We wondered at our wisdom of doing boat improvements and maintenance during the hot July and August summer months on the Chesapeake. Our window air conditioning unit (which fortunately wasn’t buried too deeply in our storage unit) made it bearable, especially during the 6-7 weeks when the boat was on the hard. Encouragement and help from our friends made it all feasible and a rewarding experience. Some of the tasks.. Read More
We wondered at our wisdom of doing boat improvements and maintenance during the hot July and August summer months on the Chesapeake. Our window air conditioning unit (which fortunately wasn’t buried too deeply in our storage unit) made it bearable, especially during the 6-7 weeks when the boat was on the hard. Encouragement and help from our friends made it all feasible and a rewarding experience. Some of the tasks.. Read More
The trip up Chesapeake Bay turned out to be a single shot; we started off motoring as there was very little wind but it gradually increased in the afternoon and was out of the south so we had a good sail for few hours. As often happens on the Chesapeake at this time of year, as dusk fell, we could see lightening, mostly off to the west and behind us.. Read More
While we met some interesting folks in Charleston (Germans on a catamaran docked in front of us, and Brits on a French aluminium boat and Ken and Michelle on a 51 ft C&C on the other side of the dock from us), we were ready to depart the heat and the constant motion of the boat against the dock, caused by the changing swift current, wake from passing boats and.. Read More
While we met some interesting folks in Charleston (Germans on a catamaran docked in front of us, and Brits on a French aluminium boat and Ken and Michelle on a 51 ft C&C on the other side of the dock from us), we were ready to depart the heat and the constant motion of the boat against the dock, caused by the changing swift current, wake from passing boats and.. Read More
We had thought about trying to reduce our total sea miles by sailing directly from St Augustine around Cape Hatteras and into the Chesapeake (a 4-day sail), especially as the weather was quite settled when we were in St Augustine …. but as we didn’t manage to leave on Tuesday, the weather window was shorter, so we opted to go the shorter hop to Charleston. While in St Augustine, we.. Read More
Well, who would have thunk it, certainly not me, but I have to report that Howard and I are now officially Florida residents. The exercise of obtaining them involved two trips to the FL Driver License center because as of 6 weeks ago, live aboards like us with only a FL postal address, are also required to register their boat in Florida. Of course we didn’t bring all the boat.. Read More
The weather was favorable for departing Port Canaveral on Saturday, even though we were tempted to stay longer and enjoy the good camaraderie there. Anyway, we had a really lovely, relaxing easy sail on a broad reach with winds around 10-12 knots almost all the way to St. Augustine. We knew we wanted to time our arrival at St Augustine to catch the beginning of the flood tide through the.. Read More
It was worth waiting for the weather before crossing the Gulf Stream as we had a smooth crossing, light winds and no thunderstorms. We were looking forward to good sailing wind from Thursday evening per the forecast but unfortunately the wind was mostly under 10 knots and dead downwind, which meant our boat speed was less than 5 knots under sail alone so we ended up motor-sailing most of the.. Read More
Still here in Old Bahama Bay Marina, waiting for more settled weather to cross the Gulf Stream. There are some thunderstorms coming off the US coast that we would rather not encounter, especially at night in the Gulf Stream. So, we have had an opportunity to explore our surroundings a little. Yesterday we took advantage of the bikes we could borrow from the marina/ resort and had some fun on.. Read More