Where Has Two Months Gone?

Two months ago - the last week of May - we were traveling north in the ICW. We stopped and enjoyed Cocoa Village - anchoring out just northeast of the Bridge.

We were traveling with Pat and Pat from Salty Dawg. Pat and Wilma enjoyed shopping in the village. Wilma bought a new straw hat.

Wink, Wilma and Ms. Pat posing in Cocoa Village for Mr. Pat. Our travels took 5 days from Ft. Pierce to Green Cove Springs, FL.

John Henry docked on Pier 2 across from Cloud X. It's great to be back at Reynolds Park Marina in Green Cove Springs, FL. We'll stay here for hurricane season. The Pat's will be staying a month in the Jacksonville area. They had a car stored there, so they drove us to Sarasota, FL to get our car and stayed a few days in the condo.

Wink, Wilma, Pat and Pat began to work on a small business venture. We donned our business outfits and hit the road. After several frustrating weeks & medicals problems - the venture is placed on hold.

However, Wink did get some photo enhancing software and decided to try it out. If only getting fit was so easy - Wilma thinks.

Patrick (the worker) and Wink (the supervisor) work on re-organizing the vent line to the holding tank, changed all of the duck bill values for each of the three vacu-flush units, worked on the windlass, and installed a new intake vent for the master stateroom a/c unit.

Wilma also helped with each of the projects - cleaning the alley ways and reorganizing stores. This photo also serves as a before photo because Wilma decided to cut her hair.

Wilma does like it, but looks forward to it growing out a little bit.

We had a short visit from Neil Ingram and Jerry Ohlman. They stopped by to say hi before moving Shalala to Brunswick, GA.

We went out touring the St. Johns River tributaries one Sunday with Christy and George Comrie in their large Carolina Skiff. What a peaceful afternoon.

Wilma invited crews of Christina Seas and Esmarelda over for Happy Hour after the skiff exploration afternoon. Wilma shows off her jewelry that she learned to make in the Bahamas and ended up selling 6 necklace/bracelet's.

On one of our trips to Sarasota, FL - we discovered that the high school that Wink attended had been rebuilt and the school was holding a social to come see the old school before it was torn down. The school is 50 years old. Wink graduated 40 years ago. His cousin, Linda (on left) was in the first graduating class. The school is Riverview High School.

Wink graduated Riverview High School in Sarasota, FL in 1969. He could not afford his high school senior yearbook. The school did have several yearbooks from years past on display. Wilma couldn't help but take a picture of Wink's senior glory.

Wink Thornton, 1969 - Riverview High School, Sarasota, FL - Senior Year

Destruction of the old Riverview School - 2009

Cape Cod Light - sister ship Cape May Light left port in early June headed to dry dock. (Read the club blog: www.ghtacruising.com )

Cape May Light returns after dry dock with a new name: Sea Voyager

See club website - blog for more details. www.ghtacruising.com

Wink, Wilma and Sara the sea dog went to Sarasota last week for medical test and appts. Wink is now on new meds for his RA which will hopefully help with moving around better. The dentist was happy to see him also.

Wilma has a clear bill of health. Sara unfortunately, slipped jumping off the bed onto the tile floors and hurt two disc in her back. She's on bed rest for two weeks.

We returned to the boat on Monday - June 22nd. Apparently while we were away, the Blind Mosquito's decided to raid the boat. There were million, may billions of them dead all around the boat. Wink started to hose down the cockpit, because for a while this is Sara's new poop deck.

The bugs ran green goo - oouuuh. It was all over the boat. After 5 minutes, Wink had itchy swollen hands - he's allergic. Wilma took over the spraying. It took two hours to hose off the boat. The bugs flew from one side of the boat to the other as Wilma hosed the dead bugs off.

On Tuesday, Wilma washed the entire boat top to bottom. It took 8 hours. On Wednesday morning, Wilma again got up and hosed the boat for about an hour and then repeating the process throughout the day. The boat isn't clean anymore, but just keeping the bugs hosed seems to keep the green goo from building up. These bug problems happen in burst and there hasn't been a bad one like this for two years.

Blind Mosquito's oozing green goo - about three days of bugs we're told.

Manjack Cay, Abaco to Ft Pierce, FL

As our last posting stated, we left Boat Harbour in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas on Thursday, April 10th, 2009.

We crossed through the Whale Cay cut without any problems. We traveled with our good friends Pat & Pat Dwyer on Salty Dawg.

After our brief stay anchored at Manjack Cay and no additional Internet available - our spare time was spent enjoying our hobbies. Wilma worked on jewelry making and painting. Wink enjoyed his computer game.

Lionfish painted with acrylics - still working on this project. Wilma painted a Junkanoo bean with a picture of our boat John Henry. Wilma also learned how to crochet necklaces at Boat Harbour. The best part is that Wink and Wilma collected the shells themselves for these necklaces and matching earrings.

We've enjoyed walking the beaches and collecting lots of shells, fans, driftwood and sea glass. Of course, all these had to be cleaned - another part-time job. Wink also took lots of underwater photos.

Sara Sota the sea dog adapted well to living on board John Henry full time. She has a favorite area for doing her business and she always is a lady about it.

On Allan-Pensacola Cay, Pat, Pat, Wilma and Wink explore the beaches and the abandon ruins of a old radar station. On this cay we found a great hanging tree of ornaments left by other travelers and explorers.

Mr. Pat found a couple of buoys on the beach and had a great idea of putting our names on them and then placing them on the hanging tree.

He painted them and on our last morning in Allans-Pensicola Cay, we had a hanging party.

Wilma and Wink on our 2008 Mirage Skiff with our John Henry Buoy for the Allans-Pensicola Cay Hanging Tree.

A group photo of the explorers and their buoys. Wilma, Wink and the Pats.

Wink and Wilma pose under the John Henry & Salty Dawg buoys.

Mr. Pat climbed the tree, did all the work and should receive all the credit for the fun. We all had lots of fun.

Pat and Pat's turn under the buoys. Enjoying the day before head north to Double Breasted Cay.

Double Breasted Cay has a large sandbar area where we found a conch.
The water here is emerald green with the sky a royal blue while fluffy white clouds dance across. Wilma would like to paint like this.

Wilma on the bow of the skiff and Wink driving - we spent the day diving, and exploring.With Grand Cay only a couple of miles away, we skiffed over and had a look around.

We bought fresh bread at one of the local bakeries. We walked the entire town, bought souvenirs and had lunch in a one table cafe in less than two hours. This is an extremely friendly small town.

The winds changed so we moved from Double Breasted Cay on the south side of Grand Cay to the north side of Grand Cay. We tried to explore Walkers Cay but due to hurricane damage, the cay was off limits.

The weather on the ocean side was calm so we went diving and beach combing.

Wilma photographed from the surface while Wink dived the 15-20 feet hunting fish.

He caught a grouper and a mutton snapper. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner that evening.

We are thankful that Wink is a strong and steady swimmer.

As Wink was swimming back to the skiff to put the first fish in the boat, the skiff was missing. With fish in hand, he swam faster as the skiff was drifting quickly into the ocean. Wilma couldn't keep up and had to stop and wait. Another few minutes and we would not have been able to retrieve the skiff by swimming. (Luckily the Pat's were with us and could have taken us out by boat to retrieve the skiff). At first, we thought the anchor had dragged, but as it turns out, the anchor line loosen and slipped away from the boat. The anchor was still firmly on the bottom.

This was truly one of the scariest moments in our lives while living on the boat. Now we double check the anchor line - maybe even triple check.

WE were looking for a weather window to return to the USA. The winds were about 20-25 mph for days. We checked the weather on WeatherWorks for a Gulf Stream crossing. There was a possible weather window on Thursday, April 22nd. On Wednesday, the weather window seemed to have closed. So Thursday about 8:00 a.m. we were preparing to go ashore with Sara when we checked in with Salty Dawg. They had just received an update and the day was perfect to cross. We agreed and within 30 minutes both boats had aweighed anchor and we started making our way across the sea of Abaco from Grand Cay towards the Gulf Stream

About noon, we received a call from Salty Dawg, they were having a problem and needed to stop for a short time. Wilma decided that water was too beautiful to pass up the opportunity of fishing. Within 15 minutes, Wilma had caught 5 small fish for dinner. Salty Dawg called and said they had made their repair so away we went.

We left the Sea of Abaco about 4:00 pm and traveled through the evening crossing the Gulf Stream with no incidents. The water was beautiful, the sunset wonderful and all was good.

With Wilma on the bow of the boat using her night vision, and Wink in the pilot house utilizing electronic charts, we made our way into the Ft. Pierce Inlet about 12:30 pm and anchored south of the ICW bridge in front of the condo's on the west side.

Salty Dawg on the bank in the sea of Abaco.
John Henry in the sea of Abaco.

The Gulf Stream as we crossed back to Ft. Pierce, FL.

When we awoke on Friday morning late - the Pat's moved to the city marina for repairs while we stayed in the anchorage. When we anchored at 1:00 a.m. there were many boats in the anchorage. There were so many boats and so little light, that Wink and Wilma went into the shallow water to set the hook as we were exhausted. It was dead low tide and we had less than a foot under the boat, but that was enough. However, after we set the hook, the wind changed a little and we ended up on the bottom. It wasn't a firm hard aground, only a soft hard aground. With a rising tide, we were floating free within a few minutes. So early in the morning during high tide, we moved our location to a deeper spot as many of the boats had left.

Later in the day, it was old home days in Marsh Harbour. Puffin, LoQueSeA and Tally Ho trawler made their way to the anchorage. They had arrived the day before also entering at Lake Worth.

On Saturday, we went to the city marina to visit the Pat's and also visited with Indemity and Terralee who were in the same marina. We also spoke with Tim of Pokey. He said Pokey was at a Harbortown Marina while they were at home. We also learned that Jim on Christine was in Harbortown also. He had sold his boat and was spending time with the new owners getting ready for them to take possession.

On Sunday, Our Time and Silver Foxes came by and hailed us on the VHF to say hi as they continued up the ICW toward Cocoa Village. We left Ft. Pierce on Monday morning and anchored north of the bridge at Cocoa Village.