Come Go With Us!!!

Beyond NSB

2012-01-27T09:53:00.000-05:00

Met this guy on our way out of Ft. Lauderdale.
English Rose in front of us.

We finally managed to pull ourselves away from New Smyrna Beach on January 19. Headed down to Palm Beach for our exit to the Abacos on Monday, but that weather window deteriorated faster than it appeared! We had a good trip down to Palm Beach, although we had to fight our way through the weekend idiots on the waterway between Vero Beach and Palm Beach. Shortly after anchoring in Palm Beach 'English Rose' pulled in. We met Bob & Janet four years ago and saw them again last year. They are such a delightful couple to spend time with. Janet is from England and has that beautiful english accent that I could listen to forever - they have been cruising for about 7 years. Bob is very sensible and like Jeff, does all his own work on their boat and he and Jeff have lots to talk about. Bob and Janet are planning to go the Exumas and were planning to leave on the day we were leaving for the Abacos, so were stuck in Palm Beach as well. The four of us decided to head down the inside passage and slug through 22 draw bridges to get to Ft. Lauderdale and then went outside to get to Miami. I thought Palm Beach was the land of the rich and famous, but it only gets richer and famouser the farther south you go!!! The whole way to Ft. Lauderdale I was oohing and aahing over houses and boats. The trip on the outside to Miami was pretty bumpy - things came out of their place that have never moved before - books jumped out of the bookcase behind our bed and food jumped out of closed cabinets! We surfed through the inlet to Miami with opposing tide. WOW! What a ride!!

We've never been to Miami before and were excited to see what everyone talks about. Miami harbour was obviously dredged and perfectly shaped islands were made and built on years ago when that was allowed - very interesting. There is a road with little bridged connecting all these islands. We are anchored with 'English Rose' between Palm Island and Hibiscus Island. We are the only two boats anchored in here and it is very protected, at least so far. But, we are definately fishes in a bowl here! The first afternoon we were here we went over to Monument Island to meet up with some other cruisers we had met in previous years, Jesse & Ginny on 'Wind Dust', and Mike & Barb on 'Goose Bumps', as well as some other cruisers we hadn't met before. There are many places to anchor in this area and boats everywhere, but Monument Island is pretty much in the middle of the area.

Bob & Janet took us ashore yesterday to see South Beach and the surrounding area, as they've been here many times before and are old hat at finding the hot spots. Sad to say, we were unimpressed with South Beach itself - not as pretty a beach as we expected at all, especially since it is such a famous beach. The road that runs along the beach is totally consumed with restaurants/bars/hotels. I've never seen so many restaurants!!! And you must walk through each one as the sidewalk runs right through them. And every one has at least one or two people hussling you to stop for drinks, lunch or breakfast. Unbelievable! We did stop at one for lunch and promptly left when we found out the 'happy hour' 2 for 1drinks were going to cost us $12 each. They flash you cards showing $9 and $10 for lunch, but don't tell you how high the drinks are. We ate at a place on Lincoln Ave, which is an area leading up to South Beach that is closed off to traffic and just one store and restaurant after the other. Quite interesting. In the middle of what at one time was the street, there was a raised beautiful grassy area and Quaker parakeets would fly down out of the palm trees to pick up tidbits that passersby would throw out there.

Quaker Parakeets

Chart of the Miami area - see the perfectly shaped islands?!

The video below is us coming into Miami.

Till next time!!

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I’m a really bad blogger!!! I haven’t posted a single thing since we left home Nov. 20th and I’m not going to try and fool you into thinking I’ll do better in 2012 because you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

Some of the boats in our marina dressed up for Christmas

Salty Dog

Downtown New Smyrna Beach

We are in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where we left the boat for the summer. We do so love it here! The Christmas decorations were beautiful, on the water as well as downtown.

Waiting for the Christmas Parade to start - can you tell it was a chilly day?

Jeff finished the watermaker for the boat – yippee!!! We are really excited to try it out, but have to wait until we are in a place where we can see the bottom – you’re not supposed to use it in dirty water. The basic principle of a watermaker is that it takes clean salt water and takes the salt out and cleans it up and makes fresh water – it works by reverse osmosis. We should be able to make about 16 gallons an hour when the generator is running and that is most mornings for about one hour to top off the charge on our batteries. Since we use about 12 gallons a day we will have a few extra gallons a day to spare. And when you have to carry your water with you on the boat you learn to be very frugal with it. Here in the USA it's not a big deal to fill your water tanks when you stop to get diesel fuel - it's free, BUT in the Bahamas it is anywhere from 20 - 50 cents a gallon! Think about how often you turn the faucet on at home and how long you leave it on and the amount of water that is coming out each time. Do you think you use more than 6 gallons per person? That includes showering every day and washing dishes. I bet I wash my hands a dozen times a day under a trickle of water, but then everything is done under a trickle!!

On a humorous note – we brought our RV down here to stay in for the first few weeks since we had some projects going on that made it hard to get around inside the boat. We parked the RV at a campground 3 miles from the marina, which was quite convenient. We had extremely hard rain all evening and night one particular day while we were staying there and when we woke the following morning and looked out the windows we thought we were on the boat! We were totally surrounded by water - some places were 8 inches deep. We were storing our empty gas jugs (for the dinghy) under the RV. They were floating all over the campground. Luckily the campground has pumps that are set up to drain the water away pretty quick, so by the end of the day we didn’t have to wade to the door.

This was after the water had receded some.

We drove back to Alabama to spend Christmas with Brian, Melanie, Kate & John. I am so glad we went!! We so enjoyed watching their excitement. And when we arrived we learned that Santa now sends an Elf to each house with children. The elf sits on a shelf (or somewhere else) and he/she watches the children for Santa by day and flies to the North Pole at night to report in, then back to the childrens houses before morning. But not before he gets into some kind of mischief at the house. And he always seems to be in a different place each morning. It is quite magical! And the mischief Kate & John’s elf got into was funny. One night he rolled the Christmas tree in toilet paper and was sitting in the tree; another night he dressed up in Kate’s Barbie clothes and was found in the bathroom reading a book to three of her Barbies. I guess the elf must have reported that Kate & John were pretty good, because they sure did haul in the presents on Christmas!!! I’ve never seen anything like it! They sure did enjoy themselves. As did the rest of us just watching them.

The New Year is here and we need to get ourselves in gear, finish up some small projects, and get moving farther south. The weather here has been wonderful. It is New Year’s Day and we took a dinghy ride in bathing suits! We have tried to enjoy every bit of it because we know it’s going to get really cold tomorrow night – 34* with a high of 50* on Tuesday - bbbrrrrrrrrr!! But it will be back in the low 70’s by the end of the week. The cold comes and goes. Since the marina we’re in is right on the ICW we get to watch the parade of boats heading south. We thought we would be the very last one heading out, but I guess not.

She was instructed to stand guard while I went to get the next load!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!! May 2012 be a wonderful year!

The Sun She Is Arisin'! On another cruisin season that is!

2011-11-08T09:46:00.000-05:00

The hummingbirds left and the canada geese have arrived. We need to follow the birds and head 'souther'! Since we live in the south it doesn't make sense to say we will head south, so 'souther' it is!! We are down to12 days and counting. Our housesitters will show up next week and then we're gone!

It's hard to believe it is time to go again - the summer flew by and we didn't get much accomplished that's for sure. Jeff has worked all summer and is feeling the pressure of what needs to be done before we leave. His biggest project is building a new watermaker for the boat. The parts and pieces are piling up in the garage, with UPS and FEDX making daily deliveries to us for that project as well as others. He could've purchased a watermaker already assembled and ready to install, but he decided he wanted to build it himself. Besides being less expensive, I think he just wanted the challenge. Looks like he got his wish!

And so, another cruising season is about to begin. We are looking forward to meeting up with old friends as well as meeting new ones this season. Follow along with us as we get underway.

The Sun has set on another cruising season

2011-06-27T10:41:00.000-04:00

Well....................... we're back home in Tennessee and I feel like we've just moved!! What with all the packing up, loading, driving, unloading, unpacking .............. we have waaaaaayyyyy too much 'stuff' ..........everywhere!!!!! It's time to start sifting through it all and thinning it out. We lived without alot of this 'stuff' for the last 8 months, surely we can live without some of it forever!!!! It is good to be home though - life is easier here in many ways. Neither of us is counting the amps we use or the water either, which equates to not running into walls in the dark and being able to take a shower without having to worry whether all the soap and shampoo are rinsed off. You laugh, but try walking around your house without lights at night or better yet with a miner's lamp on your forehead and then try taking a shower like this:

Get under the showerhead and turn the water on without letting it heat up and only turn on a little bit and just let it run long enough to get you semi-wet.
Turn off water.
Lather up you and all your parts, as well as your head.
Turn on the water just enough so that you can quickly rinse you, your parts, and your head - don't take too long cause the water tank is not very big and if you take too long you won't have water for other things like brushing your teeth, making coffee, washing dishes tomorrow, shower tomorrow, the next day and the next day. Get the picture??!! You'll get used to it!

The pups are adjusting as well as we are - there are plenty of squirrels and lizards to chase to keep them busy and as long as we are close by they are quite happy. They still let us know when it is 4:00, which is a good thing cause we may miss happy hour otherwise ........... not likely though.

We had Kate and John (the grandkids) with us last week and had a great time! It was so good to hold them and snuggle up with them again. I've missed them and they are growing up so fast!

This will more than likely be our last post til next fall since we have no current plans to go anywhere til then. We do plan to cruise again next winter/spring and would like to go further south in the Bahamas........we'll see.

Hope you enjoyed the trip this season!!

Time to head back to Tennessee

2011-06-07T22:00:00.000-04:00

Wellllllllll...................the time has come to head back home to Tennessee.

We got the boat back in the water last Friday evening and made the trip back to our slip in New Smyrna Beach on Saturday. We were even able to back it in, thanks to our new bow thruster - YEAH!!!!!!!!! We love our new addition!!! Why didn't we part with that money before??!! It was pretty scary watching that big hole being drilled through the bottom of the boat, but the installation was very professional and smooth going - only took 2 1/2 days . We can't say enough positive things about FloridaBowThruster.com and our experience with them.

Cutting the hole for the thruster

The finished thing!!!!

We are in the process of off-loading 'stuff' from the boat to the camper and will start home next Sunday.

Can't wait to see Kate and John!!!!!!!!!

Back to the Land of Plenty!!

2011-05-29T14:26:00.002-04:00

We've arrived safe and sound in New Smyrna Beach - actually got here a week ago last Friday. We had a good crossing from the Abacos on the previous Tuesday, spent a couple of days in Vero Beach to catch up on our lost night of sleep(during the crossing) as well as clear back through customs into the USA. We caught no fish, NADA, NOTHING, ZIP coming back across and that did not sit too well with either of us so we decided to contribute to the local economy in Vero and bought another rod and reel and more tackle for the next trip. Our logic was that two poles in the water would be much better than one and it was fresh on our minds and we would undoubtedly forget come next fall, plus we'd just been at the bar next door talking about how disappointed we were. But I'm sure the alcohol consumption had nothing to with that purchase!

We are so spoiled living in the US (the land of plenty) - we so take it for granted that we can get whatever we want/need whenever we want to. Went to Publix a couple of days ago and I normally hate grocery shopping, but I actually did not mind this trip. It was quite pleasant to see everything marked with a price (instead of guessing how much it was going to cost) and the prices were so cheap compared with what we've been paying for the last 5 months. The last loaf of bread I bought in the Bahamas was $4.75 and I paid $2.99 PLUS it was Buy One Get One Free!!! Bought two porterhouse steaks for $7.99/lb instead of $14.99; crackers were $3.69/pkg instead of $5.99. I'm sure it won't take long to get used to these prices and I'll be among those bellyaching about the high prices here, but right now I'm happy to pay them!!!

As I said we're back in NSB and feeling quite comfortable and at home here. We made it here in time for the classic car show and have been to Maloney's (one of our favorite hang-outs) to guzzle down a few Blue Moon Drafts .............. and they were oh so good!!! Been missing them! Tuesday nights are another Maloney's night, as Jason and Matt play then and we only have so many opportunities to hear them.

We do so love NSB - there are all kinds of places within a short walk and the beach itself is only a little farther and if we were really ambitious we could walk there, but we are slugs and drive when we want to go.

Jeff is already ordering new equipment and making plans for work to be done on the boat in the very near timeframe. We are fortunate in that we know a couple of guys here in NSB that are very good at pretty much anything we need them to do. One is a diesel mechanic and the other does everything else. Jeff usually fixes/repairs/installs everything on the boat, but there are some things even he doesn't want to do so that is when we call TR or Diesel Rick. The new stove/oven came in Thursday and Jeff helped TR install it on Friday. The installation went very smooth - no name calling, no screaming.

Jeff had his semi-annual haircut a few days ago.

We don't know how long we're going to be in NSB or where we're going to leave the boat for the summer. We're looking at Jacksonville, Fl. and Brunswick, Ga, but who knows what we will decide. In the near term we are having the boat hauled in Cape Canaveral Tuesday for some work and will then bring it back to NSB.

Since it is so stinking hot here we naturally have the a/c on and that means we have two streams of water coming out of the side of the boat all the time. Check out the picture below and see what that attracts.

That would be a Manatee

Till next time!

Bahamas Billfish Tournament

2011-05-07T10:16:00.000-04:00

The billfish tournament went from Thursday through Saturday and we watched from the boat as they came right past our stern for the flags they fly (click on the picture below and you can see the flags) indicating the kind of billfish caught that day. The flags are colored to signify the particular kind of fish caught - white flag with a blue fish is a blue marlin; blue flag with a white fish is a white marlin; white flag with blue fish with large top fin is a sailfish; and don't know what the flag looks like for a spearfish because no one caught one.

There were 36 boats in the tournament and there are five tournament segments in the Bahamas Billfish Championship with each 'week-long' segment/tournament in a different location and they all accumulate for the grand champion of the overall billfish tournament. It's all based on points and they get points for fish other than billfish, just not as many. Here's the website for this year's Championship http://www.bahamasbillfish.com/bbc_results/2011_results/
in case you're interested in more info. It's pretty exciting just to walk the docks after they come in and see what else they've caught.

We also like to check out the names of the boats as well as where they come in from. The best name this year has to be 'Chasin Tail' out of Ft. Pierce, Fl.

This year's winner for this first segment of the tournament went to 'Bear Trap' out of none other than Lookout Mountain, Tn.

We met the owner on Friday - John Stout. Obviously this is a very rich man's sport. We were told the big gold reels on the fishing poles cost about $10K each!!!!!!

Entry for each segment of the tournament is about $3K and if you are lucky enough to win the overall championship the prize money is $10K. Sounds like a lot, but when you factor in that they use in the neighborhood of $2K diesel fuel each day it's not even enough to begin to cover your cost! Some of these numbers can be verified on the tournament website, but the others were given to us by one of the boat owners. When you figure that diesel fuel was $5.62/gal at the start of the tournament and they use several hundred gallons or more each day it's not hard to see it add up. OUCH!!!!

Brian & Mel's Visit was toooooo short!!!

2011-04-29T14:35:00.000-04:00

The week came and went so fast!!! Brian & Melanie left us this morning - we hated to see it end - we had such a good time - even if we did have a little nasty weather in the middle! We didn't get to take them everywhere we wanted to but they got a pretty good feel for the area and the hard life we are enduring.

We were able to go to Guana Cay for a day and believe it or not they both (as well as us) got nipped (at Nipper's) and grabbed (at Grabber's). We dinghied over to Shell Island so Brian and Jeff could snorkle and Melanie & I could look for shells. Lots of shells to be had and Brian found numerous conchs, although we didn't keep any of them. He found two Helmet Conchs that were not smelling very good but sure are beautiful! We are dragging them behind the boat in a net bag to see if the small fish will eat the remains out of them so we can take them home. Man O man do they smell bad!!!!

Off to Hopetown, which they really liked. They found sea glass on the beach along with numerous sea beans; climbed to the top of the lighthouse; got to see Rake & Scrape while we were there, although it was a mid-day show and very sedate, quite unlike the night time Rake & Scrape, which can get pretty wild and rowdy - but we had a good time anyway. Went on down to Tahiti Beach for more snorkeling and sandbar walking, along with cleaning a coconut that was oh so good. It is beautiful there, hence the name!

On to Man O War where the anchorage looks over a little piece of land that is nothing more than a golf cart path on top of the rocks, and then on the other side is the Atlantic Ocean. Absolutely gorgeous to watch the waves crash in and over the rocks.

Over to Mermaid Reef yesterday morning for more snorkeling. This is a small reef/coral area outside of Marsh Harbour and you wouldn't expect to really see anything there if you looked at the surroundings, but it is a very nice place to snorkel. We saw lots and lots of different kinds of fish and some that we had not seen on the ocean side reefs, but we didn't have the barracudas to deal with.

Back to Treasure Cay yesterday late afternoon, just in time to watch the parade of sport fishing boats coming in from the first day of the billfish tournament. We'll post more on that after the tournament is over.

AND...............somewhere along the way Brian managed to catch a couple of fish, one was a BAF which we couldn't get up to the boat and the other wasn't near as big and we released it.

Lastly - Melanie tried to get off the boat this morning with Chloe in her backpack but got caught!!!! We struggled but got her back ................ it was close!!

That about sums up our week!! Any questions??

Dogs mostly............

2011-04-18T08:25:00.001-04:00

Just a few pictures of the silly dogs and some of the things they do.

And last but not least ......

Here is last night's sunset - right before the rising full moon

The rising full moon last night

One more last random item...

Our air plants seem to be happy on the boat, just like everything else, and are blooming for the first time, or at least a couple of them are. We're pretty excited about that! You'll have to click on the pictures so you can see the blooms.

Mom & Jack's Visit

2011-04-07T09:04:00.003-04:00

Gerri & Alan s/v 'Civil Twilight'

Wellllllllll.......... Mom & Jack have come and gone already. They were here for a week. We had a great visit even if the weather wasn't the best. Actually if you went on temperatures and sunshine it was beautiful, but the winds were very strong and always out of the South and Southwest, which makes it very difficult to get to the places you want to go. They are troopers and had a good time just the same. We started them off at the Coco Beach Bar as soon as they arrived - we needed to get their livers tuned up immediately although I think they had been working on that before they got here!! We spent several days in Hopetown which they really liked the last time they were here. We walked a beach somewhere every day for at least a couple of hours - not many treasures to be found no matter where we walked though.

We had planned on going to the Barefoot Man concert (at Nipper's on Guana Cay) on Friday but it was not to be. The wind was blowing out of the West and Southwest between 25 and 30 knots. You can't anchor at Guana in winds like that and the fast boat we had reserved from a local rental company wouldn't let their boats out of the harbor, sooooooooooo we were stuck again and in Treasure Cay, but we couldn't have been stuck in a more beautiful place. The beach there is one of the ten most beautiful beaches in the world (according to National Geographic). We were so glad that Mom & Jack had been here before and were able to see a number of the islands and spots that we like to show off since we didn't get to do what 'Sojourner' calls the 'Abaco Shuffle'.

It is the time of the season that many of the winter cruisers are heading back home and this year is no exception. Some days it's like a mass exodus. The anchorage may have 30 or more boats and by morning there may only be 10 left, then another 10 or more move in to stage for leaving and you start all over again.

We've had to say goodbye to a several of our friends already - Charlie & Chris on 'Wingspread' , Rick & Linda on 'Sojourner' and Gerri & Alan on 'Civil Twilight'. Others will be following shortly, sadly to say. But it is interesting to meet people that are just now arriving in the Abacos from Florida. Everyone is on a different schedule of when they arrive and depart.

I guess you're up to date for the time being. We are looking forward to Brian and Melanie's visit in a couple of weeks and hope the weather will be in our favor for that week.

Fowl Cay National Park

2011-03-18T12:27:00.000-04:00

Fowl Cay National Park is a Bahamian underwater sea park located on the ocean side of Fowl Cay just north of Man-O-War Cay. The park is a protected area – no fishing or taking of live creatures is permitted. We finally got a calm day and anchored “Salty Dog” on the west side of Fowl Cay and dinghied out to the ocean reefs. The water temperature is still in the low 70’s, so we donned our shorty wets suits and a snorkeling we went. It was our best snorkel experience this season. Saw several barracudas and many tropical fish on the reefs - thankfully no sharks. Most of the 'dive boats take people out to this reef (on a calm day) and we can certainly see why. We would have liked to stay longer but the tide was coming in fast and it was getting a little rolly for us. We'd hoped to be able to get back out there today but not going to happen. We can see the reef from where we're anchored and the waves are breaking over the reef. What pictures turned out from yesterday are below. Photographers we are not!

'SALTY DOG's' Salty Dogs

2011-03-18T11:10:00.000-04:00

Do you have something for us??!!

The pups really are having a good time - and they do love their beach time. Savannah loves to chase the waves and scavenge for any food scraps that someone may have dropped on the beach from a picnic, or a dead smelly fish that has been sundried - it matters not to her which snack - one is as good as the other. Yesterday it was half of a peanut butter & jelly sandwich covered in sand - YUM YUM! Chloe is searching as well, but not quite as efficient as Savannah in her scouting ability. She has discovered the little crabs that wash in with the waves - they are about the size of your thumbnail. We only see them on the beach at Guana though. The first one she encountered was quite funny. She grabbed it and it hung on to her lip - how funny was that - she was shaking her head and twirling around trying to get it loose - which really didn't take much, but quite funny to watch. On the boat we get a kick out of them sticking their heads in one of the ports in the galley, which is pretty much anytime they can see either of us in there or smell that something is being prepared. We have to come to call this port 'the drive-thru window' and we hand out tidbits through this port. Savannah likes to stand on the cabin top above the galley as well and look down in the overhead hatch, but Chloe can't jump up there. The problem with Savannah standing over the hatch is if I am indeed cooking or have something that she wants she will drool right on top me - not cool!!

We call this 'The Drive Thru' window

Chloe with a little crab

Chasing the waves! Get 'em Banna!

So now you have an idea of what the dogs are doing, because we have many people ask us how the dogs adapt to being on the boat and how they like it. Not sure they really like it, but they don't seem to be suffering too badly!

Abaco Water Colors

2011-03-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

The colors in and around the Sea of Abaco and the Atlantic beaches. Photographers we’re not. Our photos really don’t do it justice, but impressive none the less.

2011-02-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

GOOD MORNING!! Another day in paradise awaits us! We just seem to be wandering through the weeks aimlessly. And what's wrong with that!!!!

We haven't done anything earth shattering or even very important. At the moment everything on the boat seems to be working great, so no major repair jobs to undertake, just routine care and maintenance - thank goodness!! We did have a major snaffu a couple of weeks ago, which was my fault, and I hate to even have to fess up to it but I must. Our 20HP Honda, which we use to power the dinghy, went swimming and it didn't float! We retrieved it and Jeff worked his 'majic' again and it is running better than before! Another miracle!!!!!!! Who'dathunk??!!

Parrot Fish

We did some snorkeling on one of the reefs recently and saw some really pretty fish, although I'm not a very good underwater photographer, as you will notice. That was the first time we'd used our masks since we were here in 2008 and since we left them on the boat in the hot hot weather, which we now realize was not a good idea at all, we are going to have to search for replacements very soon. That is easier said than done for Jeff since he needs to have a prescription in his mask - at least down here.

The full moon last week

Under Mizzen & Spinnaker

A couple of nights ago the Dept. of Tourism hosted a reception for the 'Winter Residents' here in the Abacos, and we attended with numerous cruisers, as we are 'Winter Residents', at least this winter. We all shed our bathing suits and dressed respectably for the event. We hardly knew each other! Had a good time even if they did run out of food and liquor before everyone got theirs.

In our dress-up clothes

Hopetown Lighthouse

We've already been here 6 weeks - how can that be??!!

2011-01-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

I’ve again been reminded that it is time to make an entry to the blog. We got one especially lengthy complaint – “I would like to log a formal complaint in that the people in the real world would like to see how you are managing your terrible situation. I personally feel that one update per month is not meeting expectations. Due to this sub-par performance, the blogging frequency should be increased to at least a bi-monthly status and monitored for effectiveness. Given the current lack of feedback to the real world, you may not even know what day of the week or even what month it is, so it may be helpful to periodically look at a calendar to ensure that you are meeting the new increased blogging frequency. “ Thanks Brian!

One of the beaches the dogs make us walk - what a pain!

We’ve been traveling around the Abacos and moving every few days from one anchorage to another as the wind moves or our mood changes. This is a little more troublesome than moving your chair on the beach and takes a little more time than that, but we’re trying to cope with the many demands on our time. There are numerous beaches we have to walk and scavenge for ‘beach treasures’, as well as happy hours aboard other boats that we ‘must’ attend. Days like yesterday when we had to go in and drop off our laundry (and go back and pick it up later in the day), as well as a trip to the liquor store, and then the dogs made us take them for a long walk on the beach, PLUS we had a happy hour to attend aboard ‘Sojourner’ – that was a particularly taxing day for us – so much to do in one day – we dropped into bed at 10:00pm totally exhausted and it was past our bedtime!!! Days like that kinda make us think we’re really pushing ourselves too far. I know all y’all that are reading this can sympathize. We’ll try to start slowing down a bit and enjoy ourselves.

Lunch @ Grabbers with friends

Man-O-War Anchorage

I'll try to tell you about a few of the places we’ve been lately and ‘try’ to post a few pictures. Pictures seem to be especially troublesome to post for some reason. I'm not sure if they will be in the correct places or not - all I can say is that there will be pictures.

We watched this ship go aground - it was no easy task to push & pull it back into deeper water!

We finally had sufficient good weather and winds out of the east so that we could make it down to Lynyard Cay – one of the sea glass beaches that we like to visit. And yes we finally found some sea glass, but not a lot. And certainly not any big pieces. We spent a pleasant 4 days down there, with only one other boat in sight. I take that back – there were several others that came in late one day and left early the next morning, heading out of Little Harbour Cut for Eleuthera and the Exumas. We watched them go through the cut with 4 – 5 foot rollers and waves pretty much breaking all the way across. We would lose site of the boats and only see their masts when they would go down between the swells. It was making me seasick to watch!

While we were at Lynyard Cay we dinghied over to Little Harbour and Pete’s Pub, the only place at Little Harbour, and were reminded of their slogan – “Where the Elite Meet to Eat in their Barefeet”. That will be ‘the place to be’ on Feb 5, as it is Pete’s birthday party and it is an annual ‘event’.

Happy Hour aboard 'Sojourner'

We spent a few days at Snake Cay with two other boats, ‘Wingspread – Chris & Charlie’, whom we met three years ago and really enjoy spending time with, as well as some new friends Jim & Beth on ‘Mad Cap’. ‘Mad Cap’ has since gone south, heading towards Cuba. Chris & Charlie led all of us on a dinghy tour through the river/creek at Snake Cay. It was very pretty back there – we saw Rays, large sea turtles and it seems to be a great place for conch hunting.

We’ve been back to Guana Cay, for the Sunday afternoon Pig Roast, Treasure Cay, and Man-O-War Cay. We anchored on the north end of Man-O-War where we had just a little bit of land between us and the Atlantic Ocean – we could look off the bow of our boat across the little piece of land and watch the waves break on the other side – pretty cool.

Today we are heading south again with ‘Civil Twilight’, Alan & Jeri, and will each try to remember how to fly our spinnakers. We had a long discussion/laugh last night about how long it had been since our spinnakers had been out of their bags – we’ll see how we do. Civil Twilight is a far faster boat than us so they will no doubt be waaay ahead of us in no time. Hopefully we can each get some good pictures of the other on the way.

Sunset @ Lynyard Cay

We make no promises at this point to post any more frequently than we have been – as it has been pointed out to us we are slackers, and proud of it!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

2011-01-02T14:04:00.000-05:00

We sincerely hope everyone of you had a great Christmas and New Year’s.

As we said in our last post, the next best thing to being with our family at Christmas is being able to spend it with friends, and we’ve been surrounded by friends since we got to the Bahamas, both old and new. Christmas day was spent with about 40 or so other cruisers as we had a pot luck lunch. One of the local dive shops, ‘Brendall’s’, sets up table in their yard for us to sprea out our goodies, and what an assortment there was!! – from lobster chowder to turkey & dressing to Cajun sausage to run buttered bananas. I say tables loosely, very loosely – an old L-shaped countertop and a couple of 2 x 10’s propped up. But once they were covered with tablecloths nobody was the wiser. I almost forgot – the dessert table was set up across the back of a golf cart. We sat on old dinghies, the ground, each other, and wherever we could find a place, or just stood up! Santa even joined us for lunch!

We endured a seriously strong cold the Sunday and Monday after Christmas, with wind up to 40 knots. Nobody left their boats for fear of their anchors dragging. A big sigh of relief was heard when it was over, although no one wanted to trade it for the snow at home.

We spent several days last week at anchor off Manjack Cay, one of our favorite places here. We took long beach walks every day and found many sea beans that had washed up in the storm. No sea glass yet.

New Year’s Day is Junkanoo on Green Turtle Cay (GTC) and Elbow Cay (Hopetown). We attended in GTC and what a colorful parade they have. All the costumes are hand made by the participants. Some even make shoes! This was our second Junkanoo on GTC and it was not as large a parade as before or were there as many spectators, but just as much fun! No Junkanoo is complete without eating and drinking the local fare and we certainly did our part! There were locals set up on the front porch of the Miracle Church of God, outside the jail, in side yards and just about anywhere they could fit a few tables, grills, and cookers. There BBQ Chicken, BBQ Ribs, Fried Chicken, Conch Fritters, Conch & Rice, Conch Salad, Mac & Cheese to die for, Coconut Ice Cream and much more!!! Plus all kinds of drinks – most especially Goombay Smash! The day was topped off with beautiful fireworks. The residents on GTC are celebrating the fact that they now have a public water supply. It was just completed and they finished smoothing (not paving) the road across the island on Christmas Eve day. We don’t know how lucky we are in the USA – we take everything for granted. Imagine having to build a cistern and catch rainwater – that’s what they used to do – you can see why they’re celebrating! If you want to see more Junkanoo pictures you can go to our Facebook page @ Cindy'nJeffRinne. It's way easier to post pictures on there.

Today we are chilling on the boat and nothing more. Savannah is totally exhausted from running around the boat barking at the fireworks and chasing other boats as they zip by us. Chloe is in chill mode all the time.

Tomorrow we will leave the northern area and head around Whale Cay, which is a very short ocean hop around to the southern area of the Abacos. We are looking forward to meeting up with cruisers we’ve only been able to talk with on the radio – some we haven’t seen in a year or more.

Coming to you from the Abacos

2010-12-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

Bahamian coutesy flag on Salty Dog spreader

We’ve made it across to the Bahamas. We left Lake Worth (Palm Beach) last Friday morning at 4:45am with our buddy boat, S/V Autumn Wind (Ken & Kay). We had gentle seas and wind, unlike our last crossing. Cindy hooked a big Mahi Mahi about 8:30 in the morning. Big enough that we couldn't reel it in on the Penn 750 offshore spinning rig and the stainless steel leader broke. It did jump up out of the water long enough for us to see the coloration and identify it. We motor sailed until 9pm and anchored at Great Sale Cay (pronounced key). Ken and Kay told us after we’d gotten anchored that two hours prior they had hit something BIG and they thought it was a whale. They were a little shaken up, but other than that they were fine and Autumn Wind was as well. Got up Saturday morning and came the rest of the way to Green Turtle Cay, where we will remain until after New Year’s.

There will be a Christmas Day potluck dinner here with many cruisers in attendance. Haven’t decided what I will take yet, but there will be so many different dishes and we do so love these get togethers. We will miss being with our family on Christmas, but the next best thing is being with friends, both old and new.

We cleared in through Customs earlier today, so we are now legal to wander around and gladly display our Bahamas courtesy flag (picture above).

South African schooner - skipper aloft in 30K winds

Boat flying Austrian flag

While we were waiting in Lake Worth for an opportunity to cross, and the wind was howling so much for a couple of days that we did not get off the boat, we had to find something to entertain ourselves – so one day we got out the binoculars and tried to figure out how many different countries were represented in the anchorage, by the flags they flew, as this is an area of staging for boats wanting to head to the Bahamas, as well as other islands south. We probably didn’t get all the countries, but here are the ones we did get; US; Australia; Switzerland; New Zealand; Canada; South Africa (believe it or not there were 3); Austria; Sweden; Norway and France. The next day, because the wind was still howling, we decided to count the boats that were dragging their anchors and had to re-anchor. That count got up to 9. Our anchor did not budge – thankfully. Some days you are the entertainment and some days you get to watch the entertainment.

We wish everyone of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Waiting for the illusive 'Weather Window'

2010-12-11T11:33:00.000-05:00

We’ve meandered down from New Smyrna Beach to Cocoa to Vero and are now in Lake Worth (Palm Beach), anchored behind Jack Nicklaus’ house, or at least it is rumored to be his house – who knows?!

Vero Beach

Our humble Christmas Tree

We were in Vero Beach for a week and ran into a number of boats that we’d seen three years ago and many more that we didn’t recognize. We did get to view the Christmas Parade of Boats while there, as they came into the anchorage and turned around right in front of us – we couldn’t have had a better seat. Also managed to get to Riverside Café to watch the Auburn vs. S. Carolina SEC Championship game – GO AUBURN!!! Hopefully we’ll be somewhere we can watch them play for the National Championship in January.

Jeff’s gotten many of his projects completed, although as I’ve said in the past, for every one that is completed two more go on the list. We seem to have a terrible leak around one of the big windows on the port side of the boat, along with both large overhead hatches, which we found during the all-day rain last Wednesday. Today’s project is to dig out all the caulking and re-caulk before the rain comes in Sunday night.

The view from our cockpit last night

For the last couple of days it has actually been warmer – in the 70’s. That will come to a screeching halt – the warm weather that is – as the next cold front moves in.

Our plan is to hang out here in Lake Worth until the weather is right to cross to the Bahamas. Our course takes us out the inlet here and then across about 54 nautical miles of open ocean including the Gulf Stream to the banks. If the wind is from the North, the north flowing Gulf Stream kicks up high seas. So we need light winds from any direction but North for the Gulf Stream seas to settle down and enough time before the next cold front to be in a safe anchorage in the Bahamas. Best guess is conditions may be right next Friday December 17. Perhaps the next post will be coming to you from a tropical island!

Salty Dog is floating again and On The Move!

2010-11-30T09:14:00.001-05:00

I know, I know, I know…………….I’m very tardy at posting.

Cumberland Island

Cumberland Island Beach

We launched the boat two weeks ago today and after a brief stay at the Fernandina City Marina we’ve made a stop at Cumberland Island National Seashore Park, which is always a great place to be – the beach is endless and it doesn’t seem to matter how many boats are at anchor and how many campers are ashore because you rarely see anyone else on the beach. We didn’t find any shells that we didn’t already have this time. Believe me when I say we have bags and bags from the last visit.

We also stopped at St. Augustine for the night and went ashore to see the Christmas lights downtown. The city had the lighting ceremony the night before we got there. They were beautiful, but I forgot to take the camera with me, so no pictures there.

Next stop was New Smyrna Beach, where we spent Thanksgiving with our family. My sister, Mindy, who you may remember is married to Jeff’s brother Carl, have good friends who own two condos out at Ponce Inlet. They graciously let Mindy and Carl have the use of the biggest one for the week – what a place!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has a million dollar view. It is a corner unit on the 8th floor, so you can see the ocean, the inlet and the ICW. It is a view you could never tire of. Thank you Donny & Shannon!!! We had a crowd of 17 for Thanksgiving Day and had a wonderful time. My sisters Mindy and Tina, as well as my Mom and brother-in-law Rodney did all the cooking and it was spectacular! What cooks they all are. We took a cruiser couple, Rick & Linda s/v Sojourner, with us for the day. I believe they enjoyed being with our crazy family, and Linda certainly pulled her turn at the kitchen sink – no one else was allowed to have her sponge! What a treat!! We met Rick & Linda 3 years ago when we were cruising and have stayed in touch with them since. They were passing through NSB and stopped for a few days.

Our Family

Rick & Linda s/v Sojourner

Last Friday was the lighting of Canal Street in New Smyrna, so a few of the boats in the NSB marina got into the mood and put lights on their boats as well. Salty Dog is sporting Christmas lights as well.

Canal Street @ NSB

We will be in anchoring in Cocoa this afternoon, then on ‘souther’ to wait for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas. Let’s hope that it isn’t a looonnnngggg wait.

Salty Dog w/ her Christmas lights

Some of you already know this and some do not, but we have a new passenger aboard this year – Chloe is a teeny tiny chocolate and tan wiener dog and weighs in at just over 6 lbs and is 9 years old. She is precious and doing quite well on the boat. She has been very quick to pick up on the way things are done on the boat. She knows exactly what the dingy is for – getting her to shore and grass. The morning we were leaving Cumberland Island I went to the back of the boat to raise the American flag and Chloe followed me back there, stood and looked at the dinghy in the raised position and then looked at me as if to say ‘I’m ready to go!’. I responded to her by saying that her car was not leaving the garage and she would need to go to the front of the boat and potty. She hung her head, turned around and went back in the cockpit. She knows where the potty area is, and has used it, but she’d rather not if there is a chance the dinghy is going down, but Savannah is the same way. Did I tell you that she also has napping in the cockpit down to a science.

Our new passenger

Perhaps now that I’ve broken the ice, so to speak with the blog, I will do better about posting.

Remember - you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

later

SALTY DOG has been ‘Put to Bed’ for a few months

2010-07-21T20:40:00.002-04:00

We are back home in Tennessee again – this time for several months. We hauled the boat out at Tiger Point Marina in Fernandina Beach, last Friday – which is where we’ve hauled it before. All went well, thank God! We were so proud of ourselves – we had everything off the boat and all our chores done by the time the yard guys came to lift us out. What an improvement over last time!! Now we just have to figure out what to do with all the ‘stuff’ we took off the boat and brought home. So far there are seven large rubbermaid containers sitting in the dining room – which we like to refer to as the “warehouse” and we haven’t unloaded everything from the truck.

It was sad to leave our new friends at New Smyrna, but we will see them again this fall on our way south and perhaps we can entice at least a couple of them to come along with us to the Abacos.

Sorry about the craziness of the pictures and the fact that one is on here twice - blogspot is all screwed up right now and I'm tired of trying to figure it out - I can't seem to move them or delete the extra one or put a caption on the last one - so I guess we'll just live with it!!!!!!!!!!

Larry - our social director

Savannah - just hanging out on the deck

Lisa - my kayaking buddy

John & Rick
our Dockmasters

Rick, Lisa & Dave

Jim & Cindy @ Jim's place (Malony's)

Now that we are home we have to start on the ‘at home projects list’. You probably won’t see any new posts to the blog after this one until we are getting ready to leave in the Fall.

Y'all have a good summer!!!

Manatee mating herd

2010-06-26T12:43:00.001-04:00

WOW!!!!! I went kayaking this morning with Lisa (m/v Reel Lucky) and we always seem to have a good time talking and just communing with nature, but this morning we saw something neither of us has ever seen before. Lisa was out on the water by ‘Bird Island’ waiting for me and watched a large number of manatees (10 – 15) swimming right towards her heading for the edge of the island. That in itself was pretty cool since we usually only see one or two at a time. By the time I got out there the manatees had reached the shallows and were in a huge pile and I mean HUGE. We paddled pretty close and got a few pictures. I even had one manatee come right up to the kayak and stick its snout out of the water and look at me – I could have touched it had I not had the camera in my hands. I had heard it is mating season, but didn’t know about mating herds. Came back by the island on our way back to the boats, about 1 1/2 hours later and the ‘pile’ was still in the same place, then broke up abruptly with lots of thrashing and splashing. Glad we weren’t close when that started!

According to the ‘Save the Manatee’ organization this pile generally consists of one female and a dozen or more males. The female swims into shallow water trying to get away from the males. The female is ‘in heat’, so to speak, for up to 3 weeks and the herd will stay with her for the duration.

‘Bird Island’ is a very small bump in the water covered with mangroves and home to hundreds of Pelicans, several species of Herons and Ibis’. It is also breeding season for these birds and since I’ve never seen baby Pelicans I have been watching them with a great deal of interest. The adult Pelicans seem to keep the very young ones covered up and I’ve had to sit there for quite a while just to get a peek at them. They are all getting pretty big now and are fuzzy and white – not grey like the adults. Cute, cute, cute. Got some pictures of them this morning.

Last weekend we saw hundreds of ‘cow nosed rays’ out in the river. There were so many of them that the color of water appeared to be brown. You guessed it – mating season for them too. No pictures – sorry.

And that concludes today’s lesson on local wildlife.

GETTING READY TO SAY GOODBYE TO NEW SMYRNA BEACH

2010-06-25T17:14:00.000-04:00

I’ve gotten a few reminders that we have a blog and I am not holding up my end of the bargain to keep you ‘informed’ - sorry.

It’s almost time to say goodbye to New Smyrna Beach. Sadly, our time here is quickly coming to an end. We certainly have settled in and are quite comfortable. We have been here long enough that we are referred to as regulars in some of the places we go.

Living in a marina is pretty good. I should probably say at this point that it has been idyllic until a couple of weeks ago when the ‘local’ kids got out of school and began looking for something to do. There have been two dinghies, two bikes, numerous bicycle seats and all the lights and ringy-dingy bells stolen (off bicycles). One dinghy was recovered by the owner only because the thieves stole it during broad daylight and someone happened to see it going up the river, but the kids weren’t caught with it in their possession.

It looks like this entry to the blog is just going to be a hodgepodge of random thoughts about things around here and y’all know that I can ramble on with the best of them and not say much.

We’ve gotten some more of our projects crossed off ‘The List’ – man I love to cross things off!!! The only problem is that for every one we complete and cross off there are two more added – how does that happen??

It is pretty warm here and the a/c runs continuously. 'Salty Dog' has her summer dress on now. We’ve never used this awning, but don’t know what we would do without it now that we've discovered what a difference it makes. Thanks Dick & Judy – we love it!!!!

Last Sunday Jeff’s brother and my sister (Mindy & Carl), brought their boat over here and we went out in the ocean several miles so Carl could feed the fish. We saw 4 or 5 large sea turtles and several stingrays – that was pretty cool. Came back in and stopped for a few hours at a place the locals call 'Disappearing Island', which is exactly what most of it does at high tide. It is a very busy place on the weekends and you can only get there by boat. It was estimated that on Memorial weekend there were 1000 boats out there, but I’m not sure I believe that, even though it is quite large. It is amazing how much stuff some people bring out there with them. There is all the usual stuff – umbrellas, fold-up canopies, chairs, grills, games of all kinds, but we came upon two groups that were noteworthy. I wish we’d had a camera. The first group had all the usual stuff and lots of it, as well as their own homemade portable bar – what a hoot! The framework was 2 inch PVC pipe with 90 degree fittings and couplers, none of which were glued together, just pressed in place. The frame was probably 6 – 8 feet long x 2 feet wide. The top of the bar was a piece of plywood that was rounded off to match the frame – a hole cut in the middle to accommodate the large beach umbrella that was being held in place with a 5 gallon bucket filled with beach sand. There were about 6 people leaning on the bar as though they were at the local pub - hey, gotta get your priorities straight. Mindy then pointed out that you have to break everything down and haul it off in the afternoon when it’s time to leave and haul it all away in a BOAT. I bet those people made two or three trips. The second group didn’t have the ‘usual’ stuff, but had a large hard plastic slide on a wooden frame. The slide was about 6 feet tall or so. The kids and dog were having a wonderful time being lifted up to the top so they could slide into the water. Don’t know how they got the slide there, as they didn’t seem to have a boat big enough to do so.

New Smyrna is home to one of the oldest Dairy Queen’s – bet you didn’t know that did you? It looks like DQ did back in the 60’s.

This is a picture of a McDonald’s (as if you couldn’t tell) in NSB as well – it also looks very much like the one I remember going to as a kid. Just thought I would share these pictures with you.

OK – I guess I’ve rambled on for long enough - gotta save something for the next time!

BOAT SINKING....................but not ours, thankfully!!!

2010-04-05T14:04:00.003-04:00

Got up yesterday morning to walk to Riverside Park for Easter sunrise service, which by the way, was beautiful.

What a shock when I walked down the dock. A boat had sunk at the dock during the night! Everyone got off the boat unharmed – that is the upside. They had topped off their diesel tanks in preparation for leaving yesterday morning for the Abacos, so now there is diesel and oil everywhere. What a circus it was here, at least until it was determined that ‘they’ would wait til low tide this morning to try to raise the boat. We had Coast Guard, EPA, Boat US Tow Boat, and HAZMAT all here. And then word started traveling through town about the sinking so there were lots of gawkers showing up just to have a look see, plus it was Sunday and there were lots of people on their boats in the marina.

Today is a beautiful new day and all the players for the ‘boat raising’ are starting to show up. It should be interesting to see how this is done.

Well…………that didn’t work!!!!! All the same people that were here yesterday trying to raise the boat were here again. Boat US was the company hired to raise the boat – I guess because that is who the owners’ insurance is with. Three men showed up, one was the diver, who attempted to put a very long air pillow under the stern of the boat so they could inflate it and raise it enough so they could start pumping the water out. Instead of putting that in place yesterday when they were here, they waited til this morning and punctured a hole in it while putting it in place – no replacement, but it still helped. They did not check their pumps out before coming here and the largest and what would have been the one to use, would not prime. They tried using a small pump and appeared to be making headway but not for long. The boat started taking on water faster than they could pump it out and down it went again. The owner was less than pleased with their performance. He called a crane company, they showed up for a consultation and I guess that is the route he will take. Too bad we will not be here to watch, but we leave it in the trusty hands of our fellow dockmates. It will be interesting to find out what caused the boat to sink. We'll keep you posted.

On another note …………..we did get to watch the space shuttle take off this morning, right from the front of our boat. About 20 minutes before the scheduled launch we watched what appeared to be a very large, brightly lit plane go across the sky and wondered why the plane was traveling through airspace that I was sure should be closed to traffic. We found out after the launch that what we had seen was the space station and when the shuttle took off it followed the same path, as its mission was to hook up with the space station. Pretty cool!!!!! We haven’t seen a launch in so many years and forgot how spectacular that is!

Greetings from New Smyrna Beach

2010-03-25T11:24:00.003-04:00

We’ve finally arrived in New Smyrna Beach!!! And thrilled to be here!!!! We got here shortly after lunch on Tuesday. We had a chilly trip down from Fernandina, ran aground at Matanzas Inlet and weren’t sure we would be able to get ourselves off, but we do have a lot of horses down in the engine room thankfully, almost took out a channel marker between Daytona and NSB, but made it safely nonetheless.

We made a visit to our favorite local pub “Maloney’s” Tuesday evening – they have entertainment on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, so we will be there again tonight. We can walk there, as well as many other places nearby. We made it to the beach today as well. It looked like a lot of people from waaayyy north are down here – they were swimming in water that was 57* - (I think spring breakers are starting to show up and what a hearty bunch they are!). That’s pretty darned chilly. We’re so tired of being cold – all we want to do is sit in the sun and soak up the warmth.

New Smyrna is quite a small town and has somehow been able to retain that small town charm. Everyone is so friendly and most businesses even have water bowls out for the customer’s dogs as well. We went into a NAPA store this morning looking for a belt for the alternator, and had Savannah with us, and the shop owner pegged us for ‘boat people’ because we were walking and had her with us. She had to stop and get a drink before we left and snatch up the peanuts he had out for the squirrels that frequent the store as well!

Savannah likes to go out to the dock closest to the ICW entrance into the marina in the late afternoon and watch the dolphins come in to feed. Yesterday afternoon we saw about six or so jumping and frolicking close to us. She knows when we say ‘dolphin’ that she needs to look at the water. She is also keeping tabs on the pelicans and herons that are using the docks for perches. One of these times she is going to go right off the dock and into water when she chases them.

Since we last posted to the blog we are very sad to tell you that Shelby is no longer with us. She is and will be sadly missed by us as well as Savannah. We will be sprinkling her ashes in her favorite places during our travels.

Don’t look for too many posting from NSB, as there is only so much we can say about the place, no matter how much we like it. Pretty much all we will be doing is continuing work projects on the boat, walking the beach and taking Savannah for long walks.

Below are some pictures of our trip down here. One of them is a bald eagle, of which we actually saw three. That was pretty amazing.

To the left is the suspended bridge over the St. Johns River at the Jacksonville Port. To the right is the St. Augustine lighthouse. Below left is sunset over St. Augustine.

SLOW PROGRESS AND COLD WEATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-01-09T12:06:00.003-05:00

As promised………………

Here is the update on our progress or lack thereof on the projects on the boat. We are sooooo ready for this to be over! The boat has been in the work yard now since the week of Thanksgiving. Brian came down the week after Thanksgiving to help Jeff with yanking out the old generator and dropping in the new one (figuratively speaking) and the first part of that did get done that week – the old one did come out. But, as with many projects they don’t quite go as you envision – you find other things that need to be done as well. In our case we knew one of our a/c units had quit working and having no generator in front of them made it much easier to do that work. So – the generator replacement was put on hold til the new a/c unit came in and was installed. While waiting on that we decided it was time to move on to other things, like replacing all the thru-hulls, pulling out the opening ports and installing the new beautiful stainless steel ports which you can see in one of the pictures (we’ve gotten three out of fourteen done), stripping exterior teak of which I’m about 1/3 of the way through (I’m waiting for my skin to grow back over the ends of my fingers), finished wiring up all the new batteries and chargers, stripping off the bottom of the boat (which is done and waiting for warmer temperatures so we can barrier coat and paint), and I can’t remember what else. But there are other projects we haven’t even started yet – don’t ask what they are!

New Years weekend brought Brian back to the boat and he and Jeff installed the new generator – it is another beautiful piece of machinery. I’m posting a picture of the two of them putting it in place. This work would have been impossible without Brian’s help. He is so talented. We were so fortunate that he was able to come down again to help out. Jeff really enjoyed having him here to talk technical stuff with. I can listen when Jeff talks to me about that stuff, but have no idea what he’s talking about – he might as well talk to the dogs about it – they understand as much as I do about batteries, engines, etc.

The thru-hull replacements are almost completed, as we opted for having the yard remove the old ones and put the new ones back in – we just have to connect everything back up.

We are making progress – ever so slowly, although it doesn’t feel like that since there is still so much to do. It is like having an old house – you start a project and when you get into it you find other things that need to be done that you didn’t anticipate and before you know it you have everything apart! We are starting the re-assembly process now. What is slowing us down right now is the cold weather – it’s been in the 20’s in the mornings for over a week now and only warms up to the 40’s and the wind is blowing on top of that! I’m not working outside in that on scaffolding in the shade!!! I need some cheese to go with my whine! The temperatures should be going up by the middle of next week – at least for a few hours a day and hopefully we can move forward with the outside projects.

I think that about brings you up to date. I know this is boring stuff to a lot of you and believe me it's not exciting to write about either, but, that is what we are doing here.

Later alligator!

OUR HOME AWAY FROM HOME

2009-12-29T11:43:00.003-05:00

I know – I know – I know -- I haven’t written anything since we left home and I’m hearing about it!!!

I will take pictures of the current boat projects and post them in a few days, but right now I am going to tell you about where we are ‘living’ while we are working on the boat.

We are one mile above the Florida state line in Kingsland, Georgia at Country Oaks Campground. It is a very small campground with about 40 campsites, and more than half of those are snowbirds that are here for the winter, from Utah, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ontario, New Hampshire, Vermont, etc. It’s quite a little neighborhood – very nice people. We are only about 1/4 mile off of I-95 and can hear the traffic, but have gotten used to it and really don’t hear it anymore (when we are home), but you would think we are out in the middle of nowhere by the looks of the place. There are trees with spanish moss hanging everywhere, a pond for fishing, a barn with two horses (Pistol & Spooky), banty hens (and roosters), as well as nine guinea hens.

The horses alternate days out of the barn to roam through the campground – otherwise they push each other farther and farther out until they are on the main road and Trigger the every faithful Jack Russell terrier can only keep up with one at a time. The guinea hens run loose all the time and Shelby has a good time (when we are here) herding them up – Savannah would just like to catch one and eat it! I enjoy walking the dogs in the mornings and evenings so I can see where the new ‘campers’ are from. By far we have seen more license tags from Pennsylvania than any other state.

That’s all for now. I’ll take some pictures at the boat and post in a few days.

LEAVING FOR FLORIDA ---FINALLY!!!!

2009-11-08T11:09:00.002-05:00

Fall is just about over here in Tennessee, but it sure was beautiful.!

The time is finally here for us to leave for the boat. We’re heading out Nov. 16. We will be spending a lot of time this week getting things packed up and loaded to go. And we have so much to do once we get there. The boat is still in Fernandina Beach, and still on the hard. There are numerous things that must be done before we put her back in the water; new generator, new batteries, new seacocks, shaft log repair, new ports, and I’m sure that I’m forgetting something else. Then once she is in the water there is another list of things we want/need to do. It’s like having an old house – there’s always something that needs fixed or replaced!

We’re hauling the RV down with us to give us a comfortable place to live while we’re working on the boat. It’s no fun climbing up and down an extension ladder carrying a dog under your arm. Plus, you can’t get away from the work and you feel like you should work every waking minute.

Our name finally came to the top of the list for a slip at New Smyrna Beach! We love New Smyrna!!!! The marina is within walking/bike riding distance to pretty much everything. We can’t wait to be there! We’re hoping that will happen before Christmas.

Jeff has committed to work when he is needed this winter, so we will more than likely not be going to the Bahamas, although we’re not just going to sit in New Smyrna. We’re so anxious to be back on the boat!

We’ll post to the blog and let you know what kind of progress we’re making. Don't forget you can always email us!

Adios amigos, vaya con Dios

2009-03-31T19:54:00.012-04:00

Jeff received a job offer to work in Chattanooga. What else could we do, but head back to Tennessee? Our time in New Mexico has been an opportunity of a lifetime to experience Southwestern culture and lifestyle. To the people of Eunice that welcomed us as their own and especially to the friends we made at NEF, all we can say is adios amigos, vaya con Dios.

Here are a few pictures of NM and SW Texas.

Wintering in New Mexico

2008-10-14T13:54:00.007-04:00

If you are checking in to see if we are on the move again, the answer is yes we are. Just not in the fashion that we were last year.

We made a very difficult decision not to re-launch the boat and head south. We already had our house sitters lined up and our dining room was starting to look a lot like a warehouse. A lot of factors played a part in this decision. After we made the decision Jeff took the opportunity to go back to work (for what period of time we don’t know). He is working/living in Eunice, New Mexico in our RV. Talk about different from last year at this time – wow! He is in the middle of the desert out here. Cactus and red sand everywhere, along with rattlesnakes, although we haven’t seen any snakes up close and personal yet and I hope we don’t! It is so flat here we can see the edge of the earth. There are oil and gas wells everywhere. If we go outside and look off to the right we can see an oil well in someone’s back yard. Neither of us had been west of the Mississippi and look at this as another opportunity to see what this great country of ours has to offer. We plan to take advantage of the time out here to do some sightseeing.

The first weekend I was here we drove north to Albuquerque and Sante Fe. It was the 37th annual Balloon Fiesta with over 600 hot-air balloons participating. Spectacular doesn’t come close to describing seeing all those balloons inflate, lift off and drift away from you. There was every color, shape and size of balloon imaginable. As we got close to Albuquerque the landscape started to change appearance – there were mountains – the Sandia Mountains, although they sure look different than the ones we see on the eastern side of the country – they are barren dirt and rock, with some small scrubby bushes that we were told are mesquite and lots of cactus. We took in horse racing last Sunday. There is a horse track/racing/training facility here with the season ending sometime in December.

I have been out here for two weeks now and it isn’t such a shock when I go outside anymore. I must be getting used to it. But I will be glad to get home and see some trees and rolling hills. I will be leaving here in a couple of days to drive home and from then on I think I will fly when I come out. Three days on the road was a long time, although without pulling the RV it will only take two, but still!

Back in Tennessee

2008-05-25T15:08:00.012-04:00

We made it to Fernandina Beach late last Saturday, May 18, hauled the boat on Tuesday, unloaded it and left on Friday. I don’t believe we could have found room for another toothbrush in the truck when we left. The only difference between us and the Clampett’s (Beverly Hillbillies) was that we were missing the rocking chair in the back. We took so much ‘stuff’ off the boat that will not go back on – things we didn’t use this trip and took up way too much space - space we can use for more important things, like cases of beer at US prices, and peanut butter. You can tell where our priorities are!

In any case we are back home in Tennessee for a few days. We will be leaving to go back down to Orlando for my Mother’s wedding – she is marrying her first love from high school and we don’t want to miss that!

When we left here last September we left our home in the hands of total strangers (Leo & Kathy) who house-sat for us. This was our first experience with house sitters and we were naturally nervous about it, but we were very impressed with the care they took of our home and property. They left us yesterday to head to Ohio to housesit for another couple who are going cruising.

We have a very long list of upgrades and additions we want to make to the boat before next cruising season. This being our first season to cruise proved to have a very steep learning curve. Things we thought would not be important turned out to be very important and vice versa. The Bahamas (the Abacos) exceeded our expectations and we are not sure yet where we will go next season, maybe back to the Abacos – who knows. Everyone we talked to late in the season coming north from the Exumas told us the water was prettier down there – how can that be?? Maybe we will just have to find out for ourselves!

This will be our last post for the season. Feel free to email us @ crjr180@yahoo.com. Now that we are home we have a reliable internet connection and are posting the following pictures summarizing the trip.

Back in the US of A

2008-05-10T08:29:00.006-04:00

I know some of you were wondering ‘where are they – should we call the Coast Guard?’ We are fine, life is good again, and we are safe in the Harbourtown Marina, in Fort Pierce, Florida. We have not had internet service for, oh I don’t know how long. As a matter of fact, I just looked at the bottom of my computer to see what the day of the week is – Saturday, May 10. What a handy tool!

We crossed from the Bahamas and arrived here Thursday afternoon, about 4:00pm (by way of TowBoat U.S.) We did not have a good crossing! We were planning to cross from Great Sale Cay, but the wind came to a screeching halt and we were becalmed and the no see ums were very present, so decided to leave there, with another boat (‘Tarshish” – Bill & Ruth) and head to Mangrove Cay, about 20 miles closer to the Bahama Banks. We arrived there late afternoon (in time for a storm to skirt by us that had a waterspout in it), had dinner and grabbed a 2 hour rest before leaving at 10pm to cross over ‘to the other side’. We were expecting 10 – 15 knot winds, building to about 20 knots in the late afternoon after we would arrive in Ft Pierce, with 2 – 3 foot seas. What we had were very confused seas in the 3 – 5 + foot range with winds building well above 20 knots. We were motoring at this point, Jeff didn't want sails up before daylight, but we decided to put out the jib (or part of it) at about 3am to try to stabilize the boat and keep it from wallowing so bad – but it didn’t help much. It wasn’t so so bad during the night on the banks, but as we entered the ocean we were wallowing from side to side, and then it would be from back to front. I did manage to take a nap from 5 to 6 am. And then it got nasty. Obviously our fuel tank was getting shook up pretty good, because the engine decided at about 7am that it could not go any more. The seas had become too big by now for Jeff to work on the fuel filters, so we put out another sail and sailed the rest of the way to Ft. Pierce. We had Boat US tow us from outside the inlet into Harbourtown Marina. Wow, did our unlimited towing insurance pay off. The Ft. Pierce inlet was very ugly. If our boat had been smaller and lighter weight I think we would have broached coming through. The tide was running out at 3.5 knots against 30 knot winds. The result was 8 – 10 swells/waves from the port quarter. You can’t imagine what that does to the inside of the boat. As a friend of our says “Our boat threw up”. I had put away all the usual things before heading out and most things decided to relocate to a different place. I’m still looking for a couple of things – where did they go?

Jeff worked on the engine yesterday, changed both filters, got the engine running, and all is well. We will leave here this morning and head north. We will be hauling the boat out at Fernandina Beach, Florida.

We were sad about having to leave the Bahamas – we put it off as long as we could, but at the same time we are happy to be back ‘home’. We take so much for granted living in the US. We have used more fresh water in the last 24 hours (because it is available) than we would have used in a week in the Bahamas. I did laundry yesterday and only paid $2.50 a load, compared to $8 a load. The real eye opener will be when we go to the grocery store for the first time, although I’ve been told that groceries here have increased in price substantially since we left. One of the good things in the Bahamas is that they have no taxes, period. If the price is stated at $135, then it is $135, not $135 plus 9 1/4% tax.

Enough rambling – we are back, and heading towards the end of our journey for this year. We hope everyone that has been traveling with us, by way of the blog, has enjoyed the adventure as much as we have. It has been unbelievable. We have truly enjoyed ourselves and met so many great people and made many friends that we look forward to seeing again next time.

Gooooooooooood Mornin' Abaco

2008-04-19T18:29:00.004-04:00

For the last four months we have been avid listeners and participants in the Abaco Cruisers Net on the VHF Radio Channel Six Eight (68) at 0815 every morning. On the eve of our departure from the Southern Abacos (south the Whale Cay Passage), we pay tribute to the Net. Here now is the language of the Net:

Gooooooooooood Mornin’ Abaco!!!!. This IS the Abaco Cruisers Net on the air every day at this time ….. This is Jeff on Eggers Wish, Dan on Danali Star, Mike on Last Call, Betty on Tar Heel, Ed on Windswept, Patty on Blue Dolphin….. Barometer Bob.com for weather…. Cold front with clocking winds; High Pressure with Easterly winds; enhanced winds in Squalls; Bahamas Met Office Advises Small Craft to Exercise Caution; Atlantic Seas 14 to 24’ in Northerly Swells; Beauuuuutiful weather for the next few days ordered up by the Chamber of Commerce…… Sea state of the Sea of Abaco …. In the lee of the Cays; Choppy bordering on sloppy; Albury Ferry Day. Community Announcements ….. Buck-a-book … Wild Horses of Abaco …. Headline News and Financials --- aren’t we glad we’re in the Abacos …. Invitations …. Nippers until we absolutely can’t do it any more; you take that left off the Gov’t dock and you ARE in Grabber Country; Dive Guana – let us show you Abaco from the bottom up; Jib Room, Jib Room, Jib Room – worth the ride to the other side; Pete's Pub - where the elite eat in their bare feet. Open Mike …. Come now with your calls signs twice, this is the Cruiser’s Net. Salty Dog, Salty Dog........ Salty Dog I have you. How can we help? New Arrivals ….. Welcome to the Top of the Bahamas. Departures ….. Sand in Your Shoes ---- you’ll be back. And if there is nothing further …. The Cruisers Net IS Clear.

Thank you Jeff, thank you Dan, thank you Mike, thank you Betty, thank you Ed, and most of all, THANK YOU Patty!

Deidra Grows Sea Legs

2008-04-19T17:31:00.005-04:00

Deidra & Tom arrived on Sunday 3/6, in the rain, and spent a week with us. They are completely non- boaters, with no experience of boat movement, life on a boat, etc. We did try to prepare them for what it was going to be like, but I am certain it was far different than they expected. In any case they adjusted very well and it was definitely an adventure. We had several great sailing days while they were aboard and had very settled weather, for which we were thankful. We took them to several places that we enjoy. They even asked how they could charter a boat down here with a captain so that they could come back with their boys. Maybe they caught the sailing bug! I do think they definitely got sand in their shoes, as the saying goes. Deidra even found sea glass!

Mom comes to visit!

2008-03-31T20:59:00.005-04:00

Well, our week with my Mom & Jack has come to a close. We had a wonderful time with them both. And I’m pretty sure they had a good time also. The winds kept us from being able to leave Treasure Cay (where they flew into) for a couple of days after they arrived. So we walked the gorgeous beach and enjoyed the resort area. What’s wrong with that?? They even found a purse bean on the beach! We were able to take them to Guana Cay, and a very rolly ride it was getting there. We participated in the pot luck dinner on Wednesday evening. I think they really enjoyed meeting some of the other cruisers and hearing their stories. They also got to see the famous Nipper’s and walk on another beautiful beach.

Next we took them to Tahiti Beach where we scoured for shells and a few pieces of sea glass, then on to Hopetown. We walked the town, visited the Wyannie Malone Museum, which gives you insight into Hopetown history. We lunched at a place where we could look out on the Atlantic Ocean and all it’s splendor. And then of course, we walked on the beach. By the way, Nannie (my Mother) learned to love Rum while she was here! After that we visited the Elbow Reef Lighthouse and climbed to the top to look out. Supposedly you can see for 17 miles from the top of the lighthouse. In any case it was quite a sight. The picture to the right is of Salty Dog anchored just off the lighthouse. This lighthouse is still hand cranked every 1 1/2 hours and runs on kerosene. That means the lighthouse keeper has to climb the stairs every 1 1/2 hours all night long and the kerosene is also carried up in five gallons jerry jugs. I had enough trouble just getting myself up the ladder once!

And then it was time to start heading back towards Treasure Cay.

There was a lot of oohing and ahhing all week long. They agreed with us that you just can’t describe how beautiful it is here and how clear the water is, along with the gorgeous turquoise color. I think they will come back for another visit another year. They told us while they were here that they are getting married May 31. We couldn’t be happier for them.

What's A Rage??!!

2008-03-20T18:27:00.006-04:00

What’s a Rage? We have heard this term since being in the Bahamas, but didn’t fully understand it till yesterday. We haven’t had rage conditions since we’ve been here, at least that is till yesterday! A Rage is when wind strength and direction make inlets to the ocean impassible and very dangerous primarily, in addition to making the Sea of Abaco pretty nasty. You really don't want to be out in these conditions.

We left Lynyard Cay to head back towards Treasure Cay and the wind was really blowing, about 25 knots and out of the NE with the forecast of it getting worse, which it did. (The wind piped up to 30 knots with gusts exceeding 40knots) This had been going on for two days. Where we were anchored at Lynyard Cay was between two inlets from the ocean. We could see the inlet on the south end at Little Harbour and WOW was it nasty – waves breaking all the way across. But we were looking through the binoculars and couldn’t get the full effect of it, although it was impressive. We had to pass by North Bar Inlet on our way north, and we got up close and personal with the turmoil that the winds were causing! I couldn’t get below to get the camera till after we were past the worst of it, but I’m hoping you can click on the pictures and blow them up to see what I’m talking about. We were awestruck.

Little Harbour

2008-03-16T19:17:00.004-04:00

We are currently in Little Harbour – a small harbor with most boats on a mooring ball. The only thing here is Pete’s Pub and Gallery. The gallery makes bronze sculptures that are beautiful but not affordable for us. I would love to have a small memento from this place, but it is going to have to be in the form of a picture. Today a large group of boats (all charter) from the American Yacht Club out of NY invaded the harbor. There are boats on top of boats. It is always a lot of entertainment to watch the charter boats try to anchor or pick up a mooring. One boat was particularly entertaining as they decided they did not need to come into the harbor via the clearly marked channel. It was only a matter of time before they ran hard aground. Luckily the tide came in and they floated off.

Yesterday we went out to Bookies Beach with Mike & Harriet (Dual Dreams) and waded in the surf picking up sea glass. We had a blast and got lots of glass! Harriet and I ended up with bathing suits full of sand after getting rolled in the water by the undertow a couple of times. This was one of the better sea glass days we’ve had. We will be back out there again today at low tide to have another go at it.

Before we came to Little Harbour we were anchored in Buckaroon Bay for several days. We were the only boat there. The water was crystal clear and there were lots of sea stars around our boat. We spent many hours walking the beaches and scavenging through the ‘stuff’ that had washed up from past storms, as well as snorkeling on the reef. Jeff found a message in a bottle (on the beach). It was dated 12/17/05 in the mid-Atlantic, aboard the QE2.

We are starting to see alot of boats that are heading back up from the Exumas (the southern Bahamas). It is sad to think that this is coming to an end, but it certainly will be before we are ready for it to. We know of many boats that have already had to head back to the states in the last couple of weeks. Many people have been able to take short leaves from work to take a 4 - 6 month trip. What's wrong with that?? Then back to work til next years trip. We have hated to see some of our new friends leave, but we look forward to meeting up with them next year.

Barefoot Man Concert

2008-03-05T14:05:00.006-05:00

Last Saturday was the Barefoot Man concert on Guana Cay. Barefoot Man is a Jimmy Buffet type, with similar music. This is a much looked forward to event for the island of Guana. They were expecting 2500 people. I have no idea how many were there, but it was a lot!!! There were over 60 boats in the main anchorage off of Fishers Bay with us, and the harbour was full, as well as the marina. We had a great time! There were beads to be had by the women (just like at Mardi Gras) and you get them the same way - you guess how. I have three sets of beads!

Mindy & Carl's Visit

2008-03-05T13:43:00.005-05:00

Next – Mindy & Carl (Jeff’s brother who is married to my sister) came to visit for a week. We had a very good time with them. But then we always enjoy being around them – maybe beause we are doubly related – who knows.

Carl came with high hopes of catching lots of fish. That did not happen, we are sorry to say. Partly because of the weather, but mostly because we don’t know where the fish are and thirdly because we didn’t have the best weather while they were here. We had a couple of really rocky nights, strong winds and rain. But they are somewhat used to the motion of the boat and they were ok with it. But when the weather was good, it was good, just a little cool. At least we had enough sunshine for Mindy to get sunburned. We won’t tell you what parts got sunburned though!

We took them to Snappas for Thursday Night 'Rake & Scrape'. I believe they liked that! Bahamian music with a twist as well as limbo. Mindy thinks she would like to have a Rake & Scrape band at home.

We were able to take them down to Lynyard Cay for a day – we would have liked several days there, but the winds were from the wrong direction to do that. Mindy became a sea glass fanatic. I think she took home 20 lbs of sea glass, if she took home a pound!!!

We slid into the anchorage outside of Boat Harbour in time for them to catch their plane home, with little time to spare!

Let's Catch Up!

2008-03-05T08:16:00.005-05:00

I know, I know - we are sooo far behind posting!! We've been busy enjoying company. Steve & Terri (from Chattanooga) came to visit for a few days, after going to the Miami Boat Show. Wow - did they bring us some information and literature to pour over (about solar panels, wind generators, etc.). We really appreciated it. We had a great time with them and I think they enjoyed meeting other cruisers and being a part of the cruising community for a few days.

Shelby & Savannah really enjoyed having them here - they showed up with a large bag of homeade treats from the 'Bone Appetit Bakery' in Chattanooga. Steve & Terri are planning on being down here in a couple of years with us. We hated to see them go, but they had to go back to work.

Unfortunately, while they were here our

generator went kaput. Steve & Jeff worked on it from 9:30pm to 2:30am one night to come to the conclusion that the high pressure injector pump had gone out. We had to order a Honda generator from the states to get us through the rest of the trip, and Jeff will will fix the ‘big’ generator and redo the fuel system at that time.

Jeff and his Conch Horn

2008-02-15T08:27:00.003-05:00

At Sundown the tradition here is to blow the conch horn. A lot of places we have anchored there is at least one boat that has a conch horn and someone on board knows how to play it. You think this is an easy thing, I’m sure – not so! That is unless you are a trumpet player, which neither of us is. We can barely whistle.

We have found several nice conch shells and were given a couple of exceptional shells by Ken & Kathy on ‘Coconut’. We will make sure all our visitors get to take one home with them.

Anyway – last week Jeff decided it was time to make a horn. That was the easy part, since we have a dremel tool on board. And then came the hard part – oh what a sad sick sound came out of that horn. All dogs within earshot were howling. There happened to be another cruiser close by (Sandy onboard ‘Manatee’) that is an expert conch horn player and she gave Jeff some lessons, followed by more the next day by another cruiser on ‘English Rose’. Progress has been very slow. Rick on ‘Sojourner’ asked us yesterday if there were whales in the area as he was sure he heard one bellowing.

You get the picture.

We are hopeful that at least one of us can master this instrument. We will make sure all our guests get a chance to perform as well.

Speaking of guests – our good friends Steve & Terri Brothers, from Chattanooga are to arrive here next Monday, after making a stop at the Miami Boat Show. We are excited about their visit.

Abaco - Above and Below

2008-02-06T20:55:00.000-05:00

We have been doing some snorkeling – not a lot but enough that we have seen some pretty cool fish and coral and wanted to share some of this with you. Also – I don’t think we’ve shown you much of the color here, that is the color of the houses and businesses, paint wise. Most everything is painted in either

pastel colors or vibrant colors – pink, blue, purple, yellow, green, and variations thereof. It is ‘colorful’!!!!!!

Treasure Hunting

2008-02-06T20:23:00.000-05:00

We are hooked on treasure hunting. Not the kind of treasure hunting that is going to make us any money though. We have been watching what washes up on the beaches to see if there is anything we can use (or want), and lo and behold we have found a few things – lots of very pretty sea glass, some nice shells, a couple of drink cartons to put bottles in and a very interesting glass bottle with oriental alphabet characters (that we have filled with sea glass), sea beans and a couple of things that we don’t know what to do with. The great thing is that everything is 100% returnable. It is amazing what washes up – like fluorescent bulbs, toothbrushes, lots of verrrrrry large rope and more trash than you can imagine. We saw a boat that was in two pieces and twice we’ve seen outboard engines and many shoes, although no matching pairs. Today I even came across a toilet seat!

I do hope everyone who is reading this blog realizes that most pictures (if not all) can be clicked on to make them larger so you can actually see what is in the picture - I should have told you this in the beginning.

We have a looking bucket!!!

2008-02-06T08:09:00.000-05:00

I know you are wondering what in the world a looking bucket is! We used to call it a glass bottom bucket, but not over here – it is called a ‘Looking Bucket’. Jeff made it a couple of days ago so we could dinghy over our anchor primarily to see if it is set good, as well as other things. We will also use it for looking for conch and lobsters. This way you don’t have to get in the water if you don’t want to.

Here are a few terms we have picked up to add to our vocabulary since we’ve been down here. CRUISER’S MIDNIGHT – 8:30pm - cruisers don’t stay up late. DOABLE – it means something is possible. It is used in describing transiting an ocean inlet and generally means the seas are 6 feet or less and won’t kick your butt. RUM WILL MAKE YOU DUMB – that needs no explanation. And lastly YOU CAN'T BE DRUNK ALL DAY IF YOU DON'T GET STARTED - again, no explanation.

More interesting boat names we've seen – ‘Stout Wench’ and ‘Yes Dear’. But we still have not seen another Salty Dog and we are amazed at that, although there is a cottage here named Salty Dog.

"Salty Dog" Reaches Across the Sea of Abaco

2008-01-21T09:26:00.000-05:00

Having traveled over 1100 miles from the Chesapeake to the Abacos, we were seldom able to sail. We almost always were under power (using the engine vs the sails) because the Inland Waterway is narrow or the wind was on the nose. We are now ecstatic that we are able to actually sail from one island to the next. The attached pictures are of “Salty Dog” reaching (the point of sail when the wind is on the beam) across the Sea of Abaco from Great Guana Cay to Treasure Cay, about 9 nautical miles, in a 15 to 20 knot breeze. We have also attached a few pictures of us on the beach at Treasure Cay. Thanks to Helen aboard “Wingspread” for the sailing pictures and Linda aboard “Sojourner” for the beach pictures.

Another glorious day in Abaco!

2008-01-17T19:50:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while since we have posted – lazy is all I can say! And we really didn’t have many pictures to post. I’ll try to recap where we’ve been since then.

Since Junkanoo and our time in Green Turtle Cay (GTC) we’ve been to an island called ‘Manjack Cay’ and we absolutely loved it there. The only residents are Bill & Leslie and their chickens. They have lived on the island for 16 years and are Americans. They power their home and guest cottage, as well as Bill’s well stocked workshop with solar power. The only thing they don’t have is A/C. They catch rain water in a cistern. They have cut many paths through the island, but the only one we traveled was the one to the Atlantic Ocean side. It is about a mile from one side to the other (straight across, so to speak). The beach on that side is splendid and probably two miles long(2nd pic). The last day we were there we never saw another living sole on the entire beach! On the Sea of Abaco side (where the anchorages are) and right outside of Bill & Leslie’s home, they have a very nice beach (picture @ top), and they encourage cruisers to use it, as well as the entire island. Instead of the standard ‘No Trespassing’ signs we see in the states, they have a sign that says “YES TRESPASSING’. They have bonfires on the beach and invite the cruisers to come in and enjoy them. They have planted a lot of coconut palms and share the coconuts as well. Jeff cleaned two coconuts for us before we left – there must be a trick to cracking and cleaning those that we don’t know. A couple of bloody fingers and an hour later and we had a Ziploc bag full of coconut pieces. I’m sorry to say the camera was on the boat while we were on the shore doing this, so no pictures. We will definitely go back to Manjack!

From there we moved on south through the Whale Cay Passage to Marsh Harbour. Marsh Harbour is a good place to re-provision (buy groceries), do laundry, buy the ‘stuff’ you can’t find on other islands. Here is an example of grocery prices – Bounty paper towels $3.95/roll; Bush’s baked beans (small can) $1.95; one Mango $2.39; boneless skinless chicken breasts $5.99/lb, which I thought was very reasonable. You get the idea – generally everything is at least twice the price as at home, some things a little more. Remember, everything that is for sale here comes in pretty much by boat to the islands. The boat is called the ‘Mail Boat’ (picture @ right) and one of the first questions you ask upon arriving on an island is when does the boat come in. That way you know when to grocery shop. Marsh Harbour is the third largest island in the Abacos, next to Freeport and Nassau. It is a noisy harbour and not a place we want to just hang out, although the first evening after we anchored there we went into a place called Snappas Bar & Grill to hear Brown Tip play ‘Rake & Scrap’ music. That was a real treat which I’m not sure how to describe. I’ll try. Most of the music is Bahamian and we did not recognize the songs. The music is on CD’s and two to three people play saws, drums (singles), morocco’s and cow bells along to the music. When I say saws, I mean a hand saw, with the wooden handle against your armpit/chest area with the teeth facing up, with one hand holding on to the narrow end and your other hand scraping a knife across the teeth of the saw. They bend the saw blade back and forth to get different sounds out of the saw. And the dancing – I’ve never seen anyone as limber as the young man that was playing one of the saws!! It was a real treat to see the show.

Next, we moved across the Sea of Abaco to Guana Cay - it sounds like a long way doesn’t it? – it’s not – it only took us about 1 1/2 hours to get across. Guana Cay is a place we really liked. It is basically a small village – I don’t know how many people live there, (although there is a big development being built on the far end of the island) but they have enough that they have a small grocery store that was quite well stocked with very reasonably priced items, some things less than in GTC, which is much more populated. We visited the famous ‘Nipper’s’. It is a bar/restaurant on the ocean. They also have cottages for rent, etc. Quite a colorful place place! On the walk out there we came across a backhoe on the side of the path that was 'very colorful'. The Atlantic side beach was very nice to walk on and we finally found some ‘sea glass’. Savannah is still enjoying chasing waves and running on the beach.We found 12 pieces of sea glass yesterday while walking on the beach. I had no idea what sea glass was til a few weeks ago, even though I had heard the term. It is broken pieces of glass of all colors that have been washed and churned through the sand, so that they no longer have sharp edges and are no longer shiny. People make jewelry out of this and it is quite pricey (for broken glass).

Last evening there was a pot luck dinner @ Grabber’s Bed Bar & Grill (how about that for a name!) for anyone staying on the island and the cruiser’s. They are located on the Sea of Abaco side of the island and you can watch the sunset from there. They do this every Wednesday – it was great! What a variety of food. One family picked coconuts, grated them and made two coconut cream pies. They were very good, but very different than the coconut cream pie our family is accustomed to Nanny making. I’m prejudiced – hers is better. Another cruiser made conch chowder – fabulous!

This afternoon we sailed back across the Sea of Abaco to Treasure Cay. And what a wonderful sail it was. The winds were about 12 kts.and building. It was great and made the days when we have had to motor worthwhile. Everyone starts looking for protection from the coming fronts a couple of days before they (the fronts) arrive and we are expecting a front to come in on Saturday. You can’t wait til the last minute or there is no anchoring space left, at least in the protected places, and they are few. We will stay here til the first part of next week til the winds settle down. I dinghied the pups in late this afternoon and it is a very nice place, with a beautiful beach. It is a small harbour, with protection all around, so we will not have to worry too much about boats dragging their anchors through here (I hope).

That brings you up to date. Maybe we won’t wait so long til the next post.

JUNKANOO!!!!!!

2008-01-04T09:13:00.000-05:00

New Years Day found us (as well as hundreds of others) in New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay, attending ‘Junkanoo’. The population on Green Turtle Cay is only about 500, but that does not stop them from having a celebration.

New Plymouth is home to Miss Emily’s Blue Bee Bar and the world famous “Goombay Smash”. We had to have one – they go down very smoothly and it was easy to see how you could drink many of them – but with 3 or 4 kinds of rum and very little juice we knew we would be in serious trouble if we did.

Junkanoo is a parade in which the participants of all ages are dressed in very colorful costumes, which are adorned with jewels and feathers. I can’t imagine how long it takes to make some of the costumes, but on close inspection they start with cardboard and build from there. It is definitely not something you do at the last minute.

Some of the groups in the parade carried and played large goatskin drums and cowbells. You could feel those drums in your belly. As the parade passed by us, we, along with many others, joined in behind and danced to the rhythmic beat.

After the parade we went with some of the other cruisers to Pineapple’s Bar where Jeff had his first Kalik, which is a local beer. A good time was had by all!!!

We forgot to take our camera to the parade, so the photographs are courtesy of Debbie on S/V ‘Deborah Lee’. She did a superb job of capturing the spirit of the festival and we are in her debt for the pictures.

WE FINALLLLLLLLY MADE IT TO THE BAHAMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-12-31T22:39:00.000-05:00

We made it across! We were beginning to question whether this would happen or not. We were even talking about the fact that winter in South Florida would still be better than winter in Chattanooga. We would just have to find a place other than Palm Beach.

We had been waiting for a suitable weather window to cross for several weeks. Every time we thought it was going to happen we would go through the whole list of things we needed to do to get ready to go (and I’m not going to bore you with the list) and then the forecast would change overnight and we would have to undo everything. We got tired of that real fast. We had three false starts and the last one was a doozy. I swam under the boat, the afternoon before we were to cross, to free up the paddle wheel on the knot meter (speedometer for you non-boat people) and then just started looking at everything on the boat that was below the water. I noticed something that looked strange to me and reported in to Jeff with my findings. Long and short, we discovered that we had a leak around the rudder post (again, for you non-boaters, it is the part that actually steers the boat when you turn the wheel). We stayed awake most of the night trying to decide if we should just go ahead and go across to the Bahamas and hope it wouldn’t get worse and we could bail water all winter and get it fixed next spring when we get back, or did we haul the boat out of the water and fix it first. We decided we needed to pull it out and fix it first. We were able to find a do-it-yourself boatyard in Riveria Beach (right across from where we were anchored) that could pull the boat out the following day. The boat was out of the water for a week while Jeff fixed it. It didn’t take that long to fix the problem, just that long for the materials to cure.

Because we were still in Florida, we were able to spend Christmas with our family, which was very nice.

But now we are in the Bahamas!!!! And the water is as beautiful as we thought it would be. We can’t wait to get in it and do some snorkeling. We had good weather for the crossing and the wind, waves and current were agreeable. We were able to motorsail most of the way. We left the Lake Worth Inlet at 4:15am, under a nearly full moon, and arrived at Great Sale Cay on the Bahamas Banks at 9pm that night. We anchored there and got up the next morning and came the rest of the way to Green Turtle Cay. We arrived at 3:30pm and promptly ran aground coming into the channel. We backed out of the channel and anchored with several other boats that were out there. They probably knew we were going to run aground and just watched the show. At least we were able to get ourselves off. We felt good about that. We heard today about two boats that recently tried to get in and had the channel blocked for 6- 8 hours while they waited for the tide to come in and float them off. There is a strong cold front coming in tomorrow, with winds in excess of 30 knots for the next several days, so we took a slip in a marina for the next several days. And it looks like everyone else had the same idea, because there doesn't appear to be a slip to be had. It was like old home week today for us. We met up with a lot of cruisers that we have met along the way, mostly in Palm Beach since we were there for so long. It was good to see them. Most of them came over the weekend before Christmas.

Tomorrow is Junkanoo. We were told it is like a mini Mardi Gras. The parade starts at 2pm. We plan to take in all the festivities and will make a full report.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!!

STUCK IN LAKE WORTH

2007-12-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

Well, we are stuck in Lake Worth (West Palm Beach). We are waiting for a favorable weather window to get across to the Bahamas. And we don’t see one in sight.

We took a chance last Thursday and tried it. We thought we were smarter than all the other people in the anchorage! We left at 4:00 am. It became quickly apparent that we didn’t have what it takes to make a crossing in those conditions, if we had a choice. The wind was very benign, the gulf stream was running right off the coast (about 1 mile out), which we didn’t expect, but the waves, even though they were not large (2 – 3 feet), were hitting us mostly from the side, which in turn rolled us from side to side. We were rolling so much that it was not possible to do much moving around. And it didn’t take long for both of us to start feeling sick. I gave the dogs dramamine as we were leaving and they were nervous, but fine. I had one dog on each side of me. They became snuggle pups all of a sudden. So, after about 1 1/4 hours we decided to turn around and head back in, with our tails tucked tightly. We had another boat with us, Carol & Bill on ‘Interim’, and they followed us back. After we got back in and anchored, they came over and we talked, and they said they were not uncomfortable with the rolling motion, and in fact their boat was not doing much rolling. I guess it is a difference in hull shape or something. Anyway, they decided they were going back out and across and left out again by 8:00am. We wished them well and told them we would see them when we get there!

We learned some valuable lessons. One - don’t always believe the weather forecast. Second - have faith in the other cruisers that are waiting to go the same place you are, especially when they have done this before. Third – we will alter our course going across to make landfall in the daylight hours, even if it means going into someplace we really didn’t want to go – we did not like being out in the dark ‘on the big blue sea’. I told Jeff if Thursday was as good as it gets for making it across then I was going to have to find another way across (although other cruisers have told us that it will get better if we will wait). And he agreed with me. The people we bought our boat from, Dick & Judy Gardner, had a saying that I have repeated many times - ‘Nothing goes to weather like a 747!!!’

So here it is – we are big schickens! And we want to be comfortable.

Leaving Velcro Beach

2007-12-03T18:38:00.000-05:00

We are leaving in the morning. When we got here Jeff wanted to stay 2 nights. We will have been here six nights, when we leave tomorrow. We were told Vero Beach has a nick name, at least by the cruisers, as Velcro Beach - you arrive and you can't pull yourselves away. We did not understand that, at least the first day. The boats are sooooo close together, it is like living in a trailer park! And there are sooooooooo mannnnny boats here. We have adjusted. There is free bus service that picks us up at the marina and takes us anywhere we want to go - Wal-Mart, Sam's, Lowe's, Home Depot, West Marine, Office Depot, Publix, the Beach, anywhere. And it runs 8 - 5. We certainly have taken advantage of it - many times! There is a 3 acre dog park (no leashes, plus they provide poop bags) next to the marina, that also provides poop bags (can you tell we like that aspect?). We can now see why people, and not just boat people come here and stay. It is a delightful city! The picture above was taken from the bridge that overlooks the mooring field we have been in. It doesn't do it justice. You can't really get the feel for how close the boats are together and how many there are.

By the way - we have Christmas lights on our boat, as well as a Christmas tree!! I am posting a picture. There are just a few boats with Christmas decorations - but by gosh, we are one of them!! You know I like my Christmas decorations!!! I know the picture is blurry, but it is the best I could get. Jeff put more lights around the rest of the boat this afternoon.

Anyway, we are pulling out in the morning, heading for Lake Worth and our weather window to cross. We don't know when we will next have internet, so don't be surprised if we don't post for a week or so. We just don't know what we will find. We will post as soon as we can.

Greetings from Vero Beach!

2007-11-28T13:27:00.000-05:00

Edited 11/28/07 - pictures added

We have not had internet service for some time now. I’m sure some of you thought we had dropped off the face of the earth.

It’s been so long since we posted that I can hardly remember what we’ve been doing and where we’ve been! Thank goodness for the log book.

We spent a couple of days in St. Augustine, Florida being your typical tourists. Plus, Jeff managed to find a barber shop and got all of his hair cut!! St. Augustine has a lot of beautiful old buildings, especially churches. I’ve posted a few pictures from there (above). We even rode on the “Little Red Train”. We anchored right off the main street on the waterfront. It was a short dinghy ride to the marina and the downtown area. The town was busy getting ready to ‘light up’ for the holidays. They were putting white lights on all the buildings and trees along the waterfront. They were to have a festival on the 17th of November and light everything up that evening – we left that morning so we did not get to see it.

We were in New Smyrna Beach, Florida for a week or so and had a great time (more about that in the next paragraph). We spent Thanksgiving with our family. Those that don’t live in the area traveled in for the holiday. We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone. They all wanted to see the boat and how and where we are living now, and it was fun for us to show it off. We had two very exciting surprises over the Thanksgiving weekend – our niece Kelly, was proposed to by her boyfriend Corey. Corey is in the Army and surprised her by showing up at the house Thanksgiving afternoon. The second surprise was the announcement by our son and daughter in law that we are going to be grandparents a second time – in July! Wow, what a day! I’m posting a couple of pictures from Thanksgiving. By the way - we also had 9 dogs in attendance for Thanksgiving. When our family gathers, we bring our dogs also!!!

What a delightful place New Smyrna is – we really like it there. Growing up in Orlando we spent time at the beach in New Smyrna, but it sure is different when you are all grown up (and I would say we are all grown up!) and seeing it from the water side. We wouldn’t mind spending the winter there, but, there are no slips available. We left New Smyrna with our son Brian, daughter in law, Melanie, and 2 1/2 yr. old granddaughter, Kate aboard. They traveled to Titusville with us – a short day run, to see what it was like. They got off there and drove home to Birmingham, Alabama. It was fun to have them aboard. Kate really enjoyed watching the dolphins and pelicans, as well as feeding the catfish that were under the boat. She even managed to entice the seagulls to come to the boat to catch some bread that she was throwing, although it didn’t take much persuasion on her part!

We arrived in Vero Beach about an hour ago and will be staying here for a few days, then on to Lake Worth where we will leave from to cross over to the Bahamas.

Lowcountry Greetings!!

2007-11-14T20:42:00.000-05:00

November 10, 2007

This post covers South Carolina as well as Georgia, in the lowcountry. It has been quite cold the last 3 or 4 mornings – in the 30’s and 40’s. We were not ready for this. Thank goodness for the cockpit enclosure! It has been in the high 50’s in the boat when we wake up, brrrrrrrr. We start out with about three or four layers, and peel them off as the sun comes up and warms the enclosure. It generally warms up to the upper 60’s – low 70’s by 2:00pm. We can actually wear shorts inside the enclosure by lunchtime, but it is a little chilly outside for that, but only because of the wind. The dogs think the temperature is perfect. And I guess if you wear a heavy winter coat all the time it does feel good.

Savannah has caught on to the dolphins surfacing around us, and watches for them. We had dolphins all around us the other evening after we anchored and she got quite excited.

We don’t travel very fast, maybe 6 kts., but we passed a little yellow sailboat the other day, approx. 23’ towing a 14’-15’ skiff. We arrived at our anchorage for the evening and about 2 hours later in comes the little yellow boat. We leave in the morning about 6:15am, and go til 3 or 4 and here comes the little yellow boat in about 2 hrs or so after we are anchored. What’s the point in going faster, he gets to the same place we do almost every night. We are all heading south.

We check out the names of some of the boats we’ve see – here are some unusual ones: BUTTER & EGGS; CHIPS AHOY; RUM TUM TIGER; WISHES GRANTED.

Cumberland Island National Park

2007-11-14T19:28:00.000-05:00

November 13, 2007

We are at Cumberland Island, Ga., just above the Florida line, as I am writing this, although we have no internet so it won’t be posted probably for a few days. Cumberland Island is 85% National Park, with herds of wild horses roaming free, although we have only seen 1/2 dozen or so. The island is 20 miles long and about 1 mile wide. You can only get here by boat. There is a ferry that comes in at 10:15am to drop people off and then again at 4:45pm to pick them. There are campsites here, but you must bring everything with you and take everything back, including your garbage. We talked to a couple of people from the Atlanta area that had come to camp for the weekend; this was their 2nd time to come here. We walked out to the beach this morning and looked for shells. It was really strange to be on such a nice beach and have only a handful of people out there. It is truly a beautiful place and we have collected our share of sea shells.

Above - the path to the beach

Below left - some of the horses on the island

Below right - the Dungeness Ruins - this was quite a castle in it's time.

Bottom left - a baby racoon that got separated from his family - they crossed the path and he lagged behind.

Bottom center - some of the shells we collected

'Sandpiper' does an About Face and Heads North

2007-11-14T18:15:00.000-05:00

November 8, 2007

Jan, Bob’s friend, flew home last Sunday to Mystic, Connecticut. We left them in Beaufort, SC several days ago and Bob said he would meet up with us somewhere around St. Augustine in the next week or so. It was so good to meet Jan – she makes Bob happy, and she said Bob makes her happy as well. We had heard so much about Jan and truly enjoyed spending some time with her. We received a call from Bob this morning 11/8 – he has decided not to go any farther south, but to head back to Deltaville, Virginia and haul his boat out of the water for the winter, and spend the winter in Mystic, Connecticut with Jan. We were not at all surprised. We are grateful to him for showing us the ropes and now feel confident to head South alone. We realized about a week ago that he was leaning this way. We will miss Bob very much, but couldn’t be happier for him and for Jan as well. We are hoping to talk them into coming to the Bahamas this winter to spend time on the boat with us. Bob left a jug of Virginia’s Bowman Scotch aboard, which we expect him to reclaim. Jan was already planning to spend time in the Bahamas with Bob, and Bob was planning to be there the whole winter, so this sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Charleston, SC

2007-11-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

We have spent about a week in Charleston. Tropical Storm Noel and a strong cold front kept us in port, as well as Jeff’s dental appointment on the 5th of November (he rented a car and drove to Chattanooga). We anchored in the Ashley River for the first several days during the most severe weather, which is probably nothing compared to what we are going to see in the Bahamas when the cold fronts come through. The anchorage is open and we rocked and rolled. Winds up to 30 knots and tidal currents of 2 knots tested our ground tackle and our sea legs (as well as Shelby and Savannah’s). We did fine, although we were uncomfortable for a day when the wind was out of the ENE blowing across the harbor against the current causing large rollers in the anchorage. It was very difficult to access the dinghy. We moved to the Charleston City Marina for three days when Jeff went to Chattanooga (wouldn’t you know it, the weather cleared up) while Bob moved to a marina on the Cooper River. We were one of the much smaller boats in the marina. There were unbelievably huge boats in the marina – some will be there for several more days to several more months. They mostly had the ‘crew’ aboard, and not the owners, although a few did have an owner aboard, but not many. The crew moves the boat wherever the owner wants it moved to. We talked to crew members on numerous boats. Most said they live permanently on the boat and the owner just flies in for a weekend several times a year. We are talking boats that are in excess of 85 feet, some as large as 125 feet or more. We have posted a picture of a couple of them.

Our friends Sara and Michael, who we met in Deltaville, Va. where they keep their sailboat “White Star”, live in Mt. Pleasant (a suburb of Charleston) and were very gracious hosts while we were here. We had dinner at their home and met them on several occasions in Charleston. Michael is a professor at the Citadel, where we attended the Homecoming parade Friday afternoon. Thanks Sarah and Michael!

Cadets forming up for the Parade (right)

Cadets passing for review during Parade (below)

Bob’s friend Jan arrived in Charleston Saturday evening Nov. 3. We have not met Jan yet, as Bob’s boat was on the other side of Charleston from us. We are to meet them somewhere down around Beaufort, SC. and look forward to that.

Charleston is a uniquely beautiful city. Here are a couple of pictures from the water.

Top picture - Bridge over the Cooper River

Right picture - Downtown Charleston

Bottom picture - the anchorage we were in (with the marina in the background). There sure were a lot of boats at anchor. This was taken as we were leaving.

Nothing Could Be Finer .....

2007-11-04T21:55:00.000-05:00

…..than to be in Carolina.

It has been a while since our last post (no internet service), so let’s see if we can catch you up on where we’ve been and what we’ve seen.

People who have made the trip up and down the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) before have told us it is boring and it may be if you’ve made the trip many times, but for us it is all new. I thought I would get a lot of reading done on the trip – not so at all. We are both so busy looking all around us at the scenery. Some is ho-hum, but most is so beautiful. And if we get bored with that we still have to watch for the next marker so we make sure we stay in the channel and don’t run aground. We have taken many pictures while underway – nature, birds, other boats, lighthouses, mile-long docks, etc.

One of the pictures we are posting is of an overhead lift (like on ski slopes), only it is for a golf course (in Myrtle Beach, SC). The golf course is on one side of the ICW and the lift takes people from Myrtle Beach on the other side – very interesting! The sailboat in that picture is of “Interim”, New York, NY with Carol, Bill, and Simon (dog) aboard. We first met them in Annapolis and struck up a conversation because they have a Gulfstar also. Unplanned, we ran into them weeks later at Camp Lejeune, Little River, Wrightsville Beach, and Charleston. Enjoyed happy hour and dinner with them several times. Hope to see them later in Vero Beach.

We left Wrightsville Beach Saturday, 10/27/07 and headed for Little River, SC, which is right on the SC/NC border – nothing noteworthy there. Headed to Georgetown, SC on Sunday, the 28th. It is a pleasant, quaint southern town. We stayed there for two nights to let the wind blow itself out – and boy did it (the first night anyway). Left there Tuesday morning, heading towards Charleston, SC. We stopped in Price Creek, about 25 miles north of Charleston, SC. We could see the lights of Charleston on the horizon. Price Creek goes out to the Atlantic Ocean and is very narrow, although quite deep (20’), as far as the ICW goes. We were about a mile or so from the beach and thought we would take the dogs out to run, as well as watch the breakers come in, but, the current was strong when we anchored so we decided not to. Instead we sat on the boat and watched the dolphins, actually porpoises, swim all around us.

We arrived in Charleston on Halloween. We had no trick or treaters. The pictures below are along the way to Charleston. More about Charleston later.

'Interim' (above & right)

Georgetown

City Clock

Tower

(left)

We are far enough south to finally see Palm trees!

Shelby and Savannah Go to the Beach in the Rain

2007-10-26T17:05:00.000-04:00

It was Savannah’s first Atlantic Ocean beach experience. She ran full speed up and down chasing the waves, several times getting caught as the wave broke on the beach. She also chased sea gulls running in and out of the surf. Her adventure ended when the Park Ranger came by and required the dogs to be leashed. Needless to say, she had salt and sand all over her. We rinsed her off the best we could, but now we have sand all over Salty Dog’s decks. Fortunately the rain is flushing the sand down the scuppers. Shelby could have cared less. I guess at her age, no need to run and chase. She just casually walked along with Jeff (he's not caring about much at his age either). No beach pictures due to the rain (to keep the camera dry).

Traveling with "Sandpiper"

2007-10-25T10:25:00.000-04:00

We are fortunate to be traveling with Bob Webb on “Sandpiper”, a Marine Trader 34 trawler. We met Bob at Stingray Point in Deltaville last year. Bob, who holds a Coast Guard Captain’s license, has made this trip four times. No substitute for skill and experience. We rely on him to show the way as well as to advise us on docking maneuvers, etc. Jeff returns the favor by fixing stuff on Bob’s boat.

We generally gather on “Salty Dog” for evening happy hour. It is good traveling together.

Bob mentioned that he didn’t plan a blog, but would refer his friends and family to this one. So welcome to all readers.

Attached are some additional pictures taken along the way:

Checking In From Wrightsville Beach, N.C.

2007-10-24T20:33:00.001-04:00

Last night we anchored off of Camp LeJeune, N.C. For those that are unfamiliar with this - it is the Marine Corps Base. It covers a lot of waterfrontage, in fact, many, many miles. We anchored at a place referred to on the charts as Mile Hammock. We were just in front of where the Marines were doing practice take offs and landings with the CH-53 helicopters (the biggest and fastest ones they have), as well as the Osprey (plane). It was very impressive! I have posted pictures of both. Then, this morning about 7:00am, I was in the cockpit and heard something loud and low, meaning big, coming from the south towards us. I watched and listened, expecting to see a barge and tow boat, but instead there were four camoflodged (sp?) boats heading into the anchorage area. It was awesome!!! They headed straight for the bulkhead dock - there was a platoon of men on the dock waiting for them. They loaded on the boats and left the area. I was dissappointed in the other boats at anchor - they showed no respect for the marines. They hoisted their anchors and proceeded to get in the marines' way as they were trying to get out of the anchorage. I guess Jeff and I have a respect for the military that is not present in a lot of people. We felt very priveleged to watch the training excercises, both this morning and yesterday afternoon/evening.

So, we are in Wrightsville Beach this evening, after a tedious day of hurry up and wait. We really didn't make that many miles today (only 40), nor did we intend to. We are exactly where we wanted to be tonight, but we had to wait for almost 2 hours to get through the last bridge, at Wrightsville Beach. We took the dogs ashore early this evening and walked for a short time on the beach. The surfers are out! The waves didn't look very big to me, so I'm not so sure why they are out there. We have had on again, off again rain today, as well as 15 - 25 knot winds. This is the first day of semi-yukky weather we have had since we started south. The forecast is for the next couple of days to be like this. Perhaps we will just stay here and wait it out. I am looking forward to a long walk on the beach tomorrow morning. Now that we have passed Oct 1 the dogs are allowed on the beach.

We are meeting all kinds of people along the way. It is an interesting bunch of people going down the waterway. Some have no clue. Jeff and I are feeling much better about our boat handling skills after watching the boats around us. It is interesting that we are seeing a lot of the same boats day after day in the anchorage. But then again we may not see certain boats for several days, and then there they are again. Everyone has their places/towns/marinas that they like to stop at. And tonight there are a half dozen boats in this anchorage that we have never seen. And they are not local boats - how have we missed them? Boats from everywhere! And all different kinds and sizes, of boats as well as people. Some people travel alone, as in alone on the boat by themselves, others have two couples on one boat, some boats have all men, some all women.

Better get this posted before I lose my wireless signal again. It sounds like there is a storm getting ready to hit us - it is thundering and the dogs are frantic. It's here!

Leaving Beaufort, North Carolina in the morning

2007-10-22T20:08:00.000-04:00

We have enjoyed our couple of days in Beaufort, NC. We are across from Carrot Island and there is a herd of about 40 wild horses on the island. This morning I counted 7 or 8 down on the beach, but wasn't able to get any pictures.

The change of boats here from day to day is amazing! Late yesterday afternoon/early evening a 112' yacht pulled in just a couple of slips away from us. Of course the owner was not on board, as they usually are not on most of the boats that pull in here - just the 'crew'. They pull in, tie up, (drag the fuel line to the boat and take on anywhere from $800 - $6000 worth of diesel fuel), hook up the hoses and begin rinsing, washing, and polishing the boat - that is the dead give away that it is 'crew' and not the owner. Most owners are interested in getting the boat settled in the slip and relaxing a little. This afternoon there were a lot more boats that pulled in, and by far they were mostly sportfisher boats - large ones! But again, they had 'crew' on them, with some owners as well. We talked to a few crews to find this out. It absolutely boggles my mind to think of where people get the money for these boats and full time crews. The boats alone are so far out of reach, and then to think that they have 2 - 3 full time crewmembers onboard and will for the next several months. Some boats are being moved from a northern (summer) area to a winter area in Florida or the Bahamas. And this is done every year, just so the owner can spend a few weeks aboard, and be comfortable.

Anyway, we are pulling out in the morning, for Camp LeJeune, NC. Hopefully the weather is going to continue to be good - it looks like it will be. I am looking forward to seeing lots of porpoises and getting some pictures. Don't know when we will have internet access again.

WE HAVE DECK POOPING DOGS!!!!!

2007-10-21T22:47:00.000-04:00

Can you believe it???!!! Shelby led the way on this one! And Savannah followed right along. We are almost there. Shelby has even peed on deck, and I’m hopeful Savannah will soon. Savannah goes to the back of the boat where the dinghy is and whines, as if to say “I know that little boat is for taking me to shore so I can go potty, so let’s go, NOW!”

We pulled into Beaufort, North Carolina this afternoon. We love it here! We spent yesterday afternoon in Oriental, NC. We splurged and are tied up in a marina. There really isn’t a good place to anchor here unless you are less than 35 feet. The wind and the current are usually opposite each other as well. The boats that are at anchor are all swinging in different directions. Thank goodness there isn’t much wind. We saw lots of dolphins today along the way, although none were close to the boat. Tomorrow I am going to check out all the shops on the waterfront and Jeff is going to help Bob work on his generator – it won’t start.

2007-10-21T22:34:00.000-04:00

OK – We left Stingray Point Marina, Deltaville, Virginia at 7:30am on Oct. 15, with Lenny & Debbie and Dick & Anna waving us off. It was 52* and a beautiful morning. We had a nice motorsail. Sailed into Norfolk that afternoon, past the Navy base. There were three aircraft carriers in port, as well as many other Navy ships, plus a Carnival cruise ship (figure that one out!!). The USS Wisconsin is permanently tied up in downtown Norfolk, for touring. We anchored at a place called Hospital Point, and appropriately named because we were right in front of the hospital. We had downtown Norfolk on one side of the water and Portsmouth on the other. I will try to post a picture of sunrise from this location. You all are going to get tired of my sunset and sunrise pictures!

The second day out was a slow one. We had to wait for several bridges to open and a lock. The bridges have very strict opening times, as does the lock. Many boats left the anchorage before we did this particular morning – apparently they didn’t realize the first bridge would not open until after rush hour at 9:00, because they were all jammed up at the bridge when we got there at 8:45. After waiting for several bridges we then had to wait for over an hour for the lock. There were so many boats going south that we had to wait for the third lock through before our turn, and then we only dropped down 9 inches! Hardly worth the trouble!!! Not quite like locking through on the Tennessee River.

Third day out – we crossed over the N.C. line at 11:35am.

Heading South on Monday

2007-10-10T22:34:00.000-04:00

10/10/07 Wednesday

We left Annapolis Sunday morning and headed for Solomon’s Island. We were glad to leave Annapolis, although we had an enjoyable time and met some very interesting people. I feel very confident in saying that we will never keep a boat there and we will probably not go back by boat either. It is a zoo!!

We made Solomon’s Island by 5:00pm. Left out the next morning at 7:15am, heading for an anchorage we like near Deltaville, called Little Bay. When we arrived there were no other boats. The whole place to ourselves!!!!! It was sooooo nice. And quiet! Another boat did show up later, but they were quite aways from us. The dogs had a grand time running on the beach and playing in the water. I know there are those among you reading this that have asked how we do certain things on the boat, such as getting the dogs to shore, as well as ourselves. I am posting a picture of me schlepping the dogs to shore in the dinghy. Think of the dinghy as our car. The dogs are always anxious to get in the dinghy. Savannah actually jumped from the boat to the dinghy one time. I thought, oh great we’re going to have to find a vet to have a bone set after that jump, but she was ok. If that had been Shelby, ‘our delicate little flower’, you know we would have been at the vet’s office.

Jeff left this morning to drive the car home. He will fly back tomorrow evening. We have a few things to complete this weekend, like changing the oil in the engine and generator, as well as marking our chain on the different anchors, so we will know how much we have out – seems like we would have done this already doesn’t it? Anyway – weather permitting we will be leaving Monday morning and heading South. More later.

Time to move again?

2007-10-10T22:28:00.000-04:00

10/7/07 Sunday morning

The Harbormaster showed up at 4:00pm yesterday and said the Condo Association had complained heavily to them about us being anchored in front of their condos. We had move, but where to go? Out in front of the Naval Academy, of course. Being a Saturday afternoon, and all the recreational traffic buzzing in and out and around, it was very rough out there, but by dark it had settled down. I’ve posted a picture of sunset from this location.

Jeff dinghied in and picked up Michael & Sara and Steve & Terri and brought them out to the boat for cocktails. Both couples were flying out this morning and we were leaving as well, so it was goodbye time. We will probably see Michael & Sara when we arrive in Charleston, SC, as they live close by. And we are hopeful Steve & Terri will be able to visit with us in the Bahamas.

Boat Show Time!!!!

2007-10-10T21:47:00.000-04:00

'Push and Shove'

10/5/07 Friday

We spent all day yesterday and part of today at the Boat Show. We are Boat Showed out!!!

We watched the goings ons with putting the Boat Show together earlier this week. There is soooo much to do to get ready for the show – bringing in the tents for “stuff” to be set up - these are on shore. Then the boats start arriving, and in a very particular order, because floating, portable docks have to be placed in behind them to allow more docking space for more boats. There were two boats named PUSH and SHOVE (check pictures) that helped place the temporary docks. I have no idea how many temporary pilings we saw driven into place to stabilize these docks. We stood up on top of Pusser’s Pub (that is where the boat placement coordinator was) and watched some of the boats arrive. What a zoo!!!!! The coordinator had several radios that he used to talk to the show level coordinator as well as the people moving the show boats in. Not all boats had their radios on or weren’t listening and it got messy. We watched a boat come flying into the docking area (out of turn) and T-boned another boat. We could hear the crunch of fiberglass from where we were! I’ve posted a few pictures of the show area.

'Setting up The Show'

'During The Show'

'During The Show'

Our friends from the marina in Deltaville, Sara & Michael Barrett flew in today, for the boat show. Michael is a retired General, so they are able to stay on the Naval Academy grounds while in town. Lucky them. We were treated to drinks in the Officers’ Club this evening. We enjoyed spending the evening with them.

I’ve posted a picture of the drawbridge in downtown Annapolis, with a sailboat going through, as well as a picture of the hanging baskets that are on the drawbridge. The potted flowers in downtown Annapolis are gorgeous. The pots that are sitting along the sidewalks are enormous, maybe 36-40 inches across and 36 inches high, and hanging baskets like I posted on every light post. You only see one side, but there is another one on the other of the post, and equally beautiful. They have a crew that comes along every day and cares for them. It is October and they are still beautiful!

'See the sailboat to the right?'

Naval Academy Day

2007-10-10T20:53:00.000-04:00

10/3/07 Wednesday

We toured the Naval Academy yesterday(can you tell???). WOW – was that impressive! There are 4,000 cadets and over 300 acres of USNA grounds. They have a large sailing fleet as well. Sixteen 44’ boats and probably a hundred small boats, all the way down to Lasers (14 feet) and there were probably 50 or so of those.

We saw the crypt of John Paul Jones (pictures didn’t turn out). The Chapel is breathtaking, and I have included some pictures of that. But just as impressive was watching noon formation. All 4,000 cadets stand in formation, Monday through Friday, for “Noon Formation”. This happens right before they go to lunch in Bancroft Hall. The Pipes & Drum Band plays (check out the picture).

Our friends, Steve & Terri Brothers, from Chattanooga, flew in this morning. They spent the afternoon and evening with us. Terri helped me finish the netting around the boat. Now we can leave the dogs out on deck when we are away from the boat, without worrying about them falling off. I’ve always hated leaving them down inside. They will be happier outside. Steve helped Jeff move anchors, again.

We are getting more anchoring practice!

2007-10-10T20:44:00.000-04:00

9/28/07 Friday

Well, we’ve moved again. Farther back into the creek. We sure are getting some practice pulling the anchor up and re-anchoring. We have no swing room here, because of the size of our boat and the shear number of other boats, along with the size of the creek. We are anchored in front of some condos, with boat slips on both sides of us, but they have plenty of room to get in and out.
We’ve met a number of people from other boats that are anchored here. There seem to be quite a few boats from Canada. We met a couple from Toronto that has very little sailing/boating experience and are going to Grenada, offshore. Gutsy or just plain stupid, we’re not sure. They have taken a year off work and only have that year to see all they want to see. We wish them luck. We’ve met two families, with two children each that are cruising. One family has 12 year old twins and the other family has 12 and 16 year olds. They are from Charleston, SC and somewhere in Iowa.

Hello From Annapolis

2007-09-26T19:52:00.000-04:00

We left Deltaville, Virginia last Saturday at 7:00a.m. It was a beautiful morning with very light winds. The day turned out to be verrry warm!

We arrived in Solomon’s Island, Maryland at 5:30pm and anchored with three other cruisers. Shelby and Savannah were glad to get off the boat and stretch their legs and sniff some grass!

We moved to another anchorage Sunday morning, for two reasons – 1) we were dragging along with everyone else, and couldn’t get the anchor to set, and 2) the anchorage was small and there was to be a docking contest of the watermen, on Sunday afternoon, which meant non- stop of traffic through the anchorage. We moved to Mill Creek and found a great spot. Easy dinghy access for walking the dogs, as well as exercise for us. By the second night at anchor there we had quite a number of other boats anchored there as well. That evening we dinghied around and spoke to everyone that was out on their boat. Some of the hailing ports were Amsterdam; Naples, Fl.; Annapolis, Md.; Boulder, Co.; and Durham, N.C.

We left Solomon’s Island Tuesday morning and arrived in Annapolis at 4:00pm. We had a south wind which allowed us to sail under spinnaker for about 5 hours up the bay. It was wonderful. We had never flown the spinnaker and of course it was twisted in the bag, and it took some time to figure it out, but it was worth it. I can say that because I really didn’t do much to help. We set it once and never had to adjust it at all!

In any case we finally got anchored in Back Creek about 5:15pm. But it wasn’t pretty – we anchored and re-anchored four, count them, four times. The first three times we were told by other boat owners that they had either anchored in that same spot and were asked to move by the harbormaster, or had watched other boats go through that. Number four seems to be ok so far with the harbormaster. We had to go into town and register with the harbormaster today, tell him where we are anchored, give him copies of our driver’s licenses and boat documentation papers, and jump through three hoops. Only kidding about the hoops. The harbormaster sends someone out once a day to survey Annapolis City Waters for anchored and moored boats. They get a GPS location on each and check to make sure you are not too close to other boats, docks, channels, etc. If you are, so sorry, you must move. We are hopeful that we have made the cut, because the ‘surveyor’ has been around today already and we weren’t asked to leave and there was no note on our boat when we got back from town a little while ago. It is getting crowded here already, and the boat show is a week away. I can hardly wait to watch the show being set up and the show boats moved in. We are seeing a lot of the ‘show’ boats already. It is amazing to see the boat show area now and think of how many boats will be jammed into that space.

Below are some more pictures - a couple of our boat, for those of you who haven't seen our 'mode' of transportation. And a couple of some lighthouses we've seen, although there were more.

Made the break from home!

2007-09-16T08:32:00.000-04:00

We've made the break from home! We left last Monday and are getting settled into the boat. We are finishing up 'things' in anticipation of leaving Deltaville on Sept. 22 for Annapolis. I (Cindy) am currently in Orlando visiting with my mom one last time, and will fly back to the boat in a few days. Jeff is on the boat, trying to deal with two pups that miss their momma terribly and are nervous wrecks!

We are on countdown!!

2007-08-23T17:48:00.000-04:00

Only 16 days til we leave home (for the boat) and begin our 'Big Adventure', as several friends have dubbed it! I am busy trying to get everything in place at home to be gone for 8 or 9 months. Our house sitters arrive Sept. 4. Jeff is on the boat working on more upgrades and preventive maintenance, and will be home by Sept. 1.

Several people have asked where we are going and what we are going to do. Here is the short version. We're going to float the boat down the East Coast and across to the Bahamas. We don't have a particular schedule, other than to be in Annapolis for the Sailboat Show and then in Florida for Thanksgiving with our family. Then over to the Bahamas. That's as scheduled as it is. We are excited about the trip and nervous as well, or at least I am. I sure hope Shelby and Savannah learn how to 'potty' on the boat quickly. We have worked on that, to no avail thus far. I did way to good of a job housebreaking them. This is an extension of their house and they can't 'go' there. But, I haven't talked to anyone yet that has dogs on the boat that says theirs didn't figure it out.

I will post to the log when there is something to tell you, and possibly, figure out how to post pictures as well. You know I am not the computer genius in the family.