In Florida

Thanks for the gentle nudge from Betsy and Ken. It has been a long time since I’ve posted. The ICW (hereafter called “the ditch) has been challenging as has the weather. Right now we are in Ft. Pierce, FL waiting for a good weather window to finally move outside, put up the sails and test ourselves and FinniRish in the North Atlantic Ocean. Jim has reminded me several times that I need to write something (he doesn’t know how?) but our days are filled with steering between shoals and obstructions and/or finding the next buoy to steer to. It would be great if the federal government would maintain the ditch as well as NY State maintains the Erie Canal.

To prepare for each day’s journey we read the cruising guide and mark our chart with all the obstacles mentioned. We check the weather and tides. Traveling at high tide has saved us through some of the toughest parts (read no water). We went through “Hell Gate” on high tide and couldn’t find the banks of the cut. This was followed by another very shallow cut. The good thing about high tide is you do have water; the bad thing is you don’t know if you are in the channel or over the marsh. Yes, I know I’m whining, but you all know me (us).

At the end of October we were in St. Simon’s Island and spent five days waiting for the Nor’easter to blow over. St. Simon’s has over nine foot tides so we needed to time everything just right when we were leaving. The greatest thing about St. Simons is that our nephew Tim and his wife live there. We ate the greatest food, a low country boil, at a friend of his house and watched the Georgia – Florida football game. This game rivals the OSU – Michigan game in fan polarity. One of the guys who came to the party had on a Florida shirt and is was burned twice before Georgia won the game (and he left). We did finally reluctantly leave and continued on South. We have traveled through some beautiful country but really didn’t have time to look at much of it because our depth sounder was reminding us to watch the water not the scenery.

The weather right now looks like we will have at least another day in the ditch. We will be in Ft. Lauderdale by Friday or Saturday and Miami after that, then on to the Keys and Key West by Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we plan to stay on the ICW to Lake Worth and anchor out overnight. Anchoring is so much better than coming into a marina! At anchor we watch the sun set out on the deck, come below and cook and eat dinner and then go back on deck to look at the stars. LIFE IS GOOD!

We do miss all our family and friends so please stay in touch either on this forum, by email, jimandellie@wenzkeworld.com or phone us. If you have Verizon the call is free.