I forgot.

The last time I went to the grocery store, on January 5, I remember dawdling over various options for chicken. A whole chicken. Breasts, thighs, wings. I remember being angry that the price for wings was the same as the price for thighs when any durn fool could see that you don’t get the same amount of meat with a pound of wings as you get with a pound of thighs. It just didn’t make sense. The nonsense knocked all the sense out of my feeble brain, and I forgot all about Superbowl Sunday.

We love wings. I haven’t always been a fan, but after I learned from Emeril how to prepare and serve this treat, I fell in love with it. It is a particularly delightful treat for Superbowl, and if I had been thinking about my plan instead of grousing about prices, I would have remembered this. Well, there you go. Superbowl Sunday sans wings??! Bah! Humbug!

What to do?

Some might suggest that a shore excursion would be just the ticket. And so it might. If the dinghy were inflated. If the outboard were on the transom. If we washed our faces and combed our hair …. Nah.

So —- what to do?

Thank goodness we are prepared for a few options. For starters, I did buy a nice piece of brisket for corned beef. I had no intention of saving it all the way to March 17 for St. Patricks Day. I knew I would shop again before that date. I bought that corned beef, because we like corned beef. So that was an option.

There was also the Andouille. We love all sorts of things with Andouille, so I mulled over the possibilities. A few were not doable, because we are down to almost no fresh vegetables. By this time a month after shopping I have a few odds and ends of fresh things, including some cabbage and onions which last almost forever, and potatoes. So there were choices.

But then I thought of pizza. As I wrote last week, we try to have the makings of pizza all the time. I made a pizza a couple of weeks ago, and normally I think of it as a once-a-month treat, but it is Superbowl! I heard yesterday that pizza is such a great Superbowl food that somebody is shipping thousands of them to Afghanistan for the troops. Maybe that is just the right treat for us, too.

So, that was the plan. Pizza. We had some noodle nibbles for snacks in the afternoon. One snack for two people is plenty of Superbowl treats, especially for the old and infirm.

I started the dough about 5:00PM. There were a few weird glitches here and there, but we eventually had pizza and margaritas. Thank you Vern and Michelle for telling us about Tupperware ice cube trays. We had a great Superbowl party, and since our team wasn’t playing, we could rejoice no matter who won!

Who has more fun than cruisers?

The survey was on the subject of food and household supplies. The purpose appeared to be to find out what stores are most popular with consumers and then find out why. The questions that attracted my comments were the ones about the frequency of my shopping in any particular store.

I had already identified my preferences for the top five food retailers and the top five supplies retailers. The next set of questions asked how often I shopped these retailers. I am sure that the truth doesn’t sound as if I really am all that committed to my choices. In almost every instance I had to say that I shopped in the named store about once a month. The possible choices ranged from “more than once a day” to “about once a month” with several options in between. The difference between life afloat and life on land was starkly contrasted by my answers. I never did have the habit of running to the store daily or at the last minute before I needed something, but the fact is that I can’t shop daily even if I want to.

Before we started cruising, our life was different, even though we lived on a boat. Our boat was in a marina in walking distance of a small strip mall with a fairly sizable grocery store. Until 2008, we actually had a car. It was normal for me to shop for groceries once a week. We went to other stores whenever we wished. My answers to the survey at that time would have sounded pretty much like those of any suburban householder.

In 2008, we sold our car. We really did not need it all that often. It needed a number of fairly costly repairs. We could not foresee a good return on that investment, because we would soon be cruising full-time. It just made sense to divest ourselves of that final shackle to the land life. We began to manage our lives and our shopping differently.

In today’s world, it is really hard to do without a car altogether, but it is easier than you might think to do without a car most days, especially if you live in a city with public transportation. Having lived in a lot of towns that did not have buses or even reliable taxis, I know that many people truly need cars for their daily lives. However, we were living in the heart of Baltimore. Many of the things we wanted to do and many of the stores where we wanted to shop were in easy walking distance or a short bus ride away. Over the past couple of years we have learned to be pretty savvy bus riders, and our experience has been quite satisfactory.

However, there are times when only a car will do. For those times, we rent. Even though we mutter about the rental rates sometimes, we recognize that in the big picture, our car usage is quite economical for us. We rent a car about once a month. We usually rent for two or three days, and we run like the wind for the duration of our rental. When it works out for us to rent over a weekend, we usually get better rates, and sometimes we even get a free day. We get a lot of tasks out of the way. When I think back to a life where we ran one day to get propane and some other day to get shampoo, I see a lot of intrusions in our lives that we don’t have now. By renting our car every month or six weeks, we condense a lot of time running to and fro into a few short days. I actually believe that if I were to move back on land right now, I would not want to revert to the old ways. I like having most of my days free to do things I really like. I like isolating the annoyance and frustration of shopping and putaway to a very few days.

There are consequences, however, and some people would not like the consequences. I keep running lists of what I use in the way of food and supplies. I don’t run get something when I need it; I must have it on hand. So when I open a bottle of shampoo, I need to put that on the list to restock when we shop. I can’t go get it right now. If I don’t get it next time we shop, I will run out one day when I can’t get more. I must keep lists. I must plan ahead.

The same is true of food, and food is a bit harder to manage. There are numerous issues. Storage of fresh meat and produce is a biggie. Unique ingredients for recipes we love. Nobody really likes to nail down what he will eat for dinner a month from now. We like some freedom to say, “I feel like pizza.” Determining what items you will always have on hand for whims is a big challenge.

Anything that can be frozen can be easily stored for a month or more, but we really like salads and fresh steamed vegetables, so we have the challenge of managing fresh food for long periods. Whenever we shop, I follow up with a marathon of packaging and freezing meats in vacuum-sealed bags. That is a big job, but it really is delightful to dig down into the freezer and pull up a nice steak or piece of chicken breast three weeks later without a run to the store. I also follow up with a marathon of repackaging fresh vegetables and fruits. My favorite product for that purpose is Evert-fresh bags. I think the same product is available under some other names, but whatever the name, they are wonderful for extending the life of fresh food. I have managed to keep leaf lettuce as long as three weeks in an Evert-fresh bag, so we have the option of lettuce salads for quite a while between shopping trips.

I have learned a few other tricks that really help. One of the challenges of life on a boat in warm climates is the way moisture and heat promote mildew. Our first year of cruising, I lost most of a bag of wonderful oranges to that bane of cruising life. Now I don’t lose much food that way. I learned three things:

1.  Bring items such as potatoes, carrots, oranges and onions to room temperature after you bring them home. They are stored at low temperatures for transport, and they stay cold in the store. If you simply put them away, or particularly, if you put them away in a plastic bag, you invite the formation of mildew as moisture in the air condenses on the surface of the fruit or vegetable. I spread them out on newspaper for a few hours.
2. Wipe everything down with white vinegar. I do this after they have come to room temperature. The vinegar gets rid of spores that may have settled on things while they were drying out. Vinegar evaporates fairly quickly, so they are soon ready to be stored.
3. Store appropriate fresh fruits and vegetables in paper, not plastic. I grab up every paper bag I can find, and I keep them forever. I store all sorts of things in paper bags. I also stock newspapers. I don’t need a lot, and two Sunday papers lasted me more than two years aboard at my rate of usage. I use newsprint pages to separate layers of fruit and vegetables in my paper bags. When I do this, I can buy large quantities of potatoes, onions, oranges, apples, and so forth, I store them without refrigeration, and I lose very few. Since my available refrigerated storage is small by suburban standards, this plan is essential.

It sounds as if “whims” and “planning” would be mutually exclusive terms, but in our life they work together. There are certain things I simply want on hand at all times. I don’t really know if I will use them at all this month, but I want to be able to whip them out if I decide I want to. We have learned that we really like being able to have pizza even though Domino’s does not deliver on water. We like to have a nice meal in reserve in case we invite guests for dinner. It really is fun to be able to have a pecan pie just because we want it. There are numerous items in our lockers and freezer that are there for such things. We may go a month or two without touching any of these items. We may suddenly and inexplicably want a lot of them. We just don’t like to be so thoroughly “planned” that there is no room to surprise ourselves. Any time one of those items is used, it goes on the restock list for the next shopping trip. We can suppress our whims until then, but we don’t want to feel as if we can’t have a little fun with food.

So, I chuckled a bit as I filled out the survey. I don’t know how the analysts will interpret these results. I doubt my answers will actually attract any special attention. They will be lost in a sea of answers. But I also doubt that my answers will help Safeway, or any of the other grocers in the study, to determine the number of shoppers that actually prefer them. They probably focus more on the ones who drop in at least two or three times a week. So be it. I’m having my kind of fun, and they are having theirs. We are both happy. Life is good.

Our boat was built in 1985. If you live in a house built around that time, you know that its circuits and electrical outlets and switches are somewhat different than the ones in new houses constructed since 2000. Since acquiring the boat we have dealt with issues such as outdated light fixtures for which we could no longer purchase replacement bulbs. This is not the fluorescent bulb problem. Don’t allow me to speak on that subject. Our problem was simply about what’s popular and what the manufacturers find profitable to provide.

We have a bank of batteries under the floor in the center of the boat. They provide power for our refrigerator, our lights, our radio, our electronic charts, and so forth. When we use power wisely, we only need to charge them once a day. In fact, if we use power fairly frugally, we can charge them every other day. In fact, by honing our usage down to the barest possible minimum, we have gone without charging for six days. I guarantee you that you do not want to live at that level. Still the lessons learned then have been quite valuable in the big picture of our lives.

Our battery bank does not look like a collection of car batteries. I am not an engineer, so I don’t worry about it much, but the easiest way for me to think of it is to say that we have something like 3 12-volt batteries that run all the “stuff” on the boat and 1 other battery to start the diesel. Our bank of batteries is for our electricity what our water tanks are for water. They contain our supply of electricity, which is finite. If we turn on every light in the boat while trying to freeze 20 pounds of fresh meat and run the hot water tank so we can each take a long shower, we will soon run out of electricity (not to mention water for the showers). In order to live this way we must exercise some self-discipline. The same thing would be true for someone on land who wants to keep the electricity bill down. Sometimes our way of life makes me think of my grandmother who considered electricity a luxury to be used with great restraint. She shouted at me about leaving lights on and running water while I took a glass out of the cupboard. She could have lived quite happily with the electrical limitations of our bank of batteries, because she didn’t think we needed all that “stuff” to be running every minute anyway.

We are able to enjoy a fairly comfortable life aboard. Both of us have our computers operating most of any day when we are not under way. I bought an extra battery for my computer this year, so I have both the normal one that came with my computer and a long-life battery with double the lifespan. Still, batteries for the computer eventually must be recharged, just like the house batteries. We turn on the lights we need at night, but we turn off the ones not in use. Someone who hovered over us all day might very well think we were like little old ladies pinching pennies. Pennies certainly matter when we fill up the gasoline tank for the generator, but our real thinking is about the comfort level of knowing we can turn on a light when we do need it if we don’t run lights we don’t need.

We live in a consumption society. I notice it most in the ads for clothing and gadgets (including iphones). Everything is old before you get it out of the sack at home. I don’t worry about that a lot, but that consumptive attitude is unhelpful when you need to manage your resources in order to achieve a dream.

For fourteen years, we dreamed of cruising. We worked hard to learn how to sail and how to live aboard. We found the boat that would take us where we wanted to go, and we worked hard to pay it off quickly in order to depart debt-free. Our dream required us to learn how to do what it takes to get where we wanted to go. Managing our power usage on the boat is just one more lesson in that process.

If you have a dream, you will never enjoy it unless you pay the price. Dreams are wonderful things. They brighten your vision on dark days and inspire you to achievements you might not otherwise have dared. But there is always a price. A dream fulfilled requires that something else be left behind. We had a dream and we are living our dream. I didn’t know what it would cost in many ways when we set out to accomplish it, but looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. I never wish I had wound up somewhere else. I may not have everything on earth, and I may actually sometimes wish I had one thing or another that I don’t have. But here is the bottom line. I have everything I ever really wanted. I think that is real wealth.

I will, however, mention that people who are investigating various ways to supply the energy needs of a household could do worse than read about the experiences of cruisers. We are not plugged in to the national electrical grid – unless we are in marinas – yet we need electric power as much as anybody else. Our refrigerators, our lights, and often our heaters run on electricity. Our water pumps, our e-charts, our radar, our radios, and yes, our computers run on electricity. Even though many, many cruising boats operate everything on a very few 30-amp circuits, we still need electricity.

There are three primary ways to get electricity on a boat: 1) some sort of engine fueled by a petroleum product – diesel engine, gasoline generator, etc., 2) solar cells, and 3) wind generators. That pretty much covers the spectrum of options available to the national grid with the exception of nuclear. Unlike the US Navy, the manufacturers of 45-foot cruising vessels, whether sail or power, have not devised a way to put a nuclear power plant aboard. If you observe an anchorage populated by cruisers, you will see evidence of the use of all these power sources.

In fact, most boats use at least two of these sources, if not all three. Most sailing vessels have a diesel auxiliary engine, although sailboats under 30 feet may use an auxiliary gasoline-powered outboard. While diesels are routinely used to charge the house batteries, I am not aware of anyone who has devised any way to use an outboard for that purpose. Cruisers are, however, nothing if not inventive, and if someone has done it, I applaud them.

My purpose here is to look briefly at our options and our experience and share. I won’t try to do a lot of analysis or make recommendations. I am not qualified to do that. All I have to offer is experience.

On a boat, the jumping-off place for electrical power is the bank of house batteries. All our electricity is stored there, and whether we need AC or DC power, we get it from the house batteries. If we need AC, the DC from the batteries must be converted to AC, and everybody who ever took a rudimentary physics course knows that the conversion from AC to DC results in an energy loss to the circuit. The inverter needs some of the energy to operate, and just about everything we do with energy produces some loss in the form of heat. So, in the course of using the energy in the batteries, you don’t really get full value out of the 13 or 14 volts stored there, because like water traversing a leaky hose, energy is lost along the way. You energy geeks out there, don’t get all technical with me. I know that nothing is lost, but some of it is lost to me. I also know that you have better ways of explaining what happens. As Emeril would say, get your own blog!

The issue with all the energy sources is not what can be extracted usefully from the batteries, anyway. It is how you get the batteries charged in the first place. I mentioned the batteries because that is the focal point of our electrical system. Energy generated from any source charges the batteries. Energy required for any purpose discharges the batteries.

Many boats use solar cells as one source for energy to charge the batteries. If you read much on the subject, you know that the technology for solar cells today is vastly better than the first solar cells, but most people admit that it is not mature yet. The researchers are still learning a great deal that has not yet been incorporated in over-the-counter solar cells. It still takes a lot of cells to produce a meaningful charge for the batteries. The solar panels are expensive. Solar is an attractive, quiet way to charge batteries, but it isn’t a free ride. People are prone to say that the sunlight is free, unlike petroleum products, but sunlight is the only free part of the process. Sadly, free though it may be, it is not reliable as an energy source. If clouds obscure the sun, you won’t get much help from the sun. If it is pouring down rain for three days, solar cells will not be able to maintain the level of charge needed in the batteries. Even if the sky is clear and the sun is bright, the panels must maintain a specific angle of interception of the solar rays for the best performance. We see boats that have a mechanism that rotates their panels throughout the day to maintain that angle. That’s great, but that mechanism is using up some of the charge to the batteries all day long while it keeps the cells efficient. On top of the price for all the solar technology, some of the technology uses up the very power being generated to charge the batteries. Not every boat has such a mechanism, and that means that people may change the angle manually, or they may simply accept the loss of power due to a bad angle. Solar power can be useful, but it is not a free ride.

So far, we have not chosen to try the solar route.

Many boats use wind generators to charge their batteries. Some even have two of them. Like sunlight, the wind is free. However anybody on a sailboat knows that Jesus was right. The wind bloweth where it will, or not. Wind does not blow at a speed sufficient to produce a charge for the batteries every day or every night. Sometimes it blows, but too slowly to be worth anything. Sometimes it blows too hard. Sometimes it does not blow at all. On a day when the wind does not blow, a wind generator is useless. On a day when the wind does blow, it is noisy. They keep working on that, but nobody has done away with the noise altogether. In some anchorages wind generators on neighbor boats have been quite annoying, so we wonder if we could get along with such a thing on our own boat. We think we may try it, but so far that is a future option.

For now, we rely on petroleum. Our diesel engine charges the batteries just fine when we are cruising under power. We have a gasoline-powered generator for the rest of the time. It is much quieter than the diesel, so I like that. It can run in any weather, so we don’t have to worry if the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow. We do, however, have to concern ourselves with the ever-increasing price of gasoline and diesel.

Living off the grid requires people to think more than twice about the way they get electrical power. There are numerous options, and each option has its issues. Every boater seems to work out a solution unique to his own situation. This is fine in a way of life where every boater is pretty much his own little world. It is probably a lot easier to figure out a solution that works for a world 45 feet long and 13 feet wide. It’s not nearly as easy for a world that extends from sea to shining sea.

We did the tourist thing on Sunday. The north mooring field in St. Augustine is very near to the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. In fact, we had hardly settled in the first day when we were jarred by a huge “boom!” It was the cannon on the fort. A part of the daily activities at the fort is a demonstration of the fort’s gunnery. On weekends, which include Friday, they fire the cannon, and on other days they fire muskets. We were jolted and jarred by the demonstrations regularly until our minds finally accepted that these events were part of the normal background noise.

The center boat is No Boundaries moored in St Augustine seen from the fort

The tour of the fort was quite interesting. As usual, the people who work in a National Park were professional and gracious. The volunteers are devoted to the history in which they have immersed themselves. We asked questions and received thorough and engaging answers.

The scheduled events are well worth attending. We heard one of the park employees tell the story of one attack on the fort. He told it with such energy and enthusiasm that afterward I told him I was looking forward to his version of Joshua and the walls of Jericho!

We wandered along the path of the self-guided tour until time for the cannon firing. Both employees and volunteers are eager to lead visitors to this event, and with good reason. The volunteers are quite good. They dress in period uniforms and follow the steps of a military drill documented in a seventeenth century Spanish field manual. Firing a real cannon using real black powder is nothing to play around with, even if there is no cannon ball. After the firing, we visited with the “gunnery officer” who told us that he not only serves at the fort, but he also participates in numerous other historical reenactments in the area. He elaborated at length on the preparation the actors make and on the details of the history of the fort. It was a fascinating conversation. If you go to St. Augustine, don’t miss it. 

B O O M !

As always, any stop includes some obligatory maintenance. On the way from St. Marys we heard a strange surging noise. We seem to have a love-hate relationship with our diesel engine. When we need it and it works, we love it. When it is out of the mood, it hates us. After we had settled down at St. Augustine, Larry dug through his assorted parts and pieces. This exercise required digging into a forward locker that contains a lot of things we hope we never need to get to. Getting any of them out requires moving a great many other pieces. In fact, there is a cosmic rule about this process: if you need it, it is the item you thought you would be least likely to need when you put things away. In short, whatever you need is always at the back or at the bottom. The rule held true this time, but Larry persevered. He spent a long time poking and probing and muttering in the engine room. Eventually he declared he was done. The declaration actually included a disclaimer. He was pretty sure the problem wasn’t solved, but he didn’t know what else to do until the fix was tested. So we left it that way.

And for me, cruising creates the lovely opportunity to write in exotic places. It directly corresponds to the mantra that cruising is an excuse to repair your boat in exotic locations. I am a writer, and actual active passage-making doesn’t seem to be the best situation for writing. Strange as it may seem, even though people think it must be hard to stay entertained when sailing along, I keep pretty busy when we are under way. But when we set the hook, then there is time for my scribal efforts.

During the week we spent in St. Augustine, I was finally able to complete a rough draft of a book I have been trying to write for more than a year. You may remember that last fall I got sick and had major surgery. I was in recovery for 8 weeks, delaying our departure from Baltimore until December 1. When we left, I felt so much better than I had felt 8 weeks before that I thought I was all well. Still, every time I thought about getting back to work on my book that I had started in August, I just could not make myself get going.

I had a lot of good excuses. I needed to bake bread. It had been a while since I chased the dust bunnies in the forward cabin. I couldn’t remember the last time I cleaned all the grates. The cockpit was a mess. It was time for dinner. No matter when I thought of writing, I thought again and wrote nothing.

Many years ago I took a little self-test for calculating my stress level. I was employed and rearing children at the time. I’m not sure why I needed somebody to tell me that I was stressed, but I took the test anyway. One of the items on the test was “major surgery.” According to the guide, major surgery had a huge stress impact for at least 12 months. I was reminded of that little item this December when I suddenly realized how good I felt and how much energy I had for all the things I love to do. I pulled out my notes for my book, and I sat down to write. I had sooo many ideas. I was energized! The words started pouring out. On Wednesday, January 11, I finished the first draft. The book was far from ready for prime time, but it existed. Every chapter had its basic shape. I had even discovered that it needed one more chapter, and I had written that chapter, too. I declared myself finally and fully over my surgery and recovery.

It was a good thing, too. Come Friday it was time to get ready to go. All the little last minute things before departure – laundry, showers, food planning and prep for under way. We hustled about and put away all the “stuff” that we allowed to be here and there during the week we were on a mooring.

We had decided we would go as far as Cape Canaveral and pause before moving on. Canaveral is an overnight from St. Augustine, and we felt no requirement to go any further. We made our plans to stop at Canaveral and confirmed the timing for the lock. Saturday was a great day to leave, but we did not need to leave early. It would only put us at Canaveral too early to go through the lock. We planned to leave around noon, which would put us at the entrance to the channel about sunrise. Sunday was to be a great day, too, with continuing high pressure dominating. It would be a pleasant day.

Monday’s weather would not be appropriate for moving on, just because we need not endure the stress of entering the ocean in the face of an east wind. We have done that, and we learned our lesson.  There are some things a person simply does not need to do twice.

However, on Sunday morning, approaching Canaveral, we changed our minds. The weather was perfect for continuing southward. We had no appointments in Canaveral, and we were tired of being cold. Our old route south to Lake Worth was still in the e-chart. Larry simply linked our waypoint at the Cape to our route to Lake Worth, and we continued.

There must be a rule that we must enter Lake Worth in the dark. When we sailed there in 2010, we arrived at 3AM. When we got there last year, it was 2 AM. This time our schedule put us there after dark again.

Coming in to this location in the dark is challenging. Florida’s shoreline is a sea of lights. A few red and green lights along the channel simply blend into all the other lights. Thank goodness for e-charts and flashing lights. Of course, even though the wind had been only 12-15 knots most of the way down, as soon as we approached the channel, it revved up over 20. In order to help Larry spot, I put on my lifejacket and went on deck. I clung to the rigging as the wind whipped up the spray. Of course, the side where I needed to stand in order to see the red markers was the windward side. I got enough spray to earn the right to call myself an Old Salt as we turned into the channel.

E-charts and GPS satellites make such ventures much more feasible, but we have learned that nothing replaces a sharp eye on the realities. The Lake Worth inlet is protected by jetties on both sides, but until you are inside, you are quite exposed. The lights don’t exactly line up as your mind expects them to. We have high freeboard, which the wind tries to use as a sail, requiring diligent, attentive piloting. I shout over the wind, “Do you see the next red?” Larry shouts back, “What?”

After we reached the protection of the jetties we were amazed. The surface of the water smoothed out as we had never seen before. Every previous time we traversed this inlet, it was quite turbulent. We seem to have always before arrived at ebb. But this time, we arrived at slack, that time between the change from ebb to flow. We could hardly believe how quiet it was.

We turned out of the channel at Green 11 and then came our next challenge. That entry point is marked only by day markers, no lights. I stood on deck with a big flashlight looking for the markers. It isn’t as easy to see them in the dark as it ought to be. There is actually a great deal of light all around, but the fluctuating light and shadow make it quite difficult to pick out a stick with a triangle on top. Fortunately, when you do pick them out, they are fluorescent and glow brightly in the beam of the flashlight.

In the lake itself we peered carefully looking for boats anchored there. Not every boat has an anchor light, and some of the anchor lights are quite feeble. The boats hardly show up at all against the background of lights on the far shore of the ICW and the various reflections all around. We picked our way to a place that seemed unoccupied and dropped the anchor. We declared ourselves at home in Lake Worth at 10PM. It will be home until it is time to go, and we will figure that out later.

Mr Schettino told investigators he took the cruise liner to within 0.28 nautical miles of Giglio to perform a “salute” to a former Costa Cruises captain named Mario Palombo.

“… I made a mistake on the approach. I was navigating by sight because I knew the depths well and I had done this manoeuvre three or four times. But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow. I don’t know why it happened, I was a victim of my instincts.”

When we traveled in Maine in 2009, we ran across a place where we really needed local knowledge. In fact, the guidebook told us we needed local knowledge. We, however, needed to hide from Tropical Storm Danny, and we didn’t know any way to get local knowledge, so we rushed in where we should have feared to tread. We grounded on a rock that we would have known about if we had local knowledge instead of our e-chart. According to our e-chart, we were in 9 feet of water, but according to reality, we were aground on a big rock, in the last hour of flood tide. Fortunately, someone with local knowledge observed our plight, rescued us, and led us safely to the hideout we were seeking. We weathered the storm in safety and lived to tell the story.

On Saturday we traversed an inlet for which the NOAA charts do not even attempt to provide real information. The NOAA chart for the inlet from the Atlantic Ocean to St. Augustine has an irregular shape colored in a blue that indicates shallow water covering the location of this inlet, and the space inside that figure has no depth data and no symbols for channel markers. The guidebooks cryptically recommend that you not traverse this inlet without local knowledge. We know what it means to need local knowledge and not have it.

We did our research on the web. There are numerous sites where cruisers share their experiences, and on these sites, we found the guidance we thought would help us. We found diagrams that indicated where the channel markers were at a time when someone successfully used this inlet. The attached comments informed us that the markers were small, and that they were frequently moved. One person listed two missing markers. Another pointed out that every time a hurricane crosses this inlet, the whole configuration changes. We studied the diagrams and the comments. We took it to heart that one mariner said that he regularly goes in and out this inlet in a sailboat and never sees less than 14 feet of water if he follows the path he recommends in his notes. We decided that if other cruisers could do it, we could do it, too.

Our alarm went off at 3AM . Larry had calculated the distance from our Cumberland Island anchorage to the St. Augustine entrance, 57 nautical miles, and we wanted to complete that distance early enough in the day to have good light for the passage. At 5 knots, something possible if we had adverse currents, it would take over 11 hours. At 6 knots, it would take more than 9 hours. We wanted to arrive early in the afternoon, so we got up at 3AM. It seemed dreadfully early.

It was gorgeous outside when we first looked out. The moon was nearly full and shone brightly in the western sky. We expected an easy run out St. Marys inlet, which is well marked and lighted. We made some coffee and did our final putaway for travel. By the time we were ready to begin raising the anchor, we noticed there seemed to be a mist on the water. In just minutes, we realized that fog was developing. The anchor was up and we were starting to move toward the channel. The fog was thickening. The moon which had been so bright when we first got up, began to fade as we moved toward the first marker, an unlighted pole that marked the edge of a shoal.

I hurriedly pulled out our artificial chamois with which we wipe our cockpit curtains when they mist over. As Larry steered, I stood on deck to spot and to wipe.  Unimpeded by the formation of mist on the cockpit windows, I could see things before Larry could see them. I let him know when we passed the unlighted marker, an accomplishment that allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief, but the fog was thickening, and even lighted markers would be hard to see.

It felt good when I saw the first red, but it was a warning, too. We were less than a quarter of a mile from that marker before I could see it. Happily for us, Larry was soon able to see, it, too. He noted its location relative to the boat, and checked the e-chart before adjusting our course to enter the channel. For the next hour, I stood on deck to watch for markers. The fog was quite dense. Visibility of a quarter mile or less is challenging. Larry made radio calls to let any other mariners know our location and course. You might think there would not be anyone else dumb enough to be out and about at 4AM, but a fisherman passed us in the dark, barely visible as he approached from behind, soon disappearing to port as mysteriously as he had appeared.

By 5AM, it began to appear that the fog might be lifting. We could see some shore lights. I could see three pairs of channel markers in the distance instead of barely distinguishing one. We could even see light in the east and a couple of stars beside the top of the mast. As we left the channel and turned south, we thought we would soon be done with fog. I went below to make some breakfast.

However, by the time I brought the food up, we were socked in again. Well, maybe that is too strong. We had probably a half mile visibility, and the fog was more patchy. Holes appeared in the cloud now and then. Still, it was after 10AM before the sky was anything like clear.

We had expected completely clear, sunny skies. The weather forecast said that the high pressure that had made Friday such a glorious day would continue in place Saturday, while a high pressure ridge was forming to the south of us. It would dominate weather for a few more days. We were not surprised by some early morning fog, even though we would have preferred to be spared, but we certainly didn’t expect fog till mid-morning and cloudiness the rest of the day. Well, that is cruising life. You gather all the information and predictions you can find, but in the end, you get what you get, and you deal with it.

We can’t seem to cruise without some issue or other, and this day was no exception. It wasn’t enough to have fog for hours. While I was making breakfast, I noticed a peculiar change in the sound of the diesel engine. It ran like normal most of the time, but every so often it seemed to slow down, then it would speed up, all with no perceptible reason to be changing. Larry went below and poked around in the engine compartment. Around noon, we stopped the engine altogether so he could do some diagnostics. He could find no explanation, and he found no solution, either. Still, the engine ran, more or less, and we made progress. He decided that we would proceed and plan to do whatever work was required after we got to St. Augustine.

We arrived at the sea buoy that marks the entrance about 3PM. By that time, even the cloudiness that followed the fog had dispersed. The sun shone brightly on the sparkling water. We had unlimited visibility. It was a good thing, because the markers at St. Augustine are nothing like the markers at St. Marys. At St Augustine, the markers are little red nuns and little green cans. Really little. Maybe it is the fact that they are out there in the big ocean and they only look smaller than all other nuns and cans, but they almost looked like toys. We are accustomed to big markers that stand ten feet or so above the water. These little markers were maybe 18 inches tall – tiny little things in the big water.

The hazard at St. Augustine is the hazard that threatens every inlet along the Florida coast – shifting sand and silt. It is also wide open to wind from north, east, or south. Wind from any of those directions has a long fetch over which to build big waves. Big waves move the sand and silt. Big winds move boats chaotically and make it difficult to see markers. Some inlets have rockpile jetties to protect from the waves and assist in reducing the movement of the sand and silt, but St. Augustine is not among those lucky locations. Some inlets have dredged channels and big lighted markers to aid mariners day and night. St. Augustine has none of that. Instead, St. Augustine has a few tiny red and green markers to hint at the right path between shoals over which there are breaking waves in light 5-knot winds from the west. I shudder to think what those breakers look like in 20-knot winds from the northeast. The history of this inlet is that some of the markers go missing in big storms from time to time, and the bottom moves with enough frequency that it is not uncommon for boats to ground in what would normally be reported to be the channel. Our research told us two important things:

• ·         There are some missing green markers as of late 2011
• ·         People who stay close to the red markers report never seeing less than 14 feet of water.

We arrived at the sea buoy that sits at the Atlantic end of the inlet channel as a sailboat about our size was coming out to sea. That was encouraging. However, we did not know its complete path. We saw where it passed our nearest red marker and headed for that location. I stood on deck with the binoculars to help Larry find the other markers. As we approached the first red marker we scanned ahead for the next one. We finally saw it when another boat coming toward us passed it. Up to that moment, I thought the little shadow that turned out to be a marker was a distant boat. I finally could see it with the binoculars, and Larry adjusted course to run near it. Every time we saw a boat coming our way, we watched closely, and that is how we were able to find the rest of the markers. They were so small, that without some hint where to look for them we simply could not see them.

We breathed a great sigh of relief when we re-entered the e-chart area with depth notations. At that point, the depth was 30 feet, and we had plenty of depth for the remainder of our course to the mooring field that used to be an anchorage north of the Bridge of Lions. This is a real problem in Florida now. More and more anchorages are being replaced with mooring fields. You can read about it if you like. I simply report our experience. We took a mooring and checked in with the Municipal Marina. The people are quite nice. The services they provide are first-rate. We have no complaint.

When we were in the Bahamas cruising along the western side of Long Island where the charts were skimpy to say the least, I stood on the bow spotting for hazards as we explored uncharted territory with no markers at all. On Saturday we simply took on a challenge that requires a different kind of research and a lot of attention to detail by the pilot during the passage. We can’t claim to be as intrepid as Ponce de Leon who supposedly was the first European to traverse this inlet and discover this location. We only claim to seek and enjoy a few adventures of our own. We may not be the first people ever to do what we do, but we do get to add to our own list of firsts now and then. It’s like a little rosemary in the soup; it makes life a lot more flavorful. Besides that, we obtain a little local knowledge. 

When we set out to cruise to Maine in the summer of 2009, we felt pretty confident that we would be successful and enjoy ourselves. We were, and we did, but we had a few experiences that reminded us that nobody knows it all, especially not beginners. One of the decisions we had to make that year concerned the way we would handle watches for round the clock cruising. We had read and heard of numerous options, and every cruiser is a strong advocate for whatever plan works for him/her, but it was time for us to decide for ourselves. Somehow, we had to make our way from Baltimore harbor to Penobscot Bay, and hopping from marina to anchorage to marina would be a long slow trip. After much discussion, we settled on two-hour watches.

This decision was based as much on uncertainty as anything else. We had made one previous overnight passage together, when the sea was as placid as a duck pond and no ships came near us in the night. We could not assume that every overnight would be that quiet. Boy howdy is that the truth! Our first overnight on our 2009 cruise started with a gust at 35 knots and quickly showed us how much we had to learn. We were very glad that each of us spent only two hours at a time in the cockpit all alone, because the Atlantic Ocean was fully engaged in showing us a few new tricks.

On the other hand, while the ocean was assaulting us, we learned that our boat was up to the drill. By morning, I was actually enjoying the experience of rising up to the top of big waves and sliding down the other side, happy to see that No Boundaries was strong and agile and eager to meet the challenge. The high freeboard that had been a concern in the back of my mind for years proved to be just the bolster my confidence needed. In the center cockpit, high above the surface of the water, I could see what was happening and observe how the boat responded to the wave action. We felt completely validated in our desire for a center cockpit and a full keel.

Now, almost three years later, we have revised our watch schedule to three hours. What a blessing. I may feel a bit more challenged by three hours in the cockpit on watch, but I certainly feel a lot more rested with three hours sleep. When we kept two hour watches, it always seemed as if I barely fell asleep and it was time to get up again. Now I actually rest. When morning comes, each of us had had six hours of real rest. It makes a big difference.

We have learned some other things, too.

When we first began cruising, we thought we understood life at anchor, because we have always liked anchoring out. Ha! A weekend on the hook is not a week or a month or longer on the hook. Last winter in the Bahamas we spent two nights in marinas. We learned a lot about managing life off the grid. At first that discipline seemed challenging. Anything we want to do uses up some resource. Sometimes there are reasonable tradeoffs, but ultimately, some supply is reduced. It was hard to remember that every drop of water is made by running the watermaker, which depletes the batteries, which must be charged with the diesel engine or a generator – using up some form of fuel.

When I was a child, my grandparents lived on a farm well beyond the reach of city water. All their water was delivered to a cistern by a big truck. I often think of her care with water, never wasting a drop, as we face a similar situation. It is the same thing with supplies. We can carry quite a lot of supplies and food, but everything we use must be replaced, and that means a trip to some store. If we are shopping for replacements, we are not exploring secret bays and beaches where the charts only barely show the way. To learn good stewardship of all resources is to turn the process from compliance with onerous rules into a happy way of life.

That is a great lesson for life, I think. There is no way of life without cost. One element of a happy life is to become comfortable and happy with my way of life without carping about its cost. Everything comes at some price or other. If you want long showers and a trash compactor, then you won’t live on a cruising sailboat and eat lunch on a beach for which the chart has no name. We all need to know what we really want, and after that we need to accept without complaint the inconvenience or discipline or challenge that goes with our dreams.

We are still learning. Last Sunday morning we at the 8:30AM worship service at a church in Charleston. Then we returned to the boat and prepared to depart. I write down the forecasts every morning and I had done it that morning, confident that we understood what they meant. We didn’t. We knew that easterly winds at 15 knots and waves 4-6 would be interesting on a course to the southwest. We did not know that the northeasterly swell and bigger winds than predicted would create such turbulence. Moving around in the boat was nearly impossible because the movement was so tempestuous. We concluded rapidly that it was not necessary to endure this beating. We turned back to Charleston and anchored for the night.

When we ventured out the next day, the winds were still higher than predicted, but the turbulence had subsided somewhat. It continued to subside over the next 36 hours, and by the time we reached Saint Marys inlet, things were reasonably peaceful. It was a good thing we took advantage of this opportunity. Had we waited one more day, we would have arrived in Saint Marys just about the same time a vicious cold front passed through with winds that topped out at 41 knots. There is still plenty for us to learn.

If anyone asked me how to be happy, I think this would be my advice: know what your dream is, and do what it takes to achieve it. Nobody can hand you a life that is satisfying. If we have too many things handed to us, then we become like Dennis the Menace on Christmas morning, asking, “Is that all there is?” We are happiest when we have accomplished something hard. No matter how old we are, inside we are all still children who love to say, “Look! I did it!”