Anyone Cruising These Days?

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We’re on the Tennessee River and not able to cruise. The governor closed all State Parks for a couple weeks. Our marina is in a State Park. The ran us out last Friday and barricaded the entrance to the park at the highway. We can make an appointment to go to our boat and remove items if we need to and then leave . We can even leave the marina by boat but we can’t return until park reopens.
 
Maybe in May...

We had planned to leave home port in St Pete for the Chesapeake this week. It was to be our first cruise out of FL since buying the boat 18m ago. Our Dec19/Jan20 South FL Loop cruise was outstanding. The new plan is to stay put in April, comfortably living aboard in our home port. Cruising in May might be possible depending on how the health and economic recovery take shape. I am hopeful and optimistically looking forward to the evolution back toward a new normal, whatever that will be.

Our thinking now, if we cruise in May, is to be less ambitious, stay closer to home port. We have read much about the St Johns River and might change our plans to explore that waterway this summer instead of the Chesapeake. A couple questions for those that know:
1. How crazy hot is the St Johns River areas in summer? I grew up around the Chesapeake and I cannot imagine the St Johns River gets much hotter than that, 90s.
2. How protected is the St Johns River from hurricanes? Our insurance does not require us to move north, and I am guessing a storm surge would be more gradual the further along the river you are….

Be safe, be patient...
 
We’re based in JAX. The St John’s River is full on summer hot with very high humidity, every day. You’ll need ac 20 hours per day at least every day. Storm surge is not an issue unless your near the mouth but flooding can be. During Irma, Jacksonville had record flooding as did the river further south in some areas.
 
I am in the Dominican Republic at Cap Cana Marina. DR is under lockdown as well as every other island in the Caribbean. Looks like this lockdown will go on until the end of April. Come May who knows.

Plans are to leave Cap Cana on the DR’s eastern shore between mid and end of May with a decent weather window. If we can get a despacho to Ocean World in Puerto Plata on the north coast of the DR we will stop to top off fuel, if not we will go to the Bahamas. While the Bahamas are currently closed we would hope to get permission to transit without stopping except to anchor in some remote place to rest. If we can fuel in West End Grand Bahamas we would head straight for Wilmington, NC.

At this point insurance requires Bahamas by June and north of Savannah, Georgia by July 1.
 
You may want to start the conversation now with the insurance company about buying a rider if you need to.
 
menzies said:
You may want to start the conversation now with the insurance company about buying a rider if you need to.
Click to expand...

Good point. In 2013 we were in a similar situation. We wouldn’t be in the states by June 1. Heck, we were still in Mayaguana May 20th. We called our agent who went to the underwriters. The additional bump was less than $100 for Hobo. We were/are with Geico Marine.
 
Lepke said:
I'm in my 70s, bad lungs, but don't get the panic. And my health care is the VA. The statistics show that so far the virus isn't as deadly as auto accidents. Grouped together, the big city gangs could compete in the deaths category. Both cancer and heart disease kill about 1/2 million each yearly.
.
Click to expand...

Its already gone past all diseases and accelerating.
Also bear in mind that this hasn't replaced other diseases, it is in addition to.


https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1845748/
 
We are on the hard at the moment getting bottom job, some topside paint and gearbox leak fixed.
All well on target.
Did plan on some other stuff but not pushing my luck and hoping to be back in Tuesday/Wednesday.

Plan after that was to start the slow cruise north to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand but that ain't looking likely in the near future.
Not this year at least.

Guess we'll just cruise around SE QLD waters as we have done for the last 4 years until it all plays out.
 
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We’re currently staying out in Brooklyn, NSW until we can start our cruise up the east coast of Australia. But with sunsets like this, can’t complain. IMG_6200.jpg
 
Simi 60 said:
We are on the hard at the moment getting bottom job, some topside paint and gearbox leak fixed.
All well on target.
Did plan on some other stuff but not pushing my luck and hoping to be back in Tuesday/Wednesday.

Plan after that was to start the slow cruise north to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand but that ain't looking likely in the near future.
Not this year at least.

Guess we'll just cruise around SE QLD waters as we have done for the last 4 years until it all plays out.
Click to expand...


Hey SIMI,
That is roughly our plans too. Let me know if you guys are interested in a loose 'buddy-boat' voyage, when C-19 is done with us.
 
nemier said:
Hey SIMI,
That is roughly our plans too. Let me know if you guys are interested in a loose 'buddy-boat' voyage, when C-19 is done with us.
Click to expand...

Could be on the cards. See you are in the Whitsundays at present, will see where we and you are at next year.:thumb:
 
Are there cruisers about?

Yes, but maybe not a whole bunch. We are about 300 miles from completing a nearly 1700-mile delivery from Norfolk, VA to the north Gulf Coast of Florida. We have traveled daily except for one day since 20 March. In the early running, we saw very few boats traveling - none going south. After a week or so, we would see maybe a dozen a day. Closer to halfway down the Florida east coast we might have seen a couple dozen a day headed north for a period of several days - many were Canadian sailboats. The day going down Hawk Channel we saw half a dozen boats cruising in either direction. We saw one other boat at Little Shark River, a common stopping place when transiting Florida Bay. We saw one other boat, a sailboat apparently cruising north along the southwest coast of Florida today as we pulled into Fort Myers Beach. I think a lot of people with a berth in a marina are afraid to venture out for fear of not finding transient space - something we experienced during this trip. Before it was resolved by the owner, the marina we are headed to in Carrabelle, Fl had refused to allow the boat entry.
 
Liveaboard in Brentwood bay BC here, been heading out cruising every weekend. Still on call, so have to be around during the week. Filled all 1200L worth of tanks and at 7LPH we've got a ways to go
Easter weekend in the Gulf islands
Last picture is home port IMG_20200413_063908.jpegIMG_20200412_172926.jpegIMG_20200412_172904.jpegIMG_20200325_201015.jpeg
 
We plan to make an 2 night over nighter to our club docks. If there are too many vessels at the docks we have another plan, anchor in a different bay.
The Provincial parks here are closed we hope the club is not swamped.
We'll see what we see.
 
Have the "itch," I'm thinking of taking an afternoon daymotor in the San Francisco estuary with my partner. Trust there won't be an interception.
 
And someone else said, “The president calls the shots.” and “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total.” Yet, some don’t have an issue with that.
 
Porgy said:
And someone else said, “The president calls the shots.” and “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total.” Yet, some don’t have an issue with that.
Click to expand...

Where did you read or see that people didn't have an issue with that?
 
We've been cruising away from home port since December 16th (w/ a 9 or 10 day airline trip home in January)
Were about to cross to Bimini when, as Maxwell Smart used to say; we "Missed it by THAT much!" So, we're still in the keys social distancing and masking up to buy groceries about every week to ten days. Currently out in the "Back Country" and really social distanced.

We'll likely wait another week or so to see how logistics of getting food and fuel along the route back to Texas turns out.
 
On the hook...

We are on our 2nd night on the hook in Mullet Key Bayou and Ft De Soto Park. This 360 degree protected anchorage is at the mouth of Tampa Bay has room for us and 50 other boats. So far, just us...

It is FANTASTIC to get back on the water, back into nature. :dance:

The park is open, but the parking lots are closed. Campers can park at their sites, or you can come by bike or boat.

We had hoped to cruise the East Coast of the USA this spring. Instead we are cruising the West Coast of FL. Next stop is Tarpon Springs for some Greek take-out and to plunder a highly coveted Greek bakery.

Marinas here are re-opening to transients; social distancing applies. Our current cruise will last a week, taking one night in a Marina. FL and its Counties are using a scalpel approach to carve out reasonable accommodations, rather than the simplistic broad hammer employed in some other locations. We are grateful.
 
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