Wiscasset, ME to Stuart, FL

The unrelenting storms in the North Atlantic kept us home in Maine until Friday, October 24th, the latest we've ever left. Consequently, we pushed hard to get to warmth.

Our first leg, from Maine to Atlantic Highlands, NJ, was great until we got into Buzzards Bay. From there, right through Long Island Sound we had more wind driven waves than we expected. We entered the East River a little before sunrise and had very little traffic to deal with going through Hell Gate, making it a very pleasant trip through NYC.

We got fuel and "rested" for a few hours Saturday afternoon then had a really nice moonlit night running down the NJ/DE/MD coasts, arriving at the mouth of the Chesapeake Sunday morning just as the seas were starting to build. We caught up on our sleep for a few rainy days in a marina in Norfolk (Portsmouth), VA.

Our ICW leg from Norfolk to Beaufort, NC was uneventful with the exception of our heroic rescue of a man and his dog in trouble in the Alligator River. On his return to his boat after taking his dog to shore in his dinghy, he appeared to be disabled a couple hundred yards from us. At first we thought his dinghy outboard wouldn't start, but when Dave went out to check on him, he reported that his outboard had fallen off and was sitting on the bottom, still attached to his dinghy by a cable. He needed help retrieving it. It turned out the outboard was a four stroke 25hp Mercury (they weigh between 130 and 155 lbs, depending on the model) and it was windy. Needless to say, it took the 3 of us (with his large Chocolate Lab on board too), to pull the outboard off the bottom and into the dinghy. We towed him to his boat, recommended a couple of marinas not too far from there, then continued on our way.

We love Beaufort, NC so we went into the Town Docks and spent a few chilly days. We were so lucky last year with temps in the 70s almost the entire way from Maine to Florida, but this year was turning out to be a different story, with multiple nights in the low 40s. We wanted to slow down but our desire to get to warmer climes won and we decided to take advantage of a good offshore travel window. We had our sights set on Brunswick,GA as the furthest we could make it on our fuel.

We ended up moving closer to shore as we neared the NC/SC state line, because the seas seemed to be a little calmer. When we got just outside of Charleston it was still 'bouncy" enough that an unintentional tap on the touchscreen of one of our chart plotters disabled both of them. Our tablet wasn't recognizing our boat's position, we no longer had AIS or Radar and it was the middle of the night, so we navigated through the Charleston Inlet with just the chart on my phone! We anchored, got the chart plotters up and running again and waited a couple of hours for the sun to rise, then kept going.

Our calculations had us getting into Brunswick with fuel to spare. Well, apparently a sustained period of rough seas and the extra mileage going in and out of Charleston were enough to prove us wrong. Just outside the Brunswick Inlet we ran out of fuel. Thankfully we were in a great spot to break down. Morningstar Marina was full but graciously allowed us to be towed to their dock and stay as long as we needed.

Ballyhoo has a fuel primer pump which we have successfully used several times for filter changes, but it didn't work this time. There was enough air in the system that we had to get a mechanic to bleed a couple of the injectors. Lesson learned. We will be even more conservative from now on.

One of our windshield wipers (fortunately the least important one) had stopped working. Dave attempted to diagnose the problem, but in kneeling on the counter to reach it, forgot about the glass top stove (covered with a soft mat) and shattered the glass. (Oh shucks, I guess I need a brand new one). It just goes to show- it's always something on a boat!

We were able to go offshore again to St. Augustine. We got on a mooring for several nights and walked around town, something we hadn't done recently. There were several events going on, including a spirited walk for ALS which had thousands of participants, including many student representatives from Flagler College sports teams. Local eateries were out cheering the walkers and handing out there baked goods and other treats. There was a great sense of community vibe.

With unusually cold temperatures coming our way, we went into a marina in Titusville to plug in and enjoyed walks in the adjacent parks. From there we made our final leg directly down to to Stuart, arriving Thursday 11/13. It's always good to be back.En savoir plus