Month: July 2016

After 5 weeks and approximately 2500 km, Crimson Kathryn has finally reached her new home for the fall. What an experience this has been, from the amazing things we’ve seen and people we’ve met, to the stinking hot, hot weather. We started calling this adventure a delivery trip because of the pace at which we were  traveling (and the lack of relaxation we were experiencing). Delivery trips are not the most fun but they are extremely rewarding when you reach your destination.

I think in my last blog I mentioned the Knox Bridge not working. Well we ended up leaving St. Augustine on Wed. night at 10 pm and motoring on the ocean. That went really well once we got out of the St. Augustine inlet (one last green buoy tried to take us out but I saw it at the last minute and Mark reacted with cat-like reflexes to miss it.) It was fairly easy going after that. The ICW  is pretty straight and rather dull after miles and miles of motoring  (except for watching the crazy limited depths).

Right now we are tied up at the Harbortown Marina in Fort Pierce. We are being hauled out and stored at Riverside Marina but they can’t get to us until maybe Thursday this week and they didn’t have any empty slips at their dock so here we are. It’s very nice but a bit expensive. We have lots of work to do in the next few days to get the boat ready for storage. We are taking the masts off again (our insurance company prefers masts down) and the boat really needs major washing. All that salt makes for messy decks. If all goes well, we could be back in Toronto on Sunday, August 7. 

The wifi here is not the greatest, so I’ll have to load my photos later. Stay tuned😀😀

Well we’ve made it into Florida with only one little funny surprise (which I’ll tell you about shortly – it deserves it’s own paragraph😊). Traveling this part of the Intracoastal is much like driving on the highway behind a snowplough – you want to go faster but you don’t dare in case you get stuck in those “skinny” places (shallow for us Canadians). We did run aground a few times but easily managed to get unstuck.

After Thunderbolt (where Mark received some good advice about the engine and things are working much better now), we made our way to Brunswick, Georgia. We had an interesting tie up that night, staying on the fuel dock at Ocean Petroleum. Not the nicest scenary but great fuel prices. It was pretty sketchy but we survived. We did a bit of sailing to get into Brunswick, so that was nice. 

Just before we crossed into Florida (the ocean inlet at St. Mary’s), we met our little surprise. We’d been seeing these very large buildings for some time and had no idea what they were. As we got closer, it became clear that they were part of another naval base – a very special naval base that services submarines (an important side note here, we’d forgotten to turn our radio on that day – a first for us). I think you can probably figure out where this is going, especially if you’ve checked out the photos! As we passed the major dock and entrance channel into the facility, I said “Wouldn’t it be crazy to meet a submarine in here!” Well not 5 minutes later Mark is looking through the binoculars and says “Oh my god, there’s a submarine heading for us”. I thought, yeah right haha. Well there was and with a major escort. One of the escorts (a small naval boat with manned guns – very scary) came zooming towards us because we weren’t answering the radio hails  – oops! They were very nice but firm – stay out of the way and we were very happy to obey. It was an amazing experience to watch this vessel slowly make it’s way into port. I took photos slyly, just in case – big guns and all😳. I tell you, we giggled for awhile after that – dumb Canadians, no radio, big submarine!!

Okay so we made it to St. Augustine yesterday, July 26 and were planning on heading out today for Daytona Beach, but the god of the bascule bridges had other plans. We found out from our friends Sharon and Len (check previous blog) via email that the Knox Memorial bascule bridge just before Daytona Beach is stuck in the down position. That’s a problem. So here we are, spending another day in St. Augustine (which will be fun) and hoping the bridge gets fixed today. We can go on the outside but it’s 53 knots to the next inlet and it’s all motoring into the wind, waves and current. Not much fun. I’ll let you know what happens.

Wow!! Last time I shared with you, we were in North Carolina. Tonight we are just outside of Savannah, Georgia (we decided to skip South Carolina😊). The weather changed for the better and we decided on Tuesday night to head out onto the ocean for a 30 hour run along the coast. As usual, it always takes longer than you expect, especially when the  air in the fuel problem resurfaces as you’re motoring along. But here we are in Georgia 35 hours later.

Funny thing – when we brought Crimson Kathryn home 6 years ago, she had an overheating problem that caused us to spend 5 days at  Thunderbolt Marina (near Savannah). Well here we are 6 years later and don’t you know, Crimson Kathryn wanted to visit her old buddies at Thunderbolt. We are here to have someone look at our fuel issue. Well if you have to breakdown somewhere, Savannah is a pretty good place😉

I hope you enjoy these photos for the past few days.

We’ve made it all the way to the most southern point in North Carolina, Southport. It’s been quite the journey through the “ditch” with swing and bascule bridges, dolphins or porpoises and of course the dreaded sandbars. After leaving Elizabeth City, we traveled along the Intercoastal waterway to Beaufort. We had the most amazing thunderstorms that day but we weathered it fine. It took us a day and a half to travel from Beaufort to Southport again using the ditch, all south and south west wind these days.

Today we had lots of fun, running aground as the tide was going out. Not great. Thank goodness we bought Sea Tow service (it’s like CAA for boats). We contacted them and within 20 minutes we were moving again. 

We are staying at South Harbor Village Marina today and tomorrow and we’ll be leaving here on Wed. If all goes well and weather is good, we should cross into Florida in 10 days.

Hope everyone is having a good summer. Here are Some more pics to enjoy. 

We arrived at Elizabeth City by noon today after traversing the Dismal Swamp Canal. We left the Visitor centre with enough time to make it to the South Mills lock for the 8:30am lock through. Unfortunately, 3 northbound vessels beat us to the lock and we had to wait about 30 minutes for them to be locked through and the lift bridge to go up. One not so cool thing about the Dismal Swamp canal is the colour of the water – it looks like Pepsi (not the nicest colour for your toilet water😊.)

Elizabeth City is a lovely town with exceptional friendly residents . When we arrived at the local town dock (really a very nice wall), we needed to refill one of our water tanks. Mark met a man who lives next to the dock and he helped us get water from his garden hose. He also gave us some great restaurant and shopping advice. 

Our plan is to stay the night here in town and then continue our travels down the ditch for a few more days. We should be back on the ocean when we reach Beaufort, NC (weather permitting). We can continue in the ditch all the way to Florida but it’s much nicer to sail.

Here are some of the earlier photos I haven’t been able to post.

We left Hampton around 9am today and headed to the Intercoastal Waterway, better known  as the ditch. We saws lots of warships and other naval vessels and many military helicopters (at last count I think 8 flew over us). We decided to take the less traveled course through the Great Dismal Swamp Canal (c. 1805). The swamp might deserve the name but the canal is  nice (except for the nasty biting flies). We are tied up overnight at the Dismal Swamp visitor centre because the second of 2 locks had its last lock through at 3:30pm. We’ll be visiting Elizabeth City, NC tomorrow.

I have lots of photos but one will have to do for now. It’s going to rain any minute now and I’m being bitten by these nasty flies.

By Mark

We are in Hampton, Virginia, just by Norfolk, home of a large naval base and NCIS for you TV crime show fans. We got here with more days of exceptional sailing. In an area where the prevailing wind is from the south, and our destination is south, we were blessed with east, west and north winds that gave us three days of gorgeous ocean sailing. Our new mainsail proved its worth, and we even had a half day spinnacker run. We also did an overnight sail into Hampton, which was a pleasure and a challenge. After days of motoring in the Erie Canal (which I have renamed the ‘Root Canal’ not because the canal was bad, but because I dealt with so many mechanical issues) it was so nice to turn off the engine and let Crimson Kathryn be the excellent SAILING yacht she is. Hour after hour of quiet rolling in the Atlantic, watching pelicans and dolphins, sunsets, a sandy coastline, letting that warm wind pull us effortlessly along, in just a perfect balance. It was an unbeatable way for Marybeth and I to celebrate our anniversary. Words fail.

So if words fail, where are the pictures, you justifiably ask? It’s rather windy here in Hampton, and our AM foray into town for groceries and bubbly resulted in a rather wet dinghy ride back, so the second visit to town during which we planned to upload pics has been replaced with chillaxing on board, rum in glass, and Great Big Sea on the stereo. 

We are headed ‘inside’ for the next few days, meaning we are using the Intracoastal waterway to avoid Cape Hatteras, and hope to ‘Wifi’ in Elizabeth City before returning to the Atlantic at Beauford, NC. 

We enjoy your comments; keep them coming.



By Mark

Just checking in with everyone who is following the blog. As we move from anchorage to anchorage our wifi is spotty, so we use a cell phone to connect instead, and that uses lots of expensive data, so no pics with this post.

It’s always an event going through New Youk Harbour. My family arrived in North America via New York, and though I doubt they passed through the famous Ellis Island, it is still the symbolic landing point for millions of immigrants looking for a better life. Of course it’s neighbour the Statue of Liberty is also an important landmark. 

After fuelling and resting nearby at Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey we did our first open ocean coastal passage to Barnegat Inlet. Mary had a touch of seasickness but in compensation, saw a dolphin. Today we sailed for the first time. It was so nice to give the motor a rest. It was my turn to be seasick, but I go to see the dolphin today so I guess that’s how that works. We are anchored at Ocean City NJ for the night. It’s about 10 miles south of Atlantic City, the casino town that we saw on our way by. Tomorrow we should be in Delaware. Rather than go up Delaware Bay and down Chessapeak bay we will continue on the ‘outside’ which will cut some miles. We will likely give you a full update with pictures when we get to Hampton Roads, which is just north of Norfolk, Virgina.

Until then.

After a few days of getting the boat sea worthy again, we are ready to head down the Hudson River to the Big Apple. Yesterday we reprovisioned and did laundry. The day was topped off with the purchase of 1.5 litre bottle of our favourite Greek retsina called Kourtaki. It might be several days before we have wifi again but I will try to send updates whenever possible.

My photos won’t load, so I’ll do them later.

Lots of fun today as both our masts were stepped. Mark often says that our boat has at least 2 of everything, including 2 masts, booms, sails etc, well we sure know it now. A long day, starting at about 11 am and ending just before 7 pm, but very productive. Before we started our day, a poor sailboat was towed in after running a ground and breaking it’s keel. I’ll take our minor breakdowns over this any day.