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Last
update June 01 2014
It 's the middle of night, May first when we sail out of Nassau, Bahamas. We decided to sail straight to West Palm Beach before the north wind will start to blow. There is a good breeze, east-southeast and it decreases slowly during the morning. Before we arrive at the Lake Worth Inlet the wind picks up, which results in 25 knots of wind against a 4 knot outgoing current...
Late afternoon May 2nd we officialy arrive in the USA. After a phone call to Homeland Security we sail to the Lake Worth anchorage, the place where we started 7 years ago with this boat. It 's like coming home after a round of Atlantic Ocean.
In Lake Worth we stay a while. Ordering stuff from the Internet to pick it up at FedEx.
We supply and cleaned the boat.
We loved the eating out, delicious tender ribs and all-you-can-eat sushi, everything is so affordable in the states with the current rate.
We changed our plan because the nights are still too cold. So we take the Intracoastal Waterway up to St Augustine, which is in northern Florida.
We leave our anchorage May 12th. The first two bridges are already in sight. These go on time, the rest of the bridges up on request. We will pass quite some bridges going North. Today we are lucky, there is wind and we can sail a part. The Inracoastal waterway has parts where you find beautiful big villas, green mangrove strips and small lakes. Dolphins are everywhere, sometimes we see a manatee but they are difficult to spot.
Funny that we didn't see any aligators this time... Probably disappeared into the pot in the last crisis...
Late in the afternoon we stop in Fort Pierce for our overnight stay.
Next morning we get up early, t ogether with a British boat SY Free Spirit we go through the Fort Pierce bridge. We chat with each other as we pass each other. Like us, t heir next stop is Melbourne to visit friends. As we sail up and near Melbourne we call Tammy and Jim SY Sweet Chariot. They tell us where the best anchorage is.
We invite them aboard JoHo, but they will come later as o ther friends also arrived today and the wil ask their friends to anchor next to JoHo, a safer place to anchor as where they are now. The boat they talked about turns out to be SY Free Spirit. We had a Happy Hour on board with the six of us until late that night...
Next day late in the morning we start to walk across the bridge to the other side. We passed a historic district and walked on to the marina where Tammy and Jim are. Unfortunately, they are not there. so we decided to continue walking to the "nearby" Walmart to buy bicycles. We misjudge the distance and after 10 km we are happy to walk into the store with airco and even happier when we came out with new bicycles. We biked back to our JoHo.
Thursday, May 15th, Tammy and Jim pick us up with their car. First stop is at a huge store called Bass Pro Shop where you can buy everything for outdoor activities. Many Redneks like this store.This store is really crazy in our European view, you can buy bows, pistols, rifles and knives. We are not used to this kind of stores in Europe. After an hour we buy a device against mosquitoes. Mean enough for us.
For lunch we stop at the Golden Coral, an all-you-can-eat buffet which we know from 7 years ago. After that we thanked Tammy and Jim for a wonderful day as we are glad we make it in time aboard JoHo, the sky is pitch black and there are Tornado warnings. All this is accompanied by heavy rainfall, our water tanks are full in no time. Luckily for us the tornados pass by 20 miles higher up.
After a farewell afternoon with Tammy, Jim, Toby and Sam on Sunday, May 18th, we leave Melbourne on sail on Monday May 19th. We can almost sail the entire journey up to to Cape Canaveral. Here we stay for a few days waiting for the launch of an Altas 5 rocket.
We share this anchorage with thousands of others, mosquitoes, flying beetles, flies you name it. The launching on May 22th was a bit of dissipointing event. Time to sail on.
On May 24th, we arrived in St Augustineand and took a mooring.
This is the oldest city in America and here we stay for a few days until after Merorial Day. The city is beautiful but very touristy. They call it touristville for a reason.
We walked through the city and loved it though. The last day we took the trolley, now we know everthing about St Augustine...
Next year St Augustine exist 450, so there gonna be a lot of celebration, even the Spanish Royal Family will come to St Augustine.
Last week of May we continued up the ICW to Jacksonville. This part looking very much alike the southern Portugese coastal area. Unfortunately, we cannot sail and the tides makes it slow going. It even got worse on the St John's River. Our average speed dropped to 2 knots, and that is not much at all, the jogging people on shore passing us...
The St John's River reminds us a little of the dutch river Rhine. The Rhine is a wide, fast flowing river with industry and houses on its banks. We found a nice anchorage just before the center of Jacksonville. Here we'll make plans for the next months.
Jolanda
I finished a special photobook, about our travels 10 years JoHo's travel from 2001 to 2011.
Curious ? Then click the link.
And if you're interested in sailing the BAHAMAS, BERMUDA, MALDIVES, BONAIRE or SURINAME have a look at our books at SAILADVENTURES where the books are available online.
You can always mail us for more info on these cruising grounds or cruising in
general, we'll gladly help you out.
Jolanda
Current position
JoHo is at anchor in Jacksonville, USA at 30°19'3 N - 81°36'5 W.
Plans
Sailing to the USA. Then back south to the Bahamas in winter again.
Our floating home and office is always ready for us to work for ourselves as writers and editors compiling cruising guides on our way.
We'll see how things will run, life's too complicated to plan anyways. Live life to the max, it can be over before you know it is our slogan.
John and Jolanda