The journey continues - St. Augustine to Daytona

23rd January 2010 St. Augustine is an inviting little town and we are going to take a stroll through the city. We love it. The sun is shining, lots of people, shops and restaurants everywhere. Music is playing on every corner of the inner city. In St. Augustine you can find the influence of the Spanish history. The streets are small and cute, the houses are very original and lots of cathedrals and churches. St. Augustine is the oldest civilized city in the Unity States, 444 years of history. We took a ride with the horse cart through the city. The driver is very informative and we enjoy to find out more details of what has been going in the last four hundreds year. We are having Paella for lunch and a game of Mini golf, Julia and Carlos enjoying themselves. The next day we are going to explore the old fort, which has protected St. Augustine for centuries, because of its clever design. It has never been able to be defeated; the only way to take it over would have been to starve the people in the Fort  …. What a discovery after 400 years… We are having the best ice cream ever and visiting 2 chocolate factories, of course we are trying to compare to Mangawhai Bennett’s Factory… But won’t go into further details! We absolutely love it here, but we have decided to move on tomorrow, to go to Daytona Beach and on to Cape Canaveral, where the US space station.
The story of St. Augustine is a long and exciting chronicle of a city that has existed for 444 years. It is the longest chronicle of any city in the United States. St. Augustine was founded in the sixteenth century, in 1565, gradually strengthened its settlement in the seventeenth century, survived several international wars in the eighteenth century, entered the United States when the peninsula of Florida was acquired in the nineteenth century and commended modern development in the twentieth century. St. Augustine, founded on September 8, 1565, was settled only sixty-nine years after Santo Domingo (1496 in today’s Dominican republic), and counts to the oldest continuing European settlement in the World. In fact, not many other cities in North of South America are older than St. Augustine. Perhaps some twenty-five communities can claim an earlier origin of all the thousands in existence and most of those cities are located in the Spanish Caribbean, first discovered by Columbus and in Mexico, where precious metals were initially found and mined in great quantity. On September 8, 1565 the city was founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles and named St. Augustine because his fleet had reached the Florida shores on the day of the festival of San Augustine.
25th January 2010 the sky is overcast and we have decided to leave St. Augustine today. Ups… we just discovered that the draw bridge will be under construction for the next week and won’t be open again until next week! We do not want to stay that long, so we decided to motor down the ICW to Daytona Beach. The bridges in there should be 65 feet high and as our boat measures 65 feet on high tide…. we should be able to make it. We continuously have to watch the tide in the channel as some spots are quiet shallow, especially 20 miles south from St. Augustine is a shallow spot. As we are leaving St. Augustine at 11.45, the sky is opening up and a blue sky is greeting us. There is a slight breeze and with the tide going out we are making good way down the ICW. The ICW is quiet tight and Sven really has to concentrate as he navigates the boat around little corners and small channels. Everything is going smooth until 10.40, all of a sudden …. Wumps….. the boat is coming to a stop. We are stuck in the sand. The kids are excited as everything inside the boat has left its place; the fridge has sprung open and everything inside is now lying around in the boat. Concerned and a bit nervous, Sven is getting the boat out of the situation and we are on our way again. He is now even more concentrating until the next excitement hits us; the navigation (GPS) in the cockpit upstairs has shut down. The water level is really low and at 2.44…. wumps….. we are stuck again in the sand, this time Sven is handling the situation with ease and seconds later we are free again. We are passing a couple of draw bridges where we have to call the bridge master and he then opens up the bridge. That is quiet fun to watch when you can see how the bridges open up and close again once we have passed through. At 4.56 we are passing our first fixed bridge, they are high, but as we came, we hoped that the measurements are correct …. The closer we come the more I hope …. And then we are going underneath the bridge… first it looks like we are hitting it….. but we are just scratching…. we hear the sound of our antennas touching the bridge. Hui, that was close on the next fixed bridge, a couple of people are working on the bridge, and as we are going through they are telling us that we have got 3 inches left before we would have touched the bridge!

It was beautiful motoring down the ICW, the weather is sunny, the breeze a bit cold, but right and left the sides are lined with beautiful houses and gardens, everyone has got their own dock and all the boats and jet skis are on lift able docks. Lots of birds are around, most o f them we don’t know and Julia and Carlos are watching out for Dugongs and crocodiles  Its getting late and we are in need of a place to stop, that does not seem to be an easy task. We are approaching low tide and the water level is getting to low, so wherever we are trying to get out of the main channel, the water level is too low and we are in danger to get stuck again. Its getting late and dark and we still haven’t found a suitable place. We are approaching the lowest level on low tide and at 6 o’clock we are stuck again… now it becomes crucial to find a place to anchor for the night. We assume that the ICW are not very suitable to anchor at night for big ocean cruiser!! At 6.30 we are dipping the anchor for the first time into the water, we moved as much out of the channel as we possibly could and trying to settle down for the night. I am preparing some dinner and Sven is constantly checking whether the boat is all right and whether we are moving or not. As we are just deciding to settle down for the night (8.30) we hear a boat approaching, we are asked to move our boat as we are blocking the channel and it is too dangerous where we are. All over again, lifting the anchor, getting stack a couple of times before we finally (9pm) sitting with the nose in right direction and lowering the anchor line and position of the boat. We are having a quiet night, no motor noise, no seasickness no problems, just Sven getting up and down like a jojo to check on the boat…… I can live with that 
26th January 2010 we are getting up early and it’s still dark outside, but we have to move the boat. At 6.30 am we are lifting the anchor to keep going. Everything is going smooth and everyone is in a relaxed mood, but Sven said that he had enough going down the ICW. We can see high rise building; we must be close to Daytona Beach. We are approaching our first fixed bridge with a nearly high tide, the antennas are scratching against the bridge again, a few miles down the track the second fixed bridge for the day, this time we have to anchor (8.30 am) in front of it, as the water level is just 64 feet. We have to sit for an hour to wait for the water level to drop and than we are arriving in the Loggerhead Marina in Daytona Beach (10.30 am). Julia and Carlos are excited because they have a swimming pool and a spa pool. Usually Daytona Beach has got a population of 120.000 people, but from next week on the population will rise to 2.5 million. Daytona Beach is the capital of events for the United States Daytona 500 race, Harley Davidson bike week etc. We also find out that Florida has had the coldest winter since 1971; they had ice and snow, which has caused the death of dugongs/ Manatees and tropical fish. We do remember seeing lots of dead fish floating on top of the ICW.

Pounding along the East Coast of the US.....

21st January 2010 we arrive in Charleston at 10.30 in the morning. It’s raining and it’s still cold. I hope we are reaching Florida soon, we are all sick of the weather. We are fueling up again to see how much fuel we have used since we have left Wrightsville. We are all having a shower and then scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. It’s cold and rainy so we are putting the heaters on to dry out the boat and to keep warm. The kids doing their homework and I do the washing in the meantime. We are all having a rest and a lazy day. In the early afternoon we are heading into town to have something to eat. This marina is providing a shuttle bus into town on every hour. That is very convenient. We are ending up eating at the Babba shrimp restaurant (out of the Forrest Gump movie with Tom Hanks). In the meantime the rain has stopped so this gives us a chance to explore the town by foot. We walk through some cute little streets, with a French touch, very expensive shops, lot of shops are selling antique furniture. In amongst Louis Vuitton, Dior etc, we are finding Starbucks, yeah! Sven’s Dad did not know that ordering a large cup means half a liter of coffee, so he ends up with half a liter of cappuccino; his facial expression was really funny. We are all having an early night, as we are all pretty exhausted from the three nights before.
22nd January 2010 we had a quiet night in Charleston. Mega Marine is a nice marine, but it is very cold her. Klaus (Sven’ Dad) has problems with his knee and it is still not much better. At 10.30 in the morning we are leaving the port of Charleston heading towards St. Augustine. The kids have been playing happily with Playmobil and I must say that I am very proud of them how they manage the journey so far. We don’t hear any complaint or winching and they move around on the boat as they have never done anything else in their life. Today we have seen a group of dolphins swimming along in our wake of the boat. The kids thought that was pretty cool, I cannot comment on this event as I was lying sick in my bed again. This time I am a bit better prepared, I have bought myself some ginger tea as well as fresh ginger roots, which seems to do the trick, I don’t feel as bad, even though I still cannot run around on the boat., the wind is coming from the north, so we are setting sails for the first time and making good way. Everything is going good and the atmosphere seems relax, the man are happy to be able to sail and that we are sailing with 10 knots along the coast down south; even the water temperature is climbing up to 16 degree C. We are sailing through the night again and when we got up in the morning, the sky was clear; a beautiful sunrise was waiting for us. The air is cold as the wind is coming from the north, but the sun is shining, that makes us all feel a bit better. We finally arrive in St. Augustine at 10.30 in the morning of the 23rd of January 2010; St. Augustine is the northern part of Florida. So here we are hoping for good weather.

Lots to experience from Norfolk to Wrightsville....

When we finally arrive in Norfolk, we are tired and hungry and it’s late, and oh my goodness I had forgotten how cold wind can be. The weather in Virginia/ Norfolk has been the coldest for years, and it’s not very pleasant, but it is pleasant to be united with Sven again. We are loading or entire luggage into little trolleys and bringing them to the ship, getting everything and us on board and uiiii it’s different than what I imagined. I don’t try to think too much I am tired and all I want to do is go to bed and have a sleep.
Norfolk is the biggest Marine Harbour in the US. Right opposite us are two big Navy Marine Supply Ships, one is leaving a couple of days later, we assume it’s going down to Haiti to help after the devastating Earthquake. Norfolk is not very inviting, but we have to stay here a week or so for the weather to calm down before we coast can leave down south. We have decided to ask John the previous skipper of the boat to help us to sail JUCA down the to Florida, which will help us to get to know the in and outs of the boat. Sven’s D has also arrived; we get familiar with the boat and then the weather finally allows us to leave the port of Norfolk. We have done the shopping for food supply in one of those big supply shops nearby. I started off with one trolley and by the end of the shopping trip I had five trolleys in tow and the bill came to US 1500, I nearly dropped dead - I think that was my biggest shop ever. When we arrive with boxes and boxes of food at the boat, the next questions arises, where to stow it all, but I was surprised after a little bit of pushing and shuffling and the food supply disappeared behind all the cushions and seating arrangements.
Here are few technical details of JUCA. She was built in 1982 and designed from Morgan in Florida US; the Boat type is a schooner (Morgan), its 60 feet long. We have got a 135 HP Perkins Diesel that will bring us from A to B if there is no wind in sight. We can store 700 liter of fresh water and 2500 liter of fuel.
18th January 2010 at 4.15 pm we are leaving the port of Norfolk and heading down to Wrightsville. We have decided against the Inner Coastal Waterway (ICW), as this is quiet shallow in a lot of spots. This morning there is not enough wind to get the sails up, so we are motoring down the coast of Virginia. Everything is going well until the sea is picking up a little bit and I am starting to get a bit funny in my tummy. The noise and smell of the motor doesn’t really help the situation. Julia and Carlos are doing fine, and Klaus, Sven and John are doing great too. It’s very cold outside, so I cannot even sit outside to watch the horizon for my tummy to settle down, so I am going down into bed … here it is a bit better, but I try not to move my body or my head too much, the boat is doing enough movements. Here I stay until we reach Wrightsville. I sleep a lot, I don’t eat anything and the rest of the crew has to cook their own meals, there is no chance that I can even stand the thought of handling any kind of food or drinks. I try coke, yak….. Bammer haven’t got any ginger with me, so I suffer in silence. I am seasick, but luckily I don’t have to vomit. We are going through the night and day and another night…. And then finally on the
20th January 2010 we arrive in Wrightsville at 6 in the morning, I survived and I believe that the worse things are over and I immediately feel better. Getting slowly out of bed and ……everything is ok…. I feel good. Its Julia’s birthday today and we are all singing happy Birthday to her. We are going to buy some muffins and candles later on in the shops, as well as a DVD for afternoon entertainment. During the night we had a few problems with the fuel pump so we need to get some spare parts as well and we are also fueling up. I quickly go and have a shower before heading off to the Marine shop and the café for breakfast. Oh no, I am underneath the shower and the shower is moving, my head is spinning, but I am on land, well apparently now I am land sick, lucky me…. my body had been adjusting to the boat movement . The marine is offering a courtesy car, what a luxury. Hopping into the car and driving along the highway I try not to move my head to fast, even in the restaurants, everything moves, the tables, the chairs and everything in on the lean, I would laugh if I wouldn’t be the one with the squeeze head. They tell me, I will get use to it, usually it takes a week  We are filling our tummy and our fuel tanks and at midday we are leaving Wrightsville towards Charleston. The weather is sunny, but very cold. The sea is calm, but we are still under motor as the wind has been coming out of the direction we are heading the whole time. We are motor sailing all day and night until ….

Leaving Mangawhai / New Zealand

The day has come and our last days in New Zealand (Mangawhai) have arrived. Packing; packing; packing was on our list. Thank you to everyone who has helped me to get everything done, I have really appreciated your support. Or last days have been very memorable thank you Eva for accommodating us for the last 12 days and giving us a home in transition, thank you to Kyoko for your endless support, thank you to Anita for our picnic in our living area while cleaning up, thank you Tahe, Susan, Sue and Helen for your help ( mentally as well as physical) and there are so many more to name, thank you all for a lovely yoga class on the beach; thank you… thank you to everyone for their friendship and support over the last 19 years that I have been in Mangawhai.
The morning of the 12th of January 2010 has arrived and we are getting ready to go to the airport. I am a bit overweight luggage wise  and I have got one bag too many… no worries we will see what they have to say about that at the airport. The trip seems long to the airport and we are just making it in time. There is a long queue to the counter and here we go; 164 kilo and one bag too many and there seems to be a problem because of the name difference of the airplane ticket and the boat purchase letter that allows us to enter the States with a one way ticket . Luckily I have got my marriage license with me, just as Kyoko had recommended the night before. Ok, after a bit of waiting and discussion the result is that I have to pay $ 200 or repack my luggage to six bags, time was short and we had 5 minutes to decide. All right, Kyoko and I ripped the suitcases open and started to repack. I feel like we are on a reality show, how quickly can you repack your luggage at the airport. A few things have to stay with Kyoko at the airport and we have to decide very quickly what is most important to take, all kind of thoughts are rushing through my head and clothes are flying from one bag to the other and than its all done and no turning back... Now we have to run, it’s time to race to the departure gate; everything has been a bit of a rush…. I hardly have got time to say goodbye to Kyoko, I can feel panic settling in, the tears are running and I wave and then we lose sight of Kyoko, Marine and Dylan. When will we see them again, there is no turning back, just looking and walking forward.
We are sitting in the plane to Los Angeles. As we are lifting up into the air I look down onto Auckland and New Zealand; my home for the last 19 years and I am saying good bye….. taking a deep breath in, lifting my head and look into the faces of my children that show pure excitement and ready embrace to the new adventure and lifestyle that we are heading towards. No time for sad thoughts….. what’s on the Food and TV menu, that’s what count at the moment. The flight to Los Angeles is 10 hours and easy. Than the journey drags on a bit, as there is no TV and nothing to eat on the plane from Los Angeles to Dallas and from Dallas to Norfolk. Carlos is complaining about the service.
When we finally arrive in Norfolk, we are tired and hungry and it’s late, and oh my goodness I had forgotten how cold wind can be. The weather in Virginia/ Norfolk has been the coldest for years, and it’s not very pleasant, but it is pleasant to be united with Sven again. We are loading or entire luggage into little trolleys and bringing them to the ship, getting everything and us on board and uiiii it’s different than what I imagined. I don’t try to think too much I am tired and all I want to do is go to bed and have a sleep.

Exuma - Waderick Wells Cays

Our intention is to follow the wind, but sometimes we do have to be flexible, if the wind comes not out of the direction we want to go, we either have to stay longer where we are or we have to motor to the next destination. That's what we did, when we left the Highborne Cays to got 30 miles further to the Waderick Wells Cays. The trip was peaceful and uneventful, but we were blown away by the sight when we moved around the rocks and entered Waderick Wells Cays. The world seems to get more and more beautiful the more we dive into it and emerge on the other side. The colours unbelievable, even if I wanted to I could hardly find any words to describe the colour range of the water, every kind of blue that you can imagine or have ever seen in magazines or colour charts - unreal!

Waderick Wells Cays harbour is offering us our first challenge in anchoring on a mooring. The Captain is approaching the mooring as you as the first mate has to catch the boje and then tie the boat to it. You might have guessed it already, the first time round I missed it, but second time it worked fine and we had a safe anchoring spot for the next few nights. We are sitting in a channel, and to starboard and port side you have got sandbanks. This time we did not wait long and once we checked in with the harbour authority, we put on our swimming gear and jumped right into the inviting water. It was low tide and we were be able to stand next to our boat, it felt like the boat was standing in the backyard, really weird. Our first night here in Waderick Wells Cays we made to a special movie night. I made some popcorn and we watched a funny movie, that I had picked up on the straw market in Nassau " It's not a Diary, its a movie", we all enjoyed it and had a good laugh.

Waderick Wells Cays has lots to offer. Lying on the beach is a humongous blue whale skeleton that got stranded there in 1985. They have got a Nature trial just like the one in Bimini, we explored it right the next day. Here in Waderick Well Cays Julia and Carlos learn lots about the Coral Reefs , Mangrove Ecosystem,the Queen Conch the Bahama parrot, the Bahamian Boa Constrictor. Julia already decided that she would like to become a vet doctor for animals ( these are her own words).

Carlos and Julia have got some new friends. There are these tiny little birds, that love sugar. If you put a little bit of sugar on your hand, they will come and fly onto your hand and eat the sugar out of your hand. The Park ranger here told us about this and the children love it. While snorkeling today, Sven found a little octopus in a conch shell. Sven did hold the conch shell in his hand and we were be able to watch the little octopus for a while moving in and out of his home. There is so much to see and learn, and that does not just apply to the children.

The swimming is fantastic, the snorkeling a la carte, the weather is a dream and the water is amazing, we even got Internet here, very slow, but good enough to emerge out of Paradise for a second to keep family and friends up to date with our adventures. Now I am diving back into Paradise, for some sweet dreams and we will probably catch up with you again in Georgetown or nearby.... good night and love and a big hug to all of you.

In search for Allen Cays Rock Iguanas

The very next morning, we hopped into our dinghy and went to the nearby island, called Allen Cays. There we were suppose to find some very rare Iguanas, and apparently the Island is full of them. We have to see that. As soon as we approach the island, we are spotting a couple of Iguanas. Wow, we are getting really exciting and landing with our Dinghy on the beach. Once we are on the beach, we cannot believe our eyes, they are Iguanas everywhere, small and little, shy and cheeky once. We are on our knees to take a millions pictures, we have never seen anything like that, only on the National Geography program on Saturday night!

Only nine species still exist today, at least two others have been driven extinct by humans. The greatest diversity of rock Iguanas occurs in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The two species of Iguanas inhabitating the Exuma Islands are considered to be among the worlds most endangered lizards and are found nowehere else. Not only the kids were excited to be witness to such rare site, Sven and I could not believe our luck. We spend nearly all day, observing and learning about the behaviour of these Rock Iguanas, the rest of the day we spend snorkeling and swimming again in the crystal, clear, warm water. Julia has got a special memory of this day, as she got bitten by one really cheeky Iguana, that had followed her right to the Dinghy.

Exuma - Highborne Cays

We left Nassau at 2.30 pm in the afternoon. We had 40 miles in front of us and we were looking forward to the things that were to come our way. Everything went smoothly, the weather was good, even though the wind did come out of the direction we were heading, but we were used to using the motor to move forward and reaching our next destination. The ocean was calm and the colour of the water was mesmerizing. At 7 pm we finally reached our destination for the night, Highborne Cays. We looked for a a great spot to anchor and we found one where we could settle for the night. Julia and Carlos wanted to go for a swim, but we decided against it, after we saw a few nursing Sharks circling our boat. We knew that they are harmless, but we did not want to risk anything.

The next morning we could not believe our eyes, where we had landed the night before, the island is soooo beautiful, it is hard to describe in words. The first thing we did, was to jump into our bathing suits and we jumped into the water. Ahhhh it was so refreshing and we did continue to do so, until we had enough of jumping off the side of the boat and we were getting really hungry. so we decided to have a hearty breakfast, omelet with cheese, tomato, bacon and onions.... yummy!

After breakfast we did our schooling before exploring the nearby marina and the white beaches. We went snorkeling, swimming until dark. It was hard to leave the water as the air is so warm and soft and the water so soothing and comfortable..... we all had a great day and enjoyed ourselves.