November 24 - 27 -- Fernandina Beach FL to St. Marys, GA -- 6.8 N Miles

Yes, there should be an apostrophe in "Marys," on the north bank of the St. Marys River, but there is not. And yes, we have gone north, about three of the 6.8 miles, from Florida into Georgia.
We spent four nights at the end of the west dock of Lang's Marina. Many of the boats elected to anchor out in the wide, roomy anchorage, though it is beset by tricky tidal currents and strong winds.

The marina is funky to say the least. Most businesses strive to modernize and offer the best and latest conveniences. But not Lang's. The cruisers' guides warned us to wear slippers in the shower rooms; they are not cleaned very regularly and are old fashioned. The electric towers into which we plug our thick yellow shore power cables offer electricity at only $3 per night -- if you can get it. Most of the towers, including those near us, do nor work and apparently have not worked for several years. This was inconvenient because it has been cold here and Lene would have liked heat. Help with our lines getting onto the dock? Sure; if your neighbors are about and willing to help.  There are some pretty nice boats here, power and sail, including, across the dock from us, a DeFever trawler operated by the founders and owners of the Active Captain website. But Lang's is also home to some boats that look rather derelict. And as you can see in this picture of two felines concentrating intently of the bravest of the remaining birds, guano is not washed form the dock except by the rain.

There are some more beautiful birds here too.

We are about 1000 feet from the street. Another thousand feet brings you to Seagle's hotel, saloon and restaurant, where the festivities are held.

Thirty rooms upstairs at $90 to $130 per night.

 Lang's is priced appropriately, only $1 per foot per night.

We arrived on Monday and each evening there was more and more shared food with drink getting our stomachs enlarged enough for the major feast at 1 pm on Thursday. There is also a communal check in on VHF radio channel 69 each morning, chaired by Ann of s/v "Sea Tramp". Her husband, Lynn, runs daily or twice a day trips with his van to where ever you may need to go in the area, including the supermarket (Lene went three times!), laundry, pharmacy, dry cleaners, propane refill, eye glass repair shop, etc.
We have been hearing about "Thanksgiving at St. Marys" for years and decided to join in this time. And we are glad we did. Dean and Susan of "Autumn Borne" are known by everyone here, probably because Dean has helped most of them, but they especially befriended us and introduced us to a lot of folks who we will be meeting up with further south in the months and years ahead.

Lene flanked by Dean and Susan and, at the sides, by the crew of s/v "Summerwind". Let's face it: the others here are mostly all retiree snow birds, like us, who come from all over the US, though some of us live aboard year round and others revert to land bases when not cruising. Good folks with a common interest in our boats and in telling each other and listening to each others' sea stories. For the feast, the townspeople provided the baked turkey and ham and the cruisers each provided a side dish, salad, stuffing, desert, etc., sufficient to serve ten. But most brought more and this was no hunger game.

For the record, I made blanched string beans with bacon, blue cheese and toasted walnuts, and it got eaten up by the throng.



With the town abutting the back side of the Kings Bay submarine base, the town is postered by these bumper stickers:

Every Day In Camden County Is Military Appreciation Day.




They have a Submarine museum

a block from Seagle's, where I spent a few pleasant hours. There I met Mr. Treen, a naval electrician with 18 years of service in the submarine service, currently assigned as base photographer. He was doing a story on the museum.
I got to remembering my six day ride on one of our submarines, the USS Requin (SS-481) As Hammerberg's Anti Submarine Warfare officer, I was exchanged for the Requin's weapons officer for the segment of our circumnavigation of South America from Montevideo to Rio in 1966. My biggest thrill: they let me dive the sub. I yelled "Dive!", scrambled down the conning tower as quickly as possible so that others could slam closed and dog down the hatch above my head before water started to flow in and then yelled the command: "Blow negative to the mark!"  This meant to release compressed air into a forward compartment sufficient to give buoyancy to the bow and thus level off the dive. And then the submariners, who knew what they were doing, took over again. I recall the palpable sensation of quiet after we were submerged; the crashing sound of the water while a surface boat slices through it was replaced by utter silence.

Tomorrow, a communal pancake breakfast (yes more food!!), a swap meet and then we plan to go east and a bit north to an anchorage off Cumberland Island National Park for a few days before resuming southward from the St. Marys area.

ovember 22 and 23 -- Two Lay Days in Fernandina -- Zero Miles

Pretty lazy lay days. We had a delicious breakfast with Dean and Susan

followed by a very productive shopping trip at the multi-vendor farmers market. We are looking forward to boiling the likes of home made sweet potato fettuccine -- the eggs and other filler replaced with the pureed potato.  Afternoon and evening plans were replaced by the threat of a storm so we hung out on ILENE with some cleaning and polishing and a quiet night at home. The rain came, and heavy, but not until about 2 am and continued until morning.
The second day was warm, with a very light shower in the evening. After bailing many gallons of rainwater out of the dink I visited the Amelia Island Museum of History,

located in the former county jail and took its 2 pm "eight flags" tour. The ninth flag, except that they did not have one, would have been that of the  matriarchal peaceful people, the Timucuans, who the Europeans wiped out. (The Seminoles, who married with escaped slaves -- slaves escaped to the south, to the Florida wilderness, where the Spanish left them alone -- came later, from the north.) The Spanish wiped out the Huguenot French saying: "not because they were French but because they were Protestants" and held the island several times, including, for a period after the Treaty Of Paris, which ended our war of independence. That treaty gave Florida to Spain for their help to the new republic against the British. Various pirate regimes were established. David Levy Yulee campaigned to have the Florida Territory become a state and was the first US senator from Florida (and the first Jewish senator in the US senate) when Florida was granted statehood in 1845. But Florida was the third state to secede, in 1861, so its first period as a US State was short lived. Yulee (a nearby town is named for him) also built Florida's first big railroad, which ran from Florida's Gulf Coast northeastward to Fernandina, a deep water port, to permit the transport of goods from the gulf states to the Atlantic without having to go all the way around the peninsula and the keys by boat. But it was finished just in time for the Civil War and sections of rail were removed by the Confederacy to be used in more strategic locations. You get the idea that no one really cared that much about Florida until tourism put it on the map. All of these "regime changes" were accomplished without a shot being fired.
Flagler offered to build a spur of his east coast railroad to Fernandina but the existing tourism on Amelia Island was so good in the 1890's that the town fathers declined his offer, much to their chagrin, because the tourism industry relocated to southern Florida until the 1990's when it returned here. What made the museum so enjoyable was our docent, Bobbie Fost, a history professor who knew and loved her subject, shown here under a depiction of the eight flags, in chronological order.

The museum has much more to offer so if you want more, ask me  -- or visit yourself.

After returning to the boat to pick up Lene, we dined on interesting dishes at "29 South" with Dean and Susan, and plan to head over to St. Marys tomorrow morning, less than seven miles.

November 20 and 21 -- Overnight from Hilton Head SC to Fernandina Beach FL -- 102 NM

Goodby Hilton Head.

The only tricky part of this passage was at the beginning. South is to the left on this chart:

The deep water is shown as white and shallower is blue. We came from Hilton Head (the knife point) through Calibogue Sound and then had to cross over through blue water to Tybee Roads, the entrance to the Savannah River (beside the fork). The Roads is well marked by red and green buoys (purple dots to you) on the passage to the sea, lower left. But not many buoys in that blue water and some three foot depths. The fact that the sands shift make the chart not that accurate and we went at low tide so this was the scary part but we never saw less than ten feet of water.
The annoying part was how totally wrong the weather forecast was. Lene has become a bit obsessed about checking many sources to get it right and they all said the wind was from the northwest, behind us, but only five to ten knots, so we expected to need the motor, reduced our planning speed, left at 11 am instead of three pm and planned to get to the breakwater of the St. Marys River just after daybreak the next day. But the wind was much stronger, 15 to 20 knots, and from 220 degrees, the very direction we had to go. We played with tacking for a few hours with main and small jib, making great time but not in the right direction, so the remaining distance to the entrance was not diminishing much and the time remaining to get there on these courses would get us there in the late afternoon of the next day. So we furled all sails and motored directly into the wind, with each wave reducing our speed when the bow slammed back into the water after being lifted by the oncoming seas. No heeling, no rolling, just pitching and slamming.

During my after-dinner off-watch, 7:30 to midnight, the seas laid down a bit, increasing our speed. When I relieved Lene, the winds had come far enough westerly, the predicted direction, that we could sail, close hauled. But I was not about to try to put up the main in the dark, alone. So shutting off the engine I only used the genoa and it gave us, at various times, as little as three knots and as much as six, which was enough. The long and the short of it is that we turned into the St. Marys River entrance and Cumberland Sound, about 15 minutes after daybreak. It was cold, no moon, lots of stars in the clear skies. Sunrise:

Our choices at the end were threefold: north to an anchorage behind Cumberland Island, west up the St. Marys River or south to Fernandina Beach on the back side of Amelia Island, whose paper plant runs day and night and lights up the area at night for miles.

We chose Fernandina because our friends Dean and Susan of Autumn Borne were here, but plan to visit the other two locations in the next week. We took a mooring, our first mooring since we left the Harlem on October 8, grabbing it at about 7:30 am. The next hour, before breakfast, was devoted to putting away all of the stuff needed for an overnight passage and lowering and pumping up the dinghy. We are in FLORIDA at last! But it is still cold.

Well what to do all day? Lene liked the idea of my going ashore and leaving her with the kitties. On our way through the entrance from the sea we passed Fort Clinch on the northern tip of Amelia Island. A good place to explore, but, I was to learn that it was a far piece. A little more than a mile eastward on Atlantic Avenue, which runs the width of Amelia Island to the Atlantic,and then, after entry to the State Park that contains the fort, three more miles north through beautiful woods with nature trails, camp sites, observation points, a fishing pier and bike trails. I hitched a ride after about half a mile, with a man who it turns out is a park employee.

The fort, like many, was built after the British had bombed our cities in the War of 1812, but unlike most of those in the northeast, it was the scene of historic events, though minor ones, in later wars. It has a commanding position at the mouth of the St. Marys River, through which we had sailed this morning.

It was not quite finished when the Civil War began and the Union Army scrambled to try to get it ready but it was taken by the confederacy, without a shot being fired and surrendered to the North by General Lee, who gave up all of Florida to concentrate his forces in more strategic areas elsewhere. Fearing attack by the Spanish, it was again prepared, somewhat, during the Spanish American War, but that was the type of war we have sought but not obtained ever since: a decisive victory and over in a few months. So Fort Clinch was again not ready in time, and also, the Spanish were in no position to attack. And it was a Coast Guard observation base in the World Wars. It became a State Park and the fort was restored somewhat by the Civilian Conservation Corps, during the depression.
You can see the larger bricks in the lower half of the construction before the Civil war, with the second story added later of smaller bricks.

What made the visit memorable was the performance of Henry Work, a talented artist, in costume as a non-combatant who showed us arms, the infirmary, the storehouse and played the fife. He is a volunteer and has also volunteered to do such a gig at the fort in the Dry Tortugas if the National Park Service accepts his generous offer. I hope they do.

I got to talking with fellow tourists, Norma and Pierre, a retired couple from Montreal who tour the US almost six months each year in their truck drawn trailer. Such nomads are a lot like us, driving land yachts, sharing camaraderie and information with fellow travelers but unlike sailors, they can see the interior of the nation too. They drove me to see their campsite ($25 per night, compared to our mooring at $20) and then back to the marina, where I dinked back to the boat after buying fish, per the Admiral's orders.

Aboard were Dean and Susan who had brought a bottle of red. We spent a pleasant few hours together before each couple cooked its own dinner on its own boat.











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November 18 -19 -- Beaufort to Harbor Town on Hilton Head and Lay Day There-- 23.2 NM

I had planned to leave Beaufort at 2 p.m. on the 18th and arrive in an anchorage off Cumberland Island in the St. Mary's, Florida area about 10 a.m. on the 19th. But the Admiral was wiser in light of predicted 29 degree temperature at night, so we made the short hop in the ICW to Hilton Head and put in to its Harbor Town Yacht Basin, in the Sea Pines Resort, where in addition to golf and a health club, they have heat.

My brother, who lives in the Atlanta area, brings his family here every year and it would have been great to see him here but it is a long drive, he comes in the summer and this is definitely not summer. The developers did a good job of saving the majestic old trees bearded with moss. Most of the housing is vacant for the off season now; this place must be a big traffic jam in season.

The trip was cold but uneventful. I had on many layers to keep warm, topped off by heavy weight foulies which keep out the wind and keep in the body warmth. We saw porpoises, but that is an everyday occurrence hereabouts. Later I learned the cause of the unusual, to me, activity of the porpoises in Big Tom Creek. They hunt for food in packs, herd the little fish together and than eat away. We were passed by this shrimper with his nets out to starboard.

I wonder how he can go straight with that much drag so far to starboard.  We passed Parris Island, the famous Marine base.We used the small jib to ease the engine except when transiting Port Royal Sound, where the wind was on our nose. It was a four hour trip with Lene in the cockpit with me after it warmed up a bit, for the second half.

The marina is a circular affair carved out of the land with an unofficial tourist lighthouse at its side. Four dollars to climb to its top.

Next, the other ILENE is in the center, from the top.

On the lay day I visited the health club, 0.9 miles walk from the marina, for my first workout since early October. I may have done a bit too much but the muscles will work in out through sailing. And I cleaned and waxed the port side rubrail, because we are port side to the dock here.
They have good restaurants here. We dined aboard our first night and at the Topside Restaurant in the marina, (Extraneous lights at top are reflections of the restaurants internal lights on their window -- you can see how calm it has become.)

We were joined by Joe and his wife Sol, from "Solshine" their 42 foot Catamaran (25 feet wide) tied up near us, after sharing a bottle of wine aboard the cat. There we met their dog and cat, but I forgot to take their photos; so next time. They are retired from teaching school and computers and recently sold their land base in suburban Virginia so Solshine is their only home.

I had met them in the laundry room at Beaufort, and now here. Their son is in medical school.

Our current plan is to leave mid day tomorrow and get to St. Mary's early the next day. So the jack lines, and preventers must be rigged in the morning and the harnesses and tethers gotten out, despite winds predicted to be so light that they will force this to be a motoring passage. But warm.

November 15 to 17 -- Three Lay Days in Beaufort SC -- Zero Naut. Miles

Here is that Ladies Island Bridge, first from land, closed, and then from ILENE at the dock, open, with just a few of the waiting cars at the extreme left.

It was cold but the third day has been warm but first windy and then rainy. The wind pushed us hard on the dock, separated by our somewhat flattened fenders. Several boats that were anchored out dragged into the marshes.
Lene used the Downtown Marina's courtesy car for groceries and to obtain this Mr. Heater Buddy,

which burns propane, producing carbon monoxide and hence is not as safe as using the electricity driven heat exchanger, but used when we are not at a dock and carefully, for small periods of time while we are awake, it can take the chill off in the evening and early morning.

I washed the boat, cleaned the starboard rub rail with acetone and waxed it; not much for three days, I confess. I also plotted a whole bunch of alternative courses between here and St. Mary's, where we want to arrive a few days before Thanksgiving for the festival there. All the way from a single 125 mile overnight passage to as many as four intermediate stops, each such shorter hop or combinations of them by the inside and outside routes. It all depends on the winds, as always. Each such potential course except the inside ones, consist of three segments: to get out to the sea, in the sea and coming in from the sea.
Beaufort is a very historical town and the county seat and site of a US District Courthouse (federal court), as well as a tourist town with many shops, galleries and restaurants. I checked out the mostly used bookstore with a huge selection of books by Pat Conroy, and an antique shop with a nice selection of antique nautical charts. The restaurant we found and patronized this time is Low Country Produce, located in the tile walled former post office and town hall. It has good reasonably priced innovative cuisine and sells groceries as well. We bought a jar of their pickled Jerusalem artichokes after having been given a few with our dinner.
I visited the John Mark Verdier House,

right on the main street, Bay Street, which survived the war and several fires since 1804. It is the site of the historical society but they offer only guided tours of the house, which they do not conduct for only one person, so I saved $10 and contented myself with viewing the public rooms.
I had never thought that the Union army "occupied" the South during the war, but they did occupy Beaufort, because it was a harbor from which, through port Royal Sound (where a multi-ship naval battle was fought) they could operate the blockade of the Confederacy to choke off revenues from the sale of Sea Isle cotton, the finest grade, to England. The white confederate residents fled leaving their property (slaves) behind, so missionaries came in to help them, as well as merchants, newspaper publishers, photographers and carpetbaggers of all types. Many of the buildings on Bay Street survived to this day and a diorama was created of them and,from photographs, of the others.

Robert Smalls was a slave who had been stationed on a cargo ship, the "Planter". He put his wife and family aboard and brought the ship to the Union forces and surrendered. For this daring heroic act he was given command of a Union warship, later granted prize money with which he built a house here in town and was elected several times to the US House of Representatives.

But perhaps the best part of this town was just walking among the old homes and the magnificent live oak trees with Spanish moss that grace them.

This last one is Bythewood (two sylables not three), built in the 18th Century by the sea captain of that name and perhaps our favorite. The owner, Heather Perl, came along, took this picture and invited us for dinner. Maybe on the way back we can take her up on that.

We finally met up again with Dean and Susan of "Autumn Borne", who have appeared in this blog several times since we met them, coincidentally here in Beaufort, in the spring of 2012.

We also met their friends (our new friends), Benny and Lisa of "Rhiannon," a 42 foot Catalina. We six shared a pot luck dinner and played  and a game of cards.

November 13 and 14 -- Charleston to Tom Point Creek to Beaufort SC -- 60.6 Miles

Charleston is like New York in at least one way: both were started at the confluence of two rivers, and the point of juncture is a park and called The Battery.

It is surrounded by lovely stately old homes.  But you can't sail by close because a sand spit extends out from the point.

A pretty easy day of it, 9:45 to 3 pm, motoring all the way in the ICW, which was wide and deep. Cold but not unpleasantly. We made a connection with the boat next to us in the Charleston Marina, "Kachina", a Hans Christian 33, with the most beautifully treated teak.

It is sailed by John and Joanna currently from Colorado but originally from Canada and Martha's Vineyard, respectively. We exchanged cell numbers and stayed close to them all day. We had originally selected Steamboat Creek for the midway anchorage to Beaufort, but Lene read about Tom Point Creek after it was recommended by Jim of "Goldie,"

a home made, steel, blue schooner. So the Admiral changed our destination. The two creeks are only about a mile apart.
The only obstacle today was one low bridge that opens every half hour from 9 to 3:30, only about 4.5 miles from the marina. We left when we were ready and the marina had sent a man to help a boat come in, so he stayed and helped us get off. But it was too late for the 10 am opening so we went very slow for the first 4.5 miles and got there in time for the 10:30 opening and still had time to get through Elliot Cut before its very swift tidal flow turned against us at 11:15.  After anchoring,  I lowered the dink and used it as a platform to get some rust stains out and polished some stainless, before being chased inside by the cold. A cold front with stronger winds passed during the period midnight to 2AM, but our anchor held.

Where is Tom Point Creek, you asked? Oh, it flows into the Wadmalaw River. It runs between Stann and Little Britton Islands. Still no help? Well you won't find Tom Point Creek in Google, except for information on the tides there, but it is about 20 feet deep and just wide enough for a single column of boats to anchor, and swing with the tidal change; a strong tidal current runs through it, For the curious, look in Google Earth at 32 degrees, 38.75 minutes North; 80 degrees, 16.86 minutes West.  It is bordered by salt marshes on both sides

and the book said -- and correctly so -- that dolphins swim up the creek, playful looking but looking for food.





In the morning all six of us had mango pancakes before setting off at about 9:30.

Joanne and Jim

Jim and Susan

Both John and Jim are very handy, the former a carpenter and boat builder, the latter a mechanic who built Goldie and who has lived aboard for 40 years. Both are professional delivery captains so they know something about sailing, in fact, a lot!
When we pulled the hook I did the math: with the Ladies Island Bridge, near Beaufort, closed from 4 to 6 and it being dark by six, we needed speed to get to that Bridge, from which is less than 1/4 mile more to the Downtown Marina of Beaufort. We supplemented the engine's power with the small jib and trimmed it on every point of sail during the twisting ICW to gain an extra knot or two. We slowed down only in the three "Cuts" between different rivers. The cuts were short but reported to be shallow, though no problem for us today. A passing shrimp boat, its wings out, surrounded by its posse:

 We made the 3 pm opening, with the grace of the kindly bridge tender. The hundred cars and trucks lined up waiting until 3:06 when we passed, may not have thought of her so kindly, though. I think it was Lene's feminine voice that prevailed upon her to wait for us.

We plan to be on docks, here and in Hilton Head, for several days, using dock power to provide heat until the polar vortex goes away.

November 10-12 -- Three Lay Days in Charleston -- Zero miles

A municipal manhole cover. Carol is Greek (or Latin?) for Charles and Polis, as in Annapolis or Metropolis, is city or town, hence Charleston, founded in 1670.

There are only three requirements if you want to cruise like we do, the other things are subsidiary. One is time. You need to be retired or independently wealthy or on a sabbatical or unemployed.  Second is money. Not a lot, but you need to buy a boat and maintain and provision it. And third, but no less important than the other two, is good health. On arrival here I thought we had run out of good luck with the third requirement. Lene was bent over with excruciating pain in her left knee. Every few steps was an attack of acute pain. We can't go on like this I thought. She can't climb over life lines and take big steps down from deck level to dock level or transfer between boat and dink.

I told her that we could haul the boat in a yard here in Charleston for the winter, fly home, get the medical problem fixed and come back here next spring and sail ILENE back to New York. The end of the adventure. But then I thought, before such a drastic decision let's get some medical advice. We consulted with our friend Bill, in Oriental, who is a retired Orthopedist. We took a cab to Roper Hospital where x-rays were taken by the ER doctor who gave us a referral for an ASAP visit with an orthopedist on their staff. The ER physician also gave Lene a soft splint, held in place by foam rubber and velcro, which essentially immobilized the knee, causing a very wobbly gait but the absence of the pain, and a prescription for anti inflammatory/pain killers. And these really helped a lot and Lene was walking, slowly but without pain, up to 3/4 of a mile each way. The orthopedist told her to "sail on," resting the knee when possible and using the pills and splint as needed. Her condition has a fancy name and is exacerbated by cold weather. Surgery, replacement and even cortisone can wait. Here is our sick bay, notice the flowers, and the gekko, to the right, below the clock, with short bits of weatherstripping hidden behind it so as not to mar the cherry wood. He will be a reminder of both our Carribean adventure and this trip.

Fortunately,we had spent a week here in the Spring of 2012 and seen most of the major sights, and can stop here again on the way home, because we did no sightseeing on this trip. We did laundry (it is free for boaters in this municipal marina, The Charleston Maritime Center, purchased a new Ipad to replace the one I ruined with salt water in the Chesapeake, and grocery shopped in Harris Teeters, a pretty good supermarket. We took a walk among the historic homes here

(notice my shorts; a warm day at last!) to

 a memorable lunch at Jestine's with great inexpensive southern cooking and named after a domestic servant who died in 1997 at age 112, the daughter of an ex slave and a Native American. Jestine worked for a southern family for many years and the restaurant is owned by a descendant of that family. The Reverend Brown of the nearby Methodist Church and the financial secretary of the church recommended the fried chicken which Lene enjoyed and I had, among other things, fried chicken livers, fried okra, corn bread with butter and honey and southern pecan pie.

And of course there is always boat work: ILENE had a bath, her water tanks filled, her fuel tanks poisoned to prevent the growth of microorganisms that clog the fuel lines, gluing back one of the buttons that hold plexiglass panels in place against the screens of the cafe doors with gorilla glue and the top of the percolator lid with JB Weld, a metal to metal glue that is remarkably strong.

But the two biggest problems required the help of Dr. Bill, who, I told him, enjoys fixing boats almost as much as fixing people's bones. As to the auto pilot, the most expensive component is the motor with linear drive -- the thinner rod to the left goes in and out of the thicker rod to the right, and pulls the rudder to steer the boat. The squeaking and beeping is a $ign of old age and thiS drive will have to be replaced $oon. Its kind of amazing that a guy who is 6' 3" could contort his body to reach this place to copy down the serial numbers. Replacing the unit will be harder, but once replaced this one will be rebuilt and used as a spare.

The other problem was the lack of charge into the starting battery. Its sole purpose is to power the starter motor which turns on  the engine. So it discharges only for less than a second each time, but it uses a huge amount of power when it does. And the problem was that it was not being charged by any of the solar panels, the engine or shore power. So the voltage had gradually reached the very low level of only 12 volts. Bill talked me through a series of tests, via phone, which showed that either ILENE does not have a needed "combiner" or that component is not working.  The short answer is that periodically, when we are (A) on shore power with the built in battery charger turned on, or (B) running the engine, we have to combine the starting battery with the "house bank" (which consists of 6 six volt golf cart batteries), so that the starting battery can get charged. This is easily done using a small red plastic key.  Last winter the old starting battery died because I did not know this and erroneously assumed that when I hooked the boat to shore power with the battery charger on, it was charging both batteries. So many lessons to be learned. Thanks again Bill.