Day 62: Monday, November 5, 2012

Underway: 6:35 am      Motor Off: 11:30 pm      Miles Traveled: 27      Stayed At: City Dock

First Things First: First bumpy anchorage.

Mile 196 to Mile 223: After a windy and bumpy night – the anchorage we were in was protected on all sides except for a north east wind which is what we had all night – we got going early. Except for a narrow channel back in here, it is very shallow on either side of us – 1-3 feet at low tide is typical. A little hard to get used to – we can’t just drive anywhere we want unless we want to be stuck for a while.

Even though this is a heavily populated area with big homes and condo developments all along the mainland shore, we are pretty much alone on the ICW. I think we saw only 3 or 4 boats all day. Kind of amazing.

I’m having a hard time adjusting to “civilization” again. I’m missing the simplicity and remoteness of the river system. This area is remote in its own way in that everywhere you look is private property – you can’t easily get to shore here either. The noise of traffic and airplanes is also a shock to the system – this is a big Air Force/military base area so there are loud things going on all the time.

We bumped bottom trying to get into the city dock. It was low tide but it looked deep enough but we didn’t see the big chunk of iron (probably from an old dock) and a couple big rocks right in front of the dock (how hard would it have been to clean that up when they built the dock). I hate to see what the centerboard looks like after scraping over that stuff. We got unstuck and tucked in behind the dock with no permanent damage we hope. We are glad to be at a dock since it is supposed to rain and thunder a bit tonight and it’s reassuring to be at a dock when that happens.

We have to leave one person on the boat since this is a public dock so I went for a walk to get all our gas cans filled and then packed up the computer, Ipad and other gadgets for a trip to the library to research the weather, the route and recharge everything. Cindy stayed behind to relax and read one of several books she has on her Nook (she says she hasn’t had a nap yet). We both win I guess.

A high pressure system is building in so that usually means wind for a couple of days so we will probably be here tomorrow (we are doing what Bruce would do). We will have to do more exploring tomorrow.