Thanksgiving

11/23/06

Questionable decisions

Anticipating the warm weather we woke at 6:30 to still cold temperatures. The sun came out around 10 allowing the temperatures to soar to around 60 degrees. We motored most of the day and let our jib out intermittently. The current was strong at times and we took a turn around St. Augustine that had us drifting like a rally car. As we waited for a bridge to open in downtown St. Augustine I rushed down below in an attempt to get internet to post and update to the blog and get the latest weather forecast. Dan was at the helm when he shouted “there is a bald eagle over there”. As I look a beautifully large bald eagle swooped down, hesitated and reached at the water with his talons. He rose from the water towing a huge fish in his grasp. It was my first time seeing such a feat as I was below for our last encounter with a bald eagle. It was an amazing sight. Around ten miles south of St. Augustine I took us in to a recommended anchorage. Our depth gauge began acting up, jumping from 5 to 65 ft. Luckily I was at low speed in neutral as the boat promptly shuttered, sounding our first grounding of the day. We managed to back off the bottom which seemed to be soft mud. No more than five minutes later I noticed the GPS was reading 0.0mph and was sure we had run aground for the second time while trying to anchor in this area. We would save the second time for later since it was merely my incompetence for the boat was in neutral. As soon we started to accelerate from putting the boat in gear the boat decelerated yet again. This time we were forced to wait for the tide to rise for we were unable to motor off. It was low tide so we were confident the boat would find its own way off.

In the mean time Brad and Dan set off on a mission. I must first set the scene. It is thanksgiving and we don’t really have food worthy of thanksgiving on the boat. We have some wine that Hal’s sister brought us but no real meal. Yeah we have mac and cheese and spaghetti but who wants that for thanksgiving. The area we ran aground in had some balls we believed were crab pots. They insisted that placing a 20$ bill in a zip lock bag in place of three crabs, although illegal was not immoral. Under the disguise of dropping a lead line to search for better depths to anchor they set off in the dingy. Shockingly they actually did sound around the boat before setting off in a B-line for the first ball. To their horror it was not a crab pot at all but rather a ball attached to a metal beam. Off to the next. They tried two other balls but returned with a 20 still in their pocket. Apparently the other balls were attached to crab pots but they were unable to hoist the pots above the water. I admit that I was relieved when they came back empty handed, even though a crab dinner would be better than spaghetti. We waited until the boat rose with the tide and then proceeded to re-anchor. We had just drifted free when a power boat came flying by. Brad and I remarked to each other that their path was dangerously close to the shore and shoals we were just aground on; in the near darkness they had clearly been using our boat to judge the location of the channel – often a bad choice. Just then they came to a grinding halt from 20 knots to 0 instantly. We yelled over if they needed assistance and they declined opting as we did to wait for the tide. Their outboard lower units are not as forgiving as our keel.

Happy turkey

11/22/06

10.7

We got off late this morning because we had some errands to run. Brad ended up loosing a three way rock, paper, scissors match and had to take our used oil to a marina about a mile away. Always the charmer, he finagled a ride out of another sailor back from the marina. Along the way he was given a tour of the three master that his chauffer was the captain of. The current was the story of the day. We kept switching from roaring current with us to roaring current against as we past by inlets. As we were in the ICW our speed was recorded in mph instead of knots and we managed to reach 10.7 mph, smoking! We entered Florida today and it is still freezing. We anchored off Fernandina Beach at mile 717 of the ICW, in our last state.

11/21/06

Where is Hal

Hal left today. Around 4 Hal’s sister Kippy came with her baby. She was kind enough to bring beer and wine for us. It still doesn’t make up for her stealing Hal from us, but it eased the pain. We spent most of the night doing laundry and escaping the cold in the marina lounge watching TV. The high was 43, mind you it’s Georgia. It should be warmer here.