Well we aren’t shipwrecked and we don’t have Ginger or Maryanne on board (sorry Ed) but we have been a bit challenged on our ocean journey down the Florida coast.

We started out at Brunswick at 9 am Sunday after spending 30 minutes circling at the fuel dock waiting our turn. The big trawler in front of us needed 300 gallons. We got 21 gallons and were full. Benefit of blowboaters vs. stinkpots.

We headed out to the sea, took about an hour to get those 10 miles. Saw dolphins through the St Simon Sound. Then when we got to the ocean and turned the motors off and sailed.

It is such an awesome feeling to be powered by the wind. And our wind generator makes a cool whirring sound, creating energy along with the solar panels.

Well we sailed all day with no motors, taking turns about every hour. When darkness approached I started getting a little nervous but Ed said we would be fine.

And the sky went dark. We had a nice almost-full moon to the west. So far I was okay. Then the clouds rolled in and it got much darker around midnight.

I made a pot of coffee and Ed said we only have 6 more hours till dawn. Grrr.

That’s when the autopilot told us the battery power was low. We checked and she was right! I went down and shut off all power except the navigational instruments. You don’t want to lose those on the ocean on a dark night.

I checked the wind gen and it was throwing some amps so we appeared to be ok. We were getting a lot of wind and the seas were getting gnarly (Ed’s word.

As the night wore on the seas got rougher. Neither one of us got much rest. The boat was fine but when waves hit the hull sometimes it sounded like a big thud.

Ziggy was a bit “concerned” as Ed described. She stayed on the salon sofa but never slept. When I went off watch and laid down there she came right up and put her head on my pillow.

We sailed all night without the engines because we had good winds. Annie the autopilot could not hold our heading so we didn’t use her. This meant we had to constantly monitor the compass heading, usually 180, due south.

I think I got maybe 30 minutes sleep I don’t think Ed got any. By 5 am we were praying for sunrise. I’ve never been so glad to see anything like that before.

We knew we had another 6 hours before reaching an inlet (New smyrna beach). But since we were only 3-5miles from shore we could see buildings now.

We finally passed Daytona and St Augustine and moved toward the inlet. It had been too rough to cook so we had yogurt and were pretty stoked on coffee.

The sea swells increased to 4-6 feet as we got near the inlet but Ed was more pleased with how the boat handled the waves. We agreed it’s easier to ride waves when you are in daylight!

We got in the inlet and it was swirly but not as bad as the ocean had been. As we made our way in the starboard engine stalled and quit. Ed tried several times and it would never start. We made our way to the marina dock on one engine and found the bad engine completely died.

So we got in around lunchtime and regrouped. Completely worn out but glad to find food and level land we talked about the problems. The toilet(new) was now not working. We only had one motor.

But we found positives. We had sailed the boat overnight on the ocean in rather string conditions. The boat was fine, I felt proud of learning how to sail on the sea and hold our heading, Ed felt better about my abilities, though I think he had more confidence in me than I did.

Ziggy has yet to tell us whether she’s cool with it all. But she was happy to find grass to do her business. After 30 hours.

Still need to work on teaching her to use the doggie pad.

Now we need to find a motor. We’re not shipwrecked but we are delayed a bit. That’s our positive thinking. And we’re in Florida in shorts!

We are on the ocean off Cumberland Island with a wind of 7 knots doing 4.4 speed. Started with a reefed mainsail to be conservative but Ed is ready to raise the sail all the way to pick up speed.
The channel coming out was choppy but the ocean swells are better. We did 8.2 knots at our fastest so far.
It will be a night of catnaps and taking turns at the helm. Kinda chilly but coats are helping!
Ziggy is restless not used to all this but hopefully she will calm down tonite!
Oh I learned an interesting trick! My phone got wet and I put it in a bowl of rice for a day and now I can hear again!
Amazing.

Well we made it to Brunswick by car yesterday and the temperature dropped to the ’40’s last night.  Winds of up to 40 knot gusts forced us to break out the Bald Head Island warm jackets.  We walked to the bath house last night looking like official crew for a major yacht – these jackets are nice!

We got the streaming going with the Chromecast doodad I had bought; coolest thing is we have HBOgo, Netflix and WatchESPN wherever we can get Wi-Fi.  Plus some random over-the-air channels that we can get sporadically.

Today we were planning to leave, but it’s still very cold and somewhat gusty.  We have some preparations to do, getting the headsail back up, laying out the tethers for overnight passage, etc.  I have to get Ziggy trained on using her wee-wee pad, but I’m not sure how that’s going to go.

Last night we had multiple layers of quilts because it was cool on the boat.  The toughest part was the main sail halyard (rope) banging against the mast in the gusty wind.  Ed had to get up twice to go up top and tie it back.  Finally he tied it downwind and that seemed to work.

We also heard “the dinghy people” walking around on the bow in the middle of the night.  Sailors share tales of boat noises that sound like someone’s walking around above you.  Ed went and checked, the dinghy people were hiding or else they had jumped to someone else’s boat.

Ziggy didn’t bark, she slept on her spot in the salon.  So maybe she likes the dinghy people.

Unless we get done early, we will probaby leave in the morning, to go outside and get the hell out of Brunswick.