Savannah to Florida

Whew! It's been a fabulous trip from Savannah, Georgia on down the eastcoast to the tip of Florida, where we currently sit "on the hook" in Ft.Lauderdale, Florida. In a few days we hope to be across the mighty Gulf Stream waters and basking in Bahamian sunshine and soaking our "bods"sapphire blue Caribbean waters.

After Savannah for Thanksgiving with Pop Lobb, we left on Saturday in a rather unprepared fashion. Thought we were ready, only to discover that this boating business leaves little pity for those caught unprepared. Our intent was to continue following the ICW south from our dockside location in Savannah and thought it was to be a simple "follow the yellow brick road" path. We found out quickly (actually after nearly 40 minutes as "wrong-way Hoolahans") that the road had taken a sharp turn we weren't aware of and hadn't checked closely enough on our charts. No problems occurred unless hurt pride counts, however, and we retraced our paths back on track and correctly down the correct "road". BIG lesson day, to say the least.

From Savannah we journeyed down the Intracoastal Waterway toward the remainder of Georgia and anchored in Teakettle Creek, GA for the night, learning another important lesson: Its not the best idea to anchor on a bend in the river. No, a blind curve mind you, just in a place where, as we discovered, currents will continue to push your boat all over the place through the night. Obviously we survived that "perpetual motion machine" and proceeded into into Florida waters after one more night at a pretty Crooked River anchorage where we awoke to "pea-soup thick" heavy fog. Delayed our departure a couple of hours but gave us time to get some boat chores done. Really pretty setting, even in the fog.

Our next stop was in Jacksonville Beach, FLA to reconnect with an old Army friend, George Leinenweber. He has retired there and it was great fun to reconnect after roughly 35 years. While at Ft. Carson he an I formed a band and enjoyed off-duty time pickin' and grinnin'. He also kept playing throughout his life so it was fun to get out the guitars and rev it up once again.
Stayed ashore for one night at his lovely home, then back to the boat for the continuance of our trip.

Next stop was St. Augustine, FLA. There we met up with Chris and Deanna Koebnick, Steamboat Springs friends who also were music buddies of ours. They stay in Florida during off months from their full-time Steamboat activities. Had a great 5 nights with them enjoying this historic and beautiful city and spending the evenings joining in at their musical engagements. Chris was the bass player with Rick and the boys for so many years in Steamboat Springs. Thier band Sundog, is who played at Ellie and Eric's committment cermony and will play at Jenny and Greg's wedding in March.

Heading south from there found us pulling into Daytona Beach for one night before arriving at Titusville (Cape Canaveral area) to discover we had arrived a couple of days prior to a scheduled space shuttle launch! We decided to wait a day to watch the launch, but it was for naught as the launch was scrubbed and rescheduled for January. No worries, as these delays are all the reason one cruises. No schedules, and no hurries!

Next nightfound us at Dragon Point, FLA. This anchorage is so-called because there used to be "dragon" sculpture which guarded the inlet to the anchorage. It has sense fallen victim to the sea and is likely not to be rebuilt. After that, we were in Ft. Pierce to connect with a school friend of Suz, Sharon and her husband John Bussey, at their beautiful weekend home get-away place. We felt like we slid right in with their friends and families and truly enjoyed the area.

Social commitments, out the way for a while, we continued south toward Ft.Lauderdale stopping at the Lake Worth area for some work to be undertaken on the water maker. Once repairs were completed, we continued on into Ft.Lauderdale to a pretty anchorage on Lake Sylvia, right off the canals in the city proper. A great anchorage which allowed us to stay a few extra days and enjoy the city.

We also found out that our energy related difficulties were not caused by something we had done but were the result of worn out primary storage batteries. As you might expect, power for this cat is providedby a large bank of golf-cat sized batteries, recharged by the generator and the engines when we are underway. Once these batteries lose storage ability due to age, no electricity for the boat to operate. The engines will run but the batts will not take a re-charge forcing their replacement. After four years, these batteries tend to die a slow but certain death. After replacing them (OUCH!$$$) we now feel ready to resume our voyage toward the islands and will head south toward our jump-off point near the top of the Florida Keys.

Last night was the Winterfest parade which is much like a floating parts. Floats (boats) are decorated with lots of lights and assorted decorations and form a parade route through the canals of FT. Lauderdale, while the spectators line the route in boats rafted together forming huge cocktail-partying clusters. We enjoyed the parade from our dingy, then came back to the boat for a late supper and off to bed.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we'll be off to Biscayne Bay area of Miami, then off to Islamorada, a northern Key from which we'll stage our Gulf Stream crossing later in the week, once the weather is right. Soon, we'll be in touch from over there!

Love Rick and Suz