Cruising with RISING TIDE

RISING TIDE’s Cruising Tips

2012-02-04T08:24:00.000-08:00

Pictures: Miami-Dade police officers training on the bike trails in Oleta River State Park; our new friends Dave and Jessica and their boat KIANDA coming over for happy hour (they are now in the Bahamas for the rest of the winter); sign seen on the bike rack in Key Biscayne; bottlenose dolphin who swam alongside with two others for about 20 minutes on our cruise from Key Largo to Marathon; colorful fish Ken caught off of Shell Key -- he let it go when we didn't get another to make a lunch

We’ve had a pleasant 10 days or so since Pete and Eri left.Ken got the transmission running fine again, by changing the fluid twice. But no real adventures to report, so it seemsa good time to report on our challenges, observations and tips.

Keeping a reliable water supply has been a regular chore. Wehave a water tank that is undersized for living aboard and using water 24/7. Wehaven’t needed to get fuel since just after Christmas and fuel docks don’tparticularly like dispensing water without a fuel purchase. Our alternativesare finding city docks that have water or taking water jugs ashore in ourdinghy and filling them. Coconut Grove city docks provide water; water spigotsfor the jugs were found on Elliot Key in Biscayne National Park, Key LargoCounty Park, Oleta River State Park, and Marathon in the Keys. Other anchoragesin the Miami and Upper Keys areas, while wonderful spots to enjoy wildlife orget a great Cuban meal, were lacking water entirely. Solutions would be to geta water-maker (makes fresh water from seawater but is expensive and is plaguedwith filter problems) or adding an additional water tank or changing the one wehave.

Flying bugs in this area of Florida seem to be limited to afew areas in closer to the mangroves that have no-see-ums. We have mostly beenable to sit out at night or walk beaches during the day with no flyingdisturbances. We have screens and do use them at night, but I think it’s just ahabit formed in New England. Crawling bugs almost never make it out to ourboat, thank goodness, but we did have one or two spiders that eluded us for amonth. Ken thinks he has recently gotten them both.

Our bike transportation has been working out well. We havesplit our shoreside traveling about 50-50 between walking and cycling. We havefound some good bike trails and Ken even got a quick adjustment on his bikefrom a trailside mechanic set up in Oleta River State Park. We rented a car fortwo days in Coconut Grove, got lost a few times, picked up a large groceryorder, and met a nice rental agent who moved down here from Boston aftercollege. We’ll probably not need a car again; we usually get groceries into abackpack each and a bike-rack load each and return to the boat looking likehobos. It’s the case of beer that is the killer!

Speaking of hobos, we have been in two or three anchorages latelythat each has a dozen or so “bumboats”, which are (sometimes but not always)poorly maintained boats with singles or couples living on them and lots ofgrass growing along the waterlines. They don’t usually move their boats andtravel back and forth to shore in rowboats. The same attributes that attract usto an anchorage is good for them: a water supply and a good place to leave yourdinghy when ashore. We find good guys and bad guys (the drunk ones) and haveexperienced their strong loyalty to each other and to “their” harbors. You cantell they are eking out an existence; they are mostly happy and talkative andenjoying the good boating life.

Our evening’s entertainment has been pretty meager – a fewdinners out (more often we eat lunch out and save money), an evening picnic andconcert one time, watching recent episodes of TV shows that we can get on thelaptop with wifi, listening to music CDs or our ipod. We play games every once and a while, and Kenhas recently dominated in Mexican Train dominos. After Pete’s visit we arefeeling fat and happy because he brought us a large supply of DVDs. Now we canwatch movies and only have to charge up our laptop first; for internet TV wehave to have our wifi source (our cell phone) charged too, and we have to watchthe use of gigabytes. It has us on the verge of our technical knowledge limit.But we’ll still be following the latest NCIS and Downton Abbey shows which weare hooked on.

As to our main relaxation activities (besides reading andwatching wildlife): I am still working on my banjo licks and my slides,hammer-ons and pull-offs. I’m up to page 173 in my tutorial. It definitelyhelps to have a hobby to turn to, to fill in the longer journeys or the windydays when we don’t go to shore. Ken is back into fishing after getting advicefrom a neighboring female boater who has had a lot of luck. He is gettingbait-shrimp and pulling in interesting small fish. He intends to work his wayup to the larger fish by using a smaller one as a live bait.

We traveled yesterday with Peggy and Jack, friends with aSea Ray 28 BLUE DOLPHIN, down the bayside of the Keys, watching the dolphinsswim along with us at 10 knots. We arrived in Marathon, got on a waiting list fora mooring, and anchored about ¾ mile from the city marina outside of the largemooring field. We’ll probably stay here in this cruiser-friendly harbor for 10 days or so and then continue onto Key West.

More Miami

2012-01-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

Pictures: Ken in our small kayak that we carry onboard, tooting around No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne; Florida Lighthouse, Bill Baggs State Park, also where No Name Harbor is; outside the German Pub on Lincoln St. in Miami Beach where we watched the Patriots playoff game (interesting that they face some of the TVs to the outside tables); Pete and Eri Mico on the flying bridge of RISING TIDE; Coconut Grove street scene, with sailors returning their boats via sidewalk. There is an Olympic Training Center for sailing in CG.

We finished up our time in Key Largo by biking to JohnPennecamp State Park. We snorkeled there and checked out the hiking trails. Andthen we headed back up to Coconut Grove and got in good position to pick up ourson Pete and his girlfriend Eri for their visit starting on January 19^th(Pete’s birthday).

We’ve been in the Miami area for so long we’ll be the onesgiving advice on where to go and what to do! We have found the best hardware store (ShellLumber), the best gelato (some Argentine place), the best bike trails (BillBaggs State Park), and lots of other bests! The hardware store owner took us under hiswing and we got invited on a boat ride up the Miami River, right down themiddle of the city, at night so we could see the buildings all lit up. We haddinner in the city and then screamed back over the black water as only a localcould do.

We had a shared dinner with the Mahoneys (from Hull) at theCoconut Grove condo they are condo-sitting at this week. Our friends fromKIANDA joined us. We also had a picnic supper on the lawn at The Barnacle andthe Mahoneys joined us for the live music there. Before our Massachusettsguests arrived we installed another solar panel and got caught up on laundryand grocery shopping.

Pete and Eri had great weather for their visit. The slightlychilly weather we had been having became warmer and it was clear and sunnyevery day. Some highlights of our time together:

--A birthday celebration with gelato on their first nighthere

--A trip across Biscayne Bay and a stop at a sandbar to wadearound and look for sealife

--Dinner at the Boaters Grill in our Key Biscayne anchorage,serenaded at our table with live accordion and violin music (it was good!),sharing a whole large fried Red Snapper and dancing

--Snorkeling and sunbathing on the beach at Bill Baggs StatePark

--Getting Pete and Eri on our folding bikes for a ride totour the lighthouse at the park

--Seeing some wildlife, including loggerhead turtles off ofKey Biscayne and fish swarming and jumping in the entrance to Miami harbor

--Eri helped us find Lincoln Rd. in Miami Beach (aclosed-off-street pedestrian mall of gigantic Miami proportions) where wewatched the Patriots win their way to the Superbowl (!!) and had dinner at oneof the sidewalk cafes

We said good-by to Pete and Eri yesterday as they climbedinto a cab in North Miami (after a short boat trip north to show them some ofthe ICW in the area). We had said good-by to Dave and Jessica on KIANDA the daybefore, as they are heading to the Bahamas. The Mahoneys are done theircondo-sitting stint and will move on to other areas of Florida. So now we areback on our own. It’s a little quiet. Not boring, however, as we seem to have a problem with our transmissionthat has cropped up in the late afternoon yesterday. Stay tuned; our fingersare crossed as we hope it is a minor problem with an easy solution!

Quiet Time

2012-01-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

Pictures: Everything has to come by boat including your own portable domino table, Boca Chita in Biscayne National Park; view from the top of the lighthouse on Boca Chita; Peter and Diane Mahoney visiting us in Key Largo; the lawn and extra comfy chairs at the Barnacle in Coconut Grove; Dwayne Wade on the Metromover in Miami

The past week or so (we should call it a “blog time”) hasbeen peaceful and uneventful. Our weather has been sunny, with calm winds, and flatseas. But we’ll try and remember some activities that are worth reporting!

We started this time with replacing some underwater zincsthat we need to keep maintained. There is one on the propeller shaft and one onthe hull. The water temps in Coconut Grove were warm, and Ken was able to makea few dives in shallow water and attach them. Also while in “The Grove” we visited RalphMunroe’s house, built in the late 1880s and now a state park. Ralph was a boatdesigner from the Northeast but spent a lot of time in the Biscayne Bay area inthe winter, back when there wasn’t much there but a rooming house and a postoffice. The park has the most comfortable chairs we’ve ever sat in, set up on abeautiful lawn looking out into the bay. We learned that there were fresh watersprings in the bay until Florida decided to start draining the Everglades.

After two nights back at No Name Harbor in Key Biscayne, anda bus trip to Miami, we have mostly been in Biscayne Bay National Park,stopping at islands that are 7-10 miles apart. So that means not using too muchfuel, but running the engine enough to heat water for showers. At Boca Chita we joined a crowd of mostly familieson a Friday night, camping, playing music, setting up domino tables and andrunning generators. We met two women from Key Biscayne who came out to camp andwho knew a lot of the history of the area. This island reminded us of BumpkinIsland back in Boston Harbor.

The next night we stopped at Elliot Key Harbor. It wasshallow and we couldn’t get into the harbor with our boat, so we anchored aways outside and took our dinghy in. It was just as well that we weren’tstaying as there were more families and more Cuban music. Fun to watch for awhile but we were in the mood for a quiet evening.

One more day and night in the National Park, on an AngelfishCreek side channel, convinced us that we were ready for more company. It wastoo peaceful! We did have the diversion of catching a Spanish Mackerel in thebay this day; and four Florida Environmental Police boats buzzed us repeatedly,looking for a fishing boat that had gotten out of control and rammed into themangroves somewhere in one of the side channels. (The fishing boat was finallyfound and an injured fisherman was airlifted out by helicopter.) But other thanthat and an awesome kayak route we found in one of the smaller channels, it wastime for civilization. We needed food, water for our tanks and gasoline for ouroutboard, so we set off for Key Largo.

So right now we are anchored in a protected harbor on thewest side (bayside) of Key Largo; it’s called Tarpon Basin. Key Largo is thefirst key you get to when driving from Miami to The Keys. There are about 8-10liveaboard boats here—boats that probably don’t leave the basin much—and aboutthe same number of cruisers like us. There’s a town dock and a park with acommunity center on shore. Plus we have a shopping center and lots of souvenirshops and diving companies in this area. We had a visit yesterday from PeterMahoney, a lobsterman from Hull that we know, and his wife Diane. They broughtthe lobsterboat down south last winter but this year decided to drive.

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

Pictures: Tammy and Heidi in our cockpit; Jessica, Ken and Dave on New Year's Eve; motorcycle visitors to Dania Beach; Tammy and Little Havana regular (He offered us $20 if we could stump him on state capitols, presidents and dates, or World Series winners in the last 80 years. We couldn't!); our view of Coconut Grove, with spoil islands on the left and right

It seems like a good omen to be celebrating the new year inwarm waters, watching the fireworks over Miami and the Chinese candle lanternsover our anchorage in Coconut Grove! I’m not sure how they do it but thecandles floated up over the harbor and into the night sky before extinguishing.At the same time the half-moon was setting down over the skyline of high-rise buildings.We cooked a dinner on our boat for ourselves and Jessica and Dave from KIANDA.They brought a great potato salad, a salmon appetizer and champagne formidnight. We both contributed desserts so we ate well!

We’ve had a great holiday week, good weather and a visitfrom Tammy for 5 days starting on Christmas Eve. With Tammy we hopped aroundfrom Dania Beach to Miami Beach to Key Biscayne and back. Tammy likes the beachand bicycling and we did both, as well as swimming off the boat on one hot day.Tammy also speaks very good Spanish so on a side trip, by bus, to Little Havanain Miami she was an interpreter.

While in Key Biscayne we met Tammy’s boyfriend Mike Mangan,his mom and step-dad. They drove down from the Orlando area where Mike wasvisiting. We had a good time getting to know them, taking them out for a boatride in Biscayne Bay and serving barbequed shrimp and steak kabobs before theyleft.

After Tammy left it was a little too quiet and lonely butthe next day we moved back to Oleta River State Park and caught up onend-of-year paperwork, read our mail (that was delivered by Tammy), and set upour next plans. We had never been to Coconut Grove and KIANDA was here waitingfor a mechanic to help them with an engine problem. We decided that they coulduse moral support. This is a section of Miami – in fact Miami City Hall isright here on the waterfront in a building Pan-Am Airlines used to use as aterminal for a major seaplane operation. There are many restaurants, shops andparks. As we arrived we saw the last small boats being towed in after aweek-long regatta for youth sailors from 23 countries! Just the kind of placewe could explore and enjoy for a couple of days.

Our anchorage is outside of the mooring area, near a spoilisland. The spoil islands are places where they have dredged and left thematerial (sand in this case) as a new island. These have been here for a whileand have palm trees, bushes and grasses on them. Signs on them indicate thatthey have been recently cleaned up and are being incorporated into the harboras recreation areas.

We will hang around Miami and Biscayne Bay for a while; ourson Pete will be visiting in about two weeks with his girlfriend. We don’t mindcycling from one resort town to another and then to a National Park!

Tying up loose ends: a website for the Thanksgiving Dinnerat St. Mary’s Georgia is at http://cutterloose.com/?p=2049 Ken is standing in the foreground of thepicture of the buffet table with all the food (click on the pic if you don’tsee him); Heidi is sitting in the background of the second picture of peopleeating.

South Florida Vibes

2011-12-21T14:04:00.000-08:00

Pictures: the beach at Oleta River State Park, North Miami, with bilingual signage; Heidi and Digna Meija in Boca Raton; flowers blooming in Stuart (I have no idea what they are but they were pretty); kayaking in the mangroves at Oleta River

They are trying to keep some of the natural wonder inFlorida – the slogan for the State Parks is “the Real Florida”. It isworking, to some extent. We are anchored right now in a bay just a quarter milefrom the Intracoastal Waterway where there are mangroves three-quarter of theway around us. Ken is catching small fish and we are watching other thinnerfish jumping clear out of the water. This is the Oleta River State Park, Florida’s “largest urban park”. Justbehind the mangroves rise a row of 25 or 30 story buildings. Last night we werevisited by a huge Met Life blimp, the third different blimp we’ve seen thisweek. They must have a schedule so the blimps don’t bump into each other!

So we have alternately busy days and quiet days. It dependson the day of the week, as weekend days are busy everywhere you go here. And itdepends on where we choose to anchor.

In Fort Lauderdale we anchored in Lake Sylvia. We have beenhere before and we know it is out of the wind and good holding ground. When wearrived it was very full of anchored boats. We were on the far side, close toshore because of the lack of anchoring room. We headed out to a favorite“watering hole”, a bar called the Southport. However, our dinghy route in thecanal system was blocked by police boats. We tied up to a city dock about threeblocks from the Southport and found that there was a car in the canal near thecity dock with a body in it. (The nextday the paper reported that it was a 52 year old man and the car was a whiteMercedes convertible. No other information about how it got there.)

The following day a woman came out onto the back lawn of herlarge house on the edge of Lake Sylvia and asked us to move. She was havingguests later in the day and we evidently were not something she wanted herfriends to have to see! No use in making an issue out of it; we moved. Anyway,most of the boats that were here the day before had left, probably because itis good weather to cross to the Bahamas.

On our third night in Lake Sylvia we had a car alarm orhouse alarm going off almost the entire night. It’s time to leave!

In the past ten days we have visited with several friends.We stopped in Stuart, which is near Rio where we were in our last blog. Wecalled Tom Coleman, a Marblehead friend who now has homes in the Stuart areaand Newburyport. He also has a boat in Florida. We had a good time catching upon his news. Stuart also has a very nice marina with inexpensive moorings forrent and very clean showers and a laundry. The city is quite interesting; wewill try and stop there and stay a little longer on our way back.

We visited with Olga Nohe in Delray Beach. She picked us upnear where we had anchored and took us to her house. She and Brian moved there10 years ago from Cohasset. We had a great visit and enjoyed hearing about theNohe "children" and getting an update on the new headphone business Brian is involvedin, working with ”50 Cent”, the rapper. The next day, in Boca Raton, I biked to Florida Atlantic Universitywhere Digna Meija, a former co-worker at Boston University, now works. Sheshowed me around the Engineering Dept. and we got caught up on what’s beenhappening since we saw her three years ago.

In Lake Sylvia we found Jessica and Dave, new friends thatwe last saw just before Halloween when we were all in Chesapeake City andheading south. It was good to see them and find out how they have been. Theyare from New Brunswick and this is their first trip down the East Coast.

We expect to stay in the mangroves and quiet state parks aslong as we can before we head back towards Ft. Lauderdale to meet Tammywhen sheflies in there and has a five-day visit with us. We have our kayak off the topdeck and have used it every day. Thereis a rental place here for bikes and kayaks so we find their orange kayakscircling our bay off and on. There are canals and small rivers to explore, anda university campus on the next peninsula has bike trails and nature trails.The state park beach is beautiful and the water here is aqua-colored. We’ll bevisiting Miami with Tammy; it’s just 10 miles from where we are now. Of coursethere are the South Beach and Little Havana highlights to catch, but we alsohope to get to the Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne to balance out thecity with the “Real Florida”!

Slowing Down the Pace

2011-12-11T12:12:00.001-08:00

Pictures: Ken's new bike, in front of the Vero Beach City Marina showers/laundry/lounge building; our neighbor in Rio, a great blue heron looking pale in the flash; our boat at the Rio dock; kids playing in the surf at Vero Beach (Christmas can't seem to come soon enough down here -- they began playing Christmas music on the radio before Thanksgiving)

We have spent the past 10 days mainly in two places: VeroBeach, on the Florida coast, and the Rio section of Jensen Beach, on the St.Lucie River. This is so different from the schedule we had in getting tomid-coast Florida where we would be in 8 different places in 10 days and atfirst it seems that we are slacking. But no, we are in warm, mild weather andwe don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time in the next few weeks.

Vero Beach City Marina is chock full of boats at theirmooring field and their marina. We ask to be at a mooring and we are raftedwith a 42 ft. Nordhaven from New Hampshire. Our neighbors are a nice retired couple wholive in Boxford, Mass. We are also following a group of boats from Annapolis,Maryland, who we first met in Cumberland Island. One of the “ring-leaders” ofthis group is a couple we met three years ago on a Tayana 37 (like we had atthe time). Mark and Julie introduced us to the crews of three other boats andwe hung out with them quite a bit at Vero Beach. Mark and Julie will need tohead back to Annapolis, by car, as Julie (an Englishwoman) is having herinterview and test for U.S. citizenship in two weeks. The others are headed for the Bahamas – they mayalready be there as I type this. So our newfound group won’t be with us afterVero Beach; we end our stay there with a big Happy Hour party at Waldo’s on thebeach side of town.

Ken and I spent quite a lot of time walking and alternatelybikeriding while we were in Vero (and also in Titusville earlier) since we justhave one bike. So Ken gave in and decided he would like to get a folding bikeof his own. He now has a shiny black Schwinn with a comfy seat and coolergonomic grips. We had a long ride back from the bike shop in the downtownpart of Vero after he bought it, over a bridge, into the wind, but it was agood test ride. Another ride took us toa town park and beach where we took a long beach walk, only the third time we’vebeen on a beach on this trip.

Before we left Vero we introduced ourselves to Steve, a soloboater in a trawler at the dock. He’s from Duxbury (it does help with meetingpeople when you can read the town they’re from on the stern of their boat). He’sdone the trip to Florida from Duxbury eleven times!

In Rio we have friends we met on our first Florida cruise whoget us a space at a dock where a marina and restaurant used to be. Hurricaneshad helped to demolish the buildings, which have been recently cleared off theland. Other problems have kept the dock space pretty much empty. We join ourfriends (working on fixing up a “new” boat they have just bought) and 5 or 6other boats (mostly rehab projects). There is also a launch here that is usedto access a schooner, anchored out in the St. Lucie River. The schooner is aformer freight hauling boat that worked in the Buzzards Bay and Islands area,in Massachusetts. It was named LILY OF TISBURY and is wooden, and not very old.It is now just called LILY and has Maine as a hail. The current owners take outpaying customers and leave from Stuart and surrounding towns. Today they haveit at a festival on Hutchinson Island nearby.

So we are running errands in a car for the first time on ourcruise, with our hosts Chris and Kevin Buckley. We got to meet Kevin’s brotherwho is visiting and is taking side trips each day for serious bird watching. Hetwice rented an airplane to get him to isolated spots to find birds that havebeen elusive. We finished a few projects that we just didn’t get to before weleft home in October. We ate some good meals with the Buckleys. And we sat outa torrential rainstorm over the past 36 hours that left our dinghythree-quarters full of water (that’s a lot of water!) and a lot of stuff wet inour boat because somehow several large windows were open during the first nightof the storm. We officially had more than 7.5 inches of rain (the report came inbefore the storm had ended). It’s thefirst daytime rain we’ve had in six weeks.

We are still loving the wildlife here in centralFlorida. We saw manatees surfacing by our boat in Vero Beach, we have fishjumping clear out of the water in the dock area we are at now, and there is a greatblue heron sitting on a piling that’s 12 feet from our stern each evening. We have a new Audubon Florida guide now tohelp us learn more about what we are seeing

More Fascinating Nature, More Friendly Humans

2011-12-02T05:34:00.000-08:00

Pictures: Rowers in Eau Gallie basin at sunset; PISCATOR leaving St. Mary's alongside us (the owners are from Vermont and took 18 years to finish the boat after buying a bare hull);large manatee backside, as big as a dinghy, as it does the "dead-man's-float" near the dock in Titusville; view from our boat of the St. Augustine waterfront with the moon about to set overhead (we were very close - this is not a telephoto shot); punch servers at the day-before-Thanksgiving party in St. Mary's (we lost all the pictures of the yummy food and boaters waiting to eat, sorry!)

Thanksgiving Dinner in St. Marys, Georgia was so much better than we had expected. We were assigned to cook a vegetable side dish, and each other boat crew was bringing one side-dish (or dessert or relish, etc.). Several townspeople cooked turkey and made gravy and stuffing and it all was assembled at the Riverview Hotel. Being a hotel, the seating was very comfortable, the buffet tables held warm and delicious food, and the camaraderie between boaters was an added dimension. We were about one-third down the line (there were estimated to be 210 people served).

The night before there had been a dock party with Painkillers Punch mix and ice provided (BYO for the rum). We could have attended an oyster roast after the party but opted out. Other gatherings were held in the days before we arrived. And there was an organizational VHF “meeting” each morning of Thanksgiving Week that you could listen in on and contribute to from your radio on your boat. It works like an old-fashioned party-line with announcements and requests and things for sale.

We met a couple from Scituate (who are traveling with two other boats from Scituate), a couple from Marion, and people from Vermont and Maryland, our tablemates at dinner. Just before dinner we were set-upon by a drifting sailboat in a difficult windy situation in the river. We tried to get another anchor down for the boat since the crew was ashore. They eventually got back and straightened things out but then in moving to a new spot to anchor, they went aground for several more hours. In the end we got to talk with the crew and they were a very nice family from Jacksonville, Florida. The mom is a veterinarian and their 13 (ish) year-old son was outgoing and not too embarrassed by all the commotion.

Since Thanksgiving we have bought fresh bread and veggies at the Fernandina Beach Farmer’s Market, have kayaked to a Jacksonville City Park – an island with walking trails and fishing docks, have sat with cruising people and tested micro brews while watching the Patriots in St. Augustine, have watched manatees lazily feeding on underwater grasses in Titusville, and have enjoyed the company of a couple from Middleton, Mass whom we’ve seen at several stops on the Waterway this week (we chatted some again last night when they stopped at our boat, moored next to their boat in Titusville). We also crossed paths with a family from Marshfield who have brought their two children along and are homeschooling while they sail and cruise.

Today we ended up in a wonderful “basin” just off of the Indian River section of the ICW. The area is called Eau Gallie and is part of Melbourne. The basin is part of a river but there isn’t too much current and we are out of the wind. It’s not isolated; there are nice homes on the edges of the basin and two quiet marinas, but there are only 3 boats anchored in here and the wildlife is plentiful. One pelican is persistently dive-bombing into the water, several osprey are calling from rooftops and mast tips, a manatee is about to surface near our boat, and lots of different wading birds, the long-legged kind, are flying around us. There’s a park full of palm trees that we’ll dinghy to and walk through, back at the entrance to the basin. I haven’t seen any other boats moving in here except our dinghy and another dinghy. Then all of a sudden at 4:30 pm a rowing shell with four rowers and a coxswain passes us, then two eight-man shells. They continue to pass us every 10 minutes or so as they go up and down the river. We find another group of eight practicing on a dry-land rowing machine in the park. There is a banner there indicating that they are from Melbourne High School. This is a great stop!

Looking to Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

Pictures: View from Up the Creek, as we have lunch in Hilton Head; Jessie, Roy and Bertha bringing groceries back to their boat in Charleston (Ken arrived with groceries the same way about 45 min later); CALIBOGUE waiting to leave for Daufuskie Island with commuters; horses on Cumberland Island

It seems to be time for counting up, our blessings and other mathematical accountings. We are very fortunate to have good health so far, the time to travel and see the East Coast up-close-and-personal, and to have good support back “home”. Justin is doing a good job watching our house, raking leaves, and providing tech support over the phone. Tammy has sent us some great music on CDs that entertain us and is planning on connecting with us in Florida next month. Pete calls a lot and fills us in on the Patriots’ exploits and other news.

Our numbers so far, in miles traveled, are about 1150. We have been gone for 6 weeks. We have put 180 hours, approximately, on the engine. If we cover about the same distance as our trip three years ago, which was 4400 miles, then we are one-quarter of the way, not counting stops for R & R.

Our time in Charleston was fun, staying at a marina there for a night, and connecting up with friends Roy and Bertha who arrived there a day before us on their boat. They had a visitor from Vermont, a niece who flew in for a week to sail with them and we all hung out together. Just before leaving, the sports field next to the marina was the staging area for a jazz procession, New Orleans style, honoring a local man who was important in the music scene and who had died recently. A large number of people turned out and the jazz that the musicians played while processing to a church for the funeral was wonderful.

We also stayed at a marina in Hilton Head Island; up to now we had anchored every night except in Charleston and HHI (and the free dock in Elizabeth City). The dockmaster loaned us an extra bike and we rode in a circle from the west side of the island, to the beach on the east, then down to the south and over a bridge and back, about 15 miles counting a few side trips. The marina property has a pub,” Up the Creek” and we were regular patrons for two days. And we got to talk with the crew of a 1919 wooden 60 ft. ferry that travels regularly to Daufuskie Island (home to some of the South Carolina Gullah people).

We’ve been in Georgia for the past 4 days, today on the border with Florida. In the area we traveled through, Georgia has lots of marshland, sea islands, and wildlife. We continue to see eagles almost every day, porpoises, osprey, blue herons, pelicans, egrets and today we are near Cumberland Island where there are wild horses grazing on grasses growing along the high tide line. We stopped at the National Park Service Monument Fort Frederica two nights ago and we were told that if the battle that took place there in the early 1700s had not gone well for the British we might all be speaking Spanish right now!

We will be having Thanksgiving in St. Mary’s, Georgia, two miles from Cumberland Island and three miles from Fernandina Beach, Florida (by boat). Some of the townspeople prepare turkey for any boaters in the area, and the boaters bring dishes they have prepared, all coordinated by a volunteer committee. There may be 150 people there. We hope our family and friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we’ll be back in touch in December.

Easy Traveling in the Carolinas

2011-11-15T07:43:00.000-08:00

Pictures: the local doctor picks a name out of the hat for a raffle gift at a small pharmacy grand opening in Oriental, NC; surfer in the distance at Wrightsville Beach and a sanderling in the foreground; the beach at Capers Island, about 15 miles north of Charleston, SC; a view across the marsh grass at our last anchorage before Charleston

Finally I can write about something other than the weather. Because we are having a spell of less wind, though it is slightly colder than normal, it is easy to be outside without the windchill. The traveling is pretty straightforward. The Intracoastal Waterway is almost always straight, and the channel has been dredged in the difficult places; it doesn’t hurt that we have less draft with our Mainship than we had with our sailboat (just need 3’ or more of water) and we can go under some bridges without waiting for them to open. During this week while we were meeting no obstacles, we know of two boats that did go aground. Evidently the full moon was causing some unusually low water at low tide. Ken created a big wake for one of the boats, after the owner suggested it, and it worked in freeing the sailboat from the mud.

One of our best days was the stretch of ICW going through the Marine’s Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. There are maneuvers and training sessions in boats and helicopters to watch while you travel through. We anchored in a basin near the chopper takeoff/landing area and had time to slowly cook some ribs which we had for dinner with a great salad and caught a beautiful sunset. Then the Marine’s started night practice on takeoffs and landings in the helicopters. It was interesting to watch and nice to know they are not slacking in their training. They were done by 9:30 pm so it didn’t interrupt our sleep. There were 35 transient boats in the basin that night.

We got ashore at Wrightsville Beach, NC and walked to the ocean beach to see dozens of surfers catching some good sized waves. The young people there are evidently very outdoorsy as we saw one guy pedaling to the beach with his board under his arm and one girl with her board and her friends walking back over a bridge after surfing. The grocery clerk told us the locals enjoy doing without cars when they can. There is a very popular “Loop” that is 2.5 miles long and circles around near the beach for jogging.

Another walk we took was on Capers Island, South Carolina, where the state has set up a pier and dock for dinghies and you can walk to the ocean side of the island. There were lots of mosquitos but we moved fast and at the beach the light breeze kept them from landing. This area of South Carolina is pretty much wilderness with saltmarsh grass and only a few real land areas (“Low Country”), so a dock and a path were appreciated.

We are approaching Charleston, SC. We hope to sightsee a little, do some laundry and grocery shopping, and maybe get to see more of the boaters that we only chat with in passing. Most boaters stop here for a day or two and stay at one of the two city marinas.

In Rural North Carolina with No Phone

2011-11-06T14:46:00.000-08:00

Pictures: North Carolina Welcome Center (on Dismal Swamp Canal) staff on Halloween; Alligator River Bridge, taken from the bridge of our boat; Ken catching up on the news at a wine bar in Elizabeth City; bald eagle on top of middle (dead) tree -- we saw about 6 eagles this day in the Dismal Swamp Canal

It’s no surprise that there is no phone coverage in this area, as there are very few homes, roads, electric lines, or any other sign of civilization. We are beset with bad weather, again, mostly high NE winds, but also some heavy rain. We are tucked into Slade Creek, maybe 30 miles inside the Outer Banks. The closest of the Banks seems to be Ocracoke, although we will never see that because when the weather gets better we will take a zig-zag route south and west toward Cape Fear and the NC/SC state line.

To entertain ourselves in this area (did I say no phones….no internet…) we have a lot of reading material, and we are listening to Channel 16 on the VHF, where there have been a few interesting dramas unfolding with tow boats who can’t find their targets, marina staff directing a boat into an invisible dock in the dark, etc. We also have AM and FM radio so can catch a college ball game or a NPR radio show now and then along with lots of country music! We did have radio coverage of the Patriots-Steelers game last weekend.

Since our last blog we have passed through Norfolk with all its huge Navy vessels and have transited the Dismal Swamp Canal, one of our favorite parts of this journey. We spent two nights of free dockage in Elizabeth City, NC. At this stop we met quite a few other boaters, including sailors from North of Montreal, two boats from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a sailboat single-hander, from Connecticut but who has Marblehead ties (he worked at Hood Sailmakers back in his younger days). We got invited on a tour of a trawler one night on an evening walk. The boat was only 3 feet longer than our boat, but had much more room due to its layout and not having side decks to get to the bow. When you’re sitting across the main salon from the owner and he is about 15’ away it is very unusual.

We are using up all of our cold-weather clothes, which we were well supplied with knowing how cold it was in November on our first trip. Warm slippers and hoodies are prized possessions on these cold mornings when we are not going anywhere. The main cabin heats up well when the sun is out; I’ve taken to calling it the Solarium. But when it’s cloudy and rainy it is more of a challenge to enjoy our space. We drink lots of tea and cocoa mid-day and have warm lunches.

Yesterday in our isolated creek anchorage I got Ken to launch the dinghy from where we store it in the cockpit and I took a long row into the side creeks. They were almost without wind even though the reports from the main river were of 20-25 knot winds and gusting higher. In almost an hour of rowing – in an inflatable dinghy this would be only about 2 miles covered – I saw one building, a fishing camp with dock, and a few birds and some jellyfish (freshwater ones?). I also drifted for a while. It was very relaxing.

As I post this we have just reached Oriental, NC, on the Neuse River after a 30 mile trip. There were a lot of boats out today since the weather was relatively better, but it was still a fairly rough and windy trip. The distinctive motor yacht Black Knight, an Eldridge-McGuiness design which we are familiar with, passed us en route.

Virginia and Six Hours of Warm 80-Degree-Weather

2011-10-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

Pictures: pumpkins in the city park, Chesapeake City; view of a packed Back Creek, Annapolis, from a nature area with hurricane heights marked on the post; Ken changing oil in our Yanmar; banjo practice on a rainy day

We got treated to a Canadian “delicacy” in Chesapeake City. A young boating couple we met, from New Brunswick, brought out a bottle of Sortilege which is Canadian whiskey and maple syrup, and we sipped it while standing in the town park warmed from kettle-fires and lighted pumpkins. This is probably one of those memories that will stay with us for a long time! We had already sampled the food and beers of two restaurants that were within walking distance of the park and dock.

The next day we left early, just after the Canadians who are poking into small rivers for the next week so we probably won’t see them again for a while, and after the large skipjack BIGSBEE from Baltimore that shared the dock with us but that we didn’t get to see in the daylight. We got to Annapolis that day and anchored in Back Creek, a great place if you can find room. Immediately we got a phone call from Rick, who also spent time with us in Chesapeake City, asking us to join him and his crew at a bar near the main harbor. We cleaned up, got our dinghy into the water from where we store it when traveling, and went ashore so we could walk the 4 or 5 blocks across Eastport (the east part of Annapolis) and a bridge, to meet them.

Other times our journey is a more solitary one, and we are now three days out of Annapolis and have anchored in Solomon’s, MD, the St.Jerome Creek (not sure what town was there), and now Deltaville, VA without too much interaction with other boaters. Most of the travelers heading south left Annapolis either during or just after the big Sailboat Show there, which was two weeks ago, so we haven’t seen very many other cruisers.

Here at Deltaville we have been waiting out a storm. The day we arrived was warm and balmy, then we had one day of wind and drizzle. Today is miserable, cold and wet. Yesterday we got out to take a walk even though it was raining and we found ourselves at a maritime museum nearby and gravitated to a firepit that had a roaring fire in it. We talked with the person who had set it up and he was very interesting, explaining about the history of the museum (started recently, in 2003) and current activities (they are having a Halloween event in the woods with lights and sounds) and the boats (they have several boats in the water, oyster boats, crabbers and a replica of a shallop from explorer John Smith’s time).

One other event this week is worth mentioning. Before we left Annapolis we were hailed by a single-hander behind us and he was asking for help to get going out of the harbor. He had a 30 foot boat with an outboard motor. But he was having trouble with the motor. He asked for a tow while he got his sails up, to head him in the right direction. He immediately got stuck getting his anchor up while Ken tried to assist from the dinghy, then his roller furling gear pulled away from the forestay, but he finally got underway with both sails flying and threaded his way out after Ken towed for the first 75 feet. We saw him out in the bay as we left that day; we hope he gets things straightened out, as he was a little on the edge, maintenance wise!

To fill in time on the boat while it rains and blows, Ken has changed the engine oil, I have been learning to play the banjo (one I brought along that I just bought before leaving) and we get to listen to the World Series and football games on the radio or watch an episode of past TV shows every now and then.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

2011-10-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

Pictures: 1/4 bushel of crabs in our dinghy, along with fresh water; houses along the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway, decks hanging over the water; bay side of Atlantic City, wind generators with casinos in the background; sailboat that was towed in to Atlantic Highlands after getting loose from it's mooring in the high winds (the tow boat operators have employees on the sailboat deck running the boat the last quarter mile)

As of last night we have made it to Chesapeake City, Delaware, right on the state border with Maryland. We spent our final two days in New Jersey taking a nice walk through an historic town, buying crabs from a local crab boat, eating steamed crabs for lunch on our boat and getting past the last of Delaware Bay. We also had a kind local man offer to take us to a grocery store and back. It was at least 8 miles each way, so he was a true Good Samaritan. When we asked what he did before he retired he said he was police chief for a 60,000-person city in south Jersey.

We had seen more of New Jersey than we wanted, but we were safe, comfortable, and relatively happy so it could be worse. On Thursday Oct. 20 we were anchored off of Greenwich, N.J. This is what I wrote then:

If it does not stop blowing we may not get to see what the guide book promises is a village with many early American homes. Hmmm. Sounds like Cohasset or Duxbury. To get here we traveled off of our course a few miles, along a serpentine river (the Cohansey), away from Delaware Bay because we did not have time to get all the way through the bay before dark. As it was, we were the only boat we saw all afternoon on our trip from Cape May, NJ to Greenwich. Many boats were waiting the forecasted winds out in Cape May or Atlantic City. However yesterday turned out to not be as windy as projected so we did make some progress.

Prior to yesterday, we had two days of interesting cruising in the back waters of the Jersey Shore. We were following the NJ Intracoastal Waterway which we hadn’t had any experience with before. The bridges are low, most at 30 ft. clearance or less. The depth of the channel is mostly 8 ft. or more but you have to be vigilant watching the depth-sounder. There are a lot of marshes and birds on your starboard, going south, and lots of beach houses and docks on your port.

After our first night’s anchorage on the NJ ICW we headed out from behind a low island to leave the way we had come in and were immediately confronted with dredging pipes and buoys. The workers were not too helpful about which way to go to get around this and we grounded out in an attempt to get around the buoys. We had been hopeful that with our Mainship we would NEVER go aground but here we were already stuck! The workers came out in a scow that had a 25 HP outboard on it and told us they were trying to signal us to go out at the other end of the small island; they did offer to try and tow us off the mud and they were successful. Evidently the signs warning of the dredging in that area had blown away and when we passed the dredging equipment the night before the workers were already gone for the day and we made it past somehow. We can float in 36 inches of water, so to get stuck we are in REALLY shallow water!

Backing up to last weekend, we spent it in Atlantic Highlands. That makes 5 and a half days in the Sandy Hook/Atlantic Highlands area. The weather just was not cooperating. We were able to get groceries, wine and beer, and also replaced two of our boat batteries there so it is a good stop for reprovisioning. The anchorage was secure and access to a dinghy dock was easy. There is also a great-looking bike path that evidently goes for quite a way along the shore. I wasn’t able to get my bike off the boat due to the winds and rain.

Our plans are to get to Annapolis and do some laundry, pick up a GPS chip being sent there, and other housekeeping duties before we head south through the rest of Chesapeake Bay. Stay tuned!

Heading South

2011-10-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

Pictures: Manhattan, looking at the new WTC with the cranes on top in the middle of the picture; Ken on the flying bridge of RISING TIDE, East River, NYC; children with waders getting net ready at Sandy Hook; sunset off of Norwalk, CT, in the Norwalk Islands

We felt fortunate to have such warm weather for leaving Cape Cod Bay and starting our trip south. And it was perfect for 4 days. It just wasn’t perfect long enough! For the next 4 days we have been stuck in a windy weather pattern that is making it hard to make progress.

On the good side, we had two friends, Ralph and John, help Ken move RISING TIDE from Cohasset to Duxbury. Then before casting off for the Cape Cod Canal and Buzzards Bay we had dinner out with our sons Pete and Justin. Beautiful summer weather helped us to make great mileage to Cuttyhunk, then Fisher’s Island, then the Norwalk Islands in Long Island Sound. Flat seas each day and calm nights were an added bonus. We only got ashore at Fisher’s Island, but we took a nice walk there and found a place to watch part of the Patriots-Jets game (Fisher’s Island is off the Connecticut coast but is part of New York State so locals were mostly Jets fans).

We also had a great trip through the East River in New York City, past La Guardia Airport, Riker Island, Brother Island (where Typhoid Mary was held), Manhattan and out into NYC Harbor with Coney Island, Ellis Island and Staten Island. It was hot in the river and there were only a few other boats.

We decided to stop at Sandy Hook in New Jersey, still within sight of the NYC skyline. It seemed too rough to continue and maybe too late in the day since we would need to go 25-30 miles to the next stop, either the inlet at Snake River or Manasquan. However, the forecast for the next few days wasn’t promising. At our anchorage off the beach in Sandy Hook we could see a row of matching 3-story houses and a lighthouse. It turned out that we were in the Gateway National Recreational Area, which includes Fort Hancock, a closed Army base, and several small museums demonstrating what the 1940s Army life was like. Also there are biking trails and hiking trails with information stops about the Revolutionary War to Cold War history of the area.

Even though the next few days featured drizzle and high winds, we were in the lee and enjoyed watching locals fishing from the shore, school kids on a field trip to catch sea life in nets, lots of bikers and joggers, and a prisoner beach-cleaning- crew. Twice we took the trail to the ocean beach side of this narrow isthmus. We moved mid-day on our third day at Sandy Hook to a town mooring field a mile from our anchorage. The town, Atlantic Highlands, has a nice downtown area near the dock. We have been able to re-provision and also to connect up with friends from TAMURE, a Connecticut boat we knew from our first trip on the Intracoastal Waterway.

Last night Kitty and Scott from TAMURE gave a slide show at the local yacht club and we tagged along. It was very well done, and featured their family on an earlier four-year sailing trip with their two boys (9 and 11 at the time). We also had dinner with the yacht club officials and the featured speakers. So even though we are “stuck” in northern New Jersey, it is not a lost cause! Not sure of the upcoming weather. Stay tuned!

Summer 2011 update

2011-10-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

Jay and Laura, Ben & Shelby, RISING TIDE at anchor in Pocasset, Mass.

Ken worked determinedly this spring to get RISING TIDE ready so we could follow through with our cruising plans. He replaced the steering cables and pumps in both steering stations, built a two-bench-and-table dinette, added an anchor windlass, and more anchor chain. (And many other projects!) I upholstered the dinette benches, and the fold-out couch, and generally assisted in most projects. Ask us sometime how much fun it was trying to prime the old steering system before we realized that it all had to go!

We hoped to cruise to Maine to attend a mid-July wedding, travel back to Cohasset for a late-July wedding, then a multi-week trip to Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay in August. All went well. Ben and Shelby Hazen threw a wonderful “country” wedding with an outdoor ceremony in a cleared field, live music from a guitar/fiddle quartet, a huge banquet held under an equally huge tent in an adjacent cleared field, and lots of fresh beer from Andrew Brewing Co. – Ben’s and his father Andy’s company.

After the Lincolnville (near Camden) wedding we traveled to Islesboro, Searsport, back to Camden, Vinalhaven, Rockland, Boothbay, and quite a few other spots in-between. Then, back in Cohasset, we attended Jay and Laura Bertovitch’s wedding. (Jay often sailed with us when it was just us and Pete taking a trip and Pete needed company.) This was another outdoor wedding, on another beautiful day, looking off at Little Harbor from Greg and Ellen Bertovitch’s lawn. Then back at Cohasset Harbor we celebrated at Atlantica restaurant, including special fireworks later that night over our boat.

The final part of our boating travels included a trip to Provincetown for a lobster feed at Long Point with the Hull Yacht Club, then continuing on with several HYC boats to warm water in Pocasset and Cuttyhunk. We took a side trip into Westport, Mass., and enjoyed the area – near enough to Horseneck Beach to walk there and the Tripp Marina had showers and a laundry. We finished up our time in southern waters with 5 days in Lagoon Pond, part of Vineyard Haven, Martha’s Vineyard, and a couple of days in Marion.

Two quick weekend trips to Marblehead rounded out our summer. The boat ran well and we only had one “accident” – a lobster pot warp wrapped on our prop, that I freed up with three freezing dives into the cold Islesboro, Maine, water.

Next up: another long cruise this fall to Florida and maybe the Bahamas. We expect to leave in two days!! (October 8).

Winter Driving Trip, East Coast, 2011

2011-03-02T13:29:00.000-08:00

Pictures: Sunset over the marsh in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Roseate spoonbills in the marsh along Black Pt. Wildlife Drive, MINWR

We were lucky to be able to sneak away in the worst of the winter and drive down the coast to Florida in late January. We already had lots of snow in Duxbury, starting before Christmas, and the shoveling was getting repetitious.

We visited a few cruising friends in our first week in Florida, including Pat and Addison from THREEPENNY OPERA, in Vero Beach, Susan and Barry from SWAN, in Nettles Island, Chris and Kevin, from ANDROS, in Stuart. All those couples were currently taking a break from boating (although Pat and Addison were soon to return to their boat in the Bahamas, and ANDROS will sail there in a month or so). We organized a lunch with several of the above sailors plus fellow vacationers Bertha and Roy, from SERENADE.

During our second week we stayed in a condo in Titusville, near Cape Canaveral and Cocoa. This was originally set up as a chance to stay in a nice unit for a good price, maybe not in such an exciting area. It turned into a really great opportunity to leisurely explore the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, where we found different things drawing us there each day at the beginning of the week. One of the best attractions was the 7 mile wildlife drive of Black Point. It is a one-way, unpaved route that encourages stopping and watching and wandering. Other interesting parts of the refuge are the Haulover Canal, which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway; a small boat launching ramp (where we watched launchings and nearby fishermen); and a walking trail that took us through a grove of oranges--bitter!--planted by early settlers. On the way back off Merritt Island one day we stopped and watched kite-boarders; one entertained us by skimming so close to shore that the edge of his board knocked down traffic cones set on the beach.

We visited the Titusville Munincipal Marina where we had stopped on our 2008-09 cruise, and also spent some time at the Canaveral National Seashore. A great restaurant in the area, Dixie Crossroads, was our destination for lunch one day. We also spent time with Jim (Heidi's brother) and Riko in Cape Canaveral and had a great meal at their house. Then, at the end of the week, we checked out a Birding Festival that we saw advertised. It turned out to be lots of fun and we spent our last two days learning about hawks, Florida Scrub Jays, bobcats, local trees and shrubs, and all types of birding resources. So Titusville is not such a boring destination!

At the start of our third week we attended "TrawlerFest" sponsored by Passagemaker Magazine and held in Ft. Lauderdale. We had a chance to go aboard many boats and talk to other trawler owners ("trawler": slower-moving live-aboard power boat for cruisers who don't mind a Sunday-driver pace with the tradeoff of conserving fuel/traveing further before refueling). We also stopped to see Peggy and Jack, who now are living the good life at a small marina in Ft. Lauderdale aboard their 41 ft. power boat, enjoying their first season after converting from sailing.

View of the kiddie pool and main pool from our condo in Weston.

Our condo near Ft. Lauderdale was at Weston, on the edge of the everglades. We have stayed at this resort before, and it is in a good location for taking day trips in any direction in South Florida. Weston is a fairly new, purpose-built town with all the amenities you could want. It is, however, very difficult to find your way around and we spent a lot of time lost on this trip, as we did the first time we stayed there! Walking was safer, and we took good walks around a golf course nearby and also between sister-resorts on our street. Another easy trip from our corner of Weston was Markam Park. I would recommend this park to anyone staying in this area as it has dedicated parts for mountain biking, model-plane flying (and watching), fishing, tennis, boating, camping, target shooting, and dog exercising. And I probably am forgetting some of the uses provided. Of course, picnicing, swimming and regular biking are big here.

Airboat similar to the one we were in, passing us in the Everglades.

Susan and Barry visited us in Weston for an overnight and we all took an air-boat ride the next morning through the everglades. The trip included stops to watch alligators sunning on clumps of sawgrass. Another day we drove to Naples and to Coral Gables to see friends who have winter homes in those cities. We made it back to Ft. Lauderdale one day to re-visit Peggy and Jack and to sit by one of the canals, have a few beers and watch boats. But mostly we relaxed by the resort's pool, or in the large hot tub.

Heidi, Ken, and Josie Stephens at Naples Beach.

Driving back north, we stopped in South Carolina and checked in on Elaine and Roy Davis. They have a winter home in the Charleston area, Seabrook Island. We had a delicious lunch and then tried to take in the views, but we were thwarted by dense fog. Actually, we spent two days on the same island during our 08-09 cruise. At that time we had missed having any kind of nice meal for Thanksgiving and decided to get off the ICW two days later and treat ourselves royally at Bohicket Creek Marina. Great spot with excellent restaurants, and now we know we have friends there!

We may have avoided some nasty storms and bitter cold while we were gone but home-sweet-home still was surrounded by lots of snow when we returned. It took two days to shovel paths to the wood pile, shed, etc. and to get as much excess snow off of the roof as we could. Ice dams were forming so we worked on those, too. Everglades, alligators, and roseate spoonbills are now but a memory.........

A Month in Maine

2010-09-20T08:08:00.001-07:00

On the Sheepscot River, just below Wiscasset
Ken fishing from the cockpit in Seal Cove
High on the St. Saveur trail at Acadia National Park
Ken & Tammy on the marina launch in Camden Harbor. Perfect day!

We were fortunate to have a good long time to spend in Maine this summer -- the summer of ALL GOOD WEATHER DAYS !!! We left Cohasset on August 14 and returned on September 8. Our boat ran well and didn't consume too much fuel (phew!). The experiment with powerboating is going well so far.

We removed one couch (we had two) from Rising Tide just the day before we left. And we brought on a table and one temporary bench for the table. These did not get installed until a few days later but then got a lot of use. We had been using a fold-up table in the cockpit prior to August but with shorter days and buggy conditions at our preferred dinner time (around 7:30 pm) we needed an inside place to eat. We did eat well, with lobsters supplied by brother-in-law Matt in Marblehead for the first few days, freshly gathered mussels several times in Maine, plus fresh produce at farmer's markets and grocery stores along the way.

We met up with daughter Tammy in Camden and she stayed with us for a few days while she attended a bridal shower and wedding in that area. Tammy lives in New Mexico so we especially enjoyed a chance to combine her visit and our summer boating. She joined us one night at a Lincolnville, Maine restaurant with our friends Andy, Judie and Emily Hazen (from Lincolnville).

There were 5 nights anchored or moored in Acadia National Park. This is a wonderful place to visit by boat, with two boating-oriented towns -- Southwest and Northeast -- and a long fiord, Somes Sound. You can access several excellent hiking trails from a cove in Somes Sound, and stops for a free shuttle bus to the rest of Mt. Desert Island and the Park from Southwest, Northeast, and the village at the head of Somes Sound. We also connected up with two families from Duxbury while here; they were camping and took us to see their RVs and camp sites (plus provided dinner) after we took them all out for an afternoon cruise.

The second half of our trip was spent at several other Maine coastal locations. We visited Castine and were able to stay on the town dock for most of a morning while we explored the town and had lunch. We got a mooring from Warren Island State Park, which is part of the Islesboro Island group. On a walk around the perimeter of the island we discovered a campfire from the previous evening that had been built in an illegal area and had not been fully put out. Since there are only a half-dozen campsites in this park it is questionable whether anyone else would have noticed this smoldering fire before it ignited the nearby bushes. Ken ran to get a bucket from the nearest campsite and I used my hat to bring a few pints of seawater to put on the fire until Ken got back.

Following that adventure we spent some time in Rockland, a great place to eat out, provision, get boat parts, and access the internet at the public library. I also found a high school friend who is an artist and psychic in Rockland. Kitty Smith has a gallery near the library and we enjoyed catching up on all those years after I poked my head in when I saw her sign.

Hurricane Earl was threatening as we headed back through Muscongus Bay so we tucked into Seal Cove in the Damariscotta River. This is a great hurricane hole, protected on all sides, and we spent a few days on anchor. We swam in the water here, as well as in several other locations on our trip, quite unusual for Maine where the water is mostly too cold. We had a kayak with us on this trip, a new eight-footer, and the small coves we ducked into were perfect for kayaking. A surprise discovery in Seal Cove was a stream and waterfall pouring into the southwest corner, loud enough to hear while paddling around. By the way, the hurricane mostly bypassed Maine, but you never can be too careful.

A planned rendezvous with our friends Linda and Frank Cassidy was fun; we met them in Penobscot Bay, at White Islands, near Vinalhaven Island. Another chance for sundowners and dinner came when we scheduled a stop in Casco Bay at Cliff Island and rafted with Barb and Dick MacLeod. It was great to see our Maine friends!

We saw a lot of wildlife in Maine, including tuna off of Cape Elizabeth, seals everywhere, lots of porpoises, osprey adults and young in many locations, all types of ducks; Ken fished a lot and caught some mackerel in Acadia National Park. We spotted whales swimming along in our direction as we left Maine and entered New Hampshire waters at the Isles of Shoals.

All-in-all it is not too much different to have a trawler, going 8-9 knots (still pretty slow), anchoring in areas we would have gone to in a sailboat, and being out in the sun a lot as we were in our Tayana. Some of the small differences are that we got to carry a kayak on the forward cabin top, out of the way, and we got to pick the best anchoring spot in prime small coves maybe a bit sooner each day than we would have previously. We're still not brave enough to take advantage of our 34" draft but eventually we should be finding anchoring spots in by the beach. We'll save that for Cape Cod and Islands cruising!

NEW Rising Tide Visiting Friends and Family

2010-06-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

We successfully brought the new Mainship from Milford, CT to Cohasset, MA about two weeks ago. We stopped in Marion and the Hartley side of the family got a look while we were at the Marion town dock. We also caught up with Peter Cassidy and the Perkins while we were in Marion.

Once in Cohasset we got down to business on the long list of repairs/replacements that it will take to bring the boat up to speed. We also took a 4-day trip to Marblehead to see family there and on the way back stopped in Hull to see our HYC friends, including Tom and Jean Fisher who have a Mainship, "Edgecomb". We expect to return to Marblehead for the July Fourth Weekend, to see Mike & Mimi Powers, and Dave and Suzanne Santry.

The pictures in this post are of our early visitors, sons Pete and Justin, Pete's friend Crystal, "Rising Tide" in Marblehead and the two Mainships in Hull.

Mainship 34 in Milford, CT

2010-06-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here are two pictures of the new RISING TIDE, located in Milford, CT, and due to be brought to Cohasset soon. Keep checking for updates!

BONUS: Biloxi Mississippi Chapter

2010-03-29T17:11:00.001-07:00

Ann Dacey on her Victorian porch on a sub-freezing morning in West Virginia

The new house being built in Biloxi for a Vietnamese-American couple.

Heidi spent a day with this crew in the soup kitchen in Biloxi, serving breakfast and lunch.

Watching the Superbowl with our new friends from Duxbury and Battle Creek.

After two weeks in Florida in winter 2010 we drove to Biloxi Mississippi to join up with a group of adults from Duxbury and Battle Creek, Michigan in a home-building project. This was a great experience, as the Duxbury contingent were new and interesting to us, and the Battle Creek people were lively, organized and fun. We were working under the auspices of the Back Bay Mission of Biloxi. We slept in bunk beds and cooked group meals in a commercial kitchen at the site. Biloxi is still rebuilding after a hurricane 4 1/2 years ago wiped out many homes and businesses.

Ken made trim for windows on a two-bedroom, two-bath stilt house, and Heidi laid down a subflooring and then tiles, with about 8 other workers. The owners of the house, a Vietnamese-American couple, came by after hours to check out the progress.

We had time to explore Biloxi and take in a wharf-restaurant in Pass Christianne, Mississippi. One of our companions was a minister from Kennebunkport, Maine, who was also at the Back Bay Mission during our week. There are miles of beaches in this area of Mississippi but the rebuilding is going slowly so only a few docks, water-front homes and businesses have been brought back, so far.

If you've never been to Biloxi, check it out for a future trip. It's a laid back area, has some casinos that the state feels are helping in the revival, and some older traditional buildings, restaurants and museums. And the waterfront is beautiful!

After bonding with our new Duxbury, Kennebunkport, and Battle Creek friends, we parted ways at the end of the week and headed back to Massachusetts. Our last stop on our winter non-boating trip was in Morgantown WV to visit an old friend (but she's not old!), Ann Dacey. We had a marvelous Valentine's Day dinner with "Dacey" and left with snacks of the evening's chocolate cake to enjoy the next day while traveling home.

Post Script: Winter 2010

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Miniature golf with a nautical theme (we tend to stay as close as possible to water and boats) Kissimmee, Florida.

Addison & Ken at a nautical flea market in Ft. Lauderdale

We had lunch with Jack & Peggy at the marina where their boat is berthed in Lake Worth

The Toews girls on LOS GATOEWS taking a break from homeschooling in Lake Worth, Florida

Susan & Barry with Ken at their new mobile home in Florida before they rent it out and set sail on SWAN

Since Ken is retired and Heidi is taking a break from a temporary job, we were able to get away in January and drive down to Florida and visit several boat crews that were in the southeast coast area. The Perkins (our frequent companions and mentors in Florida last winter, Barry and Susan) had just bought a mobile home on Nettles Island, part of Hutchinson Island. They started their winter boat trip to the Keys the week after our visit. While visiting with Barry and Susan we also had a mini-reunion with Chris & Kevin Buckley from upstate New York. The six of us had all been together in Nettles Island last April.

The next day we found the Toews family on their catamaran and visited with Mike & Debbie and their three girls. The Toews had been in the Bahamas with us and also in Onset last summer. They are planning the next stage of their adventure which may include more land time and college courses for Debbie. On the same day we had lunch with some Canadian friends Peggy & Jack, who were in the area on their boat. They had summered their boat in the Bahamas and were back in Florida and heading north.

We also had a quick visit this day with John and Alida of VOYAGER II. We crossed the paths of John and Alida several times in the Chesapeake and going north last spring, talked with them on the radio a lot, emailed them, and almost had them visit us in Massachusetts, but never met them! Them have a mobile home in Ft. Lauderdale and keep their boat in Virginia.

The next day, after lunch and a walk on South Beach in Miami, we backtracked to Ft. Lauderdale as our friends Addison and Pat Chan had driven up there from Marathon where they are living on THREE PENNY OPERA. We had a great visit with them and two of their friends, at a nautical flea market(the friends had a booth), and later that day at dinner.

We spent our second week in Florida at a condo in land-locked Kissimmee. We did miss being on the water and watching sunsets everyday, but not having anchor watch sort of made up for it. Since we had never been to the Florida west coast, we took a side trip from Kissimmee to Tarpon Springs one day and hung around the docks there. We also visited Maitland, Florida (they have a great Audobon Center there with birds of prey) and rode bikes on a bike trail in Winter Garden.

SUMMER SAILING

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Dinghy dock in Cohasset Harbor at start of Maine trip, Ken & John

View of Damariscotta from our mooring, storm brewing

RISING TIDE squeezed into Damariscove; eventually there were 4 boats here for the night

RISING TIDE and crew went on a few cruises this summer, after getting a well-deserved bottom cleaning, bottom painting, and refinished teak trim on the cabin, cockpit and toerail.

We sailed to Marblehead and spent a few days there, visiting family and friends. We watched fireworks over Marblehead harbor, walked through Old Town, and unfolded the bike to travel to the West Shore to our old neighborhood.

The next trip was an invitation to join a group from the Hull Yacht Club (thanks Tom and Jean!) to sail to Provincetown for a BIG lobster feed on the beach. The lobsters were brought from Hull--76 total I believe--and there were about 10-15 boats. We anchored off of a quiet beach near the lighthouse within sight of the town, and had some other fun activities including a Sunday morning pancake breakfast on one of the powerboats. The weather was perfect with good wind and lots of sun. Hopefully there will be a repeat of this next summer.

Shortly after P-Town, RISING TIDE sailed for Maine with Ken and John Campbell on board. They did day trips up the coast to Boothbay Harbor. Along the way there was one planned rendezvous with Dick McLeod on his Egg Harbor SUNDANCE, and another with friends we met in North Carolina, Mark & Julie on the Tayana 37 RACHEL.

John left for home on the end of the first week and I joined the crew. We had a hurricane bearing down on Maine, most unusual, so decided to sail up one of the long rivers in the area. We headed for Damariscotta and it was a perfect place to be in a storm. It’s less than a day’s sail from Boothbay and has a small supply of free moorings for visitors provided by a boatyard there. There are lots of small shops, restaurants, pubs, and you can get to two grocery stores after a 10 minute walk.

We spent 3 days in Damariscotta, largely out of the storm as we had hoped, and were able to meet up with both the Cassidys (sailing friends from our Catboat days and on, who now live in Maine) and the Olneys (friends from Cohasset who moved to Maine) while there.

For the middle of our second week in Maine, we had planned to take aboard Susan & Barry Perkins, new friends from Massachusetts who we met in Florida last winter. They wisely waited until the hurricane had moved on and we picked them up in Southport. Just before Susan & Barry arrived we ran into another couple from our winter trip, Susan & Tom Maddigan, who were also just arriving by car to spend some time sailing with some of their friends. Small world!

With our extra crew we sailed for Damariscove, an island not far from Southport. It is an uninhabited island most of the time, with just one former coast guard building used intermittently by two families. The harbor in Damariscove is narrow and deep and provides good protection. The island was settled long ago, before the Pilgrims settled Plymouth, as a fishing and trading post. Even though Ken did not like the sides of the harbor being 10 ft. from our anchorage, we spent the night and the next day went on an interesting hike through the south end of the island on well marked trails.

The weather cooperated throughout the Perkins’ visit and we were able to sail, anchor several times in pristine coves, dig mussels, buy bargain-priced lobster, see seals, transit Townsend Gut, and get them safely back to their car.

At the end of our loosely planned two weeks in Maine we were expecting another storm, this one a tropical storm that never got strong-enough winds to be a hurricane, but nonetheless needed watching. We headed back southeast, and ducked into Princes Point just north of Portland where friends--the MacLeods--were able to get us a secure mooring for a few days. Barb & Dick also fed us, let us sleep in their guest room, and helped us to get to a car rental place to get a vehicle and attend a wedding in New Hampshire that we had double-booked for this last weekend in Maine. Even though we tested their hospitality, they held up, and we enjoyed spending some quality and quantity time with them!

We eventually sailed back into Cohasset on Tuesday evening of the third week, arriving when the tide was out (an especially low moon tide) and probably had only inches under our keel as we entered the harbor. But we made it without any problems. New England is definitely a great place to sail in.

Our cruising for 2008-2009 has been everything I thought it would be. Ken and I have great memories and pictures from all these travels and we have accomplished what we set out to do, after day-dreaming about it for a long time. Now that RISING TIDE is back in her harbor, we have talked with a broker about selling her and maybe taking a new tack next year with a motorboat (gasp! a stinkpot!). At any rate, the broker, John Proctor, can be reached at lawsonyachts@aol.com,
if you know of anyone looking for a seaworthy 37’ sailboat.

We’d love to hear from any of you who are taking cruises this fall and winter and we hope you keep us “in the loop” with your plans and travels. We’ll be staying close by the fire and working on some new day-dreams.

JUNE 7 - 19 THE FINAL 500

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One of the Victorians in Cape May, NJ, now an inn

Dock at Fishers Island, NY

Dacey onboard and posing in front of the Statue of Liberty

Atlantic City Life Guards at the beach (note the fog rolling in on the right)

Jun 7 Leaving Annapolis with our friend Ann Dacey (from West Virginia) we found good weather for the first few days. We also reconnected with ANDROS, a boat from upstate New York that we first met in these waters back in October. There is a new boat, PAVITI TERN, that was in Annapolis and is going the same way we are, destination Westport, MA. Mike, the skipper, is single-handing, and his boat is a 1930s classic sailboat.

June 11 We have arrived in Atlantic City, the best stop before we sail overnight for Block Island. From here we plan to clear two of the shipping lanes outside of New York City before dark and then will just have to pass through one more in the night.

But first, we need to get good weather to leave for a 160 mile trip to the northeast, and even though it is sunny and warm, the wind is coming from the north and then from the east, and that is not good. We ended up in Atlantic City for four days.

Dacey and I are making the best of our visit to the Jersey shore. We took a self-guided tour of the Victorian houses in Cape May the day before we got to Atlantic City, and have been to the casinos, the boardwalk, and the beach in AC. With Ken and Mike (PAVITI TERN) we’ve found some good seafood and beer near the Aquarium docks and there are groceries across the river near the St.George Thoroughfare. There is also a good anchorage there (St. George Thor.), within sight of the casinos but out of most of the traffic.

June 15 We finally left Atlantic City with a east-south-east wind and sailed overnight under a pink half-moon (it came up at 12:45 am and then got covered by clouds at 2 am). We avoided the traffic in the shipping lanes, but we couldn’t get to Block Island due to the wind changing to be more north east as the wee hours passed. At 8 am Ken decided to re-direct to New York City. It might have been dark on the second day before we reached land if we had continued the way we were going. But even going to NYC it took us until 6:30 pm to get just outside the harbor and anchor off of Sandy Hook, in northern New Jersey.

June 17 To get some rest and to catch the best current we slept in and started through the passage to get through New York Harbor in mid-day. It was mostly cloudy but there was almost no traffic (except the Staten Island Ferries which seem to go every 15 minutes!) and we were fascinated by the sights, passing the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the whole east side of Manhattan, La Guardia Airport, etc. This was definitely an interesting day, even though this part of the trip was unplanned. We ended up anchoring for the night off of Long Island, in a shallow cove all by ourselves. Dacey has found her niche as a wonderful ship’s cook and she prepared another delicious dinner for us.

June 18 This was our best day for sailing of all the days Dacey has been on board. We had a good wind, Long Island Sound was flat, and even though it rained most of the day, we made good progress and sailed between the Connecticut shore and the Long Island shore until we got to Fishers Island. We really like Fishers Island! It looks like a small Cape or Maine town, just a couple dozen boats in West Harbor, and friendly people on shore. We got to stay for the night at the fuel dock as they had just closed, and a passerby offered a ride to wherever we needed to go. Dacey can connect up with a sister who is driving through Connecticut this evening if she takes the ferry to New London. We’ll miss her, but she has been onboard for 12 days and she has a family party to get to in Massachusetts.

Fishers Island has 200 year-round inhabitants and 4000 summer residents, we were told by another friendly islander that gave us a ride to the Pequot Inn after Dacey left. Some of the summer people have filtered in at this point, enough to make the Inn a “happening” place on a Thursday night. The bar/restaurant reminded me of a ski lodge and yacht club dining room combined.

June 20 We motored into Duxbury Harbor at 8:15 pm today, completing our 8 month trip in drizzle but good visibility. We plan to get RISING TIDE hauled out and
paint the bottom in the coming week. The weather is threatening to be a full-blown nor’easter for a few days so we are happy to be in a snug harbor. The past two days took us through Newport where we stopped for one night but didn’t go ashore. The weather in this period was very foggy and we had to cross ferry lanes to Block Island but by mid-day today it had cleared. We couldn’t stop in Mattapoisett as we had planned (Onset as a second choice also was scrapped because of the impending storm). The current in the Cape Cod Canal was favorable and we made good time from Newport to Duxbury.

We’ll be reassessing our future trips as we adjust to mostly shore life for the next few months. We had a good boat to take this voyage in and we (the crew) held up, for the most part, through good and bad weather. The last three weeks were the most challenging mentally as we approached the end of the journey and had difficult weather conditions to cope with. Gone are the days of consistent warmth and no rain, returning us to New England’s ever-changing weather. As we put our socks and shoes back on and pull out the slickers from the hanging locker, we end our trip and wonder what the future will bring.

MAY 28 - JUNE 6 The “Rising Tide Awards”

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Crab buyer on the docks, Oxford, MD, with blue crabs

Crab lunch in Oxford, MD with all the fixins'

Kids getting briefed before their trip on a "pirate boat" in Annapolis

AWARDS

Most Memorable: sailing in light air across the clearest water ever, the Bahama Bank east of Bimini, for a day and a half in crystal clear water, seeing only a few boats in the distance and sand, starfish, and small silver fish below us

Best Harbor or Anchorage: Faber Cove near Ft. Pierce Inlet, FL

Best Food: tie for conch salad in George Town, Exumas (all freshly made while you watch) and fish fry in Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, put on by the church youth group

Best Marina: Bohicket Creek Marina, South Carolina

Best Laundromat: free one, for boaters, at Charleston Maritime Center, SC, where we watched preparations for an outdoor wedding while we did the wash

Best Live Music: Bahamian Junkanoo bands, they perform at Christmas and New Years in Nassau, as a parade, and various other times of the year as individual bands (we watched one in George Town, Exumas)

Most Feared Waters: Alligator River entrance at south end of Albermarle Sound, NC

Worst Guidebook: Pavlidis’ “The Exuma Guide”, 2007 edition with numerous references to “this may change after 1999.…”

Best Guide: Explorer Charts (with annotations for groceries, laudromats, fuel, etc.) for the three different areas of the Bahamas

Most Likely to Go Back To: Eastern Shore Maryland to explore some more; but if we “win the lottery” we’d fly to the Exumas to see the annual April “Family Regatta“, the locals’ sailing festival and races that we missed this year

Good Samaritan Award: Brian on GOTTA LIFE who saw us aground, anchored his sailboat and came over with his daughter sounding the surrounding water, in his dinghy, to pull us off in the Matanzas River, near St. Augustine

All-Star Support Team: Mike Powers for keeping Belva and Ken Sr. up to date with our blog, Captain John Campbell for sending engine parts, etc., Steve Ward for phone advice and providing parts, our son Pete for forwarding mail and taking care of our house

On-The-Spot-Help When You Need It Award: Barry and Susan Perkins on SWAN who returned again (and again) to Key Biscayne while our engine was disabled and helped us to move RISING TIDE between anchorage and sea wall as needed

Best Local Business: Sun Electronics (solar panels and related products), Miami

Worst Local Business: West Marine, various locations

Encouragement Award: Frank and Linda Cassidy, veterans of this route (and much further travels) who got us interested in the Bahamas in the first place

May 28 We have just a few places left to visit that are new to us before we retrace our steps through Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. We crossed the Chesapeake to Oxford, Maryland on the Eastern Shore, in the Choptank River. We also visited St. Michaels, Maryland, which was not far if we stayed in the Choptank, slipped into Broad Creek and then anchored in San Domingo Creek. Both towns are full of older 1700s and 1800s buildings, restaurants, boat yards, and crab fishermen. Oxford is a little smaller, and St. Michaels has a museum on the waterfront with several buildings and quite a few boats in the water and on land that they are exhibiting.

One of the boat yards, in Oxford, has an interesting method of building and repairing wooden boats. They use Kevlar rope instead of frames and it is set in a perpendicular routed groove in the wood planking and fiberglassed over. This yard, Cutts and Case, also has a lot of wooden boats in their yard, and they even have the power boat FOTO on display. It’s the boat the famous photographer Morris Rosenfield used (around the mid 1900s?).

We thoroughly enjoyed the area, and were treated to a lot of bird activity (one swan flew by at the same time each morning just before sunrise -- they make an unusual sound as they fly) and we learned a lot about the oystering and crabbing in the area.

June 2 (Tuesday) Our friend Ann Dacey is coming from West Virginia to join us for our last week of sailing. We positioned ourselves in Annapolis today and plan on completing a few projects while we are here, before she arrives on Saturday. The weather is very warm today, and the wind is light. The forecast is for thunderstorms each afternoon this week and by Thursday it should get cooler.

We are anchored in Back Creek which runs alongside Eastport, which is to Annapolis as Cambridge is to Boston. We can walk across Eastport in about 15 minutes and cross a bridge into Annapolis. Both places are interesting, and Eastport has a good share of funky houses and local restaurants/bars. When we bought RISING TIDE in 2003 it was at a marina in Back Creek.

June 5 Lots of rain today. Nonetheless it is laundry day and we loaded up our dinghy with laundry bags and headed to the main harbor in Annapolis. We’ll bring the clean, dry clothes back in plastic trash bags to keep it dry. The nice thing about doing laundry while cruising is you often get in a good place where you can go have a drink at a pub while the laundry washes, check out some of the shops while it dries, and then since you’re already “in town” you can stay and have dinner out. If there are at least 2 washers and 2 dryers this can be done with a minimum of time actually spent in the laundromat. Since we have still been wearing mostly shorts, tank tops and no shoes, two loads every two weeks just about does it!

We walked quite a bit today, probably 3-4 miles. We used the bus system in Annapolis for part of our traveling, but the traffic was backed up so we found walking was actually faster as the Friday afternoon influx was jamming the roads. A single-hander on a wooden sailboat (PAVITI TERN) from Westport, Mass. joined us in our travels today after we met him in the laundromat.

June 6 We’re getting ready to leave tomorrow for Chesapeake City near the Delaware/Maryland border.

MAY 16 - 28 GETTING CLOSE TO HOME!

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Too bad we left before the BBQ at Oriental, but we heard all about how the pigs are raised and the pork is cooked

Our new friend Dave from VAL DE RI cooking out at Welcome Center, Dismal Swamp Canal (Dave and his crew also shared the storm anchorage with us in the lower Alligator River)

Fresh flowers and fresh thoughts, Irvington,VA

May 16 The climate in North Carolina is ahead of Massachusetts so there are good vegetables at the farmer’s markets. We are always looking for fresh food for the boat and got some good vegetables and herbs in Oriental at their Saturday morning market. Then we headed north, figuring we are only 4 days from Virginia. Wrong! The weather brought the whole area a vicious wind and heavy rain, and the wind didn’t let up for 3 days. We had to backtrack from a bridge that couldn’t open due to the high winds and then didn’t open until May 20. We waited it out in a “wilderness” area with no phone coverage, no homes, and not even any boat traffic to watch as a distraction because everyone held up wherever they were until the bridge was working.

May 21 Once we were moving again we made sure we got to Elizabeth City, NC, one of our favorite stops from our trip south. The city offers free docks for 48 hours, a welcoming cocktail party, and a rose for each woman at the party! The city has a compact downtown, right near the docks, and larger stores about 2 miles away, which is doable with a bicycle. I wonder how many other towns anywhere offer as much. Being at the dock fosters the exchange of information between boats and we met some new people there that we will be keeping in touch with.

The next night after Elizabeth City we also had a free dock at the Welcome Center on the Dismal Swamp Canal. The state line for Virginia is just 2 miles from here.

May 25 We headed up the Rappahannock River in Virginia, planning a stop to visit people we met in the Bahamas. It’s a pretty sail to Irvington, although it was 15 miles up the river. The creek in Irvington branches out into about 6 or 7 other creeks and it is interesting to explore. We did this in a dinghy, but there is enough water to go way up with a sailboat. There is little commercial activity, and lots of homes and boats. You can walk to town from one of the marinas, about 2 miles, and there may be another closer way to get there, from a launching ramp in one of the creeks. However, it turned out our friends did not live in this part of Irvington! They are back down the Rappahannock and up another creek. We did get there in another 2 days and stayed at their private dock. We feel that we now know the area well and it is very worthwhile to wander this area’s deep creeks and coves.

May 27 We left our friend’s dock in Indian Creek and headed north once again. We passed the Potomac River. To go up the Potomac from the mouth is 107 miles to Washington DC and you evidently can get up there and stay at a marina or anchor. Sounds like a good side trip for another time. We continued across the state line into Maryland and entered the Patuxent River. We anchored in Solomon’s, another creek system which branches out once inside and has MANY marinas, mostly with sailboats, and not that obtrusive to the creeks and natural areas. Where we are anchored (Back Creek) there is wifi out over the water, compliments of the Holiday Inn, also not that obvious from the water but offering amenities to boaters. We went ashore late our first night here and had drinks and dessert at their bar.

We’re planning some side trips to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and a few days in Annapolis before we head out of the Chesapeake area. The weather swings from cool (we ran the cabin heater while waiting for the Alligator River Bridge) to very hot so we want to time our stay to enjoy some summer weather but not get too much heat and buggy conditions. The cruise is winding down!

May 7 - 15 Unexpected Benefits

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Scene from Charleston, SC, historic district with settlement around 1680

Typical scene from a tranquil anchorage, this one in SC, with shellfish warning

After our overnight sail from Charleston SC to Southport NC (see sign overhead)

May 7 We made a return visit to Beaufort, SC, today, a quick one as we were allowed an hour at the dock after refueling. It was enough time to walk around, get some fresh bagels for tomorrow’s breakfast and a few items at a kitchen store we had visited last time. We also got a paper, as we still feel out-of-touch with the news since returning from the Bahamas.

The remainder of the week was spent motoring on the ICW in great weather, making our way to Charleston. We met up with former Cohasset residents Julie and Bob Motley there. They live in that area now and have a restaurant right in Charleston, near the marina we stayed in, Charleston Maritime Center. They gave us a short tour of nearby James Is. and Johns Is., we ate at a seafood restaurant and caught up on their news and ours. Another treat in Charleston was getting to bike ride through the historic district streets on Sunday morning, Mother’s Day, before the tourists were up and about.

May 11 After a 22 hour motor-sail from Charleston through rain and close-by thunderstorms that lasted for hours, we arrived in Southport, NC at 8:30 a.m. We cut off several days of the ICW and we escaped the hot weather of South Carolina. Southport is a great place, with a close downtown, interesting historic plaques all around, and a funky mostly-outdoor restaurant called the Provisions Company that has great seafood (Southport also has several other good places to eat). We pigged out there; you never know when you’ll get a good meal again! We watched another thunderstorm approach and bring lots of rain, but the thunder and lightening went another way.

May 13 We had a very bad start to this day. We were anchored in a creek near Topsail Beach, NC, and we had bow and stern anchors out. We had done this to avoid being blown into the shallow edge of the creek, even though it meant that we had the wind pushing us sideways all night. We really had a quiet night, with very little wind, but in the morning the wind doubled in intensity and we still had to get up two anchors and avoid the sides of the creek. It resulted in a fire drill that threatened to go on and on. We’d get up one anchor and then not quite the other before we are aground and had to put out the anchors again and winch ourselves with the anchor lines to get back into deeper water. Then repeat. Eventually some combination of winching and anchoring worked and we got out of there.

This was followed, thankfully, with an uneventful trip to a very wide, deep anchorage that is part of the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune for that night. We have, by the way, seen lots of great wildlife on this stretch, including lots of nesting osprey, dolphins playfully jumping clear out of the water, egrets, and other stately wading birds.

May 15 We have a free dock in Oriental, NC, for the day and night, complements of the town. Our plans from here are to cover the rest of the state in the next week and pass into Virginia over the Dismal Swamp part of the ICW.

So upon reflection, which seems to happen when writing the blog, I am seeing a pattern of surprise benefits from this trip, bubbling to the surface. Ken and I are definitely learning to work as a team, even with rocky patches now and again (see May 13 and read between the lines). We have had wonderful health since leaving Massachusetts, staying outside most of every day and eating very little processed food. We are entertained by the simple things, and haven’t missed the TV shows we used to watch or constant updates on the stock market. We are meeting wonderful, lively people who we hope to continue to see, maybe getting them to visit us back in Massachusetts. We are learning about the stars, the birds, and the fish that inhabit this part of the world. And my favorite, the times we travel with our feet or bicycle wheels, off the boat and getting exercise or supplies for dinner. There are a lot of people who don’t have cars and who we now traveling among when we hit the streets. We smile and nod and consider it interesting being car-less for eight months.

In Charleston we decided to walk the margins of a soccer field and connecting streets to get a substantial load of groceries back to our boat. Oh yeah, we were pushing a shopping cart…..…and passing motorists looked and you could tell by their expressions that they wondered if we were homeless and had our possessions in the cart, or if we had stolen it. (We did return it!) This was Ken’s idea and he wasn’t the least reluctant about it.

Enjoy the warming weather wherever you are!

APRIL 26 - MAY 7 BOOKS & TUNES

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Remains of mansion Dungeness, Cumberland Is.

Ken on ocean beach, Cumberland Island

Pirates at the Shrimp Fest, Fernandina Beach

Apr 27 Fernandina Beach, Florida, was our “home” for a week, a surprise since we had just planned to spend 24 hours. Our engine did not start on Monday this week and we needed in the end to send out the starter to have it worked on -- again -- and we borrowed a generator to help keep the batteries charged for the last few days of the week. So one additional week in Florida while the weather continued to be perfect. Tough! Fernandina Beach is a large town, on Amelia Island, with great restaurants and shopping. They also had their biggest celebration of the year while we were there, the Shrimp Fest. By the time we left we were on first name basis with several of the locals and we had a front row seat for the Fest fireworks set off over the river where we had a mooring.

One thing we did this week was squeeze in additional time for reading. We have books we brought from home, some we traded with other cruisers (a favorite in that category is An Embarassment of Mangoes, about Canadian boaters who sail to the Bahamas and beyond), some we get from “take one/leave one” libraries at marinas and laundromats. We got a few new books too, mostly tied in with where we were at the time. A mystery based in Cape Fear, NC is one, and two autobiographies, Pat Conroy’s The River is Wide and the 1930s book Cross Creek based in rural Florida. Our down time on the boat is usually spent watching birds/people/boats with binoculars, or planning and executing “happy hour” or reading -- not necessarily in that order!

Apr 30 We took a side trip by dinghy (3.5 miles each way) to Cumberland Island. The Cumberland Island National Seashore maintains the grounds of an old estate, Dungeness, built in the mid 1880s, and several trails. You can also access miles of beautiful unbuilt ocean beach there.

May 3 This is our first full day in Georgia and the start of several where we will be careful of the shallow ICW here. We need to travel between the slack at the end of low tide and the slack at the end of high tide, before it starts getting low again. We passed the Georgia islands Cumberland Island, Jekyl Island, St. Simons Island, Sapelo Island, St. Catherine’s Island since leaving Fernandina Beach. There is no one on the Georgia ICW right now that we know, and in fact, very few boats traveling our speed and direction at all. The wildlife is the best -- dolphins, alligators, eagles, many birds that we can only guess at identifying, wild horses, sounds of sheep last night on a deserted island next to where we anchored (that we did not investigate!).

When we need extreme down time, at the end of a day spent in the fresh air, navigating shallow rivers and canals, we have our tunes. Our son Justin set up 500+ songs on an ipod for Ken before we left. The music is a combination of bluegrass (my suggestion), sea chanteys, female singers Ken likes, and lots of music Justin listens to and thought we’d like. It’s very eclectic and fun. We have added some Bahamian CDs to our mix of entertainment. KB, Ancient Man, Peanuts Taylor and Trez Hepburn are now brought out when we have enough energy for foot tapping and more energetic moves.

May 6 We crossed into South Carolina today and passed Daufuskie Island and anchored near Hilton Head Island. Last night we spent a night at a marina and after a short walk were in Thunderbolt, a suburb or Savannah. There was a great marine store there and a friendly restaurant, Tubby’s Tank House (don‘t you just love the name)! There have been thunderstorms the past two afternoons, just like in July at home.

OUR NEW ADOPTED STATE: FLORIDA

2009-04-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

BONUS PHOTO Ken as Mr. April for the next Swimsuit Edition

Haulover Canal Bridge in background with Ken at helm of RISING TIDE

Famous Travis Co. hardware store in Cocoa Village; trusty folding bike in foreground

Alligator swimming away from us in the Merritt Is. Haulover Canal

APRIL 19 - 26

Apr 19 Vero Beach in mid-coast Florida is a wonderful pit-stop. There are free buses to shopping, it’s a short bike ride to the beach and the boutiques there. The vegetation is lush. And the showers and laundry at the marina are well-maintained and numerous. The next time we’re there I’ll make sure we get to the city Art Museum. There is also a live theater and a huge park. These last 3 places are all within walking distance of the marina.

Apr 21 We got to see Jim (my brother) and Riko today, and catch up on news since we were in Cape Canaveral area last. We got some mail from home, the first since early January. Jim has always said he doesn’t know why everyone isn’t trying to move to Florida, and this visit is proving him right…….

It’s been 12 weeks (almost 3 months!) in Florida counting before and after the Bahamas. We are enjoying the delightful weather -- it’s been sunny, warm, and the winds are light and comfortable since we returned. There is a lot of wildlife near the anchorages and marinas we’ve been at. Ken spotted a few alligators, mostly one at a time, including one slowly and methodically swimming from dock to dock in Cape Canaveral (Merritt Island). Among the birds we’ve seen this time are pink flamingoes. We haven’t seen many insects (which is good). The water is dark and mysterious compared to the Bahamas, but it’s supporting lots of fish and wild “critters”. If it weren’t for the shoaling in parts of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), we’d be very happy! We have been stuck on the bottom several times since we returned two weeks ago.

Apr 26 Northern Florida along the ICW is dotted with small homes -- fishing camps -- and interesting larger homes. Many of them have docks. Looks like a great way of life! We are now at Amelia Island, the last real estate in Florida before we cross to Georgia. We’re back to motoring a lot since we’re in canals much of the time. We hope to get Ken a net and have him try casting it and getting some shrimp in some of the side creeks coming up.

APRIL 13 - APRIL 18 LOOKING BACK

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Carol & Dave (SYRINGA)

Jack & Z (KITE)

Jack & Peggy (FREE SPIRIT)

Ken, Mary, and Neil in Treasure Cay

Tom & Susan (BRILLIANT)

Debi & Mike (LOS GATEOWS)

Apr. 13 We made our crossing successfully and spent two days and nights in Ft. Pierce, FL catching up on sleep and visiting Barry and Susan (SWAN) not far from there at Nettles Island.

Apr. 15 We’ve moved to Vero Beach, and maybe it’s seeing Barry and Susan prepare to change gears (Barry has health issues and so they will be putting their boat in a yard here instead of sailing it back to Massachusetts) but it makes me want to reflect on our trip and our preparation for it. Barry and Susan were mentors for us in January and February, answering a lot of our questions about sailing in another country.

Here’s some of what we learned and what we did that may or may not have been reported yet:

We both enjoy seeing all the various types of sail and power boats that spend the winter in the Bahamas. We have a list of 225 boats and owners that were recorded in George Town, Exumas, this winter. This doesn’t include all the other boats we saw in the other areas of the Bahamas. Ken will spend the rest of our trip quizzing me on each boat that we see on our way back that is familiar to him!

No, we didn’t get tired of wearing shorts or bathing suits and going barefoot everyday. I don’t think there was even one day when it rained for more than 15 minutes and this only happened once or twice. Sun and temperatures in the high 70s were a constant. Yes, we did have too much wind but the Bahamians assured us this was an unusual winter.

In most of the Bahamas they don’t have regular water. They have R/O water which is reverse osmosis fresh water created from salt water. It doesn’t taste very good.
The baked goods in the Bahamas are great: baked bread, coconut pastries, meat pastries. Buying bread, cookies or crackers from the U.S. are very expensive (as is almost everything imported from the U.S. so we stocked up before we came).

We can communicate with other boaters we know on VHF radio easily if they are within 10 miles or so. We can communicate with the boater community as a whole each morning on the Cruisers Net, also on VHF, and find out what’s going on for entertainment, what’s expected for weather, and who needs to share a taxi ride to the airport (etc.). It is not easy to call home. It takes coordination of finding a phone booth, getting a phone card from Batelco before the office closes at 5 pm, remembering to get the dinghy gassed up to make the trip to the other side of the large harbor where the phones are, a separate trip since people we are calling are not home before 5 pm.

Sometimes there are no phones, no banks, no supplies, no conch chowder that night even though it is on the menu. Sometimes there are banks but they only open one day a week. Sometimes you have to hitchhike to the auto parts store to see if they might have the part for your boat engine. But through all this Bahamians are super friendly, trying to make you feel at home, very polite and thoughtful when you need assistance.

We didn’t catch much fish to eat but we got offered just-cleaned mahi-mahi from the dock the first week in the Bahamas, ate some grouper speared by a fellow cruiser, ate whole fried grunt and snapper (skin and all) and wished we had more. We saw thousands of fish while snorkeling, and often were greeted by dolphins surfing our bow wave as we neared a harbor after a long sail offshore.

We have been very close up to sharks, at dinghy docks, near fish-cleaning stations, and snorkeling. We got a “lookie-bucket” and could take it out in the dinghy and see the bottom in any type of water, and also check our anchor with it. There were almost no sea birds around during our time in the Bahamas, but Ken fed the Bananaquit (tiny land birds) with sugar on his palm.

The rum in the Bahamas is good and can be mixed with many different fruit juices and mixers. Having two months to try and find our favorite combination was a daunting task, but one we were up to! We recommend finding a beach bar with “rake & scrape” (local) music playing and all the rum drinks will taste great.

It is a challenge to anchor every night in shallow water and get a good night’s sleep. We never did drag our anchor in the Bahamas but one time spent 2 hours “bumping” on the bottom while the tide was low and the waves choppy. We heard bad stories of boats sliding back into other boats and causing damage. The good news is that the bottom is almost always sand and the results of a boat dragging anchor is usually just moving to another sandy area before the anchor catches again.

The Bahamian experiences that we would definitely like to repeat:

--Junkanoo performance

--Snorkeling (we missed going to the “World’s 3rd longest reef”, in Andros, due to wind)

--Peace & Plenty Hotel or St.Francis Resort, both in George Town. Places to have a meal, access wifi, watch the ocean, and feel good peaceful vibes.

--Sailing from the deep (3000+ ft.) teal blue Bahamian waters to the 10-30 ft. crystal clear turquoise banks in a matter of minutes

BAHAMAS REPRISE

2009-04-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

Don't tell our dermatologist about our tans!

View of RISING TIDE from the Canadian yacht FREE SPIRIT

"Waterfront Shack in Man 'O War Eastern Harbor, Abacos

This is being sent from Vero Beach FL -- we made it back on Monday 4/13/09.

MARCH 28 - APRIL 12

We are in our final days in the Bahamas. It seems fitting that we should get a chance to find, again, those experiences that we enjoyed the most while we have been here. So to wind up our trip we have been searching out more local bakeries with Bahamian bread, participating in Bahamian music/food/culture events, snorkeling “one last time“, and relocating some boats that we have seen or known while down here.

March 28 We bumped into people we met earlier in Warderick Wells, Peggy and Jack on FREE SPIRIT from Ontario, and our two boats left Nassau early this day bound for northern Eleuthera. We will only be in one spot in Eleuthera, Royal Island, but going there gives us a good jumping off spot for the Abacos, and we get to check off one more island chain that we have visited in the Bahamas. We had plenty of wind for our sail and wonderful weather. The next day was an early departure since we needed to cover 53 miles -- probably a 10-hr. sail -- and it was a wild weather day with high winds, large following seas added to by easterly rollers leftover from last week’s weather. At the end of the sail as we approached the Abacos, we were greeted by about a dozen dolphins, who stayed by our boat for about 3 miles, swimming up and back and riding the ocean swells and our boat’s bow waves!

March 30 We are spending several days in Marsh Harbor in the mid-Abacos as it is the largest town here and has a very protected harbor. We should see some other cruisers here that we know, and we still have FREE SPIRIT to play with and share stories with. We got back in contact with AQUILA, new friends that we shared Christmas Eve with in Florida and then got separated from when Barb got injured and laid-up a few days later.

April 2 We have planned a side-trip to Treasure Cay, not really a separate cay but on the same island that Marsh Harbor is on. Good friends Mary and Neil Rice have invited us to visit them at their second home there. After a 3-hour sail we found a marina, a well-protected small harbor, and a large number of homes and businesses at Treasure Cay. There is also a 3 ½ mile-long pristine beach and free internet in the harbor. What more could you ask for?

It’s so easy to meet people when you’re with vacationing people in the warm climates! Mary and Neil were already booked the first night we arrived so we took advantage of the Pizza Night at the outdoor bar, part of the marina. We became fast friends with a couple we shared a table with (it was crowded). They had just flown in from North Carolina for a long-weekend in their private plane. It’s the kind of place you can bump into people again, so in the semi-darkness the next night returning from dinner with Neil and Mary in their golf cart, we were hailed by our pizza friends, and saw them again in their boat in the harbor.

We were treated royally by the Rices and enjoyed cocktails on their balcony and a delicious dinner out. We got to discuss Marblehead news and people, and catch up on what children and grandchildren are doing.

Treasure Cay was a little more up-scale than what we have seen in other places in the Bahamas, but one morning we got to experience Bahamian small-town entertainment as the primary children from a local school were dressed in costumes from the Wizard of OZ and were parading through the small shopping area and singing songs from the show. There were about 25 students, and they stopped to act out some of the parts.

April 5 There is more strong wind predicted for the upcoming week so during the short lull we sailed to Man ’O War Cay where there is another very well protected harbor. Most of the cays surrounding the Sea of Abaco are short sails from each other and the Sea itself is fairly calm and shallow. Man ‘O War is known for boat-building and furniture-making. A few days later we sailed to Great Guana Cay. We did meet up with BRIAR PATCH and SERENADE, boats we have been looking for.

April 9 This was a perfect day and we headed north from Great Guana Cay, stopping in between cays to snorkel. It was calm, warm, and the reef we stopped at had tons of fish, fan coral, and other types of coral. I saw a shark, a turtle, and a ray as well as the small brightly colored reef fish. Our destination this day was Green Turtle Cay and the next day we enjoyed a Good Friday fried fish lunch there, put on by the youth group of one of the churches. The fish were fried whole and were served with small sweet banana pancakes. Bahamian gospel music was playing on loudspeakers.

April 11 We’re just about to cross back over the Gulf Stream to the Florida shores (this takes three days of sailing through uninhabited cays). We are hailed on the radio by the crew of LOS GATEOWS. By chance, they are sailing up the west side of the island that we are sailing up the east side of (they are just sending a random radio call)! So, one final meeting and rum drinks with “old” friends, Mike and Debbie and girls, at Great Sale Cay. As we compare notes from the past few weeks, we look forward to being back in the U.S………..

MARCH 16 - 27 FIRST HALF OF TRIP: 2200 MILES, SECOND HALF: ?

2009-03-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Proud fisherwoman with catch, off Nassau

Recess at Black Pt. Primary School

"Slaughter", a local racing boat in Black Pt., Exumas

March 17 Technically we are heading back, because we have gone as far south as we want to go. We still have some places to see that we didn’t see on the way down and we should be more direct on our way back, as we’re not planning any side trips (like our diversion to the Florida Keys in January and February). In general our first “half” took 6 months and our second “half” should take about 3 months.

The first week of our return trip we went to Black Point in the Exumas. It is about half way along the Exuma chain and is a small, friendly, non-commercial island settlement. Most of the houses in the center of the settlement have a couple of ladies sitting outside in the shade of a tree plaiting grass strips. We also saw one man doing this and he said they sell the strips to Nassau. There is a “laundermat” and a grocery store, a grade 1-8 school, a police station, and two restaurants here. We followed up on a sign posted at the laundermat and volunteered to tutor in the school for two mornings. Ken had Gregory on the first day, a first grader with a very soft voice; I had Tyrelle, an 8th grade girl who needed remedial work in math and reading. The second day we both worked with 4th grade boys. There were 3-4 other boaters each day who also were volunteering. We went outside with all the children at recess (40 children in the 8 grades). Ken was the goalkeeper for an impromptu soccer game with the little ones!

In Black Point we tried sopadillo fruit. It looks a little like a kiwi and tastes like a dense, very sweet peach, but with no juice. We also got more fresh bread from the mother of Lorene at Lorene’s Restaurant. It smelled so good we had to have some as soon as we got back to the boat, even though it was 5:30 pm and normally we would have been having rum punch and some crackers and cheese.

March 21 Continuing north we sailed to a few favorite stops from three weeks ago. We are seeing some familiar boats, including LOS GATEOWS, a cruising family from New Hampshire with 3 young girls. Debbie and Mike are home-schooling the 2 older girls and the day we saw them this week they had a surprise “field trip” day for their students -- translation: snorkeling and exploring the trails in the Exuma Park at Warderick Wells. We went aboard their boat that night. They have a catamaran and it is very wide, with two pontoons on either side of a large main cabin. Each pontoon has a bathroom and one side also has two bedrooms while the other side has one bedroom and an office. The main cabin has a large galley, a raised counter with bar stools (!) and an upholstered L-shaped settee and dining table. The flat-screen TV is on the dining side of the cabin. There’s also a back deck, maybe 10 ft. wide off the stern of the boat. Pretty comfortable!

We snorkeled a few times during this part of our trip and at one point I noticed there was a 5 ft shark cruising along going the same way I was, maybe 25 ft. away from me. I kept an eye on him/her and kept on snorkeling on the reef. There are little yellow-breasted birds here. They are friendly and come land on your hand if you hold it out. Even better if you have sugar in your hand! Ken had seven at one time feeding from his palm! Our fishing has still been coming up with little results, but yesterday I caught a Spanish mackerel. We had it for dinner last night, just enough to feed two people and delicious.

March 26 We had two great sails the past two days, as it is still quite windy but now in a good direction for sailing. We are now in Nassau at a marina, and plan to head for the Abacos in the next day or so. We haven’t been in a city of this size since Fort Lauderdale in December. There are great stores across the street from the marina and Paradise Island is across the harbor, with it’s large hotels and casinos. In this small marina there is a sailboat from Marshfield and a trawler from Hingham.

We are starting to get a little homesick after almost 6 months on the boat; of course, daydreaming of home is easier since most of the bitter cold weather must be gone by now! We should be winding up our time in the Bahamas in the next few weeks and plotting our passage back across the Gulf Stream for the U.S. We look forward to it being easier to keep in touch with friends and family, but it has been very nice to be in warm weather and in warm company here in the Bahamas.

FEBRUARY 27 - MARCH 15 SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS

2009-03-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

Heidi and friends on tournament volleyball team

Ken and crab found on beach in George Town

School Kids in George Town (more pictures next chance I get)

Feb 27 Everyday there is too much wind! It’s sunny and there is lots to do in this area but the wind rules all! It’s somewhat better if we go into the beach on Stocking Island because that is out of the wind somewhat. We have changed our anchoring location twice because of the wind and at one anchorage we were bouncing off the bottom for an hour-and-a-half as the waves caused by the wind rocked us up and down.

Our final anchorage (so far) is quite a way from town, and we need to go to town quite often for supplies and entertainment. The dinghy ride is wet and rough, again due to the wind. But George Town has a fairly large grocery and a few vendors in the park with garden vegetables. We can get phone cards there to use in the payphones to call our parents and kids. There is a straw market where local ladies weave baskets and handbags and they also sell souvenirs there. We also went to George Town recently to watch the George Town softball team play a team of US and Canadian boaters. Lets just say that the locals are VERY good!!

Our timing has brought us to George Town right at the start of the Cruisers Regatta, run by the visiting boaters. This lasts for 10 days and includes a parade of boats past the town and local dignitaries, a children’s day that gets the local school children (3rd & 4th grades) together with the boater children for games, a volleyball tournament, a sand sculpture contest, a big “Ultimate” trivia contest, a sailing race, and MANY more activities. Our favorite so far was the No-Talent Show followed by a dance party on the sand.

We connected up with some friends from the past, Susan and Tom Maddigan from the Catboat Association (the 1970s and early 1980s). They are from Wood’s Hole, and we are finding many other Massachusetts boats here.

March 9 The wind has died down significantly. We are feeling freed up to go snorkeling, beachcombing, and maybe taking a side trip to some of the other small islands near the south of Great Exuma. However, first we need to straighten out a problem with the engine. It doesn’t start sometimes and Ken has narrowed it down to the solonoid (got a new one but still having problems) or the starter (this is a bigger problem as we can’t get a new one here).

March 13 We are very lucky in that the small town here has a BIG Auto Parts Store north of town and they have a mechanic that was able to look at our starter (Ken dismantled it and brought it in -- by dinghy to a beach near the store) and he fixed it the next day. It is back in place and starting our engine perfectly!

March 14 The grand finale to being in George Town was the final night of the Bahamian Music & Heritage Festival. We attended with Tom & Susan from Brilliant and their guests. And about 500 others! It is an outdoor evening music program (with daytime storytelling, straw work, and local crafts) that was 3 days and nights. The final night had some great Exuma performers and some bigger names flown in from Nassau. A Junkanoo group made an appearance (awesome!). What a night -- ending at 2 am with fireworks and another junkanoo group. Unforgettable!!

Thus ends two weeks of sports and partying with the other cruisers, shelling, snorkeling, meeting Bahamians and dancing with them, and fighting the overactive wind! We plan on leaving tomorrow and heading back up the island chain in the Exumas, and then visiting the Abacos in the northern Bahamas.

February 18 - 26 LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS: GOATS, RAYS, & FRESH BREAD

2009-03-03T09:10:00.000-08:00

Gil on STELLA MARIS

Looking out from "Peace & Plenty" dock in George Town

Ken with a barracuda he caught on the Exuma Bank

Feb. 25 We’re several islands down the chain of the Exumas at Big Major Spot near Staniel Cay. We are enjoying the weather (mostly sunny every day) and the water (snorkeling to see fish and coral).

We were entertained yesterday morning by two goats on the otherwise unoccupied island. They had a face-off in a cave opening that was near our boat. They pawed the ground, butted heads, backed-up and charged. They paced themselves and several hours later were still going at it until some dinghy came along and came too close, disrupting them (maybe they were glad to end it at that point!).

But one of the best things here in this simple village is a bright yellow house with a “Bread” sign outside. When we first stopped in we were told that we could get whole wheat bread at 4 pm when it came out of the oven, so we went back at 4 pm promptly, and then we ordered coconut bread for the next day. Today on the VHF radio we heard that the Yellow House has conch fritter mix to take home and cook for yourself as well as bread. We’ll be there!

We’ve continued to meet interesting cruisers and exchange stories about where we’ve been so far and where we’re going. Some boats are now headed north and can give us up to date reports on where to stop as we head south and good advice about water depths and which cuts to consider using when we pass from the Bahama Banks side of the Exumas to the Exuma Sound. Some cruisers are seasoned and have made this trip many times and others are also new to this and can laugh with us at our first time exploits.

We met Gil from Miami in the Exuma Land and Sea Park a few days ago. He is single-handing a large John Alden sailboat with old charts and this is his first trip to the Bahamas. We have exchanged information and questions and have traded-off on cooking dinner the last two nights.

We’ve had some beach meetings with larger groups -- some planned and some impromptu -- where we get to gab and get more advice and info. The evening beach gatherings usually include a campfire of driftwood and BYOB. We’re experimenting with different rums and different mixers so the combinations are endless.

Today we snorkeled in Thunderball Cave, and saw many of the colorful tropical fish that hang out there. The area around this cave was used in the Thunderball James Bond movie some years back. There are also large rays that coast along the bottom, mostly ignoring us. Some are more than three feet across and today we saw a very large one that was a gray-blue color.

Feb. 28 We sailed to George Town today. There is a route in more shallow water that is more protected from the wind, but since we are trying to avoid shallow water, we took the route through a “cut” to the Exuma Sound and motor-sailed all day to Elizabeth Harbor where George Town is. We fished on the way but only had one bite, and no luck. The town is large compared to others in the Exumas and has more facilities and supplies. There are estimated to be 300 cruising sailboats anchored here, spread out between 4-5 different areas all in sight of each other. It is quite protected here from pretty much all directions.

There is a morning “Cruisers Net” in this harbor on the VHF radio that is moderated by one person but includes information from other designated volunteers. People take turns reporting on the local business schedules, the weather, the up-coming cruisers regatta (The 37th Annual!). Then each interested boat, in turn, can announce that they have just arrived, or that they have some equipment for sale, or that they need to borrow something, etc. This weekend there were church schedules, information about upcoming trivia contests, announcement of a workshop on understanding the weather in the area, and many other subjects.

March 1 Meals are an interesting subject and ours are almost always good; on board our boat we can cook almost anything and it tastes delicious! Must be the fresh air and the anticipation that if we’re roughing it how can it turn out so well. We often make substitutions in a recipe and the results are so good we plan to replicate them when we get home. Eating out for a lunch or dinner in this area is interesting. You usually get a limited menu and then pick out what you want and then you are told they are out of that. After a few tries you settle on what they DO have. Sometimes as you walk in they tell you they “just have chicken” or that they “will have hamburger when the next mailboat delivery comes in a few days”. The food has been good but you can’t have your heart set on any one favorite! Even conch, the local shellfish, is not always available. Today lunch was not grouper or conch chowder, but the mahi mahi and the chicken on ceasar salad were excellent.

In George Town we have connected up with Gil from Miami and his girlfriend Manny has joined him. There are several other boats here that we remember from other places. Stay tuned for more adventures from the Bahamas!

February 12 - 17 CROSSING THE GULF STREAM, THE “BANKS”, AND ANDROS ISLAND, BAHAMAS

2009-02-17T12:33:00.000-08:00

First land passed after crossing Gulf Stream, lighthouse on Gun Cay

Relaxing on gulfside beach in Marathon before setting off for the Bahamas

February 13 After yesterday’s uneventful day sailing and then motoring to Rodriguez Key (I have to mention the beautiful turquoise color of the water all day in Hawk Channel) we are up at 4:30 am today and find that the wind is now changed and is coming from the north. We have been warned innumerable times not to sail to the Bahamas if the wind is NW, N, or NE! Seven or eight other boats are calling on the VHF radio in the dark, talking about what to do. The north wind could make the Gulf Stream almost impassable with huge waves and buffeting winds. The Gulf Stream always flows north and can be between 2-7 knots of current. In the end six of us decide to try it. “You can always turn back” is our thought. However, the one boat that we have designated as our buddy-boat, SERENADE, feels strongly about not going and so we are parting ways, and we feel badly about that.

The start of our day at 5 am is difficult because of the dark, but we are for a while able to follow the first 5 boats through the opening in the reef outside of Rodriguez Key. After that it is a great trip, as the sun came up around 6:30 am, the north winds were light and the waves in the Gulf Stream were small. We altered our course from heading for the southernmost entry into the Bahamas Bank so that we’d follow a boat from the group what was going to the middle entry (Gun Cay and Cat Cay) and the rest headed for Bimini, the northernmost entry in this area.

By 4:00 pm we reached the cut between the cays and entered the Bahamas Bank. We had decided to find the Customs station at Andros Island, on the other side of this part of the Bank. So all we need to do at this point is anchor for the night and then sail for Andros tomorrow. One little challenge lay before us, however, as the Bank in this area is very shallow (no where on the Bank is it deep, averaging between 4 - 14 ft. at low time). We inched our way through the beginning of the channel that our chart suggested, but went aground at about 5:00 pm. After a half hour of gently running the engine we did get off and gingerly moved the boat to 8 ft of water and anchored just before sunset. We now know that if our depth-sounder starts reading 6.1 ft. that we are about to hit bottom -- which luckily is all sand here.

Just as it gets dark we hear voices and see a light maybe a mile away -- another boat anchored on the Bank. Otherwise there is nothing around for miles. We are about 5 miles east of Gun Cay and Cat Cay at this point.

Feb. 14 Valentine’s Day After checking the charts we can see that we will be on the Bahama Banks all day and won’t reach Andros until tomorrow. The weather is warm and sunny and the water is crystal clear and about 10-13 feet deep all day. We motored in the morning, sailed slowly in the middle of the day and then motored again in the late afternoon as there was not much wind. We have seen a few sailboats in the far distance and one or two motorboats pass on our course but that is all we see above the water. Below is sand, some grass, starfish, and some small shiny fish that jump out of the water and skim the surface for about 2 ft before diving back in. It is like dropping RISING TIDE into a stretched out version of Snow’s Pond back home. We anchored at the end of the day for our second night on the Bank.

Feb. 15 For another sunny, warm, light-air day we travel to Morgan’s Bluff on the northern end of Andros Island. To get there we are in the Tongue of the Ocean, which is in the middle of the Bahamas and is 600-1800 meters deep. This was a shorter trip, about 6 hours, and Ken saw Customs when we got there and anchored. After that we exchanged our quarantine flag for a Bahamian flag, flown above our U.S.flag. Morgan’s Bluff is a small town, seems to have about 4 small buildings and a park that they use for their annual regatta. Further out on the back side of the bluff is a dock for water tankers that come from Nassau to fill up with Andros water and take it back to Nassau. Our second day on Andros we watched a gang of local boys prepare to go out for some diving, then sailed to Fresh Creek which is 2 towns, Andros Town and Coakley Town. The wind kicked up and we had a lively sail down there, another 6-7 hour sail.

Fresh Creek is also small and there is only room for shallow-draft boats to anchor. We are therefore docked at a small marina along with about 7 sailboats and 7 power boats. It is windy and clear. We will probably stay here one more day until the wind dies down to medium strength. Our first night here we were given fresh fish from the local guy cleaning it for the power boat owner who caught it. We watched 3 bull sharks circle near the fish-cleaning station. Other activities in town are a factory that makes batik fabric and clothing, and several bonefishing lodges that cater to fishermen who fly in to fish for the week. Between the 2 towns there are about 5 restaurants, and 3 small grocery stores, plus 3-4 other small stores. We are happy that the marina has wifi so this information can go out and we can check our email! We are planning to switch from phoning to email and texting as phone charges are very high here.

Our introduction to the Bahamas and Andros Island has been great and we look forward to more interesting days in the Exumas where we will be heading next.

February 4 - February 11 REUNIONS AND GOOD-BYES

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Pelicans waiting for fish scraps as a charterboat captain cleans the day's catch in Key West.

"Diver Dave" (that's what he's called!) preparing to put a new zinc on our boat prop before we go off to the Bahamas--another important but difficult detail to attend to.

Feb. 4 We spent the time since out last blog (we’re still in Marathon) fixing and tweaking things on the boat: adding a salt water pump so we can conserve fresh water, correcting problems with our alternator that were not addressed earlier, adjusting the wind vane. We played some tennis on the city courts. And we attended another Bahamas information meeting. Because of the cold and windy north winds there are many boats who are here waiting to leave, for either the Bahamas, the west coast of Florida, or south into the Caribbean and Central America.

We found some people from Lubec, Maine who we had “met” earlier in the trip. They had helped us when our boat was dragging it’s anchor and had secured it to another boat in St.Augustine. We only saw them in the dark then, but now we got to see them in the daylight and they are an interesting couple, sailing right now with a 20-something son who is a soccer player and former steeplechaser in college. We also found an earlier-in-the-trip Canadian couple who took 3 weeks off to return home for the holidays. They are now back on their boat and sailed into Marathon this week; Ian and Marlene on GUST ‘O WIND are both retired school principals.

The highlight this week was a gathering on our boat with several other cruisers. It was cold so we had soup and French bread and we all sat down below rather than in the cockpit. Two of the attendees were Chris and Kevin from upstate New York, who we met very early in our trip, in Chesapeake City in the C& D Canal.

There was also another bus trip to Key West, this time for me and Susan, from SWAN. Susan used to live in this part of the world so she was a great tour guide. We went to a realtor’s Open House, a fully renovated shot-gun-style cottage in the middle of town. And we talked through many of the residential neighborhoods checking out the details on the house facades and the gardens .

Feb. 8 Today Chris and Kevin on ANDROS sailed out, bound for Key West. The next day Barry and Susan on SWAN, our pals for the past six weeks, left Marathon for the west coast of Florida. The day after that we met the owners of about 7 other boats who are leaving for the Bahamas later this week, at a gathering planned so we could meet and exchanged information. Although it is still windy, the cold weather has moderated and it looks good for a weather break. We need winds from the south so that we can count on the Gulf Stream behaving (translation: no big huge waves) since getting to the Bahamas means crossing the 30 mile wide (or so) current.

Feb. 11 Today is the busy day doing last minute shopping and preparing to sail to a small island (Rodriguez Key) off the coast of the upper Keys, where we should have a good shot at crossing the Gulf Stream on Friday. We hope that in the Bahamas we have access to the internet -- and have time to access it in between all the fun we hope to have!! -- so keep tuned but I expect that blogs will be fewer for the next 2 months. Our long-range plans are to head back to the U.S. in mid-April but as you may have seen from our past exploits on this trip, all this is subject to change.

January 26 - February 3 PART OF THE CRUISING CROWD

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The "cruising crowd's" dinghies, this time in to watch the inauguration at the marina

Sponge fisherman near Big Pine Key

January 26 The cruisers here in Marathon are a pretty homogeneous group; they are for the most part retired-age couples, a good number of them have one small dog, they are often staying here for weeks or months, they mostly are on sailboats, they like to share tips on saving time and money, they are from Eastern Canada or Eastern U.S. This is our “crowd” for the time being.

A few exceptions to this make things interesting, so when a boat from Luxembourg or Australia enters the harbor, everyone pays attention. There are a few boats with children (one is even a boat from Australia with children!). Some boats have, in addition to their country flag, flags that tell more about them. We have Justin’s Tenth Mountain Div. 2-4 flag he sent us. One boat has a 6 ft. Pittsburgh Steelers banner and a Steelers flag, another flew his U.S. flag upside down during the week of the inauguration--that caused a bit of an uproar!

We also compare notes on dinghies, our transportation to shore. One might be only 5 ft. long (ours is small but is 10 ft.), another might have 3 golden retrievers in it with the owners, another couple might be kayaking to shore in 2 kayaks, one each with a dog standing on the kayak deck. Other things to notice are how the dinghies are lighted, what registration numbers are on them, the size of their outboard engine or if they are rowing.

Our latest quest is to find two specific boats: we heard there is a boat from Marblehead here in the harbor, just arrived, and also were told by the marina staff that there is another Maitland owner here somewhere. This is how we fill our days for now, waiting for both the weather to turn in our favor and for all the boat projects to be finished so we’re not trying to fix too many things in the Bahamas.

January 29 We took a side trip out of Marathon, west to Big Pine Key. There are less cruisers there -- we only saw 6 or 7 boats anchored in the channel. It is shallow at the entrance and again about mid-channel, and we got stuck on the bottom a few times but we did get ourselves off the sandy bottom and proceeded to anchor near a wildlife refuge called Coupon Bight. There was a beautiful sunset there our first night, and the stars were spectacular as it’s wide open with very few shore lights, and during this time only a crescent moon detracted from the stars’ lights.

We didn’t go ashore, but dinghied into the Bight and watched a sponge fisherman pull up black sponges from the bottom there in shallow water. He said he would sell them and they would be used for cosmetics, fuel filters in planes, and that Australians liked them for grooming horses. We also saw a large frigatebird that was gliding/fishing near our boat (the bird book helped us to identify it as a male Magnificent Fridgatebird). The rest of our time in the Big Pine Key area was spent staying on our boat as a very windy storm blew through the area and stayed for 2 days. It was a good time to catch up on crossword puzzles and naps. We also watched a beautiful 35 ft. varnished powerboat go back and forth past us. It is THE TRUMAN, and is used to take passengers and employees out to an exclusive island resort (no bridge or other shore access).

February 1 Traveling out the Newfound Harbor Channel to leave the Big Pine area we were escorted by a half dozen dolphins. I think I got them on video since they hung around for quite a while. The weather was still windy, but even worse wind is predicted in a few days, so we decided to go back to Marathon and the nice protected harbor there. That night we watched the first half of the Superbowl at a waterside restaurant and the second half in the city marina with our “cruising crowd”. The next night a bad gale did blow through along with thunder and lightening.

Projects for each of the next few days are to fill up on propane (our fuel for cooking), diesel (fuel for the sailboat engine), gasoline (for the outboard), water for our boat‘s watertanks, fix a few more small things on RISING TIDE, and stock up on some more groceries and supplies. It looks more sure that we will be heading for the Bahamas now, we’re just not sure when the weather will cooperate. We also have to head back to the northeast before we head due east for the first of the Bahamas islands. Right now we are about 110 miles from the closest Bahamas island; we also have worked our way so far southwest that we are about the same distance from Cuba, maybe even a little closer.

PS Forgot to mention last week that our son Pete turned 25 on January 19th!

January 17 - 25 MOVING AT LAST

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Coconut Van in Key West

Parting Shot of Friendly Strangers at No Name Harbor -- I love these bikes!

Jan 17 We got the final parts installed and paid off the diesel mechanic. We’re fairly satisfied with their work and VERY happy to have the engine running again. For our last day in No Name Harbor we took 2 bike trips (we each did one) to get supplies. Had a celebratory lunch at Boater’s Grill in the harbor. Dinghied around to say goodby to people on boats that we had gotten friendly with. Then after dinner on our boat we went ashore to dance one more dance at Boater’s Grill, to lively Cuban music, and buy a flan and Cuban coffee to take back and savor for dessert!

After two full days of sailing we arrived in Marathon in the middle of the Florida Keys. The accommodations for cruisers there are legendary, as they have moorings (rare down here), tennis courts, laundry facilities, weekly potluck dinners, seminars for cruisers who are planning to go to the Bahamas, etc.

We have met up with our Canadian and Mattapoisett friends and there are also several boats here from Scituate, and maybe another 10 from other Massachusetts towns. We arrived about the same time as another Tayana 37, TRANQUILITY, from Block Island, RI.

We watched the inauguration of President Obama at the Marathon Marina with about 80 other cruisers. Lots of applause from the cruising group!

Jan 24 There are many helpful facilities near the marina in Marathon but it seemed that there was not the contact with nature we have had at other stops. So we took our dinghy and a couple of our friends and traveled down the fairly shallow Sister River that leads south out of the harbor. We were in company with some kayakers and canoeists and many birds. Where the river joins the ocean we beached the dinghy and walked along a nice beach, one with many tiny shells and tiny bits of coral. We watched a wedding set up in the park near the beach, and then sat on a side beach that faced the river and enjoyed the beer and snacks we had brought. A nice break from the bustling mooring field in the harbor.

Our batteries are staying topped up thanks to getting a last-day charge from a borrowed generator in No Name Harbor and to the new solar panels that are working very well. This mundane fact is actually very important to us and allows us to not have to pay the bigger rates to stay at a marina and charge up there.

There aren’t as many Spanish/Cuban-speakers here in this part of the Keys. There are several government properties with tall radio towers. We are speculating that this is a monitoring area for illegal immigrants. Marathon has it’s own “Bridge to Nowhere”, one we hailed to get opened to enter the harbor, but we can see that is blocked from any traffic. The key on the other side does not appear to have any, or at least not many, buildings. We heard that there is a political reason for the city to maintain the bridge and employ a bridge tender on a bridge no one seems to use.

We took a bus to Key West, about 50 miles, and walked around there for a good part of the day on Sunday. There are still some sailors left from Race Week which ended on Friday and there was a Disney cruise ship in at the dock so those passengers were out and about along with us. There are definitely a few characters out there also. Of course we had to have a slice of Key Lime Pie before we left.

The weather in Marathon has been cooler -- I know, not bitter cold and miserable like in New England -- but it is comfortable and there are no bugs at this time of year. We are still evaluating our options for the Bahamas. Stay Tuned!!

JANUARY 11 - 16 ONE MORE WEEK IN NO NAME HARBOR

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Various scenes from January in Key Biscayne

January 11 Time for puttering, reflection and mini-exploring: that’s what you expect to have time for as a retired and cruising couple, right?

Discoveries:

Miami cyclists, hundreds of them, are using the Rickenbacker Bridge to Key Biscayne on Saturday (the east-bound side of the bridge is closed to traffic) and they are stopping for water, OJ or Gatorade at the outdoor breakfast place we are at.

There are still lots of paths to explore with my bike; on one trip I was invited to join a “Biking and History of Key Biscayne” group (this one was a corporate group) as they peddled through the State Park.

The Park has prison vans and high school students in buses that come to help keep the place clean. (They seem to keep these groups on opposite sides of the park!)

We are enjoying the Cuban food -- this week it was the small round beef snack pastries -- and the Cuban coffee.

Dolphins still come through every once in a while and when one catches a fish it seems to come to the surface to show it off.

It’s fun to walk to the beach, buy an ice-cream cone (we have no freezer on the boat), and make a phone call home.

When you buy solar panels the sun stops shining! Before Monday, when we went to Miami to buy solar panels from a low-cost warehouse there, we had constant sunshine. Since then, it’s been cloudy half or more of the day.

You can live pretty well without power on the boat. Without the engine we have no batteries and we have to keep what is left in the batteries for the fridge. The solar panels will keep them charged enough to run the fridge. So we have used a crank-power radio, an oil lamp and flashlights, our Sunshower to heat water for showers, and our propane stove to heat water for dishes, etc. The Park provides a washer and dryer and restrooms. While we’re at the restroom pavillion we plug in our phones and laptop there to keep them charged.

We’re motivated to be able to read and understand some Spanish. We bought a Spanish/English dictionary in Miami. We’re asking lots of questions.

Jan. 14 This is the day the mechanics brought our parts back and re-installed them. Barry and Susan came back from other parts of Biscayne Bay and helped us to move the boat to the seawall. However, there is still one part that hasn’t yet been rebuilt (Ken was mad!) and in the end it is taking until the 16th to get the engine completely back to working order and with several parts new or rebuilt.

Plans for the future are to probably catch up with Barry and Susan and also with Addison and Pat in Marathon (in the Florida Keys). Some advice we have gotten is to wait for the “winter” weather, long periods of northerlies, to end before heading for the Bahamas. We have never been to the Keys west of Marathon, including Key West, so that would be an interesting destination.

PS Justin got back to Louisiana at Fort Polk this week, 13 months spent in Baghdad and almost 5 years spent in the Army. Thanks, Justin, for doing your part in our country’s defense. For the future there are plans to ski in New England, then ski in Argentina in their winter (June & July), then start grad school in public lands management.

JANUARY 2 - JANUARY 10 LAYOVER ON A TROPICAL ISLE (AND A $2 BUS RIDE FROM MIAMI)

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Three views of No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne

Jan 2 After 2 nights in lovely Hurricane Harbor in the middle of Key Biscayne (a small key, about a 35 minute bike ride from end to end), we moved to No Name Harbor on the southern end of the island. At No Name we would be in a State Park with restrooms, a self-serve pumpout station, bike trails, and two small restaurants. At Hurricane Harbor we had no landing spot to leave our dinghy, only a small bridge to drop someone off at. The homes around the harbor were beautiful and sunsets were magnificent.

Our first night in No Name Harbor we decided to take advantage of the restaurant right at the head of the harbor, Boater’s Grill. There was live music, the food was excellent, most of the patrons were Spanish-speaking, and before we left we joined half of the diners and all of the wait staff in dancing and a conga line.

Most of the tables at Boater’s Grill are on a porch so music wafts across the small harbor. The next day, Mariachi music started in the late afternoon. Meanwhile we had called our daughter Tammy in Santa Fe to find out the Spanish vocabulary we would need to politely get our waiter’s attention next time (although they all spoke English as well as Spanish).

Jan. 5 While running the engine at idle on Sunday afternoon it suddenly started acting erratically and then died. Ken worked on it and decided that if we could get the parts, we should replace the ancient fuel pump and while we were at it we should also get a new alternator. He called around on Monday morning and found a Perkins engine dealer in NW Miami. By 11 am we were on a bus to Miami and then metro-railed and bused some more to the location. We got the parts and lugged them back, reversing our morning trip and successfully returned at about 5:30 pm. Of course we needed some sustenance then so stopped at Boater’s Grill for sangria.

The next day Ken installed the parts, but there was still no response from the engine. And because of running our lights, refrigerator and trying to start the engine, the batteries were getting dangerously low. To make a long story short Ken got a promise from a local mechanic to come on Thursday morning to look at the engine and borrowed a generator from a boat in the harbor to help get the batteries back to partial power.

Barry and Susan on SWAN came back to see us in No Name Harbor. They promised to stay until they could help us move our engine-less boat to the seawall in the harbor where the mechanic asked us to have the boat. Moving RISING TIDE caused the highlight of the week -- getting caught in a squall while just reaching a curved part of the seawall and having to tie-off quickly in a shallow area there. The curve of the concrete wall and the shallowness caused us to tip dangerously as the tide went out and the boat hull leaned toward the concrete. We had every fender possible on the seawall side of the boat, and we had an anchor pulling us (hopefully) away from the wall as the tide continued to go out. On top of this drama, another boat in the anchorage started dragging anchor in the squall and the occupants were down below and didn’t realize what was happening. Susan noticed first and Barry took up the call to alert the crew (four French Canadians). All four Canadians were soon yelling in French as all four of us were yelling in English and their boat was about to hit the seawall about 40 ft. from our boat. We got their fenders and lines tied on pretty quickly and they only suffered a few scrapes; it could have been worse!

Jan. 8 At 5:45 am, about an hour and a half before sunrise, we got up to reposition RISING TIDE now that the tide had come in. Miraculously out of the dark came a rowboat with Barry and Susan. They made easy work of getting us back to deeper water along the wall.

Later in the day, the mechanics gone and the engine several parts lighter as they found what needed rebuilding and cleaning, we again quietly moved RISING TIDE back to be on anchor near the mangroves on the other side of the harbor. Again we were helped by our associate crew Barry and Susan. They then sailed out on their quest to find a source of cooking heat -- propane -- back on the mainland.

Even though we are most likely going to be waiting almost another week for the parts to be reinstalled we are lucky to be where we are. The weather has been perfect every day (except for the squall) and we are within biking distance of most supplies we need. This town has an interesting mix of Floridians, Cuban-Americans, tourists from all over the world, boaters, displaced New Englanders, and tennis players (the tennis center here is the site of the fifth largest professional tennis tournament in the world, although in fact checking this I see that the Sony Erickson Tournament which is supposed to be the one held here is now held in Qatar). The ocean beach was voted in the top 10 in the country. From our anchor we can see large iguanas, manatees, dolphins chasing fish, ibises.

Jan. 10 Today we received a phone call from Justin in Germany (he is on his way home -- yay!!) as we biked to breakfast on the other side of town and joined almost 100 bicycle riders who were using the outdoor restaurant as a pit stop on a Saturday morning ride. Ken had rented a mountain bike the day before at the State Park and they nicely let him keep it for 24 hours (not just the one day that you usually get with a rental). We had gone on a bicycle exploration yesterday on the other end of Key Biscayne and onto the next key, Virginia Key.

This week has been a roller-coaster but it has been made reasonably comfortable by friends, location and weather. We may even be traveling to Miami again on Monday to use up some of our layover time!

December 27 - Jan 1 WARM THOUGHTS FOR OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

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Leaving the dock in N. Palm Beach, AQUILA in background -- another Tayana 37

Christmas Key Biscayne-style

Dec. 27 Cell phones are wonderful and are worth every penny of that monthly bill as we travel. We may not be as connected when we get to the Bahamas so we are appreciating our contacts we can make now. For those of you we have been in touch with lately, we want to reiterate how nice it has been to hear your voices. Hopefully we’ll get to some additional calls this next week. We also use our phones to call ahead to marinas and other resources in new places. We are still feeling our way around -- almost like a blind person -- in all these new places, so extra contact information from shore side locations in helpful.

In Pompano Beach this week we met up with an old friend of mine from Boston University. Digna, who now works at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, drove with her sister to a bridge in Pompano Beach that neither of us was familiar with and by using our phones we got connected and then took our dinghy about ¼ mile to where RISING TIDE was anchored. Digna did play around with me for a bit at the bridge, telling me she could see me in the channel but not telling me exactly which bank she was on or which side of the bridge. She had me going in circles! We had a great visit.

Dec. 28 After spending one night on anchor in a channel on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale we then spent two nights in Lake Sylvia (my sister’s family, the Sylvias in Rochester, should go there) in a more central Fort Lauderdale location. We took other channels to get to restaurants and grocery stores by boat. We did some walking too, but the trips down channels and under low bridges was different. Ken collected some trash in one channel since we knew there was a dumpster at the end we could put it in. We were told later that there is a regular cleaning schedule for the city waters and a special boat with a paddle-wheel-type arrangement to collect debris.

The coconuts fall in the channels and fool us as they look like balls or floating trap buoys. We had fun watching large iguanas that hang out on many of the docks and lawns close to the channels. Some are green and some are orange or grey. There were different sizes but some were more than 2 feet long. There are also parrots here -- noisy especially when many of them are in the same tree.

Fort Lauderdale is not just a place for wildlife; we saw so many private yachts, of the size that they would need crew, and also many businesses that cater to private yachts, selling uniforms, food, equipment, arranging employment, etc. A monthly newspaper with about 60 pages reports on news for captains and crews.

Dec. 30 We are enjoying wonderful weather, warmer than usual for this time of year, and almost no rain. Although we haven’t been to any beaches yet or been swimming, we are loving it. We left Lake Sylvia and sailed outside in the ocean to Miami, in pretty decent wind and very little chop. It took most of the day and we ended up in an area called Marine Stadium, facing the Miami skyline. This area has been used for waterskiing shows; there is a large grandstand and a long oval-shaped stadium. Jet skis and waterskiers still use the outside perimeter leaving plenty of room for anchoring in the middle. SWAN with Barry and Susan are here too and for New Year’s Eve we enjoyed dinner together and then watched fireworks at midnight over Miami!

The water is a turquoise color here and I went swimming to check the hull of RISING TIDE (we hit something coming in to Miami in the entrance channel). The hull looked OK and I enjoyed the clear, warm water. We also picked up mail here, at Key Biscayne, a bike-ride away over a bridge.

Our next few days will be spent in Hurricane Harbor, Key Biscayne. There are two large parks to explore and it is a good spot for getting more information about the Bahamas trip since we are now less than 50 miles from Bimini or Cat Cay.

December 19 - 26 “PALM BEACHED”

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Susan, Heidi & Barb on SWAN, Christmas Eve

Dec. 19 Before we left Vero Beach we used the laundry at the marina, walked to the shops to do last-minute Christmas shopping, talked to the cruisers who were hanging around. It’s a fine place, and hard to leave as they offer all the amenities along with the affordable mooring system. They raft boats on the moorings and you definitely meet more people that way, side-by-side, tied together with bow lines and stern lines. Our mooring neighbors had two cats!

Our weather for the first three days of this period has been wonderful. We enjoyed two nights on anchor, and days of traveling the now-straight ICW. We have seen a few manatees, several new (to us) bird species, a sea-turtle, and the human waterskier (along with jet skis and MANY fishing boats on the Sunday before Christmas in mid-coast Florida).

Dec. 22 The weather, which rules our lives, is promising to go very windy and that means we need to hunker down and make sure we are in a secure place. But first, we had a visitor today and for the second time in the last 5 days someone asked “Is Heidi there?”. Today was Barry Perkins from Mattapoisett; his brother was in my high school class and he is friends with other high school classmates so he and his wife Susan knew we were cruising behind them. (The first visitor was the owner of one of the Tayana 37s we saw in Vero Beach Marina and I had been emailing him for a couple of weeks but had never met him.) But back to the weather……we anchored in the north end of Lake Worth in North Palm Beach on Dec 21. Seems protected but after 24 hours our anchor dragged and we had to try several times to get it to set properly, a little more to the west of where we had been. Then to make doubly sure, we added another anchor off our bow and off to an angle to the first one. The wind kept up until the day after Christmas, so we spent 6 days in the area. For Christmas Eve we were in a marina there, and had a great boat party with Barry, Susan, Rich and Barb.

On Friday we got back to traveling the ICW south, and ended up in Delray Beach for the night. As far as our future plans go, we have put our trip to the Bahamas on hold, at least for a week or two. We can leave from further south in Florida and we can check out Fort Lauderdale and Biscayne Bay.

We got to talk with our children, Tammy, Justin and Pete--the only one who is AT home--on Christmas, and our parents (and some other family and friends). It wasn’t as good as a Christmas at home, but we knew we would miss some holidays by taking this trip. Hopefully the accumulated travel and adventures will make up for some of the things we miss by being away.

December 11 - 18 WARM!!!

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We're in the Barge Canal at a marina, near Cape Canaveral; Riko came to see our boat and is our "care package" angel.

Dec.11 There were tornado warnings and a squall came through the St.Augustine anchorage in the morning, but the afternoon was nicer so we went ashore and checked out the city. We visited the San Sebastian Winery and took their tour. There is also a college here, Flaggler College, right in downtown and near the harbor, and it’s buildings are beautiful, and big, some from early in The 1900’s and some new, all in Spanish-style architecture. When we got back to our boat it had moved, and was tied to another boat! There are always surprises on this trip! Someone in the anchorage noticed that our boat was dragging it’s anchor and got aboard and stabilized the situation by tying us up to another boat (unoccupied). Those people (from Lubec, Maine) are heroes.

The extra low tides due to the full moon kept us from leaving the next day for about an hour (we were stuck in shallow water) but we did get out and traveled in warmer weather (60 degrees) to the Matanzas River. There is another National Park Service site here, a 1700s Spanish fort, and it is the site of a slaughter of French settlers (in a battle with Spaniards). The weather is gradually warming up and the next day we got to New Smyrna Beach where they have 2 free city docks. Almost adjacent to the docks is the main street and we happened on the monthly antique car event, where they close off the main street for about 6 blocks and line up the cars and trucks (about 200 of them). There was live music at one end and a disc jockey at the other playing old songs. If we planned it we would never make it but these things pop up and we are enjoying being randomly in the right place at the right time.

Dec.14 Now it is getting REALLY WARM and we are also going straighter than earlier on the ICW so we can make the miles fly by. Today we went through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, near the Kennedy NASA base, and it is a beautiful section of the waterway. There are supposed to be more bird species here than anywhere else in the southeast, and there are 1000 species of plants. We can see the mangroves along the edge of the narrow Haulover Canal. If the water was warmer there would be manatees here. The end of the day found us at the Titusville Marina, with one last adventure, when the shift lever for the boat got stuck in reverse as we left the pumpout dock to head for our slip. Ken quickly killed the engine and we got tied back to the dock and spent an hour fixing the problem -- Ken’s mechanic skills again come in handy!

We planned to get to Cape Canaveral the next day, where my brother Jim and his wife, Riko, live. Things went almost according to plans until we found out that the Crista McCauliffe Bridge that connects the Indian River (where we are) to the Banana River (where they are) is closed everyday from 3-6pm. We forgot to read the fine print. Jim and Riko were still able to pick us up and take us to dinner so all was not lost. This was a fine day and ended with a feast at a Japanese restaurant. The next morning Riko drove back to the marina we were at (near the bridge) and brought us a “care package” of 2 baskets of food and a newspaper.

Dec.16 We are really enjoying the Florida weather now. Starting today for the next few days the temperatures are in the 70s and the wind is light and there are few clouds. We are seeing more boats and cruisers now. We even saw a Duxbury boat this day, one Ken recognized as the owner of the boatyard we have kept RISING TIDE in the past few years. We hailed the captain on the radio and surprised him by announcing who we were. One more night of anchoring and 2 nights on a mooring in Vero Beach complete this chapter and we are loving the weather conditions and the chance to reconnect with cruisers again, some that we have known from earlier in our trip (good to see you, Addison and Pat!) and some new people, including two Tayana 37s (like ours) in Vero Beach.

December 2 - 10 Georgia and Northern Florida Provide the Best Wildlife So Far

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Southern Shade, Beaufort SC

Palms at National Park Service site, Ft.George River, Florida (our boat in distance)

Dec.2
Beaufort, SC is a great town. We had a late morning wine-tasting, bought some wines, then had lunch at a river-side restaurant. Ken got an appointment with a chiropractor for later in the afternoon and I walked all through the streets, from one water-view to another, since Beaufort is a peninsula. There are also some great book stores here.

Our next stop was Hilton Head which is familiar to us. Amazing how much fun it is to know where you are going and what is coming around the next bend! We also got parts and charts sent to us in Hilton Head from a marine store back in New England. Hilton Head also has great bike trails and I got in two long rides there. After one night in a marina in Hilton Head we next anchored in Bull Creek, the first of four nights in remote creeks in Georgia. The wildlife in Georgia has been great. One night we watched an otter swim across the creek we were anchored in, and that same night I followed the creek in the dinghy and watched a raccoon walking along the edge of the creek. We have seen bald eagles on two occasions and several times have watched fishermen in small boats with either hand nets for shrimp or fishing lines for local fish. The dolphins continue to pop up several times a day and sometimes follow our boat, just a few feet away.

Dec. 8
After this stretch of the ICW (about 100 miles) in the “wilderness” we reached the Sea Islands -- St.Simons, Jekkyl, Cumberland -- and decided to sail outside for a day. Let’s just say it wasn’t my favorite day. We went out to the Atlantic at the South end of St. Simons and had sunny skies, wind (but directly behind us) and big swells. We saw one other boat, in the distance, and no wildlife at all. But we got through it and entered St.Mary’s Sound at Fernandina Beach, Florida, at about 4 pm. We loved the town of Fernandina Beach, a large town with many restaurants, and also many good quality shops and stops. Maybe it helped that the weather turned warm and balmy at this point (although the forecast is for another cold front to come through later this week). In Florida we continued to enjoy different and frequent wildlife. We have seen two flocks of white pelicans, which I understand are only winter visitors to Florida (summering in Canada and California). There are underwater creatures -- krill -- nibbling on our hull in this section of the Waterway, and the noise they make is fairly loud! It sounds like a moderate rain falling on the boat, except it is coming from under the boat. Luckily we were warned about this phenomenon by one of the guide books or we would have been very confused by the sound.

This morning we were in another quiet anchorage off the ICW, Fort George River, and happily the only unusual feature there was a dock with a National Park Service sign on it. I explored ashore while Ken checked the oil and worked his magic to keep our engine running well. The NPS site is the Kingsley Plantation, part of a bigger site that marks the earlier inhabitants, American Indians, Spanish, French, and English settlers. I read that the area also flew the Mexican flag at one point, and the flag of the Republic of Georgia and the Republic of Florida.

Today’s travels brought us to St. Augustine, just as the sun was setting. We are at an anchorage near the Spanish fort Castello de San Marcos, which was built from 1672 - 1756. We’re looking forward to seeing the city closer up tomorrow.

From the beginning of our trip in Cohasset to St. Augustine we have traveled about 1,375 miles.

We have been seeing fewer and fewer cruisers in this section of our trip. How are we handling the isolation from other human beings and from the technology/civilization that we are used to?

Ken: “We’re almost out of beer!” “I’m going to try calling GUST O’ WIND on the VHF one more time.”
Heidi: “I’m all set since I got to see a Park Service site that turned up randomly.” “We need to get to somewhere where we can send mail/buy Christmas gifts/send another blog episode”

2008-12-04T07:02:00.000-08:00

Canadian Friends from the Waterway with Ken

November 27 to December 2
Thankful, but no Turkey this year!
Nov. 27
We realized when we looked at the charts that we weren’t having turkey today. There’s nowhere to stop except McClellanville, where we are now (we tried motoring into the harbor there but it was low tide and we almost hit bottom) and we don’t have an oven (we do, but have never used it, due to some problems with the controls). So we headed off along the canals/rivers of South Carolina, another cold and sunny day. We are still seeing dolphins every once and a while. We anchored at the end of the day in another marshy creek, Whiteside Cr. Two boats we are familiar with were behind us and also anchored there. We all got together for drinks. One couple is from England and one from Canada.
We ARE thankful for the opportunity to take the time to see the East Coast in this way, up-close-and-personal, and to meet such interesting new people. We are fortunate to have the time to do this. Some days it seems like a Disney ride, and a free one at that! (This does not count the cold, windy, rainy days…….)The following day proved to be much warmer -- yay! No long johns today! -- and we are quite close to Charleston. We end up finishing the ICW north of Charleston Harbor with a parade of boats going through a swing bridge that opens when you request it. In the parade was a sailboat being towed and the 3 boats from Whiteside Cr. and a power boat. We anchored near the City Marina (they call it the Megadock, and it is big). We used their dinghy dock and went ashore to explore. Rain was expected, but mostly held off. The side streets leading up to the downtown were peaceful and pretty and then we hit the main shopping streets in the city and they were packed. We had forgotten that it was the “big Christmas shopping day”. Ken ended the afternoon straining his back on the return trip to our boat in the dinghy.
Our first aid kit contained some good pain killers and Ken was feeling better in the morning. We wanted to stay longer in Charleston but the weather was threatening to be windy again, from a difficult direction for anchoring in that harbor, so we left fairly early in the day for the ICW again. We still had warm temperatures but it was cloudy, and rain plus the high winds were expected. Our stop that night was at Bohicket Village Marina, a side trip off the ICW, down the North Edisto River, almost to the inlet to the Atlantic. This was a resort and marina, with several restaurants, a gift shop, etc. We treated ourselves to a great dinner ashore and then did 3 loads of laundry!
Nov. 30
An Island Packet 44 was towed in to the marina the day before we arrived and the single-handed sailor aboard is a woman. We talked with her and Ken looked at her engine, since she wasn’t going to be able to get a mechanic until tomorrow at the earliest. We’re not sure any of the suggestions he made were of any help but chances are good we’ll see her again further down the “road”. The weather was bad this day, windy and rainy. There was a break and I got to bike the short distance to a newly-built “village shopping area” and pick up some groceries. We left the dock in mid-afternoon and made a short windy trip to Steamboat Creek, also off the North Edisto River. There are plantations and ruins of plantations in this area. They grew rice and cotton in their heyday.
We finished our first full month on the boat this week and now have started December, back to cold clear weather. The ICW has a lot of “cuts” in this area (short connections between rivers) and we also crossed a very large body of water, St.Helena Sound. We got almost to Beaufort, SC, but the swing bridge in the river there only opens twice a day. The anchorage just before the bridge, on Factory Creek, proved to be a quiet, safe anchorage. We put out 2 anchors, one extra one from the stern, and this was such a stable arrangement that we remained there for 2 nights. We were able to motor to Beaufort in our dinghy. There we said goodby to people on two boats who were sailing out of the ICW that day, taking the more direct ocean route to Florida. [We can connect with people we have met on other boats by talking with them on the VHF marine radio. If they are within range--20miles--we can contact them and we can also listen-in if they are talking with bridge tenders or additional boats to make plans. That’s how we found out that the two boats we were familiar with were planning an overnight ocean sail.]

2008-11-29T05:05:00.000-08:00

November 20 - 26 RUNNING AGROUND AND OTHER NEWBIE EXPLOITS

Even though we have been sailing for 30+ years in several different sailboats, we are still learning what it takes to travel through the Intracoastal Waterway! We are definitely newbies when it comes to prioritizing what is needed each day and finding our way through the maze of inlets and waterway and river navigation symbols, and keeping track of the weather, the tides and the currents. If we sleep in a half hour more than we should, we have missed a crucial timing that could keep us from catching the current for the day or could cause us to leave on an ebbing (lowering) tide rather than a flooding tide. If we concentrate on the weather but miss the “cruisers net” bulletin on the internet that highlights the trouble spots for the area, we could be finding the shoals rather than missing them…….
Nov.20 We are inside the North Carolina barrier beaches (Hatteras, etc.) on the inland waterway canals,. Along the canals are large homes and docks; there is some interesting wildlife, birds, etc. Local small fishing/shellfishing boats have towers in the bow where the captain sits up high enough to see what is in the water ahead of him; he also has the engine controls up there with him. Bridges are keeping us on our toes; most need to open for us and some open only on the hour; some on the half hour and hour. There really is no time to just goof off! We ended this day at Wrightsville Beach, in a large anchorage just behind the beach. The beach could be Duxbury Beach, with an access bridge going out to it from the mainland, except it is covered with hotels, condos, single family homes, surf shops, etc. The beach is beautiful, but the extent of building on it is astounding. We spent two days here because it is a good anchorage and it is still cold and windy. The night of the 21st Wilmington NC (next to Wrightsville Beach) set a record for the low temperature for that day --something in the low 20s.
Nov. 22 We are headed for Cape Fear today, and it is still cold but clear. We bumped bottom on the way out of the channel from Wrightsville Beach. Otherwise had a good trip to Southport, NC where we got a free slip in the”old harbor” and enjoyed walking around the area and also getting out the folding bike to use to go a little further. We also treated ourselves to lunch and dinner out.

The next day was also cold and sunny (long johns again!). We left the slip at 8 am and by 10:30 we were in Lockwoods Folly, an inlet from the Atlantic which has shoaled and we had hit the shoal. It took until just after noon to get off. Several boats passed and looked at us with pity! One bright spot was the beach at this location. I rowed to the beach while we were stuck and found a mailbox and bench at the end of the beach -- not what I was expecting -- and it had notebooks and pens so you could leave your thoughts.
By the end of the day we were in South Carolina after 314 miles in North Carolina. We anchored in the
Calabash River, just off the ICW.
Nov. 24
When we got up -- at about 8 am -- the other half-dozen boats that had also been anchored there were already gone. We left at about 8:30 am and promptly went aground. (The other boats probably had a better
handle on the currents and tides than we had.) We seemed to be pretty well stuck and after about 10 minutes, a local shrimp boat heading home up the Calabash stopped and asked if we’d like him to try and free us. It worked, after some concentrated tugging on his part, and we found we were off the shoal and wouldn’t have to wait for the afternoon tide or for a tow boat to arrive and try to get us off. What nice people there are in the Carolinas!
After traveling through some more canals in the Myrtle Beach area we anchored in the Waccamaw River, behind a small island, along with 2 other boats. We were invited to come to one of the boats for drinks when we were settled. We met some new friends, Scott and Kitty on TAMURE from Connecticut and Lynn and Stu from Australia on ONDA. Nothing like an isolated anchorage and other cruisers to meet and talk with about our adventures. There was so much excited conversation that we had to (at someone’s suggestion) raise our hand to talk to keep the noise level down!
The next morning was mild and only partly cloudy; the temperatures were in the 50s by mid morning. We left the anchorage early and traveled more of the Wacamaw River, through fresh water with water hyacynthes floating everywhere. We planned to stop at Georgetown SC because we had heard so much about it as a great small city on the ICW. For a break, we rented a slip there and walked through some of the city, enjoying the novelty of being within striking distance of coffee shops, bookstores, banks, etc.
Georgetown is a working town with a big scrap-metal plant right at the end of Front Street (the main street) and paper mills are smelled and seen in the distance. But it does seem to deserve the reputation of having great supplies for cruisers and is an interesting town to tour and enjoy the 1700s and 1800s homes.
Before we left the next day we bought some fresh shrimp and some crab cakes at a market and continued down the ICW, without any goundings (!!!), to an anchorage near McLellanville, SC. This is an area with huge vistas of sea grass and lighthouses. There is only one other boat anchored anywhere near us and one shrimp boat returning home at sunset. This was another cold, sunny day. One highlight was a couple of dolphin sightings, once while they were mostly underwater, pushing up big waves of water (while they chased fish?) and then while another group swam near the boat and when one jumped out of the water in a clean breach.

The Dismal Swamp Canal and further reaches of the Intracoastal Waterway

2008-11-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

The Dismal Swamp Canal and further reaches of the Intracoastal Waterway; we have pictures but will add them in the next installment. Soon, I hope!!

November 10
We got up early and took a walk before the lock that takes you into the Canal was operating. We ended up talking to the lock operator, Bob, and he was helpful with tips and information about what was coming up on the Canal. He also has a conch shell collection at his office and we found out later, as we entered the lock with 3 other boats, and Bob helped adjust our lines to the sides of the lock, that he would play a conch (like a horn) while the lock emptied. Since I had asked about the shells, I got a quick lesson in blowing one and added to the noise.
Later that day after a slow trip down the Canal we passed the North Carolina state line and were invited to a free night at the NC Welcome Center docks on the Canal. The next day we continued to the end of the 16 mile canal. The whole way we have had some late foliage colors and not too many other boats, and it’s very peaceful. We now have some new friends that we met at the Welcome Center, several from Canada, and some from Virginia and Maryland. There is also a couple on a boat from Germany that decided not to leave with us and they will ride the bike trails in the area (they have two full-size bikes on their boat; we have one folding bike we are carrying). Fourteen miles of river after the canal brought us to Elizabeth City, NC and another free dock for the night.
Several cruisers talking in a group, including Ken, were greeted after docking by a friendly gentleman who mentioned some of the highlights in town. As he left he introduced himself as the Mayor of Elizabeth City. We took his recommendation and attended the evening movie a few blocks away. The movie theater also had dinners before the show and the line was fairly long waiting to get in. The tables for the restaurant were in the back half of the theater, which had been reconfigured into three levels for about 12 tables on each level. Each table had a phone and orders were called in to the kitchen, then delivered by wait staff. The movie was “Secret Life of Bees“ and we enjoyed it.

November 12
Our next day we sailed by a large Coast Guard Air Training base. This day they were launching a blimp and “sailing” it around the point of land that the base is on. Later in the day as we entered the Alligator River we hit bottom (mud or sand) as we tried to avoid another boat that seemed to be stuck on the bottom. The first boat eventually got off and sailed on but we were really stuck. In the end we had to call a tow boat (we were warned about the frequent danger of grounding out and had bought insurance coverage for towing) and we were towed into deeper water. A nearby marina had reasonable rates, so to calm down after this experience we stopped there for the night, and added another night when the weather got rainy and windy the next day.
The boats that arrived at the marina the second day of our stay told wild tales of the wind on the bay that day. We had dinner at the small restaurant at the fuel dock at the marina as did 3 of the crews of these new boats. We met people from Padanarum,MA, Camden, ME, and Jemez Pueblo, NM (which is about 50 miles from where Tammy lives).

November 14
We needed to leave, even though it was foggy. That day we traveled 12 miles of foggy canals and rivers, including passing through a bridge that opened for us, until it cleared up. After another canal that was fairly easy to travel on, although it did start raining, we again met up with fog. We needed to get to a good anchorage so proceeded carefully into the harbor at Belhaven, NC. Our chart plotter that we use to navigate is extremely helpful and especially in fog or new areas it is proving to be invaluable. Belhaven is another location where we spent two days due to weather, also due to high winds. Oh, yeah, they did have tornado warnings in this area our first morning and then they were extended to the rest of the day (tragically we heard that 2 people died in the next county).
The weather was warm for our stay, in the 70s during the days, but the forecast was for a cold front approaching.

November 16
Wanting to cover some ground this day we left at 8 am and sailed on the Pamlico River, Pamlico Sound, more of the protected waterway, and then the Neuse River. The Neuse was good for us and we motor-sailed with just our jib at over 7 knots, enough to adjust our arrival to Oriental, NC, a few miles after Broad Creek where we had expected to anchor. We anchored just off of the Oriental Marina and the shrimp boat docks. Several boats we were familiar with were at the marina, so we joined them (GUST O’WIND from Canada and NECESSITY whose owner is from New Mexico) for dinner that night at the marina restaurant. It’s fun to compare notes with other cruisers and to find out where they’ve come from and where they’re headed.
The next day we walked to the post office where we picked up mail that our son Pete forwarded for us. We also stopped in a marine consignment shop (used guide books, boat parts, etc.) and a coffee shop back at the marina area.
Before we left we figured out that we have been 800 miles so far, from Cohasset, MA, and about 175 of those miles, so far, have been in North Carolina. Then we set sail and headed for our next destination, which turned out to be Beaufort, NC. We anchored off of Town Marina with several other boats. Artic cold is predicted and it was a cold night.

November 18
We stayed in our heated cabin longer than usual this morning, taking time to start this blog and send it out, along with other chores. The day promised to be cold and windy and it was. We only went about 8 miles and found a small creek entering the channel --Spooners Creek -- which had space to anchor and also was within walking distance from a large mall. We encountered one other boat anchored in the creek, Eric from Rhode Island (originally from Georgia), a young man who is sailing a 29’ boat alone down to Savannah and maybe to Fort Lauderdale. He was happy for company and we talked engines, families, trip experiences, etc. for a while in the afternoon and again in the early evening. It snowed today, fine blowing snow, for about 15 minutes. The next day we made up for the short miles of Tuesday by going through to New River Marina in Snead’s Ferry, NC. Every day is an adventure and today there were announcements of Navy ships, including an aircraft carrier and helicopters, off the coast that were conducting exercises, and we traveled through Camp Lejeune, a Marine base, where we watched several boats of trainees practicing their small boat handling including pulling up to the river banks and rooster-tail turns. We saw really good wildlife in this area as well, probably because there are no houses or other development here.
We were the only sailboat at the marina; there were showers here (the water was hot but not the room) and we fueled up and got water for our tanks. There is also a fairly well stocked marine store there. If you are curious about how we keep clean, we have a shower on our boat and the water is heated by our engine when it is running. We do our laundry ashore when we can find laundromats.

The first weeks of our trip! I'll get caught up with my next post...

2008-11-18T06:30:00.000-08:00

It’s the second week of November 2008 now, but to catch you up on how we got to this point here’s our recap:
Ken, brother Pete, and Pete’s friend Dave sailed from Cohasset to Block Island on October 8-10 stopping in Plymouth and Pocasset. Ken picked a good crew--two merchant marine engineers. In Block Island they were met by Heidi on Friday night and the next day Pete and Dave took the ferry back and Ken and Heidi continued across to Atlantic City, an overnight-plus sail that was relatively easy because of the warm weather and almost full moon. We had the company of several small birds that landed on our boat in the crossing and also two large woodpeckers (!!), one that flew right into our cabin and one that circled the boat.
From Atlantic City and a good night’s sleep at anchor in a creek in the marshes there we sailed to Cape May NJ and anther overnight. The following day we sailed up the Delaware River against the current, still with warm weather, to anchor behind the small island (Reedy Is.) just before the entrance to the C&D Canal.
We entered the C&D Canal -- in Delaware -- and it takes you to Maryland by mid-day. We stopped in Chesapeake City and had our first taste of the camaraderie of cruisers. We tied to a dock there and met a young couple from Canada who are planning to sail to New Zealand and a retired couple from upstate New York, headed to Stuart, Florida. We shared exploits and got some assistance with charts and the wifi network at the dock and “bonded”.
After two more days and stops in the Sassafras River in the upper Chesapeake Bay and Lake Ogleton outside of Annapolis we settled in Weems Creek just north of Spa Creek where the city of Annapolis is. The Bay is full of migrating birds and we got a sense of this in the Sassafras with the loud noise of flocks of geese.
Ken stayed with the boat for another week completing projects, until October 27th then flew home; Heidi traveled back by bus on October 19 to work for two more weeks. Ken was able to move the boat to a Navy mooring for the time between 10/17 and 11/2.
November 2
We’re back in Annapolis in Weems Creek. Pete helped us get here and will drive our truck back. To celebrate we all went to get steamed shrimp at a places called Heroes near here and we watched the Patriots game. The next day we are getting settled with all our gear. Pete stayed overnight on the boat and bought us a couple of bottles of wine for the trip before he left. We bought some new charts today and a guidebook to the Bahamas. BU had given me a gift certificate that we used toward these items.
Wed we left the Creek in drizzly weather and sailed across Chesapeake Bay to Little Choptank River to anchor for the night. It’s chilly so we have the cabin heater going for the evening before we go to bed. Today was Voting Day; we already voted with absentee ballots last month.
November 5
This morning we got the news that Obama had won. This is great and sets the tone for the rest of the day! It’s one of the days when we can sail without also using the engine to get us going at a decent speed. So with a double reef in the main and no other sails up we crossed the Bay again (it’s narrow here) in a very fast time and anchored in the Back River of Solomon’s Is. We saw many pelicans today, big birds compared to the other sea birds we see, and always fishing, flying low to the water or diving from about 30 ft. to scoop up fishin their big bill-pouch. Never knew that pelicans came to Maryland. The next day remained extremely windy so we decided to check out the museum in Solomon’s, called Calvert Marine Museum. It’s a well-run one, with many interesting exhibits. They also have a lighthouse on stilts that was moved there and is authentic to about 50 years ago. They take you on a guided tour of it. On Friday we left early with several other boats and found the weather better, calm wind and warming temperatures. That night we anchored in Antipoison Bay (John Smith was suppose to have received an antidote for a stingray bite from the Indians during a visit here). In south Chesapeake Bay. We sat out in the cockpit that night and watched the sun set. Pretty little spot.
On Saturday is was raining again; we headed out and the conditions turned nasty, wind right at us and waves making the trip uncomfortable. We didn’t go as far as we had planned, and took a chance on heading in to a narrow opening to a harbor half way to Norfolk, our ultimate destination. We had to thread our way in and then it opened up a bit and turned out to be a great place to anchor. Since it was early we dinghied to shore to a marina down further in the harbor (Horn Harbor) and walked around a bit. We found a couple loading their boat for a trip similar to ours, but they plan to be gone “a few years”! They nicely took off some time and volunteered to drive us to a pizza place they knew nearby and we also had drinks with them in their borrowed house next to the marina. The jeep ride to Matthews, VA was fun and the pizza was good and there was live folk music there to entertain us.
Sunday we left early from Horn Harbor and got to Norfolk, VA around mid-day. Inside Norfolk is where the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) starts, and it will be our “highway” to Florida for many weeks to come. Norfolt was strangely quiet, maybe because of being Sunday. We stopped at the city docks of Portsouth, across the river from Norfolk and then left to go under 3 bridges (only one had to be opened for us) and to the entrance to the Dismal Swamp Canal. Right before the first locks on the canal we tied to two posts and enjoyed the peaceful setting -- close river banks on either side, herons fishing nearby, and no other boats in sight. Today was one of the sunny days, which have been few and far between, but our foul-weather gear is keeping us fairly dry and warm.