TO QUOTE THE GREAT RAY CHARLES…
As the song goes, I’ve got Georgia on my mind…
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AUTHOR’S NOTE: Before writing – actually finishing this post, as it was started two days ago – I have to apologize for my tardiness. I had a bit of an IT issue with the mobile office two nights ago. It all started out fine – Amy got her personal hot spot working (it’s not what it sounds like) while I popped the SD card from the camera into the laptop and downloaded the day’s imagery. That’s when things started going all pear shaped. I hit Delete on one of the videos and the next thing I knew, everything on the SD card disappeared. Poof. No recovery. Aaargh! So what did I do? Software developer, electrical engineer, and Former Director of IT John “Freekin” Hanzl finds a SD Recovery program off the internet and hits “Install” (I can hear my father in law – FIL – groaning right now). About ten seconds later I realize what I had done and CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL!!! Too late – my computer was just hijacked. AAARGH!!! (queue me banging my head on the keyboard while refilling my glass). So that brought the blog writing session to a screeching halt. Amy wrote an email to her dad (FIL), who’s the master of computer recovery (he’s saved our hide more than once already). But I’m finally back to square one now – minus a few videos, which is a bummer – and will post the this blog now, and then as a bonus, will do another tonight. So where were we…
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First of all, based on a suggestion from our broker Peter, I’m going to present a few stats at the top of each post to help set the scene for the day’s run. Perhaps this could be of use for someone planning a similar trip down the road. Also a few baseline items: when we can we run the boat at 20 knots (2200 RPM), carry a max of 350 gallons of diesel, and at that speed we burn basically 1 gallon of fuel per nautical mile, giving us a range between fills of roughly 265 miles with a 20% reserve, including running the genset while operating. However we are constantly slowing down for manatee zones, no wake zones, bridges and boats and docks (oh my), so our range varies (at six knots our range triples). Regardless, here’s where we’re at so far…
Day 1 – Jupiter, FL to Titusville, FL, 124 miles, 8 hours
Day 2 – Titusville, FL to St Augustine, FL, 99.8 miles, 7 hours
Day 3 (today) – St Augustine, FL to St Simons Island, GA, 103.3 miles, 6 hours
I forgot to add this picture from last night – our first grilled meal onboard…
What did today bring? Well, good stuff, for sure. Confusing channels (almost ran out of one at 20 knots. No doubt that would have been fun), HUGE ships and appreciative sailors on tiny ones (tip for anyone thinking of doing a trip through the ICW – when overtaking slower vessels it’s good etiquette to radio the overtaken to ask what side the captain would like a pass. If the other boat is with it, then the captain slows down, allowing us to come off plane and break our wake – Sequel moves a LOT of water – so we can pass at a slow speed and prevent all kinds of chaos on their end. We’ve received several VHF thank you’s doing this). We saw dolphins playing in our wake – and one pair mating, or at least swim-spooning, got the stink-eye from Navy security because we stopped to check out some of their cool ships, and motored past a nuclear power plant.
We also had our first challenging docking at Morningstar Marina at St Simons Island, Georgia – for anyone planning on stopping there, check the tides. There’s a HUGE tidal current, over three knots, and it can be really windy to boot. Fun times at the end of a long day. But a nice marina and friendly dockhands. We put in 262 gallons of diesel, paid the $1,000 (groan), and then realized we needed a sales slip with our hull number on it in the first place we stopped out of Florida to send to our broker for sales tax purposes. So after we docked for the night, Amy went back marina office and bought this:
It was interesting being moored next to 100′ yachts – one which must have been prepping for the owners or guests as the crew was busting hump giving her spit and polish. If you’ve ever watched the reality show Below Deck, these guys were exactly that. It was amazing to see how that silly show had some reality to it.
After my computer fiasco, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal ashore. We ate at Coastal Kitchen and Raw Bar, the restaurant at the marina and had some tasty, though not the healthiest, Georgia food. Fried green tomato and buffalo mozzarella caprese salad, a half dozen raw oysters, peal and eat wild Georgia shramps (sic), and local grouper with cream corn grits, sautéed spinach, leeks, surrounded with a citrus beurre blanc sauce, and washed it down with a bottle of Martin Codax, Albarino Rias Baixas. Not bad! And then we cam home to Sequel – even better!
By the way – the Feature Image on this post makes me laugh, because I caught Amy using reading glasses. Little miss perfect eyes is catching up to this old geezer! Matter of fact, I think I’ll post it again…
Finally I’ll leave you with the few video clips I was able to salvage.
Tomorrow is Down Day! Till then…
John
WHEN TWO DAYS BECOME ONE…
So did you miss us?
We wanted to write last night, we really did, but it was a loooong day (like that word). I don’t want to get too wordy with this post, which if you know me is really tough, but I’ll try. In short, we had a good day (okay two days). The slightly longer version is we got up at 6:00AM, prepped the boat for travel and finally left Blowing Rocks!
It was a bit of a hair-raising departure as we still had the grounding scars with us, but we hugged the pilings as we left (it was of course low tide) and made it into the channel no problem. Finally – 300 yards of the 1,400 mile journey checked off. Then the chartplotter crapped out – which takes out the depth sounder and the radar as well. Okay, we were ready for that. Reboot and Amy made sure we had our route ready on the paper charts (see our Mapping Parties if you don’t know how that all came together). Right as rain! (damn, bad phrase. My fault. Future predicted).
So we ran north in the ICW for about an hour – it was sweltering hot outside, our trusty generator pumping out plenty of juice to run the helm air conditioners, keeping us cool and comfortable.
Until it quit.
An hour into the “big trip”. Of course.
Whatever, we ran on without cool air and sweated our butts off for eight hours – and had a blast. We saw more dolphins and manatees than we ever hoped for, and the constantly changing landscape kept us looking (as did the ever rebooting chartplotter). Day One ended with us running through a decent thunderstorm just as we were trying to pick our way though the shallows into Titusville, and a desperately needed slip (we did make a stop earlier, just to throw a little fuel into the tank – and discovered it cost $1,000 to fill the boat. Ah yes – John and Amy, welcome back to boating! Friends, are you listening?)
(Our slip for the night in Titusville – which we came to during a downpour. We measured – it was 14′ 8″ wide, and our boat is 13′ 8″ wide – leaving us 6″ clearance either side for backing down. But Sequel is up to the task)
We had a fun evening dinghy cruise around the docks – a favorite pastime of ours – and then it was lights out…
Day Two saw us pulling out of the slip at 8:00AM (6:30 wake up), and a steady run north. Oh – and the genny is running again. It looks like one bit of discovery about the boat is that by design the fuel pickup for the generator is way higher than the pickup for the mains (propulsion engines), meaning that when our tank ran down to 119 gallons (it’s a 350 gallon tank), the genny starved for fuel and quit. Lesson learned.
Beyond that? Well, we had commercial traffic, bridge openings, sandbars. narrow channels and wide ones. all kinds of awesome wildlife, and at the end of the day we found ourselves in a mooring field in St Augustine, FL, surrounded by pirate vessels, megayachts, and ancient buildings.
So what I want to leave you with is a few pictures and a short montage video to cover the past two days. I’m writing this from Sequel’s cockpit at our mooring – it’s almost 10:30PM and all sorts of fish are jumping, a horse and buggy is plodding down the road beside the harbor, and some damn HUGE bug just landed on my head and Amy ran inside – so I guess that’s enough for tonight!
Till Georgia…
John
Groundhog Day
Okay – this is getting tiring. Guess where we are? If you said Blowing Freeking (yes, I know I used that word yesterday, but it suits) Rocks, bing – you got it. We had hoped we’d be gone by now – not literally, just figuratively. But here we sit (float). We met with Jay, owner of Siebert Yacht Management, who did all the work on the boat today. He stopped by to tie up some loose ends. One of those loose ends, and by far the most troubling one, is that our super fancy, mega awesome chartplotter / depth sounder system keeps shutting down (Amy just said, “not so awesome!”). It’s not the best feeling to lose both your chartplotter and your depth sounder while underway, (see yesterday’s post if in doubt…). Trust me – the exact same thing happened when we took delivery of our last boat, as we were heading into Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, that loose end still needs to be tied. Plotter still craps out. Crap.
(Jay Siebert with Amy discussing the finer points of the “lean in”)
Still, we had a good day – we had a chance to meet Jay in person. We also cleaned all the water intake strainers – two monsters for the engines, one the genny and one for the four AC systems after yesterday’s adventure. We also replaced the fender lines with new ones, because we could. And Peter stopped by and I got some more good knowledge about all sorts of boat stuff before he had to run – kinda like kicking the chicks out of the nest, but in reverse.
(Peter – I just realized we were so involved with what we were doing that I never took any pictures. Sorry friend. So I pulled this image off DiMillo’s website…)
So now it’s just Amy and I. We returned the rental, so we’re down to a single mode of transportation to get us back to New England. Sequel. It’s raining (again) and a big front just moved through. Amy’s prepping dinner in the galley and I’m up on the helm deck at the settee writing this blog. I could think of worse places to be…
Tomorrow we leave – come hell or high water Actually, high water would be kind of nice. We’re at low tide right now and if the depth sounder hadn’t crashed, the depth under the boat would be reading a whopping seven inches. And of course the next low tide is 6:47AM, right before we’re planning on leaving. So if you don’t hear from us tomorrow you’ll know why…
Till then (okay, if you want to se what happens you can click here)…
John
Oh crap…
Where was I? Oh yeah – on Sequel! What I was too tired to tell you about last night was all about the runs to West Marine, the crazy ACE Hardware store, and Publix (where we were about $20 shy of $600), and about the torrential rains that happened while we were at West Marine and the crazy ACE Hardware for the second time – when Billy who crewed on the sport fisherman opposite us was kind enough to drag the 150lbs of boxes we had left in the cockpit (because it NEVER rains in southern Florida, right?) up into the helm deck.
(Exhibit A – 150lbs of boxes we stupidly left in the cockpit)
Oh – and speaking of those boxes, a special shout out to Chloe of Down East Yachting, where we shipped those boxes, plus three more PLUS two cases of wine. She was both super nice and helpful, but also a foodie with great knowledge of the area’s restaurants (though we were so tired we ended up eating on the boat, we now have eaten twice at Rinaldi’s Deli)
Here’s us last night, watching more weather come through…
So why the name of this post? Well – today’s Friday the 13th. And we were thinking of leaving this afternoon, but here we are still at Blowing Rocks. It’s FRIDAY the 13TH!!! What were we thinking?
But to back up – this morning, during our third trip to West Marine (and yes, the crazy ACE Hardware as well), we met up with our broker, Peter, who had flown down from Portland, ME to go over the boat with us. And so we did, stem to stern, helm to holy space and everything in between. Then it was time to take her out for the first time! We pulled out of her slip, me at the helm, Peter and Amy tending lines, the usual dock walkers watching our departure, and…
Not 30 feet out of the slip we ran hard aground. Seriously. Stuck. Fast. NOW do you understand the title of this post? Apparently, and only known to local knowledge as there are zero markers, there is no water out of the marina. You have to edge around the pilings and slink along the bow pulpits and anchors of the docked fishing boats in order to sneak out and find the water of the ICW.
Did I say we left our slip, went THRITY FEET and then ran aground? In front of everyone? Oh well – how were we to know? And to be honest, folks were great and really helpful. And we learned how to use our new dinghy and lift. Thanks to (Chris?) with his skiff, and to whats-his-name (never got it) who runs a dive boat (yes – a dive boat, complete with customers, sidled past us while we were stuck fast) – thanks to them for hauling us off, and for Peter for his calming presence (and for breaking the boat hook we had purchased a few short hours earlier – guess where we went to tonight? Yep West Freekin Marine.)
Regardless, we got her off, there was no damage to the boat – only to our pride – and we went out for a fun cruise and we got to know Sequel that much better (and by the way – we’ve received many compliments on her, even when her ass is being hauled off the bottom…)
So we can only guess at what tomorrow holds! We’re hoping to get away, but there’s still a few issues we’re dealing with…
Till then… (Want to know what happens? It’s right here! )
John
STUFFED
Okay – so it’s all about the means to the ends, right? Actually, before talking about what happened for the past two days, I want to say Amy and I are working on this entry while sipping a glass of wine in the salon of Sequel! It’s pouring out – with lightning flashing around the boat – but, unlike our loft, it’s not raining inside!
Right – so let’s back up a moment. We’ve been hanging out in Miami because Amy is planning a program for a group that’s executing in October (oh and if you don’t know, Amy and her business partner Lisa run an event planning company called Paramount Planners that do high end events all over the world). I, like the slug I am, tag along whenever I can because they only go to the best places and do the most amazing things. And part of the “amazing things” bit means eating at the most amazing places. And when they are checking out restaurants to see if they work for a given event, well, I become a professional eater. Tough job I know!
Case in point – yesterday. We were staying at the St Regis hotel, which is a stupidly off the hook amazing hotel. Here’s my poorly executed walkthrough of the place:
Amy and Lisa were off doing their thing while I suffered through a day on the beach. We met up for a dinner extravaganza (and the point of my post), with them already suffering from a food coma after a luncheon feast at Yardbird, though Amy was so full she didn’t even want to say all they ate. But no worries – I’m about to detail the eating that follows next.
So we went to Michael Mina 74 in the Fountainebleau and met with their contact for the property and had a “light snack”…
and ate… tuna tartare, ahi and hamachi poppers, crab summer rolls, Japanese wedge salad, duck confit and scallion crepe, lobster pot pie, Rocky Road profiteroles and Macallan 18 beignets – along with some very cool cocktails and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
Amy’s quote of the night was found in the ladies room (I did NOT take this picture)
So full – beyond full. EXTREMELY full.
But then we had to go out to dinner. Onward to 1826 Restaurant and Lounge, and yet another eager contact who wanted to show us the best the place had to offer.
And we ate… leek croquettes, king salmon tartare, summer truffle risotto, lobster and crab poached with scallop dumplings, wild ramps and pastis, chicken roasted and confited with polenta orange and spring vegetable fricassee, plus more cocktails and vino. Ugh – not complaining but so damn full!
All I wanted to do was sleep, wake up, and drive the 90 some odd miles to Jupiter, FL to see Sequel – but mother nature had other plans and dazzled us with hours of insane lightning and spine tingling thunder – the like I’ve not seen in a long time.
But finally day broke and we headed out – a cloudy morning giving way to extreme southern Florida heat. And finally, after literally months of waiting, planning and dreaming, there she was!
We made it – and though I have much more to say, I think it needs to wait till tomorrow. Suffice it to say it’s been a loooong day of prepping, shopping, storing, discovering, and yes – getting rained on. But that’s a story for later. So I’ll leave you with one last picture – and the reason for the title of this post. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, and how glad are we for it!
Till then (and tomorrow’s Friday the 13th)…
John
THE THIN GREEN LINE
(Amy running the line. One of those glasses is mine – because it’s not a Map Party without…)
When people think of the Intracoastal Waterway, aka the ICW or simply the “Ditch” – if they think about it at all – they probably picture a long, straight canal that runs from southern Florida all the way up the east coast to New England. I know that’s what I thought. But I was wrong. Hell, the ICW doesn’t even run north of Norfolk, VA. I mean, technically it does, but it’s been years since that part of the ICW has been maintained, so it’s all but impassable save for the smallest and shallowest draft craft – which definitely excludes Sequel. Rather, the ICW is a collection of canals, rivers, bays, and sounds that wends its way from southern Florida to Norfolk, VA. Some sections of the ICW are very exposed and quite vast – so vast that you are miles from shore. And other parts are so narrow and winding that approaching vessels have to take great care when passing – and where shoaling is a constant concern. Then there’s the insanely busy harbors and treacherous inlets from the Atlantic, as well as, apparently, loud and squabbling peacocks. It’s quite a mixed bag of challenges and fun.
(The GREEN line along the east coast and ending in Norfolk, VA is the ICW)
How do I know this? Well, I’ve been researching the trip for some time. And of course we’ve inundated ourselves with more cruising guides than is proper. But most interesting of all, Amy and I have discovered (Thanks Steve) a series of short videos posted Matt Mattson and his wife Connie of their own experience running up the ICW as they traveled from Florida to Maryland to deliver their boat to its new owner. Their trip concluded at the end of April and the videos provided us with an excellent, and current, preview of what to expect – at least up to VA.
So for the past week, every night, we’ve been having a Map Party (Amy’s name), where we highlight our planned route in green. Page after page of charts – a thin green line snaking slowly north. A line that’s mirrored by an orange line that works its way up the corresponding state’s DeLorme Atlas and Gazetter (thanks Matt for that suggestion) The route on the atlas is an excellent “big picture” view of where we are.
Of course Map Parties would never be complete without a cocktail and one of these (who we’ve neglected to tell about our impending trip, and who has no idea of what a boat is, nor all the trouble and expense we’ve put into the boat to make it “Bella ready”, but that’s a story for another time)…
So ready or not, tomorrow we leave for Miami. We’ve shipped over 150lbs of crap to Blowing Rocks marina, where Sequel waits for us. And just now I hit the Order button on Wine.com, so 24 bottles of vino are also heading to the marina (I hope I didn’t screw up the address). Thanks Deb for that tip!
And then there’s the rest of the trip to plan. North from Norfolk. Once we begin travelling we’ll have the decision of going all the way up the Chesapeake and then down Deleware Bay, or opting for the run “outside” in the Atlantic up to Cape May. From there we have no choice – it’s a run outside to Manhattan, then up along the East River and through the Long Island Sound, past Block Island and into the Narragansett to Portsmouth, RI – where we were just yesterday dropping off our car…
(Here’s a view of the northern part of the trip, with Norfolk, VA at the very bottom of the chart and our destination at the top)
Till the next one (which will be from Florida) about getting stuffed…
John
SWAPPING VEHICLES
(Amy says goodbye to Betty our jeep, in Portsmouth, RI)
Today we dropped our jeep off at Pirate Cove Marina in Portsmouth, RI, Sequel’s new home. So now we’re committed – the only way we can get that sucker back is by taking the long route – specifically, by flying to Miami, driving to Jupiter, then boating 1,400 miles north. Well, we could also just ask friends to drive us back down to RI, but there’s no fun in that.
And here’s our slip – B3. Well, there’s a squatter in there right now, but give it a few weeks…
(Thanks for the lift back home Jon and Lisa!)
Next up – ICW 4 – fun with charts…
John
SEQUEL
(The above picture is of a sistership to Sequel. As you’ll read below, we’ve only seen Sequel in person for a matter of hours…)
Okay – so the stage has been set with the first post, ICW 1, but before I can even begin the story of our journey (which, as of this moment is still in front of us), I’d be doing the story an injustice if I didn’t first introduce the boat that is a new part of our family. Sequel is a 2006 Sabre 38 Hardtop Express, built by Sabre Yachts in Casco, Maine. She’s a downeast style cruiser, with a 38′ length at the waterline – about 43′ in length overall. For power Sequel has a pair of 380HP Cummins QSB5.9 electronically controlled, common rail diesel engines that give her a top end of about 30 knots, operated by a TeleFlex drive-by-wire throttle and shifter system. She carries 350 gallons of fuel, 100 gallons of water, oh and 40 gallons of “black” water – three capacities we’ll need to keep an eye on during the trip. She also has an 8kW Onan generator to keep things powered up while on the hook, including four separate air conditioning systems to keep things cool.
Leading down five steps from the helm deck is an interior that is very nicely laid out for a couple on an extended cruise (I’m beginning to sound like a sales brochure), and can easily accommodate guests, as the salon table lowers so that the addition of filler cushions the salon converts into a guest room. We like that there’s a built in wine rack in the salon too – I’m telling you, this boat was designed for us!
The helm deck has a pair of (very comfortable) Stidd helm seats, along with an L shaped settee with a beautiful pedestal table. The Stidds can pivot aft and lower to face the settee, and there’s a second ‘fridge, ice maker and sink here so we won’t have to worry about cocktail hour!
Aft and down two steps from the helm deck is the cockpit with a pair of benches facing each other, along with the required drink holders and a receptacle in the sole for another pedestal table for alfresco dining. Up three steps both port and starboard are wide side decks leading to a fairly expansive bow (perfect for sunning!), where there’s a 40 lb QCR anchor on a chain / rope rode (the length of which I don’t recall, but will no doubt find out pretty soon..).
Apart from the original setup we’ve also added the following:
– New 4kW 4′ open array radar
– New 12″ touchscreen multifunction chartplotter with built in digital depthsounder
– New VHF radio with DSC, loudhailer, foghorn, and intercom
– New AIS receiver system to automatically display AIS-equipped vessels on the chartplotter, including name, heading, and speed information
– 10’6″ AB RIB with 9.9HP Honda outboard
– Freedom Lift hydraulic dinghy lift with carbon-fiber lifting arms. The entire mechanism is installed beneath the swim platform and is operated via wireless remote
– Rod holders in cockpit (and a Magma grill system that fits in a holder)
Of course, all this (and much more) has been done some 1,500 miles from our home in Boston. The only time we’ve seen Sequel (well, she had a different name back then) was in April when we went down for the marine and engine surveys and sea trial. Still – we fell in love with her, and she’s only gotten better since then.
Following are a few images of Sequel, some as recent as yesterday (emailed to us), by way of introduction.
So that’s about it for now. Once we actually get to the boat on the 12th I’ll post some more pics of her, but this should be enough to give you an idea of our new girl.
Below is from when we were on the sea trial in April. Very much enjoyed being on the boat – luckily, since we’re about to spend a lot more time on her!
And finally, I managed an iPhone video during the wide open throttle test. On board was Amy and I, our broker (an amazing gent by the name of Peter from DiMillo’s Yacht Sales in Portland, Maine), the (previous) owner’s broker, the marine surveyor, and the engine surveyor, and she hit 32 knots. Hence my grin… (and the boat is a lot quieter then what you hear, but the engine room hatch was open to allow the engine surveyor run diagnostics on the engines.)
Next up in ICW 3 I’ll share a bit of the work we’ve been doing getting ready departure day.
Till then…
John
Somehow, during the course of this spring, while I was developing the outline for Into the Devil’s Throat as well as working on getting an audiobook in the works for Out of Hell’s Kitchen, my wife Amy and I ended up purchasing a boat. And not just any boat – but the boat we’ve been in love with ever since the first of her kind rolled out of the yard in 2005 (no small thanks to Peter, our boat broker from DiMillo’s Yacht Sales in Portland, Maine). Her name, naturally enough, is Sequel, a 2006 Sabre 38 Hardtop Express. She’s currently in Jupiter, Florida and Amy and I will be flying to Florida in less than a week to begin a 1,400 mile voyage to bring Sequel home.
During the trip I hope to share our experiences on this blog – so that even though I may not be working on my sequel, I’ll be working on the Sequel none the less.
Next up, in ICW 2 – The Boat, I’ll talk about, well, the boat!
Till then…
John
This past December I packed up a mountain of gear and drove down to cave country in northern Florida to get my MOD 1 training on my Sentinel rebreather. It was, well, challenging. Which was exactly what I wanted. Personally if a challenge isn’t difficult then it’s not worth pursuing. Though the twelve+ hour days kept me too busy to really think about shooting any video or stills, I still managed to grab a little video on the last day of diving…
John
john h hanzl (author) 