In keeping with the style of the last blog post, I shall let the photography tell the story. As before, this post will have (somewhat) fewer words and more pictures, with captions enough to tell the tale.
JO BETH is hauled from the water at Tiger Point Boat Works in Fernandina Beach, Florida where we are working on numerous maintenance and repair projects. It’s time to renew the marine anti-fouling bottom paint, uninstall no longer used equipment to free-up much needed storage space, make some minor and not so minor repairs, and perform a lot of preventative maintenance.
Lisa and I had hoped to cross the Atlantic Ocean this season, from the US to England. Unfortunately, we’ve had to change our plans because of insurance requirements. It is notoriously difficult for small yachts to be fully insured to cross an ocean. We were never under the illusion JO BETH would be fully covered for the crossing, but we certainly weren’t expecting to be denied liability insurance coverage. However, we were. In fact, the companies we approached refused to even provide us a quote. The primary reason given to us was that boat was ‘too old,’ (underwriters only want to insured boats less than 30 years of age; JO BETH is pushing 40), and that Lisa’s and my offshore sailing experience was ‘insufficient.’ In reading between the lines, it seems that underwriters interpreted all of our ocean sailing experience to be ‘coastal’ as we had not sailed to another country! Surprisingly, Lisa’s time sailing on tall ships – during which she logged some 10,000 miles at sea – was completely irrelevant – as was the fact JO BETH was just recently fully refit.
You may be wondering, why does this matter? Most marinas in the developed world require all yachts leasing dock space to have a liability insurance policy in place. The same applies to boat repair facilities. Some countries are now requiring a liability policy to anchor in their harbors. We could not sail to England, or to Europe, without being assured of a safe and sheltered spot for the winter months. Our current insurance company only insures yachts in the US and Canada.
So, we’re sailing back to northern waters, this time to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, Canada. We can do this with the blessing of full and complete coverage through our current insurer. This was a big surprise, as they declined to issue a policy rider for us to sail to either Bermuda or The Bahamas, two much closer destinations than Canada, because JO BETH is ‘too old.’
We’re also getting closer to launching our YouTube Channel, (about time!), and with that, the blog posts will become a little less frequent and will continue to be photography dense, with less narrative. Fingers crossed!
We departed Carolina Beach, NC on a sunny but chilly New Year’s Day, accompianied out of the Cape Fear River by a few large ships…
Lisa noting the logbook as we exit the Cape Fear River into the Atlantic Ocean, bound for Charleston, SC…
A fast approaching cold front collapsed the offshore easterly winds, and we diverted into Winyah Bay, SC to seek shelter and continue on to Charleston via the Intracoastal Waterway…
We continued south in the Intracoastal and spent a lovely and quiet evening anchored in the South Santee River, halfway between Georgetown, SC and Charleston, SC…
The next morning, we continued towards Charleston and anchored in Dewees Creek just north of Isle of Palms as a thick, wet fog settled around us; the following day, we took a slip in Isle of Palms Marina to wait out the passing cold front as Dewees Creek was not well sheltered from the weather…
We departed Charleston in the company of two other yachts; LONGTAIL, from Virginia, and SALACIA STAR, from Australia, all of us bound for various points south; around midnight that evening, we sailed through the ship anchorage off of Savannah, GA…
At 10 PM or so the following night, we sailed into the St. Marys Entrance and by midnight were anchored at one of our favorite places, Cumberland Island, GA where we remained for two nights before heading to the Fernandina City Marina in Fernandina Beach, FL to take on fuel, water, and provisions; LONGTAIL continued on to St. Augustine, FL, while SALACIA STAR stopped in Savannah, GA…
JO BETH secured at the ICW Free Dock on Sisters Creek, just east of Jacksonville, FL; the currents here can be tricky and downright dangerous for the unprepared…
We spent the next night on a mooring in St. Augustine, FL, in some quite bad weather and on the next morning, we heading out under gray and rainy skies to the luxurious Hammock Beach Marina in Palm Coast, FL for a few weeks of being still and somewhat warm; still, there were a few foggy and chilly evenings…
Our stay at Hammock Beach wasn’t all relaxation; we spent a lot of time tracking down issues, such as this pesky leak in JO BETH’s drinking water system…
JO BETH is now hauled out of the water at Tiger Point Boat Works, Fernandina Beach, FL, while we ready her and ourselves for our 1,600 naurical mile voyage to the Canadian Maritimes…