Bright Sun. Not So Bright People.

Case in point. As we prepared to depart Fernandina Beach at about 11 a.m. to head to St. Augustine I met a guy up in the dog walking area who inquired about our boat. He asked "How do you know where you are going - do you like have GPS?" I responded, "yes, but unfortunately it's not working so we'll have to rely on the charts" He looks amazed and says, "so like do you read the stars?" I simply did not know how to respond but I'm pretty sure my expression said "are you stupid?" But rather than saying that aloud, I just said, "that or we use a compass" He gives that self-deprecating stoner chuckle and says "Oh yeah - a compass" Then I asked, "where are you from?", fully expecting him to say Florida but instead he answered, "L.A." Of course.

GPS just wasn't finding us but it was a gorgeous sunny day and we ran the intercoastal using charts. It was a gorgeous run and I kind of enjoyed telling Tom where to go. Without electronic toys to play with he got bored and decided that it was an ideal time to teach me to drive the boat. It was a lot like my Dad teaching me to drive. See, my Dad really loved his cars and my husband really loves his boat. Putting these prized possessions in the hands of an amateur makes them a little nervous. I did fine - there are a couple of funky little things like a delay when you accelerate but I got used to it (and I also got used to him yelling at me "speed up, slow down - NOW, get over - no the other way!) I drive best when he's down in the head.

Arrived in St. Augustine around 4. Tom fixed the GPS - has no idea what he did to fix it but...it's back and he's happy. We run to Daytona tomorrow to visit Joyce and Paul. Looking forward to seeing them.

Today I'm thankful for...

calm seas, a sunny day in the midst of a cold, drizzly week, cellphones so that we could talk to our family and friends, a very good captain/hubby, and the best little boat dog on earth. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

We spent last night in Beaufort SC and had a wonderful visit with the McGarrity's. Pat gave us a tour of the historic home district - you could just feel the history in that place. Had visions of Rhett and Scarlet strolling along, sniping at each other. Gorgeous, authentically restored homes, including McGarrity's stunner. Suzanne has a great sense of combining old with new - loved her home. And, I will never forget the ham bisquits. Yum, yum, yum. Like nothing I've ever tasted.

Left Beaufort at about 11 a.m. today and ran outside in almost non-existent waves. A gift from God this Thanksgiving. The seas eventually built to about 3 foot but not until we were ready to slip into the ICW channel to Amelia Island Florida. The run through that channel was challenging. Lots of really narrow twists and turns with little branches going off in all directions. Markers up the wazoo! So there was a lot of "wait - that's not our red...is that our green?" Geez Louise - it was ridiculous.

Fernandina Beach on Ameilia Island is a really cute town and very dog friendly so it's fun to walk around and shop. We found a great little restaurant serving Thanksgiving dinner so we didn't have to resort to those turkey sandwiches after all. We're blessed and we're thankful. Hope everyone had a lovely day. Tomorrow we're off to St. Augustine.

Oh, and we're thankful for all of our "followers" too: )

We're Back!

In Charleston that is. The boat got a facelift while we were home - new carpet and cork flooring. We're really happy with it. Thank you Jim Franey and World of Floors. Not only is the interior much nicer, but with all new batteries installed, I think our engine issues and GPS failures are behind us (quick - knock wood)

LaBelles came with us for the weekend. Their son Lance works at the Boeing plant here and needed a stress relieving overnight cruise to Beaufort and back with us. Don't know how strees free it was given that it became our first night time run with this boat. And do you think we could have had just a sliver of moonlight to help us out? No such luck. It was as pitch black as I've ever seen and after a few panicked moments, we figured out how to get the built-in spotlight working. Having two helms is a nice feature unless you have the spot working from the wrong helm at exactly the moment when you NEED to spot the green marker shielding you from very shallow water.

Arrived in Beaufort about 8 p.m. and headed out to find a good restaurant. The McGarrity's from the Old Club spend their winters in Beaufort and we promised to contact them if we got to their town. Since this was just an overnighter, we figured we'd call them later in the week when we head back their way. Who do you think was sitting at the first table of the restaurant we walked into and said "I thought you were going to call us!" It really is such a small world. We will be seeing them tomorrow though and we all got a good laugh out of it.

Circled back to Charleston to drop off our guests - we had a lot of laughs and seeing a hard-working, level-headed kid with a great sense of humor gave me hope for this Y generation. We head out toward Florida tomorrow but would highly recommend Charleston to anyone looking for a great, small-town, yet cosmopolitan vacation. We'd come back.

Bad Luck or Good Luck?

I guess it's all in how you look at it. We spent last night in Georgetown SC after a pretty good run along the Intercoastal. Pretty much ran with "Miss Penny" a lovely custom 53 Alden out of Palm Beach. Nicest couple - we really enjoyed chatting with them once we both put in. We planned to run to Charleston today (50 miles) but our starboard engine didn't want to start. Tom jumped the battery, got her going and we were off. 10 Miles into our journey the port engine's power dropped dramatically. Tom shut it down and restarted it and everything seemed fine. And then the starboard engine just went dead and was NOT going to restart. While we were both thinking "Good Lord what if the port engine goes out again!!" neither of us dared to speak it out loud. And then the power dropped off on the port engine again. Now, do you shut it down and hope you can restart it again or just keep going at a snail's pace on that last engine? We decided to try to restart it but I was out on the bow with lines ready to tie up to this concrete pier that we were drifting towards, just in case. God bless that little engine that could - it restarted. We kept losing power though and finally just crawled into The Isle of Palms, about 10 miles shy of Charleston. Never been so happy to see a sleepy little town. It's not an engine issue but a battery issue. We're putting all new batteries in the boat just to ward off any future issues and we'll try for Charleston again tomorrow.

Poor Captain, he has a gimpy first mate, a gimpy boat...but he's lucky. We say that because we are reading an article in the local paper about a boat that lost its engines exactly where we were. They ran aground as the tide was going out, ended up listing over while sinking into the mud and had to be rescued by Coast Guard helicopters. See, we are very lucky - it's all in how you look at it.