Three Days in Ft. Lauderdale

Compass Rose spent three days in Lake Sylvia, Ft. Lauderdale waiting for the weather to improve for a Bahamas crossing. We had a wonderful time waiting with the thirty or so other boats. We were there with Papillon and Avalon.

You can dingy around Ft Lauderdale from the Lake. We were guided though the many canals by Mike and Pegge McLaughlin who had local knowledge after living there for many years.

The turtles were nesting on the beaches and as you can see from the signage they take this very seriously. All of the lights along the beaches have covers that block the lights from the beach front. Otherwise, the turtles will crawl towards the lights and away from the ocean. Guess they don't have much of an internal compass.

We were in the midst of spring break so the beaches were very crowded. It was great to feel the sand between our toes. This was as close to the Bahamas as we were going to get.

Winter in Jensen Beach, FL

After spending four glorious months in Jensen Beach, Florida we are now on the move again. We gave up going to the Bahamas after spending 3 days in Lake Sylvia waiting for the winds to stop. The weather did not cooperate so we have started our trip north.

This winter we drove our car back to Florida after our Christmas trip home. This made our numerous trips to Naples much easier. We helped John’s Mom with her move back to Maryland. We also made a trip to Disney World to meet the kids for a day in the park. That was great fun but we have to say that one day is about all we can do at their pace! We made another trip home over Easter to take the car back north. .

Our stay in Jensen Beach was fabulous. We stayed at the Four Fish Marina which is located on the ICW just north of Stuart and south of Ft. Pierce. The area has so much to offer in the way of things to do, all the shopping anyone could want, great beaches only 5 minutes away, many public golf courses and you can ride your bike to anywhere you might want to go. But the most wonderful part of our stay was “The Hood” as we called ourselves. At any given time there were no less than six Krogens at the marina and there were as many as thirteen at the height of “The
Hood”. This was truly a community with a personality that we call the Krogen Family. We were all there to support each other in what ever way we could. Great times were had and new friendships were made.

Pam’s sister Jan made a visit for 10 days in February. We had good weather the whole time she was here. We had great days at the beach and 5 o’clock happy hours in The Hood every night. Bob and BJ were able to spend some time with us in March as did Chuck and Lisa Gorum. We also had visits from Bill and Geraldine Falk and Richard and Michelle Sanger. Jensen is a good place to have company with so much to do in the area.

Pam and Casey took Jazzercise classes every morning and got to know some of the other ladies in the class.

John did some major repairs on the boat. He worked tirelessly for three weeks on the fuel tanks.

We are sorry to have the winter-stay in Jensen end but we are anxious to start our trip back to Annapolis. We will try to keep the blog going as we move north up the waterway.

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!