Author: crimsonkathyrnandcrew

Well a lot has happened since my last post 4 days ago when we were still at Loggerhead. It’s been an eventful 4 days with lots of new things to tell you about.

The journey down the ICW was as expected – pretty quiet (for a change) and lots of lift bridges. Our first night’s stop was near Stuart on January 10. That was a good stop but a bit rolly due to wakes from boat traffic. It’s a very busy area because it has an inlet to the ocean – lots of boats heading out fishing! The next day we moved south to Lake Worth (Jan. 11). This part of the ICW has 6 lift bridges and 4 of these bridges open on a schedule (one and half hour or quarter hour and 3/4 hour). You really have to move along to get through these timed lifts or you end up wasting time waiting for the next opening. We were lucky because the current was going with us and we were able to do 7kts of speed, making it very easy to get to the next bridge in time for the scheduled opening.

We only had one little scare that day – we were just south of Stuart on the ICW and a power boat was charging directly at us. The ICW is relatively narrow at this point and not super deep so there wasn’t a lot of room to move over. We were well on our side of the channel but this guy wanted the whole thing. Mark was getting ready to blow the air horn at him when the boat finally slowed and passed way too close to us! We got waked pretty hard by this guy but we’re thankful he didn’t run right into us.

We arrived at Lake Worth around 1pm and decided to fuel up from this barge. The name on the barge is Pickle Rick and it hangs out in the middle of the Lake Worth harbour providing a great service for boaters. We came along side the barge, tied up and then fueled up! It was very cool and super convenient. Once we’d taken on about 170 gallons, we continued slightly further south and anchored across from the mega yacht marina called Rybovich Marina.

We were up early on Jan. 12 because we had a few jobs to do and we were planning to cross to the Bahamas that night around midnight. Our first stop was the CBP office to get our final permit to proceed clearance to leave the country!! Mark had to walk a bit to get to the office while I stayed with the dinghy (for safety reasons). It was fast and easy to get the permit and we were on our way to stop # 2 after about an hour. Our second stop was West Marine to buy a new water temperature gauge for the engine (a very important gauge!!). The West Marine is in North Palm Beach. This was a long dinghy ride on a cloudy, windy day. We dinghied back north on the ICW and tied up at a restaurant called The River House. We decided we’d treat ourselves to a nice lunch once we were finished our jobs. We got what we needed from West Marine and had a very nice lunch at the restaurant. It was a long trip back to the boat (about 5nm) with the wind in our face and water too!!

That night at around 11:50pm we pulled up anchor and headed out the inlet. It was dark but the harbour and inlet are very well lit so getting out was not a problem. We put up the main and the mizzen sails while still in the calm waters of the harbour because we were expecting that the mouth of the inlet would be too bouncy to put up the sails. We were very correct on that count. We knew this crossing was going to be “salty”, which means lots of wind and wave action. The wind strength was predicted to be 17 – 22 knots with gusts around 28kts. We saw way more wind – 25 kts most of the way with gusts about 30kts. We had too much sail out but with our newly painted slippery deck, I wasn’t comfortable with Mark going out to reef or lower the main sail. So we started releasing the sails to let wind spill out. It was a fast sail but man were we heeled over and we got pushed around by the waves. Once we hit the Gulf Stream, the waves lengthened out so our ride was a little smoother. We arrived at West End before 9am and it was a very exciting ride into the little canal leading to the marina basin. We had 25 kts of wind plus waves 5-6ft pushing us into the channel. Mark hand steered us in and it went from crazy to calm in an instant. We were in!!!! It was a very long night with a minor injury to my knee and hip (I got tossed trying to get back into the cockpit after I’d gone down below)! We decided to stay the night in the marina because we just didn’t want to go back out in that weather. It was a very good decision!

Today we moved a grand total of about 5nm south to Ginn Sur Mer – an abandoned development that has a very nice canal. We’re nicely protected in here from all directions so we’ll hang out here for a few days.

The time has come for us to cast off these dock lines (again) and continue our way south. The weather windows for crossing to the Bahamas have been few and far between in early January but we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to head over in the next 2 weeks. There was a possible window on January 13 but it’s not looking the best now. We still have lots of time to get to Nassau – our flights home for Evelyn’s defence are on February 1st.

We drove up to Melbourne on Jan. 7th to finish our provisioning and that went very well. Our freezer is now full of meat that should last us for our entire trip. It’s always lots of fun shopping for 16 weeks worth of food. Fellow customers make all kinds of comments – mostly about coming home with us to help drink all the bottles we usually have in our cart! This year was no exception. One man asked if he could come to the party and told him he’d have to go to the Bahamas and he replied “that’s sounds like a good idea”.

Yesterday (Jan. 8th) we made the long drive back to Reynolds to drop off our car. The drive north was good until we got to Melbourne – a big accident closed all the lanes on the I 95 so we had to detour through the town. This detour added about 40 minutes to our 3 hour drive. We got to Reynolds at lunch so we used our lunchtime to print our Bahamas’ cruising license forms and to get the inreach up and running. The inreach device is now on and dropping tracks (well not many because we’re not moving). It will drop new track points every 4 hours. We have a new link to the mapshare: please use this link if you’d like to follow our progress. I will share this link on Facebook and by email also.

https://share.garmin.com/crimsonkathryn

Tomorrow (January 10) we’ll be moving south to either Fort Pierce or even further to Stuart. We’ve never travelled the ICW between Fort Pierce and Lake Worth so this will be a first. We’ll be in Lake Worth by Thursday, January 11 but will not have wifi (unless we go ashore) until we get to the Bahamas. So there’s going to be a bit of time between this post and the next! Hopefully I’ll take more photos and have more to talk about by the time we get decent wifi!

(Our current wifi isn’t working well enough for me to add photos- next time.)

Happy New Year – here’s to a fantastic 2024!

We were settled back onboard Crimson Kathryn by 12:30pm on Dec. 31. We drove straight down (saving the cost of a night in a hotel) and found the boat in good condition. We spent New Year’s Eve eating a lovely pork tenderloin dinner and then falling asleep around 9pm!!

A few things were not great at our marina. The showers were supposed to be fixed before Christmas and as all repair jobs go, they’re still not working. No problem because we can shower onboard. The bigger problem is that their wifi is down 😳😳!! So here we are sitting in a Starbucks using their wifi. This first post back will need to be short!

We’ve already managed to do a few things in our 2 days back onboard. Yesterday (Jan. 1) we emptied the car and filled the boat with all the groceries we bought in Kingston. With the crazy prize of food down here (some prices are the same here as in Canada but then you have to add in the exchange) we decided to shop at our local Costco to get as much of the non-perishable items as possible. We now have a very full pantry behind our main cabin cushion. Mark washed the deck (birds were not kind to our boat while we were gone) and we filled one of our water tanks (showering onboard will use up our water more quickly).

New Year’s Day early evening was spent in the wonderful company of Julia and Brad (Alizarin) and Sharon and Rick (Orkan). We had a great happy hour and met 3 new cruisers – Gavin on a 52ft Island Packet and Cathy and Andy on a trawler (Julia and Brad are rafted with Cathy and Andy on a mooring ball ). It was lots of fun and great to see old friends and meet new people. We decided to take the dinghy down to the City marina (which is where everyone is – besides us) so we had a rather cool ride back to our marina after sunset!

Here’s hoping our marina fixes the wifi today and then I can write a longer post! Enjoy the first few days of 2024!

It’s been a very fast couple of days here in Vero Beach. On Sunday, Dec. 10, we rented a car and drove back to Green Cove Springs to pick up our car. It’s about a 6 hour drive in total and being a Sunday, we had no trouble getting there and back. We did spend a bit of time chatting with Barb and John (Mojo) and Sharon and Rick (Orkan). Both couples were working hard to finish their jobs so they could start heading south. It was great to see them both, even if only for a brief chat.

Today, Monday Dec. 11 was a busy one!! We started the day early, returning the rental car before breakfast. The morning jobs for me included laundry, cleaning both heads and the galley. Mark worked on removing some small wood pieces in the cockpit so he can refinish them at home over Christmas. He also did some work in the engine compartment.

After lunch we worked on unloading all the boat stuff that we had temporarily put in the car. Things like our big storage shade cover and all the ropes that hold it in place were placed in the car for safe keeping while we moved the boat south. Once the car was emptied, we filled it with stuff going home with us – not much but a few items. We also spent a bit of time getting our dock lines set for the few weeks when we are away. We want to make sure Crimson Kathryn is in the centre of the slip and not rubbing up against the dock.

As a special treat, we met up with Julia and Brad, who are at the City Marina just south of us, and went out for a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant called Pompanos. It was great to see them again and to have a nice pre-Christmas celebration. We had a great meal and of course excellent conversation!!

Now we’re all ready for our drive home tomorrow. The plan is to drive straight home – we’ll leave here around 12:00pm and get home about 22hours later!! Here’s wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and I’ll be posting again in the new year!!

Our journey south started at 8am on Sunday, Dec. 3rd. We smoothly got off the pier with the help of Barb and John (Mojo) and had the current plus wind in our favour. We made great time travelling north to Jacksonville and we reached our favourite anchoring spot near Blount Island by early afternoon. It was a peaceful first night at anchor.

The next morning, Dec. 4th, we got going around 7:30am to catch the outgoing current and we went straight out onto the ocean. We definitely prefer to be on the “outside” instead of travelling along the ICW. It was a perfect day to be out there – the wind was from the north west and the waves were quite small (less then .5m). There wasn’t much wind so we motored but made great time. We rolled into St. Augustine around 1pm, stopped for a quick minor fuel up (30 gallons) at the municipal marina and continued on our way to another favourite anchorage – Matanzas inlet.

On day 3 we got going around 8am and as we started to leave our anchorage, we watched a sailboat run aground right in the area we were about to transit. This part of the ICW is known for shoaling and it is constantly being dredged and the navigation markers shift positions to accommodate these changes. The sailboat was just in the wrong part of the channel and that was it! As we approached the entrance to this part of the ICW, a trawler was coming north so we stopped to let them pass the grounded sailboat. Just when the trawler got close to the sailboat, they ran aground!! Oh boy!! Fortunately they were only stopped for a few minutes. They managed to back out and correct their path so they continued past us. Now it was our turn! We slowly entered the channel and found 14ft of water – no worries. We passed the stuck sailboat, gave them some feedback on water depths and then prepared to make our way around the dredging equipment. Just as we turned slightly to the left, we ran aground!!! Luckily we were going slow and Mark easily backed us off and we made it through the rest of the bend easily. The rest of the day was uneventful and we stopped for the night in Daytona.

Our plan for day 4 was to stop north of Titusville in an anchorage called mosquito lagoon. As we got close to this spot, the wind picked up to over 20knots so we decided to continue south to Titusville. It had been a really good day – the wind was from the north and we were able to motorsail a good portion of the day. The end of the day was a different story. We decided to anchor south of the Max Brewer bridge in Titusville – a place we’ve never stopped before. There were already 3 boats anchored so we went behind them to turn and face into the wind (which was still blowing hard). Just as we started our turn, the water depth went from 6 ft to not enough! We stopped dead and were quite nicely stuck!! It took some smart thinking on Mark’s part to get us going again. We deployed our jib and let the strong wind pull the bow sideways as Mark gunned the engine forward. We got off, quickly let the sail go so Mark could steer us around this one sailboat (it was a close call for their dinghy 😁). We ended this day anchored in front of the other boats in about 11ft of water.

After that exciting end of the day, we decided to have a very relaxed motor south on Thursday, Dec. 7. We only moved about 16nm to Cocoa. One thing I haven’t mentioned until now if that we have been doing all this travel on a “permit to proceed “. Foreign flagged vessels travelling in the USA can either do so with a cruising licence or a permit to proceed. A cruising licence can only be issued as the boat enters the USA. We had a mess up last spring when we returned from the Bahamas (too long a story to tell) so couldn’t get our cruising licence. Our permit to proceed allows us to keep moving along but we are supposed to report (in person mostly) to the CBP offices along our route. That is a very challenging request since many of these offices are at airports and nowhere near the ICW. When we arrived at Cocoa, Mark called the CBP office at Cape Canaveral (the closest one to our location) and was told we had come in person to get our next permit. So we made the 8nm journey back north on the ICW, tied the dinghy up at a restaurant pier and then walked the mile or so to the office. The whole process took about 3 hours and it was dark by the time we got back to the boat! But we now have our permit to proceed until we return after Christmas!!!

We spent the morning of Dec. 8th exploring the quaint downtown of Cocoa. There were lots of interesting little shops and one of the largest hardware stores I’ve ever been in. It was great to get off the boat and walk around for a couple of hours. We picked up some takeout lunch from a little bakery and headed back to the boat around 11:30am. We had made the decision that morning to head to Loggerhead marina a day earlier because of weather. So after our walk around Cocoa village, we pulled up our anchor and moved about 20nm south to our last anchorage. We had a great afternoon trip and it was a very calm, peaceful anchorage.

Today we only had another 20nm to get to the marina and it was an easy motor down the ICW. We arrived around 1pm and are now securely tied to the dock. Tomorrow (Dec. 10) we’ve rented a car and will drive back to Reynolds to pick up our car. We have a few things to do to get the boat ready to stay here in Vero Beach for the holidays. We’re hoping to head back home on Dec. 12.

We have now been tied up to the Reynolds pier for a month and it’s definitely time to drop those dock lines and move on down the river! This last week of jobs has been the smoothest and probably the easiest we’ve ever had! The list has been checked off everyday leaving us with very little to get done today (Sat., Dec. 2).

The last deck painting (for now) was completed on Thursday and yesterday we spent some time removing all the tape and returning everything to it’s spot. I spent the morning getting lots of laundry done because it will be a week before we’re back in a marina. Mark completed the rigging for our sails and then took a look at the dinghy. We hadn’t tested the motor yet this season so that was a must do job before leaving the dock. We lowered the dinghy into the water and within a few pulls, the motor was purring nicely! Mark took the dinghy out for a little spin and then back in position it went.

At the beginning of this week Sharon and Rick (Orkan – we travelled with them at the end of last season) arrived in the yard to start the process of launching their boat. We decided it would be fun to get together so Mark and I organized a dinner out on Friday night (last night). We joined Sharon/Rick and Barb/John (on Mojo) at this nice Mexican restaurant in town called La Casita. We had a fun dinner – good food and great company. After dinner we took a little drive through town to look at the Christmas lights. Green Cove Springs does a very pretty Christmas tree arrangement – lots of trees decorated by the town hall.

Tomorrow morning (Sunday, Dec. 3) we’ll get off the dock around 8am and make our way down the river to our first stop – near Blount Island (north Jacksonville). Monday we’re hoping to go on the outside (on the ocean) down to St. Augustine and then we’ll see what happens. We have 7 days to do this trip down to Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach. Last time (2021) we did this same trip in 4.5 days so we have lots of time. It’s nice to not be rushed!

We have a departure date – Sunday, Dec. 3! The weather has continued to be cold and rainy but we are getting jobs done and the exterior deck is almost completely painted. We sure picked a cold rainy year to paint the deck!!

The days all start to blur together after awhile. We get up around 7:30, have a nice breakfast and wait for it to get warmer outside. Usually Mark does an inside job in the morning while the deck is drying. In the afternoon we paint! Not too exciting. Occasionally we need to go out to buy supplies and groceries and we try to do this when the weather is really bad.

The big job of removing the old anchor chain went very smoothly. Our main anchor was lowered into the water with 2 rope lines and then we used the windlass to transfer the old rusty chain from the locker to the pier. After the chain was removed, we then pulled out the rope anchor line and put it on the pier with the old and new chain. The chain locker needed to be completely empty so Mark could make the necessary changes.

Mark finished the renovation of the chain locker on Monday (Nov. 27). There was a partition in the locker dividing it in half but our new 200ft of chain wouldn’t fit so Mark rearranged the partition. Late in the afternoon we loaded the new chain into the locker – it was a perfect redesign!! After the chain was loaded aboard, we had to bring our 80lb anchor back into position on the bow. We used the windlass to haul the anchor back into position and as it got close to the roller at the bow, the rope broke!! Luckily Mark was holding the second line and as he struggled to hold onto this line, I quickly grabbed the end of that rope. The anchor dropped back into the water and gave Mark a nasty rope burn (removing some skin too). We tied off the line and caught our breath. One of our dock neighbours came over and helped Mark lift the anchor close enough to the bow so I could attached a bigger rope to the anchor. With the new line we were able to get the anchor back on deck and then secured to the chain!!

Today (Nov. 29) will be the second last day for painting (until we return after Christmas). It’s sunny and cool so we’ll wait till after lunch to put the first coat of colour down. We also need to go out and buy groceries for our week long journey down to Vero Beach. We’ll take our time going south!!

Our painting job is running into some challenges now that we are nearing the end of November. The northern Florida weather has turned rainy and cool, making it difficult to complete the 3 coats of paint on the remaining deck areas. We have one more cost to do on the lower side decks so hopefully we’ll have good weather on the weekend to complete that coat. We still have a few outside areas to paint – the lower side deck on the starboard side which we use to board the boat, plus areas close to the enclosure. At this point, we may just concentrate on finishing the outside deck areas and leave the cockpit for another time.

The good part of the cooler weather is that we are getting all the urgent ‘must be done before we can leave’ jobs completed. Mark has been working on all the maintenance items for the engine. He’s changed the oil and filter and he will be replacing hoses soon. The cockpit binnacle has also been reassembled. Over the summer Mark built a new wooden holder for the autopilot controller and the bow thruster controller. The holder with the instruments had to be installed and tested. We’ve also spent a good deal of time cleaning! It’s the perfect opportunity to thoroughly clean while everything is taken apart. The boat is looking pretty good!

Yesterday, Nov. 23, was American Thanksgiving and I cooked a great feast for the two of us. We had the usual thanksgiving meal – turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas – and a new addition of roasted carrots and butternut squash. It’s always fun making a big meal in our little galley!! It’s amazing how you can make it work!

The only urgent job remaining (besides painting) is getting our new anchor chain onboard – that’s our job for today (Nov. 24th). The old chain needs to be carefully removed – we don’t want to mess up our newly painted bow! We are replacing our current 150ft of chain because it is old and quite rusty (we don’t want to trust our safety to a questionable chain). The challenge we have is with the chain locker. We’ve bought 200ft of chain and we’re not sure how well that will fit into our locker. Mark may need to do a bit of a locker renovation to get all that chain to fit well!! There’s also 150ft of rope in the locker that is attached to the other anchor on the bow – it might be a bit cramped up there!! We’ll find out soon enough!!

It’s been a busy weekend on Crimson Kathryn and on the docks. Saturday saw the departure of our friends Julian and Brad on Alizarin. They left the floating docks around 9am on what turned out to be a lovely (not raining) day. 2 hours later, our other friends on the floating docks, Jane and Steve on Daydreams II, threw off their lines and headed out. It was tough to see them go but they were both heading to St. Augustine so we knew we’d see them soon.

We had a very busy work day on Saturday. As I mentioned previously, we’ve been having this ongoing leak on the port side and Mark asked Ralph Miller (surveyor and fix it guy) to come take a look. Ralph suggested that our dorade boxes (dorades are basically wind scoops – the scoop is on deck and there’s a vent that lets air into the boat) were mounted poorly and could be causing our leak. He was also shocked to see the rather small 1” hole air vent in our cabin. So Ralph and Mark worked on making the dorade boxes less leaky and making the vent hole 4”. There was lots of hole-making (not really what you want to see on your freshly painted deck) and epoxy work going on and after 5 hours, we had 3 repaired dorade boxes and enlarged vents.

It was the first sunny day we’d had since Monday, Nov. 13 so we didn’t want to waste a good deck painting day. Ralph left around 3pm and we started right away putting down the first coat of colour (2nd coat of paint) on the forward upper deck and the port aft deck. It was getting dark and damp as we finished a couple of hours later, but it was great to finally get another coat down!

Sunday (Nov. 19) was another beautiful day and we attacked our jobs with earnest! I finished the last 2 coats of yellow paint on the anchor chain. This paint marks every 25ft so we know how much chain has been let out. Mark worked on installing the new charge regulator for the engine’s alternator. The last regulator broke in the Bahamas last season. After lunch we put the last coat of colour on the 2 deck areas plus the binnacle in the cockpit.

Alizarin and Daydreams had arrived in St. Augustine Sunday afternoon so we made a plan to all meet up for dinner. St. Augustine does a Christmas lights thing every year and many people travel to the downtown area to see the lights. This weekend was the first official weekend of the lights and it was packed!! It took us an 1.5 to get seated for dinner and it took a very long time to get our food. But our server was awesome – she brought us lots of bread and crab soup (free of charge), plus because we waited so long, they gave us 2 free desserts. Even though our whole dinner evening was about 4 hours – we had a great time visiting and relaxing.

So here we are – the start of a new work week. It Monday, Nov. 20 and we have about 2 more weeks to complete all the must be done jobs before we head south to Vero Beach. Time to get working!!

(Just a reminder – the smaller photos are in gallery mode. If you click on the first photo they will enlarge and you can scroll through all the photos that are in the “gallery”. This post has 2 gallery sets – the vent holes and the Christmas lights in St. Augustine. Enjoy)