April 24-May 3, 2018
Now out of Florida after spending the winter there, our first stop in Georgia is Cumberland Island. We find an awesome anchorage just off the island, where we can easily dingy to shore to check out all that the island has to offer. It’s a very warm day, and the sun is fierce. We put on sunscreen and bug spray, and our bug repellant shirts and head out. I made Rilee a special bandana sprayed with bug spray to help her too. The mosquitos and flies were fierce. We hiked through the island to get to the Dungeness ruins. On the way, we spot our first armadillo crossing the road, and evidence of the wild ponies that roam the island. The Dungeness mansion and 90% of the island was once owned by Thomas Carnegie, brother of Andrew Carnegie. The mansion was abandoned in the 20’s, and was destroyed by fire in the 50’s. While exploring the ruins, we see our first wild horses, grazing on the field. We continue our hike towards the ocean, and along the way we encounter a wild turkey. While exploring the surf on the beach, we see jellyfish, horseshoe crabs, and plenty of sea shells. We look up from the sand to see a group of horses in the distance. As we get closer, we see one is a baby, reportedly days old. We head back to the dock to take the dingy back to the boat. It’s pretty cool to spend the afternoon on an island only accessible by boat. We stayed on the island until dusk, after the ferries leave the island. The only ones left are those who had come by private boat, or who had planned to camp on the island for the night. Back on the boat, enjoying the last bit of daylight, we once again see the horses, walking along the shoreline. This was an amazing stop, and we wished we could stay longer. We needed to move on, we had visitors headed our way!
We leave Cumberland Island and head to Jekyll Island. Here, we are meeting Chad’s mom and boyfriend, Mike. It’s been nearly four months since we have seen them, so it is a happy reunion! We are fortunate to be able to spend several days with them, exploring the island. Jekyll Island was such a neat spot, full of history as well. We visit the Jekyll Island Club, now a member of the Historic Hotels of America, but once a private club with members from the world’s wealthiest families such as the Morgans, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. We were able to tour some of the private cottages and church, complete with Tiffany stained glass. Chad and I head out early in the morning to move on to St. Simons Island, where Jean and Mike will meet us. We spend the day touring a light house and checking out the fun tourist town. We drive to Brunswick and find a fun evening art fair. Mike found out about an amazing little restaurant, and we ate until we were so stuffed…and the no-see-ums attacked! The next day we had an interesting tour at Fort Frederica, and attempted to get onto the apparently guarded Sea Island. Jean and Mike depart that night, headed back to Michigan.
The next morning, we get moving again. We stop for the night on Kilkenny Creek, in Richmond Hill. The isolation of the town reminds me of many of our river stops. However, this time it is much warmer, and also very buggy! As dark sets in, we depart down below, but first I hear the noise of the dolphins surfacing around the boat. Unable to see them, we hear them coming up for a breath while they hunt for dinner. So very cool!
We depart at first light the next morning, to be able to traverse some very shallow spots on a rising tide, as near to high tide as we dare. We are now in nearly nine foot tides, so the water height will change by nine feet every six hours. This is very significant for our boat, especially with a 4.5 foot draft (the distance from the water line to the bottom of our keel), and with some sections of the Georgia Intracoastal as shallow as only two feet deep at low tide. We must transit these areas near high tide. One such section is aptly named “Hell Gate” (one of several sections on the Atlantic named this) because of strong currents and notorious shoaling. We pass through Hell Gate without issue, and soon enough are on the Savannah River, headed for downtown Savannah.
We are staying at the Westin, right on the river. We are sad to learn the city docks and most other hotel docks, which were destroyed by Hurricane Matthew (2016), have not been rebuilt. It seems like so much potential for such a cool city. Regardless, we are happy to be staying at the Westin docks, and even happier we get to use the great Westin facilities! With just a short free ferry ride across the river, we are in downtown Savannah, checking out all that the amazing city has to offer!
We depart Savannah, now headed on to South Carolina. It seems like we are flying through states again!
From the peaceful, laid back days in the Keys, we were thrown into the new reality of a sunny, warm, busy Sunday afternoon in Miami. Boat after boat sped by us, almost as if in competition of who could go the fastest and throw the most wake. We were heading for what we had heard was an amazing, protected anchorage. On the way, we see new friends Jim and Gloria. Sadly, they are stopped and waiting for a tow, they picked up a large line wrapped around their prop. Not able to help, we continue on to the anchorage. We pull into No Name Harbor, only to find the anchorage very busy, with boats anchored uncomfortably close. We find a small spot we think will work and drop anchor, knowing most of the boats here are not staying the night, and if we can hang in for a few hours we will have the place to ourselves. Not able to let out much scope, in a surprisingly deep anchorage, we are not able to set the hook. We pull up the anchor and retreat. We find out Chad’s friend Scott is in town to visit his son Matthew (recall Chad and Scott’s great adventure to get our new boat from Bayfield, WI to Frankfort, MI 
Ready to move on from the craziness that is Miami, we head to Hollywood. Calmer than Miami, but still a very active town, we spend some time walking the beach and doing some boat maintenance. We found a fun brewery on the beach, and got to meet up with Scott and Matthew again before Scott heads back to Michigan. Ready for a peaceful night, we move on and find an anchorage outside of the little town of Lantana. Our next stop is Palm Beach Gardens, on our journey out of southern Florida. People often ask how we do our grocery shopping. Truthfully, most of the time we have been lucky enough to have access to a vehicle or a shuttle when we have to do bigger restocking trips. This time, we did not. So we made the most of it and loaded up our backpacks and even one for Rilee, and we went to the grocery store three times. We got the groceries we needed, and some extra exercise. We rewarded ourselves with a cold brew at a fun little brewery we found.
The next day we arrive at Port Salerno, at the Eastern end of the Okeechobee Waterway. Many loopers take the Okeechobee Waterway instead of going down to the Keys like we did. We waited out some strong wind and waves, and checked out Port Salerno and Stuart. Heading north again, we find a great anchorage near Fort Pierce. It is an extremely protected spot, surrounded by homes. The only problem is there is no great place to take Rilee to shore. This is not an uncommon problem we have found in Florida, and one of the main reasons we haven’t anchored more. We take a long, bumpy, wet dingy ride to Fort Pierce. We have a great time checking out the brewery and ciderworks, and completely tired Rilee out in the process, a successful afternoon! The dingy ride back is not as bad, but we are happy to pull anchor in the morning and head on.
We arrive to Melbourne, docking in 25 knot winds, and are happy to find two other looper boats. We spend the evening telling docktales over docktails. Heading out the next day, we arrive to Cocoa. We are happy to meet up with Chad’s cousin Leyda and her daughter Marissa. We haven’t seen them in a few years, and are glad we get to spend two evenings together catching up. At Cocoa we also find other loopers, and together we all watch a SpaceX launch for a resupply mission to the International Space Station. We also spent some time at Cocoa Beach, and also spent a day at NASA, where we saw our first alligator on the trip!
Heading on north, we pass through the Haulover Canal. Apparently it is manatee mating season, and there tons of manatee all over! We have to be really careful to navigate around the mating rituals. Ready for a good anchorage, we anchor in Mosquito Lagoon. While it is a fairly open body of water, the direction the wind is predicted to come from should give us some protection. It’s a beautiful spot, near the ocean and a great spot to take Rilee to shore. We spend the afternoon walking the beach, careful not to turn to the south, towards the senior nude beach…not a pretty picture. Rilee finds some turtles in the brush (don’t worry we didn’t let her get them!). We head back to the boat for the evening, where we spent the early hours getting rocked, and not gently to sleep. The wind shifted and the waves increased to 3 plus feet, not at all what was forecasted for the night. We left at first light and headed straight to New Smyrna Beach, where they had a free dock. We tied up to the dock and all three of us took a long nap. Waking up, there were fishermen on the dock, fishing over the boat. Afraid for our canvas, we decided to look for a marina for the night. Down at the city marina, while Chad is inside checking on availability, Rilee and I notice a boat drifting towards the marina. Someone on an adjacent fishing dock had tried to move a boat using a book hook, and it broke free. I let Chad know and he and some others ran down to avoid a collision. After all the commotion, we got a spot at the marina for the night.
We make a stop at Daytona Beach, hiding out from some bad weather. Not once the spring break hotspot it used to be, the small downtown was struggling to survive. Heading north, the tides are gradually increasing. From a one foot tide at Daytona Beach, we arrive in St. Augustine, where we first encounter a five foot tide. Every six hours, the tide goes from high to low, or low to high. Thankfully most docks are floating, as it is very difficult to tie the boat in properly with a tide that extreme! St. Augustine, the Nation’s Oldest City, is beautiful and rich in history. We make sure to take in a history tour, visit the Fountain of Life, have lunch in a swimming pool, visit a distillery and winery, and take a ghost tour on Friday the 13th! We are also lucky enough to have family to visit in the area. We head out to Penney Farms, where we spend a wonderful afternoon with Chad’s second cousins Kay and Paul. They live in such a cool retirement community, originally founded by J.C. Penney. Kay is an amazing cook, and we have such a feast for lunch! She sends us home loaded up with leftovers and all other kinds of goodies! We enjoyed the much too short visit, learning all about family history and hearing all about Kay and Paul’s adventures.
Time to move on, we set our sights on a free dock on Sisters Creek. Checking in with some fellow loopers, we learn the free dock is pretty full. Instead, we decide to head for the nearest marina in Mayport. The marina is on the very fast moving St. Johns River, which empties directly into the Atlantic. Through some herculean effort, Chad manages to dock the boat against a 6 knot current (note our normal forward speed is about 6.2 knots, almost leaving us at a stand still) and 20 knot wind, without so much as bumping the dock. We get in contact with our friends on First Forty and State of Bliss, and find out they have had some trouble at the free dock, and are heading our way. We help them dock in the crazy conditions, and we all head out for dinner and drinks, ready to put the day behind us.
Planning our departure the next day, we use the current to our advantage. Now facing seven foot tides, we have to time our travels according to the tides. We had really hoped to anchor out, but Rilee gave us a scare, and we decided we needed to get to a marina with a car and near a vet (turns out she had a kidney stone, and is doing just fine now). We found an awesome spot at Amelia Island Marina, where we spend some time so we can keep an eye on Rilee. We tour Fernandina Beach and Fort Clinch State Park. Sadly, we find the dock at Fernandina Beach has not recovered from Hurricane Matthew (2016), and in fact is so shallow at low tide that even shallow draft boats are on the bottom. Chad found a really cool restaurant on the beach, complete with swings to sit on at the bar…I love it!!!
As we departed the Everglades, headed for Marathon on Boot Key, land slowly disappeared out of sight. We were hoping the forecast would hold, so we would be able to do some sailing. The wind was actually lower than predicted, and eventually died entirely, leaving us all very hot as we motored on. We occasionally saw another boat, but other than that, it was just miles and miles of crystal clear water…CRAB POT! Oh yes, we were also surrounded by hundreds and thousands of crab pots! What started out as organized lines of colorful floating markers designating the crab pot below quickly turned into a difficult to navigate mess of haphazardly placed pots. The closer we got to Marathon, the shallower the water got, and the more crab pots we saw.
Besides looking for crab pots, we were also entertained by what we called “flying fish.” They would jump out of the water and appear to fly across the water by skimming the surface. Eventually the Seven Mile Bridge appeared, just a spec on the horizon for a very long time. Finally, as the sun began to set, we could see land! We arrived safely in Marathon, just as the sun set and the dark set in.
We awoke the next morning, and truly felt like we were in paradise. The marina had amazing views of Florida Bay, just off our cockpit! Refreshed after a long, hot trip the day before, we set out to explore Marathon. Crossing A1A was a bit of a challenge, much like a game of frogger. Unsure what to expect after last season’s hurricanes, we were happy to see that much of the island was in great repair. We arrived just in time to see a large group of loopers off. We may be a bit behind the pack, but we are enjoying living on island time in this beautiful scenery!
After a few days, we have a good weather day to head south under the Seven Mile Bridge, and then head west to Key West. We will take the Hawk Channel, a relatively deep and wide channel between the keys and a line of barrier reefs. We are able to take advantage of the wind and do some amazing sailing in the gorgeous clear blue water. The salty ocean air and the wind in our hair, we see dolphins and a turtle, and lots of fish. We arrive on Stock Island, right next to Key West. We have peace and quiet on this island, but there is a shuttle to take us to the fun and excitement of Key West. After hearing Kenny Chesney may be in Key West, I quickly drag Chad off the boat and we begin checking out the island town. Although we did not find Kenny, we still got a chance to soak up some of the night life on the island. Duval Street has quite the bar scene!
We spent the next few days taking in all the sights of Key West and indulging on Cuban food and coffee (I miss the yummy Cuban coffee!), Key Lime Pie, and so much seafood! We checked out so many cool places like Hemingway’s house (we just had to see the six-toed cats!), Mel Fisher’s treasure museum, and even a ghost tour (if you don’t know what Robert the Doll is, look it up, it’s creepy!). Since the weather was not cooperating for us to sail to the Dry Tortugas National Park (and even the ferry was booked), instead we got to check out Fort Zachary Taylor, and spent some time on the gorgeous beach there. Apparently some even decided it was a topless beach, so Chad really enjoyed that!
We spent nearly two weeks on Stock Island, as the winds were strong and created rough waters. We made friends with our neighbors at the marina, and they invited us out for a ride on their skiff to “their island.” Not knowing what to expect, we had an amazing day with new friends Jim and Mary. They took us out to a beautiful, secluded island where we spent the afternoon sipping margaritas and playing in the warm, clear water. After attempting some fishing, we headed back to the marina. This day was definitely a highlight of our trip!
We left Marathon on a beautiful morning, and fell in line behind S/V Holiday and S/V Radio Waves. We followed the sailboat parade all the way to an amazing anchorage near Long Key. After setting anchor, we finally got to meet the sailors we had been following all day. We shared a fun dinner onshore at Lobster Crawl, then spent the evening under the stars aboard S/V Holiday. Zach from S/V played his ukulele as we all sang along and had a great time. It was so great to meet other sailors who were our age!
We departed the next morning, making our way through mangrove lined channels. Slowly, the channels opened up as we entered Barnes Sound and then Card Sound. Finally, as we entered Biscayne Bay, the keys disappeared behind us. Just like that, Miami appeared in the horizon. Wow, what a dramatic difference between the beauty and nature of the keys, and the large looming buildings of Miami. We couldn’t help but have mixed emotions as we rounded the tip of Florida and slowly started heading north again. The keys were such a highlight of our trip, one that we had both looked forward to, and despite not making the Dry Tortugas, also exceeded our expectations in ways we would have never guessed. We also knew we were now on our way north, closer and closer towards Michigan, and the end of our Great Loop adventure.