icw | The Tinii

August 1, 2013
by thetinii 4 Comments

How to Recover an Anchor (and your dignity) – By:Allison

So here is the promised real post about what we’ve been up to (besides dreaming of being on Reading Rainbow).

The last you heard, we were leaving Jacksonville. We tried to make it all the way to St.Augustine in one day but that would have been a long day. Long days are not our thing. We motored through some really straight and narrow (insert bible verse joke here) parts of the ICW that were lined with huge houses. It was pretty cool, actually, and a really easy day.

This house had it’s own bar on the upper deck.

One of the houses on this section of the ICW

We pulled into our anchorage behind a large trawler. Josh was at the wheel and I was up front ready to drop the anchor. Josh pulled into our spot and started backing up which I thought was my cue to drop the anchor. Usually I would pull out the rode to a good length and cleat it off before throwing the anchor over. I can’t remember why I didn’t, but I didn’t. No big deal though because there is 200′ of rode AND supposedly a knot in the end of it that keeps it from all going overboard. So I drop the anchor and Josh is backing up, and keeps backing up. I try to cleat it off quickly, but that squishes my fingers and gives me rope burn even though I’m wearing gloves. I yell at Josh to go forward but he doesn’t even realize that I dropped the anchor. He was just backing up INTO the spot he liked and away from the trawler. Oops. Communicating over a rumbling engine under stress is not our forte. So, when I tell Josh to go forward, he just yells, “WHY?” I’m thinking, “What the heck do you mean WHY?” and screaming, “JUST DO IT!” I’m still trying to grab rode and getting rope burns galore but still not too worried because – like I said – there’s a knot in the end. Except that there wasn’t. So about the fourth time Josh asks why I turn around to see our anchor, chain, and rope all disappear into the water. I momentarily consider jumping in after it. Josh momentarily considered shoving me in after it I’m sure.

Needless to say there was a lot of frustration and anger and not so nice words thrown around that night. However, the good thing about a boat is that you better get over it quickly because we only have 30′ of space to share and we also have to problem solve pretty quickly. So, we threw our extra anchor over and devised a plan for the morning. Luckily our GPS had tracked our movements so we could sort of tell where I threw the anchor over.

HOW TO FIND AN ANCHOR YOU DROPPED

Step 1: Stop yelling at each other about whose fault it is WHY the anchor is on the ocean floor in the first place.

Step 2: Get a small dinghy anchor on some rope, your GPS (if you were lucky), and some sort of float.

Step 3: Get in the dinghy and drive over to where you think you dropped the anchor.

Step 4: Now throw that little anchor over and drive all around in circles like a crazy person while praying really hard. If all goes well, that little anchor will snag your main anchor rode and you’ll pull it up!

Step 5: Laugh about all the mean things you said to each other.

Step 6: Tie a float onto that newly recovered rode and head back to our boat where you will TRIPLE CLEAT THAT RODE TO YOUR BOAT. Pull up your anchor and head on down the road.

It really was that simple. We lucked out with the GPS thing as it was spot on.

While we are talking bout anchors, let me tell you about our favorite anchoring technique – the kellet. Before we left, Josh made a kellet for our boat. This is basically any sort of weight that you can slide down the anchor rode. The theory is that this helps the anchor rode to lay closer to the sea bed which improves the anchor’s holding power. You can see some good pictures here. This website suggests a 25-35 pound kellet for a 35 foot vessel. Our boat is 30 feet and Josh overkilled it with a 40 lb. kellet. He basically took a length of pvc pipe and filled it with weights from goodwill and concrete. He capped off the ends and added to U-bolts – one to each end of the PVC pipe. The kellet has its own length of rope attached to one boat that we use for lowering and raising the kellet. The other U-bolt clips onto the anchor rode.

We have not drug ONCE using this system. Honestly, we’ve never put out the recommended 7:1 ratio either. For you landlubbers, everyone tells you to put out 7 feet of rode (the chain/rope combo the anchor is on) for every foot of water where you are anchoring. So, if you are in 10 feet of water you need 70 feet of rode out. That’s a lot and it means you can’t anchor in tight spaces without doing some fancy anchoring. With the kellet, we MAYBE did 4:1…5:1 if the weather was bad. We still never drug our anchor. Everyone will also say Danforth anchors suck, but that’s what we’ve got.

Basically, to each his own but just know you don’t have to spend $300 on a fancy shmancy anchor and tons of chain. A bag of concrete and some Goodwill weights has worked for us.

August 1, 2013
by thetinii Leave a comment

A new kind of post – By:Allison

We haven’t blogged in awhile. Mainly because we parked the boat in St.Augustine a few weeks ago and listed it so we can move to Haiti soon for Part 2 of the Year of Adventure. We are having fun, but life doesn’t seem as exciting on a boat when you are parked instead of sailing. Plus we are in a weird limbo and feel a little bummed. Selling Willy is a bit sad and we really want it done so that we can move on and get pumped for Haiti! Soon….I promise….you’ll get a post filled with pictures and stories of St.Augustusine. Mainly stories about crazy people (Florida is teeming with them) and pictures of historical crap.

But right now, it is 1 a.m. Josh fell asleep hours ago and I am just not tired. Plus, my side of the bed is wet because we left a window open while we went on a dinghy adventure in the rain.

So that leaves me doing a new kind of post. I think I will call these
posts “Late Nights With Allison”. You’re about to get a bullet point list of my late night thoughts. Prepare yourselves….

-One of my greatest regrets on life is that I was never that kid on Reading Rainbow talking about their favorite book. I would have sold Roxaboxen or Teddy’s Cousin Has Come To Visit or Stellaluna like it was my job. I get sad thinking about that. Which leads me to my next thought.

-There should be a tv show for all the grown ups who missed this opportunity. Basically bring Reading Rainbow back but don’t let children do that part anymore…only adults. Children get plenty of attention nowadays. Kids get their pictures made in specially carved out pumpkins goodness sake. Kids today are too pampered….let them find another dream. Reading Rainbow is all mine.

-Speaking of kids being put into pumpkins…when did children’s photos get so out of control? Probably the same time gender reveal parties became a thing. Our fanciest childhood photos consisted of coordinating clothing which was a huge deal because we are not wearing any clothing in at least 80% of all the other pictures. For example…

Fancy picture where we are making awkward faces.

And a normal picture where none of us are wearing clothing and my grandfather is totally being safe....

No offense if you are partying while revealing genders (that doesn’t sound sketchy) and sticking your baby in a pumpkin. I am amazed you have time, really! I don’t have kids and I barely get showered everyday. My mom was practically super mom and she didn’t bother making us wear clothes most of the time. So, my hat’s off to you.

– I have more thoughts about kids and my super mother. We are about to be in charge of educating four of them (kids not super mothers). Josh and I were having a conversation about important lessons our homeschooling mothers taught us because I want to keep those in mind while I am shaping the young minds of the Salvant kids. I said that learning you can do anything was important, but Josh brought up a good point. Our mothers didn’t get carried away with it. It never came across as, “You can do anything because the world revolves around you.” It was more like, “Dont be an idiot…you can do it.” For instance, Josh and I never really doubted we could finish our basement out ourselves, restore a sailboat, sail for a summer, or move to another country. However, neither of us assumed we could buy brand new cars, rack up credit card bills, and still get to do the things we wanted to do in life. Catch my drift? Now how do you constantly tell a kid they can do anything but keep them grounded? That’s the key to raising a confident kid who isn’t a selfish narcissist. I think. That and not being a selfish narcissist yourself.

-My last thought is this. If Josh were awake he would edit this and would probably want to post actual things about our trip instead of this garbage. He will probably think this post is weird, but he is asleep so its getting posted anyway 🙂

July 12, 2013
by thetinii Leave a comment

Jacksonville… A crazy place.- Josh

We decided to make the 15 mile trek off the ICW to Jacksonville. You can dock right downtown for three nights! We are poor. There is no way we could pass up three free nights!

After getting cleaned up we went to the Mexican restaurant right behind our boat at the downtown docks. While we were shoveling chips and salsa into our mouths like a Saint Bernard that hasn’t seen a meal in three days a homeless man walked by. He was wearing scrubs and socks, but no shoes. We couldn’t figure out if he was just homeless, or if he had actually escaped from a mental institution. Why would he be in scrubs and socks but no shoes?? And his scrubs looked pretty clean for a homeless man… But I digress.

After we finished eating we went back to the boat and put in a movie. We were so exhausted that neither of us made it more than fifteen minutes in before falling asleep. About two in the morning Allison shook me awake freaking out a little bit. I was a bit disoriented at first. After a second I heard why she was freaking out. At these free downtown docks there is a lower level with the actual floating docks and right behind is a boardwalk about 5 feet above them. Standing on that boardwalk directly above our boat was a homeless man singing. Singing a song about our boat. Opera Style.

HERE THEY SIT

SLEEPING IN THEIR BOAT

WHERE WILL THEY GO

DON’T NOBODY KNOW

SOUTH OR NORTH

WHICH WAY WILL THEY GO

NO BODY KNOW

The song went on for about 10 minutes. But those are all the lyrics I can remember.

Then when his song was finished he says, “Good night” as if he was talking to a crowd at a concert, “I love you”.

Then around four in the morning. We hear a woman yelling into her phone, “I’ll cut your head off!”

She continued to yell for about ten minutes before moving further down the boardwalk. In case you are wondering- No, we don’t have a gun on the boat. We do however have a spearfishing gun and throwing stars. Why do we have throwing stars?? I’m really not sure… I think I bought them in Gatlinburg one time.

That night we were meeting up with an old friend and planned on going on a “Short evening sail”.

The weather was perfect!

The wind was just right!

We even saw mermaids and other magical sea creatures!

We sailed for about an hour and then decided to head back to the dock and go grab some food. On the way back my friend Kevin was driving while Allison and I put up the sails. We didn’t really give him any directions such as “stay inside the buoys” so we ended up running aground. Really hard aground. No big deal, I mean we paid for a Boat US membership which includes free tows whenever you need it. We called them and they said they would send someone. We had just seen a Boat US tow boat go by minutes earlier. A few minutes later they called and informed us that it would be an hour and a half before someone could get there. Then about fifteen minutes later the tow captain that was supposed to be on his way called us and said “High tide will probably get you unstuck before I get there. Just call back if you don’t get unstuck.” High tide was not until 11:30pm. About 10:00 it became obvious that high tide was not going to do anything to help us. We called him back and he finally headed out to get us.

As a side note- I know that if your an old salt out there reading this you are probably thinking “I was once stuck aground for 3 days off the coast of the Azores in gale force winds while pirate cannons were splashing all around us.” Well… My friends had to be at work at 7:00 AM and I might as well use the Boat US as much as possible to make sure I get my moneys worth.

Needless to say out “Short evening sail” turned into the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island. We were out there for a total of six hours. And we never got dinner…

July 5, 2013
by thetinii 1 Comment

A not so little storm and wild horses – By: Allison & Josh

WARNING: We are tag teaming the post. I’ll preface each section with who wrote what. We made an agreement that we will not fix, edit, correct, or yell at each other for what the other one wrote.

Allison:

We definitely decided against going ashore at Frederica. Josh was itching to move again, so we geared up for a big day of motoring down the ICW to Cumberland Island. There was still a chance of storms around, but what the heck.

We got past Jekyll Island and the sky started turning dark. St.Andrew’s Sound was coming up. There was another boat we’d followed off and on during the past two days and he seemed like he was going to go for it so we decided to as well. St.Andrew’s Sound basically cuts all the way to the ocean and then you make a sharp right turn back up into the north side of Cumberland Island. We knew the conditions could get rough but it looked like a small storm on the radar and we were making good time. The seas kept building and the winds got worse. Everything got packed away and out came the rain gear….

Josh:

So Allison and I together decided that we couldn’t go ashore at Fort Frederica because the dinghy dock was completely on land except for two hours before and after high tide. We would have had to wait until 2pm and would have had to waist another day completely. On top of that we were starting to run out of provisions and didn’t want to have to travel on the July 4th.

When we got to St. Andrews sound the weather started getting rough, but, nothing too bad. Then it started getting really bad! It was just like on deadliest catch. The bow of the boat would point toward the sky then crash under the waterline. The splash would fly back to the cockpit like a Water Ride at an amusement park. There was another boat that was a couple hundred yards away from us. It was crazy seeing what was happening to us happen to another boat. The wave would lift the boat up and then it looked just like the boat would just sail into the air and drop. I tried to get Allison to give me the gopro (so I could prove that
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June 30, 2013
by thetinii Leave a comment

Some Darien love and our first little storm – By:Allison

After we left Sunbury Crab Company, we headed for an anchorage at Blackbeard Wildlife Refuge. We had heard good things about this stop and it would be a quick, easy day to get there.

When we arrived there were already several boats anchored. The current was really strong and the winds were blowing. We don’t really have anchoring down to an art, so we were anxious. We motored past all the boats to a good spot. I was driving, and Josh was manning the anchor because we don’t have an electric windlass.

We tried three or four times and the anchor wouldn’t bite. We switched roles and Josh motored way closer to shore which made me nervous so naturally we got over our stress and acted in total kindness toward one another. Ha! Actually we called each other names and yelled a bit. I begrudgingly dropped the anchor anyway and of course when he hit reverse it held.

I proceeded to complain about our location quite a bit. We were both a bit stressed and the anchorage wasn’t as cool as our last one.

We decided to check the weather since it was windy, and it didn’t look promising which added to our happy moods.

The next several days looked stormy and windy. The anchorage wasn’t super protected either.

We decided to skip exploring the island the next day and head out in the morning. It sort of bummed me out so now we were super awesome and kind and loving.

We went to bed with the boat swinging all around. Luckily we slept pretty well regardless after much apologizig to each other over our bad moods and cold words.

The next morning the other boats left around nine and we weren’t far behind. We had decided to go to the town of Darien. It’s about 7 miles off the ICW but they have free docks and that sounded good to us.

We made good time and pulled into Darien just after lunch. The docks were easy to use even though the current was nutso. After docking, we cleaned up and got checked in. Darien reminded me a little bit of my hometown of Headland. It definitely had that small town vibe! There were also about a gazillion historical markers so I was in heaven.

Waterfront Park in Darien, Ga

Willy on the docks in Darien

I love historical markers so much!

We walked to a super ghetto laundry mat and got that out of the way. Then we cleaned up and got dinner at a place called Skipper’s Fish Camp that was on the water downtown. It was delicious!!!! The blackened shrimp was pretty much heaven.

We called it a night pretty early after walking around the town and the docks a bit.

Dinner in Darien.

The next morning we grabbed breakfast at a little cafe called The Purple Pickle. The owner was the nicest and introduced us to the dockmaster and his wife who were super awesome. They let us know that the wine bar would give us a complimentary drink! Free anything makes me happy bit free docks AND wine was just too much.

Later, we took the longboards about a mile down the road to Fort King George historic site. The rangers were really mesmerized by the fact that we longboarded there. It made me feel sort of bad ass but if they had seen me going all of a quarter mile an hour while simultaneously freaking out the entire mile my cover would have been blown.

Tabby ruins in downtown Darien

Fort King George

In the museum.

The fort is just a remodel of what it would have looked like back in the day, but I can be nerdy about history so I enjoyed it. We sat through the cheesy film and everything. Did you know that Darien, Ga was settled by Scottish Highlanders? I didn’t until the cheesy film told me so.

Scottish Highlander house

Cemetery at Fort King George.

On the way back to the boat we bought some fresh shrimp for dinner. There was going to be live music at the park we were docked at, so we wanted to eat on the boat.

After cleaning up, we walked to the wine bar for our free drinks. This place was adorable! After the wine, we both got a beer and listened to their live music. There was a gentlemen at the bar with a Bama cap on and I was really trying to refrain from yelling Roll Tide across the bar. I mean, it wasn’t a sports bar it was a fancy wine bar. After the wine though, it was getting harder to control myself so I walked over to finally get it out of my system. We basically became immediate best friends. He was a council member and he gave me his card along with permissible to stay in Darien as long as I wanted.

FREE wine at the wine bar.

After he gave us a history lesson. On Darien, we decided to go make dinner and listen to the band downton.

It was such a picteuresque night. The past two weeks have involved less and less engine work and more seafood and wine. I am a fan. Although I don’t mind knowing my way around an engine, I’d rather learn it later. Like when I am not dependent on the engine daily and when its not located I’m the middle of my living space.

I really didn’t want to leave Darien. It was too easy and too free. But we did move on. We want to do more offshore but the weather isn’t cooperating.

We headed down the ICW to the Ferederica River. It wasn’t super far, but we had to time it all right with currents and tides which is a huge pain in the ass. There was a narrow and shallow cut we had to get through. I read horror stories about how bad it was. Deemed “the single worst stretch of the icw” Little Mud River was giving me a headache already. It’s these twisty, scary, shallow stretches that make people go offshore and swear that Georgia is a place to be avoided. To add to my nerves the weather was predicted to be stormy and there was a patch of storms headed our way.

Honestly, Little Mud River was no big deal. Like…not at all. Once you get the hang of how rivers shoal in the currents it makes it easier to find deep water if things get shallow and don’t match up with the charts. Also, I read somewhere to think.of yourself like a barge and don’t take close turns. That helped too.

Right as we were coming out of Little Mud River, the sky got really dark and we could see the rain coming. There wasn’t a good place to anchor so we decided to press on.

We shut all the hatches and put on our rain gear. I stayed inside making sure things stayed dry and that we were on course since we use our laptop.

The lightning popped close enough to make Josh nervous but we crossed paths with a fee other boats who were pushing through so we knew we weren’t crazy.

Braving the storm

Luckily, it was a short lived storm and we came out on the other side fairly quickly and pretty close to the Frederica River. It was also nice because it cooled everything off!

We motored on down the river to Fort Frederica. Honestly, its a little underwhelming from the water. Tomorrow we might go to shore if we ha e time and do some exploring…we’ll have to see!

June 26, 2013
by thetinii 2 Comments

Willy’s Ocean Run – BY:Allison

Last time we posted, we were docked next to a dead guy.

Finally, things are working out and the last few days are what we thought this summer would be like all along. We’ve had a few more bumps in the road, but nothing like stewing in corpse fumes on a boat with a broken engine.

We finally left Turner Creek. We ended up being there a week. First, we had alternator issues that my Dad helped us resolve. We woke up ready to leave, and the boat would crank up and then die as soon as Josh let off the key. We checked EVERY electrical component we thought it could be, and nothing made a difference. Finally, we dismantled the carburetor and cleaned it out some even though it didn’t look THAT gunky to my super professional eye.

Anyway, we put it back together and it worked so I’m not going to question it.

We had decided to run offshore for a change. The ICW is a narrow waterway that connects sounds and rivers so that you never have to see the ocean. That is not what sailboats were made for, right? Josh was excited, I was nervous.

We made it out of the Wilmington River and into Wassaw Sound. I had read a million blogs and reviews about this sound…all of which said “get local knowledge” because there are shifting sand bars. The guy who ran our marina said, “It’s pretty straightforward.” We went for it.

As we left the sound, the waves (which were forecasted for 3-4 feet) were about 6 feet and rolling. We bounced around and I was beside myself with nerves. I devoted myself to looking for buoys through the binoculars for a distraction. Luckily, it was a pretty straightforward route to the sea and once we got out of the sound the seas evened out a bit.

Right when I started feeling really good, Josh started feeling really bad.

Those rolling seas got to him and he proceeded to puke up all his breakfast.

Once he got that over with, he felt better and we hoisted the sails and turned south.

We ended up making really great time and I did enjoy getting to actually sail in the ocean. It was sort of surreal.

We made it to St.Catherine’s Sound and sailed our way inside. We were almost to the anchorage in Walburg Creek and started letting the sails down and getting things ready to crank up the engine…guess what?

The engine gave us problems.

Basically the choke had to be pulled all the way out for it to run and the choke wire is messed up and you can’t pull it from the cockpit.

So, Josh had to get down there and keep it pulled out while simultaneously watching the laptop screen and navigating me through the creek to our anchorage.

We made it though and parked the boat in the most gorgeous setting we’ve seen yet.

Excuse the crazy hair.

On one side of us is an undeveloped island and the other side is a gorgeous marsh. A lot of people don’t like the stretch in Georgia, but it really is beautiful to us. There were dolphins EVERYWHERE. They’d swim right next to the boat.

I don’t care who you are – seeing a dolphin never gets old. It’s exciting every time. If you disagree, well then we’d never be friends and you should probably not read our blog.

We were planning on getting up the next morning and trekking onward, but slept a little late and really needed to resolve our engine issues.

We started what is becoming all too familiar and broke out the tools to fix the Atomic 4. We knew it wasn’t getting enough fuel so we took apart the carb AGAIN thinking that maybe something didn’t get sealed up well and there was an air leak. In the meantime, Josh tried sucking gas up the fuel line and realized something was blocking it. So, he just blew through it instead, we put it all back together, and it wall ran fine. I think our fuel tank which was running low on fuel got tossed around in the seas. Who knows what sort of crud needs to be cleaned out of there since we haven’t installed the fuel filter that is sitting on the boat. Alas, we’re not going to worry about it too much.

We read in the Skipper Bob guide that you can take your dinghy down the creek to the beach on the point of the island and do some exploring through a “tree graveyard”. So, out came the dinghy. We packed up a picnic and headed over. The beach is pretty desolate and really beautiful. There are these old dead trees everywhere.

DCIM101GOPRO

The trees were worn down like this from the tides.

While exploring we noticed all sorts of weird animal tracks on the beach – more on that later.

I was feeling really good about finally getting to do some relaxing on a beach. Josh even got to swim about 20 feet from these dolphins who were playing in the water.

Yet again, we’d planned on making a big run down the coast. We were going to have to wake up early and make it to Brunswick, Ga for gas. We knew we were getting low. This seemed like a stressful idea, so we made another plan.

There was a little restaurant/ marina called Sunbury Crab Company about 6 miles off the ICW in St.Catherine’s Sound. We decided we’d head there instead.

So, we got up and made the not so grueling trek to the marina where we are currently docked. This place is the bees knees.

It’s a family run place. The owners live next door to the the restaurant and let us use their pool! We splurged and got dinner here. Apparently this place was in Coastal Living Magazine recently as one of the top 22 Seafood Dives and I can see why. First of all, they have “cocktail hour” for boaters which translated to free wine or beer. We also got a bucket of crabs and a lesson on how to eat them properly. The food was amazing! This place has that comfortable atmosphere that Josh and I love. A lot of the marinas on the way seem rather stuffy. This definitely wasn’t like that at all.

Eating crabs at Sunbury Crab Company.

This place is the best! Sunbury lit up at night.

Also, the owner here told us a little bit more about St.Catherine’s Island that we had explored. It turns out that the island has a really cool history and there is a plantation on there that used to be owned by Button Gwinnett who was an original signer to the Declaration of Independence. Now, the island is run by New York Zoological Society and is used for research…aka there are tons of crazy animals on the island. Apparently they raise endangered mammals there which explains the crazy animal tracks on the beach. However, we totally didn’t explore as much as we would have had we known we could stumble upon gazelles or lemurs. There’s also some really cool history involving Spanish missions that used to be on the island.

There are some other boaters here who told us not to pass up Blackbeard Wildlife Refuge on Sapelo Sound. I had originally wanted to go there anyway, so we’re going to head there tomorrow sometime.

We’re feeling super happy now that our bellies are full of fresh crab and we’ve had a few days of good sailing and nice anchorages. Hopefully things keep going well, because we’ve only got eight and a half weeks before we head off to Haiti!

June 20, 2013
by thetinii 1 Comment

More about the dead guy- By Josh

Well.. Yesterday was interesting (if your confused read the previous post). People keep asking me if I was able to find anything out about the dead guy. Here is what I know…

This is his boat.

It looks like a boat you would find a dead body on.

Apparently he was taking it down the coast much like us… Yes on THAT boat…

He stopped here several weeks ago to do some repairs on his boat. (From the looks of it it would have taken him the rest of his life to fix it up even if he lived another 20 years).

The owner of the marina said that he was an older man who he thought was an alcoholic. Apparently the owner thought that the guy was just trying to avoid paying his slip fee. So yesterday he went to try and get the guy to pay up (as he had been doing everyday for a week). When the guy didn’t answer he started yelling to the guy that he knows he is in there and if he doesn’t come out he is coming in. When he opened the hatch it was obvious what was going on.

Today the smell is completely gone. Apparently the owner took 12 boxes of moth balls and 5 gallons kitty litter and put them all over the inside of the boat. Then he duck taped all the hatches, windows, and vents shut so none of the death fumes could escape.

Also in case you were wondering… No we are not going to steal that awesome anchor on the back of the boat… Maybe if we had a better place to keep it.

June 19, 2013
by thetinii 4 Comments

“Sorry it smells like rotting fish” – By:Allison

We’re still in Turner Creek just south of Savannah. We anchored here for three days. There’s a Publix nearby and public transportation into Savannah, so we thought it’d be a good place to do some shopping and site seeing. The second night here, some friends from Nashville were in town so Willy had it’s first guests! They brought some steaks to throw on the grill and we had a good time trying to convice Luke he should also buy a boat 🙂

The next day we were all ready to head out, but our battery was low. It had been draining a little faster than usual which was odd. It took us awhile to get the boat cranked up, but we finally did. We didn’t get too far though. The engine quit on us and wouldn’t restart because of the battery problem. We probably could have gotten jumped and kept going, but we were in a good spot for fixing a boat and the marina nearby had a spot open so we got a tow there.

The marina is run by really nice people. It’s a little worn down and not in the best shape, but it’s not expensive and there are lots of places within walking distance. There is a little shack on the water that seems like it is from The Rescuers. Remember that movie? With the mice and the dragonfly named Evinrude? Old blues music drifts down the docks from this shack and it only adds to it’s sort of class-less charm. We docked up here and called our dads…like you do. My dad thought there was a bad connection somewhere so we started checking them. Luckily, my parents needed to come up here anyway to get the jeep from my cousin’s house in Beaufort (who we stayed with while we were there). So, my parents offerend to help us out while they came to get the jeep.

In the meantime we thought we’d take the alternator in to be tested, but we wanted it to go to a real alternator shop. So I looked one up and we found the bus route to Mr.Alternator and Starter. Josh threw the alternator in a backpack and away we went. Once we got there I thought we’d struck gold. The best shops are the sketchiest looking, right? Two dogs there to greet you, random old men hanging out and chatting, in the rougher part of town.

Josh hauled out the alternator and said he wanted to have it checked out. The guy grabbed it, and immediately got on the phone. I was chatting up the older man who was clearly just hanging out. The main guy got off the phone and croaked out, “Five hundred bucks.” We were thouroughly confused. “This has a lot of hours on it. It needs rebuilding – and what are these wires anyway.” Stuttering from confusion we admitted we weren’t sure what those wires went to. I mean, we just disconnected the thing and there are about 5 million random wires on our boat. He then proceeded to chastise us for not knowing our boat well enough. At one point, his friend who I had been chatting with said, “Why don’t you hook it up and test those wires. See what’s happening.” “I don’t need to,” was his reply. “It’s shot. I know that much. But you’ll definitely want me to rebuild it.”

We should have walked out, but we really just wanted him to get in there and SEE if anything was wrong so we paid him a fee to open it up and see what was wrong. Not before some more chastising, however, and a lecture on how he could, “rebuild an alternator 50 miles offshore if he had to.”

The more we thought about it, the more we wished we had not left the alternator with him. We wanted to explore Savannah some though, so we took the bus back to downtown and tried to brush it off. Unfortunately, Mr.Alternator wasn’t going to let us. He ended up calling us each at least five times. Once, he informed Josh we should get rid of our boat because we don’t know what we’re doing. Keep in mind this is the alternator mechanic who can’t identify the wires on our alternator.

We make a plan to just go there the next morning and retrieve the part. So, we load up again on the bus and head over. Luckily, Mr.Alternator wasn’t there but a much kinder man was behind the counter. He told us that the voltage regulator had been bypassed and that it would cost about $300 to rebuild the alternator. We kindly told him we just wanted it back.

So now we have the questionable alternator in tow and we meet up with my parents in Savannah who had just arrived. We ended up riding with them to Beaufort to pick up the jeep and see my cousin. We got some dinner and my parents got a little mini tour of the town. If you’ve never been and you are going to be in the Lowcountry, you have to visit Beaufort. It’s such a pleasant place! There is a lot of history, it’s very walkable, and there are a ton of cool shops and restaurants (including my cousin’s store The Beaufort Clothing Co.)

But, as usual, I digress.

So, back at the boat my Dad comes up with a rewiring scheme and figures out what’s wrong in about five minutes. We make a plan to take the alternator to a new shop in the morning for a new volage regulator. We also realize we need a new battery switch because there’s a short in the one we have.

The next day, today, is when the real story begins.

When my parents first got to the marina, I apologized for the smell. Every now and then you got a waft of what smelled like rotten-ness. I assumed people were cleaning fish or catching crabs and the leftovers were smelling rather putrid. It wasn’t overwhelming, but certainly unpleasant every now and then.

This morning, while sitting around patting ourselves on the back for a new and improved battery system on the boat, we see an ambulance pull up. I had just walked by some people at the previously described shack and they seemed to be in okay moods so I didn’t think much about the ambulance. My back was to the situation as well. My parents and Josh were keeping a close eye on the situation. A few minutes later, police cars arrive and the marina owner starts leading the EMT’s down the docks to a derelict boat on the other docks directly in front of us. They proceed to open up the companionway and the putrid smell I had assumed to be rotting sea creatures became overpowering. “Do you think someone died in there?” Josh asked.

Our noses said, “Definitely.”

We proceed to watch one EMT lower himself into the boat and come up rather pale. “Do you want to go see,” he asks his coworker. That answer was, is, and should forever be NO.

At this point, I am realizing that I have been smelling a dead body for THREE days. Three. Adventure of a lifetime, folks. And here you thought living on a sailboat was the glamorous life. Truth is, I am currently docked directly downwind from a rotting corpse.

Yes, it is very sad that this man died and no one even missed him or realized it for four days (he passed away before we arrived at this marina). I felt especially bad for the marina owner who made the discovery and was clearly shaken by the situation.

I also, could not stop wishing I had brought my Netti-pot to thoroughly disinfect my nostrils. The desire to shower in some strong anti-bacterial soap is also quite overwhelming. Everyone got a bit of a chuckle over the fact that I apologized for the smell which was unknowingly a dead man.

Josh and I are currently sitting at a library writing this blog. The man’s body has been removed, but the stench is lingering. Knowing what it is now, we couldn’t keep marinating in the fumes. We felt very determined not to spend money eating out, but tonight might be the exception. Grilled sausages were on the menu, but I just don’t think I can cook and eat with the smell of death all around us.

We haven’t gotten the full story on this man, or what happened. We aren’t sure if that was his boat, if the marina staff knew him, or exactly how he died. I don’t know if we will, because hopefully we are high tailing it out of here tomorrow. The plan is to head to another marina near a stretch of the ICW called Hell’s Gate. We’ll rest up a bit and prepare to conquer, yes conquer, Hell’s Gate on a rising tide. After that, we’ll keep making our way south toward St.Augustine. Hopefully, there are no more dead bodies along the way.

June 12, 2013
by thetinii Leave a comment

Day 1 on the ICW-By Josh and Allison

Yesterday was crazy. It was awesome, it was intimidating, it was my childhood Treasure Island fantasies come true (that sounds dirty), but most of all it was worth it.
We shoved off from Marsh Harbor boatyard at 9:00 am. Said goodbye to the friends we had made over the past several weeks and were off. About two miles from the boatyard is a drawbridge. Just as the bridge was opening for us our engine died. We hailed the bridge on the vhf and told them not to hold it open for us. We got the engine started quickly and went to anchor nearby to steady our nerves a bit. We
decided to try again, but guess what? Engine died again. Once again it started back up quickly. At this point Josh figured out it was dying when we pushed the engine too hard. The mechanic had adjusted things a bit and we were giving it too much gas for the new tweaks. So we tooled around in am open area for a solid 45 minutes to make sure that was it. Another boat was coming through northbound so we radioed in to let them know we’d be trying one more time. Josh thought it was funny to say, “Is it third time’s the charm or three strikes your out.” Allison did not think that was funny, but it turns out third time is indeed the charm. We made it through!

Before we knew it we were in a beautiful open sound! We both kept saying it was all worth it. We got the the north side of Hilton Head island and were following the buoys well, until Josh decided not to listen to Allison’s awesome navigational skills. We ran aground…like barely…but couldn’t get off and didn’t feel like waiting. Luckily we had just purchased our Boat US membership with unlimited towing and Allison sort of wanted to get our money’s worth anyway so we went ahead and called them. A really nice guy came from Boat US, hauled us off in 5 minutes, and then showed us the best place to anchor for the night.

Anchoring went well although you wouldn’t know that from the way Allison acted. She was so nervous, she barely slept (and kept josh awake all night as well) and checked our coordinates constantly.

Guess what, we didn’t move!

Now we are sitting here plotting our next course of action. Hopefully we’ll make it most of the way to Savannah.

June 10, 2013
by thetinii Leave a comment

Hoping & Praying: Allison

We have been in Beaufort three weeks now. Last Thursday the boat finally got put back in the water, but we couldn’t head out right away for two reasons. One being a tropical storm that decided to show up. Another being that water was coming in the boat.

Yes. Water. Inside the boat.

Turns out when the rudder was removed it cracked the area around the rudder post just a little so that a very small, but steady stream of water was coming inside. Just enough for concern.

After the tropical storm passed, Josh filled the crack with epoxy and covered it with resin which solved the problem.

BUT, Sunday I came down with a fever and a few aches. Nothing terrible, but enough to make me want to sleep all day and be pretty useless helping on the boat.

So, I rested today and drank a ton of water. We are hoping and praying really hard to head put at high tide tomorrow. Say a prayer that all goes smoothly and that Willy finally decides to cooperate along with the weather and my body.

The Tinii

It's plural for Tinius, because we said so.

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