Holy City, Batman

We are underway northbound in the Atlantic Ocean, crossing Onslow Bay and bound for the anchorage off Fort Macon, in the Beaufort-Morehead City North Carolina area. The plotter is predicting an arrival around 8:30pm, and we left Charleston around 9am yesterday morning, making for close to a 36-hour passage.

USS Yorktown at night from our anchorage. The red white and blue lights replaced the all white of our last visit, maybe for the Semiquincentennial.

Thursday after I posted we increased RPMs to be sure to make the North Edisto rather than settling for the South Edisto. We had a nice dinner underway and crossed the bar south of the main channel thanks to arriving at a tide of +6'. The ebb was just starting as we made our way through the inlet.

I caught this sunset as we were steaming up the North Edisto toward South Creek.

Not wanting to push against the current up to the familiar Bohicket Creek, we instead turned off at the first opportunity, into South Creek on Edisto Island. We dropped the hook at the first bend, a short distance from an anchored shrimper (map). It turned out to be a very pleasant and extremely calm anchorage and we had a quiet night. It was not dark; the shrimper had his deck lights on.

Cheers from Halls.

Friday we got an early start to catch the last of the flood up the North Edisto. That gave us a fair tide most of the day, including riding the ebb down the Stono and squirting through Elliotts Cut with 2.5 knots behind us, necessitating a Sécurité call. That elicited a response from a tug and barge, whom I had previously called directly to learn they'd come through well after our transit, telling us they were coming through ahead of schedule. We had to circle in the Stono for over 15 minutes, and I was mighty annoyed, but you can't argue with that much rusty steel. We rounded the battery and pushed against it up the Cooper to a familiar anchorage just off the USS Yorktown museum ship (map).

The mouthwash at Halls is easily distinguished from the monogrammed hand soap, unlike some yacht clubs which use nearly identical dispensers. Ask me how I know.

We splashed the tender at slack, and at dinner time we made our way across the harbor to the Charleston Maritime Center, where my first task was to fuel up the dinghy. After I bought two gallons of gas they waived the dinghy landing fee and we walked over to the Dash shuttle bus stop at the Aquarium. My app said we'd had a fifteen minute wait and we decided instead to just walk into town, where we scored the last pair of bar stools at Halls Chop House about ten minutes before their kitchen opened at 4pm. If you wait until dinner time the bar is full. We had our favorite bartender, Josh, and dined on the very reasonable bar menu.

I did my grocery shopping with the firefighters. That's the historic Bennett Rice Mill facade behind them.

We were out of lunch fixings, and so Saturday morning I tendered ashore for groceries. On my way I swung by a brand new set of docks we had noticed on our way upriver; I found them closed with "construction area" and "private dock" signs. They are attached to the also brand-new and recently opened Cooper resort hotel, on the site of what had been the tired brutalist home of the Ports Authority when we first started stopping here. The developer's web site indicated it would be a transient marina and water taxi landing; we will see how it shapes up.

In case you wondered what happens to all those wonky shopping cart wheels.

I once again landed at CMC and walked to Harris Teeter for the lunch items and also to score some Pluff Mud Porter before leaving the Holy City. After lunch I had to dinghy right back to meet the driver for our Walmart delivery, wherein I ended up waiting a half hour or so. CMC again waived our dinghy fee; I think they remember us from our several stays in Vector.

The historic ex-Corps of Engineers ship Robert Gray, now a private expedition charter, at the CMC dock. Shuttered tower in the background is the ill-fated Dockside condominium.

With good passage weather coming up, we spent quite a bit of time in the afternoon discussing passage options. From Charleston there are good outside runs to Georgetown, Little River, Cape Fear, and Beaufort. The timing is such, however, that each of those mandates a different departure time from Charleston, and so you really need to choose and commit to one. "Bailing out" can mean coming in in the middle of the night, or pushing against several knots of outgoing tide, or both. We decided the conditions were good enough for the full 36-hour run to Beaufort, which gets us around a lot of shallow water and high-traffic areas.

Daytime view of Yorktown. Even at this distance their aircraft collection is impressive.

At dinner time the harbor was so choppy from all the weekend traffic that I called the closer Charleston Harbor Marina to ask if we could tie up to eat in one of their restaurants. Unlike our last visit in November, when they directed us to an ungated dock free of charge, this time they wanted no less than $65 to tie the dinghy up for dinner. No thanks -- your restaurants are not that good. I think that might include the other resort amenities such as the pool, but we had no need.

We heard the CG talking to this fishing trawler who got their gear tangled with this ship channel buoy. They eventually freed themselves but earned a CG boarding inspection in the process.

Instead we bashed our way back across the Cooper and walked to the Big Gun Burger Shop & Bar. This is a dive with a pool table in the back and an all-local clientele, and we really enjoyed it, even with a limited menu and no draft beer. Afterward we walked next door to the College of Charleston where I had a package in an Amazon locker. When I pulled up the directions it said the locker was only available to CoC students (drat!) but it turned out not to be behind any kind of gate or even restrictive signage. We did walk right by it at first because it was in CoC livery rather than the traditional Amazon blue, yellow, or gray.

Local dive with excellent burgers and a large beer list.

On the way back to the dock we stopped in at the Saffron Bakery & Cafe for a couple of passage bagels and a piece of coconut cake for dessert to go. Both were disappointing, with the bagels more like bread and the cake a bit stale. The harbor was a tad less choppy on the return trip, and we decked the tender after it calmed down even more.

We popped into the College of Charleston bookstore while hunting for the Amazon locker.

Yesterday's ebb was forecast for 9:30, and I tried to sleep in, even staying up past 2 on Saturday, but my circadian rhythm was uncooperative. The tide was already turning by 9am, and we elected to weigh a little early and slow-roll out of the harbor to avoid outrunning it. Traffic was light, but I did notice the bulk carrier Batman (seriously) maneuvering in the harbor, inspiring today's post title. We passed at least five inbound sailboats on our way out, all of whom we running the middle of the ship channel (we always stay outside the ship channel in Charleston). Louise reported that before I got up, she had heard no fewer than three five-blast signals (how ships tell pleasure boats they are in the way).

Stowaway.

The item I had picked up at the locker was a replacement for the failed charging solenoid, and I had grand plans to brave the engine room heat and install that underway yesterday. But when I opened the box, clearly marked 24v, what I found was a solenoid marked just as clearly at 36v. I used my regulated power supply to test it; it's a 36v model. A replacement is on its way to Morehead city.

36v contactor in a 24v box. I took this pic for the return process.

Our passage has been strangely calm but at the same time very rolly, and it is difficult to move around the boat. I found it difficult to do my daily stretches and exercises, and Louise was hoping to sew but has been mostly foiled. We're looking forward to being in calmer waters tonight.

Last night's sunset over the Carolinas.

I am posting this courtesy of the opt-in, pay-per-GB "ocean data" on our Starlink terminal, the first time we've used the feature. On our previous international jaunts, the policy was different and the lines more fuzzy, and we just tolerated the short interruptions, but now there is a sharp cut-off at the limit of the terriotiral sea. Keeping our route inside the 12nm line on this passage would have added hours, and I think the extra diesel at today's prices would be more than the cost of the ocean data.

Best my phone could do with Jupiter and the new moon.

Making this outside passage has knocked five full days off our northing schedule. We're working our way to Hampton Roads to fly to Nevada for our niece's wedding, and before today we had a little over a two-week buffer. That is now three weeks, and we're looking at maybe arriving early so each of us can also fly for family medical issues ahead of the wedding. I'm waiting to hear if the marina has room, and the plan is still very fluid.

Pop-up passage

We are underway northbound in the North Atlantic Ocean, on an unplanned and somewhat unexpected passage. We should end up at one end or the other of Edisto Island at the end of the day, which will put us about a day from Charleston.

Monday morning we were up early, weighed anchor, and pulled up to the fuel dock at Port Consolidated at 7:45, fifteen minutes before they open. I did not want to take the chance that some sportfisher would jump in ahead of us. As it turned out, a shrimper wanting 30,000 gallons had an appointment for that spot at opening time; they are required to make advance arrangements because vessels holding more than 10,0000 gallons have a phalanx of extra regulations.

Spectacular sunset over Bells River from our anchorage in Fernandina Beach.

We had been prepared to cast off and move if need be when the attendant arrived, but he decided to go ahead and fuel us to get us out of the way altogether before the shrimper arrived. We bunkered an even 1,000 gallons and were off the dock at 8:30; their pump can deliver 50 gallons per minute. With the tax waiver and the cash discount we paid $4.48 per gallon, the lowest price on the east coast.

We whizzed out the St. Marys inlet with a knot behind us into calm seas. We had a comfortable passage to St. Simons, came in with the current again behind us, and were anchored in a familiar spot in the Frederica River off Lanier Island (map) by 3pm. We made arrangements with our friend John to meet us after dinner over at Coastal Kitchen for a beer; we tied the dinghy up at the marina just as they were closing at 5 and had a nice dinner. It was great catching up with John for 45 minutes before he needed to run off to a different dinner engagement.

Louise brought me these gifts from our niece, whom I am marrying next month, which I was not to open until I had her on the phone. I think the bobble-head is a remarkable likeness, and the personalized "Officiant" notebook is for my notes during the ceremony.

On our way to dinner we spotted brand new signs on the Gascoigne Park courtesy dock saying "No Mooring." Previously we could tie the dinghy up here for up to two hours, and I've used the dock many times to go for a walk ashore, or to ride the e-bike down to the grocery store for provisions (it's a nice walk but hard to make the trip in less than two hours). We were very disappointed to see this. On top of that, the adjacent county-owned, privately-managed marina is closed right now for dock replacement.

I posted my findings on a couple of online forums and was scolded by someone who called the parks department and was told that the signs were old and there was a two hour limit. Which made no sense since I could tell the signs were new since our last visit in December. It turns out that the county commissioners voted to close the dock after some inconsiderate boaters abused the privilege, had Public Works put up the signs, but neglected to inform the Parks department. We're hoping an outcry from boaters will have them rethink the policy.

Brand new No Mooring signs on the dinghy dock. Photo: John Samford

Tuesday morning we awoke to heavy winds and occasional light rain. Perfect conditions for us to move along, as these conditions keep many boaters off the waterway. We had to wait to 11:30 to weigh anchor so as not to arrive at the very shallow section through Little Mud River with insufficient tide.

Evidently a 62' Nordhavn had done just that, and as we approached Altamaha Sound we could see him circling. I called on the radio and offered to lead them through, but at that point we were doing 3.5 knots against the current and it was an hour before we caught up to them. We arrived with plenty of tide for us and just enough for them, and I think they were grateful to follow an experienced boat through the troublesome section.

After following us through the skinny stuff the Nordy overtook us. We only saw one other boat all day.

Once we crossed Doboy Sound we had a fair tide, and we opted to run all the way to dinner time, dropping the hook at 5pm in a new spot for us, on the Crescent River (map). It was still just as windy when we anchored as when we had weighed. We had a nice dinner on board.

Yesterday our plan had been to run up the inside, make Hell Gate with plenty of tide, and drop the hook someplace just shy of Savannah. I even reached out to friends in Hilton Head, with the expectation we'd be there for dinner this evening. Before we even made it to lunch time, Louise discovered that we would have a one-day window today to run up the outside.

Yesterday I disassembled the old fuel transfer check valve so I could recycle the body, a huge hunk of brass. Looking carefully at this poppet it's clear why the valve was leaking.

I started figuring routes, making plans to go out Ossabaw Sound this morning just before Hell Gate and run all the way to North Edisto. But the longer I looked at the chart, the more I realized that we could save a lot of twisting, turning ICW if we went out St. Catherines Sound instead, with the option to come back in at the South Edisto if we could not make the North Edisto in the daylight. I waved off with our Hilton Head friends, who are boaters themselves and understand that windows are windows.

I picked an anchorage in Wahlburg Creek that would be the closest spot to the St. Catherines inlet; getting to the anchorage usually involves backtracking to the creek from the sound after passing the shoal that blocks the direct entrance. But a bit more investigation revealed that, with careful navigation, we could enter the other end of the creek right off the ICW and avoid the backtracking altogether, so that's what we did.

St. Catherines buoy R-4 has been missing for a while. We found it aground off Wahlburg Creek, miles from its station.

We had the hook down in a comfortable spot in the creek (map) by 12:15, on a day we had figured to be underway until nearly dinner time. The sun broke through in the afternoon, topping up the batteries, and I grilled a steak for dinner without ever starting the generator. I used the afternoon to troubleshoot the new start battery charge system, which has already quit working. It turns out the contactor is bad.

This morning, high tide at the inlet was 6:30 but slack was not until 8. We split the difference, departing just after sunup at 6:40, pushing against the flood, and arriving at the bar at 7:45 with six feet of tide. We found the north gap lower than charted at about 9' MLLW, and were happy to have the tide to give us nine feet under the keel in the two-foot swell. The seas have laid down some while we've been out here and we are having a comfortable ride.

No one out here but us and the shrimpers.

Last night's showers were colder than expected, and this morning we discovered the new water heater loop was not heating. That turned out to be due to no engine coolant flow through the heat exchanger, so this old problem, supposedly solved by using a heat exchanger lower than the engine, is back. I spent a half hour in the hot engine room with a long sleeve shirt and rubber gloves getting the coolant moving again with a drill pump. We also rinsed out our waste tanks with seawater while we are outside the three-mile limit.

The plotter says 6:30 to the South Edisto, and it would be an hour and a half or so more to the North Edisto. Sunset is 8:30 and I would want to be well over the bar by then. We're missing a lot of shallow stuff out here, but if we come in at the south there is still more ahead. In either case, though, we should be in Charleston tomorrow.

Final night in Florida

We are underway northbound in the ICW, after a little over a week in Jacksonville. We have a little more relaxed pace now, with our next commitment in Norfolk at the end of June to fly to Nevada for our niece's wedding. We should cross the 31st parallel by the end of tomorrow, beating our insurance deadline by just under three weeks.

Vector at the enormous Riverfront Park dock, with the Allsop bridge in blue.

When last I posted here, I wrote that as yet Louise had no need to move her flights up, but that very afternoon she did exactly that, switching her outbound flights from Sunday to Saturday. That eliminated our one-day buffer to settle in to Jacksonville, but it was a short run. We tendered in to Palms Fish Camp for dinner and a short walk afterwards. They had a new beer for me on draft, Flying Squirrel Nut Brown Ale from the local Veterans United brewery, which was excellent.

Jacksonville is full of murals and other public art. This one, from a distance, looked 3D, but when I got close I could see it was 2D on a textured surface.

Friday we weighed anchor with the flood and were tying up at a familiar spot on the free downtown dock at Riverfront Plaza (map) by 12:40. Louise had plenty of time to pack and get ready, and I took a stroll around downtown to see what was new and different. Jacksonville is perpetually trying to reinvent itself, and downtown redevelopment has been ongoing the entire time we've been coming here.

This creek is near the end of a two-year daylighting project that will turn everything you see here into a public park. On this pass I spotted the fire department with a wire rigged over the creek, practicing water rescue.

At dinner time our friends Erin and Chris from Barefeet swung by in their car and picked us up to take us across the river to the City Grille for dinner. This place is walking distance from the south bank dinghy dock and I have been meaning to try it; it was fancier than I expected but very good.

Vector as seen from the elevated walkway of the new playground at Riverfront Park. The Friendship Fountain is across the river in the background.

Erin, who is an early riser, was very insistent on picking Louise up at 4am to take her to the airport, and Saturday morning I was up at 3:45 to walk her out to the corner. As I was coming  up the stairs I could hear her on the phone with Erin about a flight delay. It turns out American had texted her that her flight would be delayed by four hours, not what we wanted to hear so soon on the heels of missing our flights to the DR altogether.

This line of food trucks arrives every weekday to the plaza at the Vystar building to serve lunch to the downtown office workers.

Erin was already on her way, and Louise decided to just go to the airport at the scheduled time and see what she could do. After saying goodbye, I sat down at my computer and found a 5:45 departure to San Francisco that could easily stand in for her scheduled 6:20 to San Jose, and that's what she ended up doing. It meant moving her rental car reservation, and ultimately changing her return flights to match so she could get the car back. The pony in this pile was that she actually got money back as the SFO routing was a lower fare.

I ran into the First Wednesday Art Walk on my way out of Cowford's Chop House. I could have saved myself one dollar (really) by buying my burger from a food truck instead.

I tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep, but I ended up just catnapping a couple of times. Saturday was rainy all day and I was mostly trapped on the boat, a good time to work on projects. I also had to run the generator a couple of times, but that would be the last time I would run it until after Louise returned; the new solar was able to meet all my needs the rest of the week, even heating the water for my showers. In keeping with the rainy day theme, Chris and Erin picked me up around 4 and we went to The Perfect Rack for a few games of pool (boy am I rusty) and a casual dinner. The Kentucky Derby came on the TV while we were eating.

Chris and I shooting pool at Perfect Rack. Photo: Erin Miller

The Kentucky Derby as seen from our table.

While Louise was taking care of business in California, I spent the next five days at the dock stag. There is technically a three-day limit, and I was prepared to move, but I did not want to single-hand the boat over to the anchorage unless I had to. I had the entire dock, all 1,000' of it (less a bit reserved for police and water taxi) to myself the entire time save for one night, when our friend Eric showed up on his trawler, Terrapin. We exchanged greetings but I already had evening commitments.

The filet mignon sliders (best deal in the house) at Morton's happy hour do not come with a side, so I ordered the house-made chips, which I thought were a little pricey. Sunglasses for scale. I took them home and we just finished them today. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Stag I ate at Keane's Pub on Bay Street (not worth it), the bar for happy hour at Cowford's Chop House (excellent, and they had Duke's Brown from right next door on draft), and the bar at Morton's, also for happy hour (no drafts but excellent bites). One day I met up with friends Jill and Rudy from Briney Bug, who are settled in at a nearby marina, and they took me to European Street Cafe for lunch.

The rooftop bar at Cowford's. It was just too hot the day I was there and I ate at the main bar in the dining room instead.

Erin and Chris also swung by for dinner twice more. Once to whisk me to Indian food at a placed called Persis, something I only get to do when Louise is not with me. And once to go for a nice four mile hike on Cinco de Mayo out at Little Talbot Island State Park, which was to be followed by (what else) Mexican food at La Catrina. That was a pipe dream, as there was a two hour wait, and we ended up eating at the excellent KT's Pizza and Italian in the same parking lot.

Chris and I on our hike at Talbot. Erin wanted a shot with this post-apocalyptic tree. Photo: Erin Miller

I ended up twice at the waterfront Hyatt for a breakfast sandwich, once because I spotted the American Pioneer cruise ship at the adjacent bulkhead and I wanted to have a look. And in addition to several long walks around downtown, I took the Skyway out to the Amazon locker at the transit center twice, and one evening took the new NAVI autonomous transit service, just getting off the ground, out to Metropolitan Park to see how the docks and other projects are coming along.

American Pioneer at the dock. They have their own branded tour buses meet them. If you look closely you will see the fuel tanker bunkering them. We pass these guys on the ICW, and they use navigation tracks that I help create each year.

On the project front I spent most of the time designing, digging out parts for, and wiring up a solenoid to effect charging of the start battery while underway. Previously this battery was only charged by the generator, which was perfectly adequate when we were running it more or less every stop. The solar has changed that equation and we now need it to also charge from the main engine alternator.

New solenoid to bridge the start batteries to the house bank for charging. I tried to mount it vertically or horizontally but I could not find a way to do it with the bend radius of the 2/0 cables, so I finally just settled on this jaunty angle.

In the middle of that project I grabbed one of my meters to check a voltage that should have been around 12 and was aghast to see 30, which is in the normal range for circuits on a different system. I quickly learned that it was the meter itself that was the problem, and at a break in the project I went down the rabbit hole of diagnosing and trying to repair the meter. In the end I just bought a new one for an amount far less than the value of any more of my time trying to fix it. I really, really hate tossing electronics in the trash, though.

Just as a 12vdc circuit read 30v, this 120vac circuit is reading 300v. The meter is done.

Our anniversary came and went while we were apart, and Google Photos saw fit to remind me we were here on our anniversary exactly five years ago. It also reminded me that, also on that day five years ago, I replaced the saloon flooring while we were at the nearby docks in Metropolitan Park (those docks are closed for construction right now). I have to say the flooring has held up pretty well for five years.

One morning these bike cops were gathered outside the boat and staring at it. Turns out they were just admiring it, and expressed that they were happy people were using the dock.

Thursday night Louise returned, after another ride-share hiccup that had her waiting at the airport an extra 40 minutes, when she was already exhausted. In hindsight I should have asked Chris and Erin if I could borrow the car, but I did not want to park it on the street overnight. Not that I have seen any sort of issues down here. I walked out to the street adjacent to the Performing Arts Center to be there when she got back.

My ride on NAVI, which for now are Ford E-Transit vans with autopilot hardware, to be replaced at some point by Holons. The attendant is there to operate the wheelchair lift, but can also take control as needed. They are still working the bugs out and the units brake abruptly fairly often.

Friday we dropped lines with the tide and made the short one-hour cruise upriver to the Florida Yacht Club and tied up (map) for our free night. We needed to do laundry and top up our water, and it was nice to have air conditioning as the temperature and humidity have been creeping up. Erin and Chris met up with us one final time, whisking us off to Moon River Pizza for one final get-together. They swung us by Publix on our way home for a few essentials.

Jax Fire stopped at the dock for a bit and they chatted me up on their way out.

The club is now finished with their extensive renovations and it's all very nice. We did not use any of the amenities on this visit, but at just a dollar a foot for reciprocal members, this is where we would tie up if we both needed to fly out of JAX at the same time. We popped inside to look at the final part of the renovation, a casual dining and bar venue adjacent to the pool. We got a late checkout Friday, had a nice walk, and availed ourselves of the in-slip pump-out before dropping lines.

The new docks at the Metropolitan Park Marina, which is now adjacent to the almost complete Four Seasons Residences. They are still running utilities but the docks might be open this summer.

We just went the hour back downriver to Jacksonville, dropping the hook in our usual spot near the Baptist Hospital (map). Our plan had been to tender to any of the several city docks and have dinner, most likely at a nice Mexican place in Brooklyn that we like. But it was starting to rain as we set the hook, and it rained all evening, so we just stayed aboard and ate the half pizza we had brought home from Moon River the night before.

Dora the robot vacuum was in the pilothouse cleaning when I heard her cry out from the saloon. I found her like this, teetering on the brink of the companionway. I'm glad she got stuck and did not just plummet off the precipice to her doom.

This morning we weighed with the tide for the run back downriver to the ICW and then north. We've had a fair tide most of the day, although we are now pushing against the flood here in our last few miles to the anchorage.

Historic Shrine temple, the oldest in Florida, now an office building.

Update: We are anchored in a familiar spot at the junction of Bells River and the Amelia River, in Fernandina Beach (map). We are well-positioned to hop over to the nearby Port Consolidated fuel dock in the morning; we are down to our last 55 gallons. In consideration of Mothers Day and its attendant restaurant crowds, we tendered ashore right away for dinner at Mezcal Spirit of Oaxaca on Centre Street, a favorite of friends Dorsey and Bruce. It was quite good and we had no trouble getting a table when we arrived. It was full on our way out.

This house here in Fernandina has a whimsical collection of carousel horses interestingly displayed.

Tomorrow morning we will bunker fuel and then head north to St. Simons. If the forecast holds, we will be able to go up the outside. From St. Simons we will be inside at least as far as Savannah.

Jax or better

We are underway northbound in the Tolomato River, part of the ICW, headed for Jacksonville. We will be in town for a week or so, while Louise flies to California to attend to family matters. Jacksonville is a busier place than Titusville and we should not have the same trouble with a rideshare to the airport.

Monday morning, with a short day to Daytona, we had a lazy morning at Ponce Inlet Harbor waiting for a late-morning Falcon Heavy launch from Canaveral. It was overcast, so we did not have a lot of hope, and ultimately it was for naught, as they scrubbed the launch with just 26 seconds left on the countdown clock. They rescheduled for Wednesday.

I came across this mailbox walking around Porpoise Point. Adding the googly eyes makes the already whimsical manatee even more so.

Lingering for the launch put us against heavy current the whole way to Daytona and we slow-rolled the whole trip to conserve fuel. My log shows it took us 2.2 hours to go just nine nautical miles, for an average speed made good of just 4.1 knots. Under way we learned we had just missed our friends Dori and Bob aboard Liberdade, who left Daytona in the morning on their way south, and whizzed past us while we were still at Ponce. We were tied up at the Halifax River Yacht Club (map) a little before 1pm, likely in the slip Liberdade had vacated in the morning.

I've been having a lot of trouble starting the main engine lately, with the start battery voltage dropping precipitously. At first I attributed this to the fact that we are running the generator a lot less now that we have solar, and the start batteries only charge when the generator is running. But after fully charging them up a couple of times with no relief, I concluded the six-year-old batteries had reached end of life. Daytona was a good place to exchange them, and so as soon as the engine room cooled off a bit, I went down and opened up the start battery compartment.

Off The Hook, where we had dinner with Erin and Chris, as we passed on our way out. Erin had tuna that just came off the boat and was, I hear, the best ever.

My battery load tester immediately confirmed that one of the two batteries was completely done, and the other was marginal. I pulled them both out, hauled them upstairs and onto the dock, and then I strapped them down to our folding "schlepper" with a ratchet strap. Regular readers may recall this is exactly how these batteries arrived six years ago, in New Bedford, MA. Unlike then, when I had to hike the whole way to the store schlepping batteries, this time I walked one block and got on the county bus, which took me all the way to Walmart for a buck.

The Walmart Everstart Maxx marine starting batteries turned out to be exactly identical to the Autocraft/Die-Hard items from Advanced Auto that I traded in; all come from the same Clarios (formerly Johnson Controls) factory. That made them an easy drop-in fit after returning with them on a different bus that gave me an extra two blocks to walk. All things considered, quite easy there in Daytona.

New batteries arrived at the dock via a luggage schlepper. It looks a lot like the pic I took six years ago.

With the yacht club closed on Mondays, we walked a couple of blocks into town for dinner at McK's, an Irish pub with a decent menu and selection of drafts. Afterwards we strolled through the very nice Riverfront Esplanade, which I have to say has been very nicely kept by the private firm that operates it for the city. A little before 9pm we went out on deck to watch the Atlas-Centaur launch for the Amazon Leo Internet constellation, but heavy cloud cover gave us just a one-second glimpse as it passed through a gap. Still impressive.

Tuesday morning we each went for a walk, anticipating being trapped on the boat until Wednesday afternoon, topped up the water tank, and headed out into the ICW. I turned north a little bit ahead of a conga line of smaller but faster cruising boats. That turned into a problem when the Main Street Bridge tender wanted me to wait for all four following vessels to catch up before opening the bridge. We could see quite clearly that none of those boats needed a lift, and none of them was even monitoring the bridge channel. I had to get insistent with him; nothing in the bridge regulations allows tenders to make marine traffic wait for other traffic to catch up, and I did not want to station-keep for a full five minutes.

We could see the rocket for maybe a second but by the time I snapped this pic it was just the exhaust.

In short order we dodged a rusty steel barrel and, later, a 20' long dock piling, both drifting mid-channel, which I reported to the conga line. The piling I also called in to the Coast Guard. In due time the entire conga line passed us, only to have us catch back up at the LB Knox bridge. Meanwhile another boat that caught up to all of us passed us by sounding actual whistle signals, which I had to answer with the whistle. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to do this. It turned out to be Victoria and Kevin in their lovely Burger Set Free; we met them in Charleston last year and we remember him saying he does not like to talk on the radio.

We arrived to the anchorage at Fort Matanzas around 3:30 to find the entire phalanx of boats that had passed us, including Set Free, anchored there. We went all the way down past the park service dock, past all the anchored boats, and dropped the hook just before the end of the Idle Speed zone (map). I grilled lamb chops for dinner, and we had a quiet night, with just the sound of the surf, which is quite loud here.

Looking forward to this some day. We will add it to our list of numbered restaurants that includes Pier 220, Tower 7, Marker 42, and Seasons 52.

We had thought about staying in the anchorage in the morning until the Falcon Heavy launch scheduled for 10:13. But there was again heavy cloud cover to the south, and, more importantly, we had some concern Louise might have to move her flights up a day or two. So instead we weighed anchor before the turn of the tide and continued north, with an option to continue all the way to Pablo Creek Bridge before the end of the day.

At launch time Louise took the helm so I could go up on the boat deck to see if I could catch a glimpse, but it was too overcast and all I could see was a smoke trail after the rocket was out of range. We made the 11am opening at the Bridge of Lions with plenty of current behind us. That same current was against us after we made the left turn at the inlet, and we climbed the hill to our usual anchorage off Vilano Beach (map), where we dropped the hook at 11:30, at least temporarily, to sort out whether we needed to pick up our pace.

They bulldozed the Magic Beach Motel since our last visit, but clearly they salvaged the classic historic sign, which I assume they will put back someplace when they are done.

If we chose to keep going it would be an uphill climb all day. I took another look at the charts and realized we could be all the way to our destination in Jacksonville by the end of today if we got an early start, and we decided there was no sense in bucking the tide all the way to Pablo Creek. We ended up settling in for the night. I wanted to go ashore and walk before dinner, but when I went to launch the dinghy I found the steering completely seized; it had been very stiff at the last stop.

It was fortuitous that I had decided to launch in the early afternoon rather than waiting until dinner time. I spent the next hour or so on deck taking apart the dinghy steering and reaming the rust out of the tilt tube. This is a regular exercise on these outboards, and I am mystified that no one sells a stainless steel replacement tube. I was finally on my way ashore just before 4pm.

These pieces of coquina are ubiquitous in this part of Florida. The perfectly round hole is naturally occuring.

My elation at having nice, one-finger steering was short-lived. On my way to the dinghy dock, which is around the other side of the fishing pier (the remains of an old drawbridge), I inadvertently snagged a barely visible fishing line. Trying to get untangled before I pulled a fishing rod off the pier the current sucked me under the pier (plenty of clearance), and I limped to the dock against a couple of knots. I marched up and gave the fisherman a ten-spot for his trouble, thankful I was not buying him a new rod and reel.

I needed my planned walk to overcome my jitters. I found the new Irish pub, Durty Neli's, now has food, but only Thursday through Sunday. And a new place called Anchor 28 is close to opening in the long-vacant restaurant space at the Holiday Inn Express. The classic Magic Beach Motel has been razed to make room for a new condo complex. And I walked all the way around Porpoise Point after passing the beachfront pavilion where the Casino once stood.

Best shot I could get from my vantage on the dock. I'm about half done removing the fishing line. And I have a few barnacles to deal with, some of which cut me while I was working.

After returning to the dock I lifted the engine out of the water to find perhaps 50' of fishing line wrapped around the prop. I spent the next ten minutes prone on the dock, cutting it away with my pocket knife. It was a struggle to keep the pieces from falling back into the water or blowing away; I kept tucking them in a hole in the gangway until I was finished, then marched them up to the trash.

I picked Louise up back at Vector and we returned ashore for brick oven pizza and draft beer at Surfside. We've given up on 180 Vilano, and this is the alternative. The pizza is decent, although the crust could be a bit crisper, and this particular example had a bit too much garlic on it. We made a quick stop at Publix on the way home, and decked the tender on arrival for an early start this morning. We had to weave our way through some racing sailboats, that were apparently using Vector as their leeward mark.

All the boats in the race were coming about just abeam of us. This was the only pic I got.

This morning, again thinking we might need to be all the way to downtown this evening, we weighed anchor on the flood at 8am and headed upriver. We had a fair tide most of the day, and we shot through the Pablo Creek Bridge at close to ten knots. As I wrap up typing we are anchored in a familiar spot off Blount Island (map), having determined that there is as yet no need to move flights up. We had a good run to the St. Johns but slowed down to three knots for the last 3.5 miles, pushing hard against max ebb on the river.

We'll do the rest of the trip to downtown Jacksonville in the morning, when we have the current behind us. That will give us a full day to settle in before Louise flies to California, and to make sure I am well situated for the duration, especially if she needs to extend her stay. It will also give us a chance to connect again with Erin and Chris, who are in Jacksonville getting their boat settled in at their home marina. You will next hear from me when we are wrapped up here and are again underway northward.