No Guts; No Glory

We had another fun filled, action packed day on the water. We pulled out of St Augustine this morning a few minutes before 7:00am. The forecast off-shore was great so we thought we would try our luck running down the coast instead of dealing with all the no wake Manatee zones that plague the east coast of Florida. Once outside the inlet, the run down to Cape Canaveral was great. Seas were maybe 2 feet and for the most part it was very calm.

We rounded Cape Canaveral right at 11:00am and set the next waypoint for the St Lucie Inlet at Stuart, our destination for the night. We knew the fuel would be close, but I made the calculations at least 20 times last night and knew we "should" have enough fuel. Well, as they say, "no guts, no glory". The vessel view kept telling us we were going to run out of fuel before Stuart. And according to vessel view, we did run out of fuel. We ran out of fuel about 10 miles short of the Inlet and 25 miles short of the marina.

We kept the throttle down and making our way to the inlet. Based on how well the boat was running all week and all the fuel calculations we did, we had to have more fuel than the gauges were telling us. The manual gauges were pegged on "E" and vessel view was giving us a fuel warning. We took a picture of the vessel view and the GPS. The worst that could happen is that we would need to call Sea Tow or BoatUS. The good news, we did make it all the way to Sunset Bay Marina tonight on the St Lucie Canal and we are all set to run across Lake Okeechobee in the morning. The usable fuel on this boat according to the manuals is 332 gallons. We put 311 gallons on board when we got in. That first beer never tasted so good.


The new galley faucet installed.


The old galley faucet we took out.


Coming out of the St Augustine Inlet this morning at 7:00am


Sunrise was around 7:20 this morning




A cruise ship coming into Port Canaveral


These ships are massive out on the water


12 miles to the Inlet...


Vessel view say we won't make it.


This picture is sitting at the Roosevelt Bridge waiting for the opening to get to the marina and fuel dock on the other side.


We did make it.

Boat Captain and Plumber

The adventure continues. So we had two more big days. We ran from Wrightsville Beach, NC to Beaufort, SC on Sunday. We covered 251 miles. Yesterday we traveled from Beaufort to St Augustine, FL, another 239 miles. In between running the boat, we also got to purchase and replace the galley faucet. The winter gremlins decided to kill the old faucet, so it was a taxi ride to Lowes Home Improvement to pick up a new faucet. And only one additional trip back to the store for the extra parts we needed to convert the faucet to use on the boat.

The boat is running like a champ and all is well. Looks like we can finally put away our big coats and gloves. The temperature looks like it will be in the 70's for the remainder of the trip.


The Socastee Swing Bridge






You never know what you might see on the waterway.

Good Long Day

A really good and long day. We pulled out of Great Bridge this morning at 6:50am. The temp was 45 and the winds were around 20kts. No rain today thank goodness. We ran down to Beaufort, NC and stopped at Jarrett Bay for fuel at $2.39/gallon. We covered 185 miles by 2:00pm. After the fill up, we continued south to Wrightsville Beach. We got in tonight at 6:00pm after 270 miles. It was a good day, but we are tired and looking forward to the bed tonight.

Julie Said Yes! - DC to FL

Started another trip today aboard Julie Said Yes, a 2006 Sea Ray 44 Sedan Bridge. The boat is going from Woodbridge, VA just outside Washington, DC to Bradenton, FL just outside of Tampa. We had a tough day to start our journey. It rained all day and the temps were in the low 40's. The Chesapeake Bay had small craft advisories, but fortunately the seas were not too bad around 3 to 4 feet. We made it down to Great Bridge, VA today, a trip of 180 miles and are staying at Atlantic Yacht Basin tonight. We got caught up in the restricted bridge opening for rush hour in the afternoon here. Not too much to look at today since it was all we could do to see out the isinglass.

Trip #2 - Wanderer from GA to NC

Turn around time was quick. I jumped aboard a 2006 34-foot Mainship Trawler today down in St Simons Island, GA. She is powered with a single Yanmar 370hp.  This will be my second trip aboard Wanderer as I brought he from the Chesapeake to NC for the owners.  The trip should be a quick one as I will only be traveling about 400 miles to Carolina Beach, NC. I will pull out in the morning and expect to get to Beaufort, SC. The SPOT locator will be up and running:

SPOT Shared Page

Welcome Home

Just to finish up the Adventure...

 We arrived back in Jacksonville on Sunday afternoon after 11 great days on the water. Bruce picked some of the finest marina and resort the east coast of Florida has to offer. We traveled 618 miles during our time together and Salty Dawg performed flawlessly the entire trip. She cruised comfortably at 2700 rpm doing between 25 and 27 mph.

We had a real treat before we left Palm Coast on Sunday morning. A huge Manatee showed up right next to the boat and gave us quite a performance. The Manatee must have been local to the marina since he seemed like he was looking for a hand out. He must have stayed around for 20 minutes before he decided to swim off. We got some great pictures.

The ride back on Sunday might have been our nicest day yet. It was sunny with temps in the mid 70’s and a very gentle, cooling breeze. We took our time getting back home so we didn’t have to deal with a low tide coming into the lock back to Bruce’s neighborhood.

St. Augustine was just beautiful as we cruised through before lunch. There was another big sailing ship tied up to the face dock as we went by. Right after the Bridge of Lions in St Augustine we came across a sea plane. I can’t say that I have seen one before landing on the ICW on a Sunday afternoon. It was kind of cool.

Here are the last of the pictures from the trip. Thanks for the comments.




We called him "Lefty" since he seemed to be missing his left flipper. It was completely healed and he didn't seem any worse for ware.












There were several crew teams at the resort in Hammock Beach getting ready for their spring season to begin up north once the ice melts.


St Augustine








A small Cub landing on the ICW.










Coming into the Lock

The Nina & Pinta

Today was our most beautiful day on the water so far. It was just a near perfect day to travel the ICW. The wind was SE at 5kts and the temps were in the low 80’s. We traveled 103 miles today in 5 hours from Vero Beach to New Smyrna Beach, FL. We saw lots of dolphins and manates on the water today in addition to lots of boats.

Around Titusville, FL just north of Cape Canaveral, we passed the replica sailing ships the Nina and Pinta from the days of Christopher Columbus. The two boats were in Vero Beach last night, but we did not get a chance to see them. But we were very lucky to see them on the water today and got to take some great pictures.

We got in today around 2:30 in the afternoon. We had one of our best meals tonight at a little dive called Yellow Dog. They had some of the best pulled pork I have had. Not to mention some killer deserts.

Here are a few pictures from the day. Tomorrow we will travel north another 50 miles back to Hammock Beach Resort in Palm Coast, FL. We will spend Friday and Saturday at the resort. I think the family has this “chill-laxing” down to a science now.