Hello and welcome back to our blog for this cruising season of 2014. We spent the summer in Myrtle Beach SC at Grand Dunes Marina working on the boat and slowly making her ours. If you've kept up with me on Facebook you have seen pictures of Bill in various predicaments over the last couple of months...too funny!

We visited with the kids, had the oldest grandkids for a couple of weeks, both girls came to visit with their families, my Aunt, her sister and my Uncle came, Anderson spent 2 nights with us, Myra and Benny Thomas also visited and a friend from New Bern, Lou Pope came to spend a few days with us for some much needed R&R. Even with all these visitors we still wracked up over 3000 miles on the car with trips back and forth to Charlotte and New Bern. That car needs this break and to sit still and wait for our return.
After spending Christmas in Charlotte with the girls we came back to Myrtle Beach for a final visit to Sam's and Walmart for fresh fruits, veggies, eggs and milk. Cruising last year taught us to take with us what we thought we would REALLY miss the most so we are stocked with plenty of the foods we eat on a regular basis and I won't worry about shopping in the stores there so much.
We left Grand Dunes on the morning of Saturday December 28 as planned. There was frost on the docks and ice on the decks....Brrrr we waited too long to start our southerly trek! We stopped for fuel at Osprey Marina along the beautiful Waccamaw River and continued along on the very chilly day making it to below Georgetown to Minim Creek. It was a nice ride...we stayed up top in the cold most of the day.

Since I have already been SO very slack with my blogging I will just do a catch up and say we stopped at Isle of Palms Marina near Charleston and had a wonderful time catching up with family there. We met Ry and Nicki's little Remley Rose and enjoyed Susan so much. Had a great lunch out on Sullivan's Island with everyone and got to see Ry and Nicki's new home. We were eager to get this boat on the way though so only stayed for 3 days and left on the morning of New Year's Day. We have moved every day since...have made good time and done our best to stay warm and dry. Its been chilly and very wet. We anchored out each night and are enjoying saving a few $$$ with not using marina's.

We made it to St. Augustine on Sunday in time to get ready for the big CHILL.....and are anchored out in the mooring field. Went into town for our usual trek to A1A Brewery and then to Pizza Time for pizza's to freeze for eating in the Bahamas. We are VERY thankful and happy with the big generator(s) that are keeping us warm in the 26 degree weather. Plans are to leave tomorrow morning headed towards Daytona Beach. Its supposed to be warming up some tomorrow and we will be very glad of that.

Where to begin...I can't BELIEVE its been so long since I posted to this blog. So MUCH has been going on. To bring you up to date.....we came back to North Palm Beach--and have been at Old Port Cove Marina since we arrived.
We immediately went looking for a new boat and I can tell ya there are slim pickin's on the market right now for used DeFever trawlers! We looked at a 49 that a fella was hoping to trade us for the Cabo Rico (plus some $$) but decided the bunk beds and the tiny back "porch" was just not gonna work for us. Our broker asked us to go look at a DeFever 44 in Lighthouse Point so we made an appt and away we went. We liked what we saw....and decided to come back for a second look and then made an offer. Our offer was accepted and the boat and engine surveys were scheduled in short order. Nothing big was found on surveys...engines in good shape for boat age and boat surveyor found nothing alarming. With a boat this old (1985) there are always little things and there was previous water damage from leaky ports. Dave and Betty had all ports replaced a while back so the cosmetics we knew we could and would take care of. Sea trial was awesome...it was so nice to
be up top where you can actually SEE where you are going! Dave had to get the rudders repainted before we took possession but things went very smooth and we were soon down there untying lines and heading out to bring the boat up to Old Port Cove so we could move off sail boat and on to trawler. I had no IDEA we had so much crammed into that sailboat!!!
We spent a couple days cleaning out stuff that was left behind as well as a general cleaning. Out with the blinds and off came the big tabletop which was sent out to be cut down so it would drop leaf. We will have had the boat for two weeks tomorrow the 13th....and we are finally totally off of the Cabo Rico. We had some folks come to do the britework on the Cabo and listed her for sale. Today we took her up to Ft. Pierce to a nice protected marina to sit until she sells. We had a good day on the ICW and only had to get 5 bridges to open for us....the other 2 were 65 feet.
Bill will go back tomorrow by car and add storm lines and get some final cleaning done and she is to be shown on Friday. Fingers crossed that this man from Atlanta will make us a reasonable offer. We plan to leave North Palm Beach on Sun or Monday headed North and we will spend the rest of the summer and fall in or near Charleston, SC.
Sorry about not posting for so long....its been a busy time!!! This is a pic of our new home!!!

We have been having so much fun I have really fallen behind on posting so will try to bring things up to date and hope all will forgive me!
We left Georgetown and spent one night in Black Point on our way back to Staniel Cay. There was a bbq on the beach to benefit residents of Staniel Cay and we decided to go join in the fun. Met new friends, caught up with our friends fromTanqueray and Navi and had a good visit. Met new couple Logan and Gillian on Stella Blue today and a delightful couple
Richard and Laura invited all of us over for sundowners on their Hatteras 78 Forever Young...we all got a chance to see how the other half live and had a wonderful time. Laura and Richard are wonderful people and we hope to catch up with them again. Big Majors seems to be the gathering place for boats coming and going and we also caught up with Kim and John on 2Awesome and Don, Linda and Rick from Koinonia II. We all had dinner aboard 2Awesome and watched Thunderball in honor of the grotto.
I have mentioned in previous posts that we have decided to return to the states and find a different boat to continue our cruising so we moved along to Cambridge Cay and were able to snorkel several times at the Aquarium which is reef also known as Coral Garden. What a fun time!!!
So many fish and so much to see. We met Brian and Donetta from Dream Catcher and Dan and Jennell from Palagic again and had a good visit. One morning we had a guy in a tender come along side asking us if we would change mooring balls as his captain needed the one we were on for his 165 ft yacht....he was very nice and we had no problem with moving. The captain later came by to thank us and brought us two bottles of wine AND gave us the security code for the yachts internet so we could check in with family. We have had such a good time meeting new people and making lasting friendships.
We were off to Warderick Wells for a night and had fun feeding the three remora that decided to camp under our boat. A fellow boater saw a 10 ft hammerhead shark and was able to catch a photo of it....that cured me of wanting to snorkel there that day. We left there and spent the next night at Shroud Cay where we met the gang again and all went to ride through the mangroves in out dinghies. We had a great time chugging along and one route took us to the ocean side where we walked out and then floated in on the very strong current. Fun times, good memories and we will definitely go back to these places again. We had a great dinner aboard Pelagic--thanks again to Jennell and Dan!
Highbourne Cay was an overnight only for us and we anchored right in front of the Batelco Tower...I was sure to have good internet connections there!! We spent the night and left the following morning for Nassau.
We beat weather but not by much and had a great all day sail with good breezes into Nassau Harbor where we quickly dropped anchor. THEN THE RAINS CAME! It has rained for 4 days straight with one squall after another coming thru. Everything has been wet and damp and we have done the rock and roll at anchor! We found friends in the anchorage and Bill assisted John and Dan in getting Dan's anchor and chain unsnagged from debris on the bottom. They had to fight currents and wind as well as the rain and it turned into a two day affair but they succeeded!!! Dan and Linda took their boat Koinonia over to a marina as their crew Rick had a flight to catch and they too wanted to get their boat dried out and chores done while plugged in! They treated us all to a wonderful dinner at the Green Parrot as a thank you for helping and we had a really fun time.
We pulled anchor up this morning to come and top off fuel and found that the marina finally had an empty slip so we too are plugged in and have the a/c going to get the dampness out of the boat. Bill and I walked over to The Fresh Market to get a few fresh fruits and veggies and then spent time at the laundry taking care of essential laundry of all the wet clothes and towels. We plan to leave Nassau in the morning and will spend the night anchored out by the Northwest Channel Light (that doesn't light up)
which is about half way to Bimini and we will continue on to Bimini on Sunday. Hoping for a rest day there and good weather report to make the jump from Bimini to Florida where we will find dockage around the Ft. Lauderdale/Lake Worth area while we go looking for a new and bigger boat. We have already contacted a boat broker and put things in motion for selling our boat. I am eager to get home to see family but we will definitely be coming back soon to continue cruising in the Bahamas!

What a fun time we have had at Georgetown! We will definitely come back! We enjoyed sitting on the beach with friends and Bill even got into a game of volleyball with the gang. Sat in the shade later and chatted with some other boaters talking about where they liked visiting the best and the least. Peace and Plenty (a local hotel) advertised the band Rake and Scrape along with a barbecue dinner so we all loaded up in dinghies and headed across the bay for a night out. Met even more boaters and had lots of fun before heading back in the very DARK across the bay to the boat. We didn't get as wet as we thought we would...LOL Yesterday morning John and Kim from 2Awesome and Garry and Shirlene from Zipadedodo left early to head back towards Staniel Cay but we stayed behind to sell our 5hp motor. Montana Steell is now the proud owner of a used Tohatso and we were happy to get it off the boat. We left Georgetown this morning and intended to make it to Staniel Cay but decided to do a stop over at Black Point for the night so here we sit have a sundowner and enjoying the beautiful weather today.

The outside route was beating dead into the wind with seas that were of course bigger than predicted. I am really tired of wind on the nose!!! Arrived in the early afternoon and we are anchored just off Monument Beach. We were amazed at the number of boats here in what is considered "not season". Bill and I popped the dinghy in the water and did a run about to see where the Chat and Chill and volleyball beach were located as well as did a run thru to see if we recognized any of the boats anchored here. We went over to Chat and Chill in the evening and met a couple on the beach from Missouri--John and Kim on a Leopard 40 catamaran named 2Awesome. We ended up talking cats and having dinner together and had a really good time! Saturday Bill and I went into town to check the place out and had a good lunch at Peace and Plenty.
On Sunday Bill and I went snorkeling and there was a cruisers potluck on the beach in the evening. What a fun time and good food! There was live music from the folks on Valkerie and they are the nicest couple to talk with! Great sense of humor and lots of fun to be around and we hope to see them again on our return. We went back into town yesterday and met Garry and Shirlene at the ice cream place.....enjoyed sitting in the shade and talking to other cruisers. Kim and John asked us over for dinner last night and we shared a wonderful meal and enjoyed their company. We are off to town this morning after this squall is past for fresh Bahamian Coconut Bread that we ordered while in town yesterday.

Arrived after a motor sail and anchored with no problems. We had talked to Lesley and Paul on Suliere on the VHF and arranged to meet with them for dinner at Terry's Ocean Cabin Restaurant. Arriving at the dinghy dock the conch cleaning operation was still on full swing and we were happy to watch and laugh with the local people going about their day. There were BIG rays in the anchorage and it was so nice to see them swimming about. I spotted one sea turtle as well. The conch guys were busy cleaning around their work station and throwing scraps into the water to feed the rays.....what a sight and ugh...the smells!! Music was too loud and dinner was good--afterwards Terry and Paul were debating world issues. Terry had nothing good to say about the USA and blames the USA for all the problems in the world. He is Muslim--nuf said? We will not be returning to Ocean Cabin Restaurant on future stops. Lesley and Paul left the next day headed to the Jumentos so we said our goodbyes for this season. Bill and I were up the next morning to see them anchor up and head out. Lesley and I were doing the big waves to each other as they sailed away. I shall miss their company and look forward to seeing them again next fall.
Bill and I stayed an extra day to do some boat chores and rest a bit. Off to Georgetown tomorrow!!