Ferret Counter Balance and Non English Speaking Fishing Lures

May 24 - 30, 2006

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - Underway, Ocean, Ocean
By Tom

We left out of Great Sale Cay at 6 am this morning. Our destination is St. Augustine or other points north. Currently, there is no wind and the seas are flat calm. We are motoring on one engine in an effort to conserve fuel

Thursday, May 25, 2006 - Underway, Ocean, Ocean
By Tom

The wind showed up during my midnight to four am watch. I raised the main sail by flash light, rolled out the genoa and shut off the engine. Sunrise finds us 100 miles out of Great Sale and about 160 from Augustine.

We caught up to Anam Cara just before sunrise. They left 12 hours ahead of us out of Great Sale. We reduced sail so that they can keep up with us. We aren't in a hurry

Friday, May 26, 2006 - Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine, FL
By Tom

We made land fall around 4 am this morning, so we had to slow the boat to a crawl for two hours until the sun came up. We made it in the inlet and under the Bridge of Lions to the anchorage without difficulty. Before anchoring, we stopped at the marina for fuel and water.

The anchor dug in 52 hours and 258 miles after we left Great Sale. We sailed almost 60 percent of the trip and we burned 18.5 gallons of gas in total.

The trip turned out to be a really good one. We pulled away from Don and Sandi sometime last night, but they were only a few hours behind us and they joined us in the anchorage around 10 am or so.

We're going to make a trip to the grocery store today and maybe try and do some laundry. Welcome back to the U.S..

Saturday, May 27, 2006 - Sister Creek, , Florida
By Tom

We awoke to clear skies and a gentle south westerly breeze. It sounded like perfect conditions to head back outside and jump up to Jacksonville. It was actually perfect, for about an hour. Then the wind died and we ended up motoring the remaining 20 miles or so.

Even under motor, it was better than having to go up the ICW. At least we got to read while the auto pilot drove. Again I fished the whole way, but to no avail. Whats up with these Floridian fish? Don't they know I am a fish master? Bastards!

Speaking of fish, I forgot to mention we caught 17 on the ocean passage back from the Bahamas. Seven were of the dreaded barracuda variety, five were Bar Jacks, and the remainder were Cero Mackerels. Oddly enough, the fish stopped biting as soon as we left Bahamian waters. Hmm. Maybe our lures don't speak english?

Anyway, it was a pleasant motor up to Sisters Creek where we dropped the hook for the night. The Anam Cara's showed up right around sunset and we shared the anchorage with about a bazillion power boating party-ers who were out celebrating the holiday weekend.

Tomorrow we move up to Fernandina Beach where we will wait for weather to head back offshore.

Sunday, May 28, 2006 - Town Anchorage, Fernandina Beach, Florida
By Tom

I awoke around 5:30 and as soon as the sun was up enough to see I had the engines running and the anchor up. We had to fight the dreaded "no-see-ums" last night and I'm pretty sure they kicked our asses. Needless to say, we didn't want to linger in Bugville.

It was a pleasant 17 miles motor up the ICW today to the town of Fernandina Beach. Our friends Steve and Sally currently have their boat here. The town has kind of an industrial flavor to it, but it appears to be neat and friendly.

In the afternoon Amy and I launched the dinghy and went in search of somewhere to hide from the heat. It must be twice as hot here as it was in the Bahamas. Weird huh?

We settled on the Old Town Saloon as it was air conditioned and sold beer. It was kind of funny, because the place served no food, only drinks and it being Sunday and all we were surprised to see several people stopping by in their Sunday best for a quick drink on their way to or from church.

Our bar tender was a young, surgically enhanced, clorox bottle blonde who may have been functionally retarded. I only mention this because it served to remind us both that we are back in the states. You don't see things like this in the Bahamas.

We returned to the boat around 3 pm and at 5 the Anam Caras came over for dinner. I grilled tequila lime shrimp and Sandi made potato skins. All of the food disappeared rapidly, so I must conclude that it was not only edible, but also good.

After a nice bottle of wine, Don and Sandi went home and Amy went to bed. I listened to the Nascar race and talked to my dad on the cell phone before joining her.

Monday, May 29, 2006 - Town Anchorage, Fernandina Beach, Florida
By Tom

We awoke to another blustery day with winds out of the north east at twenty knots. As we are heading north east, today was not a good day to be on the move.

After the morning running of the ferrets, I tackled the evil and disgusting job of replacing our holding tank pump. The boat was originally designed with a manual Whale Gusher pump that you cranked about 200 times to empty the holding tank.

Since we have destroyed two of these hand pumps this year, I decided to splurge and get an electric macerator that was actually designed for this job. I donned my environmentally sealed (ziploc baggies and duct tape) waste protection garment and waded in.

Since I had replaced all of the sewage hose earlier this year in Nassau, I had little problem getting the connections loose. The old pump came out in ten minutes and the new one was in and wired in an additional thirty. In less then an hour we were ready for the field test.

I had Amy throw the breaker inside at the nav panel and sure enough the pump started to make noise. Since the discharge for the holding tank is underneath the water line, I did not expect to see any visual evidence of the pumps functionality, but I was pleasantly surprised and mildly disgusted when I saw the turquoise blue water from our waste management system mixing with the sewage colored water here off of the Celluloid Plant here at Fernandina Beach.

Mission accomplished.

Finished with boat work for the day, I cleaned up my tools and then joined Amy and the ferrets for an afternoon of reading. Around 3 pm Don and Sandi came by and the four of us (me and Amy, not Mila and Milo) went into town for a drink.

We first went back to the Palace where Amy and I were yesterday in a failed attempt to find the bleach blond bar tender, but she was off. We ended up at an Irish Pub a block or two down that had good sandwiches and cold beer.

Someone told us that today is memorial day, so happy memorial day everyone.

Around 5 or so, we returned to our dinghies and then back to our boats. We were stuffed from our late lunch, so we vetoed dinner for this evening. Later, I watched a movie with the ferrets while Amy read. We were asleep by 9 pm.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006 - Town Anchorage, Fernandina Beach, Florida
By Tom

Another day of waiting. NOAA says the wind will cooperate tomorrow, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Since we can't go anywhere today, we decided to hike the five miles out of town to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. Our guide book says the store will arrange for a ride to and from the marina, so once we got out there, sure enough one of the managers said she would be happy to take us back.

Knowing we had a ride, we proceeded to stock up on lots of stuff that we were running low on. One hundred and twenty bucks later we were deposited back at our dinghy which carried us to the mother ship.

I don't know if I've mentioned it lately our not, but our dinghy still sucks mega ass. It's fifty fifty whether or not it will survive the trip home.

We put our groceries away in time for Don and Sandi to join us for cocktails and crab legs. We are both planning on going offshore tomorrow and arriving somewhere near Charleston the next day.

After cocktails, Milo acted as counter-balance so that I could load the dinghy and engine up in the davits. He's pretty good when it comes to acting like ballast.

With the boat ready for open water, we had a light dinner of more crab legs and went to bed early in anticipation of an early departure