a good place last spring. We’ll get there tomorrow and stay... Unless we find a good place a day or two south, before the weather hits. When it passes we will go on.
Today is day 11 of our trip that started in Keyport. Because of weather and the hole in our boat, last spring it took us 37 days to get home from here! I guess that might give you a little idea of how much easier the trip is this season. Even thought getting ready to leave was crazy-making, we seem to have finally put away all the things we brought on board. We even did laundry in Eliz. City.
Last spring we were traveling with "Puff", now we’re travelling with a bunch of new friends we made at the lock at the north end of the Dismal Swamp Canal. "Royal Serf" has been our trailblazer since then. "Honeywind", "Illusion", and "Brio" are still with us, I think. The trawlers zoomed ahead. We may see them in the Bahamas in the winter. It is very nice to see friends across the water. At night our anchor lights make a lovely constellation above the horizon. Last night was a full moon. THIS is the stuff postcards are made of!
On last thing: I just finished "I am Madame X" by Gioia Diliberto. It is a very interesting novel about the woman who sat for John Singer Sargent’s most controversial portrait. It passed the days when all there was to do was go south. Now I hope to get a little painting and drawing done.

Elizabeth City, NC

We are now sitting in Elizabeth City waiting for a more northerly breeze to cross the Albemarle Sound. These pictures are from the Dismal Swamp. Click on them for enlargements.

Dismal Swamp Canal

Yesterday was a very easy day. We left Norfolk and went up to the Dismal Swamp Lock for an 11AM opening only to find that the 11 and 1:30 were both cancelled. We anchored and waited for the 3:00 opening. After going through we tied up to a dock for the night rather than rush to beat darkness to get to the visitors center. Total mileage for the day...10.
Today we were up early and had coffee with the lock master. Made the 9AM bridge opening and got as far as the visitors center by noon. Another 18 miles. Can the human body stand such acceleration.
To see where we are, Google Earth and insert these coordinates:
36 30.409N
076 21.360W

On the road again

Jimmy left us to fly home yesterday at 3:30. What a treat to have him with us. We had a very good 52+ hours in the Ocean, coming straight from Keyport to Hampton, VA. It is so much easier to do overnights with three people. Jim & I had a chance to get to know each other better with our wee-hours chats. My watch was 3 - 7 AM and his was just before that. He's become a really neat man. What a pleasure. AND Lew hoisted Jim up the mast and now we have an anchor light - finally! THat is a real treat, too. We had been making do with whatever lights we could set up on deck - which isn't really a great idea.

We're hanging out here at the dock for most of today. We'll enjoy a nice shower - for the last time in a few weeks probably. Sigh. It is SO much easier this trip. We made whatever adjustments we needed to last year, under near-crisis conditions so this year we aren't as stressed when something isn't what we thought it would be.

It has been 40 the last three nights, I think, but we have terrific quilt/sleeping bags so have been fine. Days are sunny and very pretty. This may be our best WiFI for awhile. On THursday morning we head down the Dismal Swamp Canal - one of my favorite places on the trip - but I don't remember what kind of email connections we got there last spring.

Island Images by Florence B. Hill

Treasure Cay Beach was painted on site in January 2008. This was the first of 17 acrylic and four watercolor paintings as well as seven quick pastel studies created by Florence B. Hill, better known to friends as Florrie. Enjoy the slide show to the left. Those images are available in gliclee prints. For fun, Florrie and her friend Lisa printed t-shirts and totebags of some of the images.

Getting ready

Sorry that I haven't been keeping up. We are getting ready to take off in a couple of weeks for the trip south. Florrie has been very busy with her art and I have been lazing around until the crunch...i.e., now. The refrigerator man is coming tomorrow and the diesel mechanic on Wed. to replace the motor mounts which are bad. Otherwise we seem ready to begin stocking up on supplies. If this guy can fix the fridge, we can skip the Chesapeake on the way down. Otherwise we may have to go to Annapolis, the nearest place recommended by Sea Frost. We are planning to be back for Xmas and visits to grandchildren in Dec. leaving the boat somewhere for about a month then off for the winter.
We love emails.
Florrie and Lew Hill

Frequently asked questions

G.
I am also sending this as an entry on the blog. Therefore, I have deleted you name and email address. Happy to answer any other question you might have.
Lew

Hello Mr. Hill

I have been reading your blog about sailing on Harmony, and it is very interesting. As my wife and I are hoping to do some serious cruising, I wonder if you would mind giving me your opinion on a couple of things.

First, is a 49 foot boat too large for two people to handle comfortably? If you or your wife had to handle the boat, reef the main, etc, could either one of you handle the boat by yourself? If you were buying a boat again, would you buy the same size?

It depends on who the people are. I have several friends with boats in the 50s who do fine by themselves. You have to be comfortable doing overnights. My wife has been sailing only a short time while I started at 11 years old. One of our concerns is that she is not really able to handle it by herself ( I have single handed a 40 foot boat from Tortola to the Bahamas) but that is not due to its size. In many ways a larger boat is actually easier to handle, especially in heavy weather. In order to make her feel more comfortable, we are very safety conscious. We wear safety harneses in any kind of bad weather and always at night especially if one of us has to go forward. No one goes forward unless someone else is at the helm. We tend to travel in the company of other boats and pay close attention to the weather reports. Remember that the most dangerous thing in sailing is having to keep to a schedule! We practice such activities as heaving to under different conditions.

Also check out the entry about my favorite tool on the blog. It makes things much easier.

On average how many days per month did you stay in marinas, and was it primarily because there was not a safe place to anchor, or because you wanted the conveniences of a marina?

As little as possible. It certainly is convienent at a marina and, in the Bahamas, not that expensive (e.g., about $450 per month plus electricity and water 'off season'...before March when the fishing season starts). Many places also have moorings for about $15 per night. Compare that to over $50 in our cruising area...The North East. When we stayed at marinas in the blog, it was mainly for repairs. The one exception was in Marsh Harbour because I wanted to leave the boat somewhere safe while I went home for Thanksgiving. Marinas that are mainly for cruisers also are very social places where there is usually a party somewhere and the parties usually break up about 9PM. Cruisers tend to be up with the sun.

How much cruising had you done before you purchased your cat, and do you wish you had cruised more before you made the investment?

Before the cat we raced one designs, got a 25 foot day sailor then a Pearson 40 used for club races and short cruises...two or three weeks. My wife really did not like that boat and wanted something with more space and less heeling. If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! We looked for over two years and this boat fit our needs. I also did the Carribean 1500 (a ralley from Hampton, VA to the British Virgin Islands) seven times. The first time on a Pearson 424 to get ocean experience. Then I took my my Pearson 40 and spent 7 months (six as a single handler) on her in the Caribbean. I loved it so much that I then crewed for other people. My wife calls this 'Big Boy Camp' and she would fly down to meet us. The last time was on a cat to see how she performed on the ocean. That convinced me. If you feel inexperienced, I strongly suggest you crew on an ocean ralley. see: http://carib1500.com/

I crewed for one couple on two ralleys. They had retired early, bought their first boat and moved aboard. They had little experience but were smart enough to get help and there are always people looking for a crewing position. My strong advice is, if you want to try it, do it NOW. Don't be like me and wait for a heart attack before deciding. Life is too short.

If you were going to go cruising again, and did not have a boat, what advise would you offer on brands, size, equipment etc?

It really depends on what you want to do with it. I like long distance cruising so I would advise you get as big a boat as you think you can handle with a mast under 65 feet high off the water so that you can do the Intracoastal Waterway. I would go for a heavy monohull or a cat because my wife would be more comfortable. For equipment I value spending the extra money on a good gps/navigation system, Also, a really good dinghy and motor as you will be surprised how often you will use it. I would avoid boats that have been chartered and even those brands (I saw one that had been holed and it was 1/4 inch thick including the rib. Fine for coastal but not for me on the ocean).

You have three variables: speed, safety and price. Pick any two. It depends on your values. The people I know who have bought new boats have just as much trouble and repairs as those who bought used ones. There will be a time when you need to know something about a fixing the engine and being able to reach all the parts is important. It may sound silly but good knee pads are essential. I tend to have lots of spares on board as well as extra safety equipment (e.g., solas flares and lots of them...extra belts, filters, etc.)

Get a good surveyer..NOT one recommended by the broker! Also have a mechanic test the engine!

If possible, charter the boat for a week and see how you like it. Go on the internet and see what other cruisers are doing and the troubles they have had. Check out their links.

Thank you for writing the blog, it was interesting reading.

Happy Birthday Florrie

http://www.youtube.com/v/zWZsQB3S7ps&hl=en&fs=1 .