Magnolia along with our friends aboard Eleanor Q positioned ourselves for an early departure to Bimini Bahamas bright and early tomorrow (Monday). Today was an easy 11 mile motor from Miami Beach down to Key Biscayne.

Though we were a bit surprised a weather window presented itself this quickly we are disappointed that we will not be able to visit with fellow GenIV cousin Kyle. We were very much looking forward to catching up.

In addition to the pictures, Eleanor Q provided the headline for the post, “Poised & Ready.” Below you can see Magnolia poised and ready to head for sea and onto the Bahamas. Annette and I positioned the dinghy on the forecastle for transit across the gulf stream. Though tomorrows passage is a little less than 50 miles, needing to cross the gulf stream makes the passage our most challenging.

In addition to taking wonderful photographs, Eleanor Q writes a wonderful blog at: http://eleanorq.wordpress.com/

Wish us luck on our passage and do not worry if it takes sometime to re-establish “coms.”

We will be wishing you all a Happy New Years and a happy start to your 2014!

After departing Coral Ridge Yacht Club in Fort Lauderdale we of course had to pay a little penance so Fort Lauderdale gave us 3 more bridges to go through before we were able to depart their fine city. In honestly it was a lovely place to spend the Christmas Holiday. We look forward to visiting again! Here is a picture of Eleanor Q off the coast of Miami.

As we passed the break-water at the entrance of Miami Harbor, also known as Government Cut, I saw these skyscrapers and then this little building at there base. I then saw the sign and wished they had dock and dine because the would have been perfect. The place is Smith & Wollensky

Shortly there after we entered the main harbor passing the cargo area.

Of course we had to wait for one more bridge but at least we had a large turning basin and a beautiful skyline to enjoy. It also gave me time to receive a surprise phone call from my niece which was the high point of my day! (Picture Eleanor Q)

In the direction opposite the skyline was the cruise passenger terminal with 5, yup 5 cruise ships at dock. I have know idea how many people might be on those ships but it was must be a crazy scene with all those people running around! (Picture Eleanor Q)

We finally reached out anchorage up in what is called Sunset Lake. The anchorage is a little out of the way but with only 3 boats here it was nice and quiet, or as quiet as it gets in Miami Beach!

After a morning of checking in with my godson via skype we were off to Miami Beach for a walk about. Beautiful people, buildings and expensive stuff. Got it!

Had to stop in and drop my cousins name…”oh yes your cousin shops here often, send our regards” You know who you are!

Upon our return I was preparing the boat for tomorrows departure and so I had to google the yachts moored off our bow. Utopia II and Utopia III. It appears they have been in the news…..

Eva: http://www.luxist.com/2011/02/09/eva-longoria-spotted-in-miami-on-utopia-iii-superyacht/

Kim: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1258279/Birthday-girl-Eva-Longoria-joined-Kim-Kardashian-help-celebrate-turning-35.html

Jen: http://www.southflorida.com/events/on-the-list-blog/sfl-jennifer-lopez-cruises-around-miami-in-a-yacht-20130123,0,1237569.story

oppps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnOvNxRGc3A

Magnolia is preparing to get underway in the morning for “No-Name Harboar” about 10 miles south off Key Biscayne Bay. Note: I believe near the home of President Nixon and where movie Scarface was made. I know, too much Google time!!!

Merry Christmas! Vessel & Crew are well dock side in Fort Lauderdale! Upon getting to dock Eleanor Q insisted on hosting Magnolia for dinner and boy was it DELICIOUS. MaryMarie made a “low country boil” which consisted of potatoes, corn on the cob, sausage, shrimp. It was yummy but the really special thing is the camaraderie we always share among crews!

Magnolia share dock space with vessels a little larger but nearly as pretty as she! BTW, after not being at dock for 5 weeks our girl was a bit “rough” around the edges in need of a thorough cleaning. She received the full day deck and topside cleaning and reorganizati0on. She seemed to appreciate it and had her best face on for Christmas Day!

We are members of the Old Point Comfort Yacht Club in Hampton VA which gives us reciprocal privileges at many clubs along the coast. Coral Ridge is a wonderful facility along the edge of the ICW in Fort Lauderdale.

We have been photo bombed by Diane Lane…no no…its Holly Hunter!!!  Holy cow amazing! The amazing part is I am standing next to Annette Benning!

Here is the real picture of us heading out to Christmas Eve dinner.

I am always taking the pictures and Frank always gets to stand with the beautiful ladies…I need to take fewer pictures!

This is the view from Magnolia in her slip at Coral Ridge Yacht Club. Notice she does not fill the slip compared to the her larger neighbors.

We had a wonderful holiday with our friends Frank & MaryMarie and at the same time we missed family and friends. Wishing you could all join us on this adventure. We will be getting underway for Miami in the morning, to prepare for our crossing to the Bahamas!

Patterns are finally emerging that we can recognize. Magnolia moves like crazy for a few days and then we plant our feet for a couple of days in places like Titusville, Cocoa or the infamous “Velcro” Beach. The last couple have have been crazy days. After departing Vero Beach and enjoying our mile 1000 anchorage we arrived in North Lake Worth (Cruisers) or  North Palm Beach as the rest of the world know it by.

Starting to get down the channel towards Palm Beach, the house keep getting bigger and more and more fancy with every passing mile.

Per Wikipedia Jack Nicklaus redesigned the towns golf course in 2006

Eleanor Q has point as we head for the last bridge of the day!!!

It Ii s easy to see how happy the last bridge of the day can make some people…

The real treat for visiting Lake Worth was to hook up with our friends from S/V Second Sally (Greg & Marie). We last saw them up in NC so it was great to catch up. It also gave the crews of Eleanor Q and Second Sally to meet. They have spoken on the radio several time but never met face to face!

Panorama of the West Palm Beach Skyline to include the 32 story Trump Towers.

Upon arriving Boca Raton we passed Lake Boca which appears to be the Hines Park of my youth. “Yup, I am sure nothing bad happens here!” 

Approaching For Lauderdale there seemed to be as many canals as city streets. Fabulously beautiful home with crazy nice bats tied right out front. Yup, 1% seems to being just fine!!

Eleanor Q making her way through the Fort Lauderdale suburbs…such they are.

Again you can tell we approaching the last of the days 19 bridges. Oh yes, all but one of those were restricted. That means we had to time our arrival for their scheduled opening or make a request on the radio for them to open. Yes, give that a try for 18 times in one day, lost of things to balance trying to get a boat through Fort Lauderdale!

Magnolia passing through one of MANY bridges! (Credit Eleanor Q)

Somewhere between Titanic and “I cant take another bridge!” (Credit Eleanor Q)

Our anchorage in Sunrise Bay and a cold beer makes the days passage all the more worth while.

We will arrange for dockage next door at the Coral Beach Marina and spend the Christmas Holiday making a celebration dinner, giving thanks for our passage thus far and hopefully  Skyping (call us at AWWBAKER) with friend and family!

A recap of the trip this far!!!

Magnolia made a port visit to Vero Beach, FL. It is often referred to as Velcro Beach because once you visit it is said its hard to leave! I can see how people come to feel that way. The area we explored around the marina what quite nice. Our friends Frank & MaryMarie aboard SV Eleanor Q along with JR & Dreena aboard SV Journey were in-port as well.

While Annette & MaryMarie headed off in the direction of the beach, Frank & I headed off to West Marine & Walmart which were not in the direction of the beach! Vero has a public bus system that does not collect fares. How exactly it is funded is a bit of mystery. There are about 5 different routes which all meet on the hour and half hour along a section of road open only to buses near the airport. There is nothing out there, just this deserted road. All the buses arrive and people scurry between buses to make the appropriate connection to their destination.

There are so many former “cruisers” “stuck” in “Velcro” beach. The local cruiser community organizes a happy hour and along with the visitor cruisers are invited to attend. Dreena on the left, MaryMarie and Annette on the right are members of the Facebook Group “Woman Who Cruise.” Below is a picture of the members of the group who happened to be in attendance.

Magnolia has been traveling mostly on the Intercostal Water Way (ICW) to our current location in Hope Sound along the Florida Coast. As you can see we are anchored just across the 1000 mile marker along the ICW. Mile 0 is located in Portsmouth, VA. Though we have traveled quite a bit more than the 1000 miles on side trips etc. We have seen nearly every mile of those 1000 ICW miles which it a pretty cool thing…at least to us!

We have met so many wonderful people along the way, reconnecting with a couple of relatives, old friends and making many new friends. We wake every morning with a feeling of gratitude for the opportunity to take on this adventure.

We will be in Fort Lauderdale for the holidays. Will try and write again before the holiday!

Cocoa to me always makes me think of the early Astronauts racing around in Corvettes raising all kinds of hell. Of course that did not include John Glen! I know I read too many books on the subject growing up. We were actually anchored just off from Cocoa Village which is about 6 miles and 2 islands west of Cocoa Beach, FL

I really liked Cocoa Village it. It really reminded me of the Redondo Beach, CA. It was more like the more quiet and sedate neighbor to its larger brothers around the area.

While Annette did some shopping I enjoyed some music by local musician.

We surely enjoyed walking the streets around town. Such a nice area to stroll around in.

There are a number of cute houses around town. This particular home was really neat.

When the crew is ashore we try and make time for an ice cream snack.

Annette writes a blog at www.seamless-sailor.com. One of the people she has corresponded with is lady named Drena. She and her husband JR sail aboard SV Journey (www.sailingjourney.net). As happens they were in Cocoa same as we so the ladies we were able to meet aboard Magnolia and enjoyed the evening ashore.

In previous visits we have visited Cape Canaveral, Disney World etc, This visit the one place I wanted to go was the Ron Jon Surf Shop. It is beachwear Mecca!

This particular day there was a fair amount of wind so we left the anchor alarm going onboard Magnolia. It has a really great feature that it will send timed Text Messages to a phone so you can tell if you are drifting. What great feature to have.

We will be getting underway for s short hop to down to Melbourne, FL. Our friends Greg and Marie (Second Sally) departed Jacksonville this morning and Frank & MaryMarie (Eleanor Q) departed Daytona this morning. We will all meet up later this week so it will be a great reunion week!

At a high level these are the tasks required to successfully post GPS Track data on your WordPress Blog. Please note I will try to answer questions to clarify directions but specific technical support is outside the scope of the article intent.

1) Download and install the WP-GPX-Maps plugin  (http://www.devfarm.it/downloads/). You will need to add the plugin to a blog page of your choosing.

2) Collect recent track data into a GPX data file (current data).

2) Merge the current data file into the existing track GPS File (GPS Utility – http://www.gpsu.co.uk/)

2) Reduce GPX data file to a maxim size of 1.0 mb (GPS Babel – http://www.gpsbabel.org/)

3) FTP GPX data file from computer to WordPress Server. (File-Zilla – http://filezilla-project.org/)

After installing the plugin please use the below dialog to upload your GPX data file. Please note the directory where the data file is located. You will later use this same file name and directory to FTP you newly created file to.

Below are some additional setting that I have under the settings tab that you may find useful

A) Retrieve the GPX file from the applicable GPS device you have available

– On Magnolia we use the save track function of our Raymarine C95 Chart Plotter to save the newly collected track data to a memory card. This results in a data file called archive.fsh being created on the memory card.

– You may use the track data collected from any number of devices. Each user could have a different method.

B) Using the GPS Utility Program open the previously merged GPX file. (or new file if its first time)

C) Using the Merge Function of the GPS Utility Program to merge the newly collected GPX file into the existing merged data file.

D) Using the Track Summary Dialog add a name to the newly merged track segment

D) Save the newly Merged data file

E) Reduce the size of the merged data file by reducing the number of track points.

F) After reducing the number of data points, select the “OK” to proceed.

G) After using GPS Babel to reduce the number of track points use File-Zilla to first remove the existing data file and cache directory from the server.

H) After removing the existing merged GPX data file on the server, use File-Zilla to upload the newly merged GPX data file.

With that step competed you are all done and your blog should update when page with map is opened.

Magnolia departed Daytona Beach for a leisurely day southbound on the ICW. I must emphasize that we have REALLY grown to enjoy these leisurely days. Days when we don’t have too far to go, when we know we have a comfortable anchorage or marina ahead of us and some special event awaits us upon our arrival. In the case of Titusville it was a two’fer. We had one maintenance action to care of and one social  event we have been looking forward too.

As we continued on our way it became quite evident we were starting to approach southern Florida where the high rises start and there is a bit more splash to the surroundings.

Where else but in Florida would you see decorate bridge pilings that appear to have tile mosaics installed. I thought they were very cool.

Ponce De Leon Inlet Light House.

Max Brewer Bridge as seen from our anchorage in Titusville

The real reason to visit Titusville was to host our friends Ty & Suzanne. They have previously been designated the “Dealers” in this blog post. Essentially Ty & Suzanne is where this whole idea of Magnolia began.

Rudy, the redhead and his little sister Gretchen were also welcomed aboard Magnolia. Rudy is actually, Rudy the super dog because that dog has done something I have never done. Rudy sailed with Ty & Suzanne aboard their boat SV Liberty. What makes Rudy really super though is he sailed with them across the Atlantic and Mediterranean Oceans all the way to Turkey. That’s why he is called Rudy the Super Dog!

I do have to give a plug to Suzanne’s various books two of our favorites are “It’s your boat too” and “Living a Dream.” All of her books are available on Amazon at this link.

We are off to Coca, FL, just across from Cape Canaveral for a few day chore catch up and shore leave for the crew!

Per Wikipedia – St. Augustine is a city in Northeast Florida and the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement and port in the continental United States.  (September 1565).  It is really cool town! 

There is a very extensive mooring field available for visiting boats.

As Annette I were walking over the Bridge of Lion I noted a tour boat heading through the mooring field. I felt like they were taking the tourists through the zoo!

Annette enjoying a lovely day a top the bridge. As were walking she asked me if we were going to make the bridge opening. We are always trying to time ourselves for going under while its open. Did not occur to me we needed to do the same thing when we are going over!

The high point of our visit to St Augustine was visiting my Great Uncle Wayne. As many know I was very close to my Grandfather and having the opportunity to visit him was not going to be missed. As luck would have it he lives just across from anchorage so it was quick walk to his home. It was a wonderful visit sadly in the excitement I neglected to get a picture of us!! His home is in Davis Shores as described by the above sign.

I kept seeing Border Patrol Boats going up and down the river. I asked the marina if St Augustine was a bastion of illegal immigration. The dock hand snickered and said no but it was a training center where every boat operator get retrained each and every year. Said they buy crazy amounts of fuel! I said every year, he said up.  What’s wrong with every other year? Are you kidding me?

Frank and MaryMarie were heading back to NJ for a family visit so we certainly had to send them off in proper form…ice-cream of course! We were missing you Watsons!!!

Next stop, Daytona Beach and then meeting our friend Ty & Suzanne in Titusville! Going to be a big week!!!

During Thanksgiving dinner the crews of Eleanor Q and Magnolia came to the conclusion that it was time to get out of the cold and head south. Hence Operation South Bound was put into action! We were hopefully waving goodbye to the cold as we passed the iconic Hilton Head Lighthouse.

SV Eleanor Q as we depart Hilton Head

Magnolia passing under one of the many restricted bridges along the ICW. (Eleanor Q)

We have lost count the number of house we have passed and said, what a cute place! The huge ones are everywhere, the small and quaint ones are much harder to come by!

Magnolia at anchor (Eleanor Q)

Sadly final Thanksgiving Left-Overs

Travel Days start very early and end very late!

We have been trying to catch a weather window to make a passage and finally one presented itself! We departed St Simon Island heading down to St Mary’s, GA, a trip of about 40 miles.

Eleanor Q passes port to port with an arriving freighter.

This is what it looks like out our Port side enclosure.

Hearing the words of my friend Greg in my head, “make hay when the sun shines” we made the decision to continue on to Jacksonville, FL while the weather was fair. Jacksonville added another 20 miles to the trip but saved us a days travel on the ICW. Remember, we are executing Operation South Bound!

The next morning I awoke caught a spectacular sunrise though I could not remember seeing the Skyline of Mayport the night before.  I suddenly realized what I was seeing was a huge container ship making its way up the St Johns River!

There is an amazing free dock on Sisters Creek just off the ICW that provided a wonderful stop for the night.

This is the first picture Magnolia with a palm tree that I am aware of in many years! It was also funny because I was taking the trash out and as I was walking out to the dumpster I noted a car with FL plates. It was kind of funny because I then realized, holy you know what, we made it all the way to FL! It was a kind of a weird moment and guess you had to been there….

We arrived in St Augustine worn out after pushing hard for the last week. Some point I will need to figure how many miles we covered but we accomplished out goal. A combination of better weather and more south has made for wonderful conditions.

It was not long that after a lifetime of training I able to find the local “Friends” style pub where enjoyed a beer or two to celebrate the weeks success.

Frank & MaryMarie (crew of Eleanor Q) will be heading to visit family for a few days and Annette and I will continue south to meet up with our friends Ty & Suzanne (referred to in the blog as the “Dealers”). We are very certain we will meet up with Eleanor Q in the near future and the memories we have made together, will most certainly last a lifetime!