Questions, questions and MORE Questions!

At anchor...

Hello all - sorry to have been out of touch, decided to move a bit further south and have had very little access to the internet. Tonight, I'm just north of St. Augustine, Florida - a favourite stop, very historic and pretty city. If you've ever been, and I know some of you have, you know what I mean.
For the run from Beaufort, SC to St. Simons, GA, I was joined by Daren Magnus, a LiveBlogger from the Chesapeake. It was great to have company aboard and gave me the perfect excuse to do a major cleanup - the boat hasn't looked this good in ages! And Aduana (the WonderPuppy!®) thought so too - someone else for her to leap on and wake up in the mornings! Such an impish thing to do in the mornings....but a nice way to wake up!
Daren and I considered going offshore, but the weather wasn't co-operating - as if that's anything new, so we tootled down the ICW. Not, however, before introducing him to the $10 steak special at the restaurant just down the street from Lady's Island Marina. For $10, you get about half a cow plus all the fixins. Add a couple of beers to that and you've got a great meal! We were joined by my friend Barry, an Australian who is just finishing up his Catalina 50 and then heading south.

typical Isle of Hope homes...

Our first day out, we stopped at Isle of Hope, a lovely small town on the ICW. A couple of years ago, I was there with a friend (hello there!) on Christmas Day. We went out to find a church service - one would think that at Isle of Hope, that would be easy, especially given how many churches there are in town. However - each and every one had had its services on Christmas Eve. I can't tell you how disappointed both of us were - it was ironic that we couldn't find hope on the Isle of Hope.
Moving on, we next stopped at - oh wait! - I can't reveal the name of this place as it's one of my 'secret' private docks on the ICW. I have a couple of docks where the owners don't mind you tying up for an overnight - if I were to reveal them, they'd be deluged with boaters looking for a free tie-up, inconveniencing the owner.
While we were there, Daren's cousin and her family came by for a visit, bringing PIZZA! We had a great visit, and plan to do it again on the return trip, perhaps take the daughters sailing.
Oh, almost forgot - Daren managed to move from the ranks of those who might go aground to 'those who HAVE gone aground, at marker G39, south of Thunderbolt. Now I'm going to take some of the blame for this one - I knew the markers he was heading towards are frequently moved and could have warned him - but I was napping in the cockpit and not really paying a lot of attention. Ok, I wasn't paying any attention at all!
Fortunately, it only took a few seconds to get free and underway again, so Daren's reputation as a helmsman isn't too badly damaged here. We'll be getting together again in the new year to give him another chance, perhaps in Biscayne Bay or even over to the Bahamas. I'd have posted his picture (sort of like a 'wanted' in the post office!), but my internet connection here isn't strong enough to download the photos, so Daren will remain anonymous for the moment.
By the way, LiveBloggers, I'm always happy to have guests aboard, so if you've got some time free and would like to come sailing - or motoring - down the ICW, get in touch using the contact form at the bottom right of this page.
Ok, that's it for today - time to get ready for tonight's Christmas Party with the St. Augustine Cruisers group. I think some of them are LiveBloggers too, so it'll be great to meet you at last!