11/16/2007, Annapolis, Maryland
Don't they say that trouble always comes in threes? We had a day of cold rain, followed by a day of gale force winds. To make maters worse the batteries weren't charging. We decided to sail to Annapolis and have the technician look at the situation. I thought that we needed new batteries. Well the good news is that Mike, the mechanic, found a loose ground wire. We will be back on the road in the morning at first light. The bad news is, we sailed three hours into 30kt winds to get here. Charlotte and I are both tired. We are in a slip at Port Annapolis, warm and comfortable, so all is well.
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11/15/2007, West River, MD
The cold front blew in with a vengence today. The forcast was for gale force winds, rain and dropping temperatures. We decided to stay anchored here in the West River and hunker down for the day. After all the preparation, taking a day off to read and relax was not a hard sacrifice to make!
Tomorrow is to be better so we plan to be off at first light to make the 50 miles to the Solomons.
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11/14/2007, Blake's Bar Harbor, Stone Creek, MD
The day has finally arrived! We slept like babies last night and awoke this morning to a blanket of fog over the boat. No sense in rushing. Left the dock at 9:00 AM. Visibility 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile. Wind S 3-4 kn. Temperature in the damp 60's. We slid out of the slip and headed for open water...two blankets south!
Everything is working. The new starter was installed on Saturday (after 5 months of waiting for the marina to get to it) and it fired right up. Even though we can't see much, with the electronic plotter, radar, and paper charts we know exactly where we and the ships are. As long as we're not in the same place we're OK!
It's 12:30 and the fog is lifting as we near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Thank you Jim and Barb for driving us down to the boat yesterday. It was nice to get to visit with you. Hope your trip home was pleasant. We were able to get all the perishables stowed with room to spare!
Katie, take good care of everything at home. We'll see you and Kara in Beaufort in a few days.
The soup is ready, time to feed my captain. CC
7:10 PM
Once we passed under the bridge the wind was just off our nose and we raised the sails and turned off the engine. Ahhhh...that's the reason we love to sail!
Decided to head into the West River for the night. With the prediction of south winds, it's much more protected than Herrington Harbor, our original plan.
Now, the problem is the forcast for tomorrow: small craft warnings going to gale warnings later in the day and 100% chance of rain. I think we'll head out early and get a few degrees further south before the worst of the blow begins. We'll see how it looks in the morning! (But we're talking double reefs...)
"I wanna go where there aint"t any snow, where there're ain't any blow, I want to go where it's warm!"
Tomorrow, tomorrow...I can't wait until tomorrow!
CC
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11/09/2007, Elton, PA
It is so nice to receive the good wishes and prayers from so many friends, former students, and family!
We just returned home from the boat last night and woke up this morning to snow on the ground! The weatherman is predicting the temperatures to be in the 60's next week and I sure hope he's right!
We have finished all of the major preparations on the boat! We have the staples stowed...even an index made so we can find everything again. Must admit we were a little stoved up the morning after after contorting ourselves to get into all those compartments!
Terry's brother is going to drive us down to the boat on Tuesday and we plan to leave Wednesday morning very early. The hardest part is going to be saying goodbye to our friends and family, especially our little Olivia, our two year old granddaughter. She has really wrapped our heartstrings in knots! But, we plan on meeting her and her mom and auntie in Morehead at Aunt Gladys' for Thanksgiving, so I think we can survive until then.
Better get those few chores done..
Charlotte
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11/04/2007, Rock Creek, Maryland
Time is closing in quickly. Still so much to do. Packing is turning out to be much more difficult than I imagined. It's going to be cold leaving the Chesapeake, but warm at our destination. From the looks of the piles of stuff in the bedroom we're going on a ski trip! I hate being cold cold so here's my plan: Take what we need to be warm, when we reach warmer latitudes, box it up and send it home. Then come spring when we return north, if it's still chilly, have our faithful daughter send them back to us.
Then ther's provisions...how much do we really need to take. It's not like an ocean crossing, we just plan on the ICW for a while. Than's on our list to figure out this week.
The boat is as ready as she's going to get. We believe everything is working. Got the heat exchanger cleaned, oil and filters changed, the starter that we've had so much trouble with is working, radar is up and running, chart plotter and it's accesories are working, and Noel has passed. Hopefully we'll get a window of warmish weather next week and off we'll go.
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10/19/2007, Elton, Pennsylvania
Dreams come in all shapes and sizes. For Terry and me its always been to sail away, we didn't care where, just go on a sailing adventure.
We both retired early from teaching careers to go while we are both "young" and healthy. It's been 16 months now and we're almost ready to go.
First we had to find the boat. We've had several sailboats in the past 20 years from Sunfish to a Bayfield 32, but all we had to start our voyage with was a Flying Scot; great fun, but a bit small for a livaboard! We started prowling the web and found a multitude of boats for sale. We went to look at a few, but found that pictures can be deceiving. The next step was to employ the services of a broker in Annapolis. Again we looked at many, many boats, but this time we kept going back to one of the first ones he had shown us, a 1990 Cabo Rico 34.
In November 2006 we took the plunge and bought her. We were very excited. She had been lightly used by her previous owner and looked nearly new. We got busy during winter and spring installing new electronics, doing routine maintence, and building a Chesapeake Lightcraft dinghy for her. We launched her in Annapolis in June, and the fun began.
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