*** This is Part 1 of 2! Be sure to catch Part 2 here: https://youtu.be/VWFfiV_rLVs ***
We’re back in the US of A! After arriving in New Smyrna Beach, we make our way north on the ICW to St. Augustine, then hop on bicycles to explore the nation’s oldest city.
It’s storm season in Florida, where small but fierce thunderstorms are whipped up almost every afternoon. When the dark clouds roll in and the lightning cracks above our 52’ metal mast, it’s hard to not feel like a sitting duck. What to do? Take the edge off, of course, with a cocktail. Dark N’ Stormies, anyone?
Hope you enjoy!
Lauren & Kirk
FILMED: June/July 2019
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Theme song: “Adventures” by A Himitsu — https://youtu.be/8BXNwnxaVQE
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Episode Dialogue
– [Lauren] Last time on Sailing Soulianis. We left The Bahamas to cross the Gulf stream back to Florida. We were chased down by a couple of squalls with 40 knot gusts. And at one point saw 12 knots speed over ground Then to get into new Smyrna beach we had to navigate Ponce inlet, a notoriously sketchy pass.
– That was gnarly.
– Wow. That was intense.
– [Lauren] Thanks to some helpful advice from a local sailor who was on the same journey, we made it through unscathed and dropped the hook in a wonderfully peaceful anchorage.
– We’re off to a marina for the first dock stay. in two months now. We have been at anchor since then. Oh, and we also, we haven’t been off the boat and on land for a week. So we’re really excited to get to land and a pizza. All right But we have a bridge. We have to make it under in 35 minutes and we’ve got 30 minutes to get there. So we got to get our anchor up.
– Right now.
– [Lauren] Our next big stop is St. Augustine but first we needed a real shower and some fuel.
– Yeah, I waved to that on my way in. I thought it was someone sticking out of the forward hatch.
– I thought it was someone lounging against the mast.
– Kirk’s getting all crazy, flying head sail in the channel.
– It’s helping us carry speed.
– We’re going to be at the bridge early.
– No. It’s 11:05, right now. It says we’re never going to get there.
– I feel like a new person. We just got out of the showers and there’s nothing like a real shower. It was this huge shower head like a dinner plate, it was so big. And it was just, it was nice and cool. And it was air conditioned in there.
– Yeah.
– Oh my gosh. I just was down below making some lunch. and I don’t know where we are.
– We are just South of Daytona looking for fuel. Looking for a nozzle that is not going to pump 35 gallons a minute.
– For the first time we’re getting fuel since leaving Marathon in the middle of April. It it’s now the middle of June and we actually don’t even need fuel. We think, we’ve got probably 25 gallons left. We’re going to be motoring a lot in the next few weeks, most likely. So we figured we probably should. We use less than 40 gallons all the way to The Bahamas and back.
– It looks like they’re going to unstep our mast for us. So last night we went out with a couple of patrons and they took us to a pizza place in new Smyrna beach
– We got our za!
– and it was really good. And they told us to take the leftovers and we were like, “Us?”
– Moi?
– Okay. And the night before that, we went out to dinner with this couple and their son who we met out in the middle of the Gulf Stream on our crossing back from The Bahamas. They’re really cool. How many people, can you say you met on VHF radio in the middle of the Gulf Stream?
– Well if you’re a sailor, probably quite a few. This is to the general public, Kirk. Oh. Anyway,
– Why is the general public watching YouTube sailing videos?
– I don’t know.
– We are anchored in Daytona beach. We debated going back out through the inlet at New Smyrna but then we also had to get back into the inlet in St. Augustine. And we’ve heard that that one’s kind of dicey, as well. And we also were told that you could sail up the ICW, especially if the wind’s coming out of the West but that wasn’t really the case. There was too much North in it today. So we only did 15 miles today. We had to fill up with fuel and we got kind of a late start. ’cause I had to do some phone calls for work this morning but tomorrow’s Saturday, so I don’t have to work. And we have 45 miles to go still to get to St. Augustine. So we’re gonna have to get a pretty early start tomorrow but we’re looking forward to hanging out in St. Augustine for a few days to see the oldest city in the United States.
– I just came up here to readjust our view window. It’s really nice up there. We’re usually down so low and our view is obstructed because of the dinghy on the deck. I can see why people like to have the helm stations up on the roofs of their catamarans and their sport fishing boats.
– Yea he is. He’s got a lot of grass to mow. Come up here real quick.
– Pretty cool huh?
– That’s crazy.
– So this is always nerve wracking, always as in now and the previous time that I’ve transited bridge by myself. Both times the bridge tender has told me to maintain speed and he’ll open when we arrive. And sigh of relief right now because now the bridge is starting to open. It’s still plenty of time to pull a u-turn if I wanted to. But the last bridge, the channel was super narrow and I was starting to get nervous. This guy was really nice, very communicative. The last bridge tender was not. She was nice but just very short. So I wasn’t quite sure if I heard everything she said correctly. This guy told me the same thing and full speed ahead. Here we go. Oh, what a nice guy. Captain, you have a wonderful cruise fair winds and following seas. It always makes me smile, when public servants, are they public servants, are just so nice and so cordial. Makes my heart all warm. Every time you look away, you see it out of the corner of your eye,
– Yeah, right? and then you whip your head around
– the flash and it’s still going, which is crazy. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen lightning repeat itself so often. Oh my God. When it storms we drink Dark and Stormies.
– We used to drink.
– We s’drink. In my defense, this is my second half. It’s the second half of your one drink. You get drunk off of the first half of your one drink.
– Yeah, something like that. The math adds up in some universe. All right. I think we need to go back into town and we need to go. Wow, I can’t even speak.
– You need to get some food in your belly. Yeah, we need to get dinner. Wow. I’m mesmerized by lightning. So we went into downtown St. Augustine and we tried to go out to dinner. And then the storm that was forecasted to arrive at like 9:30, started coming at 7:30 and we are idiots and do not close any of our port lights or hatches. So we had to come all the way back out here close everything up. Now it’s like probably almost 9 o’clock, do you think?
– Yeah. 8:30 – 9. And we’re going to go back into town and try to get our dinner. Lauren is drunk.
– I’d say tipsy. ♪ What could you do with a drunken sailor? ♪ ♪ What could you do with a drunken sailor? ♪ ♪ What could you do with a drunken sailor? ♪
– Feed them pretzels. ♪ Early in the evening. ♪
– These are the only thing I can eat when I’m seasick. Fortunately, knock on the toe rail. I haven’t been seasick in a really long time. It’s been like, since our crossing to The Bahamas and I wasn’t even sick, I was just kind of nauseous, nauseated, whatever the right term is.
– Well, we didn’t sail anywhere that had a waves
– in The Bahamas, right.
– Until we came back. Yeah. Yeah. And on our return trip, I had nothing. I didn’t feel bad at all.
– That’s good. Yeah.
– Maybe you’re getting over it.
– Maybe I’m just getting used to it. I know. Are you kidding me? Whoa!
– What was that?
– Oh my gosh.
– It was a spider web and it just lit up all the clouds pink
– We’re in St. Augustine. This moat wasn’t actually filled with water. It was just a dry ditch that slowed down infantry attacks. So they had to like climb down the wall to then go attack that wall meanwhile they’re being shot at the whole time. This is the Castillo de San Marcos. Is it de?
– I don’t know. I think so.
– We clearly didn’t learn anything. It’s gorgeous. It’s all the same color too and it’s still beautiful. I think because it’s so intricate, the fact that it’s all the same color, it works really well.
– Hotelier and railroad magnet.
– We’ve been having an hemming and hawing over what to do with our boat. They said, “Oh, we saw that strike out the window towards your boat.” We started to see smoke billowing out.
– This is depressing. I’m not gonna lie.
HI
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT, AKA FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
WITH YOUR DINGHY SECURED OVER YOUR FORWARD ESCAPE HATCH I ASSUME, HOW WOULD YOU GET OUT IF YOU HAD A FIRE IN THE MAIN CABIN OF YOUR BOAT?
THIS HAPPENED TO A COUPLE IN BELLINGHAM WASHINGTON, THEY DIED.
BOB PORTER
WEST BEACH
GUEMES ISLAND, WASHINGTON
ENDURANCE 35 PROJECT
Hi Bob, Someone mentioned this in passing to us a while back and it really got us thinking. It is definitely a scary prospect. We cut it out of this last episode, but after we got struck by lightning and had the fire scare, Lauren slept in the vberth and I slept in the salon with a fire extinguisher by my side until we got hauled out. The thinking was that we each had a separate means of escpae if there was a fire, and could then help get the other one out. We typically only lash the dinghy tightly to the deck when on a passage, the rest of the time, it’s loose enough that we can open the hatch far enough to get out in an emergency. We also leave a knife on the shelf next to the vberth which we could use to cut through the lashing if necessary.
Bit late now but for the readers . Do’t throw stuff out.
Most late electricals have a component called a MOV ( metal oxide varistor). A voltage surge over the set maximum voltage will burn it out and it shorts to ground so the device will not work until the shorted component is removed . Certainly the solar controller has one. Take it to pieces and look for a burnt thing like a capacitor just where the power first enters the board . Cut it and try again. it will probably work again . Get the replacement MOV and solder it in
Hey Ty, thanks for the tips. I did actually take the solar charge controller apart looking for signs of a power surge. I didn’t really know what I was looking for and to my untrained eye, I couldn’t see any obvious signs. But I’ll have to look into this more in the future if we find ourselves in a similar unfortunate situation.
You guys are the BEST!!! love watching all of your adventures. If ever coming through Mi. again we would love to hear more stories.
Thanks Rob and Karen! We definitely plan to spend more time on the lakes in and around Michigan in the future.