Back in Business

Now I know many of you will have un-bookmarked me (Tracy) or may fear we have sunk so just a quick post to allay your fears. Since our last blog post we spent a wonderful few days in Charleston - walking around admiring the architecture, eating delicious foods, and doing a little shopping.

Charleston, SC

St. Simon Island, GA

From there we headed down the ICW to Georgia

ICW, Georgia

where we went back onto the Atlantic and headed to St. Simon's Island: An old English colony that used to have rice and cotton plantations and is today a very pretty island full of touristy shops. We then headed to Savannah where we ran out of gas in a swamp and had to spend the night anchored barely off the ICW channel being eaten alive by all sorts of bugs. After we finally figured out how to bleed an engine all way through when there is absolutely no fuel in it, we headed to a fuel dock to fill up and then onto San Fernandina beach which meant we made it to Florida!!! We spent James' birthday here going out for some of the best pizza we've ever had and eating it in a beautiful courtyard.

When your birthday morning is spent in a swamp the decorations get a little shady 

The Birthday boy enjoying lunch

Not a bad way to spend a birthday!

We had hoped to go back into San Fernandina the next day but the weather was so rough and the waves were so big that we got in our dingy and immediately realized it was a terrible idea and got back on the boat!

Cummberland Island, Georgia 

St. Simon's Lighthouse

We spent two nights at the city mooring balls in St. Augustine which I think must be the coolest city in Florida. It was founded in the 1500s by the Spanish and feels like you are in Spain! Tiny streets with cobblestones, massive Spanish inspired fortress-like buildings, and great food! I spent the whole time craving massive espresso based beverages and pastries which James pointed out was because it felt a little like you were in Europe. Except in true Florida style it has a definite Disney feel to the place - the old school house has a dressed up, talking mannequin inviting you in!

St. Augustine

St. Augustine Sunset

Then we finally made it to our Florida destination - Cocoa!!! We are here at the Marina for a month to get lots of jobs finished and make some improvements to our boat and make it feel like it's ours. The whole way down from New York our mantra has been "we just need to make it to Florida" and now we have!!!

I guess our blog wouldn't be our blog without an embarrassing story so here it is... Our first day when we arrived at the marina we were exhausted. We'd been pulling some really long days to get here and our supplies were pretty low. We arrive and are greeted by really friendly staff and fellow boaters who inform us that there is a potluck that night at the marina. We thought it would be a great way to meet some new people so we headed into town in search of something edible to bring - which was a dozen donuts since everything was either closed or needed to be preordered. We got back to the marina and headed to the showers in the main building to get ready. At the end of our dock is a massive old style paddle steamer. I go off to the shower and have this glorious hot, high water pressure "land shower" and am in a bit of a happy daze when I'm finished - I'm clean and I'm looking forward to our pot luck dinner.  At the gate back to our dock is a bridal party - the bride, the father of the bride, some bridesmaids and the wedding co-ordinator. I say "congratulations" and smile and then say excuse me to get around them and back to our boat.  As I'm walking down the dock the paddle steamer is at the end and it suddenly dawns on me that the dock is acting as an aisle and I have interrupted the bridal procession walking back to my boat with a towel on my head!! The photographer stopped taking photos and the paddle steamer is now full of guests who are all staring at me like "what the hell is this girl doing"?? To either side of me are all the boats at the marina who are getting ready for the potluck and have come out on deck to watch the procession. I can't turn back because the bride is behind me so I just put my head down and made a beeline for my boat. At first I felt terrible and then I thought ... why didn't ANYONE say "can you wait a minute the wedding has started"?!?! To whoever that bride and groom are I'm sorry and congratulations!

Our home for next couple of weeks

Well we've been at the marina for two weeks and have already accomplished a lot! Now as you know our boat has had some terrible smells and James and I agreed it was time to put an end to that. We ripped all the old sanitation hoses out and replaced them and installed a new septic tank - it was a throughly revolting 4 days but it is so much nicer in here!!! As an aside did you know that saltwater and urine make shale - as you cut the pipes to get them out rocks falls out. Disgusting. We found someone to repair our badly ripped sail! He had to cut the side off that was ripped and resize it but we're back to two headsails! We have also become Amazon's best customers as we have been busy procuring lots of boat supplies and some creature comforts - thank you IKEA Orlando :) We now have bedsheets, plates, glasses, bowls, even a carpet and a few Christmas decorations. Once the boat is all fixed up I will share some photos of where we live.

We took a little break from the renos and went to visit friends for Thanksgiving. It was delightful to be around friends that feel like family and have many home cooked meals - Thanksgiving was a little too good to us we need to get back on the water and burning some calories. While we were visiting our friends we went to a "resort" which I think was just a massive hotel with lots of activities but we had a very relaxing swim and pool side nap and got rejuvenated for the rest of our boat improvements.

Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving Dinner

Taking it easy at Gaylord Palms Resort

We are are the marina for another two weeks if anyone wants to send fan mail, gifts, monetary donations to keep the blog (and us) alive, please let me know and I can give you the address.

Boat Baby Gabe