I wouldn’t be surprised if we live in Beaufort, SC some day.

After spending a week at Cumberland Island waiting for the weather to clear up, we finally decided that since we were in the south with summer approaching it simply wasn’t going to happen.  Time to continue moving north.

Every day the forecast called for at least a 40% chance of thunderstorms, and every day we were lucky and didn’t have any.  I bought a book about cruising in Georgia for the Kindle and it looks like there are SO many areas off of the ICW to explore.  Unfortunately with hurricane season approaching we couldn’t really take advantage of it, but we are armed with knowledge of some new spots we’d like to see when we make our way south again in the fall.

In the meantime we mixed it up a bit.  Instead of backtracking out of the anchorage at Cumberland, we continued winding up the Brickhill River until it rejoined the ICW.

Crossing St. Simons Sound near Brunswick, GA, we could still see the car carrier that had capsized and caught on fire last September.  It carried 4,000 Hyundais and Kias, and is in the process of being cut into eight pieces and removed.  The goal was to have it removed by hurricane season, but it looks like there is still quite a ways to go.

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Finally getting to spend some time at Cumberland Island.

I’ve been wanting to spend some time exploring Cumberland Island for a while now.  I like National Parks and the idea of going to one that is only accessible by boat is VERY appealing.  With only 40,000 annual visitors, it’s a unique experience compared to a more popular National Park.  By comparison, Acadia National Park receives 3.5 MILLION visitors each year.

Cumberland Island was owned by the Carnegie Family before becoming a National Park, and it was thisclose to being developed when Carnegie descendants sold 3,000 acres to a developer of parts of Hilton Head Island.  Fortunately a number of groups joined forces to convince him to sell it to the National Park Foundation.  Once you visit the island, you immediately appreciate what a loss it would have been had the development occurred.

A visit to Cumberland was high on my list of places to see before we set off in 2018 (wow – we’ve been cruising for almost two years now!), but on our first trip south we were only able to spend an afternoon because the anchorage was very exposed to a weather system that was coming in the next day.  We walked around a bit but it was definitely just a tease and left me wanting more.  As it happened, however, on our way north last spring we bypassed it when we hopped outside from Jacksonville, FL to Georgetown, SC, and on our way south last fall we skipped it because we were freezing and wanted to find some warm temperatures.  This time, however, the stars aligned and I would not be denied a second visit.

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It’s time to start moving again!

We went back and forth until nearly the day of departure.  We had been in Vero for two months – our longest stay in one place since we began cruising – and inertia had most definitely set in.  Vero was easy.  Getting groceries was easy, laundry, showers, and trash was easy.  We had some nice walking routes. A little voice inside my head said we hadn’t caught Covid-19 while we were there, so why press our luck?  Maybe we should just stay..  But that pesky hurricane season was coming and there wasn’t anywhere to sail.  So we ultimately decided to toss off the mooring line and head north towards the Chesapeake.

Although we had hoped to hop outside from Ft. Pierce, we quickly realized that the weather wasn’t going to cooperate so the inside it would be.  Really looking at the calendar for the first time in weeks, we saw that that Memorial Day weekend would kick off at the end of the week.  Uh-oh.  The Florida ICW is chaotic on a normal weekend, let alone a 3 day weekend shortly after Florida lifted its Covid restrictions,  We had less than zero interest in traveling on the water for any part of that.  Looks like we were going to be putting the hammer down.

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April by the numbers.

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I have a cruising friend who also tallies his monthly spending to the penny.  We have joked on occasion about the number of cruisers who claim they spend $1,000/month or some other low number (a few even claim $500/month) but almost without exception they arrive at those numbers by “not counting” things.  Maybe they don’t count travel expenses back home, or the loan payment on their boat, or the radar they decided to buy.  Whatever they leave out, it’s not particularly helpful for those trying to figure out how much they might spend every month cruising full-time, which is why he and I both started counting and posting the numbers.

So this month we spent $1,695.96 – if you don’t count the water maker that we bought.  And believe me, there are people out there who wouldn’t count it.  But the fact is the money was spent.  So in reality this month we spent $8,060.83.  Ooof.  But as unpleasant as the amount may be, that’s how much we spent while cruising in April.

The good news is that this is the last upgrade for the boat – truly.  The only other possible thing we could ever even remotely desire is radar, and we are very unlikely to get that, so there you have it.  Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, we shouldn’t come close to a monthly number like this again until we swallow the anchor some day.  From now on, boat costs will consist primarily of maintenance, repair, or replace.  Looking at our available funds (and with no real desire to go back to work), I can say without hesitation that’s a very good thing.

Here we go:

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So now what?

 

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Where to go next on Pegu Club has been a frequent topic of discussion.  Originally we had planned to take our time, poking north, exploring North Carolina, and going as far as the Chesapeake.  We would then start moving south again, aiming to be on the ICW by October 1st so we could try to avoid freezing as autumn moved in, and arrive in the Bahamas ideally by Christmas or even Thanksgiving.  As it has for so many other people, Covid-19 completely upended those plans.

This is the first time since we began cruising that I’ve wished we had a land base we could return to.  Several of our cruiser friends have hauled their boat for the summer and gone home.  Stay-at-home orders are a completely different thing when you have an apartment or a house to wander around in vs. a 30 foot sailboat.  But we have to work with what we’ve got, so we started brainstorming.

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Well hello, Vero Beach! Didn’t we just see you three months ago?

Between debating for a week as to whether we should leave the Bahamas, and spending 60 hours on our passage, we had plenty of time to discuss where we should go. Restrictions being implemented in each state varied, and it was too cold for our taste to head north of Florida.

Vero Beach quickly rose towards the top of the list. At $435 the monthly price for a ball was very reasonable, it was well protected from weather, and there was a grocery store within easy walking distance. Although we would prefer not to be in Florida for hurricane season, protection-wise it wasn’t a bad spot to be if we found ourselves in that position. And if things were so bad that everywhere was locked down for months, it would be sufficiently warm in the winter. Now we just had to get there while we still could.

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March by the numbers.

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When March 1st rolled around we didn’t imagine we’d back in the U.S. by the end of the month, but here we are.

The Defender Warehouse Sale is traditionally at the end of March and we had planned to take advantage of the prices to buy a few upgrades, so this month was higher than the first two months. However, we have one very large upgrade coming up for April (the subject of a future post) which will make March spending look miserly. Ouch.

March opened with us anchored in the Exumas and closed with us sitting on a mooring in Vero where we will be until at least mid-May.

Here we go:

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Back to the U.S.

Once we made the decision to head back to the U.S., we had to get the boat ready for a passage. The forecast showed excellent conditions for sailing most of the way which was good because we wanted to make the trip non-stop from Lee Stocking, and we didn’t have enough diesel to motor the whole way. Some of the marinas in the Bahamas were closing so access to fuel wasn’t guaranteed.

Being able to use the white floppy things on our boat is always our first choice, and now we were REALLY glad we had them vs. owning a motor boat and being dependent on fuel. An added bonus was that our weather window was several days longer than what we needed, giving us added flexibility to creep along under sail if the wind was lighter than forecast. We really couldn’t have asked for a better situation, giving us the additional confidence that we were making the right decision.

The wind had been blowing 20+ knots for several days (a theme for our stay this year), so we wanted to stay on the bank side of the Exumas. We were going to need some help from the tides to pull that off because heading north on the banks from Lee Stocking requires boats to go through the Pimlicos, which is shallower than what our boat draws. Fortunately a quick check of the tide tables showed they were in our favor, sparing us from very boisterous conditions on the Sound side. With everything stowed and the jacklines installed, we set the alarm to leave at sunrise on Saturday.

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Bahamas interruptus.

After finally escaping George Town it was time to head back to Lee Stocking for some more hiking, snorkeling, and lazing about on Boneham Beach. The Cruiser’s Regatta had finished so we joined an exodus of about fifty boats on a fantastic day for sailing.

We had a great, rollicking sail and joined about 25 other boats in the anchorage. Hmmm. Not what we had in mind, given that there were 8 or less the last time we were there. However, we figured a large number of the boats were on their way back north to head home. Since we weren’t leaving the Bahamas until late May, we decided to wait them out and let the crowds get well ahead of us.

Our strategy worked with more boats leaving each day, so that by the end of the third day there were only four of us, well spaced out. Ahhh. Much better. We needed to renew our immigration in a few weeks, so we decided we’d stay in Lee Stocking for the rest of the week, move north a bit, and then if the weather permitted we’d head to Barreterre and rent a car to drive to the immigration office in George Town, saving us a 25 nautical mile beat into the prevailing wind.

Enjoying the view from another hike on Lee Stocking.

We keep up with the news online while in the Bahamas, and as each day passed in Lee Stocking the increasing restrictions resulting from COVID-19 resulted in repeated discussions each day regarding whether we should consider going back to the U.S. early. Staying in the Bahamas meant a reduced risk of exposure (which is a concern given Jeff’s CHF), but there are only two hospitals in the Bahamas – both requiring an airplane flight to get there – and the quality of medical care in the U.S. would be better if it was needed. If we stayed in the Bahamas we could keep enjoying the beaches and the pretty water, which we couldn’t do in the U.S. We balanced the risks and decided to stay for now.

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February by the numbers.

It’s easy to keep the spending down when there isn’t much to spend money on. In fact if it wasn’t for paying our taxes this month we would have been under $1,000. As it is, we were certainly fine with this month’s totals. We are already kicking around a few upgrades for this year so a month like this helps to ease the sting of those future purchases!

February saw us arriving in the Exumas. While we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time waiting out cold fronts, we did manage to finally make it down to Georgetown where the wind protection is better.

Here we go:

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