Vero Beach for Christmas

Hey, Shane here. We are currently in Vero Beach, FL (aka, Velcro Beach).  It is widely known that cruisers have a difficult time leaving here once settled. The Vero Beach Marina is very accommodating, with a nice lounge, wifi, mooring balls, and a free bus system.  We have also heard compliments towards their Thanksgiving and Christmas potlucks. We plan on sticking around to find out about Christmas :) So on our way here, the alternator to our engine has started malfunctioning. We took it out and found bits of melted plastic and wires inside. Not good! We ordered a new one and are waiting here for a new one. We arrived last Monday.

Ok, we left off working in Deltaville. Well, some friends in back there gave me a new pet! :D a baby alligator snapping turtle XD

Then we left there on Thanksgiving, and kept movnig south, jumped from Cape Fear, NC to St. Marys, GA, and then traveled through the intercoastal down to here.  The crossing from Cape Fear to St. Marys went very smooth, and got some nice sailing in :)

We are hoping to keep moving right after Christmas and get down to Marathon, Florida Keys, where my best friend is also heading! Can't wait! ^.^ Then we will continue south as far as we can. Dad is hoping to get down to South America

Anyways, Merry Christmas from S/V Moonshine!

BOAT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and school work)

Sorry for not posting as often as we would like, we have been hard at work up on the hard in Deltaville, VA.

Hey Hey Hey!!

SURPRISE!! I'm posting again. We've done so much since my last post that I'll update the map first and then get back to filling in the hotspots along the way. Sorry to those that looked forward to a constant update. Factors happened that made it hard to keep up. Things like lack of internet connections in the tropics, lack of enough bandwidth to work with but mostly my taking "Island Time" a bit to seriously!! So here I go with another attemt at catching up on my postings.

Tough Job

Things are tough, but someone has to do it. I VOLUNTEER!!! We sailed from Green Turtle Cay to Hopetown Bahamas. Now it is time to ponder the question. Are there degrees of Paradise? We got to thinking that Green Turtle was the greatest Island in the Bahamas. Now we think that Hopetown is the Greatest Island in the Bahamas. I starting to think that mabee it's the Island that you happen to at at the moment. They all have great........something! It can be a great night life or a great beach or a great historic area or a great isolated lagoon, ect. ect. The list goes on and on. I guess that is the reason you have to try and get to all of the hundreds of island at some time and is also the reason that people/ cruisers come here year after year. We have decided that we will stay here for a while. After all, we have discovered the tonight is BINGO night! We HAVE to go snockeling on the other side of the island and we HAVE to go climb the most photograghed light house in the Bahamas and we Have to........do you see how this works?
Shane is doing great. He has gotten on a roll with his studies and has found quite a few friends along the way. He hung out with a group of student artist from the Washington, DC area painting pictures of the incredible sunset over the anchorage. He just walked up and started doing line drawings of the area and the teacher invited him to join them for thier afternoon class tomorrow. How cool is that.  Maybee now I'll have time to catch up on this blog...........Yeah Right!!

Bahamas

WE MADE IT TO THE BAHAMAS!!! Yes we've made it. We sat in Riviera Beach Municipal Marina for two weeks waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream. Don't get me wrong Riviera Beach is a fun place to get stuck but we were just anxious to get out to the Islands. We did meet some nice folks, Gary, Carol and thier son Chris were in the same predicament as us. We finally got the window and did the crossing. Came onto the Banks at Memory Rock at sunrise with a building sea behind us. As they say, in the nick of time. Sailed to Great Sale Cay and  anchored for a couple of days to recoup from the crossing. Looked around for some lobsters but came up empty. Did find some Rock Snails and cooked them up that evening. Yummy! We then sailed to Green Turtle Cay and checked in. We are presently in the Green Turtle White Sound waiting for a blow to pass by and then we will continue south through the Abacos and the Exumas. Hopefully pleasant cruising from now till spring. Will post pictures soon.
Hope everyone is having a wonderful New Years.

Brrrrrrrr!!!

We're moving south but not fast enough. We find ourselves now in Titusville, FL and it's cold here. The low is supposed to be 25 degrees tonight. That's like below zero by Florida standards. It's been quite a ride to get here though.
     We stayed in Charleston for several weeks to get a few things done while there. We moved the car down so we would have transportation in the area and the folks there are nice enough to allow us to leave it there while we are spending the winter in the Bahamas. We also looked at a few houses there again, even though we're not sure we want to settle there anymore. We're just not sure were we want to end up. We manage to finally get out of Charleston and head south towards St. Augustine and pick up some packages there that we had sent thinking we would get there first stop from Charleston. NOT!! We got into the St. Augustine area around 2:am and decided to just sail south a bit and stall for time and then come back up north to come into the entrance in the morning........NOT!!! The wind kept building, the wave kept building!! I turned around at around 4:am and headed the 10 mile back to the St. Augustine entrance. By 6:am after pounding around for 2 hours I have gone a whopping 2 nautical miles. Terrible! Decided to swing south and go to the Ponce de Leon entrance 48 mile south of us. The waves were a constant 5' to 6' with an occasional 10 footer or bigger thrown in to keep things exciting. Needless to say coming into a narrow, rocky, windy, wave tossed entry was way exciting. All hands were on deck to watch for rocks, markers, boats sitting on the edge of the calm fishing. I just had to put the engine to full speed and surf into the entrance while waves were crashing on the jetty 50' away and shooting spray around our boat. Wow what a ride!! It's hard to explain an adrenaline rush like that. Got settled into a little backwater on the inside and could watch the waves crashing over the jetty from 1.5 mile away. Incredible! After that and seeing that the weather was to worsen we decided to travel the ICW for a few days. Came down to Titusville, Florida and have been here for four days. Shane ran into some kids he could hang out with so he is happy for a while. We rented a car and Christie and I ran up to St. Augustine to pick up the package we had sent there and the next day we went out to the Kennedy Space Center. That was very interesting. It was amazing to see all the sites that I have been seeing since I was little and the Space Program had just begun. Quite impressive to stand beside a Shuttle and it's fuel rockets. There was also an excellent 3D Hubble telescope film. Lots to think on after seeing all those things.
     Well we are off to find the warmer weather tomorrow. We'll head south on the ICW and perhaps go outside down the way till we get to West Palm Beach/ Lake Fort Worth area till we get a good weather window to go out to the Bahamas. We'll make the jump out to the "Banks" and spend the rest of the winter cruising around out there. So that's all for now. Sometime I'll catch you up on the trip south. Pictures are on the way.