Inspiration sails again!

News from Anne and Barry, 4 February 2004:

Hi guys thanks for all the e-mails! As I'm sure you all heard I arrived safely and joined Alli and Barry who had been working hard for a week antifouling painting cleaning shining and polishing to get the boat in ship shape to put her back in the water looking spiffy and beautiful as she should being such a beautiful gal that she is. Anyway she was ready and went into the water on time 3pm friday! The crane driver was superb and put her in gently without any incidents! So we parked her alongside the key for the night and were off for a well earned party, chicken wings G&T's the boys swallowed a few good Jamesons and water and listened to the finely endowed gal belting out songs like Billy Mcgee, and the like at the A1A Ale House. Alli reckons the towns stuck in a time warp in the 70's. The Jacksonville Smooth Jazz belted out seventies music all two weeks, and I for one thoroughly enjoyed same.

I managed to slip away from duties one day and jumped on the local town trolley and had a thoroughly enjoyable sight seeing tour with one of the trolley guides Mr Bill who was in fine form emparting the history and scandal of the town -St augustine. There were many fine galleries which I enjoyed and found a new and extremely interesting method of reproducing Art works, namely the limited edition Giclees,which are full colour inkjet type reprints on canvas, some of which the artist actually embelishes, and they end up looking like originals! Needles to say I was enthralled and in 7th Heaven!

We set sail early sat morning up the San sebastion River, leaving behind a quite and sleepy St Augustine we had to wait for the Bridge of Lions which only opened at 10am so we did a few loops taking in the new view of the town off the water. She opened to great excitement on my behalf and we slipped through our 61ft stick clearing the power-lines beyond by what seemd only a few feet. We had a lovely motor sail out into the bay and headed south in fair winds and a calm sea. Rain was forcast for the next few days but the winds were favourable as we headed south. Destination North Palm Beach, I had the firsts watch 9-12,Barry 12-3am, and Allan 3 -6, so I spent the afternoon learning to read and operate the autohelm and the Navigational Aids, all these being completely new to me! All was well and after a fine soupy and toast dinner which Barry prepared as we were feeling a little queezy without our seasoned sea legs I took the first watch Al went down to catch forty winks in order to be ready for his early morning watch, Barry sat with me awhile until he was confident I was capable of the task ahead, he then shortened sail to bring the 6 odd knotts down to 4 so I could more easily handle the boat. All went well with only one sighting of another boat crossing far ahead of us and the loom of the land and a fairly good view of the night lights of the coast about 5 miles off the starboard quarter I was fairly happy with my task. However by 11.30 the lights were looking a little too far and in the rising swells disappearing almost all together, the wind was up to 22knots and the boat speed had picked up to 6 knots again so I woke Barry early and told him things were getting a little scary for this new sailor. He came out and I happily disappeared inside, only to find that any queezyness wich had disappeared while on watch returned to a total bout of sea-sickness wich luckily disappeared, sort of, in a horizontal position in a cozy warm bed! Anyway the sea got lumpier and the wind got heavier and by Allan's shift we were once again motorsailing and then motoring only and after 30 knots of breeze and lots of slamming we decided in the early hours to duck into the calm of the inter-coastal waterways at Cape Canaveral. This made me much happier and am pleased to report that we are enjoying the smooth waters of this superb and picturesque waterway. We anchored off last night and had a braai and an exceptionally good nights sleep.

Today our beautiful ship looks like a gypsy boat with all the washing and things drying as we inadvertantly left one of the forecabins hatches half on breather, and that matrass and Barry's and my luggage which was being stored in there got a little wet! Anyway one has to learn the hard way.

Much love to you all

Annabell

Barry sends his best also!!!!!! "