Time In A Bottle: 2012

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Dropped anchor at Bird Island

After we dropped anchor at Bird Island we took the dinghy over to walk around and check out the waves breaking by the inlet.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

having dinner at Joe and Darlene

Pizza Party at Joe and Darlenes house over looking marina.

Stan and Joe broke out the guitars we had a blast.

Cruising South on the ICW from South Port, NC to Little River SC

Cruising South on the ICW from South Port, NC to Little River SC

just a over cast morning a little cool and some rain but still beats working!

Joe bought me a boat!

Tied to dock in South Port Marina and walking town

Entering Cape Fear River channel I had the wheel and it was a fight sometimes to keep the boat straight. You don't realize how strong the seas are until you enter this channel and have the seas doing everything they can to twist the boat around. We motored to South Port Marina and tied to the fuel dock. We walked into town and had dinner at Fishy Fishy. Food was great.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

sailing to south port NC

We are sailing to south port NC sailing between 7 knots to 8.2 knot's beautiful day

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Sunday morning April 22nd

This was a welcome site after the events last night. The seas where about 6ft ,very close together and broad siding us as well as raining. Oh ya , our raw water that cools the engine stopped working at 3am so Joe tried to fix it. In the rough weather but just couldn't find what was wrong. When the sun came up around 6am the seas and winds died down. We started working on the engine raw water pump[not easy to get to the impeller].It was fine and water coming into the boat checked out ok. The belt was loose and I removed each hose coming from pump, banged on the heat exchangers starting engines each time.Finaaly it started working-oh ya -now its around 8am 5 more hours to inlet.
Motor sailed in-all is well arriving a 3 pm in Little River instead of 11 am-but great trip with challenges,adventure,and arrived safely ahead of colder weather.Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!Back at or home dock for a few months of local sailing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

joe checking weather in Little River-on the phone at sea!! with Captain John Schwab.We double checked 3 different sights and marine forcasts that all understated the resulting 20 knot winds.Oh well,we sailed on to Little River!!

Leaving Hilton Head Island, SC Saturday April 21st

So we left our slip at 7:30am and headed for the deep water. Steve and Stan arrived at around 12:30am and we stayed up until about 2 or 2:30am. Crap -alarm clocks stink when they go off at about 6am.
What a beautiful day so far.

Here is a video of us going out the shipping channel.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Brian- I am the real captain-just get over it!!

So Excited The Adventure continues April 20th 2012

This is awesome we are moving on! Captain Brian drove up from Florida to join first mate Joe to sail the boat from Hilton Head Island, SC to Little River, SC also known as North Myrtle Beach Marina. Joes friends Steve and Stan are flying in from St Louis and will arrive at the boat around 1:30AM and we will be departing at 5AM for a weeks worth of sailing. Oh Ya Baby! Steve is used to not sleeping on sail trips with Joe. So I will decide what their boat classification names should be after they wake up! ha ha. So stay tuned this is going to be FUN!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Table Fare Caught 35 to 40 miles offshore

Man what a sail trip!!!!!!!!!!
We had caught 25lb little tunnies or atlantic bonito's on the first day and then BAMMMM on the second day we had a nice hit and this time pirate galley slave Gary brought in a nice Mahi Mahi. It took a few minutes to filet it but Gary had it cooked and served us fresh fish for lunch and man it was awesome!!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Stuart,FL

downtown historic Stuart at Pelican Cafe-Marina across the bay

Boca with son and Nikki-great German food!!

Favorite Marina
Sunset Harbor Marina

Sailor's Return-Sunset Harbor Marina
Stuart,Fl

Salerno-quaint harbor and plenty of good places to eat!!

Pelican Cafe water front boardwalk'
Historic downtown Stuart

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Dolphins come to play!!!!

So just about the end of the day we see around 4 Dolphins come up into our bow wake and start playing; racing back and forth from one side of the boat to the other. We must have stood on the bow for about 25 minutes while they would come up to the surface and lay over on their side like they where looking at us. It was exciting and a great sight to watch at the end of day 1 of our trip!
Night time came! If you have never been out away from the city lights in a dark, clear sky you need to try it. There are more stars in the sky,shooting stars,and maybe UFO’s than you can imagine-simply amazing. We tried to do night watches but it was hard to get used. Needless to say Joe and I didn’t sleep that much but did do 3 hour watches.It baffles me how Gary just lays his head down while we are bouncing around and he’s out as soon as his head touches the pillow. It takes me forever to get to sleep. Maybe I don’t trust Joe by himself and he doesn’t trust me! Whatever-I’m the one to trust-not Joe.
Motor sailed all night with mostly wind driving the boat and a little motor power to keep us 6.5-6.8 knots.

Video of Dolphins playing.

Motoring out from Fort Pierce inlet. Wednesday 2/29/12

Great inlet wide and deep. Once out in the ocean we had about 2 to 4’ seas with about 10 to 15 knots of south east wind. We put up the sails and set the auto pilot on the course we needed to sail to Hilton Head Island. It was a sunny day about 80 degrees. We shut down the iron horse and sailed along about 6.5 knots for a few hours before the winds started to die down. We cranked the good ole iron horse back up and motor sailed the rest of day 1. We did end up catching a (Big) Little Tuny (Atlantic Bonito) had a great fight bringing him on board and we would say it was about 3-½’ long 65lbs Oh sorry fish tale no it was about 2’ long and about 25lbs.