Fine Craft

As I post this it is now several days into spring, and the weather has only gotten colder!  It’s been grey with high winds and horizontal rain.  I’ve been curled up down below knitting, while Bob has been standing out in the wind and rain at the helm, steering us ever northward.  The ICW in Georgia is very shallow so we can only move from shortly before high tide until shortly after high tide.  When the winds and currents are against us it’s not worth trying!  Hopefully tomorrow we will se a bit Savannah in sun with warm temperatures!  That’s what the weather predicts and I’m holding to it!

On the first day of spring we spent the morning walking the streets of Fernandina, while a dense fog had Pandora and various other transient boats lost in the mist.  It was perfectly clear on shore, but dense as pea soup out in the harbor.

Fernandina really is a beautiful southern town! Here are some of the lovely houses we saw along our walk.  I think this house might be the largest house in town–certainly the largest on our walk.  It is now an inn.

This house was fascinating from all directions!  It was hard to choose just one photo, but the view of this hand hewn porch won.

 I never get tired of looking for beautiful front doors, or doors of any kind.  A beautiful entrance to a house is just SO inviting!  And there were plenty of houses in Fernandina that just begged me to come sit on the porch or take a look through the front door.  I managed to refrain….

Camellias in bloom at many houses, along with azaleas and roses.

A series of lovely doors!

Even a side door caught my attention….

This house had such pretty birdhouses posted as finials on the gate to the front walk!

I know you want to see a close up!

I don’t know what this vine is that is growing on this outbuilding–I bet it doesn’t grown in Connecticut….

And an orange tree with both flowers and fruit.

Many streets smelled positively heavenly with mock orange shubs blooming at several houses.

Getting back onboard I happened to check my email and found a comment from Marjorie recommending that I make sure to visit Bristly Thistle, the embroidery shop right in Fernandina!  Yikes!  I am so disappointed that I did miss it!  By the time I was reading Marjorie’s comment, we had dropped our mooring and were headed to Cumberland Island.  If we went back we’d have to give up our visit to Cumberland.  It was not an easy decision for me, but I also knew I’d already tortured Bob for quite some time during my visits to all the pretty shops in the center of Fernandina.  Well, Bristly Thistle is on my list for next time.  I won’t make that mistake twice!

Just to give you an idea of shopping hell for Bob:  this shop had curiosities, vintage items and antiques.  I had a ball…..Bob, not so much…  now I’ve got ideas for what I can do with all my shells.

By mid-afternoon we had anchored off  Cumberland Island and were headed ashore in the dinghy. We walked to the ruins of the Carnegie mansion on Cumberland Island, and then into the small town that was built to hold the employees of the mansion.  It was beautifully clear on shore with blue skies above us.  We thought we were done with fog!  Not so!

 

If you look really closely in the photo you will see that I’m wearing on of my recently finished sweaters!  All in all, it was a glorious first day of spring!

We left just after sunrise on Sunday morning in order to take advantage of the rising tide. While we travel through Georgia we will only have 4 or 5 hours a day, just a couple of hours on either side of high tide, to make our way.  At low tide the Intra Coastal Waterway here is too shallow for Pandora.  So we will move while we can, and then stop each day to await the next high tide during daylight hours.  There are no towns on our route, so we will have several days of quiet passage and peaceful anchorages in the salt marshes.  The landscape is beautiful here, and there are still dolphins following our wake, and lots of beautiful shore birds.

Arctic terns are following us quite closely at our stern.  They are flying just about eye level with us, and at the same speed we are going.  It’s fascinating to see a bird in flight this closely.  Today I saw one bird cross its legs and rub them together like he was scratching his legs!  And I am making eye contact with the birds.  It’s so strange to look right into the eyes of a bird in flight and find him looking right at me!  I can see closely how they move their heads as they fly, watching the water for interesting tidbits.  I think we must have been stirring up stuff on the muddy bottom that attracted these terns.  I tried really hard to get a photo of one of terns looking right at me…..no luck!

 

 

It’s the first day of spring, yet decidedly unspring-like in Fernandina Beach, Florida.  We have awakened to dense fog, and the scenery in late March looks just like the little tapestry I did of our view here back in early January.  I am always going to think of St. Mary’s River in the gloaming…

There was a lunar eclipse this morning that I’ve heard was quite dramatic throughout northern Europe.  Here, I was quite excited to get up early (5.30 am) and view it, but since we had thick fog it was not meant to be!

On the morning when we left St. Augustine I saw a most alluring trick of light.  At one point during the sun’s rise from the horizon the water of St. Augustine turned a lovely color of cornflower blue!  I’ve never seen anything like it!  And the boats at anchor were glowing white as if they were lit from within.  It only lasted a moment—maybe not even 10 minutes—and it was so lovely!

The day we traveled north from St. Augustine to Fernandina Beach got windier and grey as the day wore on.  By early afternoon we had apparent wind of 25 – 30 mph coming straight at us.  It was screaming!  And with the tide against us as well we made very slow progress.  Long day.  We were exhausted when we got to Fernandina.

So it was lovely to wake up to a beautiful morning here yesterday.  We took advantage of the day to spend some time ashore.  Along the residential streets there are azaleas in bloom, along with camellias and even some wistera blooming amidst the palm trees.  Now that’s an odd sight!

Charming houses along the residential streets…

The business district of town has some classic early 20th buildings.  Here are the courthouse and the Post Office.

And a view down the main street in town.

 There are some great shops in Fernandina and some enticing restaurants.  I am particularly tempted by a shop with some funky, hand-made looking shoes.  Since we have fog this morning I may go back and try on a couple of pairs.

When Bob filled some water jugs on the dock  yesterday, he was right near the fish cleaning station.  Several pelicans thought it was handout time for fish scraps, and they stared Bob down waiting.  Unfortunately he had nothing to give them and they were not happy about that!  None of my photos quite catch the condescending looks these birds give you!–probably due to always having their beaks down so they look like they are looking down their ‘noses’ at everyone!

  My coral sweater is finished!—I even wore it during the windy, cloudy travel day here.  No photo yet, but here is the pattern I used—sort of.  My sweater doesn’t look much like this photo at all.

First of all, I don’t do hoods, so my sweater has a K2, P2 ribbed neckline leading into the Henley neck opening.  Then the color is bright watermelon, or coral, linen/cotton blend of Berrocco’s “Linsey.”  I finished the bottom of the sweater and the sleeve cuffs with the same K2, P2 ribbing that I used on the neck.  Voila!

I still have to sew on the 2^nd sleeve of my “For Irene” sweater designed by Carol Sunday.  I don’t know how successful my version is.  I made the body rather A-line below the armscythe.  That is a good look on me, but I may have overdone it!  It is quite large at the bottom.  I don’t have a full length mirror on board, so I can’t tell.  I guess I’ll find out when we get to our hotel in April for the upcoming wedding.  If I don’t like it, it will not be hard to fix, although not in time to wear for the wedding.  I can leave the sweater completely sewn together at the sleeves and shoulders and just undo the side seams near the bottom of the sweater and re-knit with fewer increases.  Luckily it was knit from the top down, so it will unravel easily!  Hoping I don’t have to do this—and hoping I can muster some energy for sewing in that final sleeve!  I am a slug when it comes to assembling sweaters.

So after a bit of shoe shopping this morning, we plan to sail to Cumberland Island midday—if the fog lifts.  Cumberland is a lovely spot, with wild horses, and wonderful shells.  I always meant to make some wreaths with the shells I gathered here two years ago.  Maybe I’ll finally get to that this summer…

We are headed north now.  We have a deadline—always a bad choice to have deadlines on a boat (so that is a bad decision!).  Mother Nature loves to mess with deadlines.  Another wise, old adage goes like this:

The most dangerous piece of equipment on boat is a calendar.

You see, we have a wedding in South Carolina in mid-April, and we want to be there!  We are also putting Pandora in brokerage this spring in order to buy another boat, so getting her to her brokerage home before the wedding would be the best plan.  I’m sure Mother Nature will have a good time with our plans, but we have to make the attempt.  So we are headed north.

For the past week we have sailed north and just taken enough time to stop each night to rest before continuing each morning.  These have been long days, either sailing out in the Atlantic or motoring up the Intra Coastal Waterway. We even had two days with good wind for sailing up the ICW. While these days have not included any shore leave, there have been lots of interesting sights on the water:  flying fish, manatees, dolphins, shore birds—even some very interesting man made birds that have been thrilling to watch as they fly overhead.

We missed getting photos of all the lovely wildlife, so I’ll just include some sunsets.

And this tiny island where someone had set up a tent!

Yesterday we arrived in Daytona and decided we’d like to see this city that we have previously always passed by.  We had a wonderful dinner at The Cellar, which is located in a beautiful early 20th c. house that used to be Warren Harding’s summer home.  What a lovely spot and a beautiful home.  The menu is amazing and so are the wine choices!

We ate in the pretty sunroom.  This photo (which I did not take!) was taken from the window table where Bob and I sat.

We arrived here on the last day of the annual ‘bike week’ here in Daytona.  We could hear the revving engines of many, many bikes as we set the anchor when we first arrived.  It put me in mind of the famous racetrack, and I did wonder if there were some kind of car race going on.  We will have to get ashore early this morning if we want to see the bikes before they leave town.  Perhaps this bike rally is a significant part of what makes Daytona so popular for college students on spring break.

Next stop is St. Augustine, a place we’ve visited numerous times, both by water and by land.  We will spend a few days there since we hurried out of town back in January when it was so cold!

It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve posted anything here—for various reasons.  I have been pretty productive over the past weeks, so it looks like I will head home with three new sweaters, and I have made enough progress on my Portuguese Man of War tapestry to feel that I know where I’m headed with that.  I set aside my third lace heart a few weeks back and have not touched it since.  And I made one, very fun, sock from Cat Bhordi’s Insouciant Knitting book.  Although that sock was fun to knit, I am not that smitten with the sock style and probably will never get around to knitting the second one….  Ah, well….

Here is that interesting sock…

And current progress on tapestry:

 There have been some unsettling moments over the last few weeks, and that is usually what takes me away from blogging.  We have had some sad news from several friends who are having health issues.  I am so worried for each of them and waiting for news is so stressful that it is very hard for me to concentrate on anything else.  I hate to even bring up this kind of thing here, but it has taken up so much of my daily thoughts I will just say that I am willing good friends to regain their health.

Also, we recently had two very frightening sailing incidents.  I hesitate to spend time describing what happened—this is, after all, a blog about weaving and other handwork, not about sailing!  But sailing is a major part of my life each year, and while sailing, Pandora is my floating studio.  Every sailor encounters bad situations.  I’m often reminded of the old adage:

Good decisions come from experience.  Experience comes from bad decisions.

After 40 years of sailing together,  I hope that we have gained enough experience, and made enough bad decisions, to be guaranteed in only making good decisions now.  Alas, not so!

Bad decision #1 is not one that carries much blame for us.  I will always take the easy route to get somewhere, so if it were up to me, I would spend our whole trip motoring and sailing up and down the Intra Coastal Waterway and never go out in the ocean!  Bob, on the other hand, would always choose to be out in the ocean, so he tries to pick the days that will cause me the least stress.

Going out in the ocean from coastal US below New Jersey involves using inlets because the entire southern coast has barrier islands.  Inlets are a sailor’s challenge.  Some are better than others, but since they are all dicey,  it’s better to avoid the bad ones entirely and to be cautious of the ‘good’ ones.  We have used Ft. Pierce inlet over the past few years since it is well known as one of the ‘good’ ones.

However, about a month ago, there was an accident in this inlet where a barge in tow sank and one person died.  This sunken barge is a significant hazard in the inlet, and the inlet has been closed since the accident.  We recently heard that the inlet is now open during certain times each day as salvage operations have begun.

So when Bob wanted to have a good day of sailing up the Florida coast from Key Largo to Ft. Pierce, he contacted the Coast Guard to see what the situation is with the Ft. Pierce inlet.  The Coast Guard told him that on the day in question there would be divers working on the wreck during the morning, but that the inlet would be open to small vessels by 11am.  We hit the high seas to make passage to Ft. Pierce.

When we arrived about 2.30 in the afternoon, we called the Coast Guard again for instructions on how to proceed into the inlet.  We had been told that the wreck was marked off with buoys to prevent boats passing over that part of the inlet.  But the Coast Guard then informed Bob that the inlet was closed until the end of the day because salvage operations, including divers, were still underway.  Ugh!

We noticed two other sailboats nearby us; one was a boat we have crossed paths with several times over the years in the Bahamas.  In fact, they had just sailed overnight from Chubb Cay based on the same information about going through this inlet by late morning.  They had arrived at Ft. Pierce at 11am and had been anchored off the beach all day.

This was one of those times when there were no good choices.  It’s never a good idea to anchor on a lee shore, which is what they chose to do.  But the other options were not good either: to sail back and forth near the inlet waiting for it to reopen which is exactly what Bob and I did.  For our friends, who had already been up all night for their passage from the Bahamas, this was not such a good choice.  Another option would be to keep sailing to another inlet.  The next inlet north is Cape Canaveral, and it was closed for the upcoming rocket launch.  So, given this lack of good choices we all did the best we could.

The third boat waiting for the inlet was not known to us, but after a chat on the radio we learned that he was onboard alone and had sailed from Miami with the same information that the inlet would be open by late morning or noon.

It was 6pm by the time the divers were up and the salvage barge with a large crane aboard had been up-anchored and moved to a safe location inside the inlet.

Here are the guidelines we always use for entering inlets.  It is best to go at slack tide.  Water does not like to be restricted—and that is exactly what inlets are.  The water approaching the east coast of the US has come all the way from Africa and is suddenly coming in contact with shallow coastal areas and then being funneled into a tiny inlet.  Just imagine what happens to all that water—it gets very agitated.  So it’s best not to add any further agitation such as flooding or ebbing tides.  Slack tide will have the least additional agitation. Wind also plays a significant part at inlets.  Never go into an inlet when the wind opposes the tide.

We planned our 2.30 arrival to coincide with slack tide.  There was moderate wind out of the east (yes, all the way from Africa), but with no tidal activity we should have had a reasonable transit through that inlet. It is almost impossible to get all these variables to be in sync with each other, but we do aim for as many positive players as possible.  But at 6pm in the evening, when we were allowed through, a number of things had become rather worrisome.  First, the sun was low in the west, right in our eyes, so it was quite difficult to see the obstructions that were marked in the inlet.  Second:  now the tide was at full ebb and the wind was from the east—bad situation.  The water was very confused.  Third:  I really hate to admit this—I have the highest regard for the Coast Guard– but on this day they were not giving out the best information.

Our friends on Five and Dime entered the inlet first, followed by us, and then Morgana, the boat that had sailed from Miami.  The Coast Guard advised all of us to ‘hug’ the north side of the inlet and proceed close to that jetty.  The wreck was on the southern side of the inlet. The waters were so confused we were all sluicing around and heeling over quite significantly in both directions.  Pandora was heeling about 30 degrees, first to port and then to starboard, so we were heeling a total of 60 degrees every minute or so.  We needed almost full throttle on the engine to keep her going forward; otherwise, she just sluiced around from side to side.

Shortly into the inlet Five and Dime ran hard aground in the area we’d been told to go.  She was right in front of us, so it seemed likely that we would run right into her.  It was harrowing to watch her pounding repeatedly on the bottom.  She was heeled over quite far, so she was pounding on the side of her keel and hull.  It looked terrifying.  They made an immediate distress call to the Coast Guard who, along with the local harbor police, came out to help within a moment.  A few big waves hit all of us then, and Five and Dime came off the bottom and managed to get back underway.

During this time, Bob saw no other option to avoid hitting Five and Dime than to turn around and head back out a bit.  The marked area we were to transit was a bit too narrow for turning around, so we ended up going over the sunken barge a bit, luckily with no incident.  By the time we did an entire 360 degrees, Five and Dime had progressed enough for us to continue forward.

Morgana did not have enough engine power to get through the inlet on power alone, so the captain, who was alone, had to go up on deck to put out his jib.  Boy, did I suffer a heart stopping moment watching him do that.  Our boats were all heeling and sluicing around, and I don’t know how he managed to stay onboard.  But after a tediously long few minutes, we were all safely in.  Five and Dime went to anchor near the Coast Guard station in order to be near help while they assessed any possible damages to their hull.  Morgana and we went further in to a protected anchorage.

The winds had freshened quite a bit during the late afternoon.  We set our anchor, but now neither of us remembers how thoroughly we backed down on the anchor to set it.  Clearly, not well enough.  At just after midnight, which meant it was now Friday, March 13^th, Bob got up to check things.  He often does this at least a couple of times each night.  To his horror he found that we were no longer even in the anchorage.  We were dragging quite rapidly toward the bascule bridge that was just beyond this anchorage.  He called me to come up on deck as quickly as I could.  I also was horrified as I came up the companionway to see the bridge rapidly approaching our stern.  Of course, it was entirely the other way around, but it did look like the bridge was bearing down on us, instead of us bearing down on the bridge.

I took the wheel while Bob went forward to assess the anchor.  As he left the cockpit he warned me not to run over the anchor.  Yikes.  I set the throttle at a moderate speed hoping it was not too much to overtake our anchor.  Then I looked back at the bridge and was terrified to see that we were now very close to one of the huge abutments.  Fear took over and I pushed the throttle to full forward.  I can think of only one other time in my life when I was this scared.  I could actually feel us hitting the abutment and our mast striking the bridge–although it never actually happened.  I was in quite a state!  Pandora felt the kick of the full throttle and began making slow progress forward.  I guess we were in quite a current pushing us toward that bridge.  It was deadly dark, except for the excruciatingly bright lights on the bridge, as we tried to re-anchor in this overly crowded anchorage.  This time we backed down good and long to make sure the anchor was well set, but neither of us felt confident enough to go back to sleep.  It was a long night.

I do not blame us for the harrowing experience of getting through Ft. Pierce inlet.  We did our best to choose a safe sailing day for the trip, and we did due diligence by contacting the Coast Guard about the use of that inlet before setting out.  Sometimes things just conspire against your best efforts.

But the anchoring fiasco was entirely our own poor doing.  And the danger of dragging rapidly back to that bridge was quite a bit higher than even the experience of a bad passage through an inlet.  It still haunts me, two days later.  I think it will haunt for me quite a long time to come.

Over a decade ago Bob and I edited and published a book about a man who sailed the East Coast of the US in a very small sailboat.  He had a marvelous ability for understatement and often referred to these harrowing experiences as a “busy cup of tea.”  The whole day was indeed a very busy cup of tea for us!

And I’ll end with another old adage:

Boating is hours and hours of pleasure, interrupted by moments of sheer panic!

Frankly, I often feel it is the other way around….

 

It’s almost here, and I hope it comes in like a lamb!  We just got word from our oil company that we are dangerously low on oil and that the truck cannot get in our driveway due to the closed gate.  No one can get that gate open when there is so much snow piled up on either side of it!

There is not much to report here.  The weather window for heading out of Florida has closed so nobody is leaving which means we are still anchored back in the mangrove swamps.  The herons and egrets and pelicans have good hunting back here and are wonderful to watch.  It seems that everytime they strike at something in the water they are swallowing a tasty morsel.  The juvenile eagle ray swims by Pandora at some point every day.  I think he must also find good feeding back here.

Our older son Rob came for a visit this week after having some business in Miami.  It was wonderful to see him!  We spent a day together in Key West, using his rental car for the trip.  As you know there is only one road that runs down the Keys, US 1, and that road has only one lane in each direction.  Much of it is causeway going over water.  When there is an accident it pretty much closes down the ability to move in any direction.  If you are stuck on a causeway there is no getting off.  That is what happened to use on the trip back up to Marathon at the end of our day in Key West.  It was a bad accident and had the road closed for most of the day, so in the long run we were pretty lucky.  I’m sure lots of folks never got to their destination that day.

Here are Rob and Bob enjoying some cool refreshment on a pretty front porch in Key West, at a bar called “The Porch.”

I have a good crop of mint growing in my window box– along with cilantro and bright red geraniums– and we used the first mint harvest to make mojitos!  Yum!

It was quite hard to say goodbye to Rob, not knowing when we will see him next…. and quite hard to learn the news that Chris has decided to move to San Francisco temporarily in order to make some connections out West for his banking start up.  This vagabond life is a little hard at times like this.  It’s hard enough to get enough time with my kids without also disappearing off the grid for months and months.  Sigh…

Our dinghy got damaged several weeks ago, and although Bob bought a repair kit, the fix was not to his liking.  We decided to have it re-done professionally.  Here it is going back in the water after a day at the shop.

We had to stay ashore for the day while the repairs were done–no other way to get back to our boat.  I found a beautiful spot for us to pass some time while we waited….and have lunch as well! This lovely resort is on the other side of Marathon so we were looking out over the Gulf.  Some dolphins came near shore to entertain us during lunch.

Today will be a quiet day onboard.  I have plans to make bread and get back to weaving!