St. Augustine to Pine Island

As promised Tom from Irish Sail Lady delivered our repaired mainsail to us yesterday morning, so at slack tide in the afternoon with the boat pointing into the wind we ran it back up the stick and furled it in. Up at 5 am this morning, we had the anchor aboard by 6 and made the 6:30 am opening of the Bridge of Lions. After a detour into Camachee Cove Marina for 38 gallons of diesel and a topping of the water tanks, we were back underway at 8:15 and heading north to the Pine Island anchorage. We arrived with one other boat already here, the beautiful Hinckley Bermuda 40 'Freedom'.

Plans are for a leisurely but hot and windless afternoon watching the multitude of dolphins feed around us in the obviously fishy anchorage. Still trying to decide what the plan is for the next few days, the weather is forecasting "nocturnal surge events" for the next few days. Not exactly sure what that means, it's the first time we've ever seen that terminology, but guessing we may get some gusty nighttime winds and we want to be sure that we're securely anchored. We've got both hooks in the mud here today, mostly just to practice for the heavy current areas that we'll be passing through in GA and SC during the coming weeks.

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Pine Island to Fernandina

Sunday was spent idling around the boat taking care of small projects, both of us moving a little slowly after a great time Saturday night with Fred and the acrobatic Rick from 'Freedom'. Pine Island has such a snug little anchorage it was a great place to hang out and avoid the Sunday boat traffic and we were able to scrape the waterline of 4 inch long grass and miniature barnacles that have accumulated already. Star made good on her promise of making my favorite dish after we crossed north of our starting point in St. Augustine. Lapin a la moutarde . For those like me who don't ' parlez vous ' very well, that's Rabbit in mustard sauce. Today we were underway at 7:15 heading north with a couple of stopping options available, but we were staying flexible and had no certain destination. We crossed the St. Johns River and transited the Sister's Creek area at low tide and were on a just barely rising tide for the notoriously shoaling Nassau Sound area. To say

Fourth of July

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll spend all day in a boat drinking beer. We've had a great 4 th , hanging with Wes and little Wes. Fishing, riding in boats, loitering on the sandbar in Jackson Creek, grilling out, and every other fun thing that we could think of. Tomorrow we head to Tappahannock for a little while to stay at my Mom's place and then back to Deltaville to get serious about work. The weather has been great, about 10 degrees cooler than it ever was in South Carolina, and we barely even need the air conditioner up here at night. It's great to be in a sailing area also, unlike Florida where 3 out of 4 boats are power boats, here the marinas and anchorages are full of masts and when you look out at the Bay during the afternoon all you see are sails. Sailboats, sailboats everywhere! Nice protected waters all around, we're looking forward to being able to take some day sails soon. For those who read this a

The Surreptitious Crab Pot

You can not teach a crab to walk straight . -Aristophanes 450-385 BC Travelling the waterway from South Florida up to South Carolina has taught us a lot of different things, but one of the more surprising is the art of crabbing. Having grown up on the Chesapeake, I thought I knew a thing or two about catching crabs, but apparently I didn't understand the stealth involved. You see, the crabs down here have incredible eyesight, a requirement for surviving in the murky brown waters. The local crabbers have needed to develop some especially crafty techniques for working around the blue crab and stone crab's defense mechanisms. One of the first things that a boater notices when watching these crabmen is that the proper color of the float buoy attached to the pot is critical. Bright orange or yellow are out, the crab would see those from down below in his muddy lair in an instant, and avoid the baited pot like a Congressman avoiding his conscience. Likewise red, chartreuse, or any o

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