Saturday, January 5, 2008

Left Malta NY by car early in the morning.  Freezing, very cold, and two feet of snow. 

Stopped in Petersburg VA where it was warm when we arrived.  On Sunday, we arrived at the marina in Brunswick GA  to find "Mystic Jitney" in good condition down below but a lot of dirt and muck topsides.  Between the paper mills, the mulch plant and the railroad, Brunswick turned out to be a rather dirty place.  While Joyce worked inside cleaning and unpacking, Alan spent the next few days scrubbing  the topsides - even had to go up the mast and wash it down before we could put the clean sails on.

We spent the rest of the week working on the boat, provisioning and taking care of business - had the usual unexpected glitches to deal with.  When Alan called our insurance company to arrange to pay for our renewal they informed us that they had changed their policy and now required a out of the water survey every three years, instead of every five years - our survey was four years old!  Since we were being required to have a new survey done we decided to shop around for a better price.  At the same time we made arrangements to have the boat hauled out at Fernandina Beach and got recommendations for a surveyor (not exactly proper to survey your own boat, even though Alan is a surveyor).  We also decided to have the bottom painted at the same time rather than wait until spring.  

We had reservations to fly to Marsh Harbor to spend a week on "Island Girl" on the 10th.  We still had other work to do on "Mystic Jitney" before we could take her to Fernandina Beach so we scheduled the haul out and survey  for the week of January 28, after our return from the Bahamas..

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Left "Mystic Jitney" in Brunswick and drove to Jacksonville airport to fly to Marsh Harbor.  Had a fabulous week in the Bahamas - temperatures in the 80's during the day and 70's at night! 

                    Sydney's Tree - Tahiti Beach, Bahamas                                                        Tahiti Beach - Bahamas

                   Albury's Sail/Bag Shop - Man O War Cay, Bahamas                   ing in Albury's Sail/Bag Shop - Man O Way Cay, Bahamas

Arrived  back in Brunswick on the 18th to 45 degree weather with it going into the 30's at night.  We were anxious to get further south but were now on a "schedule" with work, haul out, and survey before we could go very far.  The week of  the 21st it remained rainy and cold in Brunswick.  We continued with maintenance, bought 100 ft of chain to replace our anchor rode, worked on the rigging, small wiring jobs, put the sails on, launched the rib, had the diver clean the bottom, Joyce worked on income taxes, put the trailer and car in storage, and filled the water and fuel tanks.

Friday, January 25, 2008

On a cold and blustery morning we finally left Brunswick and headed to Fernandina Beach.  The trip was pretty uneventful until we started crossing St. Andrews inlet for a  harrowing 1/2 hour experience  in NE winds up to 30K, waves coming in from the ocean crashing over the bow, the sound of the propeller twice coming up out of the water, stuff crashing around down below, Alan navigating, and me white knuckled at the wheel.  For a brief moment as I looked over at some shrimp boats coming in I thought to myself  "well, if we do go over surely they'll come and save us".   Alan's  navigation skills allowed us to shorten our course a bit.  Seemed like forever though before  he said "we're doing OK, whenever you feel comfortable  you can make the turn to starboard and the seas will be behind us - it'll get better".  I turned at the first opportunity, held my breath,  and it did get better.  Lesson learned/relearned:  just because you're itching to get away from the dock doesn't mean you can't turn back and do it another day. 

We arrived in Fernandina Beach in the afternoon and took a mooring  for a couple of days until we could go over to the marina to be hauled on Monday (they don't work on the weekend)

Saturday, January 26, 2008

The folks at Enterprise Rent A Car picked us up at the docks at 9:30 in the morning and took us to their office so we could rent a car.  We rented a car and drove back up to Brunswick GA to the storage place where we had left our car and boat trailer.  Picked up our car and trailer and drove back to Fernandina Beach.  Dropped our car and trailer off at the marina.  We now had two cars because the rental couldn't be returned until Monday morning.   As it turned out it wasn't such a bad thing to have two cars.  We had been having some problems with our car and hoped they would go away but on the trip back from GA they got worse - so now we had to have our car worked  - the logistics of all this was getting out of hand! 

Monday, January 28, 2008

On Sunday, we brought Mystic Jitney over to the dock at Tiger Point Marina so she could be hauled out.  Got a referral for a good automotive repair shop, returned the rental car, took the RIB out to store on the trailer for the week, stopped by the Hampton Inn in the historic section of Fernandina Beach to check in for a few days,  and then dropped off our car to be worked on.  While the boat was out of the water we spent the next four days at the Hampton Inn, touring Fernandina beach historic sites and enjoying this lovely beach town.  It was still cold so it was really nice to be in a hotel with real heat.  We stopped by the marina every day to check on the boat.  Alan changed the zincs, and changed the propeller.  The yard painted the bottom and primed and painted the prop and shaft.  On Thursday the surveyor came and did the survey and in the afternoon Alan and I decided that we might as well wax the hull. 

On the hard in Fernandina Beach

Friday, February 1, 2008

Mystic Jitney was re-launched looking like new.   We were proud!  We went shopping for more food and stuff, loaded the boat, re-launched the RIB, locked the car and trailer in the boat yard, covered the car, and went to the local fish market for some of the best shrimp going (fresh from the Florida/Georgia coast).

On  Saturday, February 2 we left the dock at Tiger Point, Fernandina Beach and headed south.  Spent the night in a quiet anchorage and on Sunday arrived at St. Augustine.  Anchored just south of the Bridge of Lions and spent the next three days in St. Augustine.  We toured the lighthouse museum and other historic sites (plenty of them to see), shopped, and just had a good time enjoying this beautiful city - a great place to spend some time.  At the marina we learned that the bridge at New Smyrna Beach is closed every day from 7:00 am until 5:00 pm because they're painting it!  That meant that we would have to arrange to go through before 7:00am or after 5:00pm - not convenient to a boater cruising on the waterway.  We decided to opt for the early morning even though it would still be dark. 

St Augustine Lighthouse

Looking down the stairs - St Augustine Lighthouse

On Thursday, February 7 we left St. Augustine.  As we were traveling down the waterway in the afternoon  we saw the space shuttle Atlantis go up!  Alan saw something on the horizon and and then as we watched we saw what looked like a firey rocket was shooting up into the sky.  Through the binoculars Alan was able to see the separation of the fuel tanks.  We weren't aware the the shuttle was going up but Alan quickly got on the internet and sure enough there was the headline that the shuttle Atlantis had just been launched.  It was pretty amazing - what a bonus!  We spent the night in Rock House Creek which is just a couple of miles from the New Smyrna Beach bridge.  At 6:00am on Friday we left the anchorage in the dark, radar on, Maptech chart plotter on, Alan with flashlight in hand and eyes peeled for the buoys.  We motored slowly down the waterway toward the bridge and arrived around 6:40am, still dark.  I radioed the bridge tender requesting an opening and we went through just before 7:00 am.  Finally at 7:15am the sun came up and we could see!  Arrived in Titusville around 1:30 - had already put in 8 hours.