| Profile for Foggy Mountain | |||
|
|||
| Captain: | Jeff & Pam Nelson | ||
| Hailing Port: | Boston, Ma | ||
| The Crew: | We grew up in Jamestown, NY and met during our high school years. After Jeff returned from naval service, during the Vietnam era, we got married in 1974. As best friends we have always gravitated towards activities that we could do together. This is why first sailing and then cruising have played such a large part in our relationship. Jeff worked for over 25 years in the computer business repairing hardware in the field, providing technical support, trained techincal support engineers and developed training programs for same. He has always had an ability to fix anything once he understands how it works. These self sufficient skills have helped keep cruising costs down. Pam has been a licensed insurance broker and Certified Insurance Counselor for over 30 years. She has a proven ability to understand her customer's insurance needs to provide them with the most economical coverage. | ||
| Something Extra: |
We are self-taught sailors taking our first sail aboard a Sunfish on a lake in Maine. We bought our first boat in 1975 and since then have owned seven boats culminating with our current vessel "Foggy Mountain". Each vessel was larger enabling us to expand our horizons. We learned how to cruise in the beautiful Rhode Island waters of Narragansett Bay. Each year our vacations and weekends were devoted to exploring places we hadn't seen before. After 16 years we called all the waters of New England home and to this day believe it is one of the best cruising areas we have seen. To further expand our horizons we decided in 1990 to look for a boat we could live aboard with the ultimate goal of cruising other parts of the world. After a year of searching we found "Foggy Mountain" in a boatyard on Lake Michigan. Since we couldn't afford to own both our house and "Foggy Mountain" we made the big jump by selling the house to buy "Foggy". "Foggy Mountain" has been our full time home since June 1991. We moved aboard her at East Passage Yachting Center in Portsmouth, RI which served as our home port while we cruised the waters of New England for the next nine years. In 1995 we tried our hand at offshore passagemaking by sailing to Bermuda for our vacation. After that experience we started saving our money towards the ultimate goal of cruising to tropical waters. By November of 2000 we reached our financial goal and quit our jobs. First we sailed to Bermuda, where we spent Thanksgiving, followed by a voyage to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. From those great Virgin Islands cruising grounds we sailed down the Eastern Caribbean island chain reaching, in early August, Grenada which would be our refuge for the 2001 hurricane season. With a cruising kitty in need of replenishment we knew we had to find real jobs again. So, in early December of 2001 we sailed offshore from the U.S. Virgin Islands directly to southeast Florida where we hoped to find work. Fortunately we found jobs that have allowed us to rebuild the cruising kitty and perform a re-fit of "Foggy Mountain". The refit has been based on updating equipment coupled with lessons learned from 12 months of full time cruising. Now, in October 2008, the re-fit is complete and the cruising kitty replenished so we are preparing to return to the Eastern Caribbean in early 2009. If you are so inclined, please join us here for our next adventure. |
||
| Vessel Make/Model: | Valiant 40, Hull# 255 | ||
Back to Main Blog |
|||
 |
 |
