Jensen Beach, FL / Four Fish Marina

Compass Rose arrived at her winter home at Four Fish Marina on Nov 29th. We rode 'up top' on the flybridge for the first time and forgot to apply an sunscreen. We were both scorched after the four hour trip from Vero Beach!! The things we have to endure...

Photo: View of the Indian River (ICW) from the boat.



Photo: The Line Up

Four Fish Marina is just off the western side of the ICW in Jensen Beach. It is about 5 miles from Stuart, FL, 41 miles north of W. Palm Beach and 990 miles south of Annapolis! There are 7 other Krogen's here which should make for a lively time.




Coincidently, Krogen is holding an Open House here this weekend so there are another 5 Krogen's here. Looks like another Rendezvous!

Vero Beach, FL

Photo: Ooops! Someone ran over the Green 77 marker.

Left Cocoa, FL Monday morning and cruised down to Vero Beach. Tied up to a mooring ball in the city marina next to Rob and Sue Mancini (Papillon). They left the next day and Charlie and Marcia Corbett (Friend Ship) tied up to us. They left the next morning and Ted and Pat Edmunds (Seaclusion) took their place. We're beginning to feel like a floating dock!



Photo: Compass Rose, Papillon, & Pelican (not a Krogen).

Joe and Trina Armand (Snow Goose) called to say they were in Jacksonville, FL driving back down to the Keys and would meet us for lunch in Vero. It's amazing the amount of miles you can cover in a car versus a boat. So, we had a great lunch at the Riverside Restaurant
(Rob, Sue, Joe, Trina).



Sometime during the night, one of our automatic inflating PFD's decided to...automatically inflate! Apparently, the water-actuated inflater must have gotten wet.

Photo: John with the inflated PFD. They don't call them a 'Mae West' anymore but you can sure see why they did!

Cocoa, FL and Thanksgiving

Photo: Ron Jon Surf Shop

We left the boat in Cocoa, FL. This is the 'home' of the world(?) famous Ron Jon Surf Shop which takes the sales of all things surfing and beach to the extreme.

We then rented a car and drove across the state to Naples for Thanksgiving. While there we visited with John's Aunt Jean and had Thanksgiving dinner with his Mom.

Photo: Pam, Jean, John, and Nancy

Florida!!

Yesterday, we anchored at Daytona Beach and got an early morning start south. Thirty minutes out, the over-temperature alarm went off as the engine water temperature climbed over 200 deg. That will get your attention!

We dropped anchor and investigated the problem. Pam hooked up a hose to the salt water washdown hose and we blew out the raw water through hull. That dislodged whatever was clogging it and we had water flow to the engine again. After a 90 minute delay, we raised anchor and continue south to Cocoa.



Photo: Bridge over the ICW in Daytona Beach. Notice the murals of manatees and dolphins.

We are now in Cocoa Village Marina in Cocoa, FL. Today we are renting a car and driving across to Naples to share Thanksgiving with John' mother Nancy and aunt Jean.


Photo: The requisite photo of the NASA Shuttle facility.












Photo: Another dolphin welcomes us to Florida

Savannah to Florida

Photo: Sunrise off the coast of Georgia

We departed Savannah and did a 10 1/2 hr day arriving near St Simon's, GA after dark. After a short night anchored, we left at 5am the next morning. Finding our way out of Brunswick channel to the Atlantic in the dark was somewhat challenging. With a nice day forecast, we had decided to go "outside".

Photo: Navy frigate off Jacksonville, FL

The trip from St Simon's to St Augustine (83 mi) was done about 7 miles off the coast on a gorgeous day. Anchored off St Augustine and went into town. We lucked out as it was "The Night of Lights" there. All the trees downtown were decorated with white lights and were all turned on at 7pm.









Photo: The lights of St Augustine

Beaufort, SC to Savannah, GA

We stopped in Beaufort, SC which is one of our favorite towns on the ICW. John's cousin Jenny Altman recently moved to Sun City Hilton Head and this would be the first opportunity to see their house.

Photo: Watching another boat making an early morning departure from Beaufort, SC

Jenny and Steve met us at the city marina and we spent the day at Sun City. What an impressive development. Not only is the landscaping gorgeous but there are more activities than one could possibly ever participate in. If you get bored there, it's your own fault.








Photo: Steve and Pam on "The Trike"

On Thursday, Jenny and Steve joined us on "Compass Rose" for the trip to Savannah, GA. It was a very windy day but these former sailors were warm and cozy in the pilothouse! It was an uneventful day until we arrived at the Savannah River. As we came out of Field's Cut to cross the river , two very large ships were coming at us from opposite directions. With 25-30 kts of wind and and current of 3 kts, there was no place to go but across the river
(quickly!).





Photo: Jenny at the wheel.















Photo: Crossing the Savannah River. Our wake shows where we had been...


















Photo: John, Jenny, Pam & Steve after dinner in Savannah.

Ranges

Photo: Range markers indicating "right of centerline"

The waterway in S. Carolina and Georgia is very winding with a lot of current. To ensure that tugboats pushing barges keep in the narrow channel, "ranges" are provided as a visual aid.

On our first ICW trip, we devoted a page to the explanation of "ranges". For those of us with a short attention span, here it is again.
Photo: Range markers indicating "left of centerline"















Photo: Range markers indicating "on centerline"

Flipper

We were greeted by a family of dolphins enroute to Beaufort. They swam around the boat for at least 10 minutes.

Apparently, dolphins love to swim in the bow wave of full displacement boats.

Charleston, SC

We did not stop at Charleston this year. We anchored in Awendaw Creek about 25 miles north of the city. "Forever 39" (Tom & Charlene Cooper) and "Melodie" (Tom Fournier) were also there so we got together on Tom and Charlene's boat. That morning the Coast Guard announced that the Ben Sawyer Bridge was unable to open due to mechanical problems. Since it is a 31' bridge, we could get under it but that essentially bottled all the sailboats up just north of Charleston. It took over 24 hours to fix the bridge.

Photo: Charleston Bridge (not the Ben Sawyer)

Cruised through Charleston harbor on a gorgeous day. Three huge ships were coming up the channel headed for the port. Boats were everywhere....Ft Sumter was guarding the mouth of the harbor.

Photo: container ship headed to Charleston















Photo: Ft Sumter

















Photo: Nursing home for old fishing boat.


















Photo: Churning water in Elliott Cut

Just south of Charleston is a narrow cut which joints the Ashley River and the Stono River. Elliott Cut is a 1/4 mi long by 200 ft wide slot and the current can get pretty wild through there. We fought our way through a 3 kt current.









Photo: Water skiing down the ICW

Georgetown, SC

We poked around Georgetown on Saturday morning to see what we missed the previous evening. A small but spirited Veterans' Day Parade came up the main street complete with a fire engine, three color guards, high school ROTC marchers and a variety of WW II, Korea and Vietnam vets.

Photo: Marshall Law declared in Georgetown!

Many of the homes downtown are from the late 1700's and early 1800's. We walked through the cemetery of the Prince George Episcopal Church (built in 1750). There were a number of gravestones from the 1700's and many from the mid-1800's.




















Photo: Prince George Cemetery























Photo: Grave marker from 1798. I'll bet he never imagined back then that he would end up on our blog!

Waccamaw River and Georgetown, SC

We left the anchorage north of Myrtle Beach at high tide so we were able to ride the falling tide (and current) the entire 55 mile trip to Georgetown, SC. We average 8.5 kts which is really flying in a Krogen!

Photo: Waccamaw River shoreline

Our favorite part of the ICW is the Waccamaw River which curves through Cypress forests and is virtually uninhabited on the shoreline. As you know, 'Waccamaw' means "hit on head with mallet".






Photo: Either a very small boat house or a large outhouse

Today was a sunny, warm day and most of the time we were the only boat in sight. Entire logs were covered with large turtles sunning themselves.

In keeping with our mission of stopping at towns we have missed previously (Wrightsville Beach and Swansboro nonwithstanding), we stopped at Georgetown for the first time. We plan on remaining here tomorrow morning to see more of it when the stores are open.






Photo: Turtles working on their tan
















Photo: Compass Rose docked in Georgetown, SC (low tide)



















Photo: She played bagpipes at sunset
on the Georgetown boardwalk.

Myrtle Beach and Beyond

You don't exactly cruise through Myrtle Beach, SC as much as you go"behind" it. The Pine Island Cut begins at North Myrtle Beach and curves westward joining the Waccamaw River past Murrells Inlet and on to Georgetown, SC. You never see the beaches or the many golf courses there. A few courses do border the ICW but mostly it is new housing developments.

We made a short fuel stop at Osprey Marina. Diesel was $2.83/gal which was terrific considering another nearby marina was getting $3.50/gal! This is getting to be a very expensive hobby!






Photo: This is one house!




















Photo: Nursing Home for old navigation markers.
















Photo: New Moon today. Low tide uncovers all sorts of things.

South from New Bern (Searching for Warmer Weather!)

It's a little chilly here! We made an early morning departure from New Bern where it was 35 degrees. Gorgeous sunrise over the Neuse River....


Photo: Good morning, New Bern!











Photo: Sunrise on the Neuse River





















Photo: Compass Rose in goods hands on the Neuse River

We did a 9 1/2 hr day and anchored off Swansboro, NC. This must be the 5th time we have dropped anchor there but have never gone into town. After another stop (our 4th) in Wrightsville Beach, NC we ran down the Cape Fear River. Fortunately, we were going with the tide.





Photo: 10.8 kts on the Cape Fear River (rounds up to 20 kts!)



The Marine Corps Camp Lejeune has a firing range which straddles the ICW. Although we have never encountered it, the ICW is sometimes closed while they do live firings across it (with BIG guns!).











Photo: Duck!!

New Bern, NC

As part of our effort to visit towns and cities we have missed on our previous trips, we made the 25 mile detour off the ICW to New Bern, NC. The city is up the Neuse River and was originally settled in 1710 by German and Swiss colonists. They named it after Berne, the capital of Switzerland. Nearby is the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, the largest MCAS in the world. It was opened in 1941.

Photo: Clock Tower in New Bern, NC











The first church on the grounds of the now Christ Episcopal Church was built in 1715. In 1752, King George II gifted the parish with a bible printed in 1611. The spire of the church has dominated the New Bern skyline for over 150 years.

The original building foundation has been made into an outdoor altar with wooden pews.

Photo: Pam sitting outside of Christ Episcopal Church.
















Photo: Spanish Moss on trees













































Photo: Tryon Palace; restored government house and North Carolina's first capitol.








Photo: Whimsical art; John and "Jeremiah"

























Photo: Pam in "The Getaway Car"



















Photo: Who knew?! Pepsi Cola was invented here.