Northern Phoenix blog

December 1st and 2nd.

 We spent yesterday on a Kayak tour of the marsh with a guide that told us all about the area.

We learned that
1.  Dolphins have hair when they are born (all mammals do).  Although it is just whiskers.
2.  Cannon ball jellyfish  have muscles and can swim slowly, not just drift.
They can also put out their stinking stuff like a squid.
3.  Black mangrove plants will collect all the salt that gets into their system and concentrate it to one sacrificial leaf to get the salt out of their system.
4. Pelicans were almost extinct (we now see them EVERYWHERE)
5.  The range of the  Mangroves(red, Black, and White) are moving north and changing the landscape
6.  A swamp vs Marsh???  A swamp has a tree dominated landscape, the marsh is grass dominated.  The rest is the same.  

Today we traveled to a nice quite anchorage near Ponce De Leon.  
Travelling through Florida, we have noticed a trend in some of the fancier houses.  Huge bug netting is set up around the deck, porch, back yard, patio, etc... Perhaps not all is perfect in paradise?  (hard to see in the foggy picture, the black stuff on the roof is not a solar panel, but the top of a large bug net.)
We arrived early enough to go and explore a big sand bar and beach.  We found a few surprises as always.  Birds are always fun to annoy.
 


 

We walked around on the beaches after a large tide the night before with a new moon.  The big currents created some neat sand to walk on and carved a big cliff in the sand.
 


Check out our Map.  There is a spot marked to zoom in on that shows amazing water/sand formations in this area created by the tides and currents.  Very cool!!

it created strange Mars like topography.  So we had an astronomy lesson about water on Mars.
 

Devon found a man o war jelly fish.  So strange to hold.  Like a balloon.  And a sea sponge, which could be squeezed and refilled with water. (although in the picture it just looks like a rock)
 
on a sad note we found a dead sea turtle.  No obvious signs of why it died.  It was tagged and we sent a report to the Florida Marine Biology department with the ID number.

By Sahara

We arrived at Marineland- which is a marina, not a park- yesterday in the afternoon. We decided to go for a short walk through the palm tree forest, where we discovered that palm branches are practically impossible to break off, yet when you do manage to whack them –or should I say hack- they make very good spears.  And that there is a very yucky plant with spikes that come off and stick to anything that touches it.

We then walked out to the beach, which was very close, and discovered that it was a rough day for the ocean. With like 5 foot waves.  Then Devon tried to jump to a rock in fell in the water.
 

 
This is the only natural rocky beach in all of Florida. It is made out of coquina limestone. They are little shells that somehow get cemented together over time, creating this hard stone. It was what the fort was made of, and the cannon balls just bounced off. It was used as stone for building.

After this, we headed back to the boat where we had pizza, and dad made us watch an episode of “Flipper”, since it was filmed around here. All that really came across was the little boy yelling Flipper multiple times and someone being stung by a man o war and being saved by the dolphin.  And when the little boy went to yell flipper, yet stopped after the ‘f’, making it sound like he was trying to say something very very bad.
 

 

Day 2

 

                Today started with a breakfast of “pancreas pancakes”. For those who don’t know, the pancreas is the organ that makes insulin, which controls the sugar in your body and makes sure your cells gets sugar. People that are diabetic (atleast with type 1) have had their pancreas attacked by their immune cells-they get a little wacky sometimes-, therefore they cant control the sugar in them. So they have to get shots of insulin to keep them healthy. Sorry, but mom said it was my homework to write about this….

Anyway, today we went to the beach, because even though it was windy, it was warm, and cloudy. It was also even rougher than yesterday. As we were walking down this very spectacular beach, Devon went and fell in the water. He was wearing clothes and a sweater, so then he felt it necessary to flick his sweater around to get everyone wet. We also found some pretty cool stuff, such as shark egg sacks and cannonball jellyfish. Those particular jellies are hard bodied (hence the name cannonball), making them very fun to poke with feet when they wash up on the beach, as long as you avoid the short tentacles.  

We headed back to the boat, where we took showers and had lunch and did dishes. Very sad. Then mom and dad left us to go get some groceries (they came back with wine, beer, and chocolate), and we had to do our French work. While looking up strange videos, like the mermaid caught on tape playing with a goldfish. And listening to awesome music. Then they got home, and we had to do laundry and write blog posts and admire the pumpkin that they brought back.

 

                     AND TOMORROW IS DECEMBER!!!  The time when Devon plays every Christmas song he can find.

By Sahara

Now before we get to the blog, I would just like to say: Happy Thanksgivukkah!!!! Be very careful how you pronounce this word. Don’t be like me, and try to say it in front of family members. You will not get anything for Christmas. Anyway, it is being called this because for the first time in 100 years Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah overlap.

Now, to get to the blog. This morning was a cleaning day, which means that after eating a breakfast of muffins, mom went and took a shower and did laundry- all 5 bags or so of it. Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool. No sir, just a giant bag of laundry and a broken washer. We did a pumpout. I cleaned the table and kitchen, Devon and Dad the bathrooms, and just about everything else. All the while listening to horrible songs on the radio that someone felt needed to be repeated multiple times.

 After this we (meaning me and Devon and dad-mom was still trying to fix the washer) made an apple pie for the Thanksgiving party we were going to in the afternoon. Just Thanksgiving, no Hanukkah. I made the filling, Devon and dad made the crust. Mom came back and dropped off laundry then went back to do some more.  And we also filled up the water tanks, since we ran out of water. Mom came back and helped dad make a vegetable thing with carrots and peas and other stuff.

Then we hiked the very long distance of up the dock to the party thing site, were we then ate lots of food, mom dropped the ladle into the gravy pot where it disappeared, and dad delighted over the fact that someone brought grits. There was also a guy there who-facial features anyway- looked like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. We met some very nice people, who had a very nice dog who would clean your plate- at the consent of the owner, of course. This is where my extra turkey went.  Did I mention that there was also like 7 pies???? Americans like pie.

When we went back to the boat, Dad stayed and talked with Aragorn dude and his wife, who are also heading down to the Bahamas with their 4 kids. Dad was happy that they had things in common; the wife had studied kinesiology at some point (moms work), and the dad was a high school teacher (dads work), and the oldest daughter liked dragons (my favourite!).

                So after this dad and Devon went back to look at the sword store and I made a belt to hold my knife, which I made out of  Devon’s  broken belt which I braided back together and hooked of the sheath of the knife and made the clasp of the belt of a bird skull.  What? I was bored. That’s what I do in my spare time. Sometimes. Then I started writing this post, which is 1 ½ pages long, and has taken me like an hour to write. So it better be good.  

By Sahara

Yesterday we got up and headed off to explore the town, after looking at the map and memorizing where all the chocolate shops were! The first place we went to was the fort, Fort Castillo De San Marcos. It was ruled by the Spanish when they first came to America, built in the 1500’s, and was used by different groups of people all the way up to the 1900’s.  It was fairly large for that time, and had a lot of cannons. 
 
 

After the fort, we headed down the street that had all the tourist traps, where we found a store with a life-size model of the tallest guy ever. I came up to about his waist, and his shoes were 5x bigger than my foot, and my entire hand could fit in his palm. No wonder he had a heart attack and died.   
This guy was just sitting in a street with his dog wearing sunglasses playing a didgeridoo-an Australian instrument.  That is the dog is wearing the sunglasses.

Then we continued our way and found a place to go to lunch- Mojos. It was BBQ, and had a painting of a cow that was like 3x as long as a normal cow. It also had a server that had a very scary and long and swirly and spikey mustache. There was also the server that never smiled and just tried to intimate people with his food platters. During this eating meat lunch thing, we had a very intriguing talk about kidneys. I don’t remember how we got into the conversation, but I do remember that a kidney filters about 1000 liters of blood each day, and creates vitamin D, which is the vitamin that keeps bones healthy. Conclusion, kidneys are very very very important. (Biology class). However, the restaurant had very good sandwiches and humongous onion rings

We passed this one store that sold these strange creatures made out of food. There was the banana dog, the tomato pig, and the green onion cat thing.

Anyway, after this we headed up to a chocolate shop that was supposed to be really good but wasn’t actually. So we headed back to the boat and got some chocolate sauce and fruit. We were lazy for the rest of the afternoon, and when it was finally time for diner Dad just made a soup because we weren’t too hungry after eating the sandwiches that contained an entire cow.  Then mom said we should go walk around the town some more.  Of course.

 So we hauled our lazy butts up to the square and admired the giant Christmas trees and lights in the giant oaks, and the horse carriages, and all the stupid university people that only got into university because they have rich families.

Then we walked back up the street where all the shops were, and discovered a very scary sight. Outside a restaurant or something was a guy all dressed up as a rock person, playing a guitar, wearing makeup and a Christmas hat, along with Christmas lights. Not surprisingly, Dad thought I should go up and stand next to the guy while he takes my picture.  And this guy didn’t even smile!! He was very scary. I tried to stand close enough to him without actually being near him while simultaneously being in the picture.

After this terrifying experience, we went to get some ice-cream. I got caramel, dad got a sundae? Mom got a bowl (thanks dad) and Devon got this thing where the god of rainbows exploded and they used the bits to create ice-cream. It was blue and yellow and red and green and every other color ever.  Now, at this time, it was like 5 degree out. All the locals were wearing heavy jackets and winter gear. Then there was us with our ice-cream. One family even asked us where we were from, because we definitely were not from around here! They calmed down when we said we were from Toronto, Canada.   
 

 Then finally, we started heading back to the boat. With a short pit stop to take a picture at the Christmas tree. And get past the guitar Santa as fast as possible. And went to bed. Well, that didn’t happen immediately, but you get the point. I hope.

St Augustine
Mile Marker 780

                We got up early this morning. Definition of early is 6 in the morning. But, I guess it was necessary to get to the marina before dark. Maybe.  Anyway, the morning was pretty uneventful, consisting of breakfast, school work, and reading. Oh yes, and we got to Florida sometime around 10:30 or so, and celebrated by eating an orange… or three...  It was raining during the morning and was really yucky and humid and why am I going on about the boring part of the day???

Well, after lunch, mom decided – with some persuasion from her amazing daughter- that we needed to properly celebrate Florida with some ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce. All rights of chocolate sauce reserved for dad.

Then, sometime in the afternoon, we were the victims of the coastguard’s random safety checks. They just go up to random boats and make sure they are properly following the rules. After a mad rush to get lifejackets on, the coast guard decided that we were a very safe little boat and quickly moved on. And, we did get our daily dolphin sighting just before getting into the marina.
 

 When we had gotten into said marina-very uneventful docking- we rushed to take showers. Except for mom who deemed herself sparkly enough to forgo the showers and do stuff on wifi.  Now, this may be a very nice marina, but they need to do better job on the showers. My shower had a giant wad of hair on the wall. I tried to refrain thinking how and why it was there. Then we went to a restaurant right beside the marina, Santa Maria or something like that. It was right over the water- something I discovered after very careful observations-, and had hatches right beside the tables in the wall that opened right up to the water below.  And in the water below, they had massive schooled of channel catfish that would just swim around the building.  And you could feed them. They would actually bring out a specific bread basket for the little fishies. Now, these schools would get so thick it looked like you could walk on them.  And believe me, it’s very disturbing to look down the hatch and see a gazillion little- big actually- mouths complete with whickers swimming around.

(sahara looking down the Trap Door)                                  (hundreds of Catfish looking at you)
 


Close up of one fish.  About12-15 inches long                            Close up of Catfish looking at you.  See whiskers!
   
Now for food; dad got blackened mahi mahi, Devon got a burger, mom got a never ending skewer of shrimpies, and I got coconut shrimp. And it was all very tasty, but it was also just as entertaining to throw stuff down the hatches and watch the catfish go crazy as a coconut. Or should I say coconuts.  Anyway, my curiosity was piqued on to what the catfish would actually eat. The conclusion is anything and everything, from the French fry and lettuce sandwich to the lemon slice stolen from the other table behind us. As it turns out, lemon skin is not poisonous, as Detective Saharas discovered. I admit, I was not completely awake during diner.

  The annoying thing was- at least with my hatch- was that there was a pole right up against the opening, complete with barnacles and oysters. So when someone was not careful, or did not look where they were dropping stuff, the food would get caught on the pole. Now, remember I said I was not completely awake? Well, by the end of diner I still had my bowl of coleslaw, and I didn’t want it to get wasted or appear rude. So I unobtrusively dumped it down the hatch, without looking at what I was doing… And well, it just so happens that I robbed the catfish of a great meal while simultaneously making it appear that a pterodactyl  took a poo on the pole…. Good thing it’s raining now! Maybe tomorrow we will kayak over to the water by the restaurant and stick our fingers in the water. Then the catfish will decide of little kids fingers are tasty.

By Devon
Yesterday when we were walking down a beach I spotted a weird blue thing and thought it was a shell. I almost picked it up but I noticed that it was a jellyfish. I was really freaked out because well,,, it was a jellyfish but it was blue. I picked up a stick and started scraping the sand off and it started to look like a man o' war jellyfish, so we all started looking at it and suggesting types of jellyfish it could be. So we decided on the man o' war jellyfish and kept walking. But later on down the beach we saw 8 more of them and I bet none of us wanted to go swimming-or even go in the water. This was our last day on this island and it was very fun too, I am excited when we arrive in Florida.                    

  

 WE climbed up one of the Live Oaks.  They used trees from this island to make the USS Constitutuion....old Iron Sides (because cannon balls bounced off her sides)

By Sahara

                Today was the complete opposite of yesterday, as it was cold and had 30 knot gust winds. So when mom made us very yummy muffins-in case you haven’t noticed, we looove our muffins- we decided to go back to the island and explore the woods. The woods were very cool, with the Spanish moss and huge old trees and the palm shrubberies, and looked like it would be perfect for a Halloween party or celebration.

This island was said to have 3 types of poisonous snaked- no, no one died-, armadillos- aka, pokadilloes- , deer, horses, alligators, bobcats, and falcons. We did see a snake, but it slithered away before we could see what it was. And we did see deer and bobcat tracks, however no live evidence. And we also saw evidence of alligators, in the form of bones in a pond, but no living biting gators. However…. We did see horses!!! Not so much wild, as they would come right up to you and would not run away from you. But there were at least 8 or so horses that we saw- chestnut, bay, white, yellowy colored- and were very cool. They had been on the island for about 100 years, when the last owner of the mansion dies, and said in her will for all the horses to be set free.  I think I used up most of the battery taking pictures… Dad got mad at me because then he couldn’t take many pictures of the ruins. Meh. Horses are so much cooler anyway.
 

 

 So we continued our hike through the woods- my use of the camera prohibited- and finally came back to the dinghy. Then we had the agonizing journey back to the boat into the waves and wind and spray. But we made it. And now I’m finishing up the shortest blog post I have ever written out of the 6 or so I HAVE written. Wow, I must have something wrong with me, usually I write onto the second page but I’m still on the first! *sigh*

 

By Sahara

Yesterday we set off in the amazingly snazzy dinghy to go to the island. Since it was warm and practically no wind at all, we decided it was going to be a beach day. To get to the beach you had to walk through a maritime forest, which consisted mostly of live oak and small palm shrub type things and Spanish beards. Then you had to walk over the dunes-they didn’t let you walk on the dunes for fear of erosion-, and then you got to the beach. It wasn’t a very inhabited beach; we only saw a few groups of people. And ghost crabs. And horseshoe crabs. So we didn’t have much company.
 

 

Since there was not much wind, it was not a rough day for the ocean shore. At least, that’s what it looked like from the sand. When you got in the 68 degree water, the waves looked much bigger. But, they were very fun when you got completely wet and were used to the water temp, so when the waves broke on you it didn’t feel completely like a bulldozer from the ocean depths was trying to make you into a driveway. What was the best though was when you barely made it past the wave before it broke, and when you looked back you saw the wave break on the person behind you. Very fun indeed…
 

Then mom got cold and made us walk down the beach for 30 minutes, which was when we found a strange hole in the sand that we thought must have been made from an alien but was actually a type of crab- ghost crab. So we had to dig the poor crabby out of its hole and torment it-kidding- and take a picture of it.

 Then to carry on with this amazing day- which we found out later was snowing at home. Haha suckers!!!- we had to walk all the way back, eat our lunch, go back in the water, watch some snaily things dig in the sand, then walk all the way back to the dinghy. It was about 4 in the afternoon, to give you an idea of time. We made tacos for diner, and watched Iron Man 3, and went to bed. Tada! 

P.S. I found an orange tree!
 

Nov 22
We were delayed a day waiting at St. Simons island for 2 engine parts.  An oil pressure sensor for the main engine and a water sensor relay for the generator.  The generator had stopped working a few months ago when the water impeller self destructed.  Most likely from the generator sitting in the boat for a year waiting for the work to be finished around it.  The special rubber impellers do not like to get dried out, and ours was most likely dry.  The generator automatically shuts down if the cooling water stops running through the engine, which is great.  Except, that our sensor somehow got stuck on "no water" and would shut the generator down after 1 minute.  All was working, so a new sensor and it is all operational again.  We have not needed the generator with the traveling.  After motoring for the day on the ICW the batteries are fully charged.  It is when we get to long anchorages that it will be important.
 
The part arrived and we took off at 2:30 in the afternoon, a time we are usually anchoring.  But with a really good weather forecast for the evening and a high tide, we left St. Simons 5 minutes after the fed ex package arrived and went 20 miles.  We set anchor as the sun set.  A beautiful anchorage with calm water, a great sunset, and a few dolphin "Frolicking" in the water.  And being Friday, we made pizza.  yum!!!  it was good.  We also had our home made soda with the Soda Maker.  A big CO2 cartridge that carbonates the water.  Then you add syrup.  The syrups are 1/3 the normal sugar of soda.  A little different taste than the Big names sodas, but we like it.


The next morning we left the anchorage with the sunrise to get to Cumberland Island early for a day at the beach.  We had a great sunrise with mist on the water.
 

On the way we passed through a place that is notorious for boats going aground.  Often people are blindly following their GPS chartplotters and ignoring "What is in front of your face".  here is an image of our boat "on land" by the GPS.  A lot of the charts are wrong, but if you just look up at the  markers, you can see where to do.  It is not too hard.  but common sense is not always so common.  You can see on the GPS that there should be deep water to the left of the picture, but.....charts can be wrong.  We usually have 1 paper chart (often 2) and 2 GPS units going.  The chart plotter that is attached to the helm, and the Chart plotter that is part of the Ipad.  Between the 4, the visual marks always win.  So far, haven't run aground (too hard).

 

By Sahara

Let’s see, how to make this day interesting to all you people reading this.  We started the day-I think all my entries start like this- by waking up, slowly making ourselves get out of bed, speeding up dramatically when you hear mom is making muffins, and then eating said muffins.  Which were fantastic, by the way. Chocolate chips, yummy yummy. Argh, I think I just creeped out every sane person reading this. So to carry on, we then all went and took showers. I think I have been away from civilization for too long, as I didn’t know how to turn the stupid shower on. Now we are all clean and shiny. Um, or just clean.       
      

I am skipping ahead to when we do something.  So after lunch-and schoolwork- mom decided we should all go for a bike ride. So we rented some of the marina bikes, and rode down to the beach, which we then rode on. The sand was hard packed, so we could easily ride bikes on it without sinking too much. However, it’s still harder than biking on a hard, flat, solid surface.  So we biked as far down the beach as we could go while still being dry,(short video here) then biked back to dads all-time favourite shop, Dairy Queen. So we stocked up on ice cream and walked down to the boardwalk, where not much happened other than a bird landing on moms head. None of us saw it happen, but she insisted, so we believed.  Then we biked all the way back the hour ride to the marina. The forests that we biked beside were very cool, with the Spanish moss on the huge oak trees.
 
 Then, inevitably, Devon fell. Ironically, it was just after Dad warned him not to go off the sidewalk in case he fell. But then again, it had to happen sometime, I’m just surprised he lasted that long.
 

 

  And this is completely random, but I would just like everyone to know that elves are real, are 3 feet tall, like apples and oranges, live in forests close to water, and are the caretakers of the unicorns. At least, according to the guy on YouTube. Anyway, we finally got back at around 4:30, which is the time when mom started cooking steak, Devon got on his computer game, Dad talked to this rich guy on a snazzy boat- jealous much-, actually the guy just like to talk.. and talk.. and talk.. so ya. And I started writing this blog post because I know you missed me so much.

I think I’m going to go now, as I can’t think of anything else that is remotely interesting that you would like to read. WAIT, I just remembered something very important. Yesterday we went to see Thor: The Dark World, which I had really wanted to see and was very awesome. I mean, it had a guy with a magic hammer, a creepy guy that was actually a good guy but really a bad guy, and a guy who ran around in his underwear. A classic. And so much better than Sharknado. However, that is all I’m going to say, in case people haven’t seen it yet and don’t want it spoiled. Though I know I don’t have to worry about you, Grandma!  Now dads making soda, so I’m going to leave now. That doesn’t really make sense, I know, but I had to think of something that would be an appropriate ending