SailingKnitter

Fueled Up & Ready to GO

You just never know what we'll do or where we'll go next....

Everything - absolutely everything mechanical on the boat was working at the same point in time! We had not only completed Jonesy's list of repairs, but also tackled some new issues (you know, that's life with a boat).

The exterior was looking pretty good so we TOOK OFF and pointed the bow south. Here's a photo of the Niki Wiki sitting at the fuel dock - the last time she was in Georgia. Warmer weather and blue ocean waves of Florida here we come!

The first night of our adventure we stopped and anchored  in the Intra-Coastal Waterway right behind Cumberland Island and the National Seashore. The next morning we dropped the dinghy and blasted over to the island to explore. This was during the government shutdown so there was nobody on the island!! Just us and the wild horses. The beach was littered with shells - mostly sand dollars, clam, and whelk and LOTS of shorebirds. We even saw a pair of large American Oyster Catchers courting in the dunes! This is the first time either of us had seen this species (we had our bird book with us). Eventually we realized that we had walked until we could go no farther knowing that we had to follow our footsteps in the sand back to the dinghy.

The following days, we meandered along the waterway, stopping to anchor overnight and sometimes for a couple of nights if the weather was ugly. We had no plans, no timeline, and no final destination.

There sure was a lot of knitting going on during this time.

First off the needles was a second Black Cat hat in more subdued colors. (Knit Picks Palettte Wool & pattern by Sandra Jager)

Then I switched to another pattern by Sandra and knit up a Red Dragon Beanie. Again, I modified the pattern and added my own fair isle patterning, corrugated ribbing, and striped swirl crown.


As long as I had the bag of yarn with me, and was stuck on the boat, I kept knitting hats while I watched the marshlands and wildlife along the waterway.

So for a week and a half we crawled under bridges, called the draw bridges to request openings and halt the local car traffic, and motored along just about by ourselves. February isn't a popular time on the waterway which is one of the reasons we enjoyed it so much. No jet-skis! Very few sports-fishing speed boats!

Eventually we ended up slipping into a marina (not too gracefully unfortunately) in the Cape Canaveral area. We'll gather our wits for a while, get the car down here, finish up some interior projects and get this boat for sale!

In the meantime, there have been some heavy wool socks appearing on the needles too. Here I mixed worsted weight wool with self striping sock yarn.


Knitting on....