Florida to Georgia
The six months spent on the West Coast of Florida was a productive, if not surreal time.
In January & February we were getting projects started, meeting new and old friends, and getting into a fun routine of activities.
Friends would continue to drop by when in-town, boxfit and birding were in full swing, day trips and happy hours were planned, including a girls weekend in St Petersburg ~ a much anticipated reunion with friends from long ago work days.
By the first week of March, the first Florida death from coronavirus turned up in our County and everything changed. We were very concerned immediately and went on self-isolation well before the formal restrictions started.
It turns out that this was probably a good year for boat work, considering the major challenges faced when cruising in and to other countries that have border closures during a pandemic.
We soon dove into a new routine of boat work over the next four months. Continuing with the refit, we now have re-configured running rigging, a new stove/oven, a new 30 gal/hr watermaker, a non-leaking generator and electronic throttles.
Two major contracted projects for a new settee, cockpit enclosure with shades, and cushions went forward with single points of contact, while we isolated on the boat. We were careful to distance and spent a lot of time down in the hulls when grinding and other work took place.
Reach also got a much needed polish and shined up nicely. We are more than happy with how everything turned out!!
One bright spot during this period was spring bird migration. Although I greatly missed birding with my new Audubon friends, walking solo with a camera in nature was a great salve for the uncertain times.
During a particularly nice fallout, I was fortunate to see several more life-birds, including many colorful and sometimes rare warblers.
When the migrating birds were gone, I practiced with my macro lens and attempted to really push my understanding of the exposure triangle of aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
By the end of June we needed to be on the move for hurricane season (our insurance doesn’t cover us during this period for named storms in Florida).
We left Twin Dolphin Marina on the last day of June for a straight shot to Georgia, which is in-range for our insurance coverage from July - October.
The weather window we faced was not bad considering the worry about tropical storms forming this time of year. In fact, the Sahara dust that had been traversing the Atlantic serves to tamp down storm activity and cleared the way for our trip. On the downside though, it also tamped down any wind, so we had to motorsail most of the way.
We are very comfortable with passage-making. Each sunrise and sunset is the highlight of the day. The waxing moon was growing brighter every night and once your eyes adjusted, made nighttime feel like close to daylight. Several books were read.
Overall, the trip was calm, if not sweaty and hot in the 90’s F day and night.
Cooking on the induction cooktop helped to keep the heat in the cabin down.
I had swollen feet the whole time, which has happened before on long flights and/or in extreme heat.
The usual passage highlights did not disapoint:
Dolphins playing on the bow (they didn’t stay long)
Huge sea turtles surfacing for a big breath (loggerhead & leatherback)
Flying fish (zipping tracks over the smooth water surface)
Catching fish (only one ~ a bonito returned to sea)
Cargo ship crossing situations (closest point of approach 0.250 nm)
Thunderstorms with lightning (Mark managed to sail through a split in the front seen on radar)
Rain washing off a salty boat (the new enclosure worked perfectly)
Sailing a beam reach (boat speed 9-10 kts in 14-16 kts wind ~ SOG 12+ kts with Gulf Stream currents)
Entering Georgia, we passed the grounded and overturned RORO cargo ship the Golden Ray.
They have made progress dismantling the ship since the last time we passed in Nov 2019.
After four days exactly since leaving Bradenton FL, we passed under the Sidney Lanier bridge and took in the beautiful green marshes of the Georgia lowlands at high tide.
Now, we have returned to our familiar slip in Brunswick Landing Marina to knock out the final stages of our refit (you didn’t think we were done yet, right?)!