Jazzy Lady's 2019/20 Cruising Adventure

Vessel Name: Jazzy Lady
Vessel Make/Model: Catalina
Hailing Port: Montreal
Crew: Meg, Mark, Annie, Alistair
23 April 2020
30 March 2020
25 March 2020
13 March 2020
21 February 2020
21 February 2020
08 February 2020
16 January 2020
09 January 2020
03 January 2020
29 December 2019 | Paradise
17 December 2019
12 December 2019
06 December 2019
06 December 2019
24 November 2019
Recent Blog Posts
23 April 2020

REFLECTIONS

30 March 2020

Night Watch

(March 28th)

25 March 2020

Emergency Migration

Emergency Migration

13 March 2020

The Three Musketeers

Mark has gone away for four week-long stints of work, one each month since December. The first time we had Tracy with us, the second time we had my Mom with us, last month we had Walden to play with every day after school and this month it was just us three musketeers:) So it actually felt like [...]

01 March 2020

Jazzy Lady bursts at the seams

*This post starts while on the last full day of our trip, and ends a few days after our arrival home.

21 February 2020

Still in Spanish Wells

At home one of my favourite summer delights is lying in a hammock listening to the wind rustle through oak or maple leaves. Another audible treat is the smoother, lighter swishing of the wind through the needles of a pine tree. Here in Bahamas I am storing the audio memory of wind through palm trees. [...]

24 November 2019
megan osler
Live Oaks and Wild Horses

Uh oh. Lots to catch up on.
The day after my last blog entry we had a sobering experience at the Charleston Slave Mart Museum. It is an old building where enslaved people were bought and sold, just after it had become illegal to trade slaves in public spaces. In addition to the sickening feeling of physically standing in a space of such atrocious history, it was very overwhelming to share this processing with our 7 and 10 year old kids. There is a strong natural instinct to protect them from such a painful story for anyone of African or Caribbean descent and such a shameful story for all people of European descent. But, of course, we realize how important it is to instill the knowledge of wrongful treatment to millions of human beings and the shocking abuses of power white people inflicted on black people based on a fabricated difference of equality. To understand the degree by which innocent men, women and children suffered needlessly is imperative to the development of empathy in our kids, as the next generation of conscientious adults.
We had an extensive discussion and felt a very meaningful connection with one of the Museum volunteers named Christine. She makes it her mission to educate young people about the atrocities of slavery. She befriended one visitor from Halifax who ended up inviting her to visit Nova Scotia and give a presentation at a library, in her community, on the history of slavery in the United States. Christine is considering MOVING to Canada because she feels, with the current administration, there is little security for her and her family, as African Americans. Charleston has been her home for 30 years....this is a sad state of affairs. We told her to come visit Quebec and stay with us in Hudson. Maybe she’ll make a presentation at our local library. Goodness knows we could use some eye-opening in our little predominantly white community. How many Canadians are aware of the history of slavery in our own country!?
Our next few days were cold and wet. We hunkered down at a marina for two nights, just south of Charleston, where our friend Jimmy Pike (who first appeared in the blog in Annapolis) keeps his boat. They had us over for a soul-warming chicken pot pie dinner and insisted we do laundry on their boat (yes, they have a washer and dryer on-board!) The next day they took us to Costco for a big stock-up run. Thank you Jimmy & Debbie!
By November 16th we were in Beaufort, South Carolina. As already expressed on Facebook, we were completely enchanted by the romance of Live Oak trees all over the place in the most scenic neighbourhoods I’ve ever walked. Beaufort is full of many familiar movie scenes, including the house from The Big Chill. Other than some lovely walks, we just re-supplied and cursed the record-low temps this region was experiencing. We know we’re lucky to be escaping Canadian winter but feel we are dragging it south with us. We want hot! We pulled a fast one on the kids: after watching them drool at a fantastic toy store, not being allowed to buy anything, Mark took them grocery shopping while I stayed back to do laundry. I then went o a stealth mission and got all my Christmas shopping done at said toy store:) I buried the goodies among the laundry and the kids were none the wiser when I met back up with them hauling my over-full laundry bag.
Before departing Beaufort we had a visit with ANOTHER couple we know through Mark’s parents. We docked at their yacht club for two nights and they had us over to their place for a BBQ lunch. Stuart and Patsy are old friends of Beth&Larry who moved to the US years ago. They live on a golf course, whose owner went bankrupt so they get their exercise by maintaining the greens around them with a push mower. They took us for a tour of the over-grown golf course and that’s where we saw our first two BIG alligators. Yet, another excellent visit with very kind and generous people. Thank you Stu and Patsy!
On Nov 19th the weather was right for us to do another offshore run. We left Beaufort at 2 pm and, after 110 nautical miles, landed at Cumberland Island, Georgia at 8:30 am on the 20th. More or less as forecast, 15-20 kt west winds, changing to NW later in the evening. As usual, it was not exactly a walk in the park. Autopilot blew a fuse and quit around 10:30 pm. Mark had accidentally bought the wrong amp fuse replacement so we had to hand-steer the rest of the way. Very challenging. We had planned to do 2 hour shifts but, with hand-steering, found an hour at a time was all we could manage. I got about 2 or 3 hours sleep, Mark got 1 maybe. Kids sleeper, albeit fitfully, all night. No Air Transat bags required:)
Cumberland Island was glorious:) Wild horses everywhere on a 5 mile loop, half through through Live Oak forest, half along the beach. It’s a Federal Historic Reserve. Many sites along the way of archeological significance, as well as the old Carnegie Family Summer Home Estate dating back to the 1860s. Our second day we dinghied from our anchorage 6 miles to the top end of the island to check out Plum Orchard, another Estate of Carnegie descendants. This one was more intact and we got a full tour of the preserved estate. Just like Downton Abbey. The square footage is divided evenly between the servants quarters and the family’s space. Here we saw more alligators and our first armadillo! (Here, they pronounce it ‘armadilla’). It was a very memorable couple of days.
Yesterday we got to Jacksonville, Florida. We skipped practically all of Georgia going offshore. We’ll hit it on our way back north, I guess! We are finally in some serious summer temperatures so no more whining from us! We had a great dinner out at a Ramen restaurant. The kids LOVED it:) No soft-shell crabs yet, Mom! But I’m on the prowl for some:)
Today we are en route to St. Augustine. It is supposed to be another beautiful historic town.
I must not miss such a big chunk of time on the blog again! Too many details forgotten already.
Many pics to come on Facebook




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