Our summer vacation
27 August 2009 | Georgia
Jerrie
I guess everyone is wondering what happened to our blog entries. Some probably don't care, but we arrived back in the States and then just stopped adding entries. We have been keeping quite busy working on remodeling our home so we can put it up for sale. It has become too much upkeep and much larger than we need. After spending a year living on a 36 foot sailboat, our house seems enormous. So we are busy painting walls after repairing all the dings and holes from 24 years of use and redoing our flooring. And just like when we refurbished our sailboat, we do as much of the work ourselves as possible. But as we go along our remodeling project we are always finding flaws from the builders that aren't good enough for us so we ending up doing more work than originally planned. We aren't perfectionist but we do believe it should be built with as good a quality as a sailboat. So what took us 3 ½ years to do to our boat, we are trying to do in 4 months and hoping that the housing market improves by the time we have it ready to put on the market.
Our final trip up to New Bern, North Carolina from West Palm Beach, Fl. was the best sail we have had on Trinity. We left West Palm Beach on Sunday, May24th with rain storms, lightning and thunder all around us. We traveled as far north as we could on the Western edge of the Gulf Stream and made great progress with the GPS reading 8 to 10 knots. We actually sailed most of the way, using the engine only to get in and out of inlets along the way and to our final destination. We had a small problem with the engine so we wanted to make sure it ran when we really needed it. Most of our traveling to this point had been with just motor or motor sailing. When we left the Gulf Stream our progress slowed a bit but we made 600 + miles in just 5 days off shore. I really don't care for off shore cruising but John loves it. And our crew, Will and Betsy had an enjoyable trip. This was a totally new experience for them and one that they would love to do again. We had a couple of rain squalls along the way that seemed to always occur when Betsy and I were on watch One of the storms was a little more than a squall. We were on the edge of a tropical storm that came across the Carolina's when we were working our way to the Beaufort inlet, but it went out to sea before it really materialized into anything. The winds came off our quarter and were 30+ miles per hour so it was a fast but comfortable sail. We had a handkerchief of a jib up and it moved us along quite well and the best part was that it ended quickly. However, my foul weather gear leaks like a sieve. I was soaked for four hours until my watch ended. And it was also in the middle of the night. The storm hit about 11pm and we came into Beaufort Inlet at daybreak. We arrived at our marina and new home port at about 4 pm on Saturday May 30th. We didn't stay very long at the marina before heading back to Georgia the next morning. Our crew had to be back to work the next morning. They used up most of their vacation waiting out the weather in Florida, fishing & hanging out with some of John's family living in the area.
Shortly after arriving back in Georgia we took a trip up north to visit our son and daughter-in-law in northern Minnesota. We had plans to take a ride on an oar ship that would have taken us through Lake Superior and Lake Michigan to Chicago and back but it was cancelled because an unauthorized passenger had been injured on one of the ships a few weeks before we arrived. Now a special permit is required for all passengers not employed by the company. We didn't have time to get the permit before our scheduled cruise. But maybe we will get another chance sometime in the future. And the most important part of the trip was to visit with our son and daughter-in-law and four granddogs. On our way to Minnesota we made a side trip to visit a cousin in Wisconsin where we attended her daughter's baptism. She is a cutie and our son and his wife are her Godparents. Even though it was a long drive up there and back, we had an enjoyable trip that was worth every minute we were able to spend with our family. However, the weather was cooler than normal and we were prepared for warmer temperatures. All in all we are enjoying a wonderful summer and hope to be back on the water soon.