March 2 – March 9
St. Augustine
Most of this past week was spent in St. Augustine, with an arrival on Saturday (3/2) and departure on Friday (3/8). Our days during this stop alternated between work and play days. “Work” mainly consisted of taking long walks to get errands done, like returning an item to West Marine, visiting an Amazon Hub to pick up some hiking related items, and provisioning. On our last provisioning walk we visited a place called Sailors Exchange, and oh, wow, that is a cool store! If we discovered this place during our first two months of sailing, I think we would have spent endless hours there. Jimmy described it as a pick-and-pull for boats. I highly recommend a visit when in the St. Augustine area.
While at St. Augustine, we had access to the marina’s very nice showers and laundry facility. Thursday morning Jimmy took care of laundry, and I stayed on the boat to have Utopia’s holding tank pumped out from the mooring ball (a free service, other than giving the pump-out guy a tip). While Jimmy was in the lounge area waiting for laundry, he met another cruising couple, also heading north. We ended up chatting with them some by VHF on our trip to the Jacksonville area on Friday.
As for those play days in St. Augustine, we wandered around the fort (Castillo de San Marcos), walked across the Bridge of Lions, and toured the city on the Old Town Trolley, making it a history filled week. A highlight of one of our playdays was a visit from a Tallahassee friend one afternoon, who happened to be passing by on a business trip.
ICW Mile Marker 778 to Mile Marker 717
After this nice break, we spent Friday and Saturday heading northbound on the ICW once again. Jimmy and I have been helming these longer ICW days in one-hour shifts, either because it is stressful or because it can be just plan boring. The parts that make the trip stressful have a lot of shoaling, strong currents, or a lot of bascule bridges, sometimes all three at once. Yesterday, we had to wait for a train to cross a swing bridge that is usually in the open position (Kingsley Creek Railroad Bridge). When I first looked through the binoculars, it looked like the bridge was probably open, but since there was a bend in the channel before the bridge, I was not quite sure. After I consulted the map, I looked back at the bridge and noticed it was rotating! I went out to the bow of the boat and heard train whistles in the distance. Jimmy slowed Utopia down to a crawl, and we waited for the train to cross the bridge. Luckily, the bridge was prompt to reopen, and the currents were not too strong.
Then there are the straight as an arrow parts with very little changes of scenery. In those not very exciting stretches, the off-watch person can actually read a book. This was the case on Friday, where we wanted to time our arrival with slack tide at two particular bridges, requiring an average boat speed of 4 knots for several hours.
On Saturday, we picked up a mooring ball outside of Fernandina Beach and should arrive in Brunswick by Friday. When we pull into the marina slip this week, that will wrap up our current cruising season at five months after leaving Tallahassee on October 16.
Backpacking Preparations
As we get closer to Brunswick, the anticipation of the thru hike grows stronger. For the most part, we have completed gathering gear needed for hiking the Appalachian Trail. It was important to me to have our gear in place before reaching Brunswick because once we arrive, we’ll be focusing on decommissioning Utopia which will be a large undertaking for us.
Now that we have completed our last provisioning trip of this cruising season, we can pack our backpacks with the hiking gear to see how it all fits. It has been great using the backpacking packs for picking up packages, walking to laundry mats and carrying groceries back to the boat. We have been trying to walk with our packs, wearing our hiking shoes as much as possible, slowly increasing the distances walked from week to week. It is getting easier for us to complete a three mile walk out to pick up supplies and then walk back with the loaded pack. However, Jimmy and I will feel tired the remainder of the afternoon. This is a good reminder that this hike will be tough, and not just a stroll through the woods.
Jimmy and I realize that our flat, paved 6-mile walks will not adequately prepare us for the hike, but at least we are getting used to the feel of the pack on our backs, and putting some miles in our hiking shoes. I guess you can compare this to a shakedown cruise where you test out your equipment before the real trip. Of course, the shake down sail will not prepare you for a long voyage, but it helps soften the learning curve.
Our plan is to keep our daily milage to 10 miles or less the first two weeks of the hike. This should help our bodies acclimate to covering long distances over hills, roots, and rocks with a loaded pack. Then, if we are not feeling too sore, we can begin to increase the daily mileage. I should point out that, if a hike only lasts a few days, you can push the milage up right from the start since you will have plenty of recovery time coming up soon. With a thru-hike, there is a higher chance of over-use injuries because the time for recovery is often short and not frequent enough, so starting slowly is a key to being able to complete the entire 2,197.4-mile hike.
Since we are starting from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) headquarters in Harpers Ferry, we will begin our hike on one of the flattest portions of the Appalachian Trail. We’ll head north through town, then once we cross the bridge over into Maryland, we will have several miles on an old towpath of the C & O Canal along the Potomac River before the Appalachian Trail turns into the mountains. Then as a bonus, a friend of ours is planning to join us for the first two weeks, making the start of the hike extra special. We have warned him of the low milage days, and he is perfectly fine with that. Our friend is also a sailor, so it will be really neat to discuss both hiking and sailing as we pass the time together during our transition from sailors to hikers.
Photos from this week are available through the button below. Since Baxter has been super cute this past week (I think he is really getting into the cruising groove), once again, there are a lot of photos of him.