Update 11/24/2010 - Hilton Head to Vero Beach

Hello to all,

Greetings from Florida. We made it to Florida earlier this month after our insurance restrictions expired and got some work done by Lamb’s Yacht Center in Jacksonville before heading south to Stuart.

Claria,Jane,Chuck and George after Dafauskie Trip

Our last week at Hilton Head was pretty good. We bought a couple of the rental bikes and rode around the island quite a bit. We were able to use the pools just about to the last weekend when they became a bit too cold. Chuck & Claria and George and Jane from Time Out came over one day in Chuck’s smaller boat and we all took a ride to Daufuskie Island for lunch at Marshside Moma’s. Marshside Moma’s is a pretty funky place and was fun to visit as well as being a pleasant boat trip as well.

Bar at Marshside Moma's

A few days later Time Out joined us at Hilton Head and we had a fun time showing them around. Sun Cat and Time Out left Hilton Head on 10/25 and [preceded down the ICW through Georgia/ Our first stop was the Herb River anchorage in Thunderbolt, Ga where we had a good night on anchor watching the Thunder and Lightning show all around us. The next stop was the Wahoo River anchorage where we had a nice quiet night. We were fortunate to be traveling during a week when the high tide was in the middle of the day, thus making passage through some of the shallow spots in the ICW less difficult.

The next night found us anchored off of the Two Way Fish Camp on the Altamaha River. We dinghied into the restaurant there- a place called Mudcat Charlie’s. Not as funky as Marshside Moma’s but still good. We passed on the catfish but found the Grouper very good. From there we traveled to Brunswick Landing Marina after filling our fuel tanks at Ocean Petroleum. Ocean serves the Brunswick shrimp fleet and always has one of the lowest fuel prices anywhere. We walked around Brunswick a bit and were surprised to find the farmer’s market open that afternoon. We also had a good dinner out that evening at the “Brewburger” restaurant.

From Brunswick we traveled past Jekyll Island, traveling through Jekyll Creek a couple of hours after low tide. Jekyll Creek is one of the worst spots on the ICW and should have been dredged last year but was not due to a buraucratic snafu – they didn’t have a “spoils plan”. Since this section has not been dredged in many years you would have thought they had had ample time to develop one. Worse, within the first mile there is a large spoils island from previous dredging. One would think they could simply put more spoils there without years (and millions of $) of study!

Plum Orchard Mansion

From Jekyll, we traveled across St Andrews sound which was quite rough with the NE wind. Fortunately it was only a few miles and then we turned for Cumberland Island where we made a detour off the ICW onto the Brickhill River which passes closer to shore and took us to a nice anchorage off of the Plum Orchard mansion. We anchored there and went ashore where we were given a great tour of the mansion which is now part of the park. The mansion was built by Mrs. Carnegie for one of her children.

The next day we motored down the ICW to the southern end of Cumberland Island where we anchored and

Beach at Cumberland Island

took a great walk, making a loop from the sea camp dock to the beach, down the beach to the Dungeness ruins and back the main road to the sea camp dock again. Cumberland is one of our favorite stops and this visit did not disappoint us.

It was now November 1 so our insurance would let us go into Florida. We said bye to George and Jane on Time Out as they were headed to St Augustine that evening and we headed up the St John River to Jacksonville where we stopped again at Lamb’s to let them finish the trim around the windows that they had been unable to finish in June due to our schedule.

Just before leaving Hilton Head, we had divers clean the bottom and they had reported that it looked like paint was coming off and that one of the props probably needed reconditioning. So we had the boat hauled to get a good look, an event which was to result in the expenditure of several boat units. (For the uninitiated, a boat unit means Break Out Another Thousand.) The paint was indeed bad and coming off in several places. There had been quite a buildup over the years and the ¼” or so was coming off in places all the way back to the gel coat. After some discussion of options, it was decided to aggressively power wash the bottom and we were amazed to see the paint come off like shrapnel. The bottom apparently had not been properly prepared for the first coat, a common occurrence with new boats.  After the cleaning the bottom was sanded and 4 coats of a primer/barrier were applied before 2 coats of bottom paint.

In addition, we had the props removed and sent to a prop shop along with the spare set. The props we were using were 23” diameter with a pitch of 20 but we were surprised to learn that the “spares” which might have been the original props were 23 X 18. The prop shop recommended that we increase the pitch to 21 on the set we were using so we did that. It appeared afterward that this increase did give us more speed at low RPM and was about the same or a little better at max RPM. We also had two of the big (8D) engine starting batteries replaced while we were there. These weigh almost 200 lbs and were over 5 years old. I didn’t want

Sun Cat's new bottom

to be replacing them in the Bahamas and wanted someone else to try to lift them.  They also finished the window trim and we had the radar fixed as a circuit board in the scanner had quit. We felt we were well treated by Lamb’s and were pleased with the work that was done.

While the boat was out of the water we decided it was a good time to retrieve our car which was still up in Hilton Head. The plan was to drive to Hilton Head, spend the night with Chuck & Claria and then drive back to Jax, have dinner with Tom & Gerry (Sea Knight), check on the boat and then drive to Daytona for a visit with Bruce & Ellie before joining George and Jane in Cocoa for a Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht Club function. After that we would drive to Jensen beach, spend a day with son Bill and then drive back to Jax with Bill taking our car back to Jensen Beach. (Yes renting a car is easier).

That plan worked out very well with one exception. As we were driving into Shelter Cove on Hilton Head (where the car was), Jean asked me if I had the keys. Of course I didn’t and neither did she! They were still in Jax 3 hours behind us!. After some debate about what to do, we called Lambs and they were able to locate the keys on the boat and overnight them to us at the marina. We had a nice evening with Chuck and Claria, using their elegant guest quarters. We then spent another nice evening with Tom and Gerry with whom we wound up staying over. After a short stop to check on the progress on the boat, we went on to a good visit with Bruce and Ellie in Daytona.  The rest of the trip went on schedule as well and by Sunday evening we were back on the boat which was launched on Monday afternoon.

Wednesday morning we headed down the river with the current and spent the next night at St Augustine, arriving in time to take a walk around the historic district. Then it was on to Daytona where we were able to get in s good beach walk and then on to Cocoa and Vero Beach.

Jean at Vero Beach

We spent 2 nights at Vero, another of our favorite stops. We tried to get in a beach walk but the tide and surf was too high so we settled for a long walk in the Riverside Park. The next day, we pulled into Stuart where we will stay until Mid-January when we will head for the Bahamas. Our Stuart adventures will be described in the next update.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Steve and Jean