Author: crimsonkathyrnandcrew

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)

The rain just won’t stop so we’ve been sticking close to the boat and have shifted to inside jobs. Mark has been picking away at these jobs with the occasional help from me. We’re now on day 3 and the jobs just keep coming!

Most of the inside jobs require the floor boards to come up and the ladder to be removed. Mark started working on the thru hull on Tuesday. Before we were launched Mark had drilled the hole and installed the thru hull and valve. What remained was to install the new hose and run it from the engine water intake to the thru hull. A new strainer was also installed to filter particles out of the incoming water. Installing the hose was a struggle. The hose had to be fed from the engine compartment under the floor to the galley. It’s very cramped under the floor and the hose kept curling up and getting stuck. After a bit of pushing and pulling, we managed to get the hose in place. The connection went very smoothly after that and by the end of the day, the new water intake for the engine was working well.

Other jobs that have been completed include regular maintenance on the engine and the installation of a new light over the galley sink. The old light was falling apart so Mark made a new wood support for the LED lights we bought. It looks so nice! No more red tape (see photo)!!

With all this inside time we’ve been doing a bit of cooking. I made a tasty chilli made with ground chicken. And today (Thursday) Mark made brownies with walnuts, cranberries and dark chocolate chips. With the cooler temperatures, we don’t mind heating up the cabin with the oven.

The week is quickly coming to an end. Tomorrow (Friday) is supposed to be a nicer day so here’s hoping we can get back to painting the deck! Only a few more weeks left before we will be heading south to Vero Beach.

This past weekend brought the cool north wind into Green Cove Springs, just when we needed the warmer temp for painting. The weather has definitely slowed our progress on the painting job but it hasn’t stopped us completely.

Saturday we spent the morning prepping the forward deck and the starboard side (right side) aft deck for painting. Prep includes washing with Pinesol and then a second wash with a cleaner called “tsp” which is a degreaser. Once the deck has thoroughly dried, we tape all the areas that need protection from the paint. The taping is a very tedious job but also super important. You don’t want to rush the taping or you’ll not be happy with the end result!

On Saturday afternoon Ralph Miller stopped by to give us some advice. We first met Ralph about 2 years ago when we needed a new survey of our boat done for insurance purposes. Ralph did an awesome job with the survey and also gave Mark some pointers on items that should be repaired or replaced. Since this survey, Mark has asked Ralph for recommendations and other help. This time Ralph was helping us with a leak we have on the port (left) side. This leak has troubled us for a few years now and we just can’t pin down the source. We see the end result of this leak with water in our galley. It took about 1.5 hours for Mark and Ralph to look over the possible leak sites and now Mark has some strategies for dealing with it.

We were lucky enough to end our Saturday with a happy hour on Jane and Steve’s boat, Daydreams II. Julia and Brad also joined us and we had a lovely evening chatting and eating some yummy food.

We woke on Sunday to a cold, damp day. It was overcast and not warm enough to paint so Mark moved on to a few other jobs. He worked a bit on the windlass (the device at the bow that lowers and hoists the anchor) and made a plan for the chain locker. He also got the binnacle (the structure in the cockpit that holds instruments and the wheel) all ready for painting. I spent the day helping Mark with the binnacle but mostly I worked on a crochet project!

Today (Monday) the weather warmed up enough in the morning for us to get the first coat of primer down! It’s so great to see even more of the boat covered. It looks brand new!! It took a couple of hours to do all the areas this morning, including the binnacle in the cockpit. Once we were done, we drove into St. Augustine for lunch and to do a bit of shopping for boat items! There’s always a list of parts and products needed for all these jobs!

It’s been a fast week on the water! You already know about the work we’ve completed and the jobs that are in progress. This will be a quick recap of the last 2 days.

We spent most of Thursday working on painting jobs. I did the second coat of yellow paint marking the footage on the anchor chain. We also did the first coat of colour on the bow and stern. I thought the off white we choice would be quite different from the white primer but it didn’t really work out that way. The deck does look great so we’re very happy with the colour!

Today (Friday) was very busy on the pier. First thing (around 8:30am) a good sized pleasure boat (old style motorboat) came onto the pier just in front of us. Mark was already on the pier waiting for the air conditioning repair man to show up, so he helped this boat with their lines. Their docking was interesting – they basically used the wooden platforms against the pier as a fender. It wasn’t the best idea. They came in hard, slightly damaging their hull and the wooden platform. Not a great way to start the day!

We’ve been having issues with the air conditioning on our boat since last year so we finally managed to find someone to take a look at it. The guy arrived around 8:30am and his first assessment is that we need a new compressor. He will try to hunt one down for us – our system is quite old so hopefully he’ll have some luck.

The big painting job moved forward today – we got the final coat (of 3) down on 2 areas – the bow and the port side aft deck. It looks amazing and I can’t wait to see the entire deck freshly painted! Crimson Kathryn will look like a brand new sailboat!!

The jobs are being tackled and crossed off the list and each day brings additions to the list. Our early season boat life is all about getting things done. Those lists which you need but hate, have a life of their own! After a while I have a hard time remembering what we did each day so I’ll just summarize it all the best I can!

Tuesday was a job day in the morning only. Mark worked on the first process of our deck painting – a good washing. After that he retrieved our sun shade cover from our storage spot and also brought back the sawhorses and plywood to give us a nice table for the rest of our jobs. I finished the Semco treatment on the hand rails and the winch bases.

We had a lovely treat for lunch on Tuesday. We went to Woodpeckers (a very popular BBQ place close to us) with all our cruising friends at Reynolds! We had lunch with – Julia/Brad (Alizarin), Jane/Steve (Daydreams), Barb/John (Mojo) and Jackie/Tom (Soaring Eagles). The food was awesome – brisket, ribs, turkey, etc are just some of the meats available. This place is super popular with the working folks and it was very busy when we arrived at 12:30pm. It was so nice to relax with friends and have a great meal.

After we enjoyed our lunch with friends, we did a bit of shopping. Home Depot was one of our stops and we got all the necessary supplies for the deck painting. We also went to Costco to see what they had but mostly to buy a 1.75 litre bottle of my favourite bourbon – Woodford Reserve. Even with the exchange, this bottle is cheap!! A 750ml bottle of this bourbon in Canada is $54. This super-sized bottle was only $86 (Canadian)!! Crazy!

The trip back to the marina was very interesting. The BBQ place and all our shopping was on the east side of the St. John River. There is only one bridge close to us and that’s the way we always cross to the east side. This bridge is single lane and very busy during rush hour. We arrived at the left turn to the bridge around 3:30pm and found a huge line of traffic. We decided to drive about 25 miles south to Palatka to cross the river instead of waiting in the traffic. It took us about 1.5 hours to do this detour but it was worth the drive! And we got to see a part of Florida we hadn’t seen before!!

Today (Wednesday) was a very big day – we started the deck painting!! It’s a huge job but boy will it make our boat look amazing!! It took most of the morning to prep for painting the primer. While Mark washed the aft deck (on the port – left side), I painted our new anchor chain to mark the footage in 25ft increments. As the aft deck was drying, we taped the bow. After lunch we did the primer on the bow and the aft port side deck. It already looks amazing!!! It will take 2 days to do the 2 coats of colour. We’ve decided to break the deck up into zones so we can still move around. As the deck is drying, we can work on all the interior jobs!!

Today we ended our day with a fantastic happy hour with Jane and Steve and Julia and Brad! What a great way to end the day!!

There’s a certain pattern and rhythm to being tied up at the Reynolds pier. The days kind of blend together in an endless list of jobs and shopping for those jobs. It takes a few days to get your boat legs – lots of up and down ladders and climbing into small spaces. Your body slowly adjusts to “boat yoga” as Mark calls it!

We’ve now spent our first weekend on the water and it has been very productive. We had an initial list of jobs that made the boat more livable- that’s important when you’re in a small space. To start it all off, we decided to relax on Saturday . All we did was some grocery shopping and then we had a wonderful happy hour with Julia and Brad on Alizarin.

Sunday rolled around – an hour earlier, so we started on the many “make the boat more livable” jobs. First up the sails were removed from inside and I finished cleaning the area blocked by the sails and the forehead head. These jobs were quickly completed – always nice to have fast jobs at the beginning so you can cross them off the list (very satisfying).

The next job was to reassemble the 2 salon chairs. At the end of last season, the internal wood frame of both chairs broke. At home over the summer, Mark took the chairs apart, rebuilt the wood frame and then reupholstered the chairs. They look amazing!! The wooden legs were left onboard so a few holes needed to be drilled to reconnect the legs. Unfortunately the new wooden dowels didn’t line up with the old holes in the chair legs. As Mark tried to coax the leg into place (with a hammer) the strain became too much and the leg cracked in two! Another job to add to the list!! A little epoxy fixed things up in no time!

With that job temporarily on hold, Mark turned his attention to the hot water tank. For some reason it kept tripping the gfi circuit and we had no hot water. To access the tank, the main cabin ladder has to move and the large floor board between the galley and the nav. station has to be lifted out of place. Fortunately this was a very easy repair – Mark had removed the hoses to drain the tank last spring but had forgotten to replace them so we had no water in the tank! The only minor issue was that as Mark was replacing the hoses he dropped a screw and had to retrieve it in the bilge. The head first retrieval strategy normally works but not this time. It took both of us to get Mark out of the bilge.

The rest of the day went very smoothly. I did the semco treatment on our exterior teak cap rails. This is a fairly easy outdoor job but it’s hard on the back! Mark installed a couple of new shelves in one of the storage lockers. All in all, it was a good day!

On Monday we had another early start to the day – not liking this time change business. Job one was to go back to reassembling the chairs. This time things went much better and the two chairs were back to normal in about an hour. Next we tackled the sails. We started with the jib, then did the main sail and finished with the mizzen. All sails went on easily but it’s always a memory game trying to remember how the sail covers and lazy jacks go on!!

Our last job for the day was the dinghy. First it needed to be cleaned both on the bottom and flipped over to do the top. It wasn’t too dirty but it still needs to be done. Once it was looking pretty good, we hoisted it off the bow and onto the water. Next the outboard motor was lowered into position on the transom and then the dinghy was secured in the davits and hoisted back out of the water.

Getting all these little jobs done is great. We’re getting closer to the big deck painting job! That will be a process!!