St. Augustine to Titusville, January 6 – 7, 2014

This is Phil, and I’m taking my first turn at writing the blog! Kay has shouldered the entire burden for the whole trip so far. I sailed solo out of St. Augustine for two days in early January, so this one is up to me.

Backing up a little bit, we had run out of vacation by the end of October. I had to find a desk with internet connection to work for awhile and work until I earned more time off. I knew that Cinderella was going to stop in St. Augustine, so that is where Catmandu tied up for more than two months: St. Augustine Municipal Marina. I became a Florida resident. I got my driver’s license, registered to vote, and got Florida stickers for Catmandu and Catnip (the dinghy). Kay flew back to New Hampshire, and was unceremoniously and unfairly laid off from her job as soon as she got home.

Time passed. I rented an office in town, and became fast friends with many people through the St. Augustine Cruisers’ Net. Then, our besties Dan & Jaye Lunsford invited us to their epic 30^th anniversary party aboard the pirate ship Black Raven on January 4!

Kay and I had to go. It was a long trip from New Hampshire, but we needed to make it happen. It was the perfect opportunity to finally get ourselves south to final destination of Fort Lauderdale. Just before, Kay moved out of her condo, put it up for sale, packed up her two cats in her Saturn Ion and drove down to St. Augustine. She picked me up and then we both went to Fort Lauderdale and rented an apartment, left the cats, and drove back to St. Augustine on 1/4. We had a fantastic time on Saturday night, and spent Sunday on the mooring, recovering and getting the boat ready to sail south.

Pirate-y Aftermath!

Dan and Jaye Lunsford’s Pirate Party even made the Jacksonville.com website!

Monday morning came. I tanked up with gas and water, motor sailed south. It rained for the first three hours, but I tried to stay mostly dry. I had a big northeast wind at about 20 knots, and I was able to make better than 6 knots with the genoa fully unfurled.

Matanzas Inlet

I always check the cruising guides, like On The Water Chart Guides and the Salty Southeast Cruisers’ Net, for the latest ICW trouble spots. They had both indicated shoaling (shallow water) at the Matanzas Inlet, just 20 miles south of St. Augustine. The ICW typically shoals around the inlets due to the constant flow of water and sand between the sea and the waterway. However, I followed others’ advice of trusting the buoys as they are placed and adjusted by the Coast Guard and not the electronic chart plotter. I zigged and zagged through the inlet and did not run aground – even though my chart plotter said I was sailing on land for several hundred yards (a situation which makes a sailor’s butt pucker). The larger sailboat behind me did a 180 when they got to the inlet until they figured out that they could follow the path I had shown.

The wind was still howling at 5:30 at night, so I anchored with the 35 pound big honkin’ anchor (“BHA”) and 70 feet of chain just south of Daytona Beach. The flags were banging on the shrouds so loudly I had to take the flags down. The weather turned cold. I bunked down in the cabin next to stove while heating a big clay flowerpot to disperse the heat.

 January 7

The forecast low temperature for Daytona Beach was 41 but it was only 32 degrees when I got up in the morning. I didn’t have warm winter clothes since they were still in my storage unit in Annapolis. So, I made hot coffee and put on all the clothes I had. There were no gloves so I wore some ski socks I found on my hands. The wind was still strong and it was extremely hard getting the anchor back on the boat. The regular way to get the anchor onboard is to have your partner (Kay) motor up to the spot just above where the anchor is set. Then the bow person (me) muscles it up onto the bow. Because the anchor is straight down, it should then pop right out of its muddy set on the bottom. It is almost impossible to pull the whole sailboat up by hand by the anchor rode under 20 knot winds.

Improvising, I motored up beyond where the anchor was. I put the engine in neutral, and scurried up to the bow and pulled up as much anchor chain as I could. When the anchor rode was taut again, I wrapped the chain around the cleat and scurried back to the cockpit. After the first round trip, my hands were so cold I could hardly move my fingers. I had to spend 15 minutes warming my hands each time before I tried again. It took me four tries, going back and forth, before the anchor finally broke free of the bottom. It felt like hockey season in Minnesota.

The temperature did not get above 42 degrees the whole day, but I stayed active and hydrated and made the best of sailing solo. I enjoyed unexpected inspiring views of the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse, and relaxing New Smyrna Beach. Then came the wide open waters of the Mosquito Lagoon. I saw about a dozen dolphins and a medium-sized turtle but no manatees. Fifteen miles out from my destination of the Titusville Municipal Marina, I saw the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building on Cape Canaveral getting larger and larger on the horizon.

The Haulover Canal

At the Haulover Canal, I left the Mosquito Lagoon and entered the Indian River just north of Titusville. Kay was waiting for me at the Titusville Municipal Marina, which is very close to Cape Canaveral. We tied up Catmandu in a slip around 1530 hours, had a hot Italian dinner at a local restaurant, and then Kay drove me back to our new apartment in Fort Lauderdale.

Destination: Titusville Marina, near Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.

 “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

The Interrupted Journey – The morning I returned to work, after renting a car, flying to Boston, and taking a bus to my own frozen Saturn at the Portsmouth Transportation Center, the president of the company called me into his office. They had gotten along just fine without me during my five-week leave of absence. He said it “made no sense,” from a business standpoint, to keep me on staff. They let me go. I had spent nearly $400 to leave Phil and get home to my job and I was there for twenty minutes.

I have come to believe, like Marilyn, that it happened for a reason. It was the biggest favor they could have done for me. I was pretty sure I would eventually rejoin Phil in Florida, but my long-range plan was to save some money, get my 2013 tax refund, and then decide when to move. It would have been a six-month process and we would have been alone, 1500 miles apart. But now, I had to move quickly.

Condo for sale!

Decisions came fast: rent the condo, sell the condo, stay until Christmas, move before Christmas, get rid of furniture, get help with cleaning and painting. I had to go through every room, every closet, every box, and keep only what was dear to  me or necessary for life in a new place. (If you have not done this lately, I urge you to start. It’s not something you want to leave for your heirs after you’re gone.)

There was one decision I couldn’t make by myself. I had to be sure Phil really wanted me to come to Florida and live with him. We had talked about it while we were coming south on the ICW. But I had to be sure, because there would be no going back. When I asked, “Are you sure?”, he didn’t hesitate for a second. “Yes,” he said. “Please come to Florida.”

For the next two months, I was job hunting long-distance and trying to sell my furniture and belongings. Every day, I tried to consolidate my stuff, pack dishes, throw out clothes, and get my condo ready to sell. I had lived there for six years, but it was a large space and I had somehow filled it. In all, I gave away more than 10 “lawn and garden” bags of clothing to Goodwill. I donated three computers, three televisions, two bookcases and odds and ends of furniture to the Epilepsy Foundation. There was so much to do.

But this is a sailing blog. I was headed back to St. Augustine, and Catmandu, and Phil. I finally said goodbye to my two sons, my New Hampshire friends and my mother in Connecticut. There were tears, and sadness, but I was “advancing confidently in the direction of my dreams,” and I felt strongly that my future was with Phil.

In late December, I arrived in St. Augustine after two 12-hour days on the road with my two cats, my poor little car stuffed to the ceiling. Phil met me at the pet-friendly motel, and after a breakfast with our cruising friends, Dan and Jaye, we headed south to our new apartment in Fort Lauderdale. Yes, we left the boat behind on a mooring in St. Augustine.

It felt strange to be moving into an apartment, but with two cats and Phil’s need for reliable internet service, there was really no choice. We found a place with palm trees and swimming pools, and the January weather was hot and sunny. Phil swam on New Year’s Day.

New Year’s Eve at Fort Lauderdale Beach.

One of the local restaurants had a disco ball on a pole, set to drop at midnight. But it got stuck and finally dropped at around 12:03.

Phil swimming at our new apartment on New Year’s Day.

It would be a few weekends yet before we could get the boat down the coast. At around 6 mph, St. Augustine is 5-6 days from Fort Lauderdale. It would involve a logistics nightmare of renting cars,  dropping one car at the takeout point and driving to the put-in, then going back to get the car at the northern end of the route. Don’t worry if you didn’t follow that. It makes my head spin.

We are together, and it does feel like a dream. We’re happy. Sometime in the future, we want to be cruisers: To live on a larger boat, cruise the islands, explore the aqua Caribbean waters. It’s a good dream, and we will go confidently in that direction. But for now, we are CLODS: Cruisers Living on Dirt.