Bird on a Wire

Finally - the end of the trip - part 1

2009-09-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

Wow - where does the time go! I have no good excuse for not getting this posted before now, except that now that we're back in the "real" world there is no time at the end of the day. I've broken this entry into 3 parts as it's easier to only load a couple of pictures at a time. I'm not sure anyone will read this after such a long time, but at least I will feel it is finally done - until next time!!

June 21 – June 23 – Manchester-by-the-sea
As forecast it was windy and wet but we were nice and snug on our mooring. Dave, Annie and I all got colds and felt pretty miserable. We had a couple of walks through Manchester in the rain. We found a really neat used/antique bookstore. Kristen found a book called "The girl who waved" that was written in 1937. It was about a little girl and the "Twentieth Century" train. A great book with neat pictures. When we were checking out, the store keeper was quite interested in our trip. He suggested that we should read "Carry on Mr. Bowditch" about a man from Salem and one of the first Americans to publish a book on navigation, but unfortunately he didn’t have a copy of it.
On June 22 we caught the train from Manchester to Salem. It was a quick trip and we arrived a little before noon. We took the trolley from the train up to the visitor’s info center and then went and had some pizza for lunch. After lunch we walked to the Salem witch museum to learn about the Salem witch trials. What an awful time it must have been to live in Salem. There was such fear that reasonable thought seemed to leave the residents and many innocent people were hung. We had a good walk around Salem in the rain and drizzle, and found another used book store that did have the "Bowditch" book. We got back to Manchester around 5:00 and bought a roasted turkey breast at the store so we put together a real turkey dinner – yum!

June 24 – Manchester-by-the-Sea to Annasquam, Ma
We left Manchester mid-morning, trying to time the current so we would have slack water going through the Blynnman Canal that cuts behind Glocester and saves the trip around Cape Ann. Weather was pretty reasonable there was a little wind on the nose, and a little fog, but it could have been a lot worse. Although we had read that the Blynnman Canal could be shallow, we didn’t have any problems or see any really shallow water. We only went as far as Annasquam at the end of the canal as we felt that the waters on the North of Cape Ann would still be too rough after the last few days of high winds. We picked up a mooring off the Annasquam Yacht Club and had some lunch. After lunch we went into the yacht club in their tender. We had a walk around the nice little town, but it was pretty wet and rainy. We were back on the boat by 5:00 and made a turkey casserole with the left over turkey from yesterday.

June 25 – Annasquam to Boothbay, Maine
We left in the fog around 5:30 in the morning. We wanted to leave early to be sure to get across the sandbar at the entrance before low tide at 7:30. It was foggy all day – really thick fog too, but during the middle of the day it was sunny over head so it was actually a nice warm day. We saw two Minke whales, and we also saw two seals. We thought about going into Portland or Biddeford Pool, but it seemed that we had enough time to push on to Boothbay before dark so we decided to do that so we would be able to spend the whole day there tomorrow. We picked up a mooring at Tugboat Inn around 7:30. We put the dinghy down and put the motor on and the girls went for a little trip around the harbour while Dave and I made supper.
June 26 – Boothbay
We took the day off today. The weather was fair with some sunny skies, although it was still chilly and didn’t really feel like summer. We walked to the grocery store and got a few provisions. We went back to the boat for lunch and then after lunch went for another walk around Boothbay. There certainly weren’t the same sales in Boothbay that we had seen in the fall! We went to McSeagulls for supper and the meal was great.

June 27 – Boothbay to North Vinalhaven Island
We left Boothbay in the fog and didn’t see much of anything all day. There were a few brief moments when the visibility would open up to a mile or so, and then we could see the little islands that we were passing between. We saw porpoises a number of times through the day – it was nice to know something else was out there with us! We planned to anchor on the north side of Vinal Haven where we had stopped on the way down, but the fog was even thicker going though Fox Island Thorofare running between North and South Vinalhaven than it had been all day. We clawed our way through the fog into North Haven and picked up a mooring around 5:30. We didn’t put the dinghy down or go to shore.

June 28 – North Vinalhaven to Northeast Harbour
Another cold, wet foggy day. We left around 6:30. We motored through the fog and learned that in can in fact rain when you are in the fog. We also learned that there can be waves in the fog. There was wind (on the nose) and a little bit of a chop. We saw more porpoises again today. We got to Northeast Harbour around 2:00 and had some lunch. We were cold and tired and it was pouring rain, so we didn’t go to shore right away. In the end, I took the girls to shore around 3:30 in the drizzle. By then it was too late to bother trying to go to Bar Harbour, so we had a wander around Northeast Harbour in the drizzle. The Tan Turtle Tavern had burnt down so our plans to go out for supper went up in smoke, so to speak! We went back to the boat and had some left overs.

June 29 – June 30 – Northeast Harbour to Lockeport, NS
We left Northeast Harbour, in the fog, around 9:00. We stopped at the fuel dock and were really on our way by 9:30. The forecast sounded okay… light winds, rain, drizzle, fog… more of what we had been seeing day after day. We planned our departure time so try to arrive on the south coast of Nova Scotia at slack water, to avoid all the nasty currents you can get going around Cape Sable Island and Brazil Rock. It was a pretty uneventful crossing. We had the mizzen up all the way as a steady sail but it didn’t catch much wind – once again the wind was on the nose. It took us a little longer to cross than we expected and we got to Seal Island about an hour later than planned. We did have a good trip around the end of Nova Scotia, but then we had current against us, hour after hour. We were loosing between a knot and a knot and a half every hour, and there was no way we were going to make it to Liverpool. We were pretty tired, and based on current speed we wouldn’t arrive until after 10:00. We called Customs to find out if it was okay to tie up in Lockeport, and they said just to call when we got tied up. We were tied up around 5:00 and called customs. They gave Dave a hard time about going into Lockeport as it isn’t a designated port of entry. In the end, we were told that Customs would have to come visit us and to stay on the boat. Three hours later they finally showed up. It was a less than pleasant visit, however in the end we were cleared into Canada. When they left we got off the boat to stretch our legs, but it was cold and wet and there were a lot of people out celebrating for Canada Day so we went back to the boat and went to bed.

July 1 – Lockeport to Mahone Bay
We got up around 6:30 and were off the dock by 7:00. It wasn’t a bad day. The wind and seas were light and we had visibility. It was pretty cold though. Hard to believe it’s July. We weren’t sure whether we were going to go to Liverpool, Lunenburg, or to Mahone Bay. It was a pretty uneventful day. We were off Liverpool around lunch time, and we decided that it wasn’t too bad and that we should press on. By mid-afternoon we figured that we could make it to Mahone Bay before dark, and we thought it would be better to press on rather than stop in Lunenburg and have to get up early again tomorrow. We arrived in Mahone Bay at 8:15 and tied up on the town dock. Mum and Andy were there to meet us. It took us a little while to tied up and organized and then we went out for pizza. It felt like we made the first stop towards home.

July 2 – 5 – Mahone Bay/Getting Boom
We spent Thursday with Mum and Andy, did a few errands and picked up a few last things for Boom. On Friday we left at 5:30 and headed down to New Glasgow in Mum’s car. We dropped the girls off at Doreens at 8:30 – they had decided that a visit with Doreen was far preferable to 26 hours in the car! Dave and I set off for Massachusetts. We had an uneventful trip down, keeping the same two hour shifts in the car that we do on the boat. We finally got to Springfield around 7:30. We went for supper and then back to the hotel for an early night. On Saturday we met Boom with his breeder outside the Springfield dog show at 7:15. He was calmly sitting in his crate and not unhappy at all to come with us. The first 10 minutes in the car were pretty challenging as Boom tried to explore his new environment, but he quickly settled and went to sleep. He traveled really well. We stopped every two hours and took Boom for a little run. It took us a lot longer to get home than it took us to get to Springfield. We finally got back to New Glasgow at 11:00. We stayed at our friends, Mary Jean and Darrell’s and the girls were already there. It is so nice to see friends and family again! On Sunday morning we headed to Pictou to get the truck and see how things were at the house. House was great but the lawn was pretty sad looking as the lawn tractor had broken and had just come back from getting repaired. Dave spent a couple of hours and got a start on the lawn. We were just finishing up and the rain started down so we headed back to Mahone Bay with the truck, Mum’s car and Boom. We got back to Mahone Bay around 6:00 and had a little visit at Mum and Andy’s with Boom before going back to the boat.

July 6 – Mahone Bay to Chester
We spent Monday morning doing some odd jobs up at the house and then we headed off for Chester after lunch. We arrived in Chester about 4:30 and tied up at the Rope Loft Restaurant. John was there to meet us and after we got tied up we went up to John and Gail’s. They have a beautiful home overlooking Chester Harbour. Boom had an upset belly so we were running in an out of the house with him, but he still had a couple of accidents… We took Boom back to the boat and put him in his crate and then we all went to the Rope Loft for supper and the food was really good. We had a rough night with Boom as his belly was really giving him problems.

July 7 – Chester to Halifax
We left Chester around 7:00 to head for Halifax. By mid-morning Boom was doing better and that was a real relief. We had fairly calm seas and we saw the sun for a few minutes! It was actually really pretty sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia with the sun and the lighthouses out on the rocks. We saw a couple of other sailboats today. We arrived at Armdale around 2:00 and got fuel and water. I was talking to a gentleman on the wharf while Dave was getting the fuel. I found out that all of Misty’s (our old boat) sails, cushions etc. had been destroyed in a fire in the spring when a forest fire outside of Halifax destroyed the home of Misty’s new owner. She was now being sold as insurance salvage. How sad. We took "Bird" out to a mooring and then went to run some errands and get groceries. We rented a movie and had a quiet evening on the boat.

July 8 – Halifax
In the morning I took the girls shopping. In the afternoon Dave went to Dartmouth for some meetings. We tidied the boat, took Boom for a walk, got showers and got ready for the Tattoo. We met Dave on shore at 5:30 and went over to Tasha’s where we met Doreen and Paul and left Boom for the evening. Then we went downtown to meet Mum, Andy, Heather and Dennis for supper and then the Tattoo. We all enjoyed the Tattoo. We liked the acrobats from Estonia the best, and then the Paris Police gymnasts. After the Tattoo we went back to Tasha’s to get Boom (who had a great time) and then back to the boat.

July 9 – 11 – Road trip to Cape Breton and Pictou
We left Bird in Halifax and headed north to Cape Breton around 8:00. We stopped a couple of times along the way for Boom and we finally got to Buppy and Grammy’s (Dave’s parents) around 1:00. After lunch, Kristen stayed in Whycocomagh with Grammy, Dave and Buppy went to the cottage to cut the grass and turn the water on and Annie and I went to Baddeck with Boom. On Friday we left Whycocomagh to go to Pictou. We arrived in New Glasgow a little after lunch and picked up Katelyn to go to Lobster Carnival. We dropped the girls off at the fair, and then I took Dave to the house to start cutting the grass. The lawn mower had been broken and had just come back from the repair shop so the grass hadn’t been cut in weeks. It had turned into a hay field. I left Dave there and went back to the fair to check on the girls, and then went to run a few errands. By the time I got back to the carnival, the girls were getting tired so I took them back to the house. We stayed there until about 5:30, and then we headed up to New Glasgow to have supper and Mary Jean and Darryl’s. Around 8:30 all the Mary Jean and I took Annie, Kristen and Katelyn back to Pictou to see the fireworks. The kids were pretty tired by that point and walking around town was a lot of work! After the fireworks we went back to New Glasgow for the night. In the morning Dave took Annie to Lindy’s and then he went back to the house to cut more grass. Mary Jean and I took the other girls to the beach in Caribou. Dave finally finished a first cut on the grass around 3:00 and we left to go back to Halifax.

July 12 – Halifax to Owl’s Head
We were too tired to get up really early so we didn’t leave Halifax until around 7:00. We headed out the harbour and there were lots of swells coming in so it didn’t bode well for a smooth sail today. Sure enough, it was a rough trip up the Eastern Shore. We had a reef in the main and we tried to sail, but the wind was on the nose again. Early in the afternoon we decided enough was enough and we headed into Owl’s Head. Fortunately it was fairly protected and not much swell. We were anchored by 2:00 after a brief incident when the harbour shoaled up from 15’ to 5’ in a matter of minutes and we bumped the bottom. We made cookies and cooked a turkey breast for supper. Annie and Dave took Boom for a big adventure on shore. He had a great time climbing over the rocks and wading through the tide pools.

July 13 – Owls’ Head to Liscomb Lodge
The girls wanted to take Boom to shore in the morning, so we didn’t leave until about 9:00. He had another adventure on shore – it’s fun to watch him running around and bouncing over stuff. He didn’t have nearly so much fun when he only had pavement and grass to walk on. Fortunately today was a better day than yesterday and it wasn’t too bad a day – considering where we were! We got to Liscomb around 3:00 and there were no other boats on the dock. The whole lodge was nearly deserted and we felt badly for them. We went for a walk around the lodge and down to the river and Kristen did a scavenger hunt. We went for a swim, and hot tub and a shower and then went back to the boat. Annie and Kristen stayed on the boat to have supper and look after Boom, and Dave and I went for supper in the restaurant. After listening to the forecast we decided that it would be nice to stay another day in Liscomb.

July 14 - Liscomb
It was nice to not have to go anywhere today! It was a lovely sunny day, but quite windy so it was a great day to stay at this lovely place. We cleaned the boat in the morning, and then we packed a picnic lunch. We went for a hike across the bridge and through the woods and to a clearing by the river where we had our lunch. Then we hiked back up along the river. It was a great walk and Boom had a great time. We were glad that we didn’t have to carry him at all and we hiked for about an hour and a half. Later in the afternoon we went back to the pool and had another swim, hot tub and shower. We had a quiet evening and went to bed early.

End of the trip - part 2

2009-09-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

July 15 – Liscomb to St. Peters’sWe left at 5:30 and headed down the Liscomb River. We headed out into the ocean and were glad to see that the sea had calmed down. There was supposed to be light wind in the morning and then picking up in the afternoon, and we were glad the seas were calm as there was no wind to put up the sail and stabilize the boat. The wind stayed pretty light all morning and it was a pretty uneventful trip. We were off Canso in early afternoon, and we were making good time with a little bit of current behind us. It was even sunny some of the time. By the time we turned to head North around Isle Madame, the wind had picked up from the South West and we were able to sail! When we were off the end of isle Madame, and picking our way through a shoal area there were big spays of water ahead which was pretty unnerving as it looked like waves breaking over a rock. It ended up being a big pod of fin back whales – we counted at least 12 of them. Spectacular waterspouts followed by huge backs coming out of the water and then a fin appeared. We also saw a Minke whale and a couple of dolphins. It was the first time we had ever seen so many whales except on a whale cruise. We were able to sail all the way to the entrance to St. Peter’s harbour and then we dropped sails to keep up with another boat that we wanted to lock through with. We reached the lock at 6:00 and were locked through and tied up on the lake side of the lock by 7:00. We walked up to St. Peter’s and ordered a pizza, rented a movie, bought some ice cream and then went back to the boat to celebrate arriving in Cape Breton.

It is now almost a month later – August 10 to be exact. It has been such a busy time that I haven’t had a chance to keep a detailed log of our travels and doings. It has been three weeks filled with trips to Pictou, visits with friends and sailing camp for the girls. Last week was Regatta week in Baddeck and there were pram races every day. The girls did well with first place finishes for each of them in a couple of races.

Boom is doing great. He is a lovely dog – he is well behaved (for the most part). He is happy anywhere – on the boat, in the dinghy, at the cottage, at our house. He loves people and is happy to play with other dogs, although he is not obsessed with it. He hasn’t taken to the water yet – he can swim but he doesn’t really like to – yet… Maybe next summer.

End of the trip - part 3 - Seahawk, hurricane Bill, back to school

2009-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

We left Cape Breton and spent a week at the house. We heard from Seahawk and they were on their way to Halifax from Cape Cod. We were watching the forecast as Hurricane Bill was headed for Nova Scotia. Seahawk arrived on Thursday, and Bill was scheduled to arrive on Sunday. On Friday they headed off for an overnight to Cape Breton, and we headed down by car. On Saturday we took Bird from Baddeck to Washabuck River, and Seahawk headed from St. Peter's to Washabuck arriving around suppertime. The kids had a great time swimming in the warm waters of the Bras D'or and we all had supper together. It was great to get caught up. On Sunday morning we stripped the boats down and waited for Bill. There was lots of rain, but not a whole lot of wind in our snug little anchorage up the Washabuck River. The storm was over in the late afternoon, and Dave took this picture of Annie, Kristen and I swimming over to Seahawk after the storm. On Monday we took the boat back to Baddeck and then headed up to Dave's parent's in Whycocomagh to start some projects there.

On Tuesday, Seahawk came up to Whycocomagh, and Annie, Kristen and I took them for a hike up Salt Mountain. This is a picture of Annie and Karol looking over Whycocomagh. The weather remained unsettled for the rest of the week and Dave worked hard to get projects done at his parents so we could take a few days off and go sailing. In the end we didn't get much of a cruise. We spent the night on the boat in Baddeck on Friday night and went for a walk and got ice cream with Seahawk. On Saturday we headed back to Washabuck to batten down for tropical storm Danny! It was another wet and windy storm, but we'd certainly seen worse, and we felt really secure in Washabuck. Originally, we had planned to take Bird back to Pictou this weekend, but the weather was too unsettled, so on Monday we drove back to Pictou.

On Thursday, the kids went back to school. It was quite a bit different from starting school last year!! On Labour Day weekend we headed back to Cape Breton. We left after school on Friday, and got some pizza in Baddeck. After much debate, we headed out of Baddeck around 7:00 on Friday night to head for St. Peter's. It was beautiful night and we had a lovely peaceful crossing of the south lake. The channel from the lake up to St. Peter's is pretty tricky and we were glad to have the help of an almost full moon to pick out the buoys. We tied up by the lock around 11:30. On Saturday morning we were locked through by 8:20 and headed back to Pictou. We were expecting it to be pretty windy in the afternoon so we were pleased to have reasonably calm seas crossing over to Cape George. We pushed right through to Pictou as the wind was forecast to be over 20 knots on Sunday. We arrived in Pictou at 11:30pm. On Sunday morning we got up and got the second car and headed back down to Cape Breton to pick up the truck. We finally got back home in the middle of the afternoon, only to find out that we had to move the boat to another slip! We were really tired!

We thought Monday was going to be a day off, but we were excited when we got an email from Three@sea, friends we hadn't met yet, who were on their way to Pictou. We spent the day tidying up the house and trying to scrape together some supper with all the stores closed. They arrived around 5:00 and we had a great visit with them. They also have a 12 year old daughter so it was fun to meet another "cruiser kid" now that we have returned home.

On Tuesday, Dave headed up to Halifax to start his new job. On Friday, I met with my old employer and was offered my old job back so I will be back to work in the middle of October.

In the meantime I'm keeping busy getting the house painted and cleaning all the closets and cupboards -- maybe going back to work won't be so bad after all!!

We really enjoyed our trip. We look back at it, all the great places we went, all the great people we met and we can't wait to pack up and go again. We were so fortunate with weather and with how well the boat and all the systems worked, but I give Dave all the credit for that with careful planning and lots of maintenance. I hope you enjoyed reading this log of our journey. It is pretty weird putting this together when you have no idea who is reading it(if anyone). If you enjoyed it, I'd love to hear from you - drop us a line at Birdonawireboat@gmail.com.

Cathy

part 2 - NYC to mass

2009-06-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

This follows on from the previous posting...

On Thursday, the girls and I flew to Dallas, TX to see my Dad and his wife Honor, while Dave stayed behind to keep and eye on the boat. We had an eventful trip out when our direct flight was cancelled and we were re-routed through Chicago, and then that flight was delayed 2-3 hours while we had to wait for a pilot to fly in from Oklahoma. Eventually we arrived and Dallas around supper time. We had a lovely visit. On Friday was went to see the larger than life sculptures of close to 50 Steers being driven across the river by 3 cowboys on horseback. We also went to the Science Center and looked at the Spying exhibit and had a great time making huge bubbles. On Saturday we went to see Honor’s son and his family, John, Lisa, Declan and Pippa. The girls had a great time swimming in the pool and playing Rock Star with their cousins. That night we all went to see the new movie "Up" in this great theatre where all the traditional sitting has been taken out and replaced with rows and rows of comfy chairs and couches. The kids took blankets with them and snuggled up on the couches to watch the movie – just like home. Our flight home on Sunday was uneventful and Dave was there to meet us at the airport.
While we were gone, Dave had his own adventures. When we were in Vero Beach, we found a TV that we thought would be low on power and would work well on the boat, but by the time we were ready to by it, we couldn’t find that model. Dave found a used on Craiglist in Jersey City, so on Saturday he ventured to Jersey City Heights on the bus to get the TV. All was fine, but those of us in Dallas we anxiously waiting to hear that he was safely back on the boat. That night he went to a Welterweight Championship fight at Madison Square Gardens. The fight was a windup for Puerto Rican day in NYC on Sunday, so there was a Puerto Rican fighter in almost every under card fight, and in the Championship. It was a great fight (so I’m told) and Cotto, the Puerto Rican won, so everyone was happy!

June 15 – Jersey City to Glen Cove
The days started off well enough. Dave and I got up and walked up to the grocery store to get a few things before we left Jersey City. When we got back, though, the dinghy was hanging limply off the stern of the boat. It had been jolted around in the ferry wake and torn on a piece of exposed metal on the boat. We were still bouncing around like crazy, and we didn’t really have any way to secure the dinghy on the davits with the air out of one side of it. We left the dock as quickly as we could – about an hour earlier than we had planned. We headed down the Hudson and around the end of Manhattan and then up the East River. There were seaplanes taking off and landing on the East River which was pretty neat. There wasn’t a lot of motion in the river and the dinghy wasn’t swinging around too much so that was good. We finished our trip up the East River and were out in Long Island Sound around noon. We had hoped to make some good progress today and head 20 or 30 miles up Long Island Sound, but the wind was picking up and the current and the wind was opposing so we had that nasty short choppy sea like in the Chesapeake. The dinghy was swinging widely around on the davits and we were worried that it would get torn more so we headed into Glenn Cove and anchored around 2:00.
We got the dinghy off the davits and onto the foredeck and Dave cleaned it up and put a patch on it. He felt that the glue in the patch kit was old and it didn’t look like the patch was going to hold. It is hard to understand how big a deal it is to not have a dinghy. All through New England dock space is really expensive, and the only way to avoid tying up is to be at anchor or on a mooring. If you aren’t on a dock, the only way to shore is using the dinghy. Without a dinghy you’re stuck on the boat… After Dave got the patch on we heard there was a thunderstorm watch for the area were we were. We tied the dinghy down and went below to wait out another thunderstorm.

June 16 – Glen Cove to Westbrooke, CT
We pulled the anchor up at 6:00 and headed back into Long Island Sound hoping to get some boost from the current in the morning. All was fine for a couple of hours, and then a light breeze started in from the North, opposing the current and that nasty sea started to build again. Before we knew it we were slogging along at about 4 knots, on another rocking horse ride. The seas were breaking over the bow and crashing onto the dinghy. We weren’t sure what to do. We really felt we had to make some headway today, so we stuck it out, and fortunately by early afternoon the current turned and the seas lay down. It was really amazing to see how such a little bit of wind made the traveling so awful. In the end we made it to Harry’s Marina in Westbrooke around 4:45.
We had left the air valves open on the dinghy and they ended up folded down into a big puddle of water in the bow of the dinghy and so the dinghy pontoons were now full of water… Things just go from bad to worse. Dave tried to blow up the dinghy, and sure enough the glue didn’t hold. Dave and Kristen took the bikes and biked to West Marine a few miles away to get more dinghy glue. It was getting late by the time they got back and Dave tried to put a new patch on the hole. By this time it was starting to get dewy, and Dave had a hard time getting the patch on. We were in a real dilemma. We wanted to move on to Newport tomorrow, with the last good travel day before some bad weather moved in. We wanted to go see Boom, and Westbrook was the closest place to where he lives, but we weren’t sure which day was convenient for the breeder. We didn’t want to be on a mooring in Newport without a dinghy… We went to bed really unsure of what to do tomorrow.

June 17 – Westbrooke to Newport RI
We got up at 6:00 and the forecast was still good for traveling today so we decided to risk moving on to Newport. If we waited we would be dealing with both adverse current and adverse weather. In the end we had an uneventful trip to Newport. Very little wind or sea (or rain) and we had current with us most of the day. We got to Newport around 4:00 and picked up an Oldtown Marina mooring so we would be close to town. We blew up the dinghy and it seemed to hold air, so we put it in the water, put the motor and headed to shore. We went for a little walk around and picked up a few groceries. When we got back to the dinghy dock, the air had leaked out of the pontoon. We pumped it back up and went back to the boat, but we really felt we were back to square one. We had a commitment to see Boom tomorrow, no dinghy and no way to fix the dinghy on the boat with rain and really damp weather on the way. The only upside was at least there was a water taxi in Newport – although it would cost us $12 to go 500’ to shore. In the end we took the roll-up floor out of the dinghy and packed the dinghy up, hoping that we would be able to find a dinghy repair place when we had the car tomorrow.

June 18 – Newport
We headed to shore at 7:30 with the laptop and the dinghy. We went to the Seamen’s Institute where we could get internet coverage and started to look around for a dinghy repair place. The first place we called said they could have it finished in a couple of days. The second place we called said they could have it done next week. Finally we tried a third place after we got the car at 9:00 and he said he could fix it for us today. It was a little ways outside of Newport, but it was on the way to see Boom. When we got there the shop was great, the guy was great and we felt a lot better. Then we were off to Massachusetts. We got a little lost around Worchester when we tried to find some lunch, but in the end it all worked out. We arrived at Holly Farms about 30 minutes early, but they were ready for us. We met 8 or 9 of the nicest labs you could ever meet, including Boom’s Mom and Dad. The pups were really cute (of course). Boom is great! He is sooo cute (as you can see from his pictures). He has a great little personality and we’re really excited to get him home. We spent about 90 minutes at Holly Farm and left feeling really good about the kennel and the pup. We drove back down to get the dinghy and spend another half-hour picking up the dinghy. It looks like it was fixed really well, and we’ll be able to test it in the morning. We were really tired by this point and decided to park the car overnight and get groceries in the morning, rather than try to return the car tonight.
June 19 – Newport to Onset, Mass
Dave and I were up early to put the floor back in the dinghy and to pump it up to see if it would hold air. It all went well and we were off to shore to get groceries before 7:30. We ran our errands and returned the car and were back to the boat by 9:00. We were unsure as to whether we should set off for Onset in sort of iffy weather, but it didn’t sound too bad… If we didn’t get to Onset today, there would be no way to cross to the north side of Massachusetts Bay before 4 or 5 days of bad weather set in on Sunday. In the end we left. The sea was awful, and there was no wind so we couldn’t even put a sail up to steady ourselves. We hadn’t stowed stuff below very well, and everything dumped off the top bunk onto the cabin floor. At one point the oil pressure alarm went off and that was a real worry, as Dave had to add a little oil the other day. In the end it was just a loose connection on the sensor – phew!! We hung in there for a few hours until we reached Buzzards Bay, and then fortunately the sea calmed down… only to be socked in by thick thick fog. Well, we’re getting pretty good at fog by this point and at least we weren’t getting seasick! We continued on, and as we approached Cape Cod canal the fog lifted so we were able to see to go into Onset. We picked up a town mooring a little after 6:00, and enjoyed the beautiful evening – we figured it was still rainy in Newport!

June 20 – Onset to Manchester-by-the-Sea
We woke up early and listened to the forecast. We were really tired, but we really thought we would be better off on the other side of Massachusetts Bay and the forecast sounded pretty mild so we dropped the mooring and headed off for Cape Cod canal a little after 6:00. We timed the current well and were through the canal by 7:30 – the current would have turned against us at 7:45. Guess what we saw going through the canal?…………………… Nothing!! Thick thick thick fog. It was so thick we had wisps of fog in the cockpit. As with most fog it was gone by mid morning. We had current with us and we actually were going too fast across the harbour. We dropped the engine back to almost nothing and sailed most of the way across the bay. We had looked at all our options for harbour to wait out the storm, and although we wanted to go to Salem, we felt the harbour was too large and too exposed. In the end we made a reservation for a mooring in Manchester-by-the-Sea. It sounded nice in the guide book and it looked like a nice snug place to be holed up for 4 or 5 days of 45 knot winds. Only problem was a shallow entrance. We ended up arriving at dead-low tide (of course). We inched our way in and all was fine – it’s not quite the same running aground here with all this rock as it is in the waterway where it is all mud. The harbour is great and our mooring is a stones throw from the dock. It is a perfect place to be…. We just won’t talk about the cost to be here – this coast is just too expensive to talk about. We are so fortunate to be here, and be safe… with a dinghy that hold air. (ps. the TV works here and we have 2 channels!!)

Washington to Massachusetts - 1 of 2

2009-06-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

May 29 – May 31 – Washington DC
Washington was really busy with lots of walking and sightseeing – Washington will forever be "Walkington" in my mind! On Friday we spent most of the day at the American History museum where highlights included: the original Stars and Stripes flag, made to fly over Ft. McHenry near Baltimore, the original Scarlet Slippers from the Wizard of Oz movie, Oscar the Grouch and Kermit the Frog from the Muppets, Archie Bucher’s chair, a collection of Stratovarius violins and violas, a wonderful exhibit on Abraham Lincoln, and a really well done exhibit on transportation in America (sponsored by GM). After lunch, Annie and Dave went to the Holocaust museum and Kristen and I stayed at the American History museum and did experiments in the lab and looked at some inventions like Kevlar and the windsurfer. We left the museum at 3:00 in the middle of another rainstorm. We all met back at the boat, and in a break in the rain, Dave and I walked up to pick up a few groceries. When we got back it really started to pour, and it poured all through supper. We weren’t sure what to do about getting back to t he Smithsonian to see the movie. We donned our rain gear and headed out, and fortunately the rain tapered off shortly after we left the boat. Battle of the Smithsonian was fantastic! We liked it better than the original, and it was fabulous to see it in IMAX in the same place where some of it was shot.
On Saturday, we went to the Boater’s Breakfast at the yacht club. It was a veritable feast (and brownies for dessert!). Then we took the subway out to the zoo. We were able to see the Giant Pandas as well as the regular zoo animals. The elephants are always one of my favorites, and there was a hippopotamus there that was wallowing in a pond and opening his mouth to show us his teeth – they can open their mouths 150° ! After the zoo we took the subway back to a place near the Lincoln Monument and walked down there, and then back to the boat. The Lincoln Monument is really amazing – and very cool to see in person after it was featured in the movie the night before. We walked over the fish market to get some supper and that was quite something. It was a bustling place with lots and lots of seafood on display, and lots and lots of people hanging out and getting their supper. In the end we got some crabs and some shrimp and took them back to the boat. It was really hot out so we didn’t feel much like cooking anything to go with it.
Sunday was a quieter day with some chores like laundry, changing the oil and getting diesel done in the morning and then a trip to the Air and Space Museum in the afternoon. Annie collected some information for her school project on the history of flight, and we found lots of the things from the movie so it was a good outing. We were all pretty tired after so much walking and looking, so we headed back to the boat. Dave and I made another quick trip to the grocery store to get a few things before heading out from DC tomorrow.

June 1 – Washington to Canoe Neck Creek
We were away from the dock before 6:00 under sunny skies. The kids got their school work done as we traveled back down the Potomac. The winds were calm in the morning, but started to pipe up in the afternoon, and we had some nasty seas to contend with again. We stopped a little sooner than we planned as out speed was dropping down to 4 knots and we were all tired. In the end, we dropped the anchor in a nice little anchorage at 6:00, 12 hours and 80+ (statute) miles from DC.

June 2 – Canoe Neck Creek – Solomons, MD
We left around 7:00 and arrived at Solomons around 3:00. It was a really hot day – probably the hottest day was have had on the whole trip. There were a lot of bugs flying around too – not very pleasant. We got fuel and then anchored off the Holiday Inn. Tiffany Rose was there too. We called Seahawk and arranged for Jeff to pick us up around 5;30 and we’d all meet for pizza. We went to shore and walked around the little strip mall. There was a lovely (high-end) grocery store and we picked up a few things we needed (including ice cream!). Jeff picked us up and took us to the pizza place in Lexington Park - about 6 miles away from boat, in the community where they live. While we were there a massive thunderstorm came through and dumped rain on us, and the flag outside the restaurant was whipping around. We were really worried about the boat. It was great to see the Seahawk gang again but it was overshadowed by the weather. Not only were we worried about "Bird" they were pretty sure they’d left all the hatches open on their boat – meaning very wet beds! We got back to the boat and fortunately everything was fine. There was a lull in the storm so we didn’t too wet going back out in the dinghy. The storm continued on all night. The lightning was spectacular – sometimes lighting up the whole sky, sometimes a bolt of lightening would travel all the way across the horizon. It wasn’t like any storm we’d seen before.

June 3 – Solomons – Annapolis, MD
We left bright and early at 6:00. Thunderstorms were forecast again for this afternoon so we decided to do a short day and only go to Annapolis. After going through the Spa Creek Bridge at 2:30 we picked up one of the town moorings in Spa Creek. It was another really hot day. We went to town and had fun going into the little stores – the kids got t-shirts at the Black Dog store in honor of Boom. We went back to the boat and had supper, with plans of dinghying back to town to watch the Wednesday night race in Annapolis. Dave and I went back into town around 7:00, but there didn’t seem to be any race to watch. We aren’t sure if the race was cancelled due to the pending thunderstorms or if the race was already over. Dave and I got showers and then the rain started so we went back to the boat.

June 4 – Annapolis to Chesapeake City, MD
We were up around 6:30 and had to put the dinghy up before we could leave. We figured we’d get through the 7:30 opening of the bridge, but we worked quickly and were able to make the 7:00 opening. It was a wet day, but we knew that the forecast for tomorrow was awful and we wanted to get to Chesapeake City to so we’d be ready to go down Delaware Bay on Saturday. We plugged along all day with the current against us, but the wind was light and there wasn’t too much sea so it was okay. We got to Chesapeake City around 5:00, a few minutes after low tide, and not surprisingly there was no room on the free dock. We started along the channel to the anchorage and slowly came to a halt in the soupy mud. Dave worked the boat back and forth and finally got her turned towards the anchorage basin and we pushed though the mud and got anchored.

June 5 – Chesapeake City
The rain came down in buckets all morning as predicted so we stayed on the boat and got some schoolwork done. No one move off the free dock so we stayed out at anchor. In the afternoon the rain let up and we dropped the dinghy down and went to shore. We looked in the little gift stores and then went out for an early supper at the Bohemian Café.

June 6 – Chesapeake City to Cape May, NJ
The weather was better today and we headed out around 8:00 to catch the current flowing through the C&D canal towards the Delaware Bay. When we reached the bay, the current was against us until around noon, and then with us until around 4:00 when it switched against us again. We were fortunate that the wind was light and there was no sea all day. It was a nice day and there were lots and lots of people out fishing on Delaware Bay. We saw dolphins today for the first time in a long time. We were anchored off the Coast Guard College in Cape May around 6:00.

June 7 – Cape May to Atlantic City
We were underway by 6:00 and we arrived in Atlantic City by 12:00. The winds were light and the seas were calm off the coast of NJ so we motored all day. We had called to make a reservation at the marina we stayed in on the way down, but we were only able to leave a message. When we got to Atlantic City we went and got fuel, and tried to contact the marina only to find out they were full. So was the marina where we were getting fuel, so we had to go to Farley State Marina at Trumps Castle as we didn’t feel comfortable going to shore and leaving the boat unattended at anchor in Atlantic City. I guess we could feel fortunate that it was Sunday and we didn’t have to pay the full weekend rate of $4.00. We got tied up and then took the jitney bus to downtown Atlantic City and the Outlet Mall we spent the afternoon shopping and then went down to the Boardwalk and watched the water show in the mall.

June 8 –Atlantic City to Jersey City (NYC)
We left really early and were away from the dock at 5:00 in thick fog. It was really foggy all morning and the fog didn’t burn off until around noon. We were glad we left when we did as there was a lot of traffic on the radio trying to leave Atlantic City around 6:00 and the fog was so thick they couldn’t see each other. We saw a seal today and a few more dolphins. The sea was calm in the morning, but after the fog burned off the wind picked up a bit and it got a little lumpy. It was our plan to go back to Great Kills on Staten Island today, but we were making good time along the NJ coast with some help from the current and in the end we decided to go up the Hudson River a little way and stay in a marina. We arrived in Newport Marina around 7:30 after having traveled about 90 nautical miles. The marina is in a great place right across the river from Manhattan. It is in a restored neighbourhood in Jersey City, about a block away away from a large indoor mall and the NJ subway, and about 3 blocks away from a grocery store and some box stores. The only downside to the marina is there is a lot of wake from the ferries that travel across the Hudson from Jersey City to Manhattan.

June 9 – 14 – New York City
On Tuesday we spent the morning getting groceries and exploring the area. It was another wet day and we had to dodge the rain showers. In the afternoon we took the PATH subway to New York and went shopping at Macy’s and Build-a-Bear workshop. On Wednesday night we had tickets to see Mary Poppins on Broadway so we stayed in Jersey City in the morning, and then in the afternoon we went over to Central Park. We had quite and adventure on the subway when we inadvertently got on the express train to the Bronx and traveled way passed the stop we wanted and then had to find the local train back so we could get off at 79th street. Central Park is certainly a jewel for New York. What a beautiful place! We had a great walk around, there were lots of people around, and there were leagues playing soccer and baseball. We found the Belvedere Castle and a turtle pond. We were a little pressed for time so we didn’t have time to find out the significance of the castle and why it is there. We took the subway back down to Time Square, only to find out that we were about 10 blocks too far south to go to the restaurant we wanted to go to, and didn’t have time to walk back up to it. We found the Mary Poppins theatre and then got some pizza for supper before the show. The Amsterdam Theatre where Mary Poppins was playing is lovely. It is amazingly ornate with fancywork everywhere. There is a room in the basement with murals of famous scenes from American history. The play itself was great. It was interesting to compare the difference between Hairspray, where the movie was made after the musical and the story was very similar, and Mary Poppins, where the movie came first and the story line in the Musical was quite different from the movie. Fortunately all our favourite songs were still there and we really enjoyed it. The girl that played Jane was a great little singer and actress. We got back safely to the boat around midnight.

May 29 - Washinton DC

2009-05-29T05:01:00.000-07:00

May 19, 20 – Oriental
On Tuesday there was school in the morning again. It was still really windy, but Seahawk had spent their two legal days on the free dock, so they left around noon. We pulled in behind them and took their spot. We had another nice walk in Oriental, and Dave started working on the teak.
On Wednesday, the water started leaving the harbour, and the boat on the deeper side of the free dock left, so we moved around to the other side of the dock. It was another quiet day of school, with the added excitement of finally picking a puppy! After much debate, we’ve decided on a black lab pup from Holly Farms, in Belcherville Mass. His Dad is a very well behaved black lab called Oliver, and his Mom is white lab named Sky, and she loves to play frisbee. He was born May 6. We will be able to go meet him on June 13 when we are up in Connecticut, and we will be able to take him home on July 4. We have named him "Boom", and his call name will be "Holly Farm Highlander". While we know we can never replace Rudder, it will be nice to have a dog again. We couldn’t imagine being home without one.

May 21 – Oriental to Alligator River mile 104
We left Oriental at 6:00 after a nice break. We motored up the Neuse River and we were impressed as "Bird" kept up or passed all the other sailboats. We debated back and forth as to whether or not we should go out to Ocracoke… we had pretty good weather to get out there, it would be a really neat place to see… we spent five days in Oriental and we should get moving… we weren’t sure if we would be able to sail all the way there… the Pamlico can get pretty rough… In the end we decided to skip Ocracoke and we pressed on through the Alligator Pungo Canal and anchored at the top of the Alligator river around 5:30. The anchorage was very calm and we had an uneventful evening.

May 22 – Alligator River to Elizabeth City – mile 51
We left at 6:00 again. It was really beautiful pulling out of the anchorage. The sun was rising and making all the trees silver in the mist. We motored down the Alligator River, and pulled into the Alligator River marina around 10:00 to fill up with fuel. We were on our way again fairly quickly. It was a nice little marina and we could see why lots of people recommend it as a good place to stop. We got to Elizabeth City around 2:30 and tied along side a face dock, rather than trying to struggle in the slips like we had in the fall. After we got settled we went over to the Museum of the Abermarle where Dave and Kristen briefly visited in the fall. It is a great museum and it’s free! They have 4 large exhibits representing different periods of history in the region. They had some artifacts that had been retrieved from the wreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship sailed by Blackbeard the Pirate and sunk in near Ocrakoke. There were also two small very old building that had been moved from their original locations and rebuilt in the museum – one was a house, and the other was a smokehouse. Kristen had fun finding all the answers for the scavenger hunt. When we finished the exhibits the kids went to play in the play room, where there were lots of period clothes, a puppet theatre, kitchen utensils and other things to play with. After we dragged them away from there, we walked around town, looking for a place to go out for supper. Nothing really caught our eye, so we ordered pizza instead. While we waited for the pizza, the girls played soccer on the field right by the boat, Dave took the bikes off the boat, and I went for a bike ride and rented a movie "Hotel for Dogs". The movie was fun and the girls enjoyed it.

May 23 – Elizabeth City to South Mills Lock – Mile 32
We lazed around in the morning. We wandered around the farmer’s market that was set up on the field right by the boat. I called the grocery store for a ride, and went to the grocery store to get some provisions for our trip up the Chesapeake. When I got back, Dave rode the bike up to get the laundry done and to return the movie. I took the girls back to the play room at the museum. After lunch, we went to Port Discovery, a little science center about a block away from the boat. It had some neat things to do, but it would have been more fun if someone had walked us through the experiments. It was a little hard to figure stuff out on our own. By the time we were done there, the wind was picking up and blowing us onto the face dock. We decided to leave Elizabeth City and pulled away from the dock around 2:00. It was a lovely day on the river that leads to the Dismal Swamp – there were lots of people out enjoying the water, wake boarding and water skiing. We got to the lock at South Mills around 5:00. We thought maybe there would be a place to tie up there, but there wasn’t, so we anchored in the river. We saw a huge brown water snake sunning itself on a tree stump near where we were going to anchor. They aren’t poisonous, but it sure was big! A park ranger we talked to thought maybe it was a pregnant female and that was why it was sooo large. After we anchored, "Varuna", a Contessa 26 sailboat passed us and went up an old barge canal to anchor. Varuna has an exciting history as she circumnavigated the world in the late 80’s, sailed by 18 year old Tanya Aebi. We remember reading about her back when we started sailing. Sure enough it is the same boat, and the folks that own her now are the fourth owner since Tanya. They are heading back up to their home in Maine after taking her south for the winter.

May 24 – South Mills Lock to Dismal Swamp Visitors Center – Mile 28
We were up around 7:00 and had breakfast before we pulled up the anchor a little after 8:00. We locked through at South Mills with 3 other sailboats and 2 trawlers. We were through the lock and bridge around 9:30. We puttered down the Dismal Swamp with other boats until we got to the Visitors Center four miles from the lock. When we got there the wall was full with a sailboat and the two trawlers. Varuna was rafted to the other sailboat. The trawlers were only planning to stay for about 30 minutes, so we rafted up to Varuna. After the trawlers left, we moved back onto the wall, and then Varuna left too. It was a lovely day, so we decided to borrow bicycles from the visitor’s center so we could all cycle back to South Mills. We had a great bike ride through the woods along the paved path that runs beside the Dismal Swamp Canal. By the time we got to South Mills, clouds had gathered all around, and the heavens opened up. It poured with rain. We hid out under the canopy of a gas station convenience store until the worst of it was over, and then we biked down to look at the boats locking through. There was so many boats that they filled the lock the first time, and had to lock through a second group. The first group of boats had to wait between the lock and the bridge for the second group to be locked through before the bridge was opened. While they were waiting, the heavens opened again – with even more rain than the first time. We hurried back to the gas station to wait for it to stop. We waited and waited, and worried about the boat because we hadn’t closed any hatches. We decided that when they closed the bridge again we would set off even if the rain hadn’t stopped. Fortunately, by the time the bridge was closed, the rain had stopped and we set off back for the visitor’s center. We only rode a short way before the pavement was dry… apparently it was an isolated rainstorm! As we got closer to the boat it did start to rain a bit, but Dave was able to get the boat closed up before it got wet down below. We beat all the boats that locked through back to the visitors center – even the trawlers. Five boats stopped and tied up, so we had a boat rafted on the outside of us. After lunch we decided to go over to other side of the canal where the little interpretative center is. The rain had stopped so we left the hatches open again. Just as we went in the center, the rain began to pour down again. It was way too wet to go back to the boat, so we figured we’d just have to make the best of it. After the rain tapered down a bit, the girls and I walked the boardwalk and then the short walk through the woods. Dave went back to the boat. Even though our neighbours had closed the main hatches when they saw the rain start the boat was soaked. There was a huge puddle on our bed in the aft cabin that had run down and under the mattress. The mattress was really wet, as was the bedding and the pillow. We got that all mopped up and stood the mattress on end with the fan blowing on it to help dry it and we thought we were done. They Dave started to put the lunch dishes away, only to find that the kitchen drawers were full of water too… So he cleaned that up… Then when he finished that and turned around, he found more water… Finally, we thought we had it all cleaned up and we had supper. We slept in the main cabin.

May 24 – Visitors Center to Deep Creek to Norfolk
We left the visitor’s center around 8:00 after draining all the water out of the dinghy and putting it up on the davits. We motored along the canal down to Deep Creek for the 11:00 opening, but there was a Southbound boat, so we had to wait. We tied up on the wall in Deep Creek and went across the street to the grocery store and got bread and milk, and to the auto parts store to get some oil. We were back in plenty of time to go through the bridge when it opened at 11:30. We went through the bridge and tied up on the wall between the bridge and the lock, so we could go back to the park we had enjoyed so much in the fall. We BBQ’d hot dogs for lunch, and then went for a walk in the woods and along the marsh. We put our bed back together as it was dry now, and when the 1:30 opening for the lock came, we were ready to go on to Norfolk. We locked through with 3 other sailboats and 4 trawlers. At 2:30 we were on our way, down the narrow twisty river. It was full of jet skis and people on wake boards. I was at the helm as we came to a corner and there was a ski boat stopped mid channel. I thought I would take him to starboard, and as I came around the corner we slowed to a stop in the mud. Dave took the helm and backed us off, but it was pretty stressful with five of the other boats from the lock behind us and all the ski boats around. We arrived in Norfolk around 4:30 and pulled into Waterside marina. We thought it would be a good idea to do laundry and get all the towels and sheets clean and dry. We went for supper at Joe’s Crab Shack, and when we were there, guess what? It started to rain again. I went back to the boat just to double check that it was all closed up and to get rain jackets.

May 25 – Norfolk to Mill Creek, Great Wicomico
We headed out at 6:00, planning a long day to the mouth of the Potomac. The day started off quietly enough with calm seas and no wind, and the forecast was only for 10-15 SE. When we were leaving Norfolk, we were told to keep 500yds away from a submarine being escorted into Norfolk - If we didn',t they had authorization to use "deadly force" to keep us away -- they didn't have to ask us twice! By lunch time we had 20 knots of wind right on our beam and the seas were getting larger and larger. We decided that it didn’t make sense to try to go to a new anchorage if we’d been dealing with this kind of weather for 6 hours, so we altered course a bit to the protected anchorage we had stayed at in the fall off the Great Wicomico. It was a long afternoon. The waves were large and close together and they would tip the boat from side to side, as well as wash over the cabin and into the cockpit. It probably would have been fine if it had been a lovely sunny day, but things always seem more ominous when it is cloudy and overcast. We were really happy to turn west at 4:00 and get the wind and waves behind us. The anchorage was lovely and calm – barely a breath of wind! We made hot chocolate and played cards until supper and then we went to bed early.

May 26 – Mill Creek to Tobacco River, Potomac
We left around 7:30 in the thick fog. We inched our way out with the radar on, and were relieved to find that the seas from yesterday were gone. We motored our way through the fog and turned up the Potomac River. We were lucky that we didn’t have a lot of current against us and we traveled all day without much effect from the current at all. The fog lifted later in the afternoon, and it turned into a lovely, hot day. After looking and looking in the Cruising Guide at options for places to stay tonight, we finally decided to push on about 50 miles up the Potomac to the Tobacco River. It made for a pretty long day, about 65 (nautical) miles, and we dropped the anchor around 6:00. The anchorage was wide open, but the wind was calm and there weren’t any other boats around. It is pretty here. There are steep red and yellow cliffs that lead down to the water, and they are covered in lush green trees. Sporadically, there are huge, older homes that look really spectacular from the water. There are lots of crab pots here where we are anchored so we had to be careful coming in that we didn’t get tangled in one.

May 27 – Tobacco River to Washington DC
We were on our way before 5:30 this morning, trying to stay ahead of the current flowing up the river. We were lucky and had a nice boost from the current most of the morning. Once again it was really, really foggy when we left, but the fog was gone by around 8:00. It turned into a beautiful sunny day, but then it got humid, and by the time evening rolled around there were thunder showers. Coming up the river to Washington was similar to going through New York – very noisy! There were airplanes taking off over our heads, lots of helicopters flying around, and Harrier aircraft buzzing overhead. We were tied up at the Capital Yacht Club a few minutes after 1:00 – a lot earlier than the late afternoon we were expecting! The staff at the yacht club are really friendly and helpful. The yacht club is wonderfully located about a 10 or 15 minute walk from Washington Monument, and the Smithsonian Museums. After we got settled we left the boat around 3:00 and went for a walk up to the Natural History Museum. We spent 2 hours there and still barely touched the exhibits. We bought tickets to go and see "Night at the Smithsonian", the sequel to "Night at the Museum" at the IMAX theatre there tomorrow.

Pictures

2009-05-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

At the fort in St. Augustine

Wild Horses in Cumberland

May 18 - Oriental

2009-05-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

May 5 – Palm Shores to Daytona Beach mile 830
We had a really long day today. We left early and we traveled all day in the hot sun. We called the marina where we stayed in Daytona, but they didn’t think there was enough water for us to get into their marina! We tried to anchor in a spot where the cruising guide and the chart showed plenty of water, and we could barely find 6’ at high tide! Finally we went to Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona. It is a lovely facility and it was nice to be there after such a long day. We had a nice walk through the "historic" area of Daytona. We tried to find an ice cream store, but everything was closed so we went back to the boat.
May 6 and 7– Daytona Beach to St. Augustine mile 778
Another hot, hot day! We left Daytona around 7:00 arrived at the marina in St. Augustine around 2:00 and got fuel and then tied up. We went for a walk through this historic town, and it is a lot older than Daytona! St. Augustine is the oldest city in North America. Europeans have been living there since the Spanish settled there in 1565. After a while, Dave and Kristen went back to the boat and Annie and I kept walking around and looking in stores. As we were walking down a cobble street, Annie said – Hey, look who that is! It was Chad and LeeAnn of Cambyration. We originally met them in the Exumas and it was LeeAnn that helped the kids win the Sand Sculpture contest in Georgetown. It was so nice to see them again! And hey – they were close enough to kids to count as kids for Kristen’s birthday party. We arranged to call them tomorrow after we settled on plans for Kristen’s big day. After supper Kristen and I checked out some restaurants for her birthday supper for tomorrow. On Kristen’s birthday we had a big day planned! We went to the Castillo de San Marcos, the spanish fort built beginning in 1670, in the morning. It is now part of the US National Parks system and it is a great museum. The walls of the fort are built of Coquina, which is a like sedimentary rock full of shells. They weren’t sure if it would be a good material for a fort, but it ended up being great as there was enough give to it that the cannon balls bounced off it. In the afternoon we played mini-golf at the mini putt right in front of the marina – it was orignally opened in 1949! Then Kristen had a mini scavenger hunt around the marina. We met Chad and LeeAnn for supper at Harry’s Seafood restaurant. The food was great! After supper we went back to the boat for birthday cake and presents. All in all it was a busy, fun day!
May 8 – St. Augustine to Fernandina Beach mile 716
It felt like another long hot day today. We left before 7:00 so that we could get through the Bridge of Lions before the restricted openings started at 7:00. We thought we were doing pretty until about 11;00 when we reached another high bridge, that didn’t require an opening, but they were doing construction and they had the ICW blocked off. They said they could have it blocked until noon, so we dropped the anchor and got ready to wait, and about 5 minutes later they pulled the barge out of the way, so we pulled up the anchor and went through. Not sure why they couldn’t have told us they’d only be 10 or 15 minutes. The ICW was really shallow today and by the time we got to Fernandina Beach we decided we’d had enough. We took one of the town mooring rather than continuing on to Cumberland Island which was our original plan. We had a really nice walk through Fernandina Beach again. We got ice cream at the ice cream shop, a few things at the 5 and 10 store, and got showers at the marina. Then it was back to the boat for supper and a movie.
May 9-10 – Fernandina Beach, Cumberland Island Georgia to Charleston SC mile 469
Dave and I got up and away from the mooring by 7:00. We motored the 5 or so additional miles to Cumberland Island in Georgia, and were anchored before 8:30. We all had breakfast and went to shore to explore this great island. Cumberland Island is part of the National Park system and the government owns 85% of it. There are no paved roads, and the only access to the island is by boat. It was as beautiful as we remembered it. There are big beautiful trees, covered with spanish moss creating a canopy overhead as you walk along the dirt roads and pathways. Lucy Carnagie, the sister-in-law of the famous financier, built an estate near the south end of the island at the turn of the last century, and the ruins of it still exist. There is a little museum with pictures of how it looked in its hey day – it must have been incredible. There are wild horses that have the run of the island and we saw three different groups of these horses – some look a little old and hungry, but others are really beautiful. We looked hard to see some armadillos, but they were being nocturnal, and we saw some wild turkeys instead. It was Saturday, and there was a program for birders on the island. We took part in a obstacle course that tried to emulate what the birds go through on their annual migration. Then we had our picnic lunch and headed back to the boat.
We pulled up anchor about 12:45 and headed out to sea. There was a cold front forecast to arrive tomorrow afternoon and we wanted to get to Charleston before the rain. It was an uneventful night. It was our brightest overnight ever with a 98% moon rising one hour after sunset, and setting 5 minutes before sunrise. During one watch there was a swallow that came out and fly by the boat a couple of times. We also had dolphins with us part of the way. We were fighting our way against the current up the channel into Charleston around 1:00 when the first showers hit. Then there was a break in the rain and were tied up as the Charleston Maritime Center a little before 2:00. Later in the afternoon and over night there were really heavy thunder showers and we were glad we had made it safely to Charleston. The marina was great with free laundry and a terrific grocery store only a couple of blocks away.
May 11 – Charleston SC
It was sunny in the morning so we thought we’d head off to see a bit of Charleston, including the Charleston museum. I thought that all of old Charleston was south of the marina, so without looking at the map we headed south to the Market, and then south down Meeting Street to find the museum. The Market was interesting with lots of stalls of crafts and gifts. Meeting Street was really pretty with lots of big houses. After we had walked quite a ways, I decided to look up the address for the museum, only to discover we should have gone north from the marina. We decided to walk the rest of the way down to see the park at the south end of Charleston at the juncture of the Ashley and the Cooper Rivers (Sheila are you reading this??). The homes were really beautiful. They have narrow facings on the street, and their "piazzas" or porches run along the side of the house, facing beautifully manicured, walled in gardens. For the most part, their "front door" or "Privacy Door" is a door in a full wall, that opens on to the piazza, not into the house itself. Unfortunately I didn’t have the camera with me so I don’t have any pictures of this beautiful part of Charleston. We went back to the boat for lunch and to get a few things done – like laundry. Of course this all took longer than expected and it was 3:00 before we were ready to leave again for the museum. We found it no problem once we followed the map! It was a great museum. The museum was set up in chronological order with the displays taking you through the history of Charleston. At the end was a nature history exhibit that dated back over 100 years. It was really interested to see the artifacts that had been imported into Charleston a hundred years ago to educate the people about the rest of the world. There was lots of taxidermy of animals from all over the world, including a polar bear. There were copies of Egyptian artifacts that had come from museums in England. There was a real mummy! There was also a Kidstory exhibit for children that had different activities for the kids to learn about Charleston History. We left the museum about 5:00, thinking we’d be able to walk back to the Market and do a carriage tour in the evening. The lady at the museum said that the carriage tours had to be finished by 6:00. We rushed down to the Market and got on the last tour. It was fun and informative, but I think it would have been better if we had gone earlier in the day.
We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up some groceries before we went back to the boat to have supper.
May 12 – Charleston to Georgetown mile 403
We left Charleston a few minutes after 6:00 to get through a bridge a few miles away before 7:00. We had an uneventful day and arrived at Georgetown around 4:30. We finally found a good spot to anchor and got settled right off the town dock. Dave and I went to shore to see if we could find a post office while the girls stayed on the boat to play. We bought some shrimp for supper, and then after supper we all went for a walk. We chose to walk away from the water and through the old residential district. The houses date back to 1750, and there are plaques on the houses indicating their ages. It was fun to try to guess how old the houses were by looking at the size of the window panes and the house construction before you read the plaque. The streets are wide and beautiful, and the big old trees create a canopy right over the street. Georgetown remains one of our favorite places!
May 13 – Georgetown to Barefoot Landing mile 354
We had a leisurely breakfast and then left Georgetown around 9:00. We’re getting a little tired of travelling!! We got to Barefoot Landing around 5:00 and decided to go to the marina we were at on the way South. The kids had a great time swimming in the pool. It is one of the nicest pools we’ve ever seen – too bad it isn’t heated. There are little concrete islands in the pool and shallow (1’) sections leading out to them. The girls had fun sliding on their bellies on these little "beaches". Tiffany Rose was also in Barefoot Landing. We first saw them in Atlantic City and also saw them in Vero, but didn’t get a chance to talk to them. They are from Ontario, and are doing this trip with their 16-year-old son who has Downs Syndrome. They had stopped in Barefoot Landing hoping to meet up with another family with a Downs child that has a traveling Downs Quilt. The Quilt is moving around the country spending a week at a time with Downs children. It didn’t sound like it was going to work out for them to get to see the quilt, which was too bad.
May 14 – Barefoot Landing to Southport NC mile 309
We pulled away from the dock at 7:00 under overcast skies and it started to rain a little while later. We didn’t do a very good job timing our one restricted bridge today, and we had to wait for a long time for an opening. We decided to stop in Southport at 2:00 after a relatively short day, rather than pressing on against the current up the Cape Fear River in the rain. We were really fortunate and there was a spot available at the dock in front of the Provision company restaurant where were able to tie up for the cost of our lunch. We had a great lunch at the restaurant and then Dave and I went for a walk in town (in the rain, without our umbrella). We learned that there was a Lowes hardware a couple of miles away, so we went back to the boat and Dave got the bike and biked out to the highway to get more alcohol to light the stove. I took the girls back to town so they could go to this great gift store Dave and I had found. They had done such an awesome job merchandising all the books and stuffed animal by animal type I really wanted the kids to see it. They used every inch of the store, including the ceiling to display their wares – it was really well done!

May 15 – Southport – Mile Hammock Bay mile 244
We had a little walk around Southport in the morning before leaving at 8:00. We knew it would be a long day, and we knew we wouldn’t be able to get off the boat tonight. We were away from the dock at 8:00 as planned, but we must have miscalculated the current a bit as it was still against us, instead of being at slack water. We pressed on anyway and had an uneventful trip up the Cape Fear River. It was dark and gloomy in the morning, but it didn’t rain, and by the afternoon it was sunny and warm with a nice breeze. When we turned off the Cape Fear river and went into Snow’s Cut the depth kept shoaling up, then it seemed to get deeper again before "thunk" – we hit bottom. Fortunately we pushed right through it and didn’t get stuck. We were once again thankful for having a full keel and a steel boat. We had three bridges today with restricted hourly openings and so we had to travel slowly between the bridges rather than spend 20 minutes at each bridge doing circles waiting for an opening. It gave us a chance to sail slowly along the waterway without the motor, as there was no point in going at speed. We saw lots of nesting Ospreys today – it seemed like there was a nest on every marker in the channe. A couple of times we were able to see the babies in the nest and that was really neat. There were a bunch of other shallow spots, but fortunately we didn’t touch bottom again. We arrived at Mile Hammock Bay at around 6:00. It is on the Camp LeJeune forces base and so you aren’t allowed to go to shore. It was a pretty uneventful evening. There were about 10 other boats in the anchorage, including "the Dove" and we talked to Larry for a while on the radio.
May 16 – Mile Hammock Bay to Oriental NC mile 182
We left Mile Hammock Bay at 6:15 in order to be through a restricted bridge 5 miles away before 7:00. A couple of other boats also left around the same time. One was called Radical Jack and is a 34’ sailboat from just outside Yarmouth, NS. We (ok, I) had a confusing time getting through Beaufort and Morehead City. There were lots of small boats out fishing on a Saturday afternoon – it is amazing how they think they can anchor right in the channel! We arrived in Oriental a few minutes before 4:00 and decided to go into the marina rather than anchor off, as it was pretty windy and the anchorage isn’t that protected. We had a nice walk to the grocery store that is about a mile away, and then someone offered us a ride back to the marina. We heard from Seahawk and they are going to be here tomorrow so we are thinking we may wait out the cold front here
May 17, 18 – Oriental
Dave and Kristen went for a bike ride around Oriental on Sunday morning, and then the girls went for a swim in the pool. A little before noon the rain and thunder showers started, and shortly after that Seahawk arrived. We went over for a visit to Seahawk in the afternoon. It rained really hard and there wasn’t any opportunity to go for a walk, which was disappointing. Seahawk knows another family here - they spent quite a lot of time traveling with this family from Ontario with 6 kids. They are in the process of selling their boat and moving aboard a 42’ catamaran they just purchased outside of Oriental. Seahawk went over to visit them later in the afternoon. We went back to Bird to look at the rain and have supper.
On Monday we did school in the morning. It is still raining really hard! Dave and I walked up to the grocery store in the afternoon, and on the way a man asked if we wanted a ride. We said it was ok, it’s a nice walk. Then he asked if we’d like a ride home in 20 minutes, we said it was no big deal… we went on to the grocery store and were finishing up the groceries when the man came into the store to find us and see if we were ready for a drive back to the boat!! Seahawk came over for a visit in the evening.
The high wind is blowing all the water up the river to Oriental and the road is flooded!

Vero Beach - May 3

2009-05-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

April 22 – May 3 – Vero
We had a long and busy stop in Vero. The first highlight of the stop was when we went to the children’s bookstore and saw that Mary Pope Osbourne, the author of the Magic Treehouse books, was going to be there for a book signing on Wednesday. These books have been some of Annie’s favorites since grade 1, so on Wednesday, Annie and I rode our bikes back to the bookstore to meet her. I have never seen a bookstore with so many people and kids in it!! It was a great event and Annie got a couple of books signed. On Saturday, Dave’s brother John came to visit us for a week with his wife Ingrid and their six year old daughter Margaret. They rented a really nice house where there was room for all of us – as well as a pool (and a washer and dryer!!) We played the tourist and had a car too. They arrived on Saturday afternoon, so we went to their house where the kids swam and we had chicken on the bbq. On Sunday we all went over to the boat so they could see the marina and where we were. On our way out to the boat in the dinghy with Margaret, we saw some dolphins up close and that was great. We had lunch on the boat and then Dave, John, Margaret and Kristen went back to the house and Ingrid Annie and I went shopping. On Monday we traveled north to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. It is huge! You couldn’t really see it all in a day, and it was pretty hard to figure out what to do first. We went to the space shuttle exhibit where there is a mock up of a space shuttle that you can go inside and see the cargo bay and the control station. There is also a shuttle launch simulator that is really neat! You sit down and buckle up, as if you are in the cargo bay, and they take you through the launch and out into orbit. Very cool! We also took the bus tour out to see the shuttle launch platform and the Apollo/Gemini exhibit. Not only did we see interesting stuff about the space program we saw alligators, raccoons, roseate spoonbills as well as eagles, ospreys, herons and egrets. We finished the day by watching a 3D IMAX film on the building of the international space station. It was really well done and really interesting. Even Kristen who hates 3D movies kept her glasses on for the whole thing. On Tuesday we had a quite morning, and then went to the Environmental Learning Center on Wabasso Island in the afternoon. There was a great boardwalk through the mangrove swamp and there was a scavenger hunt for the kids. We managed to find everything on the list including green anoles (lizards), animal footprints, a bat house, and butterfly, as well as learning about the mangrove swamp and the Indian River Lagoon – did you know that sea horses lived in the Indian River lagoon? On Wednesday we to the Oceanarium in Ft. Pierce. It is similar to the environmental learning center, but there are more exhibits. They also have a big pond with sport fish in it, and we watched them being fed and learned about the different species. Then we walked their nature trail which was very well done, with lots of plaques with information about what you are seeing. The mosquitoes in that swamp can produce 38million offspring in a single summer! After our walk we fed the stingrays. That was really neat. Their mouths are underneath their bodies. To feed them you stand a shrimp or small fish up between your fingers, and then place your hand flat on the bottom of the tank. They swim over your had and suck the fish out from between your fingers. It feels like a vacuum cleaner! On Thursday we headed up to the Brevard County zoo in Melbourne where we had gone for Annie’s birthday. We did the kayak trip, fed the lories, petted armadillos, a monitor lizard and alpcas, and fed a huge giraffe. When you fed the giraffe, you had to stand back a couple of feet from the edge of the platform. The giraffe would reach over and stick out his 18" black tongue and wrap it around the cracker and pull it away from you! He really didn’t want us to pet him, but he loved to have his ears scratched by the keeper and the curator of the zoo. We went for supper at Unos, and then the guys went off shopping while the rest of us when to see the Magic Treehouse Musical, based on the Magic Treehouse books. It was very well done with great effects like a beautiful flying stag, dragons guarding a magic caldron and huge white stallion with a red knight. It was interesting to see how they made the dragons really beautiful so they weren’t as scary for the wide range of kids in the audience. On Friday we went for a kayak tour on the Indian River up and around where the marina is. We didn’t see as much wild life as I would have liked, but it was really nice and peaceful. On Friday night we went for a lovely supper at the Ocean Grill restaurant in Vero, and then went back to the house for an early birthday party for Kristen and John. At Kristen’s request we had 60 candles on the cake – 10 for Kristen and 50 for John! On Saturday we tidied up the house and said goodbye to them as they headed back to Orlando to catch an early flight to Toronto on Sunday. We had a busy afternoon trying to get some shopping done. On Sunday we got up early and drove to Orlando to meet our friends the Quanns at Seaworld! It was pretty neat that it worked out that their Florida vacation coincided with us being so close to Orlando and at a time when we already had a car rented. We had a great day and I think we saw the whole park. Probably the coolest thing was the brand new roller coaster Manta was unofficially open and Annie got to on it with the Quanns (Dave Kristen and I went and did the Shamu express). Apparently it is the only roller coaster in the world where you are strapped in and then tilted so you are facing down for the whole trip. Annie says that it feels like you are flying! (I think I’ll find anther way to learn how to fly). We also saw four shows: the Dolphin/Whale show which was fabulous, with acrobats and beautiful birds as well as the whales and dolphins; the sea lion show; the Shamu killer whale show; and another show that was done with cats, dogs a skunk and a pig that all came from animal shelters. So like I said, it was a busy busy time in Vero!

May 4 – Vero Beach (951) to Palm Shores (909)
We finally got away from Vero about 10:45 after getting groceries, returning the car and filling up the water tanks. We had an uneventful trip, getting back into the routine of travel on the waterway. It was a really hot day – mid to high 80’s with a 15 knot SW wind. We decided to anchor in Palm Shores around 4:45, as we were looking for some protection from the southwest, and there wasn’t anywhere else to anchor for the next 20 miles with any protection. We pulled off the waterway on the side of the bridge and carefully sounded our way into a spot with about 8 feet of water. We had a couple of dolphins come over to see us. I went snorkelling in the murky, murky water to try to clean off the growth on the knotmeter so it would spin again. I’m not sure how successful I was. I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

April 24 - Vero Beach

2009-04-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

Pictures to follow....

April 15 – Green Turtle Cay
We had a quiet day today. School in the morning as usual. In the afternoon, Dave took the girls in the dinghy to go into town. On the way a guy whose dingy motor had quit flagged them down. They ended up towing him back to his boat with our little dinghy. We went into shore and had a swim in the pool, and then Annie and Kristen and I took Lily, the dog off Hale Kai for a walk. In the evening, Dave and I went in to hear the band that was playing at the Green Turtle Club. They were really good! It was a neat evening sitting out under the stars, watching the band playing under this big tree that was all covered in little white lights.
April 16 – Green Turtle Cay to Crab Cay
We left Green Turtle around 10:00. We weren’t in a big hurry and we wanted to make sure there was enough tide to get out safely. We rolled out the jib and motor sailed about 18 miles to Crab Cay. We got there around 2:00. Hale Kai was there, and they came over to see if the girls wanted to go to shore with them to walk Lily. Dave and I tidied up the boat and then went in too. We had a great walk. The beach isn’t sand here, it is either stone or rocks. We walked across the cay, and then back around the end of the island. It ended up being quite a long walk! We found lots of milk conch shells that are smaller than queen conch, but still really pretty. There was a deserted camp there too, made up of old sails and tarps. It was kink of weird!
April 17 – Crab Cay to Great Sail Cay
We left fairly early, around 7:00. It was a great day for a sail and we put all the sails up. We had a glorious sail for the entire day, and covered about 38 miles, arriving at Great Sail around 2:00. As we turned to go south after we went around the top of great sail, about a dozen dolphins came up and started swimming with the boat. There was one little one that was having a great time zig-zagging in front of the boat and then dropping back and catching up again. They swam with us for 20 minutes or half and hour. When we got to Great Sail we dropped the girls off on Gotta Life and Dave and I went for a walk on the shore. After our walk we picked up the girls, and then went back to the boat for supper. After supper we went back over to Gotta Life for a visit.
April 18 – 19 – Great Sail to Vero Beach Florida
Our original plan was to stay in Great Sail today, and then leave in the morning to cross to Fort Pierce in Florida tomorrow. As we listened to the forecast, we decided that we would prefer to sail the 50 miles across the bank over-night and then cross the 60 miles over the Gulf Stream during the day tomorrow. Based on that, we planned to leave at 7:00 tonight. The girls did some school in the morning and then went over to Gotta Life to go swimming. I went up Hale Kai’s mast to free up their topping lift that had broken free and gotten tangled. Annie Erin Dave and I went for a walk on the beach. We found some pieces of silver honeycomb that was likely dropped off from the space shuttle. We also found a 50lb bail of raw rubber. It would have been pretty hard to figure out it was, but they had one on display at the museum that we visited in Hopetown. The bales of rubber were being transported from South America to Europe during the second world war, and the ship was sunk by an Italian U-Boat. The bales of rubber have been washing up on the bahamian beaches ever since.
We had supper and left Great Sail at 7:00 as planned. Several other boats left around the same time, and we kept in contact with them throughout the night. We had a very uneventful night. We sailed off the bank and out of the Bahamas around 4:00am. The seas in the gulf stream were predicted to be quite high, but in the end it was fine. The waves were big, but they were far apart so we just went up and down without being rolled about too much. We went in the cut to Fort Pierce around 2:00pm. We had planned to spend the night in Fort Pierce, but the marina was full, so we went the additional 15 miles to Vero Beach and picked up a mooring. Dave called into customs, and they told us that we would all have to show up at immigration within 24 hours, so we planned to rent a car tomorrow to go do that and get some groceries. We got settled in, had showers, went for a walk, had an early supper and went to bed.
April 21 – Vero Beach
We rented the car at noon and went to Fort Pierce to get registered at immigration. It was no problem at all. Then we went and had lunch at Subway! We went to Walmart to get groceries! All and all an uneventful day, but pretty fun when you haven’t seen any of these things for a couple of months.

April 14 - Green Turtle Cay (with pictures)

2009-04-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

April 6 – Black Point to Treasure Cay It was flat calm when we woke up in the morning – the calm before the storm! We left around 9:00 and headed up to Treasure Cay, on the other side of Marsh Harbour. There was a strong cold front forecast and we decided to tuck into the marina there. By 11:00 the wind was really piping up, and sailing was great. It was really shallow going into Treasure Cay, but we made it down the channel all right. Then, just as Dave was making the wide turn to get into the marina slip, we ran aground! It was kind of funny really, the gang from Gotta Life and Sandpiper, and the guy from the marina were all there waiting to take our lines, and we were stopped, dead in the water, about 50 feet from the dock. Some one came out and offered to try to get us off, but we knew we were on a rising tide and it wouldn’t be long before we were off on our own. We were just settling in for a half hour (or so) wait when there was a big gust of wind and Kristen said "We’re moving!" Sure enough, the wind blew us off the shallow spot and we were floating again. We got tied up after that with no more problems! Treasure Cay is a lovely spot. There is a nice marina with a pool, a great grocery store and a beautiful sandy beach. After we all walked around the little shopping center we went to the beach for a swim. The girls and Mark stayed in the water until suppertime! After supper the wind really blew up (over 40 knots) and we were all glad we were safely tied up.
April 7 – Treasure Cay It was school in the morning, with a trip to the bakery for cinnamon rolls at recess – they certainly know how to make cinnamon rolls here! When school was over, Annie Kristen and I went for a walk back to the shopping center and met a family from Miami that were over in the Abacos for a week on a charter boat. They are planning to go cruising next year so they were very interested in what we were doing. We went back and took a look at the tug-style boat they were chartering and are thinking of buying – there was lots of room! In the evening they came over for a visit and to take a look at the materials we were using for home schooling.
April 8 – Treasure Cay to Great Guana Cay
We left a little after 9:00 in the morning, not wanting to hurry away from Treasure Cay, but a little worried about the falling tide. We had a short hop over to Great Guana and dropped the anchor a little before 12:00. When we came into the anchorage there were only 3 boats, and within 15minutes of us dropping out anchor there were a total of 14! It’s a pretty busy spot. In the afternoon we went exploring on this pretty island. There is a small town that is very pretty, and then you can walk across the island to the popular "Nipper’s Bar and Grill". It is a fun and colorful spot that overlooks a great beach and the ocean. We had a good walk on the beach. On our way back to the boat we swung by a boat registered in Halifax. As we pulled up they asked if we were off "Bird on a Wire". They were glad to meet us as they had actually thought about buying "Bird", but in the end decided it was too much work! In the evening we went over to Gotta Life to play dominos.

April 9 – Great Guana Cay to Man-O-War Cay
We had another short day today to go to Man-O-War Cay. Again, we needed to time the tide so we had enough water to get into the protected mooring field. Gotta Life and Sandpiper decided to anchor off rather than go into the harbour and get a mooring. We finished up school and then went off exploring. Gotta Life had the same idea and we met up in the North harbor. We had a great walk through the town. There are some great shops here. In one canvas shop, there were three women sewing the canvas bags on old sewing machines. The bags were great, but we didn’t buy anything. We walked out towards the north end of the island and the girls looked for shells on the beach. Sheryl and I left the rest of them there around 4:00 to go back into town to pick up a few things at the store. By the time we got back, we discovered that all the gift shops closed at 4:00. Oh well. As we walked back to the dinghy we were looking in a shop window and the lady was just running back into pick something up and she said we could go in if we wanted. I ended up getting t-shirts for the girls (50% off J ). The ice cream shop was going to open up again at 6:00, so we agreed to meet Gotta Life and Sandpiper back at shore after supper for some ice cream. Ice cream was great but Dave ended up talking to some guys on the dock and missed out altogether! April 10 – Man-O-War We did school in the morning and then called Gotta Life in the afternoon to see if they still wanted to go snorkeling. They ended up moving to Hopetown in the morning as the wind had shifted around and they were getting bounced around in the anchorage. It was overcast and pretty chilly for snorkeling (yes, we are getting spoiled) so we went for a walk in town again. All the stores were closed for Good Friday. After we stretched our legs we dinghied back down to the sand bar and collected lots of sea biscuit shells (like sanddollars except fatter). April 11 – Man-O-War to Hopetown We left Man-O-War at 8:00 while we still had tide to get out, and headed the 8 miles to Hopetown. We got to Hopetown around 10:00 and there was still enough tide to get in. We eventually found a mooring and called Gotta Life, who was anchored outside. Hopetown is another really pretty Bahamian town. The beautiful red and white striped lighthouse overlooks the town and is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the world. Like Man-o-War, it is pretty touristy with lots of really high-end rentals and vacation properties. We went to the museum that was really interesting and well done. It was interesting to read that the Hopetown lighthouse was pretty controversial when it was built as it put an end to the wrecking industry in Hopetown. Up until that point, the locals supplemented their farming and fishing existence by salvaging thing off ships that ran aground on the reef – fortunately it wasn’t all greed and they saved a lot of lives too! After the museum we went back to the boat, and then went to visit the lighthouse. This lighthouse is pretty special as it is one of the few manned light houses left, and it is still lit by a kerosene lantern, and uses a fresno lens to magnify the light so it can be seen for 10 miles. The lens is turned by weights that must be wound every two hours throughout the night. The workings of the lighthouse have remained the same since it first started operating! We had heard that you could arrange with the lighthouse keepers to go up with them to light the light, so we knocked on the lighthouse keepers door, and sure enough, he said it was okay to come back at 7:30 to help light the light. We made a quick trip back to town for some groceries, and then went back to the boat for supper. We got back to the light at 7:30 and met Gotta Life, Sandpiper and Fred from Casa Mara there. We spent about an hour at the top of the light, watching the keeper prepare to light the light, and then light it. It works pretty much the same as the stove on our boat, where the pressurized kerosene needs to be preheated with alcohol, then the burner is lit. It does have a mantle (which our stove does not) and that generates the light. We wound up the weights with a crank, and then the lens started to turn around. It was a great experience!

April 12 – Hopetown.
The Easter Bunny found Bird on a Wire and left a trail of bunny chocolate! Gotta Life and Sandpiper left in the morning to go up to Green Turtle Cay, and we decided to stay another day in Hopetown. We had a great walk on the beach and found lots of sea glass. We spent a quiet afternoon on the boat and then got dressed to go out for an ‘Early Bird" Easter supper. Supper was great. It was a real treat to go out for supper! After supper the girls went back to the boat and Dave and I went for a dingy around the harbour and watched as the lighthouse got lit.
April 13 – Hopetown to Green Turtle Cay.
Kristen’s entry: Today we debated about going through the Whale cut or not. We were scared it was going to be rough, but if it was okay it would be stupid not to go. Eventually we went and it wasn’t that bad because we went at slack tide. We got to Green Turtle and we saw where Gotta Life was. They were anchored outside of White Sound. We went in White Sound and picked up a mooring. Then, a little bit later, we called Gotta Life and asked if they wanted to go town. They said yes, so about and hour later we went over to Gotta Life for a while. Then we took the two dinghies and went to town. Annie and I went with Gotta life and Mum and Dad took our dinghy. Because it was Easter Monday everything was closed. The town was neat. There was an "Olde Gaol" painted pink with green wooden doors that anyone could have broken out of any day (even me). There were a lot of chickens, and white picket fences around every yard. While we were waiting for Brian to come back with the dinghy after getting diesel, Mum asked Sheryl if Erin and Geneva could come for supper and a sleepover on our boat. She said yes, so Annie and I went back in their dinghy to Gotta life to get their stuff, and then we all went to Bird. Mum took us all to shore to go swimming and to have showers while Dad made supper (and brownies). We had a really fun time. (end of Kristen’s entry)
April 14 – Green Turtle Cay
We had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and then Brian and Sheryl came to get the girls around 9:30. We made another trip to town so they could actually go in the shops before they left to go to Angelfish Point. (We planned to stay a few more days in Green Turtle.) In one store we found a Bahamian steel drum, so Annie and Kristen bought one with their allowance. Gotta Life got one too – I wonder what the concert will sound like! After Gotta Life (and Sandpiper) left we went back to the boat and had lunch and then did school. Dave worked on tightening the motor mount that had slipped again. Later in the afternoon we went into the pool and had a swim and a shower. We met Val and Peter off Valerie Arden, a Baba 40 that seems in the same places as us every night! They were really friendly, and gave us a brand new game "Voyagers" that they had had on their boat for a long time and had never played – they thought a family should have it! We had a fun time playing it after supper. As we were playing there seemed to be a lot of activity in the anchorage and then there was a lot of chatter on the radio about a squall coming. We turned on the radar and could see it coming towards us. There was a lot of thunder and lightning all evening, and lots of rain in the squall, be we didn’t see the really high winds that had been forecast. In any event, we were really glad to be on a mooring and not worrying about dragging anchor in the poor holding in White Sound.

Exumas and Nassau - March 18 to April 2

2009-04-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

Finally - some pictures!

March 18 – Warderick Wells
We did school in the morning. In the afternoon we went into the beach. Priority and Zola came up to the park and anchored in Emerald Rock, around the corner from where we were on a mooring, so they came into the beach too. We went for a hike up to Boo Boo Hill, down the sound to Boo Boo Beach, and then back around to the bank side and back to the park office. The kids took the kayaks out and had a good time playing with the kayaks on the shallow water in the middle of the mooring field. Later in the afternoon Dave, Kristen, Brian and I went snorkeling at a little reef near the cut to the sound. It was really neat. There were lots of schools of large fish; there were dozens of huge lobsters and we saw two eagle rays. We saw a "real" shark – probably a reef shark or a sand shark -as opposed to the nurse sharks we usually see.
After supper we all went back to shore. Gotta Life brought in their computer and a movie that Geneva rented from the office. The kids all watched a movie on one picnic table and the adults sat at the other picnic table and talked. Warderick Wells Cay is inhabited by the endangered rodent species called Hutia. These little creatures look like a gerbil on steroids – they are about the size of half a loaf of bread with a thin tail about the length of their body. They are a dark sandy color. Most of us thought they were pretty cute. Like many rodents they are nocturnal, so as dark fell we could hear them rustling around in the undergrowth. There were some food scraps left around from last night’s pot luck so we think they were nibbling on that. The kids got quite a start when one of them ran under their picnic table and across their feet. It certainly was an experience to be sitting on the beach, with so many stars up above, and to be watching a movie!

March 19 – Warderick Wells
School in the morning again. In the afternoon we went into the beach and the kids went out on the kayaks again. Later in the afternoon everyone from Sandpiper, Gotta Life and Bird on a Wire went back to the place we were snorkeling yesterday. We didn’t see the shark again, but lots of lobster, fish and the two rays were there.
Dave finished the "Bird on a Wire" sign to take up to Boo Boo Hill. There were lots of little birds that were coming over to the boat and the kids were feeding them sugar and applesauce. We got some cool picture of the birds on the "Bird on a Wire"sign.
After supper and before sunset we picked up Erin and Geneva and we hiked up to Boo Boo Hill to leave our signs and to take some pictures of the anchorage at sunset.

March 20 – Warderick Wells – Shroud
We left Warderick around 9:00 and headed north to Shroud Cay. We had an awesome sail all the way there, arriving around 1:00. It was still pretty windy when we got there and the wind was a little more north than was comfortable in the anchorage, but it was a lot better than the night we spent in Hawksbill. We all piled into Gotta Life’s dinghy and went for the long dinghy trek through the mangrove swamps to the East side of the Cay. It was really beautiful. Once we reached the other side, there was a great beach. We all hung out there for the afternoon. The girls kept hoping the tide would turn to an ebb as there is a neat whirlpool that takes you from the beach out into the sound and then back into the beach when the tide is falling. Unfortunately the tide wasn’t going to turn until supper time and we needed to get back to the boats. It was still pretty rolly at anchor and we were all tired so we decided not to go out visiting tonight.

March 21 – Shroud – Warderick Wells
We pulled up anchor and were away from Shroud around 8:00. We called into the park office at 9:00 and were fortunate enough to be able to get a mooring again in the north anchorage. We debated about going on to Staniel where Priority was and Gotta Life was going, but we opted for the security of Warderick for a good night’s sleep. As we passed by the office all the little birds we were feeding the last time we were here came out to visit. We were assigned a mooring on the west side of the mooring field and we hadn’t been there before. It was a nice spot and there was less current flowing through than there was on the other side. We had a swim around the boat and looked at a little coral head growing on an old engine block near the boat. It was Saturday so we went into the Happy Hour on the beach. There were lots of people there and we met lots of new people.

March 22 – Warderick Wells to Big Majors Spot
There were some birthdays being celebrated in Big Majors today so we set off before 9:00 to be there by lunchtime. It was another great sail and we were relieved to see that the anchorage was well protected with no swell. We all went over to Priority for some "slingshotting". This is when a line comes down from the top of the mast (i.e. the halyard), and then additional line is added to the end so that there is about 100’ of extra line at the water line. The end of a line is attached to a dinghy, and a person (or two or three) hold onto a line either on the edge of the boat or in the water. The dinghy starts off, and as the line tightens up, the people get pulled out of the water. When they get high enough, they let go and drop back into the water. Pretty hard to explain, but pretty fun to do. The kids had a blast and Dave and I each tried it once. After slightshotting was over everyone was pretty cold as it wasn’t a very warm day. We all went back to our boats to get cleaned up. Annie and Kristen were invited to Priority for pizza, and Dave and I went into shore to the Happy Hour. It was great to see Annie and Dietrich from Calliope again. Dave met some new people on the beach – one of them was a car dealer from Missouri. He had his boat listed with Paul, our friend that summers in Scotsburn NS and winter in Florida and sells boats! Another man from Toronto knew a man in Saint John NB, and Dave went to university with his son. It sure is a small world! Around 7:00 we went over to Priority. The adults (10) watched "Office Space" in their cockpit, while the kids (6) watched a movie down in the cabin. Office Space was really funny and brought back lots of memories of life in the real world!

March 23 – Big Majors Spot
School in the morning and then water sports in the afternoon. The kids went over to Priority and did some snorkeling and then Brian took them tubing on our tube. Dave and I went into Staniel and tried to find the trail to the other side of the cay. We didn’t find the trail but we had a good walk.
March 24 – Big Majors Spot
The days are blending together! School again in the morning. In the afternoon all the kids got together at the beach. There were some new kids there too. Kristen went wake boarding. Annie gave it a try but wasn’t able to get the hang of it today. All the kids had fun on the tube. In the evening we had the Priority and Gotta Life kids over for pizza pasta and a movie. It was pretty funny to see the 6 kids all lined up on the bunks in the salon trying to watch a movie!

March 25 – Big Majors Spot
Another day in Big Majors - the girls did school in the morning and we went to the beach in the afternoon. There were water sports again. Kristen tried Wake Skating which is similar to wake boarding except that is on a shaped piece of plywood that is slightly curved. There are no bindings and no fins on the bottom of the board. She was able to get up and then went all around the harbour. Annie got up first time today on the Wake Board and had a great time zooming all over the harbour. The tube was once again a great hit.

March 26 – Big Majors Spot to Warderick Wells
We left Big Majors around 10:00, and weren’t really sure where we were heading, except North. Gotta Life and Sandpiper were heading back to Cambridge so they could go to Rachael’s Bubble Bath, but we wanted to get a little farther North. In the end we get a mooring in the North mooring field at Warderick and were settled around 2:30. It was another great day of sailing along the banks. You can see why people come here for the sailing! We’ve been able to sail (and not that motor sailing stuff either) each time we’ve set out for the last couple of weeks.
When we got to Warderick Dave and Annie went to shore to rent "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and get checked in. Kristen and I stayed behind and got some bread made. The kids got their school finished and then went for a swim, but the current was really strong so it wasn’t much fun. Dave and I went for a short hike down to Butterfly Beach, near Emerald Rock. No butterflies but a great walk. When we got back, the girls could hear the blowholes howling, so Dave took them back to shore for a hike to the blowholes and Boo Boo Hill. I guess the blowholes were really spectacular today! I stayed on the boat and made Chicken Parmesan for supper. After supper we watched the movie Annie and Dave rented.
We were able to check email at Warderick and SeaHawk (that we met way back in Maine with 4 kids) is in Nassau. We are going to head up there as quickly as possible to see if we can meet up with them before they head south to the Exumas.

March 27 – Warderick Wells - Allan’s Cay
Annie and Dave returned the movie and we put the dinghy up and left Warderick Wells for the final (?) time a little after 8:00. It was a pretty windy day, but the wind and waves were behind us so it wasn’t too bad. We put the jib out and motor sailed, making pretty good time. We got to Allan’s about 1:00 and for the first time since we arrived in the Bahamas we were alone in an anchorage. It was nice and calm in the anchorage which was a relief as we were a little concerned about protection there. As soon as we were anchored, we could see a couple of iguanas on the beach. Our primary reason for stopping here was that there is a colony of endangered iguanas here. We heard that when you went to the beach, and if you stood quietly, in a little while iguanas would surround you. Sure enough, we went to shore and in minutes (without standing quietly) there were about 50 iguanas on the beach. They are about 2-3’ long with big feet and long tails. They can be pretty assertive about looking for food, so we left our left over lettuce in the dinghy while we walked on the beach. After our experience with the pigs we were a little hesitant to encourage them too much – and we’d also heard that they bite. Just as we were getting ready to leave, when a large cigarette boat pulled up on the beach and let about 40 tourists from Nassau out onto the beach - so much for peace and quiet. Shortly after that two sailboats came in and anchored for the night. We did a little more exploring on a couple of the other beaches, and looked inside the ruins of a house that must of lost it’s roof 15 or 20 years ago in a hurricane.

March 28 – April 1 – Nassau
We left Allan’s around 8:00, after a bit of a challenge pulling up the anchor in the narrow channel with the strong current. When we got fairly close to Nassau we contacted SeaHawk on the radio. They weren’t able to get us a reservation at Atlantis Marina for Sunday night, but we could get in today, so we decided to directly to Atlantis. We were all tied up by around 2:00 and went to find Seahawk. Around 2:30 we headed over to the water park. Atlantis is a huge resort on Paradise Island. I believe it started as a casino, but now it stretches over acres of the island. Dave and I came to Paradise Island 13 years ago and stayed at a little hotel on the beach and walked half a mile or a mile over to Atlantis. At that time it was a good sized hotel with 3 restaurants, a small aquarium, a few pools and the casino. Now the hotel we stayed in is gone, and the beach is now part of the Atlantis complex with a new hotel tower. In addition to the hotel, now there is a huge water park and a large aquarium called "The Dig". It is set up like an archaeological exploration of the mythical city of Atlantis and the fishes, rays and sharks are all swimming around the ruin. There are two large manta rays as part of the exhibit, and they were pretty neat. Most of the other things we had seen snorkeling in the Exumas. The water park is great. There are two large buildings that house water slides – the Mayan temple has two really steep body slides (you go down without sitting on a tube), the Leap of Faith and the Challenger where there are two slide side by side and you race down with your partner. There is also a really fun tube slide (sitting on an inflatable ring) where you wind down inside the slide and end up sliding through a tube that runs through a shark tank. As you go down the tube, the sharks are lying on top of the tube and you can look right up at their bellies! The Power Tower has four slides. One is a body slide that drops you almost straight down a 50’ drop in the dark. The other three are tube slides. Around the outside of the Power Tower is ‘the current’. This is a mile long river ride with rapids and 4’ high waves. Once you are on the current you can keep going round as the waves push you back ‘up hill’. We ended up spending both Saturday and Sunday night at Atlantis. It was great to finally spend some time with the Seahawk folks. We went over to Seahawk after supper on Saturday and the kids played Pit. On Sunday night we did a bbq potluck. On Monday we got our Atlantis bracelets for the day before checking out and moving the boat across the harbour to Nassau Harbour Club. In the afternoon I walked back over to Atlantis with the girls and we hooked up with the family off Los Gostowes. Dave came over later after he did some chores on the boat. On Tuesday, Gotta Life and Sandpiper arrived at Nassau Harbour Club – It was great to get the gang back together. On Wednesday, Gotta Life went over to stay at Atlantis and took the girls over. We made a great trade with Sandpiper – two extra boxes of pancake mix we had for a lobster tail they had – what a great lunch! Dave and I walked around Nassau and then headed over to Atlantis to pick up the girls at 7:00. Gotta Life lent us their dinghy so we wouldn’t have to walk all the way back (wow that 25hp engine really goes!!) On Thursday, we took the dinghy back and got more bracelets. Dave and Brian brought Gotta Life back to the Harbour Club, and Sheryl and I stayed with the girls at the water park. As a note, we were really fortunate with weather when we were in the Exumas. It was generally warm and breezy during the day and then cooled off at night. We never saw rain. It hasn’t been quite as good in Nassau. We had really heavy rain showers on Monday and it has been really hot and buggy for sleeping – but then it is all good when you compare it with freezing rain and sleet! We were a little worried about the lack of school the girls are doing this week, until we heard that the kids at home have missed 17 days of school this year because of weather!!

Mar 17 - Warderick Wells

2009-03-18T07:16:00.000-07:00

March 5 – Georgetown
First thing in the morning Dave and I went into Georgetown to try to get on to the internet, but the internet was down so that was a little frustrating. When we got back we headed to volleyball beach for registration for Regatta. We registered for the Coconut Harvest, the Scavenger Hunt and Annie signed up for the Sand Sculpture contest. In the end, we ended up staying at the beach all day. The kids from Mima and Side By Side were there, so Annie and Kristen played on the tree swing and in the fort with them. There was a lady making a straw basket and she showed me how to start one. It was slow work!!

March 6 – Georgetown
Dave went back to Georgetown this morning, and again there was no Internet. The girls and I stayed on the boat and got the schoolwork done. In the afternoon, there was a practice for the "Fish Net" skit that Sandpiper had made up in February and were going to perform at the "No Talent Show". It was a take off on the "Net" that happens every morning in Georgetown where everyone can listen on the VHF radio at 8:00 and hear the weather and all the activities that are planned for the day. There was room for lots of participants so Annie and Kristen were included. After that practice, Gotta Life took Annie and Kristen into to see the Pet Parade, and Dave and I went up to St. Francis Resort to see if we could get internet there. We were! We were able to check email and do banking, but Skype wasn’t allowed, so no phone calls home. After we were finished there we went back to the beach to see the No Talent Show. It was a great performance and the skits and performances were really funny! The "Fish Net" was really funny, as was a skit that Side By Side and Mima put together. It was a fun evening, but we decided to leave around 8:30 because people were getting tired.

March 7, Georgetown
Today was Coconut Harvest so we headed to the beach around 8:30. We were on a team with Brian and Cheryl from Gotta Life. For Coconut Harvest, you have to take the motor off the dinghy, and power the dinghy with dive fins on your hands. There were 25 teams in all, and the objective was to collect as many of the 700 coconuts that were let go on the other side of the little bay. We were only able to get 25 L . Then we moved on to the land based part of the challenge. This started with "Guts and Butts" where you and you partner had to first take the coconut back and forth across the volley ball court with a coconut pressed between your bellies, and then you had to do it again with the coconut pressed between your backs. Both Dave and I, and Brian and Cheryl successfully made it back and forth both times to add 8 points to our team score! Then came the coconut toss where you had to lob the coconut over the volleyball net and into one of 3 rings. The largest ring was closest and worth 1 point, then there was a slightly smaller ring worth 2 points, and the smallest ring was worth 3 points. Dave and I, along with some other folks saw the opportunity to practice this one down at the other volleyball court so we did a couple of practice throws before we started. When our turn was up, Dave successfully got his 3 point throw and I got my 2 point throw. 5 more points for the team! When that was all done we headed back to the other side of the beach to get set up for the junior version of the coconut challenge. A few minutes later there was a big call out for the "Bird Life" team. So after a few confused moments we headed back to the volleyball courts – Dave was up at the Chat and Chill getting a drink for Kristen and couldn’t be found. Apparently we had tied for first place on the land based activities and there was to be a coconut throw off. Where was Dave??? As he couldn’t be found I found myself front and center competing in the throw off! The other team showed up first, so they threw first – fortunately for me, he tried for the 3pointer and missed, so all I had to do was get a single point to win. The pressure was on… I did it! Yeah!! It was all pretty funny! Anyway we the standard prize of a bottle of rum for our efforts. By that time Kristen was feeling really awful. She was getting a cold and trying to do everything and she finally gave up and I took her back to the boat and put her to bed. Dave and Annie stayed for the junior coconut harvest and Annie’s team won that so all and all we did pretty well. In the evening there was a beach party to share our winning bottle of rum amongst the other boats, but Kristen and I stayed home.

March 8, Georgetown
Today was Scavenger Hunt day. We headed the beach around 11:00 for a 12:00 start. We had teamed up with Side by Side for both an adult team and a junior team, and then another couple from Lapedus
Joined the grown ups and a couple of other kids joined the kids so both teams had 6 people. When we got the list we were overwhelmed with the list of "red" things we were required to collect – red high heeled shoes, red knee sock, the "Hunt for Red October" (book, not movie), red balloons. It was a very challenging list. We spent the afternoon making things red, and going around to other boats to see if they had the things we needed – of course every other team was doing the same thing. It became apparent pretty quickly that there were only a couple of copies of a Hunt for Red October in the harbour. It the end we accumulated 24 of the correct things. This put us in a tie for 3rd place with three other boats, but we had the slowest time so we didn’t win anything. The kids got 22 things, tying with the Gotta Life team, but again we were slow so they came second – winning Frisbees from Chat ‘n’ Chill.

March 9, Georgetown
There we no scheduled activities that we were interested in with Regatta today. We did school in the morning. In the afternoon I helped Jennifer from Miakoda set up a scavenger hunt as part of a birthday party she was organizing for the twins. When we were in on the beach, Sunny from Slow Motion cut my hair – what a great cut! After the scavenger hunt was set up, I went back out to the boat and then Dave took the girls and I to shore for the birthday party. We went early so that we could go for a hike up to the Monument, but Sunny was still there and offered to cut the girls hair too. Kristen got a great trim and Annie got a lot cut off and a got it all layered – it looks really cute! (Hard to put in a ponytail now though). The birthday party was great and the scavenger hunt was a great success. It took the kids through a nature trail and across the island. There were around 20 clues, and it ended with a pirate’s treasure chest that was hidden in a cave on the beach. After the scavenger hunt we went back the west side of the island and they had lots of snacks and barbecued hotdogs. There was another "adult" party going on on the beach by then, so it was a busy place with lots of people and food. We stayed until sunset and then headed back to the boat.

March 10, Georgetown.
This was to be our last day in Georgetown. We started with school, and then I took the dinghy over to Georgetown by myself to get on the internet. It finally worked and I was able to catch up on email. It took longer than expected though and I was worried I would be late getting Annie to the beach for the Sand Sculpturing. In the end I got back around 1:00, and Marc from Side by Side was there wondering if we wanted to split the kids into a family team and then do an adult team too. I thought that would be fun and Dave was game, so we all went in to the beach. We also had Leanne and Chad from Cambyration and Angie’s Mom so we split the teams up and put the four kids and Leanne on one team, and the rest of us on the other team. A little while later Geneva from Gotta Life came the to the beach and she joined in with the kids. The sand sculpturing was really fun! We made a "Red Hot Knight" – in keeping with the Red Hot Night theme for the regatta. I thought he was really good! The strongest competition was a beach scene with three puppy playing in the sand. They were awesome. The kids built Eddie the Sea Serpent surrounding the island of Bermuda. It was great! When the results were in, the Puppies came first in the adult competition and we came second. The kids won the family class with Eddie. They all won gift certificates from Exuma Market in Georgetown, and as we were leaving the next day, Brian (Gotta Life) took all the kids to Georgetown to buy ice cream and candy at the market. We went over for a little visit to Side By Side when the kids were in town. We headed back to the boat as the sun was setting and stopped by Miakoda to say good bye to them too.

March 11 – Georgetown to Black Point
We left Georgetown a little after 7:30, along with a big group of other boats including Gotta Life and Sandpiper. We weren’t sure exactly where we were going to end up at the end of the day, but it was a good weather window to leave Georgetown. The winds had finally died down and the weather was great. The wind was a little too far north for real sailing, but we were able to motor sail. We went about 35 miles up the sound and then went in through Galliant Cut around 1:30, when the tide was still ebbing, but had started to slacken. It wasn’t too bad a trip through the cut, and then we were in peaceful calm waters. It’s not that it was too bad on the sound today, but we were rolling around enough that weren’t spending any time below. When we got out on to the back, we put out the air tube and sailed along at around 3 knots, pulling the kids behind the boat on the tube. We did that for about half and hour and then decided we should move a little more quickly so we pulled them in an put the motor on so we could get to Black Point at a decent hour. We were anchored around 4:00 after doing a 50 mile day – a lot farther than we had originally planned. Gotta Life and Sandpiper had stayed on the outside all day and come in a cut just north of Black Point and they were getting anchored at the same time as we were. The girls and I headed into town to put in a bread order and to get some water. Black Point is a great little town!

March 12 – Black Point to Big Majors Spot
Annie and I went into the village in the morning with her schoolwork, the garbage, the water jug and the laundry. We did two loads of laundry and got her schoolwork done. We picked up our bread from Lorraine’s Mom’s. We dropped off the garbage and got a jug of water. When we were done all that, we went back to the boat. The girls made a couple of trips back into town with Gotta Life to get water for them. Then we made a final trip in for another jug of water and bought some fish hooks and lures so we can try to catch a fish next time we go out into the Sound. We left Black Point around 2:00 to head about 10 miles north to Staniel Cay. When we got there we anchored on the south side of Big Majors to be a little nearer to the Grotto where we wanted to go snorkeling. The grotto is a big hole inside and underneath a little island. There are several entrances to it that have worn through the rock so you can swim through it from the east to the west side of the island. When you swim through the entrance, a big cavern opens up, and there is a hole in the top so there is light inside. The cavern is like a big room inside with a 20 foot rock ceiling and is a little bigger than a double garage. The water near the western entrance is teeming with fish and there is beautiful coral. There are a couple of smaller, underwater tunnels that lead in and out of the grotto, and it is really fun to swim down through the tunnel and back outside. There was a bit of current running through the grotto, and we were glad we were all strong swimmers and could get in and out without any difficulty. There were some people there that couldn’t get in against the current. We went back to the boat and moved it around the point of Big Majors and into a nice anchorage with about 30 other boats. Just after we got the anchor set we saw Gotta Life, Sandpiper and Priority coming in as well. After all the anchors were set we dinghied into "Piggy Beach" to see the pigs and goats. There was only one pig there to welcome us, but she waded out to great the dinghy. There we also a few goats around, but they pretty much stayed up in the woods. Apparently there are some baby pigs around, so we will have to try to come back in again when the babies are around.

March 13 – Big Majors
We did school this morning, and then we moved the boat up a little further in the anchorage to get a little more protection. We pulled up beside a beautiful schooner called Road to the Isles. After we dropped the anchor they called us on the radio as they had seen our Nova Scotia flag - they are from Mahone Bay! It was another warm and windy day, but it was overcast in the morning. After lunch the kids went for a swim around the boat. Later in the afternoon, Gotta Life came over and got the girls and took them into Staniel Cay in their dinghy, and we went over in our dinghy. It is a nice little town. It is tidy and the houses are painted in bright colors. There is a little general store, a yacht club and a little tourist shop selling t-shirts, hats etc. We were able to buy more lettuce J . After we went to town we went back to the grotto and went snorkeling there again. It really is a neat place to snorkel! After supper we went over to Priority with the folks from Gotta Life, Sandpiper and Zola.

March 14 – Big Majors
We had a quiet morning reading and tidying up the boat. Dave made conch horns out of the two conch shells that the girls found in Staniel yesterday. We took a trip into piggy beach and there were lots of pigs today (7 I think). They were kind of aggressive about eating our stale nacho chips, so that took some of the fun out of it, but they were pretty cool to watch. In the afternoon we went to the beach with the folks from Gotta Life, Priority, Zola. We took in the air tube and Brian from Gotta Life towed the kids around on the tube. Kristen had a great time learning to wake board behind Priority’s dinghy. I tried "sledding" behind Zola’s dinghy. A sled is made from a piece of plexiglas (about 1’x1.5’) hinged on a metal frame. The metal frame is attached to a rope towed behind the dinghy. You hold onto the sled and get pulled behind the dinghy, wearing a mask and snorkel. When you want to dive down, you tip the front of the sled down, and it takes you down under water. When you get to the bottom, you level off the sled and zoom along the bottom. When you want to go up, you tip the sled up and you back up to the surface. It is really fun!

March 15 – Big Majors to Cambridge Key.
Dave took a trip into Staniel Cay with Brian to get some water and dinghy gas, but they were out of gas! No big deal, we just wanted to top up our containers before heading back into the exuma land and sea park where there are no facilities. The kids made another trip to piggy beach with Gotta Life. We left around lunch time and had a lovely sail North towards Cambridge Cay. We arrived at Cambridge around 3:00 and picked up the last mooring! Gotta Life got the second to last one… We loaded up the two dinghies with snorkeling gear and headed down to the sea aquarium. Once again, it was beautiful snorkeling with lots of fish. I think we got a little spoiled by the coral at the grotto, because the coral at the sea aquarium was a little disappointing, but the abundance of colorful fish made up for it. When we finished at the sea aquarium, we dinghied over to the sunken plane. The current was almost slack, so it was a lot more fun swimming there than it was when we went a couple of weeks ago. We were able to snorkel down and look all around the plane. It is amazingly well preserved. We were invited over to Gotta Life to eat some of the Mahi Mahi fish that they had caught. It was terrific – even Annie who isn’t much of a fish eater was looking for seconds. Now we are motivated to try to catch one ourselves next time we are out in deep water! There was a shuttle launch this evening. Someone transmitted the count down over the VHF radio and that was kind of neat. We didn’t see too much of the shuttle, but about 5 minutes after take off, there was this strange cloud in the direction of NASA. It glowed white as if the moon was shining through it, but the moon doesn’t rise in that direction, and wasn’t up yet, so it must have had something to do with the shuttle but we aren’t really sure what it was. After we saw that we did see something heading up high into the heavens and we were pretty sure it was the shuttle.

March 16 – Cambridge Key
We did school in the morning. Movin’ On (the mooring hosts that we met on our way south) came over to invite the girls over to have pizza and watch a movie in the evening. In the afternoon we went hiking across the Cay with Gotta Life, and then went snorkeling at the little reef near the mooring field. Snorkeling was great once again! There are so many fish and the coral there is really interesting. Around 6:00, I took the (four) girls over to Movin’ On for pizza, and then we were invited back to Gotta Life for some quiet adult time and to enjoy some of the fish that Sandpiper had caught. Again great food and great company…

March 17 – Cambridge Key to Warderick Wells
Not much was done in the way of school this morning as the girls wanted to make the most of their last morning in Cambridge. We took thank you notes over to Movin’ On and said good bye to them, and then we went swimming in a "blue hole" down near the south end of Cambridge. The blue hole is a deep spot right of the beach, and while there wasn’t the abundance of fish that we see near the coral it was pretty neat. We also saw a couple of rays swimming across the shallows.
We left Cambridge at noon and headed up to Warderick Wells, arriving around 2:30. The girls did a bit of school when I went into the office to get registered.
At 5:30 there was a St. Patrick’s Day get together on the beach. We had planned to take cookies in, but that didn’t work out too well and ended up taking nachos again. It was a good time and we got a chance to meet some new people. We had a nice chat with the folks off Road to the Isles and learned that he had been the skipper of the Bluenose II for 20 years!

Mar 5 - Georgetown Exumas

2009-03-06T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hi all - no pictures with this post as we have only limited access to internet. Will update with pictures next time we have good internet.

Feb 20 – Warderick Wells
It was nice to spend a day without thinking about moving. We did school in the morning and in the afternoon we went for a walk on the Cay. First we walked be the blowholes that were really neat. They are holes in the rock that lead down to the water, and when the waves come in they force the air up the hole with great force and a big howling noise. After we left the blowholes we walked up to Boo Boo Hill. Lots of boats leave a carved piece of wood with their boat name on it on Boo Boo Hill, so there is a big pile of driftwood. It was fun to try to find boat name that we knew. We tried to find a nice piece of driftwood to carve to leave for Bird on a Wire, but the driftwood was pretty scarce. We’ll have to get one ready for our return trip. From Boo Boo Hill we carried on to Boo Boo beach and had a nice walk down the coast of the island that faces the sound, and then back across the island to the calmer, bank side of the island. On our way back to the boat we saw a couple of Eagle Rays swimming across the shallows in the middle of the mooring field. At supper time there was a man on the boat next to us who was throwing some wet garbage overboard and some big fish were eating it, so we tried too. There were a couple big fish that were under the boat and they would come darting out to get what we threw over. We didn’t want to spoil the fish too much with human food so we only did it a couple of times.

Feb 21 – Warderick Wells
No school today as it is Saturday! We packed up a lunch and loaded up the dinghy and took the dinghy around to a beach near Emerald Rock. From there, we hiked though another Loyalist Settlement and then across the island to the sound. We walked down along the cliffs and the beach of the sound down to the other end of the island to the Pirate’s Lair and the South Anchorage. It is a beautiful spot. Protected from the sound by Hog Cay, it has more of that beautiful turquoise water. We could see waves crashing over Hog Cay which was spectacular. There is a beautiful sandy beach and a picnic table where we had our lunch. We were visited by two curious little lizards who were happy to enhance their regular diet with some Pringles crumbs. Dave tried to take a close up picture of one of them and it jumped up a couple of inches to bite him on the finger. Fortunately it was only a little lizard and the bite didn’t hurt, but it was certainly startling! After lunch, we were able to catch the eye of the folks on Nicki May and they came to shore for a visit (the wind was howling far too loudly for us to hail them). We had a great chat on the beach as the tide was coming in, and then realized that maybe our dinghy wasn’t that safe way away on the other coast. We had a hurried hike back across the island, and fortunately our dinghy was safe. We had taken our snorkeling things with us, but we decided it was too windy and overcast so we went back to the boat instead.

Feb 22 – Warderick Wells – Cambridge Cay
We left Warderick Wells this morning after settling up at the office at 9:00. We decided to make the long, 10 mile trip from Warderick Wells to Cambridge on the "outside" - on the sound. The Exumas are a chain of little islands or Cays that rise up on the Western edge of the Bahama Bank. On the East side, there is deep, deep water (1000’s of feet) only hundreds of feet from shore. On the West side the Bahama Banks stretch for several miles with deeps of 8 – 15 feet. On the Sound side the prevailing wind blows from the East, and there is very little protection, so it is like sailing on the ocean. There are narrow cuts between the cays where the water flows between the banks and the sound. All the water that travels between the banks and the sound as the tide changes have to flow through these cuts. When the tide is flowing out, it pushes against the waves that are created by the prevailing wind. (Note from Kristen – this causes very large confused seas). It was a bouncy trip through the cut that leads between the bank and the sound, but then we motor sailed down the Sound to the cut that took us into Cambridge Cay. After arrived and picked up a mooring, we thought we go down to go snorkeling at the "Sea Aquarium". We stopped by Calliope on the way and they were headed down there too. It was about a mile away and we wished we had a hard-bottom dinghy and a bigger dinghy motor! (Are any of you reading this saying "I told you so??")
Snorkeling at the Sea Aquarium was amazing! There were so many fish and they would swim all around you. You could reach out and try to touch them, but they would swim away, always keeping about a foot away from us. There were lots of different types of fish, and coral. It was really great! We left there and went to another snorkeling spot where there was a little airplane that had crashed in about 25’ of water. It was amazing to see this little plane lying there under the water. There was a lot of current so if you swam really hard to the tail of the plane you could coast back down to the dinghy in about 30 seconds!

Feb 23 – Cambridge Cay
Back to school today in the morning. I tried to make some white bread and it was a dismal failure – it wouldn’t rise at all. Very frustrating!
We went over to visit Movin’ On, the mooring hosts and they suggested that we should move down a couple of moorings where we would get a little less motion, so we did that.
In the afternoon we went for a hike across the Cay and up a high hill. Off the beach, there was a limestone tower that came up out of the water about 100’. The kids took their kites and had a good time flying them up on the hill. We hiked along the cliff down to the end of the Cay. It was a great walk.
Calliope came over for supper so that was fun. They brought some brownies over and we were able to cook them in the oven. They were great!

Feb 24 – Cambridge Cay
Today was a fairly quiet day with school in the morning and then a hike to the Conch Cay beach in the afternoon.
Feb 25 – Cambridge Cay
Calliope and Movin’ On were going to go on a dinghy adventure to Compass Cay. We were invited along and Movin’ On offered to take the kids in their dinghy to take some of the weight off ours. Our first stop was Racheal’s Bubble Bath. This is a break in the cliff on the sound side and the waves crash through and then tumble down into a big pool that then leads out to the banks. Rachael’s Bubble Bath is most fun when there are lots of big waves, and that means high North East winds. In order to get there you have to cross Conch Cut. We took off with expectations of getting pretty wet in the dinghy and sure enough, buy the time we reached Compass Cay we were thoroughly soaked. Rachael’s Bubble Bath was really cool! It was like swimming in a pool of alka seltzer. The waves would come crashing through the break in the rocks and bubble all around you. It was really fun and we stayed about an hour. Then we headed further down Compass Cay to the marina. Compass Cay is a quiet spot that has to make it’s own water and generate it’s own power. There are a few little cottages and a larger lodge with a couple of rooms. They sell hot dogs and hamburgers for lunch and they were great! They have a school of fish and nurse sharks they stay off the wharf and Movin’ On brought their wet garbage so we could feed them. You are allowed to swim with the sharks when they aren’t being fed, but having spent enough time in the water already today, we stayed dry and reached over the edge and touched the sharks from the wharf. After lunch we took a garbage bag over to the sound side and collected a bag full of flotsam to help Tucker (the owner) keep his beach clean.

Feb 26 – Cambridge Cay
Today was another quiet day with school in the morning and then snorkeling off the little island on the edge of the mooring field in the afternoon. This was another great snorkeling spot with lots of fish and coral to look at.

Feb 27 – Cambridge Cay to Black Point
We said "Good Bye" to Movin On and headed out of Cambridge Cay. Calliope also left, and offered to take our gas can into Sampson Cay to get it filled up for us as there is no fuel in Black Point. We had planned to stop at Big Majors to see the pigs that live on the beach, and go into the Thunder Ball Grotto that has been used in a number of movies, but it was too windy today, so we continued on to Black Point. Black Point is the second largest community in the Exumas with about 300 people. We got anchored off safely and I took the girls to shore to look around. People are really friendly. We were able to pick up some fresh produce, and ordered a couple of loaves of bread to be picked up tomorrow morning. We tried to get on the internet, but it took soooooo long to connected we pretty much gave up. We met Miakado (from Halloween) on shore as well as a few other boaters we had met along the way. People were going to get together around 4:00, so we went back to the boat to get Dave and went back to shore. We had a good visit with some folks, and then went back to Miakado for a little while. It was another late supper!

Feb 28 – Black Point to Lee Stocking
Kristen and I went to shore to get the bread, but it took a long time as Lorraine’s Dad, had a little accident and it is Lorraine’s Mom that makes the bread. We had a great sail down banks but we knew we would have to go out into the sound to get down to Lee Stocking Island. It was a really, really, rough go through Cave Cut as we went out at the time when the tide was moving out into the sound at it’s fastest, and there were still a lot of waves coming off the sound. It was a pretty rough trip for the 8 miles we had to do off shore, and but then it was a fairly smooth trip in through Adderly Cut just north of Lee Stocking Island. We were anchored by around 3:00. We went for a swim and tidied up the boat. We took the kids dragging on the Air Head tube around the anchorage behind the dinghy. Calliope came over for a visit before supper.

March 1 – Lee Stocking to Georgetown
We left Lee Stocking bright and early to get to Georgetown. The wind was on the nose, as expected, but the seas were much calmer than yesterday. Calliope decided to stay at Lee Stocking until the forecasted front comes through so they can sail down to Georgetown instead of motoring. We arrived in Georgetown at 11:30. We didn’t really think we would be able to find Gotta Life in amongst the 300 boats here, but we saw them right away. We couldn’t raise them on the radio, but Sandpiper called us, and then Gotta Life saw us and came over in the dinghy. They were going to the beach to do a science experiment so they took the girls along. We got anchored off Monument Beach (on of three beaches on Stocking Island that people anchor off) The holding was great and it didn’t sound like the front was going to be too bad, so we decided to stay here instead of going to the more protected Red Shanks harbour on the western side of the harbour. Dave and I went over to visit Sandpiper, and then Gotta Life while the girls were at the beach. After supper we all went over to visit on Gotta Life.
March 2 - Georgetown
It was school again this morning, and I made some bread and some cookies. When school was over we took some bread and cookies to Sandpiper and then to Gotta Life. In the afternoon, some of us went hiking on Stocking Island. Dave decided to stay with the boat as the wind had shifted some and we were fairly close to Sandpiper. It was a great hike up to the monument, and then we went across the island to the beach on the Sound side. It is another beautiful white sand beach. Kristen and Erin dug a deep, deep hole in the sand. The rest of us walked down the beach. There were really neat limestone formations and caves. When we got back to the boat, Dave took his turn and went for a hike and got some great pictures.

March 3 – Georgetown
The Georgetown Regatta begins this week, and it kicks off with Children’s Day so today there was a meeting for Children’s Day so we spent most of the morning at the beach making plans for tomorrow. Children’s Day centers around the grade 3 and4’s from the Georgetown Primary school and organizing events for them for a couple hours, finishing up with them watching the boat parade. Dave went to Georgetown and got on the internet and got a few groceries. In the afternoon the kids went to Volleyball beach and Dave and I went back over to Georgetown to get some water. We got really wet coming back in the dinghy with all the water! It got pretty chilly so we closed up the boat and made Banquet Lasagna for supper, with Brownies for desert and then watch Captain Ron that we borrowed from Gotta Life.

March 4 – Georgetown
Children’s Day was a great success! We all went over to Regatta Point in Georgetown at 11:00 and started setting up the games. At 12:45 the Exuma kids were supposed to come over to start with the games. We were a little disappointed when only 9 of them were allowed to come! The grade 3 class had acted really badly yesterday and the principal decided that as punishment they would not be allowed to participate. There were also several grade 4’s that were missing – I wonder if they suffered the same fate. We split them all up into teams (we had planned for 8 teams so that meant 1 per team) and then added in the 20 cruiser kids. Each team also had a team lead, who was either an adult or a couple of the older cruiser kids, so by this time there were 3 or 4 on a team. Someone went back to the school to see if the principal had changed her mind while we got started with the introductions. A few minutes later there was another group of Exuma kids coming towards the park. Originally we thought the principal had relented, only to learn that she decided to send the grade 5’s instead! They were added into the teams so now each team had 5 or 6 participants, as well as the some of the older cruiser kids. We did two sets of stations, with 4 stations in each set, and two teams were at a station at a time. In the first set there was a water balloon toss, a relay race where the kids had to get dressed up in a big t-shirt, big boots and big foul-weather pants, a tennis ball on a spoon race and another relay where they had to fill up a bucket at one end of the course by running across the course with a cup of water on their head. In the second set, there was a station to make posters, a freeze dance, an obstacle course and a tug-of-war. Unfortunately we ran out of time and not all the kids got to do all the second set of stations. Then we took all the kids across the point to watch the boat parade. Each team had cheers, and waved their posters as the boats came by. There was additional excitement when the sailboats started to go aground right in front of the marshalling station! It’s also worth mentioning that it was blowing about 20knots of wind, again, and still (it has blown an average of 20 knots everyday since we have been in the Bahamas). A boat called Pirate entered their dingy in the parade and they had suckers and necklaces for the kids so they were trying to through this stuff from the dinghy up on to the wharf. Up until then we had all the kids sitting nicely on the wharf, and that certainly created some chaos!! At 2:45 we took the kids back to the park and everyone got a t-shirt left over from last year’s regatta and a ribbon. We spent some time tidying up the park, and then headed back across the harbour to Stocking Island and the St. Francis resort where there was a reception for the cruisers. We didn’t get back to the boat until 7:30 so it was another quickly put together supper – tonight’s choice was tuna casserole.

Feb 20 - Exumas

2009-02-20T14:12:00.001-08:00

Feb 15 – Nassau
We were welcomed to Nassau with fireworks at 10:00 last night. We’re not sure what they were for but they came from Paradise Island. Maybe they were for Valentines Day, or maybe it was part of the Kelly Clarkson show last night at Atlantis. We did some chores around the boat in the morning. We had an unfortunate occurrence and one of our 160 litre flexible water tanks got a hole in it. We had to drain both of the flexible tanks and then mop up about 20 litres of water out of the bilge. Water is scarce in the Bahamas and you have to pay for it just about everywhere. We were fortunate that at the marina we were staying there was a flat fee for water and we were able to refill the tanks at no additional charge, but we certainly felt badly letting all that precious water go down the drain. We had a spare flexible water tank that had previously leaked around the nozzle, and Dave was able to fix that one and install it.
After all that fun, we packed a lunch and walked across the bridge to Paradise Island and went to the beach. It was packed with tourists and folks off the cruise ships. It was a nice little beach, but there was quite a bit of surf and it was challenging to actually get in the water. Annie buried Kristen in the sand and she had sand and shells in her hair for the rest of the day. After the beach we walked to the Marina at Atlantis to try to better understand their rate structure that ranges from $4/ft to $7/ft. We learned that the slips farthest away from the heart of the complex are a little more exposed to weather but $4, while those in the heart of the basin are $7. The amazing thing was the number of megayachts (100’+) that were tied up in the inner basin

Feb 16 – Nassau
After listening to the weather we decided to stay put for another day. There is supposed to be another cold front coming through today and high winds tonight. There was a light day of school done in the morning and then we went for a walk through Nassau in the afternoon. We got caught in a couple of really heavy rain showers, but the rain is warm so it isn’t too bad. The Disney Cruise ship was in the harbour and we had fun spotting the folks off that boat. There is a street of really high-end shops that are all duty free that target the cruise ships. We also wandered through the straw market where there are lots of little stalls selling crafts. Many of the ladies were sewing patterns on the outside of straw bags. We had a late lunch at a Senor Frogs over looking the harbour, but they had to close up the windows because it was so cold and windy. It was a sort of silly place where they gave everyone balloon hats to wear on their heads and bead necklaces to wear around your neck. After lunch we walked away from the harbour to climb the Queen’s staircase. It is a steep, steep staircase that is cut away in the cliff and leads up to a fort overlooking Nassau Harbour. We missed the entrance and ended up climbing up easy way to the top of the hill and then coming back down the staircase. It is really amazing to think of all those slaves, hundreds of years ago, working in the intense heat, to carve this ravine in the stone and then building the stairway.

Feb 17 – Hawksbill Cay
After talking with Warm Rain yesterday, we decided to follow them about 50 miles south-east of Nassau to Hawksbill Cay. The anchorages here are not like what we are used to at home with nice snug harbours. Most of the anchorages are exposed and it is difficult to figure out where you will be comfortable, as the wind shifts around. It was nice to have someone give us some pointers. It was a great day for a sail with 15-20 knots of wind from the North East and we able to really sail for the first time since who knows when. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to pull the mainsail up as the halyard that we need to pull it up has slipped out of it’s track at the top of the mast (again). We were still able to go over 5 knots most of the way, but with a 50 mile day, starting at 9:00 that was going to put us into the Hawksbill kind of late so around 3:00 we put the motor on to get us up to 6 knots. We were able to drop the anchor and get it set first time at Hawksbill which was a relief as sometimes we have a hard time getting the anchor to hold. It was around 5:30 when we got settled and we quickly dropped the dinghy in the water so we could explore the beautiful white sandy beach before the sun went down. The water was that beautiful aqua color that you see in pictures – it looks just like what you expect for the Bahamas! When we got to shore, Warm Rain was already there, and a few minutes later Nicki May came in too so we had a nice visit on shore. We are inside the Exuma Land and Sea park so you aren’t allowed to take anything – no fishing, no conching, no shelling, so we weren’t even allowed to take the shells we found back to the beach. We had a late supper and went off to bed.

Feb 18 - Hawksbill Cay
After much debate, we decided to stay in Hawksbill another day. We had hoped to get a mooring at Warderick Wells at the park headquarters, but they didn’t have any available for today. The forecast didn’t sound too bad, and there was still lots of exploring to do. Nicki May decided to stay too, but Warm Rain moved on. After a quick day of school, we went exploring in the dinghy and walked over to the other side of the island. The views are just beautiful here. When we got back to the boat there was quite a swell coming into the anchorage and it was pretty rocky-rolly on the boat. We decided to move north a mile or so to another anchorage with hopes that it would offer a little more protection. There were mooring balls there too, and it was supposed to be a windy night so we thought that might be a good idea. We had a hard time getting the mooring ball for some reason, and dropped the boat
hook (again). I got in the dinghy and rescued the boat hook and then passed the mooring line up to Dave on the boat.
The kids thought it would be fun to spend some time playing "Swallows and Amazons" and set up a camp on the island by themselves so I took them to shore with some blankets to make a tent. The beach we went to had a trail that led up to a Loyalist settlement with the remains of 10 houses built in 1785. It is sort of weird to think that this settlement didn’t survive, while Loyalist settlements in Nova Scotia did survive, when it seems to us that the climate there is so harsh. I left the kids on the beach for about an hour, and then Dave and I went back to pick them up and we explored the Loyalist settlement some more. Then we went back to the boat. The motion was pretty bad, so we decided to go for a swim to get off the boat for a few more minutes. I got really cold swimming for some reason – must have been the combination of too much sun and then too much water, so Dave made a great supper of spaghetti and meat balls.

Feb 19 – Warderick Wells – Exuma Land and Sea Park Headquarters.
We had a really bumpy night as the boat was heading into the wind, and the waves were coming at us from the side. It must have had something to do with the tide as it seemed to getting better and worse through the night. We decided to leave around 8:00 and hope we would get a mooring at the park today. If not, we would go a little farther south to one of two other places that seemed to be more sheltered. As it worked out, there was a mooring for us today and we were all settled by about 11:00. There are about 20 boats here in this beautiful protected harbour. The center of the harbour is a shoal sandbank of white sand and then the channel around the edge of the harbour is beautiful shades of blue so it is really beautiful. It was so wonderful to get out of the waves into somewhere peaceful. Of the 20 boats, there are three other boats here that were tied up with us in the Dismal Swamp – pretty amazing. The Dove, Zingara and Calliope are all here. When we went to the office to register we saw huge land hermit crabs. Also there are lots of little grey and yellow birds that love to eat sugar right out of your hand. There is a group of coral heads right off the office and we went snorkelling in the afternoon. Kristen was a little nervous at first to go snorkelling near the coral, and she thought she would stay in the dinghy. Dave and I finally talked her into giving it a try and she was amazed. It really is just like swimming in an aquarium. There are so many little fish swimming around. We saw purple fan coral and we also saw a lobster. In the evening there was a pot luck so we went over and we got our blankets back from Calliope – remember? We left them in Oriental back at Halloween and Annie from Calliope picked them up for us!!
So now for the update on amazing technology. We are here at this little island with no power except what they get from the generator or the sun, no roads, no cars, no stores. They do have satellite though, and through the satellite hookup they can offer (for a small fee) internet to the boaters, so here I am, by this little island, sitting on our boat, sending this over satellite to update the blog. We were also able to call home using Skype. The kids have been using MSN. This is not the world that Christopher Columbus sailed in!!

Feb 15 - Nassau Bahamas

2009-02-15T15:05:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick blog entry to let folks know that we have safely crossed the gulf stream and we are in Nassau in the Bahamas. We left from Marathon at 11:00am on Thursday, Feb 12. It was a bit sloppy for the first few hours of our trip. We saw a sea turtle as we crossed the reef that is a few miles off the Florida Keys. The seas calmed down as we got into the gulf stream. The water is a beautiful dark blue. We arrived at South Riding Rock that is on the edge of the Bahama Bank at 3:00am. We could make out the rocks with the aid of the radar and the moon. We checked out the chart and it looked like there would be enough water for us to continue onto the banks, with nothing less than 10'. As the sun rose we looked over the side of the boat and could see bottom! The water is so clear and such a beautiful blue. Over the course of the morning the girls kept watching the bottom and saw many starfish, some normal fish and a shark circling around! At one point we had eight dolphins swimming with the boat. We had been in touch with the folks on Side By Side, a catamaran with two kids on it through the night and followed their lead in a decision to anchor near Chubb Cay. We had a bit of a time finding a good place to anchor, but we were finally set around 3:30. The swimming and snorkeling was great. Marc and Sabrina kayaked over from Side by Side to give us some Mahi Mahi that they had caught. In the morning we had a quick swim and then pulled up anchor and set off for Nassau. We arrived in Nassau in the Nassau Yacht Haven Marina by around 3:00. We were cleared in through customs within about 30 minutes. Nikki May, another boat we talked to as we traveled across the gulf stream was already here. Shortly after we arrived, folks from another boat came over to ask about our Nova Scotia flag. They are from Baddeck! The boat is Warm Rain, and their mooring in Baddeck is very close to ours, but we had never met them before. It sure is a small world!

Rudder the Sea Dog Oct 2000 - Feb 2009

2009-02-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

Rudder came to us back in December 2000. He was a strong brute of a puppy and was cute as a button. The cutest of all Chocolate Lab puppies. We learned many things that winter including the fact that getting a puppy in December in Nova Scotia means house training in the winter with snow and such and that isn’t a good idea. People told us that the best thing to do with a puppy was to keep them in a crate most of the time. He could sleep in there and it would become his den. A safe place he’d love to be. Ha! He whined and he cried for hours that first night, and the second, and the third. We tried everything to be good and disciplined dog parents, but eventually we learned to accept that Rudder would sleep in bed with us. We kept him in his crate when we went to work. He learned how to squeeze out of the sides of the crate. We put clips on the side of the crate. He still got out of the crate. We learned that crating isn’t the best thing for all dogs! For a lab, he actually didn’t chew all that much stuff. He left the baseboards alone, and the furniture. I do remember him ruining my good leather boots, but for folks with a puppy we didn’t loose too much. Accept maybe our sanity. There was more than one occasion when either Dave or I had had enough of him. It was time to put him down. It was time to find a new home for him. Once I called a dog-trainer that bred labs, looking for some moral support, or maybe some suggestions on what to do. She said that she euthanized all the Chocolate Labs that were born at her kennel as they are a genetic mutation and they are unstable. Thanks. But we persevered – we are very stubborn people. He went to obedience class, not once, but twice. He spent most of the time alone with me on the stage when all the other dogs were working nicely together in the gym. He just couldn’t get over the excitement of seeing those other dogs! Obedience class was all about positive re-enforcement and he was supposed to get a treat for everything he did right. He was so over-the-top to get that treat that it created bad behaviour and we had to stop giving him treats. Several years later, Dave ran into the dog trainer, and mentioned that Rudder was our dog. She asked if we still had him, and when Dave said we did, she said "He sure was lucky to get you as a family". For a couple of years we had to stop taking him for walks where there would be other people. He was so unpredictable. He could be great, but every once in a while he would get really upset – either excited or scared. One thing that would set him off was if someone was carrying a large bag… And of course, there was always the challenge when he saw another dog…
Then came the allergy years. When Rudder was about two, he started chewing all the fur off his feet. The vet put him on steroids to stop the itching, and while that did mitigate the itching, it created a whole new set of behaviours. In hindsight, we think some of the bad behaviour on walks and his over-the-top excitement about everything was because of the steroids. It also made him obsessed with food. You couldn’t leave a bread crust on the counter for 30 seconds, even if you were in the kitchen. He would jump up on the kitchen table if the crust of a peanut butter sandwich were left there. Once he ate a whole basket of peaches, pits and all, that I had carefully put in the sink so he wouldn’t eat them. I can’t count the number of times he would pull on the corner of a bag that didn’t get properly closed in the cupboard to get the cupboard door open. We lost countless loaves of bread, and more than one bag of Halloween candy that way. When he was feeling particularly sorry for himself, eating socks or underwear seemed to be on his agenda… We got pretty meticulous at making sure everything was put away, carefully, every day.
When Rudder was about seven, the steroids started to deteriorate his muscles and that had to stop. He was put on prescription dog food (think $$’s), and a new medicine that was used in transplants in humans (think more $$’s) but he did get better for a while. Then he got worse again and we limped him along until the summer with hopes that life at sea would be good for him.
You’re probably wondering why we would bother. Rudder was such a kind and loving dog to our family and we had so much fun with him. Probably our favourite thing to do with Rudder was to swim. He was the best swimmer I ever saw. When you were in the water with him you could grab his tail and he would pull you around. I’m sure he could swim a mile if he needed to. He was obsessed with pulling things in the water. We have a raft at the cottage and he would spend 10 minutes at a time trying to pull it into shore.
Rudder was having a great time on the trip. He got to spend all his time with his people. He got to meet lots of other people and everyone was nice to him. People rarely scared him anymore. He still got really excited when he saw other dogs, particularly golden retrievers, but he could walk right by some dogs without a second glance. His allergies were getting under control. We could have other people over to the boat and after Rudder said "hello" for a couple of minutes he would go off and lie down.
On Thursday morning we were doing our final trip to shore before we headed off to the Bahamas. Dave and Annie took Rudder to a little fenced area where he could go off leash and run around. Kristen and I took the bikes to the grocery store. There was a small gap in the gate in the dog run area and Dave and Annie tied it together with two straps. They took him down to the other end of the run and took him off his leash. He bolted right down the run and over the straps and was off to find Kristen and I. Dave took off after him but once Rudder had something in his head there was no stopping him. He ran to the highway and didn’t see us down the sidewalk so he took off across the road. He was struck by a little truck. When Dave carried him back to the sidewalk he was still alive. There was no blood. He died about five minutes later. There were three sheriff cars that stopped and helped. Someone went back to the park to get Annie. The animal shelter came to get Rudder and took Dave, Annie and Rudder down to find Kristen and I at the grocery store. Rudder is going to be cremated in Marathon in about a week and they are going to keep his ashes for us until we get back to Florida.
We left Marathon right away as we just couldn’t stand the thought of staying there.

Marathon - Feb 11

2009-02-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

February 10 – Marathon

Well, we’re still in Mararthon. We’re hoping there will be a weather window on Thursday or Friday for us to get to the Bahamas, but it’s not looking as good today as it did yesterday. Time will tell. In the meantime we are doing our final provisioning. We have been keeping busy here in Marathon, and there never seems to be enough time in the day. A week ago Saturday there was a marine flea market and Dave found our exact depthsounder/knotmeter rig brand new in a box – this was something we’d been looking for, as sometimes the display doesn’t work on ours. Anyway he was able to get the whole thing for around $100 which was awesome!! He came home and had the display replaced in about 10 minutes and now we have replacements for both of the thru-hull fittings for depth and speed in case one fails. On Sunday we went to the Dockside Bar/Restarant to listen to a band in the afternoon. The highlight was a 91-year-old man that came on stage and played an awesome piece on the trumpet and then sang a song. He was great! It was hard to believe he was 91. That evening we went to the marina where they had a TV projector to watch the super bowl. It was a great game - we were a little disappointed that the Cardinals didn’t win, but they certainly gave it a good shot. It was a far closer game than we expected. There was a huge storm that blew through here last Monday night. There were wind gusts up to 40 knots and there was lots of thunder and lightning. Apparently there was hail in some parts of Marathon! That doesn’t happen very often! On Tuesday the kids went to home-school PE (physical education) that is put on by the town. On Wednesday we went to the pot-luck at the marina but forgot to take plates, so that didn’t work too well! It was a cold and wet trip in the dinghy as the harbour was really rough. There are often about 20 kids there, ranging in age from 3 – 18. On Friday we rented a car and went to Key West. It was a long day with lots of walking an rip-sticking. It is a neat place to visit, but there certainly is no need to go and spend a week there on a boat! On Saturday we drove up to Miami and Fort Lauderdale and did some final provisioning at Walmart and got more of Rudder’s prescription dog food. On Sunday, Annie went to the Art Festival with Penny off Carpe Diem. I took Kristen down to the Turtle Hospital where we learned about all the sea turtles that live in the Keys and some of the injuries and diseases they get. They had about 40 sea turtles in the hospital. About a dozen are permanent residents, but most will be released back into the wild. Dave ran some errands with the car. Yesterday morning Dave returned the car and did some laundry and the kids did their schoolwork. In the afternoon Annie met a friend (Kashara) in the park and I took Kristen back to the Turtle Hospital to find out about a turtle that we had heard was tangled in some fishing gear on the reef. Fortunately it was fine and they had been able to get freed up. We met Dave at West Marine and then went back to get Annie. It was really wet travelling in the dinghy (again). Today I went up the mast to free up the Main halyard that had slipped out of its pulley and to bring down the anchor light so we can see if we can get an LED replacement so it doesn’t use so much power. We have more errands to run this afternoon and tomorrow, and then hopefully we’ll be out of here on Thursday or Friday.
Once (If) we get the Bahamas, there will be less access to the internet, so I’m not sure how often I will be updating the blog – I will try to do it every couple of weeks.

January 31, 2009 – Marathon, Florida Keys

2009-01-31T11:09:00.000-08:00

Wow - it's taken a long time to get this post done! For the longest time there wasn't anything to write about, and then we seemed to get busy and didn't have time! Anyway, here goes....

We had to wait until Thursday Jan 22 for the weather to improve enough that we could leave Cape Coral. In the meantime we continued on with school and regular daily life. On Sunday Jan 18, some new friends, Paul and Roseanne, that have a boat in the marina and a condo in Cape Coral took us to Sanibel Island to explore the Ding Darling Wildlife sanctuary. It was a great place with lots of birds and beautiful mangroves. There is a guided drive through the park and we spent 2 or 3 hours looking at the birds and walking around. We saw Roseated Spoonbills for the first time – like flamingos they turn pink because of the food they eat. After we finished at the park we drove to the north end of Sanibel and watched a spectacular sunset. We finished the day with supper at Doc Ford’s restaurant.
On Thursday Jan 22 we finally said Goodbye to Cape Coral. We left around 10:00 so that the tide had a chance to come up a bit. It was still really shallow going out the channel and we touched bottom, but we didn’t get stuck. We pulled into Glover Bight and Tarpon Springs marina to get some fuel and were on our way again by about 11:00. There was a light wind and it was a lovely day although the wind was chilly. We headed north up Pine Island Sound and were accompanied by lots of dolphins swimming alongside of us and in out bow wave. It was an uneventful trip and we arrived were anchored off Cabbage Key, near Cayo Costa around 4:00. We set off to explore in the dinghy – we’d heard about a neat canal and lagoon on Cayo Costa and we thought we’d see if we could find it. We think we found where it was, but the water was really shallow. There wasn’t even enough water to row the dinghy, let alone use the motor, and around 5:00 we decided to give up and head back to the boat. It was really pretty cold going back in the dinghy. On Friday we headed back to Cayo Costa, but this time we decided to go to the dock. Cayo Costa is a state park and the only way to get there is by boat. There are campsites and cabins on the island, but no power. There is a trolley that takes you about a mile across the island to the beach on a sandy trail. We had a great walk on the beach and found lots and lots of shells and sand dollars. We caught the 12:00 trolley back to the dock and then dinghied back to the boat. The kids had a quick swim while Dave did a couple of things to the engine. The water was really cold! We weighed anchor around 1:30 and headed south again down to Fort Myers Beach. We picked up a mooring in Fort Myers Beach and dinghied to shore with Rudder to watch the sunset. We walked around town a bit and looked for a place to go for supper but in the end we went back to boat instead of eating out. On Saturday we left Fort Myers Beach and went to Naples. It was our first time off shore in months! Fortunately it was a beautiful calm day. The Gulf of Mexico was beautifully smooth. We got to Naples early in the afternoon. The waterway around Naples was really busy with lots of people enjoying a sunny weekend. One boat passed us going way too fast and sent us really rocking. We went to the City Dock in Naples and got tied up. Kristen and I took Rudder for a walk and watched the fishing guides filleting the fish they had caught in the morning charters. They are amazingly quick! The pelicans have a great time catching the scraps the fishermen through away. We had a great walk in Naples and then went for supper at the Dock restaurant right by the marina. On Sunday, Annie and I went for a long walk to the grocery store to get some snacks and something for supper. We had decided that the best way to get to the Florida Key from Naples was to go overnight and arrive in the morning. This whole coast is very shallow and there are very limited placed to anchor. We had a quiet day and pulled away from the dock around 3:00. Once again it was a beautiful day with light winds and calm seas. We had supper as the sun went down and the girls and Dave saw some dolphins jumping in the distance. The overnight went really well. Biggest problem was when we did a shift change at 3:00am I could see all kinds of red lights flashing in the distance. This would have been fine if we had seen red flashing buoys on the chart, but we couldn’t find anything anywhere to indicate what they were. We were still 20 miles or more to shore. It was really strange and very disconcerting Florida Bay is very shallow and subject to shoaling. After watching the lights together for half an hour or so, we decided they weren’t getting any closer and Dave went down for a rest. Eventually we figured out that the lights are towers on the Keys and we were seeing them from over 20 miles away. We arrived at the shallow channel that leads to the high point under the bridge around 6:00am as planned. It was still pretty dark but we were able to find all the channel markers. Good thing too as we were seeing as little as 6’ on the depth sounder. We went under the bridge that put us on the South side of the Florida Keys and then headed a little East to get to Boot Key harbour and the town of Marathon. Marathon is about 50 miles from Key West.
We had to pass under an opening bridge, and the bridge tender was really nice. He wasn’t sure if there would be any moorings available – this was a real surprise to us as we knew there were over 200 moorings in Marathon. We called the marina, and after they checked, they were able to find one for us. We had planned to meet Chris and Penny from Carpe Diem (the folks we crossed from NS to Maine with) in Marathon, and the funny thing was that the mooring they assigned us was right in front of Carpe Diem!
We had a quiet day after a long night. Dave and I walked through Marathon to the grocery store but it was a pretty uneventful day. We had a quick visit from Joe and Mary Beth on Pot of Gold that are from PEI. Hopefully we’ll be able to get together with them again. We took some pictures of Chris and Penny to accompany the article that Chris is having published in Cruising World in May!
On Tuesday it was back to school. Chris and Penny had to take Carpe Diem down to the marina to be taken out of the water as they had hit a rock (quite hard). After school the girls and I dinghied down to the marina to see Chris and Penny and to go to West Marina to exchange the light for the dinghy that wasn’t working. They found a great motel with an efficiency unit and invited us to come down for a swim in the pool.
On Wednesday we spent the morning on school, and in the afternoon we took the dinghy to the beach. It is a great beach and the water was warm enough for swimming. Finally we found a beach where Rudder was welcome and that was great too! The kids found pieces of coral on the beach. Unfortunately the water wasn’t all that clear as it has been quite windy and stirred up a lot of sand. We ran out of time and didn’t make it down to Chris and Penny’ for a swim. There was a potluck at the marina so we went down there for supper and met some more travelers. This is a very busy place!
On Thursday we did school again. Dave finally adjusted the motor mount that has been worrying him since November (some things he did in Cape Coral helped him to figure out how to do it…) In the afternoon we went down to the motel and had a swim.
On Friday it was school again. Dave went snorkeling off the boat to see if there was any damage from the few times we dragged through the mud. Everything is fine including the anodes that protect the boat from electrolysis. Things seem to be a getting a little boring! The weather is always nice, there’s school in the morning and adventure in the afternoon. Today I loaded one of the bikes into the dinghy and took it to shore so I could ride the mile to the grocery store. I bought quite a few groceries, planning to leave some at the store and make two trips back to the dinghy, but when I finished shopping it was pouring out!! Oh my – but "when it rains it pours" must have been written about the rain in Florida. I ended up loading up the bike and making one trip back. I got soaked!
While I was gone, and before the rain started the girls had a great time swimming off the boat. The water was really warm. Now we have to wait for a series of cold fronts to pass through before we can head to the Bahamas.

Christmas in Cape Coral

2009-01-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely time staying in the house in Cape Coral. We were able to swim every day, and there was only half a day of rain the entire time we were there (there was some rain over night a couple of times, but that didn’t bother us any). The kids got a big surprise on Sunday night when I left around suppertime and came back with Doreen (their babysitter for the past 10 years!). Doreen stayed with us for a week and we had a busy time with a trip to Busch Gardens in Tampa, lots of shopping, and a trip to Sanibel Island Beach for some sun and sea shells. The second week in the house we decorated for Christmas (we found a 4’ tall live “table top” Christmas tree which was just a great size for decorating!), and did some Christmas shopping. We also had two long “park” days – the first was a trip to Sea World in Orlando. The highlights for me were an interactive ride on the “Polar Express” – We were buckled into our seats and sat in front of a movie screen. When we took off, the seats moved in concert with what we were watching on the screen! It was amazing. When we arrived at the North Pole, Santa was there, as were the Beluga Whales, Penguins and the Polar Bears (no kidding). I also really enjoyed the night time Christmas Shamu whale show with great lighting and sound and Kristen and I fed the Dolphins. Annie and Dave went on Kracken one of the top 10 rated roller coaster in the world (twice). Kristen found a roller coaster that was just right for her in the Shamu fun park (and I had to agree that it was pretty fun too.) Later in the week we went back to Busch Gardens and had a great time on all the water rides (even Kristen!) and re-doing some of the fun things we had done with Doreen. On Friday, Dave and the girls drove back to Tampa to pick up Dave’s parents. It was so great to have them with us for Christmas. Christmas week was a busy blur of last minute shopping combined with lots of time around the pool and a visit to the Ford/Edison Winter Estate. It was especially nice as it was all decorated up for Christmas. After our first tour through in the late afternoon we went for supper, with a plan to return to look at the Christmas lights but it was a really cold evening and we rushed through the second time. Santa was able to find us in Cape Coral which was a relief. I think it was the eggnog and cookies that Kristen and Annie left for him… On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas for all you Americans) we had to take Dave’s parents back to the airport and we were alone once again. One day we went on an exciting kayak adventure. At the place where we rented the kayaks they warned us that it was really shallow at low tide, but I had looked at the tides and felt we would be through the shallow place an hour before low and I figured we’d be okay. They also said it was really narrow in the canals and that made it challenging to steer the boats – I’d seen the canals in Cape Coral, they were really wide – what did they mean?? They said it wasn’t for beginners… But we aren’t beginners – we’d had that extensive training back at the zoo in Melbourne! Anyway, off we went. Narrow! Oh my gosh we were going through this little tunnel in the trees that wasn’t three feet wide. The paddles are about 6 feet long. We had to keep ducking not to hit our head on the overhanging branches. We had to keep backing up the kayaks when they got caught up on the wrong side of little sticks poking out of the water. It took us about 40 minutes through this narrow canal to get to the portage. There you had to pull the kayaks out of the water and drag them over a long twisting boardwalk and then relaunch them on the other side. When we got to the other side we saw there was only about 3 inches of water – oh and the map had gone missing-- and the double kayaks were so long they didn’t fit around the corner in the canal… But we persevered… we found a old tattered map on the portage and then we dragged the kayaks through the mud when they wouldn’t float – it really wasn’t that far – I’m sure was glad that there weren’t any mosquitoes though – that would have been the end of me! I knew that by the time we got back we would be well past low tide and there would be more water and we wouldn’t have to do it again. Shortly after all this the canal got deeper and wider. Then it opened out in to the most wonderful wilderness, full of birds. At one point there were 7 egrets fishing in the canal right in front of us. At every turn in the canal we would see more birds. It was beautiful. We got to the end of the canal and decided it was too windy to go out into the river so we pulled the kayaks up on a little beach to have a snack. Just as we were thinking about leaving we saw this reptile swimming down the other side of the canal (probably about 35 or 40’ away). First we saw it’s head and figured it was a small alligator. They Annie turned away and Dave and I saw the distinctive slithery kink of movement you only see with… snakes…. And this was not a small snake – probably about a 6-8’ boa constrictor that someone could no longer deal with as a pet. Anyway, Dave and I decided it was probably about time to leave… so we kayaked back up the wonderful winding canals towards the portage. Unfortunately, the tide was still going out, so there was actually less water than when we came through the first time. We got covered in mud. The kayaks got covered in mud. Surprisingly our spirits remained intact and we stayed pretty cheery about it all. We pulled the kayaks out at the portage and pulled them back to the other side and relauched into inches of water. It was so nice to float again! We made it back safely to the rental shack and hosed off all the mud. We asked what happened to the father and son (probably around 12-13) that left right after us… “Oh – didn’t you hear him screaming?? They didn’t make it 10 minutes before they were back here”. Funny thing is that was one of the most fun days I had on the whole trip!! Guess I must be a little bit crazy!
Our last week in the house was pretty quite. I bought lots and lots of dry groceries (enough for 8 weeks in the Bahamas) and stored them away in the boat. The kids went to a day camp for two days put on by the City of Cape Coral at the Yacht Club. They had a busy time with fishing, bowling, swimming, tennis, kayaking (yes they did try kayaking again J), and a trip to Mike Greenwell’s where they have games, paint ball, go-carts etc. They were so tired they didn’t even want to do anything for New Years Eve so we stayed home. There were lots of fireworks and firecrackers set off all around us at midnight so we didn’t miss much that way.
We got safely moved back on the boat and spent the next week getting back into the routine of school. The marina is great with the pool on one side and the tennis courts on the other. We’ve been making use of both each day – the girls even bought tennis racquets and have had a couple of tennis lessons. We returned the rental car and are using the bikes to get back and forth to the grocery store. We are busy planning the next leg of our adventure to the Florida Keys and beyond.

Dec 7 - Cape Coral

2008-12-08T08:28:00.000-08:00

Nov 30 - Clewiston – LaBelle
We woke up fairly early and decided to leave right away as high winds were forecast and we thought it would be pretty difficult to get off the dolphins if it was windy. As we went along the water way there was this wonderful smell like someone baking porridge bread. We figured it must be the sugar factory. We went through the first lock of the day before the rain started, so it was pretty uneventful. When the rain started it really started and it poured rain! Fortunately we didn’t have too long a day and the rain was a warm rain. It came in bands so it was off and on. We thought we were going to get through the second lock of the day during a dry spell, but it was not to be, the rain started again as we were locking through, but it wasn’t as wet as some of the showers we’d had. The wind was piping up too, and when we got to LaBelle we decided to tie up to the face dock at the old motel rather than try to dock Mediterranean style at the free town dock. (To do that, you have to drop your anchor out in the channel, and then back into the dock and tie your stern to the dock.). There was a pool at the motel (unheated) so the kids went for a swim and I got the laundry done. Mid-afternoon we thought we’d walk to town to see if we could find a restaurant where we could watch the football game. It started to pour rain again so we got pretty wet. All the restaurants we found were closed on Sunday. We went to the movie store to see if we could rent a movie, but it turned out that we could actually buy pre-watched movies for less than the rental of a new release – so we bought a few. We went to the grocery store and got a roast chicken for supper and went back to the boat.

Dec 1 – 2 – LaBelle
We planned to spend a couple of days in LaBelle, so when it was calm in the morning we moved across the river and did our med mooring to the town dock. It actually worked out pretty well as the dock was a great height for getting on and off the stern of Bird. It was nice to see the sun again. The kids got some school work done, and I took Kristen to the library to do some research for her Bird Watching badge for Girl Guides. In the afternoon we walked back up to town to get some groceries. We spent quite a bit of time in LaBelle 15 years ago and really liked it, and it was pretty much as we remembered it. It is still very rural. Unfortunately, hard times have hit to some extent and some of the shops are closed. It doesn’t have the same charm as some of the towns we have been to like Fernandino or Beaufort SC, but there is something kind of nice about it. After we got the groceries put away we walked back up to town and went out for supper. On Tuesday the kids got their schoolwork done and Dave did chores around the boat. Kristen and I went back to the library to get more info on birds. In the afternoon we went for a walk/bike ride through town. Kristen made a yummy desert for supper – no bake key lime cheesecake!

Dec 3 – LaBelle to Franklin Lock
We left LaBelle around 8:00 and travelled about 20 miles to the Franklin lock where we tied up at the state park – very similar to the one at the St. Lucie lock. It was an uneventful trip, although it was pretty cold. Overnight there were temperatures in the 30’s along the coast. We were all tied up by 11:30 so it was a really short day. After lunch I took Kristen on a bike ride and we saw all kinds of neat wildlife. In addition to the herons and egrets we see everyday, we saw a turtle, two sandhill cranes, and a huge flock of woodstocks. We also passed a goat farm and stopped to pet some really friendly horses. In the evening we walked out on the fishing pier and watch two guys that caught a Tarpon that was over 5’ and 100lbs. It took them about 45 minutes to get the Tarpon tired enough to get him close to the pier that they could cut him free. They did all that on a light weight (although expensive) fishing rod with 20lb test fishing line. After that we lit a campfire and roasted marshmallows.

Dec 4 – Franklin Lock to Fort Meyers
We puttered around the campground in the morning. Dave waxed the hull on the boat and the girls got their schoolwork done. We left around 11:30 and went through our final lock for this leg of our adventure. We went through the lock with two manatees, they were pretty hard to see, but the lockmaster had seen them. We saw lots of manatees as we went down the river to Ft. Meyers. They aren’t as much fun to watch as the dolphins as you only see their noses and their backs. When we got to Fort Meyers we picked up a town mooring. As we prepared to go to shore a manatee came right up to the boat and swam along the length of the boat – unfortunately I was in the dinghy and I didn’t get much of a look L but the kids and Dave got a great look. After that we went for a walk in town. There wasn’t much to see. There is a really nice little restored district with restaurants and art galleries, but it was pretty much deserted. When we looked through the Misty log our comment about walking around Ft. Meyers was " we had a great time walking around the non-existent downtown of Ft. Meyers" and that pretty much sums it up.

Dec 5 – Fort Meyers to Cape Coral
We left Fort Meyers at 6:00 to try to get to Cape Coral by 8:00 – as close to high tide as possible -- with the hope that we might be able to get the boat up the canal and into the dock at the house. We really had no idea how much water there would be but we knew it would be tight. A number of people we talked to thought we could probably do it at high tide (there is only about 1’ of tide here so not a lot of difference between low and high). We gave it a valiant effort and made it up to the house. We could feel the mud sucking against the keel a couple of times as we went up the canal and we were seeing readings on the depth sounder less than 5’ (and we need 5.5’). When we were off the house, Dave got in the dinghy to see if there was water at the dock, and by the time he got back to the boat we were stuck in the mud. There really wasn’t much water at the dock so that wasn’t going to work. We got the boat unstuck once by putting out the anchor and pulling towards the anchor. By this time we had several neighbors come out to say "hi" and see if there was anything they could do to help. We tried to get up to the neighbour’s dock, but we got stuck again. Finally we called TowBoat to come and pull us off (fortunately we had insurance for just such an occurrence). By that point the anchor was so stuck there was no way we could pull it out. When TowBoat arrived, he didn’t think he could get us out until the tide came back up, so he didn’t even try. He did help us get the anchor back.
At that point we all piled off the boat and into the dinghy and went to the house. The house is great! It was probably built in the 60’s and it’s really funky. It is huge too – probably more square feet than our house at home – all on one level. There are four bedrooms, a living room, dining room, family room, playroom and three bathrooms. There’s a great pool that is lovely and warm. We got ourselves organized in the house and waited for high tide.
At supper time we called TowBoat again and arranged to have them meet us at 8:00. We went out to the boat at 7:00 and were able to move it a little, but we were still stuck. At 8:00 TowBoat arrived with a different operator. He pulled us off, no problem, and we had him tow us the 2 miles back down the canals to the marina. Bird was all settled safely in her new home by 9:30 and we dinghied back "home".

The weekend was uneventful. We did normal things like rent a car, checked on the boat, bought groceries...

The girls got a huge surprise on Sunday night when arrived back at the house from a "trip to Walmart" with Doreen! She is here to visit for a week which will be great.

Now that our travels have stopped for Christmas I won't be boring you with the details of our life here in Cape Coral. You can look back for a summary in early January when we get "back on the road"

We'll be thinking of you all, as we dream of a "bright" Christmas instead of a white Christmas - it's a little sad to be missing the snow and the lights twinkling in the cold crisp air. It's really weird to see palm trees dressed up with Christmas lights and blow up snowmen sitting on these lawns. So from all of us to all of you we wish you a very happy holiday!

Nov 29 - Clewiston

2008-11-30T12:49:00.000-08:00

Pictures added around 7:30 on Sunday...

Nov 23 – Banana River to Vero (mile 951)
We left Gotta Life and Sandpiper in Banana River and headed out on our own for Vero Beach around 10:00. It was an uneventful day on the waterway, although you can certainly tell the difference between traveling the waterway on the weekend and traveling during the week. There is so much more boat traffic on the weekend, and the boaters are far less polite and going blowing past without slowing down, so you end up rocking and rolling in their wake. We arrived in Vero around 3:30 and picked up a mooring. We were lucky to get one on our own as most have two or three boats rafted together. Gotta Life left Banana River too late to get here today so we are on our own. We went to shore and found out that the bus service doesn’t run on Sunday, so we couldn’t get Annie to the mall today. Instead we walked about a mile East to the beach. There are some shops here, but they were all closed because it is Sunday. We were able to find an Ice Cream shop that was open though! It finally feels like Florida with lots of sun and warm weather. There were pineapples growing in the garden by the beach and there are coconuts growing in the palm trees!

Nov 24 – Nov 27 - Vero
It was nice to have some time off from travelling everyday! We stayed 4 full days in Vero. Gotta Life arrived around lunch time on Monday. Sandpiper decided to keep going on to Fort Pierce where Bob and Ilene have some friends. Gotta Life rafted up with us so we were tied together which was great for the girls. There was school every morning. On Monday Annie Kristen and I caught the bus with Sheryl, Geneva and Erin and went to the mall. Annie was anxious to get a birthday present and she had her heart set on a cell phone. Surprisingly this actually made sense as we could get a pay as you go phone that is a lot less expensive to use in the US than the Blackberry we brought from home. So Annie got a cell phone for her birthday. It took a while to get to the mall and back, so we didn’t get back to the boat until around 6:00. We BBQ’d steak, hamburgers and chickenburgers for everyone for supper and ate on Gotta Life with the folks from Blue Heaven who was also rafted with us. On Tuesday afternoon we went back to the beach and the kids got bathing suits. They went swimming off the arch on the back of Gotta Life when we got back.

On Wednesday afternoon we took the bus to the closer mall to get some food for the Thanksgiving potluck on Thursday – we decided to take brownies. We did a trial run on the brownies on Wednesday night just to make sure they would be okay! (they were). On Thursday morning we got school done quickly and then went down to the Boater’s flea market. Miakado (with the twins) arrived yesterday and they came to the flea market with us. After the flea market we went back to the boat to get ready for the potluck. It started at 1:00. It was a real spread -–there were probably over a hundred people and the food was wonderful. We spent most of the afternoon there and then we went for a sunset dinghy cruise. We didn’t need any supper after the big feast at lunch time.

Nov 28 – Vero Beach to St. Lucie Lock
There were some long faces today as we pulled out of Vero and left Gotta Life. They are heading to Miami and then the Bahamas, and we are turning west today to go through the Okeechobee Waterway and across Florida to the West Coast. The day was saved when we had to wait for a bridge and we had two dolphins come right up to the boat. The water was clear enough that we could see them swimming under the water all around the boat. It was great! We traveled about 35 miles further down the ICW to Stuart and then left the main ICW and turned into the OCW (okeechobee waterway). We went another 15 miles west to the St. Lucie Lock. We locked through and were raised about 14 feet. There is a campground on the other side of the lock and we had a reservation there for the night. After we got tied up we went across the lock to the other side and had a walk on the nature trail. Didn’t see any animals, but we saw three badger tortoise dens. These tortoises burrow under the ground that is kind of different. We saw lots of animal tracks too. We were just as glad not to run into any alligators! It was getting dark so it was kind of spooky walking through the woods.

Nov 29 – St. Lucie Lock to Clewiston
It was another beautiful morning when we got up. I took Kristen down to the lock so she could read the display on manatees and make some notes for a project she would like to do. The lock master came over to talk to us – he was really friendly. He talked to us about manatees and then he took us out on the lock and showed us where one was. We also found a beautiful moth. We left St. Lucie Lock around 8:30, ready for the challenges that lay ahead. We have to go under a 49" bridge, and while we measured and re-measured our mast and we’re sure it’s about 47’ it will be nice to clear through that and know we fit. We also have to go across Lake Okeechobee today. This whole waterway was closed for two years because of a lack of water. Apparently now there is a minimum of 8’. It is also supposed to be windy today and it can get pretty nasty when it is windy on such a large, shallow body of water. In the end we had a great day. We made it under the bridge, we went through the Port Mayaca lock and out into the lake. The lake had only a light chop, and the wind never really materialized. We were across the lake to Clewiston by about 4:00. It took us about half an hour to get Bird tied up to the pylons (aka dophins – don’t know why…) beside the waterway. It was a challenging experience and there was lots of creosote but while we offered lots of entertainment value to the folks in the picnic park across the way, all was fine in the end. We all went to shore for a walk around Clewiston. Clewiston is the "sweetest town in America" because of all the sugar produced and refined here. It also has a huge bass fishing reputation. The Christmas lights on the light posts are of a large mouth Bass catching a dragonfly. There is an entirely different feel to Florida here than on the East Coast. It is a rural, agricultural community. Homes are small and there are numerous trailer parks. Entertainment includes shooting the drag through the picnic park on Saturday evening. We found a grocery store, but all the labeling was in Spanish and we didn’t recognize any of the things we needed. We did recognize the Pizza shop and we ordered a pizza for supper. We were a little concerned walking back to the boat at dusk that we wouldn’t have enough light to see the combination to unlock the dinghy. We really hadn’t planned to be out after sunset. We got back to the dinghy and got it unlocked. The kids got in and put on their lifejackets, and then the Florida Fish and Wildlife Patrol boat came by. He was really glad we all had lifejackets, but was concerned that we didn’t have any navigation lights on the dinghy. He escorted us back to Bird and asked for our boat registration papers. He called them into the office, but apparently Canada isn’t on the same computer system, so they weren’t getting a response back on our boat registration. He was a really great guy, but it was kink of nerve racking wondering what was going to happen. In the end, he gave us a written warning on the navigation lights for the dinghy (rather than the $90 fine) and said he would follow up with us tomorrow if there was a problem with the registration. We felt really fortunate. When we went below on Bird she was full (I mean hundreds) of bugs. We don’t think they were of a biting variety, but we sure wanted to get them cleaned up. We had to keep the pizza box closed so they wouldn’t fall into the pizza!!

Nov 21 - 22 - Banana River

2008-11-23T05:52:00.001-08:00

Finally - here are some pictures -- added some to the last posting too!

Nov 20 – Titusville – Eau Gaille (mile 914)
Mark and Brendan wanted to go exploring in the morning, so we had breakfast and were thinking about taking Rudder to shore when we heard Mark and Brendan coming back from shore. Apparently the causeway is owned by NASA and we weren’t really supposed to go to shore there. Oops. We left around 8:30 and had another uneventful day. Nice to not have things break for a day or two. We anchored in behind the Eau Gaille causeway around 1:30. Sheryl and Brian have friends that live near here, so they went to shore to check things out and to give them a call and they took Annie and Kristen with them. We went to shore shortly after them and there was a great park with a playground and tennis court. As we were going in the dolphins were corralling fish and doing all kinds of splashing around. There are also lots of birds – pelicans, egrets, ibis and wood storks. Were pretty sure there are manatees around as you can see them swimming out in the channel. The kids had a great time playing in the playground. Sheryl and Brian’s friends Brian and Linda came to meet us and they started shuttling us all to a restaurant for supper. There were 14 of us all together and it was a really fun time. Sheryl arranged for the waiters to sing Happy Birthday to Annie!
Nov 21-22 – Banana River
It’s Annie’s Birthday! In the morning we all went to the park. The guys walked up to the Discount Marine store; Erin and Geneva showed Annie and Kristen how to play tennis. We stayed there until about 11:00. Then we dinghied back out to the boats and moved across the Indian River and up the Banana River a little ways to the Telemar Marina. The Brian with a car was there to meet us and he began to shuttle us all to the zoo. Sheryl took the girls in the first trip, and Dave and I went in the second trip with Mark and Brendan. We had a great time at the zoo. One thing that was cool was the kayak trip. We paired up and filled up 4 kayaks, and then had a guided kayak tour around this island that had animals on it. That was pretty neat. The other thing that was really cool was feeding the lorries. We went into the aviary with all kinds of birds flying around. There were cockatoos, a koorkaburra and the lorries. The lorries look like some kind of small parrot, are mostly green but really colorful. You could buy lorry nectar and then the lorries would come and perch on your head, arms, or wherever they could find a spot. The birds were really excited and they would fight over the nectar. A couple of times a hawk flew over the aviary and the birds all got really scared and would all fly away. It was really neat and we stayed there quite a while. Around 4:30 we got a ride to walmart to try to find a birthday present for Annie. We had a list of quite a few things she wanted, but do you think we could find any of them at that Walmart today?? We got a giant birthday cookie and a card and then got a ride to Brian and Linda’s where they had made a wonderful turkey/thanksgiving/birthday dinner for all of us. We had a lovely evening. The kids swam in the pool and watched movies. All in all Annie had a great birthday even though she didn’t get any presents from us!
On Saturday we had planned to leave Melbourne ahead of Gotta Life and Sandpiper and go to Vero, but in the end we decided to stay here another day and get some chores done around the boat. The girls had a great day with the scooters and rip-stiks. They spent the entire day outside. In the afternoon Dave and I went for a walk to the grocery store. On the way we walked through a little park and saw three baby raccoons. They were really cute.

Nov 20 - Eau Gaille Fl.

2008-11-22T18:16:00.001-08:00

Nov 16 – Jekyll Island to Fernandino Beach FL!! (Mile 716)
We had a leisurely morning and finally pulled away from the dock around 9:30. It was still pretty windy and it was a challenge getting the boats away from the dock. We left last as we were at the end of the face dock and we got blown sideways into the little cove at the end of the dock. Dave had quite a time getting turned around and out of there, but all was fine in the end. We had to cross St. Andrew’s Sound, and in order to get around the shoals you have to almost go out into the ocean. It can kick up quite a bit in a high wind so we were cautious about going across it, but that too was fine. There was definitely some sea, but nothing like what we’re used to up north. We had a hard time deciding whether to stop at Cumberland Island or to go a little farther and get to Florida. Cumberland Island is a beautiful state park with wild horses and great walking trails, but given the cold temperatures, we decided to press on to Fernandino Beach. After some challenges in finding a mooring in Fernandino Beach we did find one and got tied on by 1:00. We had a great walk in this beautiful little town. It has great brick buildings and wonderful stores full of antiques. We got a few groceries at Fred’sa 5 and 10, and ice cream at the treat store. The folks on Gotta Life and Sandpiper went out for pizza, but we decided to stay on the boat for supper tonight.

Nov 17 – Fernandino Beach to St. Augustine (Mile 778)
We planned an early start but when we tried to start the motor at 6:30 the starter motor was making really strange noises. After a couple more tries, the starter wouldn’t work at all. Dave went to investigate and discovered that one of the two bolts that holds the starter in place had fallen out, and the other one was half way out. He was able to find the bolt and put it back together, but it took half and hour and we didn’t get away until 7:00. We expected to have a long day to St. Augustine as it is 68 miles but we had the current with us and we actually arrived at the Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine a couple of minutes after their 3:00 opening. There were a few boats anchored on the north side of the bridge including Serenus and Miakado (with the twins that we met in Oriental) so we spent some time talking to those guys as we waited for the 3:30 opening. At 3:30 the bridge didn’t seem to be opening, so I called the bridge, and they said they weren’t opening as no one had requested and opening. That was pretty frustrating as we had talked to them at 3:04 when we asked them to keep the bridge open for us and they wouldn’t. Anyway, we had to wait another 30 minutes until the 4:00 opening. When we got through the bridge we went to look for a place to anchor. The anchorage is a little tricky as there are shoals in the middle of the anchorage, so Dave was watching the chart plotter really carefully, and then it started to get really shallow, even though it wasn’t showing shallow on the chart. To make a long story short, we ran hard aground and couldn’t get the boat off. Fortunately for us, a few minutes later a big power boat went by and rudely did not slow down. He created a lot of wake – I mean a lot of wake – probably 18-24 inch waves. Anyway, it was enough to raise us of the bottom and we were able to back off the shoal. Unfortunately, we also had to deal with the valleys between the waves and those kept slamming us into the bottom. We were hitting so hard that things were bouncing of the shelves down below, but in the end I was both glad to have a steel, full keel boat, and glad to be off the bottom. We were able to find another spot to anchor and had the hook down around 4:30 after a really long and tiring day. By the time we arrived in St. Augustine the bolts had loosened up again on the starter, so we took another crack at getting them tightened up with a different Allan key that Brian had on Gotta Life.

Nov 18 – St. Augustine to Daytona Beach (Mile 835)
We really weren’t sure where we were going to end up today as there are very few good anchorages on this stretch of the waterway. When we listened to the forecast, they were predicting that another front was going to come through so we decided to make a reservation at the Seven Seas Marina, just passed Daytona Beach. We saw lots of dolphins today. When we were waiting at one of the bridges, Dave tried the bow thruster and it didn’t work – at all… After we cleared through the bridge Dave went below to see if he could figure that out. After some trial and error, he was able to get it to work one way, but not the other way – there was a problem with the electrical connections. He spent quite a while trying to fix it, but finally had to give up. Just before we got to the marina we went under another bridge and it was really beautiful – each one of the supports was covered in a mosaic of dolphins and manatees. We had a hard time getting into the marina slip without the bow thruster, but eventually did get tied up. Shortly after we were settled, the wind really started to pipe up and it started to get colder. We were glad to be in a marina. We went for a walk across to the Beach and it was really beautiful. The waves were rolling in and the beach was so flat and smooth with fine white sand. The kids couldn’t restrain themselves and it wasn’t long before they were all soaking wet playing in the waves. They said the water was really warm, but the air was cold and we got them back to the marina so they could get a warm shower. Dave spent a long time trying to get the bow thruster to work with limited success. He finally took apart the connector and discovered that the wire wasn’t tinned so it was all corroded. He didn’t have the parts to fix it so he left if for tonight and we went over and had supper on Gotta Life.

Nov 19 – Daytona Beach to Titusville (Mile 876)
First thing in the morning Sheryl, Eileen and I got a ride with the marina owner to the grocery store. It was interesting to talk to him. They had owned the marina for 30 years. A few years ago they were offered a lot of money to sell the marina, but when he thought it over he said to himself, "if I had that kind of money I’d take it and buy a marina in Florida – I already have one of those, so why would I sell it!" By the time we got back, Dave had the bow thruster fixed! We left around 10:30. It was a reasonable uneventful day, although at one point Dave realized that he had followed a power boat through a bridge and took the wrong turn. Fortunately it wasn’t a dead end and joined back up with the ICW and it wasn’t really any farther. We had dolphins with us all day and the kids had a hard time concentrating on school. It is very sad to see so many boats that have been abandoned and are partially submerged. We saw one today that didn’t even look that old. We were anchored a little north of Titusville by the Jay Jay Railroad Causeway. Turning off the ICW to anchor here it was very shallow, and it was really distracting to have a dozen dolphins swimming around the boat, surfacing and breathing loudly through their blow holes. After we anchored we had a quick trip to shore with Rudder on the causeway. It was a little difficult getting to shore as the water was really shallow and it was hard to get the dinghy to shore. I made lasagna for supper so we had the girls over from Gotta Life.

Nov 20 – Titusville – Eau Gaille (mile 914)
Mark and Brendan wanted to go exploring in the morning, so we had breakfast and were thinking about taking Rudder to shore when we heard Mark and Brendan coming back from shore. Apparently the causeway is owned by NASA and we weren’t really supposed to go to shore there. Oops. We left around 8:30 and had another uneventful day. Nice to not have things break for a day or two. We anchored in behind the Eau Gaille causeway around 1:30. Sheryl and Brian have friends that live near here, so they went to shore to check things out and to give them a call and they took Annie and Kristen with them. We went to shore shortly after them and there was a great park with a playground and tennis court. As we were going in the dolphins were corralling fish and doing all kinds of splashing around. There are also lots of birds – pelicans, egrets, ibis and wood storks. Were pretty sure there are manatees around as you can see them swimming out in the channel. The kids had a great time playing in the playground. Sheryl and Brian’s friends Brian and Linda came to meet us and they started shuttling us all to a restaurant for supper. There were 14 of us all together and it was a really fun time. Sheryl arranged for the waiters to sing Happy Birthday to Annie!

Nov 15 - Jekyll Island

2008-11-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

Lots of anchorages and not much internet - finally a place to post this!

Nov 6 – Thoroughfare Creek to Georgetown – Mile 403
We left a little after 7:00 so we would be in Georgetown early and hopefully get a place to anchor. It was a beautiful morning. The scenery is wonderful, and the early morning light and a little mist on the water made a beautiful start to the day. We were able to find a little spot to anchor of the town of Georgetown and we dropped the hook a little after 9:00. We went for a walk through town. Then Dave took Rudder and Kristen back to the boat and Annie and I looked in some of the little shops until lunch time. Later in the afternoon we walked to the grocery store and got them to give us a ride back to the boat when we were done. The girls made Peanut Chicken stir-fry for supper with Key Lime Pie for dessert.
Nov 7 – Georgetown
We decided to spend another day in Georgetown. The girls got their schoolwork done in the morning. We went in the dinghy to see if we could find any alligators but we couldn’t find any. We did see family from PEI with a girl on it so we went to go visit. The girl was Annie’s age. They left PEI in October in a van and had bought just bought their boat and were heading to the Carribean.
After lunch we went back to wander around Georgetown and later in the day we went to sit in one of the little restaurants over looking the river to have some nachos. On our way back to the boat we picked up Sheena (the girl) so she could come over for a visit. She stayed until suppertime and then we took her back to her boat. Kristen made Shrimp Creole for supper.

Nov 8 – Georgetown to Graham Creek – Mile 439
We left around 7:00 and had current with us most of the day so we were anchored in Graham Creek by 12:30. It was a warm and sunny day. It is a beautiful anchorage with marsh grass all around. There is a little oyster shell beach near the entrance to the creek were we could take Rudder to shore. We had arranged to meet Gotta Life here. We had been emailing back and forth with them since we were in the Dismal Swamp because they are also travelling with two girls. Sure enough, they arrived and were anchored a little after 1:00. It was great to meet them – Brian, Sheryl, Erin and Geneva. They are travelling with another boat, Sandpiper, with Brian’s parents and two of Brian’s nephews. The girls got a long great and were invited back after supper for a sleep over.

Nov 9 – Graham Creek to Tom Point Creek – Mile 495.7
We left a little after sunrise this morning. It was a beautiful morning and the sunrise over the marsh was spectacular. We had current against us most the day, and had to wait quite a while at two different bridges that only opened on the hour so we didn’t arrive at our anchorage until a few minutes after sunset. We had lots of dolphins swimming around us today so it helped to make the day go faster. Dave and Annie took Rudder to shore and found a huge horseshoe crab shell that measured 2’ from tip to tail. We were invited over to Gotta Life for potluck supper along with Sandpiper. It was a full boat with 8 adults and 4 kids. The adults ate in the enclosure in the cockpit and the kids ate below. It was a fun time.

Nov 10/11 – Tom Point Creek to Beaufort – Mile 536
We had another beautiful sunrise this morning and were underway a little before 7:00. We arrived at Beaufort a little after 1:00. Beaufort SC is pronounced Bew-fort while Beaufort NC is pronounced Bow-fort – it is a little confusing! We decided to go and stay at the marina, while Gotta Life and Sandpiper anchored off. We got tied up and were able to get diesel and water at our dock. We had a busy afternoon getting tidied up. I had ordered a math book for Kristen and had it sent to the marina -- when we arrived it hadn’t which was a bit of a pain. Fortunately it arrive on UPS about 30 minutes later so we had it in the afternoon. After we got organized and cleaned up, Gotta Life came in and met us and we all walked up to the post office. We were able to pick up the stove burner that Dave ordered and put a couple of parcels in the mail. After that we went for a long, long one mile walk to a grocery store. It was such a long walk we didn’t want to carry much back to the boat, and besides it had gotten dark. We picked up enough stuff for dinner and went back to the boat. Geneva and Erin stayed for supper. We got the laundry done in the evening.
We all planned to spend another day in Beaufort and planned to meet again in the morning in time for the Veteran’s Day parade.
In the morning I took Rudder for a nice walk along the waterfront in Beaufort. Beaufort has the most beautiful and gracious antebellum style homes along the waterfront. There are lots of beautiful trees that are covered with spanish moss and there are lots of palm trees too. We watched the parade and tried to borrow the courtesy car from the marina to go and get some groceries. The girls stayed in the waterfront park with the Sandridges and learned to ride on Rip-Stiks – they are like skateboards except they swivel in the middle and only have one wheel front and back. You can wiggle them back and forth to move them along a flat sidewalk. Kristen took a bit of a tumble and hurt her wrist so switch back to riding her scooter. We moved the boat out to the anchorage and then went back to town to walk around and look in some of the stores. We were back to the boat by supper time and we had a simple supper of hamburgers. Everyone went to bed early.

Nov 12 – Beaufort to Herb Creek GA – Mile 584
We’ve made it to Georgia! We had a challenging time pulling up our anchors this morning – in these waters there is a lot of current so you set two – about 180° apart. Normally we are able to pull up the little anchor first in the dinghy, but this morning it was the little anchor that was holding us so things were a little different. There were also quite a few sailboats around us and every one is moving into different places as they pull up their anchors. Anyway, we got away a little after 7:00. It was a little chilly but a nice sunny day. We were able to pull out the head sail and do some motor sailing. Shortly after we left Beaufort the engine started acting up and Dave figured out that there was a problem with fuel. He was able to turn the motor off and change the fuel filter while we were under sail. Unfortunately it is our last fuel filter and it looks like there is probably a problem with the fuel in the tank. We arrived in Herb Creek around 4:00. It is another little creek that winds off the ICW through the marsh and we couldn’t find anywhere to take Rudder to shore. I did try though and I found a little muddy patch in the reeds. He got all covered in mud but I’m sorry to report the mud patch apparently did not meet his high standards and we returned to the boat with lots of mud and some unfinished business.
The boys off Sandpiper met up with some friends in Savannah so there was extra room around the supper table on Gotta Life so we went over for supper. The next day we learned about the big adventure that Mark and Brendan had trying to get back to the boat at 1:30. They had arranged to leave their dinghy at a private dock and had the name, address and phone number of the owner of the dock. They didn’t realize that the gated community had a guard and when they arrived there on foot in the middle of the night the guard didn’t want to let them in. After leaving photocopies of their id at the gatehouse they were let in to walk the 1.5 miles to the dock. After about 20 minutes they were approached by 3 police cars! The guard had called the police to have them escorted to the dock! Anyway one of the police cars took them to the correct address and walked them all the way out across the dock to make sure they got into their dinghy and left the subdivision.

Nov 13 – Herb Creek to St Catherine’s Island – mile 619
It was really foggy in the morning so we stayed put in Herb Creek and didn’t leave until 10:00. I tried again to find some shore for Rudder and went quite away in the fog in the dinghy and didn’t see anything so finally I went back to the boat before I got lost. The fuel continued to give us problems today, but when we ran the fuel pump it seemed to keep the engine going. When Dave tried to clean out the old one it wouldn’t work at all. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep it going until we reach Jekyll Island. We got to Walberg Creek around 4:00 and the girls and I quickly got the dinghy down and set off to go the beach we’d seen a mile or so back. We have made our way back down to the Atlantic Ocean and we could see the ocean as we crossed a Sound before the anchorage. We didn’t have time to go all the way up the beach to the Atlantic, but it was great to see sand again – Rudder was impressed. The shoreline was really neat too as the sand had eroded away about 2 feet from underneath all the trees. There were lots of dead trees that had fallen down, and some were still standing with a couple of feet of roots showing about the sand. The beach was really flat and the tide was coming in so we weren’t there very long before the dinghy started to float off the beach so we had to cut our adventure short to rescue the dinghy.
We made pizza for supper and the girls from Gotta Life came over too.

Nov 14 – St. Catherine’s Island to Dalphin River – mile 649
We knew we had a short day today as we couldn’t go through the shallow Little Mud River at low tide, and low tide was mid afternoon so we knew we’d have to anchor before we got there. Gotta Life took Annie and Kristen for another adventure to shore and then we left around 10:30. We continued to struggle with fuel problems, as well as high winds and nasty currents but finally arrived at the Dalpin River and Sapello Island around 4:00. We wanted to take Rudder for a walk so we quickly dropped the dinghy and headed towards the ferry dock. On the way we picked up Geneva and Erin from Gotta Life. When we got to the ferry dock there were signs saying that there was to be no unauthorized use of the dock, but we decided to risk it and tie up anyway. We went for a bit of a walk, but dark was fast approaching and we didn’t want to be getting back to the boat after dark. Sapello Island has an interesting history and apparently has a really nice house that was built in the 1900’s and renovated in 1925 but we didn’t get a chance to see it.

Nov 15 – Dalphin River to Jekyll Island – Mile 685
We got an early start this morning and were heading down the river before 7:00. Little Mud River was no problem with the high tide but we were glad we hadn’t tried to do it at low tide. We finally had to take out the primary fuel filter and run with only the secondary filter. We spent the day hoping and praying we’d be able to get more fuel filters when we got to Jekyll. We got to Jekyll around 12:30, and we tied up at the Jekyll Harbour Marina. Shortly after we arrived the wind piped up and the rain started and we were glad to be here. The transient dock filled up really quickly as about 10 other boats all decided to come in here as well. We were so glad to hear that they do have our fuel filters here! Dave bought 4 and some fuel conditioner so hopefully we’ll be able to resolve the fuel problem. We were also glad to find that our WiFi antenna had arrived here safely so now we should be able to get internet below on the boat and not have to do all the computer stuff in the cockpit (and sure enough it works!)
After lunch we walked over the historic district and looked at all the mansions that were built by the American elite in the late 1800’s. There are a whole series of cottages with names like JP Morgan, Vanderbuilt, Crane, and Carnegie. There is a beautiful old building that was called the Millionaire’s Club where all these folks at their meals. Amazing to think of the business deals that would have been conducted here. There was talk that the Germans were going to bomb Jekyll Island during WWII as it would have had such an impact on the US economy.
While it is wonderful to be here in Jekyll we hope this storm front will pass through tonight so we can be on our way tomorrow.

Nov 6 - Georgetown SC

2008-11-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

Just arrived in Georgetown and we have internet so I'll post what I have up until yesterday.

Nov 3 – Wrightsville Beach to Southport - Mile 309
It was pouring with rain today but we decided to leave anyway. We left around 9:00 so that we would have a high tide going through Carolina Beach Inlet where it can be pretty shallow. We didn’t have any problems with the reported shallow areas and we went through Snow’s Cut and then down the Cape Fear River. We arrived in Southport in 1:00 and it was really raining hard! We read that there was a dock you could tie up at by a restaurant if you ate at the restaurant, but that the restaurant would be closed for the season. We found the dock and tied up, only to find the restaurant was still open. They were going to be closed at suppertime so we had a great lunch there. It was a fun little spot and a big hang out for the boaters going down the ICW. It continued to be a pretty wet day, although the rain tapered off a bit and we were able to go for a bit of a walk before supper.

Nov 4 – Southport to Barefoot Landing SC– Mile 354.4
We expected to be staying put today as it was supposed to be another really rainy day, but when we woke up the rain had stopped so we decided to keep moving. It was a fairly uneventful day although at one point Kristen can up into the cockpit and looked back at the dinghy and said "what happened to the dinghy?" Dave and I both looked back to see that one end of the dinghy was no longer supported by the ropes that connect it to the davits. A pin had pulled out of one of the pulleys so it was sort of dangling. Dave was able to drop it into the water so we just pulled it along behind. Today we went through one of the last floating pontoon bridges in the US. It looks like a fixed bridge that is under construction will soon replace it. The are many new bridges being built and lots of new homes. The area around Myrtle Beach has really developed since we were here 15 years ago. We couldn’t get a spot at Barefoot Landing, but were able to stay at a nice marina across from Barefoot Landing. After we got settled we dinghied over to the shops at Barefoot Landing. It is a complex of little shops surrounding a man made lake, selling lots of things you don’t need when you live on a boat, but it was fun to look around. We went out for supper at Joe’s Crab Shack. After supper we went back to the boat to for a bit to hear what we could of the election results, and then the girls and I went up to the hot tub for a bit. We all stayed up in varying degrees of late to hear the election results, but Dave was the only one who lasted long enough to hear Obama’s victory speech. While there were parties all over the US when Obama won, it was pretty quite in the Barefoot Landing Resort marina – we suspected that there were a few people around us disappointed in the result.

Nov 5 – Barefoot Landing to Thoroughfare Creek – Mile 389
It was a little chilly in the morning. I took Rudder for a long walk to try to find a newspaper to get more details on the election. We had a leisurely morning to let the kids wake up slowly after their late night. The hot tub opened at 9:00 and we decided to go for a soak before leaving, so we didn’t actually leave until around 10:30. It continued to be a kind of chilly and overcast day as we carried on with our journey. We traveled through miles and miles of cypress swamp, which sounds kind of eerie but was a nice change from all the over-the-top real estate development we have seen, particularly yesterday. We pulled off the ICW at mile 389 and headed a little way up Thoroughfare Creek to a beautiful, peaceful anchorage. There are beautiful trees covered with spanish moss and vines. Many of the leaves are changing color and the leaves on the vines are bright red, winding their way up the trees. After we got anchored, we put the motor on the dinghy and went exploring a little waterside development off Thoroughfare Creek. I don’t think it took off the way the developers hoped, and instead there were just a few homes and cottages on each of the canals. We explored up as far as a little lake. It was all very peaceful and serene except for the moment when Annie saw the snake in the river! We took the dinghy back near the boat and landed on a high sandy bank and went for a walk across to the lake we had been on in the dinghy. We saw lots and lots of animal tracks. There were deer tracks everywhere and we also raccoon and squirrel tracks. There were some tracks that were about 3-4 inches across and had 4 distinct claw marks, but we weren’t sure what made them – maybe a bear or a bobcat. It was wonderful to be in this great anchorage with not another boat in sight.

November 2 - Wrightsville Beach

2008-11-03T04:46:00.000-08:00

Oct 29 – Belhaven
It was really windy and cold again today so we decided to stay put. The kids did school in the morning. In the afternoon the girls went to visit the boat tied up next to us. The boat’s name is Blue Ocean, the people are from Denmark and they have a 12-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl. Unfortunately their daughter doesn’t speak English. Their son’s English is pretty good, but he is shy to use it. The kids played Nintendo for a while and then played a bit of tennis. After that, we were going to go for groceries, but the golf cart was gone so we started the laundry instead. Just after we started the laundry the golf cart came back so we left the laundry and went for groceries. We took "Sailor Joe" with us. He is probably 80 years old and sails alone on a 25’ boat. He is quite a character. In the evening the kids from Blue Ocean came over and all the kids played Pit.

Oct 30 – Broad Creek (mile 172)
We left Belhaven around 7:30. It was a nice sunny day and it is starting to warm up. We were able to sail part of the day so that was great. Dave saw some dolphins in the distance but they didn’t come very close. We anchored in Broad Creek, a little north of Oriental around 2:00. Serenus (Noah and Vicky) anchored with us, but Carpe Diem decided to go the marina. It is really pretty here. The land is really flat and there are tall pine trees everywhere. We dropped the dinghy down so Annie, Kristen and I could take Rudder to shore. Noah and Vicky wanted to go for a walk too, and their dinghy was on deck so we took them with us. We had a great walk on a mowed path through the forest. It was really peaceful. We saw raccoon and deer tracks but didn’t see any animals. I made up the beef dish with beef from both boats and we went over and had supper on Serenus. Vicky went through the french book with me and helped me with my pronunciation. They are planning to head for Beaufort tomorrow and then head off shore.

Oct 31 – Oriental (Mile 182)
After much discussion we decided to have a really short day today and go to the little town of Oriental for Halloween. The free dock was full, as was the marina near the free dock, but they had space for us in the marina by the bridge – managed by the same people. We could have anchored, but figured it was better to be tied up for trick or treating. The girls and I went back to the first marina to register and on the way ran into people we had been tied up with in Elizabeth City. They told us there were some young girls on the catamaran tied up at the free dock. After we registered, we went over to say "Hi" at the cat - Miakado. The girls are 7-1/2 twins – Allianna (Ally) and Emma. They were really excited to meet some other kids and wanted to come right over to visit on our boat. Ally and Emma had lunch with us and played for a while and then went back to their boat while we went for a walk in town. After our walk, the girls went back over to the other marina to carve pumpkins with Ally and Emma. Annie and Kristen had supper on Miakado, and Dave and I had a quick supper of fresh shrimp back on Bird. After supper I took Annie and Kristen costumes back to Miakado so they could get dressed. Annie dressed up as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz by using part of her jig outfit (including the red shoes) and part of her national outfit. Kristen dressed up as Laura from little house by wearing her national dress, and my sundress over top. Their costumes weren’t perfect but they were pretty cute! Just as we started trick or treating we ran into Annie and Dietrich from Calliope and Bruce and Annie danced the jig in the middle of the road (with no music). They all thought that was pretty neat!
Trick or treating wasn’t as great as in Pictou – there are so many vacant homes here – but they still had a really good time. We met up with Dave back at the Halloween party back at the marina. There were lots of people we knew from Dismal Swamp and Elizabeth City so that was fun.

Nov 1 – Oriental to Swansborro – Mile 228
It was a beautiful warm day today. We left at 7:30 just ahead of Miakado. After we crossed the Nuese River we saw lots of dolphins playing in the water really close to the boat. It was so cool!! We passed through Beaufort and Morehead City and went down Bogue Sound. The waterway channel is really narrow here so it requires a lot of attention to make sure you stay in the channel and don’t go aground. We decided to stop at Dudley’s Marina in Swansborro rather than push on to the anchorage at mile 244 as there is a really shallow spot at mile 237 that we wanted to do at high tide (and in the morning). When we stopped in Swansborro 15 years ago it was cold and wet and it seemed like we walked for miles to find a banking machine. This was a totally different experience. It was warm and sunny and we had a great walk to the historic district of Swansborro. There are great little shops and the simple architecture of the houses is really neat. We walked back to the marina and barbequed steak for supper.

Nov 2 – Swansborro to Wrightsville Beach – Mile 283
Another beautiful day! Today we had dolphins all around us. A mother and calf were swimming right under the bow sprit of the boat and we could see them under the water! We didn’t have any problem going through the two shallow spots we were worried about. We had three bridges today that only opened on the hour so we had to think about getting the timing right on those. We ended up sailing for the last couple of hours as we only needed to go about 3 miles per hour because of the bridges so that was really nice. We got to the marina in Wrightsville Beach just after 4:00. We were glad to find a place to stay as a lot of the marinas are full and there is very limited room for anchoring here. After we got settled we went for a short walk and got some groceries.

Oct 29 - Belhaven NC

2008-10-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Oct 22 – Norfolk to Deep Creek – Dismal Swamp
We had a busy morning running errands in Norfolk. We started with a visit to a little marine store called WT Brownley’s a few blocks away from the dock. We went there to pick up a guide to the ICW. Mostly they had books and charts and a few marine instruments. Then we noticed the printer that they use to actually print marine charts. I guess this is the way of the future for charts so that they can be printed "real time" with all the updates included as marker buoys and things get moved around. We were talking to the lady there, and it was originally her grandfather’s store that he opened in 1932. After we left there, we took a cab out to a big shopping area where there was PetSmart that had Rudder’s special dog food. I had never seen so many different types of dog food in my life, including special food for Labrador Retrievers, and special food for Boxers – but we couldn’t find Rudder’s food. Eventually we asked where it was and the lady said – oh that’s prescription food, so it would be in the prescription food section (oh oh…) We went to check out and they asked for our prescription…. We pleaded our case and fortunately they let us get the food without a prescription. Then we stuffed the 37lbs of food into our big waterproof knapsack and headed a couple of blocks down the road to Walmart where we picked up groceries and a few odds and ends before getting a cab back to the dock. We packed away the groceries, filled up with water, had some lunch and then left Norfolk around 1:00. There are two different routes you can take for the first 90 miles of the ICW the Albemarle & Chesapeake Canal and the Dismal Swamp Canal. The first is still used for commercial traffic and is deeper and better maintained, but the Dismal Swamp Canal is more scenic and more historic as it was originally used by the likes of George Washington in removing timber that was logged in the area. We had opted for the Dismal Swamp route, and we were headed for the 3:30 opening of the lock that would lift us 8’ up into the canal. In order to get there we had to pass under 6 bridges, two of which we had to get opened for us to go underneath. We originally planned to go and additional 18 miles to the Dismal Swamp Visitors center, but some folks at the lock recommended tying up to the free dock just on the other side of the lock, so that is what we did. There were 6 other boats that locked through with us, and all of them stayed at the same dock overnight. Many of the boats were ones we had seen over the past few weeks including Estelle from Charlottetown that we originally saw in Cape May, Lap Cat that were tied up with us in Baltimore, and Calliope that we had passed going down the Chesapeake. We also met new some new people including Randy and Diana on Strider (a Tyanna 37’). When we checked Misty’s log we saw that we had left Norfolk on Oct 22 as well!

Oct 23 – Deep Creek
The forecast for leaving the Dismal Swamp doesn’t sound that great. It is very protected in here, but the wind is forecast to be really high so we decided to stay in this nice little place rather than get stuck down at the other end of the canal. The kids did their school work in the morning. We went on several nice walks through the park. Kristen and I went on a walk to take notes on all the birds, animals, insects, trees and plants we could find for her habitat lesson. It is amazing the diversity of trees and plants and how different they are from home. In the afternoon we walked to town and got a few groceries. This is a great spot!

Oct 24 – Dismal Swamp Visitors Center
This morning we left Deep Creek with the boats that came through the 8:30 lock opening, so we went through the Deep Creek bridge around 9:00. We had about 18 miles to go to the visitors’ center. It was a nice day in the canal. The canal is beautiful with trees and vines growing right up to the edge of the canal. In the 1800’s there was a desire to build a canal to join Abermarle Sound with the Chesapeake Bay so that shipping could be done safely between North Carolina and Virginia. George Washington was an early investor in a project designed to drain the 50,000 acre swamp to try to log the area and develop the land for farming. Beginning in 1793, the canal was dug by hand by slaves. It was miserable work with lots of bugs and snakes, and the slaves would be up to their waists in mud trying to dig. As slaves, they weren’t paid for the work unless they outperformed what was required of them. If they were paid, they used the money to buy blankets or buy their freedom. The canal was open to flat bottom boats in 1805. The water in the canal is a deep brown. It is so rich with tannin from the bark of the trees that bacteria couldn’t grow in it, so it was highly prized to take on sailing ships as it wouldn’t go bad.
We got to the Visitors center a little before lunch. There were already 4 boats tied along the wall so we had to raft (tie along side) with one of the other boats. By the end of the day there were about 10 boats all rafted together along the wall. There is a floating footbridge to take you to the other side of the canal, and we crossed the bridge to go for a short hike through the swamp land. The ground isn’t actually swampy, but there are so many trees and so much foliage it must have been really hard to try to cut a trail through the swamp. There is also a short footpath that identifies 10 types of trees native to the area including Sassafras, Hickory, Black Cherry, Virginia Red Cedar, Sycamore and Sweet Gum. It looks so different from Nova Scotia.

Oct 25 – Dismal Swamp Visitors Center
With high winds still forecast outside the swamp, it didn’t make sense to move today. We got the school work done, visited the Dismal Swamp museum and borrowed the loaner bikes and went for a bike ride in the pouring rain. There is a young couple on a boat tied up behind us and we had them over for potluck supper. Noah bought his first boat and sailed it from California to French Polynesia. He and Vicky are starting another adventure and hope to go back to the Pacific Islands and New Zealand. It was really interesting to hear about his adventures and about their trip north this summer.

Oct 26 – Elizabeth City (mile 50)
We left the Visitor’s Center at 7:30 with 10 other boats – only one boat stayed behind. We met with two other boats at the lock, so that 12 boats locked through the South Mills lock together. It was so calm in the canal that we passed our camera over to Serenus (Noah and Vicky) and Noah climbed his mast to get a really cool picture of Bird with the girls on the bow. We got to Elizabeth City around 1:00. It was a nice sunny day and we had a busy afternoon getting laundry done. Then Annie and I went to the grocery store, and Dave and Kristen went to the Abermarle Museum. They said it was really good, but it was closed by the time we got back from the grocery store. Most days, there is a "Rose Buddies" wine and cheese party for the boaters at the dock. The Rose Buddies started doing wine and cheese parties in 1983 after their wives died. They also gave a rose to each woman that stayed at the dock. Unfortunately, the original Rose Buddies have both passed away but the tradition continues. They don’t usually have a get together on Sunday, so the boaters organized their own party. After the groceries got put away we stayed out on the dock until it got dark and cold talking to the other boaters.

Oct 27 – Elizabeth City to Alligator-Pungo Canal (mile 113)
We left Elizabeth City at 7:00 as the forecast sounded pretty reasonable for travel today. Unfortunately the wind was right where we needed to go so once again we had to motor all day. We had planned to stop at an anchorage at the start of the alligator-pungo canal, but when we got there it looked really unprotected for the high winds that were forecast for overnight. We pressed on another 10 miles to a little canal near a bridge. The canal was about 100 feet wide and we ended up tying a line to a tree off the bow, and another line to a tree off the stern. It took us quite a while to get all organized and we were just going below at 6:00 when the rain started pouring down and the wind started howling. We stayed safe all night, and later we heard that a number of boats that stayed at the other anchorage had dragged their anchors overnight. It was another really cold night!

Oct 28 – Alligator Pungo Canal to Belhaven (mile 135)
It was really cold today, and really windy. Once again we weren’t able to sail. We got to Belhaven a little after noon and decided to call it a day and go to a marina. We went to the River Forest marina where we had stayed 15 years ago. Carpe Diem was there too! We hadn’t seen them since Staten Island. We borrowed a golf cart from the marina and went up to town to go to the post office and to the hardware store where we bought a little electric heater. It was great to plug it in and get the boat warmed up! After supper Chris and Penny came over to visit. Chris brought his portable picture printer and made some post cards for us from some of the pictures we had taken.

Oct 22 - Norfolk

2008-10-22T05:28:00.000-07:00

Oct 15 – Washington DC
Today we got up early and walked about ten minutes to catch the 7:20 train to Washington DC. We arrived at Union Station about 8:30. Once again, the US transit system worked really well. It was another lovely warm day and we walked from Union Station, pasted the capital building to the Mall (not a shopping mall – more like a big grassy park that stretches through most of Washington. We started to walk down towards the Washington Monument, but by about 9:00 there were a couple of people that were tired of walking, so we went to the Smithsonian Castle to learn about the Smithsonian Museum and to try to figure out which buildings we wanted to see. At 10:00 the Air and Space Museum so we went there first. There was a museum tour that started at 10:30, so we thought that would be a good idea. It was a great tour. The lady that gave it was really interested in airplanes and space. It is amazing the collection of airplanes, rockets and space craft that they have collected. We touched a rock that was brought back from the moon. We saw the original airplane that the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk (no mention of Alexander Graham Bell at all in the early years of flight). They had the original space capsule that did the first manned trip around earth - John Glenn flew around the earth 3 times in about 4 hours! They also had the lunar lander from the first trip to the moon. The number of rockets and airplanes was incredible. Kristen though it was neat that they put monkey in space first because they needed to figure out if they can go to the moon. The monkeys survived the trip but after the trip the older monkey died (but they don’t think it was because of going to space). After the Air and Space Museum and some lunch (McDonalds again) we walked across the Mall to the Natural History Museum. We had a good look at their new Ocean Hall that had just opened, but had to do a quick walk through the gem display that includes the Hope diamond, the mammal exhibit and the insect exhibit. We saw a tomato horn worm pupae trying to hatch into a moth – but eventually we had to leave and we didn’t see the moth emerge. We also saw a beehive built inside a Plexiglas container so you could see inside the hive, and there was a tube that led to outside so the bees could come and go. When we finished at the museum we continued our walk to the Washington Monument, but it was too late in the day and too hot and too far to walk to the Lincoln Monument.

We walked a few more block to get to the subway back to union station. We had to buy the subway tickets from a machine, so we bought 1 ticket for the four of us, like we had in New York. When we tried to use the ticket for the four of us it wouldn’t work, and the lady that worked there thought we were pretty stupid – but we explained we were from a little town in Canada and we didn’t have subway there, so she let us on the train anyway! We got safely back to Union Station, and from there caught the train back to Baltimore. We had our final supper in Baltimore at one of the restaurants that overlooks the harbour.

Oct 16 – Baltimore to Magothy River
We had a busy morning trying to finish up some of the chores we had planned for Baltimore, but hadn’t gotten done yet. We finally pulled away from the dock around 12:00. We headed a little way out the harbour and then dropped the anchor where we had gone for groceries just after we arrived in Baltimore. We all got in the dinghy and went to shore. Dave went to the marine store and the rest of us went to the grocery store to get a few things. It seemed like we had just gotten groceries a few days before so we didn’t get a full weeks supply. We finally got back to the boat and got the anchor pulled again around 1:00 so there wasn’t much time to go very far. The place we had planned to go to was about 27 miles away and that would take 4-1/2 hours and that just seemed too far. Instead we went to the Magothy River which is just a little bit south of the Patapsco River that Baltimore is on. The Chesapeake Bay is an amazing mass of rivers that all flow together into the bay. Each one of these feeder rivers is made up of more rivers. In total there is close to 6000 miles of shoreline in around the Chesapeake. It provides a wonderful selection of anchorages. We dropped the anchor in one of a selection of little creeks off the Magothy River by about 4:30. It was a really pretty little spot and a real change from the bright lights and noise of Baltimore.

Oct 17 – Magothy River to LaTrappe Creek.
We got up in the morning and got a little bit of school done before we left the anchorage at 9:00. We headed across the Chesapeake to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. We took a short-cut through Knapp’s Narrow that is a little canal cut through the middle of Tilghman Island. This took us into the Choptank River. We were able to actually sail up the Choptank which was great. There was a sailboat race going on an there was a fleet of about 15 or 20 boats all sailing in the river with us. We followed another sailboat up LaTrappe Creek and into another beautiful anchorage. In the cruising guide it said there was lots of wildlife around LaTrappe Creek and within minutes of dropping the anchor (around 4:30) we saw a family of little deer down by the creek across from the anchorage. There were dozens of noisy canada geese around too and we would see flocks and flocks fly by on their way south.

Oct 18 – Oct 19 – La Trappe Creek
A storm front blew over the Chesapeake and strong winds were forecast for the next couple of days so we decided to stay in this snug little anchorage. The kids got their school work done and Dave did a great job of bringing the brass dorade vents back to life (the dorades are vents that rise about the cabin top and bring air down below). We were starting to run low on food again (pretty dumb not getting more groceries in Baltimore) so I made a couple of small loaves of bread. We went on a couple of dingy explorations to look at the little creeks around the anchorage, and we tried to do some fishing – we even tried to catch some crabs – but generally it was a pretty quite couple of days.

Oct 20 – La Trappe Creek to Mill Creek – Great Wicomico Virginia
We woke up before dawn to get an early start today. The Chesapeake has been wonderful but with temperatures in the 30’s overnight, warmer weather is calling. We have about 130 nautical miles to go to get to Norfolk and the start of the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW) where wind will have less impact on us. The ICW is a serious of rivers, canals and sounds etc. that takes you the 1000 miles from Norfolk Virginia to Miami Florida. The miles we will be travelling on the ICW are statute miles (like in a car) and not nautical miles that we usually track our progress in. I can’t remember the exact relationship, but a statute mile is a little less that a nautical mile so we will be able to go "farther" (more miles) in a day if we need to. There is another nasty weather system forecast for Wednesday, so if we can do 65 miles today, and then again tomorrow well be in Norfolk without having to wait out another weather window. We pulled the anchor at 6:50 with a forecast of 5-10N and we hoped that the light breeze would push us south down the bay, but the wind was so light that there was no wind at all. The seas were flat and we had a long and uneventful day. We’ve started to see pelicans on the Bay. They look sort of prehistoric but they fly so gracefully and then dive into the water with such a big splash we love to watch them. The girls spread schoolwork out over the whole day, with long play breaks in between in a tent they built on the aft deck. We pulled into the Great Wicomico River, back on the Western Shore of the bay, just south of the Potomac that would lead you up to Washington DC around 5:30. We had the sun setting in our eyes as we wound our way up into Mill Creek and dropped the anchor in Virginia at 6:10 with about 10 other boats. We quickly dropped the dinghy down and Annie and I took Rudder to shore. Just as we got back with the dinghy there was a loud buzzing sound from overhead. We looked up to see a large parasail overhead. There was a man hanging below it, and he was in a seat that had a motor and a big fan attached, so the whole thing was self propelled. He was having a great time flying around and over the anchorage as the sun was setting and Dave got some great pictures.

Oct 21 – Great Wicomico to Norfolk Virginia
Another early start – out of the anchorage before 7:00 again. The forecast isn’t great for today with high winds starting this afternoon from the West (sort of where we need to go) but we thought we’d leave early and see how we made out. Well, we had about 1.5 knots of current with us all day, so instead of going about 6knots per hour we were going closer to 7 or 8. We also had a lovely 15 knot breeze that we almost on the nose, but we could still sail along close hauled, and the seas weren’t too bad either. We did keep the motor on a bit just to make sure we would make good time and we were off the Norfolk light by 2:30, instead of the 4:30 we had estimated. It was a good thing too, because in the morning it looked like the girls were going to mutiny if they had to do another 12-hour day! It took us another couple of hours to get into downtown Norfolk. Coming in up to Norfolk is pretty strange -- this is the home of the US Naval fleet so there dozens of huge naval ships tied up along the shore. There is lots of security by the way of small(er) naval boats patrolling and helicopters flying overhead. In some ways it it busier than New York harbour. When we got into Norfolk we had to get fuelled up at one marina and then go across the river to the marina where we planned to spend the night. While we had no near misses on either docking, both were pretty stressful moving Bird around in tight quarters. We were all settled by about 4:30, which was a lot better than the 6:30 we had expected. We all got showers and then we went out for supper to celebrate making it to Norfolk.

Oct 15 - Baltimore

2008-10-16T04:36:00.000-07:00

Oct 21 - Added a couple of pictures -- This is one is of Bird tied up in from of Amistad -- kind of hard to tell, but that is Amistad in the background.

Oct 10 – Chesapeake City to Baltimore
It was another beautiful warm day and we were on our way around 9:00. There wasn’t much wind but it was lovely motoring down the Chesapeake Bay under beautiful sunny skies. It was warm enough for shorts and tank tops, which was great after weeks of long pants and sometimes even hats and mitts. The leaves are beginning to change and the shoreline of the Bay is really pretty.
The river up to Baltimore is very industrial with lots of factories and the girls were pretty skeptical about where we were taking them, but the Inner Harbour of Baltimore is great. We were tied up at the city marina by 4:30, right in front of the tall ship Amistad. We had a spectacular docking experience as Dave had to thread Bird ahead of a large tour boat, and around a power boat and then snug into a 45’ space in front of the power boat (we’re probably 43’ overall). There are three tour boats and two tall ships as well as a few sail boats and a few power boats tied up with us here at the small city dock. The Inner Harbour is a real tourist destination with two food malls full of restaurants and bars, a Science Centre, the National Aquarium, and USS Constitution (a boat that fought in the Civil War) as well as water taxis and 4 or 4 huge marinas. We are arriving here at the start of the US Columbus Day weekend so it is a very busy spot.

Oct 11 – 14 Baltimore
Another hot sunny day here in Baltimore. The Inner Habour is crawling with runners and spectators for the Baltimore Marathon and the other races for running day. Over 17,000 people were registered for the various races. We spent the morning doing school and getting the boat tidied. We decided that getting groceries was more important than doing the tourist thing today. After lunch we dropped the dingy down and Annie Kristen and I went for a 20 minute dinghy ride back out the harbour to little place where we could tie up the dinghy and go to the big Safeway store. It worked out really well and we got a big load of groceries, including all the fixings for Thanksgiving supper, but it took us most of the afternoon. While we were gone Dave bought Harbour Passes for us so we can see four different Baltimore attractions over the next four days. The first one was a trip up to the 27th floor of the Trade Center where we got a great view of the city. After we got back we had pizza for supper. The oven is not working that well and it is moving to the top of Dave’s list of things to look at in Baltimore. On Sunday, the girls got some school work done while Dave started to take the stove and oven apart. At 11:00 the girls and I went over to the Science Museum to take a look around before lunch. It was great being so close. We were able to spend an hour or so, then go back to the boat for lunch and to get Dave and then go back again. We spent the whole afternoon there. Amongst other things, we did an experiment that compared how well bleach, dish soap, household cleaner and disinfecting gel did at killing bacteria – surprisingly bleach did better than the disinfecting hand cleaner. On Monday (Thanksgiving) morning we discovered that the stove was leaking kerosene from one of the (irreplaceable) fittings. It’s not looking good for Thanksgiving supper… Dave took the stove out and took it apart again while the girls and I went to the aquarium. When we got back to the boat at lunch Dave had found a place within walking distance that might be able to weld the leak in the fitting for the stove… We’ll have to wait and see how they make out tomorrow, but in the meantime we only have out little microwave (and no stove, over, toaster, kettle etc. etc.) So much for Thanksgiving!! We went back to the aquarium and saw the dolphin show and spent the rest of the afternoon there. After the Aquarium Annie and I walked to the market and got a roast chicken and we had that with some rice and salad and topped it off with the Thanksgiving pumpkin Pie.
We started Tuesday off with a family walk to the place that was supposed to fix the store, but when we got there it still wasn’t done so we went to the Children’s Museum. It was a little farther from the boat than the aquarium and the science center (maybe a 12 minute walk) so we decided to go to McDonalds for lunch. After lunch Dave went back to the boat to follow up on the stove, and I took the girls back to the Kids Museum. We all got back to the boat around 3:00 and Dave had the repaired stovetop. We got the stove/oven back together by 4:00 and gave it a try. Now let’s remember it’s about 85° , and we’re on a small boat, and our turkey breast was ready to be cooked yesterday, so of course we started to cook Thanksgiving dinner! Actually, it worked really well and we had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas and pumpkin pie for dessert –in the cockpit where it was cool.

Oct 10 - Baltimore MD

2008-10-11T15:04:00.001-07:00

Wow - we finally have internet!

Here's the update up until yesterday -- I will update again before we leave Baltimore.

Sept 29 – Westbrook
We woke up at 6:00 and it was pouring with rain so we decided to stay in Westbrook another day. It turned out to be quite a nice day. The girls did school work in the morning. In the afternoon they went over to visit Linda and Ed and make some jewelry. I walked up to the Laundromat and got the laundry done.

Sept 30 – Westbrook to Glenn Cove, NY
We left fairly early – a little after 6:30 – to catch the current down Long Island Sound. Originally we planned to all the way to City Island just north of New York City, with the plan to go into the city by bus on Wednesday. After considering the forecast we decided that we should go through NYC tomorrow, so we only went about 60 miles to Glenn Cove. We were anchored around 4:00. Glenn Cove is on Long Island and we were there with Misty (on Sept 30th). It is surprisingly underdeveloped. There is a good sized park that seems a little tired, but it had a playground and a nice beach. Kristen found some new shells that we hadn’t seen before.

Oct 1 – Glenn Cove to Great Kills (Staten Island)
We left Glenn Cove around 10:45 after the girls got some school work done. It is important to get the current timed correctly to go down the East River through New York with favourable current, so it meant we got to make a late start. Travelling through New York is pretty exciting. You start north of the city with Laguardia airport and the jets are taking off and landing right next the to river so they are flying right over the boat. Next you pass by Riker’s Island prison. Then you go passed a couple of islands and you are into Hell’s Gate where it can be quite turbulent with the current. After Hell’s Gate you are travelling right down beside Manhattan and all the skyscrapers including the United Nations building, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. You go under 9 different bridges in one day. After you pass by Manhattan you are in New York Harbour and can see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We crossed under the ninth bridge – the Verazzano and then headed south east to Great Kills Harbour in Staten Island. It took a little while to get organized with a mooring, but eventually we were settle about 4:00 – just a few minutes before the rain started.
Carpe Diem was also here and they came over for a visit after supper. It was really nice to see them and to get caught up.

Oct 2 – Manhattan

We had a great day visiting New York. We walked about half a mile to the Great Kills train station, and then took the train all the way up Staten Island to St. George and the Staten Island ferry. We then took the ferry to Manhattan and the subway up to 81st street and the Museum of Natural History. It is an incredible museum in an incredibly beautiful building. There are beautiful displays of animals that date back to 1920. I’m not usually a fan of taxidermy, but this is so beautifully done with such wonderful backgrounds for the animals that it is really great to see. Annie and Dave went to see an IMAX film on sea monsters, and Kristen and I went to see a display on Horses. They had a great discovery center and we looked at lots of things through the microscope. We were at the museum until around 2:00. After we left the museum we went for a walk in Central Park. It is really nice. There was a pretty pond you could walk around and there were people rowing boats. There were turtles in the pond too. It was really different to have such a peaceful place surrounded by the skyscrapers of New York. We walked down through Central Park and then down Broadway to Times Square. We went into a couple of stores including the biggest and best Build-A-Bear Workshop we’d ever seen. Lucy (Kristen’s bear) and Juno (Annie’s Boxer) are now sporting New York Jets clothing in honor of Brett Favre having joined the Jets, and Carmel (Annie’s girl dog) has a flashy New York t-shirt. We left the city around 4:00 and took the long trip back to Great Kills. The day went really well. Transit was really easy (and cheap), the city was clean, and there were lots of police around so we felt really safe.

Oct 3 – Great Kills
It was windy again today so Great Kills is filling up with boats waiting to go south. It sounds like there is a good weather window to do the coast of New Jersey starting tomorrow, but it is long enough that we can wait and leave on Sunday. We went to shore in the morning and the girls did their school work in the club house and we all got showers. There is no wireless here so we can’t update the log, but there is a computer we can use. I bought tickets online for us to go see Hairspray on Broadway tomorrow – Kristen and I are really excited, Dave will come if he has to. We also found a possible house to rent in Florida. In the afternoon Annie and I walked up to the "Top Tomato" grocery store. On our way we ran into Chris and Penny (carrying their Sobey’s Green Bag!) and Penny can with us too. It had great produce and very reasonably priced meat but very expensive and limited canned and dry goods. There were lots of people in the clubhouse around suppertime as they all planned their departure the following day.

Oct 4 – Manhattan (again)
We made the long trek to Manhattan again – train, ferry, subway and it took a little longer than it did on Thursday as train was delayed and there wasn’t enough time for us to get from the train to the ferry and we had to wait for the next ferry. We took the subway up to Penn Station and when we go there it was raining so we decided not to go to the Empire State building. Instead we went to Macy’s which was really incredible – we went up the 7 floors to kids wear on an escalator that was all trimmed in oak, and on the way back down the whole escalator was wooden. As we continued up 5th avenue we came across the magnificent New York Public Library. It is an incredible building that shows how important the written word was around the turn of the last century. Then we walked over to pick up our tickets for the show and had lunch at the Cosmic Diner across from the theatre. We were sitting in our awesome, fourth row seats by 1:40 and ready for the show. It was terrific. George Wendt who played Norm on Cheers was Tracy’s Mum (the role played by John Travolta in the movie) and he was absolutely fabulous. The show was so well done, Dave couldn’t get over it. He really enjoyed it, as did the rest of us. We were so glad we stayed the extra day so that we saw it. It was pretty crowded walking back to the subway through Times Square after the show, but it was really the only time in New York that we saw big crows and we had walked around enough before to know where we were going so it was ok. Again, we missed the train connection after the ferry and had to wait and extra half hour. It was about 7:00 when we got back to the boat.

Oct 5 - Great Kills to Barnegat NJ
We left Great Kills around 7:00. The seas were kind of sloppy as we went across from Staten Island and around the tip of New Jersey and back out into the Atlantic. It was a little too rough for school so it was a bit of a long boring day. The most interesting (?) thing that happened was overhearing a conversation on the radio between a fishing boat that was dragging about 14 miles off shore and the Coast Guard. Apparently the fishing boat pulled up a wetsuit in their fishing gear and there was still a leg in it… Certainly conjured up some pretty yucky thoughts and sent shivers down our spines. We decided to push on past Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat inlet where we had gone before with Misty. It is supposed to be a sort of challenging harbour but after talking to a guy at Great Kills we decided we would rather anchor there than do the marina in Manasquan. We had a bit of a time getting tied up at the fuel dock as there is quite a bit of current, but we took our time and got tied up safely. We took Rudder to shore and then we went out in the harbour and anchored. We were anchored a little after 5:00.

Oct 6 – Barnegat to Atlantic City
We left Barnegat around 7:00. It was pretty sloppy as we went back out into the ocean but it settled down after a bit. After listening to the forecast it sounded like Wednesday would be a better day to go up the Delaware than tomorrow, so we decided to stop in Atlantic City rather than push on to Cape May. We headed into Atlantic City around noon and were tied up a the Gardiner Basin Marina around 12:30. After lunch we caught the Jitney bus to the Boardwalk and had a look around. We saw a water show with fountains inside a mall near the boardwalk. Then we walked up to the outlet mall and bought a couple of things and caught the Jitney back to the boat around 5:30. (Still no internet!!)

Oct 7 – Atlantic City to Cape May
We left Atlantic City around 10:30 as we wanted the wind to die down a little. School got started early and was almost done before we left. The trip to Cape May was uneventful. The seas were calm which was a pleasant surprise. We had a little bird land on the deck and stay with us for about 15 minutes. We got out the bird book and decided it was a pine warbler. We got to Cape May 5:00 and put down the anchor. Annie and I took Rudder to shore on a little sandy beach off the Coast Guard College.

Oct 8 – Cape May to Chesapeake City
We knew the current would be against us in the morning, so we didn’t try to leave really early. We’re out of bread (as well as most groceries) and there isn’t a grocery store close to the anchorage. Kristen and I tried to make two different recipes that looked like bread – the first turned out to be more like cookies and I burnt them… The second was pretty easy and Kristen whipped up the 3 cups of flour, 2 tbsp of sugar and a can of warm beer and we put it into a heavy pot to cook. We weren’t sure quite what to expect but we ended up with a palatable loaf of bread!! When we make it again I think we’ll try to make it in a coffee can so we get a better-shaped loaf. In the end we left around 8:00. We went through the Cape May Canal and then did the long trip up the Delaware Bay. It was about a 60 mile day and we finally arrived in Chesapeake City at around 6:00. It was just getting dark and we were pretty tired and we had a hard time anchoring. Annie and I went to shore with Rudder and tried to find some groceries but no luck. We went back to the boat and scraped up a supper of hamburgers and noodles

September 28 - Westbrook CT

2008-09-28T17:57:00.001-07:00

It's getting late to post pictures tonight, but if you want to see the project the girls did on Plymouth, I've added a link to it in the link list on the top right of the blog...

Sept 25 - 27 Newport (and Mystic)
Wednesday and Thursday we stayed in Newport as there were really high winds in Buzzard’s Bay and Block Island Sound. School was done in the morning and then we walked around Newport in the afternoons. Newport is a really pretty city with lots to look at.
On Friday there were heavy rains forecast so we decided to rent a car and go to Mystic Seaport. Mystic is a small town in Connecticut and there is a really large maritime museum there. They have been working on developing it since 1930 or 1940, We picked up the car a little after 9:00 and were at the museum by 10:30. It is a really wonderful place. Most of the small buildings there are original buildings that were built elsewhere in the 1900’s and brought to Mystic there are lots of nautical theme buildings as well as a store, a school, a bank, and cooperage, a blacksmith. There is a building that shows how rope was made that was originally part of a rope factory. The last surviving whaling ship is there as well. We had a really enjoyable day even though it was raining and we didn’t’ leave Mystic until about 4:00. We made a couple of quick stops on the way back and had the car back to Enterprise by 6:00

Sept 28 Newport to Stonington Connecticut
We decided that the forecast wasn’t that bad and we would leave Newport. We weren’t exactly sure where we would end up, but we had spent enough time in Newport. It was a very wet day, but after we actually got out of Newport Harbour the seas were fairly calm and it was a better day than we expected. We had kind of hoped to go to Block Island, but we decided that the weather wasn’t going to be that great for exploring and we were better off to go farther west. We decided on Stongington CT. It is a really nice little town with lots of older homes, full of character. There is a great playground here. Unfortunately it started to rain again when we were out for our walk so that wasn’t too great. The kids went for a swim when we got back to the boat. We had lasagna for supper which was quite a bit of work but everyone really enjoyed it.

Sept 29 – Stonington to Westbrooke CT
We got a fairly early start and left around 7:00 – it was still barely light and quite foggy. We decided to tow the dinghy, but took the motor off. We wanted to leave early enough to catch the favourable current going down Long Island Sound. It worked out well and we had 1 or 2 knots of current with us all the way. We had been emailing back and forth with Chris and Penny on Carpe Diem and they had found a great marina in Westbrooke so we headed in there and were tied up by 11:30. People are really friendly here. Someone lent us a car so the girls and I went and got lots of heavy groceries like soup, water and pop. Dave stayed behind and changed the oil. After we got the groceries put away and went for a little walk there was a little Sunday afternoon gathering at the BBQ shelter so we went over. There was a really nice lady (Linda) who makes jewelry and gave Annie a few pointers and gave her some of her old jewelry making tools. Someone else bought a pair of Annie’s earrings. There were also a couple of other kids around so the girls played soccer. We had a great BBQ steak for supper.

September 24 -- Newport RI

2008-09-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of Kristen pickin some corn at Plymouth Plantation. Most of our Plymouth pictures are included in a project the girls did on Plymouth. We should get that uploaded in the next few days. Having some technical difficulties!

Sept 19 (Friday) – Plymouth Mass
We started the day with showers at the yacht club and then went down to see the Mayflower II. Last night, Dave noticed on a list of events, that today is Home Schooling day at Plymouth Plantation and a discount is available. What a discount! It was 50% off – enough to pay for our mooring tonight! We had a great day looking at Mayflower II which is quite a bit like Hector, and then taking the bus the three miles to Plymouth Plantation. The plantation is wonderfully done. There is an introductory movie about 1620, the Wampanoag natives that lived here at the time and the people that came on the Mayflower. There is a recreation of part of a Wampanoag village. There are wampanoag people there that are not in character, but are in costume and it is very interesting. They have some houses that are made out of big pieces of bark, tied to a structure made of bent saplings. These are fairly permanent dwellings and they do not move them around. Inside there are beds around the outside that are made of wood and covered in about 6 inches of furs. The insides of the walls are covered in woven mats. There are spaces in the ceiling for the smoke from the fires to get out. Apparently, with the fires going in the winter, it stays about 60 – 65 degrees inside the house. The wampanoag also had summer houses that were the same basic sapling structure, but were covered in woven mats made of bull rushes. They carried the mats from place to place so they were reusable. From the Wampanoag village, we moved on to a recreation of the village of Plymouth around 1625, a few years after the original pilgrims arrived. There were many characters in the town in role of people that actually lived there. It was wonderfully done and really interesting. On the bus we met another family with one 7 year old daughter they are just beginning a five year adventure on their trawler Emily Grace – named for their daughter. After our adventure at the plantation we got another bus to Walmart and got groceries (my Sobey’s blood felt really weird doing that!). When we were going back to the boat in the tender, there was this tiny, old lady and a younger man in the tender with us. They got out at a small open boat with the controls in the centre – the lady went right to the controls. I guess she is 88 and lives alone in a cottage out on one of the islands near the entrance of Plymouth. It is unusual for anyone to go with her. Pretty amazing! After the groceries were put away we went out for supper as a reward for the previous two long days of travelling.

Sept 20 (Saturday) – Cape Cod Canal
The three girls went to shore to take Rudder for a walk and to find out about getting diesel in Plymouth. We learned that the town fuel dock wasn’t able to supply fuel, and that it was difficult to get a sailboat into the fuel dock at the marina. In the end, we got the tender driver from the yacht club to take us to the marina with our jerry can and we got 6 gallons of diesel, enough to get us to our next destination of Onset, Mass, just on the other side of the canal
We left Plymouth around 10 under sunny skies and light wind with the intent of getting to the Cape Cod Canal just at the start of the ebb current. There is a lot of current that flows through the canal, and you are far better off to go with the current. We arrived at the canal at 1:30 as planned. We heard on the radio that they were going to be lowering the train-bridge at the other end of the canal at 2:30 when a tall ship that was travelling with us was through. Of course it could motor much more quickly than we could so we went as fast as we could so we wouldn’t have to wait 45 minutes for the bridge to go down and then up again after the train went through. Fortunately we made it! The canal is beautiful. In total we went under two fixed highway bridges and the train bridge. Just at the end of the canal we turned into Onset Bay. We were able to get fuel and then went and picked up a mooring off the town dock. The town is as quaint as we remembered. It doesn’t look like it has changed much since the 50’s. We got a couple of groceries and then made pizza for supper.

Sept 21 (Sunday) – Onset to Hedley Harbour
It was a beautiful, warm sunny day. The kids did a bit of school work and then went to town and got slushies. They had a great time swimming – the water was about 20 degrees. We went exploring a bit in the dinghy. Around 2:00 the current changed in the canal and we left Onset. We headed across Buzzards Bay to a little anchorage near Woods Hole. There was a lovely breeze blowing – right on the nose. We decided to sail anyway and sailed back and forth across Buzzards Bay. There were lots of boats out there on such a beautiful sunny Sunday. Eventually we put the sails down and motored the rest of the way to Hedley Harbour. There were supposed to be a number of public moorings there, but when we got in the harbour there were boats on every mooring. We were just turning around to leave and someone said they were about to leave so we waited a couple of minutes and took that mooring. We were all tied up by around 5:30. It is a pretty spot, but the island that surrounds the harbour is privately owned and they don’t want anyone going to shore there. There is a little island at the end of the harbour and the public is allowed to go there so we were able to take Rudder to shore.

Sept 22 (Monday) – Hedley Harbour to Cuttyhunk
We left mid morning and sailed the 20 miles or so to the island of Cuttyhunk, the last island in the Elizabeth Island chain. By the time we arrive there the wind was blowing 15 – 20 NE and it was quite rough even inside the harbour. We had some lunch and then put the dinghy down and went to shore. We had a lovely walk around the island. There are quite a number of houses, but only about 30 year round residents. It would seem the primary means of transportation on the island is by golf cart! We had a nice chat with a lady that has lived there year round for about 4 years. It can get pretty desolate in the winter when the harbour freezes over and there really isn’t much way to get to the mainland. The moorings are expensive here ($40)

Sept 23 (Tuesday) – Cutttyhunk to Newport RI
The weather doesn’t sound great for travelling the next few days so we figured we better leave Cuttyhunk. Block Island doesn’t sound that protected from the NE winds either so we headed to Newport Rhode Island, back closer to the mainland. We left around 7:30 after putting a reef in the mailsail incase it was really windy, and putting the dinghy back up on davits. Instead of a stormy day it is a nice and sunny day and we had a lovely sail with 10-15NE winds coming across our beam. We got to Newport around 12:00 and picked up a mooring at OldPort Marine for $45. It is $30 on a town mooring but it is a lot farther across the bay to town and we don’t want to have to cross the bay in the dinghy if it is rough. Dave and Kristen did the laundry and Annie and I went looking in shops. Annie and Kristen found Rhode Island charms for their bracelets – Kristen got a Nantucket Basket and Annie got a starfish.

September 19 -- Plymouth Mass.

2008-09-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

Hi all -- I'm sitting outside a little restaurant in Plymouth and it's too cold here to load any pictures today -- be sure to check out the link to the google map though...

Sept 13 – Sept 15 (Saturday – Monday) Boothbay Harbour
We decided to stay another day in Boothbay as it is such a pretty little town. We did school in the morning and then went to town in the afternoon. There is a great shoe store here and Dave got a pair of sneakers, Kristen got a pair of shoes and I got a pair of leather boat boots. We wandered around town, got some groceries and walked over the footbridge that crosses the head of the harbour. It used to be an opening bridge, and there is a house on the bridge where the bridge keeper used to live. Apparently there is a trap door in the floor of the kitchen that was used during the days of the rumrunners.
It was wet and windy on Sunday so we decided to stay put, and will likely also be here tomorrow. We got the schoolwork and laundry done in the morning. At 4:00 we went back to McSeagull to watch the football game – New York Jets against New England. New England won which was great for their QB who had never started a game before, but not so great for Brett Farve the new QB for New York. On Monday we got the schoolwork done and we were going to go bowling, but the bowling alley was closed. Instead we decided to walk to the Maine State Aquarium. On the not-to-scale map we figured it was 2 or 3 miles. It was a loooong walk. It took us well over an hour, and when we got there, of course, it was closed. We had a little look around at the displays that were outside and then walked back to Boothbay.

Sept 16 (Tuesday) Boothbay to Freeport.
We put the dingy up on the davits (not towing that again), left at 6:30 and had a calm smooth motor to South Freeport. The girls were able to get their schoolwork done under way. We arrived around 12:00 and got a mooring. We had a quick sandwich and had the marina shuttle take us to Freeport around 1:00. We had a busy couple of hours getting things that we needed – Cathy, Kristen and Annie got rain jackets, Dave, Kristen and Annie got jeans, Kristen found the Keen sandals she wanted for half price! Annie and I walked really fast to go the mile or so to the end of town, get a couple of groceries go to the school supply store and then walk back to meet the shuttle at 3:45. The lady that drove us back on the shuttle seems and seems to be running the marina is one of the girls that we remembered that ran the shuttle when we were here before. She told us a bit about her trip to the Bahamas with her parents and sister when she was in grade 8.

Sept 17 (Wednesday) Freeport to Portsmouth N.H./Kittery Maine
As much as we would have liked to spend another day in Freeport, today was forecast to be a good travel day so we put the dinghy up on davits and were underway at 6:00. We weren’t sure where we were destined for today – we hoped Rye NH, but we called there and there was no room. We tried calling the harbourmaster in York Maine, but we couldn’t get a hold of anyone there… We figured that we would find somewhere to stay in Portsmouth even though it would be a bit of a struggle against the strong current. It was a stressful day as it was quite foggy off and on after 11:00, but it was fairly calm and the kids got some of their schoolwork done. We finally came into Portsmouth and out of the fog around 4:00. There was a mooring field/anchorage near the mouth of the harbour, on the Maine side of the river in Pepperill Cove so we pulled in there and picked up a Pepperill Cove Yacht Club mooring. We called them on the radio and didn’t get a hold of anyone so we dropped the dinghy and the three girls took Rudder to shore and to find someone to pay. We found out that the PCYC is actually on the New Hampshire side of the river… so we figured if they came to get their money we’d be happy to give it to them. We had a great (short) walk to an old fort that is now a state park. The fort was built around 1840 and was manned through 5 wars including the Civil War, Spanish American war and World War I It was really neat to walk around and look at the battlements. Unfortunately we forgot to take the camera.

Sept 18 (Thursday) Portsmouth N.H. to Plymouth Massachusetts
We had a big day planned for today with a long destination of Plymouth Mass at 72 miles, or alternately Scituate Mass at 62 miles. Seas were forecast at 3-5 feet and winds of 10-15NE so it sounded like it would be a pretty good trip. Unfortunately it was quite a bit windier than forecast and the seas were more like 10-12 feet. Good thing they were behind us! We had no mishaps but didn’t have any lunch either!! School was called off for a "wave day". We made it all the way the Plymouth and were tied up on an (expensive) mooring at 5:30. The people at the yacht club are really friendly and that makes a huge difference after a long and tiring day. We had a little walk around town and looked through the fence at Mayflower II that brought 102 pilgrims from England to Massachusetts in 1620. Had a late supper and then off to bed.

Friday - Sept 12 -- Boothbay

2008-09-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

Water in the dinghy after Hurricane Hanna

Tuesday Sept 9 – Northeast Harbour
On Tuesday we did a little school in the morning and then caught the bus to Bar Harbour again, but this time we took Rudder with us. He was really good on the bus. From Bar Harbour we caught another bus to Sandy Beach and from there we walked past Thunder Hole to Otter Point. It is a really pretty walk. At Thunder Hole the waves come in a narrow break in the rock and into a low cave so it sounds like thunder when it hits. There can also be some pretty big sprays of water when it hits. We just got on the bus again at Otter Point and the rain started pouring down. We hadn’t shut all the windows on the boat, so when we got back to Bar Harbour, Annie Dave and Rudder headed back to the boat and Kristen and I went to get groceries. On the way back on the bus, Chris and Penny got on too so we had a chance to catch up with them. They are heading out tomorrow for Carver’s Cove, then Christmas Cove and then Portland.
After supper we went over to Seahawk and the kids had a rousing game of Pit. We got home around 9:00.

Wednesday Sept 10 – Somes Sound
Dave went to town in the morning and did the laundry and checked email. We left Northeast Harbour at 12:30 after school was finished. Our first stop was the fuel dock that was at the mouth of Northeast Harbour. Next we went into Southwest Harbour to go to the marine store. It was pretty windy and we had a bit of a time finding a rental mooring. Then we got really wet in the dinghy going to the store. It wasn’t as easy as I had thought it would be! We picked up a few things we needed and then left there around 3:30 or 4:00 to go up to Somes Sound. This is apparently the only fiord on the East Coast on the US. It is really worth seeing – there are steep cliffs and high hills covered in trees and rocks. We picked up a mooring in Somesville at 5:00. At the top of the sound is a really pretty little town that was originally settled in 1761. Everything was closed when we got there but we saw a library, a museum and a bookstore. We had pizza for supper. After supper we went exploring in the dinghy and just around the other side of the island there was a campground with wooden platforms for the tents. It looked like a great campground.

Thursday Sept 11 – Carver’s Cove – Vinalhaven Island
We went back to the village in the morning to go to the bookstore. We bought a couple of books and then dropped the mooring at 10:30 to head back down the sound. We motored most of the day as we were going into the wind (again) and we were zig zagging between lots of little islands. We saw several beautiful schooners sailing off in the distance. It was nice and calm and the girls were able to get all their schoolwork done under way. Around 3:00 we were able to put all the sails up and we had a glorious sail in the sunshine and sailed the rest of the way to Carver’s Cove. We dropped anchor at around 5:00. As we were dropping the anchor, the girls noticed that there was a line caught around the propeller. Dave tried to get the line free from the dinghy but there was just no way to free it. Finally, I went swimming (the water wasn’t that bad – warmer than the air) and after 4 or 5 attempts I got it off. Then I got the piece of seaweed out of the knot meter so we could see how fast we were going again. Funny thing… looking back in our log to our last trip, I went swimming to clean off the propeller and free up the knotmeter on Misty on Sept 10 in Tenants Harbour which is just on the other side of Vinalhaven.

Friday Sept 12 – Carvers’Cove to Boothbay
The forecast was for calm seas and light winds so we left the dinghy in the water with plans to tow it instead of putting it up on the davits. About an hour after we left the seas were getting pretty choppy and confused so I went back to look at the dinghy line and it was starting to fray. I put a chafe guard on it and we decided to hope for the best. A little while later I looked back and heard a snap just in time to see the dingy float away from the boat. We were able to go back and pick up another line in the dinghy and get it reattached to the boat. I tried to make a new chafe guard but ended up cutting my thumb instead. The wind continued to pick up, as did the seas. It was overcast and we had occasional showers. The bow kept getting buried in the waves and the waves would wash over the deck. At one point the boat really slowed down and we were only going about three knots instead of our usual six. This continued for a little while and then Dave decided to go see if we’d picked up another line in the propeller. There was no line caught in the propeller, but he could see a line dragging in the water on the starboard side of the boat. He went forward and found that we had caught a lobster buoy in a wire stay that runs from the bow spit back to the bow of the boat. We must have snagged it one of the times the bow went under the water – what are the chances?? We’d been dragging a lobster trap for a couple of miles (that will be pretty confusing for some lobsterman won’t it!). We finally got to Boothbay at 5:00 and picked up a mooring off the Tugboat Inn. We went out for supper at McSeagull’s we ordered way too much food and ended up bringing enough back to the boat for lunch tomorrow. In Misty’s log we had a similar day going to Boothbay with large confused seas – we sent the dogs below and Simon managed to turn off the main battery switch!

Tuesday Sept 9 -- Northeast Harbour, Maine, USA

2008-09-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Annie starting her shift at 9:00pm

(more pictures will follow on next blog update!)

Friday Sept 5 – Saturday Sept 6 – Shelburne to Northeast Harbour, Maine, USA
We left as scheduled at 7:00. We didn’t have any difficulty getting out of the marina as the winds were calm, but it was incredibly foggy. Carpe Diem left with us as planned. We took quite a while to get out of Shelburne Harbour as went really slow in the fog. We saw quite a few seals, a couple of loons and some harbour porpoises. The fog continued as we went offshore and that kept the seas fairly calm. The winds were light so there was no sailing. We all took turns resting through out the day in preparation for our night at sea. When Kristen and I were resting, Dave and Annie saw a yellowfin tuna jump out of the water. A little while later I saw a small whale right off the bow of the boat -- probably only about four feet off the starboard (right) side of the boat. Before we left, Dave had done some back of the envelope estimates of where we would be at what times to gauge how the strong tides and currents around the end of Nova Scotia would affect us. The times were amazing close! The seas were quite calm at suppertime so I made ham steak and hash browns. After supper the wind came up enough to sail so we put the headsail out. Kristen and I did the 7-9 shift as night fell. The fog was still all around us until the sun was gone and then the fog lifted and the moon and the stars came out. The wind continued to pick up over night but probably never went over 20 knots. Around 4:30, the motor quit. There was quite a bit of sea and we were low on fuel so sediment in the tank was getting into the engine. Dave changed the fuel filter and bled the line and got the engine going again, but a few minutes later it died again. We called Carpe Diem to see if they had an extra jerry can of diesel and they did, so we decided we would continue under sail until Carpe Diem caught up to us (we travel a little faster then they do and the were about 10 miles behind). We had a lovely sail as the sun rose, but the fog was rolling in again. When we got fairly close to Maine we reduced sail and waited for Carpe Diem. They caught up to us mid morning and after a few conversations back and forth on the radio, they found us in the fog. While we were waiting, we put the dinghy in the water, so when they arrived, Dave rowed back to them to get the jerry can and then rowed back to us and put the diesel in. In rolly seas this sounds a lot easier than it was!! The engine worked fine then and we set off in the fog up, through the lobster trap buoys for Northeast Harbour. The harbour is really busy with boats getting moved around in anticipation of the coming storm. We picked up a mooring and called into customs. It took most of the afternoon before the customs man came but eventually we got cleared through customs with no problems. We had a walk around the town before we went back to the boat for supper and a well-deserved sleep. We saw Glass Slipper but John and Cindy weren’t around. There is another family here that is just beginning a two year cruise and they have four kids on board.

Sunday Sept 6 – Monday Sept 7 – Northeast Harbour
On Sunday we did school in the morning and then took the free bus to Bar Harbour in the afternoon. Annie, Kristen and I had planned to get showers in the morning when Dave was doing some work on the engine, so Dave took us to shore – unfortunately had dinghied back to the boat with the shower bag! We went over to visit John on Glass Slipper and catch up on their latest adventures. Cindy had gone home for a few days to see her Mom. We had fun shopping in Bar Harbour and the girls got charms for their charm bracelets. Annie got an anchor and Kristen got a lobster trap. We went out for supper with Chris and Penny at the Tan Turtle Tavern. It was great!
On Monday we planned to go the Natural History museum in Bar Harbour so we planned to catch the early bus. Things didn’t really go as planned… It took a lot longer than expected for Dave and Chris to go to the fuel dock to fill the jerry cans… then we took the computer to shore to get on the internet and that didn’t work out so we needed to take it back to the boat before we left. We finally got to the museum around 11:30, only to find out it was closed on Mondays. We got sandwiches for lunch and then Dave decided to go back to the boat. We stayed in Bar Harbour and walked across the sand bar to Bar Island. After that we went to the whale museum and then headed back to NorthEast Harbour and got a few groceries. We had hamburgers for supper and made cookies to take over to SeaHawk after supper. SeaHawk is the boat with the four kids. We went for a little walk in town and then went over to SeaHawk around 7:00. They had just gotten back from a long hike and were pretty tired. We had a nice visit and were back on Bird around 9:00.

Mahone Bay to Shelburne - September 4

2008-09-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we spent a little while looking around Mahone Bay. We got a demonstration of how pewter is made at the Amos Pewter shop. In the afternoon we went and picked up our jib, and then went to Lunenburg to the Fisheries Museum. We had supper with Mum and Andy at Magnolia's grill which was great.

Some pics from Brooklyn -- a picture Annie took of Dave when she was up the mast, a picture of Kristen when she was up the mast, a picture of the wharf in Brooklyn

On Friday we left at 7:30 after we put the jib on. We motor sailed to a nice little marina in Brooklyn, just outside of Liverpool arriving in the middle of the afternoon. People are really friendly here. The marina is all run by volunteers, and the dockage is paid by donation. There is a wonderful playground built by Bowater Mersey on the site of the childhood home of Hank Snow just a couple of block from the Marina. Annie and Kristen each took a turn and climbed up the Mizzen mast on the mast steps. We planned to leave on Saturday, but there didn’t seem to be much point as we don’t have a good forecast for crossing to Maine. We have decided that we will cross over from Shelburne which is only 55 miles from here, and we won’t be able to leave for Maine until Wednesday or Thursday. On Saturday morning, Annie decided to fly her kite on the wharf. Unfortunately it took a big swoop into the spreaders on the mast and the tail got stuck. Eventually we had to pull the kite so hard the tail broke. After lunch I had to go up the main mast to get the remaining part of the tail of the kite out of the spreaders. On Saturday night, Wayne and Claire who are active volunteers at the canteen invited us to their house to watch a movie in their home theatre. It was an amazing theatre. The screen is as big as the wall and there are three couches set up on different levels one behind the other just like a theater. We watched Spiderwick Chronicles.
on Sunday, we left Brooklyn for Carter’s beach after lunch. On our way out of the harbour we met Carpe Diem who were just heading into Brooklyn. By the time we arrived in Carter’s Beach, the forecast had changed to N30 and more high winds for Monday. In addition, we weren’t really sure where the anchorage was that everyone talked about, and it didn’t look very well protected. We decided that we would be better off back in Brooklyn, so we turned around. By then the thunderclouds had formed and we ended up sailing through a thunderstorm. Dave stayed at the helm and I went below and played cards with the girls. We back in Brooklyn by 7:00 and the dock is full of boats.

Monday Sept 1 – Tuesday Sept 2 – Brooklyn
It’s another wet and windy day. Once again it is best to stay put. We organized a Highland Dance concert for 4:00 in the afternoon, so the girls ran through the dances that they were going to do. We invited the other boaters we knew and let Clair, Wayne and Roger know. Clair thought it was great and called a bunch of the club members. In the end there were around 25 people in the little clubhouse. The girls did a great job. After supper Annie, Kristen and I went to Clair and Wayne’s to watch Jurmanji with Robin Williams, but after a little while the girls got scared so we stopped that and watched Pirates of the Caribbean instead. Once again it was 10:00 before we got back to the boat.
On Tuesday the forecast was for high winds again, so we decided to venture to Liverpool (on foot). We left around 9:30 with two bikes and Rudder. It took us about an hour to walk to town, with stops along the way at the Home Hardware Building Center and the Adventure Outfitters. In Liverpool, Dave went to the Cap site and to the Bank. We also went and looked around a couple of little stores. There was a family dentist in town, so I took Kristen in on the off chance that they could replace the filling that had fallen out. Fortunately, she was able to do it right away! We had lunch at subway and picked up a few groceries and then headed back to the boat. We were back around 2:00 and all quite tired from our adventure. Dave finally got the package changed on the BlackBerry so we would have coverage in the States, but then we couldn’t send any emails. It took another couple of phone calls to make some changes to the configuration and then we waited a while and by morning it was working again.
Now it’s Wednesday – more high winds forecast and it’s pouring with rain… Another day in Brooklyn.

Today we were finally able to leave Brooklyn. We had a bit of a choppy day and the wind was on the nose again. We left a little before 7:00 and were tied up at the Shelburne Marina at 3:00 after getting 100l of diesel. Dave changed the oil and I did the laundry. We are waiting to see what will happen with Hurricane Hanna - it is supposed to hit this area on Sunday so we aren't sure if we will cross to Maine before or after.

Aug27 - Canso to Mahone Bay

2008-08-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since we found internet!

The forecast was for light winds so we left Canso at 6:50 with the two other boats we met in Canso -- Carpe Diem and Cirrius. It was partly cloudy but not a bad day. We went through St Andrew's Passage then out into the Atlantic. It was still pretty rough because of the high winds the past few days. We thought we'd hang in until around 1:00 and then pack it in if it didn't get better. Fortunately it did get better and the seas were pretty smooth by 11:00 -- still too rough for school though! We went all the way to Liscombe and were tied up there around 5:00. We saw the parents of two of Darla's singers and they thought our trip sounded pretty neat! We went for a swim in the pool and had hot showers and then went out for supper at the restaurant with the folks of the other two boats.

We left Liscombe at 6:30 on the 22nd with a plan to have a fairly short day and go to Pope's Harbour but the seas were fairly smooth (still too rough for school) so we kept going to Owl's Head and were anchored in Southwest Harbour around 4:00. We had a great time exploring on shore -- there were great tide pools and lots of rocks to climb on. We had pizza for supper and that was a little more work that I expected!

It was really foggy when we woke up around 6:00 so we didn't leave until 8:10. It was clear leaving the harbour and then the fog rolled back in so we turned on the radar. We arrived in Halifax harbour early in the afternoon and decided we should sail up the waterfront before we went to Armdale. We had a great sail with all sails up and a beautiful sunny day. We saw a whale right beside the boat, Theodore Tugboat was out for a harbour tour and we saw our old boat Misty out for a sail. When we were heading up the Northwest Arm towards Armdale we saw Andrew Wolfsen out on his deck, so Dave gave him a call on the cell phone and he invited us to go over for a swim on Sunday. We tied up at the fuel dock and had to wait a while to get fuel and find out where the guest dock was so it was 7:00 before we were finally tied up for the evening. A little while later we saw Graeme Caskey of M'Lady who used to sail out of Pictou and then Dartmouth. It was an eventful day.

On Sunday the girls all "went to the mall" while Dave did some chores around the boat. Then we went to Andrew's for a swim which was lovely. It was another busy day.

On Monday, Doreen came to Halifax and took us shopping. The girls were so excited to see her! After Doreen left we went to Dartmouth were Dave had a dental appointment and then went to visit Al MacPhee while we got groceries. After all that we got the laundry done so it was a really long day.

On Tuesday we had more errands to run and then Annie and Dave took the car back to Andrew MacPhee. We left the dock at 1:00 on our way to Rogues Roost. Unfortunately we hit a rock ledge on the way into the anchorage but no harm done I guess -- I'm glad we're steel!

On Wednesday we sailed in the rain to Mahone Bay. We had another busy day and then went up to Mum and Andy's for supper.

August 20, 2008 - Canso N.S.

2008-08-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well... We've rented the house, returned the leased car, parked the truck and closed up the cottage and packed the boat - seems like we're ready to go! It is an amazing amount of work to get ready to go away for a year.

We left Baddeck on Sunday in the rain and headed to Orangedale. By the time we got there it was sunny and the girls went fishing on the wharf. I spent more time stowing and tidying. Later in the day we went to the Orangedale train museum for our almost annual visit.

On Monday we got the dinghy up on the davits and got a few more things done and then headed to Marble Mountain. It was a lovely day and we had a great time at the beach swimming and collecting snails and starfish. We had great bbq'd salmon for supper.

Kristen at Marble Mountain

On Tuesday we had a great sail from Marble Mountain to St. Peters and we got fuel and water at the Marina then tied up on the lock wall. We got some groceries and picked up a few other things in St. Peters. We considered locking through in the evening, but decided to stay on the lakeside for the night so the girls could have one last swim in the Bras D'or Lakes.

Dave at the lock

Today we locked through at St. Peter's and left the lakes. The forecast was for about 25knots NW so we knew it would be a windy day. Sure enough it was quite windy crossing Chedebucto Bay so we decided to head into Canso rather than to try to go farther. There is a great little marina here (with access to wireless internet) We went for a nice walk and went to a national historic site commemorating the settlement at Grassy Island around the same time as Louisbourg. Not a great forecast for the next couple of days so we'll see what tomorrow brings...

Wednesday August 13

2008-08-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

Wow - it was almost a sunny day! A few showers meant we still didn't get any painting done on the deck, but it was great to get the clothes dried out and tidy the boat. The girls were in sailing school and then went exploring on Kidston's Island with Thomas and Janice from Lady Fish. After their walk they went swimming at the beach at Kidstons and then came back to Bird for some more swimming.

Dave got the oil changed and the filters changed for both the oil and the fuel. He finished plumbing the new water tanks.

Tomorrow we plan to go back to the cottage for one more night to finish packing and get the grass cut. On Friday it's back to Pictou to drop of the truck and to pick up a few forgotten items at the house.

August 12

2008-08-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

Well it's hard to know when to start this log of our trip. Does it start when we leave Pictou? Cape Breton? Nova Scotia?

Right now we are in Baddeck, in the rain, still. It feels like it has been raining for weeks...

We arrived in Cape Breton in late July and the boat was in Whycocomagh for just over two weeks. Last Saturday we spent the night in Washabuck, then on Sunday we spent the night in McNaughton's Cove -- very near the cottage. On Monday the kids were back at sailing camp in Baddeck and Dave and I moved the boat to Baddeck.

The list of things to do before we go is getting shorter... but we need a sunny day to get the deck painted.