We have had bad luck with rain and cold temperatures. This has delayed the bottom painting progress. The damage has been repaired and now we just need to get some good weather to apply paint.

In the mean time, we decided to take a quick trip back to Kentucky. We stopped by a friend’s house in ‘Anderson SC.  Dana and Sean have done a lot of work on their property.  They were just finishing Christmas decorations when we pulled in.

We checked on the docks and mowed our yard one last time. Of course, we had to have a fire near the river before we left!

With a stop, off at the Casino in Cherokee NC, we still make it back in time to celebrate James’ birthday!

We then went to see the Lights on James Island and visit Santa! The park has decorated 3 miles of roadway and they have a nice area to stroll around with fire pits to roast marshmallows.  We brought hot chocolate and stuff to make Smore’s so we were all set.  Austin visited Santa and told him what he wanted for Christmas.  Papa helped with the marshmallow roasting!

After a good summer in Northern Kentucky at our Marina/Campground we headed down to Charleston to get on the boat and begin our winter journey to Florida.  We had some minor damage from Hurricane Matthew in early October. Our surveyor wanted to check out the bottom of the boat so we had the boat pull out on November 14 to have it checked out.  It looked like minor damage but we could see the fiberglass.  We decided to have this repaired and to also have the bottom of the boat painted.  We were in the queue to be worked on until after Thanksgiving so we made the best of it and spent time with grandson.  We did chores around the house and attended a Thanksgiving lunch with Austin!

Thanksgiving was nice.  We helped decorate.  Rebecca made name tags for everyone like Chris’ “Little Grandma” did in the past.  It was a nice added touch!  Rebecca and James had some friends over and we had two turkeys!  One made the traditional way in the oven and the other deep fried.  Both were very good and we had plenty of leftovers.

We also kept busy during our wait by checking out antique stores and finding good places to eat.  We found the second best Bloody Mary in Charleston. We visited Patriot’s Point where we spent all day touring the Yorktown.

We were cruising as fast as we could to Charleston ahead of Hurricane Mathew. The roads were to be reversed for evacuation plan  ‘A’ with in 24 hours. At 3:30 AM and 150 miles out we noticed a solid stream of cars leaving the coast. Felt kinda weird, we were only but a hand-full heading east.

Pre Mathew. We followed the instruction published by BoatUS. We prepped the boat with new ropes, tapped all hatches, air vents and rails, removed all cushions, canvas,  and bimini, shrink wrapped the bridge and charged the batteries.

Double tie all lines and we should be good unless the dock fails! Luckily we are on a pier with 3 long concrete spuds!

Post Mathew. The initial storm hit overnight Thursday. No news. At 8:00 AM Friday the back eye wall hit reversing wind directions. By noon the dreaded call came in: Our dock broke loose from the main section and collapsed the concrete posts on Paraiso. But did not sink! Thirty hours later we were able to get a hold of the wreckage and pull it off Paraiso. All of the other preps worked flawlessly.

Bye bye dock……

We’ll I’m working the store because it is hot out! My rodent control duties will be limited to air conditioning and working the counter. Any self respecting mouser will be inside anyway. Do you need ice-cream with that boat launch, meow? Yea, I still got it.

I put my order in for a new litter box on the boat. I find a dual box for #1 and #2 business works much better for me. I can’t wait to get back on the boat life is so much more simple.

This trip has been going on a long time.  I have tried to help out in the engine room. Captain reminded me ‘mechanics mate’  job was a temp job until Daryl comes back. Hey there’s alot of room there and I fit in all the spaces. Some say I.only play play play with my toys – I got a new bird and a fish.  I also spend time  hanging out and taking naps, sometimes with dad, I mean captain.

Recently there has been some different activity.  I had to have a talk with the people. What is going on?

I guess we are on the move again but on land.  They put me in a box and took me to a vehicle that goes across the land.  We stopped one night at a home with other people.  then it was back in the vehicle.  It was a longer ride than I have taken before.

I am now back in my own stomping grounds.  I now get to go outside and hunt mice and chipmunks! I really like love looking over the entire yard.

Life is Good!

We headed out at 8 AM to be sure we had higher water for the first part of the trip.  We had to travel 64 miles to St. John’s Yacht Harbor in Charleston.  We passed a number of homes with docks in this area.  The area is so marshy that they need to build very long walkways to their docks.  We decided we would not want to maintain docks this long.

We arrived at 2PM to our new home away from home.  The facility is very nice.  Great lounge area, laundry and restrooms.  There is also a pool we can use.  Our daughter and son-in-law (Rebecca and James) came with the grandson (Austin) to greet us.

I wasn’t long before Austin established his new roll on board ship! We spend the next few days cleaning the boat and getting stuff organized to return to Kentucky.  Austin came back out to help clean the boat.  We have traveled 2350 miles in 296 hours using 1978 gallons of fuel and 111 days cruising.  Wow!

We plan to make a few visits to check on the boat during the summer and then return in November to begin our next adventure.  We will begin to blog again when we are back on the water.

We intended to spend one night here but we hear that there was a boat show so we decided to stay for two nights.  Thunderbolt marina was great.  It was not far from downtown and also had a few shops and restaurants that were in walking distance.  Each morning at 7 AM they deliver 6 Krispy Kreme donuts to your boat!  We met up with another couple and their friends who were heading north. We shared a taxi to downtown and the boat show at the convention center.  The show was smaller than the Cincinnati. They had a number of center consoles and fishing boats. Only a few pontoons and two tug trawlers.

We took a ferry across the river to downtown Savannah and had a great lunch. We  checked out a few shops and found a neat design store that fabricated furniture from airplane parts.  We called the same taxi for a ride home and then checked out a marine store near the marina.

Since we had a near miss at Hell’s Gate we were worried about the rest of the trip to Charleston.  A sail boat had come in during the day and we asked them for information because the captain had made this trip a number of times. There is a channel called “Fields Cut” that we needed to be careful in.  Janis also read up on this area on our web reference pages. Chris checked tide charts, blogs and ask every one who came by the boat.  We needed to reach Fields Cut before low tide. The next day we got up early 6:30 and got our boat fuel up and was on our way by 7:30 AM. We made it to Fields Cut about 2 hours after high tide and followed some instructions that were suggested on Active Captain.  There was one spot on the north side where we only had 3.5 feet and if it was low tide we may not have been able to pass this area.  We marked this on our chart plotter for reference next time we come by this area.

We continued on the ICW and passed by Hilton Head Island.  Hilton Head also had a RV park and marina at the same property.  This could be a good place for us to meet up with Chris’ brother or others who have RV’s.  We also passed Parris Island the Marine training area.  We stopped at Beaufort City Marina.  It is right downtown in the historical district. We checked out the shops and tried some BBQ out.  Our neighbor (Jan), displays her artwork at a café named Common Grounds, we made a point to go in and see her work. It is very very good!

We only had 32 miles to go today so we were not in a hurry to get up.  We left about 9:45AM.  We were cruising right along with no issues until we reached a channel called HELLS GATE between two islands.  We saw the channel markers but the water did not look right.  As we nosed in we found that we were quickly running out of water depth!  We went from 10 feet to 1.5 feet in a second!  Chris turned the boat to try to find more water but no luck.  We plowed mud for what seemed to be a long time and finally got out into deep water. Chris was sure we could plant corn in the rows left behind. Chris went down below to check and cleaned out the engine strainers.  As suspected they were full of mud and gunk. And made a mess in the sink! It reminded me of the time when Stan was stuck in Paint Lick Cr. After our panic attack we had a good laugh. (Forgot to take pics.)

Next we checked the tide schedule.  We were just before low tide this meant that we had to wait for 6-8 hours for the tide to come up or we could go out to the Atlantic to go around the island.  We decided we would go out and around the island.  With 20 knot winds, it was a rough ride.   It took us one hour to make the trip and get back on the ICW.   Once we go back on the ICW we did not have any other issues and landed at Thunderbolt Marina just outside Savannah, GA. Great marina with 7-8 foot tides, again. In the “walkway” pic below it is nearly flat, in 6 hours it is a full flight of stairs climb.

We pushed off at 8:30 AM it was calm and we could have gone out into the Atlantic Ocean today but we decided why rush the northbound trip? I was sunny and 73 degrees F.

Once we got through the St. Augustine inlet area the ride was nice scenic run. It was marshy and no houses until we got to Jacksonville and the St. John’s river.  This river is one of the few rivers that flows inland.  You can take a side trip up this river but for us we this will have to wait until next winter.

Our first stop was Fernandina Beach.  This is a nice little town on Amelia Island. It’s a place in Florida that is not on the beaten path and a little hard to find by highway. Fernandina is the last stop off I95 as you head north out of the sunshine state. They have many shops and antique stores as well as many good restaurants.  On the way back from dinner a fishing boat had pulled in and had a few big fish called Wahoo.  We only stayed one night but when we head back south we will stay two nights so we can investigate this town more.

Next day was pushed on to a small marina called Hidden Harbor.  We had to navigate through the St. Mary’s river.  This river was busy.  We had to work around a government survey boat and we went by a naval base where we saw a few ships and a submarine.  We were now officially out of Florida and in Georgia. Hidden Harbor was a small quite place and the marina managers Bobbie and Alan were great! Bobbie was a former comedian from LA and currently a sailor who was con ed into running a very nice marina. There were no restaurants nearby or anything so we made dinner on the boat.  This was good because we need to eat up the food on our boat before we head to Kentucky.

We had a choice to have a long day and travel 85 miles or to travel 55 miles and then stop.  We did the later and made our way to another small marina named Kilkenny.  This marina was also out in the middle of nowhere, but there was a restaurant next door that is open Wed – Sun. It was Wednesday so we decided to try it out.  It was a nice place.  The food was a bit pricey but good. The owner stopped by and introduced himself and told a few Obama jokes.

Hey! Check out my new perch!  I call it my jungle.  It is a good place to hang out while we are cruising. When the seas get rough I go here to be safe.