June 2019: Forty, Landfall & Turning North
At the beginning of June we finally left The Bahamas and pointed Spacegrazer towards Florida.
After riding the Gulf Stream like a freight train overnight, we arrived in St Augustine and came through the Bridge of Lions first thing in the morning.
The Spacegrazers were officially in the USA!
Mrs Chippy and No Worries were all making their way north too, so we kept meeting up again as we slowly worked our way up the coast.
St Augustine was a fun stop. Beau turned 8 there, so we celebrated with mini golf, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, a piñata and probably too much sugar.
After that we headed north to Charleston.
On the way the kids collected all the flying fish that kamikazed onto the deck overnight. There were lots. Apparently flying fish are less good at flying than their name suggests.
Charleston was one of our favourite stops on the US East Coast. The marina was right in town, there was a huge waterfront park for the kids, and we spent a lot of time wandering around eating and exploring.
It also happened to be Bianca’s 40th birthday. Our friend Paul from No Worries shares the same birthday, so we had a little joint birthday celebration onboard Spacegrazer. One of us is younger and the other one is prettier.
We sailed onward – past Fort Sumter, past Kitty Hawk where the Wright Brothers first flew, steadily tracing the coastline north.
By the time we got to Virginia it really felt like we had really left the islands behind. Gone were the turquoise anchorages and palm trees. Suddenly there were shipping channels, military bases, busy waterways and proper tides again.
Even after more than three years living aboard, we were still capable of doing the occasional foolish thing – like leaving the dinghy tied beside a dock at low tide and returning to find it suspended awkwardly beneath the boards. Fortunately no damage.
For years we’d been sailing through tiny islands and remote anchorages, and now we are about to sail our floating home into one of the most famous cities in the world.
Next stop: New York.
