06/14/2009, Great Bridge, VA

From The trip North

Well we did make it out of Florida; we're in Virginia now as of tonight, at a free dock- woohoo! We've only got 12 miles left of the ICW and then we'll be in Norfolk. When we usually pass this area in the Fall headed South, these docks are packed with other cruising boats. Now the docks are almost empty and we've got plenty of room to tie up.

We had a good passage from Cape Canaveral to Beaufort inlet except that we had to motor the whole way, dodging a few thunderstorms. After every storm, we'd get a North wind and the Gulf Stream gets so rough so fast in North winds. It really stresses us out. But we did make fantastic time in the current so it wasn't all bad. The weather wasn't right to keep going as we'd planned so we pulled into the Beaufort, NC inlet so that we could keep moving in the waterway. We spotted our friends on Pendragon anchored near the inlet but since it was 630am, there didn't seem to be anyone up yet so we kept pushing onward to the sleepy little NC town of Belhaven. We took a nice walk the next morning since that is about all you can do there and then continued onward. Last night we anchored in the Little Alligator River after an afternoon of powerful thunderstorms. By the time we anchored, everything was calm and quiet and we sat out on deck with our sundowner and watched the sunset in perfect peace and quiet. It was so beautiful. Like Jon says, cruising is full of 1's and 10's. One minute you're scared for your life in heavy seas or a lightening storm and it's a 1; the next minute you're relaxing with great cruising friends or are anchored watching a gorgeous sunset and it's a 10. There aren't many 5's.

Today we continued on to Great Bridge, VA. Took a nice walk, chatted with another cruiser on the dock and went out to dinner. Now we're pretty sure we're going to be stuck waiting for weather to make the last passage to Boston. Heavy North winds are predicted the next few days. Not great timing for my work start date next Monday! But what can you do when you move at 6 mph?! We'll try our best.

We've really enjoyed the intracoastal waterway these past few days. The birds and scenery are wonderful. It's fun to see our tax dollars at work too- the way its all so well laid out and maintained and the way the bridges lift for us to pass- its great! We keep saying that we could easily spend a season just doing our favorite parts of the waterway, working our way South at a leisurely pace instead of rushing through fighting the cold as we usually do in October. The problem with us is that we have too many places we want to go! I think we should do far away ports now though, while we can and save this stuff for later, but we'll see.

We're going through a little bit of diving withdrawals, especially in this brown waterway water. No great underwater pictures to post either. Well, hopefully it won't be long before we can get out our dive gear again. In the meantime, we've got the waterway smile!

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06/07/2009, Florida

From The trip North

Just a quick note here. After a wonderful time in Miami visiting my sister Ann and all of our old stomping grounds for a week, we felt we had to get moving North toward work for the summer. Problem is, there is unsettled weather here producing severe thunderstorms each day. Morning dawns fine, afternoon and into the night is downright dangerous- if you're on a boat that is. We've tried the past 2 days to start our offshore passage North and have turned around after getting the crap scared out of us and putting ourselves and our boat at risk in the midst of it. We've had hail, wind gusts to 61 kts, North wind in the Gulf Stream, tons of rain and frightening lightening bolts all around us. Last night was a late night after heading 25 miles offshore well into the gulf stream, only to turn West again when we realized we might have a terrible time if the storms got worse over night in that kind of current and wave pattern. We pulled in to Lake Worth inlet late last night. NOAA says, "don't be a statistic" and I keep thinking we're going to end up one if these stupid storms keep catching up with us.

Today we did an intracoastal waterway day and it was actually quite nice until the afternoon when we got another hum-dinger of a thunderstorm. Except this time we were in a narrow channel with shoals on each side. We got in to Vero Beach and cut things short after only a 10 hour day instead of the 12 hour day we'd planned.

So, its been out with the foul weather gear, pants, a polar fleece for me, Jon is asking me for hot broth as he steers in the rain and a cold north wind blows after the storms die off. Yes, THIS is the East coast I remember! But who's complaining? We're in Florida! The best is yet to come! Uhh!

Otherwise, we're enjoying the good food here in the US and the beautiful scenery. It is beautiful here. It'll get even better once we get back to family and friends.

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05/30/2009, Miami, Florida

From Miami

We sailed into Miami yesterday morning after another great passage from the Caymans. I think we're getting a little spoiled but when we head back down South from Boston at some point, we'll get the pay back for all of this fine weather so we're just enjoying it now. We had very light conditions and realized that if we motor at 1800 RPM's, we have a very long motoring range- about 700 or more miles actually, which we never thought we could do. This means we could motor to Bermuda if we had to! We did get some sailing hours but it was so calm most of the time that we used the engine. Well that makes for so much comfort we could just as well have been anchored. We've come so far in our ability to enjoy ourselves on long passages and settle in to a comfortable routine that is almost hard to let go of when we reach our destination.

After days of dragging 2 lines to try and catch a fish, we finally heard the wonderful sound of fish on! Jon reeled in a beautiful female mahi-mahi and I have a picture but forgot to put it on the flash drive. It was a little over 4 feet and the freezer is full of fish now. We put the lines back in and caught another one but it broke the line when we were trying to gaff it. Then we got another hit but this one was small and got off but that was just as well since we wouldn't have kept it anyway. So things are looking up in the fishing department and we're hot to catch more before we leave these Southern waters.

It feels good to be back in Miami and we picked up a mooring on Key Biscayne where we stayed on the way down here in 2007. We called my sister Ann right away and spent the day together yesterday. Unfortunately, Bruce is sick with a bug so wasn't up to joining us. It was a piece of cake checking back in to the US although we did have to report in person to the office at the Port of Miami. Then we got lunch at Bayside and sat outside looking over the water and just got caught up. We went to Krook & Krook to buy more lures in preparation for more fish and we even took a drive over to our old house where we grew up, checked out the houses of old friends, the cherry bushes and tamarind trees where we used to eat the fruits as we rode our bikes around the block (they are still there and the fruits of both were ripe and good to eat!) and checked out our old elementary school which is looking as good as ever. It was such a fun day. We plan to hang out here for several more days and then beat feet North to Boston.

Well that's the latest.

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