Let's get out of here!!!!!

The one thing you will hear from all cruisers is that plans can change!!!!

Brunswick Landing wasn't everything we had hoped for. We tried to settle in, but after three nights decided it just wasn't for us. Unfortunatley the decision to move was made after the kid's bikes were stolen!! So we woke up Monday morning at Brunswick Landing, thinking this was it for the month, and by Monday afternoon we were settled into Jekyll Harbour Marina. To tell the truth, we just couldn't get out of Brunswick quick enough (hence the 8 knots on the GPS).

We were fortunate that Jekyll had room for us. Momments after arriving the kids were once again away playing with the Schlump's (Corwin and Chantelle), whom we met up with at Olverson's. Here's a video of them entertaining (or being entertained by) Charlie, who also performed tricks for them.

Jekyll Island is a beautiful hidden treasure with alot of history. Within the first hour of arriving, while Mark was busy storing the outboards, the kid's and I took the courtsey car and headed for the beach. We knew at this point that we were going to love it here. Miles of beach in either direction (much like our favorite place Cape Hatteras).

After returning to the boat (and not trying to sound too excited in front of Daddy), we cleaned up and sat down to enjoy an amazing sunset and dinner at Sea Jay's, the restaurant located on the marina property. After dinner, and a couple of drinks we headed back to the boat to enjoy some family time.

After we got the kid's to bed Mark and I sat outside with a couple of drinks and both agreed we made the right decision to move.

Tuesday morning was met with mixed emotions as Mark had to leave, but we were all greatfull to be in such a beautiful place. Sasha (Chantell and Corwin's mom) was kind enough to take our minds off of Daddly leaving and took us to a beautiful spot (five minutes away) where we got to play on a tree rope, walk on the beach, climb trees and have a picnic. What a gorgeous day!!!!

This month we need to focus on school work again, so we got right back into full days of learning (along with a little history lesson about Jekyll Island from a guided tour).

Yesterday, after lesson's we headed to Walmart to get some groceries and buy new bikes for the kid's. Jekyll Island has miles of bike paths, so we couldn't see not having them for the month.

We woke up this morning to another beautiful day, and were treated to a dolphin tour from Randy (a fellow cruiser that works at the marina, and lives on his sailboat with his wife). Although we did not see any dolphin's we were treated to some wild horses on Cumberland Island, and a beautiful day on the water (Thank's Randy)!!!

Yes, I do believe the kids and I (and any visitor's that want to join us) will be very happy here!!!!

810 Miles, 17 Days, 2 Stops, Sanity Intact!!

So we continued to push South, planning to stay on the "inside" unless a lengthy weather window opened up and we could do a run offshore. It's been nice having a boat that draws less than 3'. The ICW has alot more shallow spots than it did the last time we came down it in 1998. Any boats drawing 5' or more spend alot of time bouncing off the bottom. The weather continued to be nice and we settled into our daily routines of an early departure from the anchorage (pulling the anchor at sunrise, usually 0700hrs). School continued for the kids, although, as the next video shows, it's not always a very formal affair!!





October 26th was Delaney's 9th Birthday. We pulled anchor and made our way to Beaufort, SC http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=beaufort+sc&sll=39.164141,-91.933594&sspn=34.075391,86.396484&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Beaufort,+South+Carolina,+United+States&ll=32.431581,-80.669829&spn=0.072879,0.168743&t=h&z=13 (Bew-fort, not to be confused with Bo-fort in NC) under grey skies, but that didn't dampen Delaney's mood. If she looks a little red-eyed it's because she got a little emotional over a necklace I bought her.

We planned to spend a day and a half in Beaufort, our second stop (on land) since leaving Virginia. We had real showers at the marina, then walked downtown for lunch.

Is it just me, or is Mitchell starting to look alot like Kurt Cobain???

We played tourist, wandering the streets and then taking a historical carriage tour of the town. The tour was actually very interesting, there is alot of history around Beaufort. The old houses and Spanish Moss really added to the southern feel of the place. By the way, "Forrest Gump", "The Big Chill" and "Prince of Tides" were all filmed in Beaufort.

We learned a few interesting things including 1. the reason for the 2 large sweeping stairs you see on southern homes (men would use one side because of dirt on their boots, women used the other side to keep the tails of their dresses clean), 2. why the ceilings of all the porches are painted blue (evil spirits will think they are underwater so will stay away and hornets will not build nests because they think there is only blue sky above them).

That night we went to a local restaurant to continue the celebration of Delaney's birthday.

While we were stopped the kids spent some of their money on a pair of "Yo Baby's", small boards that can be used for practicing boardsports (ie: skateboarding, wakeboarding).

Although we have been on the boat alot lately, the kids have continued to do a great job getting along and keeping entertained. We are all looking forward to getting to the Bahamas, warm weather and water. Here the kids are getting some practice in for wakeboarding.

We stopped in a nice anchorage just south of Hilton Head Island. We were sharing an off shoot of the main channel with 2 other Canadian boats, one from Kingston and the other from Midland. We were watching a movie when Delaney noticed some lights approaching us. We all got up to see a shrimp boat heading our way. We were expecting it to turn to starboard at any moment, sending it towards the main channel, but it kept heading our way.

All of us had our anchor lights on, but as it continued to head straight for us I figured I would pull out our 1,000,000 candle power spotlight just to give him a litle more information. We could see his radar was spinning so were "pretty" confident he could see us.

The next day we entered Georgia, passing through Thunderbolt.

Once again we stopped in an isolated anchorage for the night (Queen Bess River) and decided to take advantage of the location and do a little wakeboarding. Both kids did fantastic, really liking the new board. For a change, Lisa drove the dinghy for this session doing a great job of boat handling and pulling the kids

As we have mentioned, wildlife is pretty abundant along sections of the ICW. Dolphins have been a regular sighting for the past 10 days. Unfortunately they always disappear as soon as a camera is brought out! Here is a little video we managed to capture just to prove they are actually around us.

In addition to dolphins there are plenty of pelicans, cormorants, osprey's, bald eagles, egrettes and blue heron's. We are also now in manatee areas's but have yet to see one.

Butterflies=Good Insect

No-Seeums=Bad Insect

While in Beaufort we made sure to pick-up some pumpkins.
As you can imagine, with us spending as much time at anchor as we do, the kids have to be creative when it comes to passing the time. Yes they have books and video games, as well as the internet (just like at home, right!), and we have movie nights, but just playing around is something else. One really nice thing about our catamaran is that she is very stable on the water, so the wakes of passing boats don't bounce us around too much.. The kids really enjoy playing up on the boom and swinging from the rigging.
The kids each have a digital camera and every once in awhile they will capture a beautiful image.

This past Friday we arrived at our destination, Brunswick Landing Marina in Brunswick, GA.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=brunswick+ga&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=28.566961,86.396484&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Brunswick,+Glynn,+Georgia,+United+States&t=h&z=12

It was very warm, around 32C, kinda a strange feeling knowing it was Halloween!!

The kids spent a few hours at the clubhouse, watching regular TV for the first time in quite awhile.

I spent the day getting our new wind generator installed. Charlotte-Ann is really looking like a crusing boat now!!

Lisa hid cannot throughout the boat last night and we let the kids go hunting for it. No, contrary to what they think, they won't get to eat everything they found (some is coming back to Newfoundland next week).

So after leaving Virginia almost 3 weeks ago, here we are at the end of the 3rd leg of the trip. It was a push, but it was also a great experience. We spent between 8-10 hrs underway everyday (except for day and a half stops in Morehead City and Beaufort) but the days didn't feel very long. It was nice once it warmed up, but that cold weather at the start of the leg meant strong north winds and plenty of sailing.

Also, thanks for the suggestions, we have decided on "Barefoot" for our wind chime idol (we bought him at Barefoot Landing, SC) .

Lisa will keep you up to speed on activities here in Georgia. I return to Newfoundland on Tuesday for my last trip to work before our next leg which will see us in the Bahamas!!!!

Sunny Skies, Palm Trees and Dolphins!!!

Yes, after a rough, cold slog at the start of this leg we are enjoying weather in the mid-20C's!! After leaving Morehead City, NC we spent a day on the ICW and anchored at Mile Hammock, an anchorage in the middle of the US Marine Corps base Camp Lejeunne. The camp is 246 square miles and houses 50,000 Marine and Navy personnel. All day we could hear the live firing going on. There is a large sign at each end of the ICW (and there will be Marines to stop you entering)that will warn you if live firing is going on near the waterway. Here's a video of our entertainment while at anchor.

With nice warm weather, we kept working our way south, leaving North Carolina on Wednesday and starting our way through South Carolina.

We also saw our first dolphins of the trip. No video or pics, Lisa and the kids were too busy screaming with excitement while I was trying to keep the boat inside the channel. The pair of dolphins swam along with us between the hulls, so close that Lisa and the kids were getting sprayed from the blowholes!!

We are pushing hard to get to Georgia, long days on the water, including a few hours of schoolwork for the kids. But even school isn't too bad as you can see by the pic of Delaney's classroom the other day.

Thursday we arrived in North Myrtle Beach, SC. There weren't any anchorages around, and the kids hadn't been off the boat for a few days, so we stopped for the night at Barefoot Landing, a large outlet mall along the ICW. The kids got some ice cream and a chance to run around a bit, while a little later on the parents had a nice night sitting in the cockpit not concerned about tides, currents or slipping anchors.

For all the golfers out there, I couldn't resist showing this "Golf Gondola", taking golfers from the parking lot on one side of the ICW to the course on the other.

A new addition to the boat for the trip has been a chartplotter. It has been a great tool, used in conjunction with our paper charts. For the most part it is very accurate (although it had a buoy in the wrong place as we were entering Morehead City).

Here is a pic showing us travelling about 50' outside the ICW channel!

I couldn't resist showing this pic as well, something we have seen alot of recently. All along the ICW you will find new "waterfront" communities/subdivsions, many of which must have been put on the market prior to the recent sub-prime mortgage mess.

Here you can see what must have been the "early bird" purchasers in this development. The property, complete with streetlights and docks, extends about 1km in either direction of these two houses, the only ones that were built and they are right on top of eachother!!

Friday and Saturday saw us going through some pretty remote parts of South Carolina, mostly saltwater marshes and swamps. We shared a quiet anchorage with a couple of other boats last night, one of them from Halifax on it's way to the Carribean. And yes, swamps and marshes mean mosquitoes!! We are all about 10lbs lighter and slightly anemic after our stop last night.

Tonight we are anchored in a little creek near Isle of Palms, SC (10 miles north of Charleston). http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=isle+of+palms&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Isle+of+Palms,+Charleston,+South+Carolina,+United+States&ll=32.814113,-79.755582&spn=0.004535,0.010546&t=h&z=17 We decided to wait to pass through Charleston tomorrow since it has been blowing from the south for 3 days . The winds will shift to the north tonight meaning we can go across Charleston Harbour with the waves instead of them right on the nose.

We were a bit late getting the anchor down tonight , so while Lisa made an excellent lasagna, the kids played spy while I did an oil change on the engines.

Does anyone out there remember a movie called Trilogy of Terror?? It was 3 stories (duh, trilogy right), and one of them starred Karen Black. She had a little doll/idol, and when it's belt fell off it came alive and terrorized her. Remember the final scene when she is waiting for her mother to arrive???

Anyway, we have acquired a new crewmember who , although he looks a bit like the doll in the movie, hopefully will bring us nothing but good luck and decent winds .

Please post a comment with your name suggestions.

That's all for now. We are aiming for Beaufort, SC (where Forrest Gump was filmed) in about 2 days ,where we will spend a day for Delaneys 9th-Birthday (Oct. 26th), then push further to our next month-long stop (Brunswick, GA).

Take care,

Mark, Lisa, Delaney and Mitchell.

Cold, Cold, Cold, Ahhh.... There's the Sun!!!!!

First of all , let's backtrack a bit to what we think is a cute video of Mitch trying to explain crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay at Olversons' .

So as we mentioned in the last entry, the weather has been less than "balmy". Now that is a bit double-sided when you are on a sailboat. On the one hand, cold is cold, and grey is grey. It makes for long days and nights, especially considering we have no source of heat onboard unless you count our oven.

Here's a quick video of our typical day , this one taken just after getting off the Dismal Swamp (we were on the Pungo River, North Carolina).

On the plus side, cold weather comes from the north, we are heading south, so the winds have been terrific for sailing.

The kids have been (up until today) on the boat for 6 days straight!!! Although their world encompasses 34' x 14' ,they have done an incredible job of keeping themselves busy while allowing Lisa and I to maintain our sanity. Apart from school work , reading and crafts (and a bit of Nintendo DS), they have been very creative with their time.

So yes, it's been cold and grey , but it has really helped us get south. Yesterday we managed 65 miles, which might not mean much to you, but when you average 5-6 kts, it's a very good day. It was blowing 20-25kts and we managed to maintain 9-11kts of boatspeed sailing down the Neuse River! We arrived in Morehead City , NC http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=morehead+city&sll=39.164141,-97.119141&sspn=34.075391,86.396484&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Morehead+City,+Carteret,+North+Carolina,+United+States&t=h&z=12hoping to get a spot at the Sanitary Restaurant (awful name admittedly) for $10/night, then tried for the free anchorage (full). We settled for the Town Dock (no, we didn't pay the $54.00 although we probably should have), then this morning scooted over to the restaurant .

For the first time in 6 days we saw the sun!!!! It was a beautiful day (18C) but tomorrow is calling for 22C-25C.

We opened the boat up and let things dry out while we wandered around town in and out of shops. The kids spent some of their own money, Lisa got some new boardshorts and a t-shirt while Mark priced out a new kite surfboard (an idea quickly shot down by Lisa, but reconsidered later and hopefully to be purchased in the morning).

NOTE TO ALAN AND COLIN: A Cabrinha 5-Niner Thruster Directional, SWEEEEET!!!!!!!NOTE TO EVERYONE ELSE: Huh????????

So looks like the good weather will be for us for a bit. We still have alot of miles to cover before I go back to work ( we are at Mile 205 and need to get to Mile 685), but we will keep pushing and hopfully get a run or two offshore once we get south of Cape Fear.

Here's a couple more pics of our day in Morehead City.

Having supper with our home (Charlotte-Ann) docked behind us.

Dessert at the Sanitary Restaurant!!
Sunset on Charlotte-Ann.