We felt a little better this morning and decided to make a short leg of our trip to Hilton Head, SC. We left Beaufort around 9:00 am and made our way to Boat Harbour Yacht Basin arriving before lunch. We had winds 25 to 30 mph which made crossing the Port Royal Sound a little bumpy and wet. We are so thankful for having a lower helm with wipers because it was like someone was throwing buckets of water on the windshield. We did get to see a coast guard helicopter practicing water rescue by dropping and raising the rescue basket down to a small coast guard boat. Did I mention the wind was really blowing! All settled in we enjoyed a light lunch, and headed back to the boat for some rest. We still don’t feel 100% so we aren’t going to push it too much.
Not too exciting today in Beaufort, SC today. We both awoke this morning feeling a little ill. Some kind of virus jumped on both of us for some unknown reason. We tried our best to stay as healthy as possible before the trip but you just never know. The whole day was spent on the boat taking meds and sleeping to try and feel better. We had a few eggs for breakfast and some peanut butter crackers for dinner. No fun. Hopefully this is just a 24 hour bug.
Left Charleston this morning at 7:45AM, several of our friends from Ripley Light Marina assisted in our departure. 7 hours later we arrived in Beaufort after a cool and windy ride. Connie and I split the time at the lower helm which made for a less tiresome journey on each of us. There is a 50% chance of rain tomorrow so we will probably stay put and have a relaxing day around town. Our next leg will take us to Isle of Hope Marina, South of Savanna, Ga.
First Mate takes the HelmArriving in BeaufortPerfect ending to a perfect day.
Provisioning for an extended cruise takes a lot of planning. We know we can get most of the things we need moving down the east coast but the Abacos are a little different. A lot of things are available over there but some are scarce or very expensive. Connie has made a lot of mental notes of what is hard to come by from our visits for the last seven years and has stocked “Rita” with what she thinks are the essentials. After a trip to the local grocery and 3 over full carts I think she has it. Her organization skills or awesome! Stay tuned, more to come.
1 of 4 cartsDry and can goodsMore Dry and can goodsPantry all organized
After a week of rain and wind bottom paint is complete. The last one held up for three years. We spent Saturday night at Ross Marine because the winds were just to strong to risk a trip back to our marina. By late Saturday afternoon the sky had cleared, winds subsided and the day ended with a beautiful sunset. We headed back to our marina on Sunday with lots of sunshine.
Our plans to cruise the Abaco’s are almost here. We are preparing “Rita” for a mid February departure. Plans will be to enjoy ourselves running the ICW south to West Palm Beach, stopping at numerous places along the way. Cross over to West End and then on to the numerous Cays in The Abaco chain. We have “Rita” on the hard putting on a fresh bottom coat and a few other small items. After that it is provisioning time, stocking as much as we can hold for our 4 month vacation. I hope to post at least every couple of days while we’re gone so keep checking back for our latest adventure.
Well, it’s been over a year since my last posting so this will be a little lengthy.2013 became a very busy year at work and just could not get away to spend time on Rita. I know I said in the previous blog we would spend our summer cruising the Carolina coast but it just wasn’t in the cards. We did however spend two great weeks in June in the Abacos. We and two other families flew into Marsh Harbour, rented a boat and headed over to the Firefly Resort on Elbow Cay. They had free dockage for our 26’ center console, 2 pools, a great restaurant /bar and first class accommodations. We all had a great time in Hopetown and visited Nipper’s and Grabbers on Guana Cay and Pete’s Pub at Little Harbour. At the end of the first week we dropped off our family and guests in Marsh Harbour for their return flight home. We traded the 26’ boat for a 22’ and headed to Treasure Cay for a one night stay. I wanted to check out the marina and surroundings for our return trip on “Rita” in the near future. It seemed to be a nice marina with good protection from the wind and also had pool and bar close by. The next morning we headed to Green Turtle Cay where we had a private slip next to the Bluff House marina and a 1 bedroom villa on the hill overlooking the sea of Abaco. We spent the next five days just relaxing on this lovely cay and taking in the restaurants, beaches, bars and pools. We hated to bring this to an end but it was time to return home. We headed back to Marsh Harbour to spend our last night at one of our favorite places, The Lofty Fig. Cid is the proprietor of this great little place and keeps it in tip top shape for all of his guests.
Our only other adventure for the rest of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 was taking “Rita” back to Rockville for more upgrades and some new paint.
Spent a few great days on the boat this past week. Had a mechanic onboard servicing and tuning the 8V92’s. Took the boat out for a quick sea trial to see if we could reach top speed and maxium RPMs. Got within a couple of hundred RPMs and ran about 22 knots. That’s plenty fast for me because at that speed we are burning about 60 gal of fuel an hour. We also got the name installed on the boat and I have to say It looks pretty good. With spring here we will be spending more time on the boat and I hope to post more often.
Today we moved Margarita Daze to our new home in Charleston, SC. We have a slip at a local marina which shall serve as our home base while I receive training from Capt. George. We moved the boat from Rockville to Charleston via the ICW. We maintained an average speed of about 10 knots into some pretty strong head winds but had to slow many times due to no wake zones. Capt. George filled my head with plenty of navigational info and we both learned a lot how the boat performed. We had my First Mate Garrett along today to learn the ropes and tie the lines. He is the one in the picture looking out and checking the channel markers. Well thanks to Capt. George we are comfortable in our slip and enjoying a nice cool night.
