The ICW bridge that WOULD NOT LET US PASS!! Sailboat living with SailAway #10. After making some modifications and upgrading the boat for sailing the Bahamas we head south to Florida via the Atlantic and ICW with a Bahamas adventure as our goal.

But it seems that we're denied every step of the way! But not to worry, Layla doesn't give up and neither do we. Join us as we encounter an unforgiving Atlantic ocean with 20+ knots of wind and rough seas right on the nose, an overheating motor, a slightly illegal marina stay, a grounding, and a bridge on the ICW that simply does not want to let us pass. Sailboat living always has its challenges, but we don't let it get our sailing family down! As always, thanks for watching and keep exploring our sailing world! Be sure to SUBSCRIBE for WEEKLY CONTENT! Cheers!!

Thanks for watching SailAway, the travel documentary of an adventurous sailing couple, plus toddler and dog, sailing the world!

Appreciate our videos? Then join our crew as a Patreon Patron and get FREE SailAway GEAR plus other perks! - https://www.patreon.com/sailawayvlog

Connect with us on social media!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailawayvlog
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sailawayvlog
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sailawayvlog
Eric's audiobooks and music: https://www.ericgdove.com

Music Used in this episode:
Minor With Cricket - Audionautix
Pop Star - Audionautix
Surfing Llama - Bird Creek

Pop Star and Minor with Cricket by Audionautix are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/

All uncredited music by our very own Eric Dove. Both of his CD's available for purchase here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/author/eric-dove/id218144440

Video excerpt - In The Heart Of The Sea, 2015

Closed Captions:

Well its about 2 days before we are leaving and the boat, she is pretty much ready to
go.
Gotta few minor projects left.
We put a new head in, and I need to replace the water feed line because its looked kinda
old and kinda got bent in a weird direction when I put the new filter on.
That and we also today I brought a dock cart full of goodies and its got our life raft
in it which ways about roughly 888lbs.
Totally ripped my bi-s yo.This
week on sailing sv layla we set out with an end goal of reaching the bahamas.
The first step of which is an ocean leg from Charleston South Carolina to St. Augustine
Florida.
So I'm out here doing boat projects while Loren and her parents get our food together.
Then on Wednesday morning we are off to Sarasota and we will take the ICW down to Fort Pierce
which will be our jumping off point to get to the Bahamas, the Abacos.
And onward from there.
We were trying to leave at high tide instead.
Wasting Time.
This is what we're doing.
Because your husband decided to cut out wires that were useful for our chart plotter.
We think we have identified it, which one is the power.
I added some stuff, we put in an electric head and a wifi extender so I was re assigning
things in the circuit breaker.
One of which was the chart plotter.
And I kind of forgot that last step.
Yeah its beer thirty.
What is it like 9 oclock, if that?
8:51.
8:51.
Moral of the story is dont remove wires your not certain
are usless. and check everything to make sure it works after you mess with the electrical
system.
Done and done.
Working.
Putting everything back together.
Bye Charleston.
Say buh bye.
Looks like we're loosing half a knot to current.
We shouldnt be yet, shouldn't be in the gulf stream yet.
I would say its more due to wind and waves.
So we are headed into St. Simons island?
Yeah, we are heading into the ICW, probably take it all the way down to Fort Pierce because
we know south of St. Augustine the gulf stream is really close to shore so you fight it pretty
hard.
So we were thinking it was going to be about 30 hours, a little bit more to Fort Pierce.
No st. Augustine, St. Augustine and instead we made it to Georgia in about 36 hours.
Pretty rough southerly seas fighting us.
No matter what we did we just couldn't seem make more then 2-3 knots of progress in the
direction we wanted to go.
So we kept trying to like, we went out farther to see if it was smoother ocean but then I
think we got tied up in a little bit of the edge of the Gulf Stream and maybe some eddies.
Because no matter what we did we had current fighting us.
So we got really frusterated.
So yeah its been an interesting start.
It'll get better.
Yeah.
But you know people do it all different ways.
our way was to sail in multiple different directions kicking our own ass all night.
So essentially we changed our plan and headed inland to St. Simons Georgia.
From there we would take the ICW down to St. Augustine, and then hopefully on down to Fort
Pierce and over to the Bahamas.
So we are fleeing St. Simmons, Don't say the name.
Its fine.
So we kind of stayed some place we weren't real technically 100% supposed to stay last
night, because the Yatch Club Marina apparently closed for liability reasons due to the hurricane
damage.
But a lot of the docks are fine and the marina was completely full, transient docks were
packed, I think a lot of the tenants from the yatch club are over there.
It was really, we were really tired, it was late, and it was dark and we didn't feel like
anchoring in 3 know current.
Sometimes youve just got to tie up where you can tie up, and we just did.
And a very nice man who will remain nameless I think he was about to chase us off and he
finally was like you know what I didn't see you, you don't know me.
We got up early and we were going to try to get fuel but the fuel dock and the courtesy
dock, transient dock are the same thing and its justpacked.
So we decided to just cruise on out silently, without having to speak to anybody.
There's a lot of marinas down the ICW, we'll fill up someplace else.
Now we're going down the ICW, which was our plan originally but not this much of it.
This is kind of what it felt like times 10 on the last 2 days of our trip.
With 20 knot winds.
Who knows how long it will take us to get where we're going.
Awhile.
But we're on a boat.
I like sailing again, which is good.
Nobody was happy for a good day there.
Yea I kept going oh its only going to be 30 hours, and then we hit 30 hours and its like
we're no where near where we thought we were going to be.
Ok our day today we are currently anchored on the ICW south of, where the heck were we,
Fernandina Beach area.
Just hanging out, Rivers getting a little water off the stern, trying not to be shark
bait.
We did see a family of little sharks out there.
Thats the sound of our engine over heating, annoying right?
Trust us we know that was a big part of our problem out in the Atlantic and it didn't
let up once we came inside.
We are a slow boat to the bahamas, if we ever get to the bahamas.
And it is a distinct possiblitity we might not.
Not make it.
We need to seriously address our motoring capabilities.
We could try to take that strainer apart too.
Strainer or the heat exchanger?
Heat exchanger I mean, sorry, strainers fine.
This guy is barrelling along down wind with the current, pushing a bow wake.
look at the land next to us thats how fast we're moving.
So there's the bridge that we just tried to go through.
Tried.
Our engine keeps over heating and so the current through there is so strong that we were litterally
just sitting in the middle of it.
And we usually cruise at 2500 rpm when our motor is not over heating so we were trying
to go through there at like 2300, and we saw pretty soon that we weren't going to get it.
So I'm like hell with it put it down to like 27 2800 and we got to right at the very opening
at the middle there and we just sat still and its jerking me back and forth and like
jerking the boat all over the place.
And the motor starts overheating and we think we can push through but it wouldn't go.
We hit 0 on our speed over ground.
Didn't have room to turn around in there so I had to slow down in forward and steer in
forward while moving backward.
So the current was moving over our rudder and thats what i was trying to steer keep
the boat straight by while we were being pushed backwards.
And luckily we just cleared the edge of that wall before it was pushing us side ways.
so then i popped it in neutral, threw it in reverse and put the hammer down and started
to spin it around.
There were like 2 boats behind us almost ran into each other, sorry, nothing we could do
they had to see it happening like we were going in reverse, sorry boats, under a freaking
bridge.
So we are going to wait here for the current to slow down a little bit.
Now the baby's getting a diaper change and I'm next.
Give her all she's got, try it again.
What's your rpm?
About 27 5, those white caps in the middle are what we are trying to go through.
We'll see if this works.
Did you do that?
Do what?
It just backed down by itself.
It throttled down by itself.
Oh really, yeah...
So abort.
Yeah.
There's a boat behind us.
It just throttled back by itself?
Yeah, I thought you did it.
Nope.
You heard it though right?
Yeah, I didn't do that.
We'll try again bridge.
Hopefully, I mean we have to because at somepoint we have to get through there.
Our adventures continue with the bridge.
I bailed because the motor decided to throttle back on itself and it freaked me out because
we were fighting a 2 knot difference.
Third times a charm.
Lets hope.
Whats the difference?
It doesn't look at crazy though.
Doesn't have the white caps coming through, yea cuz we looked it up and so low tides supposed
to be at 5 but back in here its not until 6:40.
Those two boats coming up on us.
If they stop behind us wave them on.
They have the ability to go other ways?
No, this is the only way.
Alright there is still a bunch of current coming through.
Wind and waves.
Yey!
We made it, I hate you bridge.
So what that took us an hour and a half?
But its the bridge straight south of Pablo Escabar.
Its got a really narrow cut through.
Yeah so dont hit that at anything other then the tide flowing the same direction you want
to be going and with any type of wind at your nose, is going to mess you us.
We are waiting to get into a marina.
We called them and said we wanted a transcient dock and their like yeah come on in no problem
We've got some 40 to a fuel dock.
Ran aground the second we turned in to the marina.
And the baby fell at the same time, and the baby fell down, and our bilge pump, and as
we detirmend later when we rocked to the side a little bit our bilge pump kicked on and
shot a bunch of water out to the side of the boat.
And they were calling us all at the same time.
And they were calling us on the radio.
And I'm like what the hell is that water?
So we backed out and hes like oh yeah by the way we're only four feet in here, yeah we've
got a super low tide , you guys are goign to have to wait about an hour to come in.
I'm like ok fine.
So we are anchored again.
Waiting. and this is after beating our brains out trying to get under that god damn bridge
back there.
Because the current was funneling in so fast that the first time we could not get through,
like our boat hit zero speed over ground and we were sitting there with the throttle kicked
up higher then we normally can because it over heats.
And it over heated.
Atlantic Blvd bridge.
So I had to steer in slow forward while the current took us backwards til we just made
it outside of the little cross through plylings and through it into reverse and powered out
of there and spun it around in all this current.
It was rather exciting.
Two boats behind us almost hit eachother becuase they were watching us.
So then we just basically did laps back and forth the same stretch of river waiting for
the current to ease up enough for us to get under.
And then when we finally just gunned it and barreled our way through there and the second
we got through on the other side the engine over heated again.
So we've got somehting to figure out.
Because its doing it now on weird times and when we are only running at like 2300.
The engine over heating has kinda been the route of all our evils.
We just don't have any powering ability so when we were out in the Atlantic and had all
that wind and waves coming right at us we couldn't just put the hammer down and just
motor into it and get where we needed to go.
And so that caused us to try to find a better route to sail, try to go out off shore more
which we found a bunch of current out there, I think part of it was actually an edge of
the gulf stream and part of it was maybe an eddy or whatever.
Because no matter what we did we wond up with current going against us. and so we made the
right decision after that and bailed out and decided to come in at St. Simons Island but
then we were late getting in to that Marina so there weren't any transient docks so we
wound up parking some place we really weren't supposed to . And then in the morning the
fuel dock was full and we kinda didn't really want to talk to people that much so we took
off.
But that was headless of what the current was doing, we're like we're going.
And we just found ourselves, except for one short glorious brief amount of time when we
actually had the current going with us, we were just fighting it all the time.
Because everytime you come down the mouth out to the ocean.
You may be riding down witht the current but as soon as you cross that mouth and go back
into the ICW again your fighting that same current.
So unless you time everything up perfectly your really bucking the current.
And then because we are limited on engine horse power we can't just power through that
either.
So we're just going slow.
So we've got to figure out our motoring issues, hopefully tomorrow.
Maybe we'll eat out when we get up there.
Whatever I'm going to the bar.
Don't put him on camera looking like that.
You've got a binky ring from all the grossness on your face.
Look at these guys.
That dudes got a cape on.
Thats how you party in Jacksonville Florida.
Some of those dudes have got some sun burn.
Please take a moment to like and subscribe.
And be sure to follow us on social media.
Thanks for watching!
Cheers!