November 28, 2006


Yes, we really are still alive and well. It appears that four months have passed by since our last update. It’s been a busy time for us, and we are sorry that this is so long. In the future, we will try to do a newsletter more often.

In our last update, we were headed for Washington, DC and a visit from our daughter and her family. After we left Annapolis, we had about two weeks before we needed to be in Washington. We were going to be headed south on the Chesapeake Bay and retracing some of the areas that we saw while heading north, but that’s ok because we haven’t been to any bad places yet. We left Annapolis and headed down to Galesville, MD where we discovered a very nice little creek to anchor in that had a lot of modest homes and a couple of marinas. It was very quiet with a number of other boats anchored around us. We left there in the morning and found that the Potomac River and St. Mary’s River were also very pretty and peaceful. We stayed for 2 beautiful nights in the St. Mary’s River before we headed further up the Potomac River to Cobb Island. We couldn’t anchor anywhere in this particular spot, so we went into a tiny marina and stayed for 2 more days. There wasn’t much on Cobb Island to see or do, but we did meet some nice people. One of the things about the Potomac River that surprised us is that it is so wide (3 to 5 miles across) that there really isn’t much to see unless you’re very close to shore which is where all of the shallow water is. It’s almost like boating offshore out in the ocean.

After leaving Cobb Island, we made a very short passage across the Potomac to Colonial Beach, VA. This is another small town that’s considered a golf cart town. You can drive golf carts all over town. So, we rented a golf cart and went sightseeing as well as made a stop at the local grocery store. It’s really a neat little town with a lot of very friendly people. It’s a wooded area with a lot of small homes nestled in among the trees. We departed Colonial Beach headed further up the river to Woodbridge, VA and Belmont Bay. This town seemed as though it was all condos. Everywhere you looked there were condos, condos and more condos.

We were anxious to get to Alexandria, VA so we only stayed a short time in Woodbridge and then traveled a short distance up to Alexandria. We had made a reservation to go into the City Marina there and were not disappointed. It is right in the middle of town and at the base of King Street, the main street in town. The river walk area that is adjacent to the marina is the place to be in the evenings. There is live music, a variety of street vendors and a bunch of people. It really was a fun spot. We went out for dinner one evening and dined at the same restaurant that George Washington used to frequent back in the 1700’s. Believe it or not, but it has remained in operation for over 300 years. By the way, the food was really great!

Well, it was time to move on to Washington, DC. This was part of our original dream and relentless desire to do this trip on the East Coast. And you know what? It was worth all of the planning, money, and hassles to get there. To be able to sit on the aft deck of our boat in the evening and have a glass of wine while looking at the Washington Monument is a thrill we will never forget.

We had made reservations at the Capitol Yacht Club to dock Diamond Girl for a couple of weeks. Our daughter Michelle, her husband Scott, and our three oldest granddaughters came and spent a week with us. They arrived while we were experiencing an outrageous heat wave: temperatures in the 90’s wouldn’t have been so bad except that the humidity was in the 90 percentile as well. Yikes!! Needless to say, we went sightseeing everyday in all the historic (air conditioned) buildings we could find. We finally decided that we had absorbed more than enough history. Washington is great but needs to work on its crime issues. You can’t walk the streets at night in our nation’s capitol. That is truly a shame!!

The Capitol Yacht Club was a great place. We enjoyed the people and the club’s facilities. We went to a few of their activities and dinners. It was a club very similar to Seal Beach YC: partly volunteer and partly professionally run. It was a delightful place to spend some time.

When we finally left DC, we headed back down the Potomac River (95 miles). We stopped in a couple of the same places as when we went up the river, but at this point we were anxious to leave the Potomac and get into the Rappahannock River, another very large river. We anchored in a little town called Urbanna and stayed for a couple of very restful days.

After that, we decided to make a run to a little anchorage and town that we had been to earlier in the year, on the way up the Chesapeake Bay, called Deltaville. It is in Virginia on the Jackson Creek. After a couple of days at anchor, we decided to move to a marina because Tropical Storm Ernesto was coming our way. Well….after NOAA said that the storm was diminishing with only 30 knot winds predicted for our area, we ended up actually having 60-65 knot winds for about a 12-hour period with a tidal surge of 4.5+ feet. It definitely wasn’t a fun experience!! But we made out OK and learned a lot of valuable lessons. We don’t need to go through any more of that kind of storm. Diamond Girl will be hauled out on the hard the next time that happens, and we will enjoy the storm from a very secluded hotel in the middle of Nebraska.

After everything settled down, we had some work done on our generator before moving on. We decided to revisit Hampton which is just across the water from Norfolk, VA. Hampton is a small community with a very nice anchorage so we stayed there for 4 days. While we were there, they were having a 2-day event called “Bay Days” which was their celebration of the end of summer. Let me tell you, these people really know how to party. They had the most spectacular fireworks display we have ever seen. Wow….it was unbelievable!!

We made a short passage down to Portsmouth, VA where we spent the better part of a month doing some long overdue maintenance to the boat. We have been running Diamond Girl extremely hard since the beginning of this big adventure of ours, and “she” was in need of some TLC. While we were there, though, we had a visit from some long time friends of ours. Roger and Carole live in Simi Valley, CA which is where we lived while raising our family. It was so good to see friends from home and reminisce about old times.

It was now early October and the weather suddenly turned very chilly. Fall had definitely arrived. The time had come to start heading further south in search of warmer climate. So…we began retracing some of the stops we had previously made on our trip north last spring plus we added a few new overnight stops to our itinerary. One of the more interesting locations was a little spot called Mile Hammock Bay. It’s part of the Camp Lejeune Marine Training Base. While we were anchored there, we could watch the marines performing special maneuvers. Fascinating!

In our opinion, the most beautiful place we’ve traveled to this past year is Jekyll Island in southern Georgia. We spent my (Elaine) birthday there and thoroughly enjoyed the area. It is so lush and green....absolutely incredibly gorgeous!! We took a long bicycle ride exploring the island and all of the magnificent, restored mansions of the rich and famous. That evening we went to dinner at a little restaurant which was right there at the marina where we were docked. All in all, it was a fabulous birthday!

Continuing south along the ICW, we made a few more stops and then put the pedal to the metal to get down to Palm Coast, Florida. Brian and Tina, our dear friends in Seal Beach, California, recently bought another home in Palm Coast….with a dock behind it. They generously offered to let us dock there and leave Diamond Girl for a couple of months to allow us the opportunity to fly home for the holiday season.

At the moment, we are in Portland, Oregon visiting with our daughter Traci, her husband Matt and our sweet little 2-year old granddaughter Maci. We are having a wonderful Thanksgiving with them. We will be here until early December at which time we will be headed for southern California. (We’ll send out a holiday letter at that time.) We plan to see as many of you as we possibly can while we are in town.

Hopefully, everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving holiday with loved ones. Take care, and we will be in touch again soon.

July 21, 2006


Well here we are again…still having a great time and enjoying the cruising lifestyle. In our last update we were in Deltaville, VA. It’s a very small town with limited things to do ashore, but it was a nice spot to stop and relax. Jackson Creek (in Deltaville) is extremely protected with a lot of modest homes along its shores. We needed to go to the grocery store for provisions so we found a place to leave our dinghy and walked about 1½ miles to the store. We found the very small local market, walked in and started to shop, when one of the clerks came up and asked why we didn’t call them for a ride and then commented that they would be happy to take us back to the marina when we were finished. I can just see that happening in Long Beach!!

We had heard a lot of people talking about how great Solomon’s Island was supposed to be. So we decided to make a run up to the Patuxent River and visit Solomon’s Island. It really is a neat place. It has a number of marinas and a lot of space to anchor. We chose to anchor in a very quiet spot in the back of the creek and decided to stay for a couple of days. Before arriving here, though, we had stopped at Reedsville for just an overnighter; so we had traveled for two days and felt like this would be a good place to stay for awhile. There wasn’t much to the town itself but there was a market, liquor store, West Marine plus a lot of gift shops, restaurants and watering holes to enjoy. We ended up staying for four days before heading on.

Since we hadn’t been over to the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay yet, we headed up further and across the bay (the Bay at this point is about 5 miles across) to Cambridge, MD. It’s very different on the eastern banks of the Bay. Much more rural in most cases, and it seemed a little more laid back. We anchored in a tiny basin right in the middle of town. Walking around in this little town was very easy. Everything was close by. The weather god’s were talking about a lot of rain and thunderstorms coming through for the next few days so we called the Cambridge Yacht Club, which had a small marina, and asked if we could rent a slip for a couple of days. It turned out that it was one of the best stops we had made for quite a while. The first night that we were there, we went up to their very nice clubhouse to have a drink at the bar. While sitting there, we were talking to several of their friendly members and just having a great time. During our conversations, one of the guys we were talking to asked if we had a car. We said no, and he said he would drop one off for us to use in the morning and that we could just keep it until we left. WOW!! What a great thing to have happen, and what a thoughtful gesture on his part. He said that someone had done this for him while he was cruising, and he knew how much of a help it could be. He was sure right. We were there for six days of rain and some very violent thunderstorms, and having some transportation really made the time pleasant for us because we could get off of the boat and go somewhere. Also, Elaine was talking to one of the ladies at the club about somewhere to get a pedicure. The next morning the phone rang and this woman told Elaine that she would pick her up at 10:00 and take her to her nail salon. We couldn’t believe how this club had taken us in and made us feel so welcome. That is one of the reasons that we feel yachting organizations are important to this sport. We really needed to tear ourselves away when leaving the dock. We had had a great time with some exceptionally nice people, and we’ll definitely return in the future.

We left Cambridge on the 29th of June and were on our way to meet some very old friends of ours (from Ventura boating days) on the 1st of July at their home in Annapolis, MD. We decided to stop for a couple of nights in a little area called Broad Creek. What a beautiful area. While we were anchored there, we got a call from our friends in Annapolis, Terry and Nan, and they told us that we were all invited to one of their friends’ home (Greg & Susie) for the weekend at St. Michaels, MD. So, on the 1st we moved a short distance over to Greg and Susie’s and tied up Diamond Girl at the dock in front their beautiful home. We had “old home week” with Terry and Nan, and made some really great new friends too. Greg steamed a bushel of Maryland crabs, about 70 of them, to feed 9 people on the 3rd of July. What a feed…what a wonderful weekend!!

The next day we left and traveled to Annapolis to our friends’ home (Terry & Nan) on the Luce Creek. We tied up at the dock behind their beautiful home and stayed for four delightful days. We not only saw everything we possibly could in Annapolis, including the Naval Academy (incredible), but we also saw and visited with their 3 wonderful daughters and their families. It really was a fabulous stay.

Now we are headed to Washington, DC where we are going to meet up with our daughter, Michelle, and her family for a week-long visit. We can’t wait!! It has been 7 months since we have seen Michelle, Scott and our 3 older granddaughters. It’s going to be “really cozy” aboard Diamond Girl, but we can manage. It will be an absolute blast!!

Anyway….as always we miss our friends and family so keep sending us emails. We always look forward to hearing from you.

June 15, 2006

With the last update that we sent out, we left off in Pine Island Loop which is a creek that flows into the ICW (Intra-Coastal Waterway) just north of St. Augustine, FL. We stayed there just long enough to wait out another violent thunderstorm and then headed for Jacksonville, FL. Our friends from Seal Beach, Brian and Tina, met us for dinner and drinks plus a lot of laughs. Then they left the following morning and so did we.

Our next stop was going to be Fernandina Beach, FL which is at the border of Florida and Georgia. When we got anchored, we realized that we had a problem with our batteries….they wouldn’t hold a charge. So after a few phone calls, we decided to turn around and go back to a small marina that we had passed earlier in the day and try to get some help. We had to replace all 8 of our batteries $$$$$. Oh well, I guess that’s boating. We left there and went back to Fernandina Beach and had a really nice stop in this cute, very small town.

We crossed over into Georgia the next day and were on our way to Savannah. We anchored in a couple of different spots along the way and finally went into a marina on the outskirts of Savannah called Thunderbolt. It was a great stop! Every morning at 0700 they delivered a newspaper and a ½ dozen Krispy Kream donuts to the boat. Good for the attitude…bad for the waistline.

Both of us thoroughly enjoyed the sights and charm of Old Town Savannah. It’s amazing how they have restored and preserved the homes and magnificent churches. We did a trolley tour one day and went back the second day and did a walking tour on our own. It is a great city. While we were docked at Thunderbolt Marina, it just so happened that it was our 43rd wedding anniversary. So we went out to a very nice dinner at a little local restaurant called Tubby’s Tank House. That name doesn’t sound particularly inviting, but we really did have a delightful meal and a wonderful evening.

Leaving Savannah the next day, Diamond Girl was headed to Beaufort, SC. We stayed at another marina because there were more severe thunderstorms predicted. Beaufort is a little town with some very old homes but not a lot to do or see. We made friends with Jerry & Becca who are cruising on their boat (they’re from Iowa). We spent a few days buddy-boating with them up to Charleston, SC. That’s another great historical old town. We toured through a home that was built in the 1700’s and still has 90% of the original furnishings. It’s 3 stories tall and a descendent of the original family still lives there on the 3rd floor. The house has never been sold!

We waited out yet another thunderstorm in Charleston before moving on. This storm was very violent with the possibility of tornados predicted. Well, the tornados never materialized but the wind, rain and thunder sure did.

Georgetown, SC was our next stop. Once again, it’s another very small town and nothing to do ashore, but we did meet up with some friends from Florida (Frank & Ellen) for dinner one night. They were passing through the area on a trip north by motor home and called to see where we were. It’s always nice to see friends, and our next stop was going to be to pickup our friends from Long Beach (Bill & Ellie) who were going to travel with us for a week. We met them in Myrtle Beach, SC and after waiting for some mail to be delivered, we headed out to show them what we are doing back here on the East Coast. We anchored in a creek for the night and had a great dinner and a star filled sky. Our next destination was supposed to be Wilmington or Wrightsville; but because of a very large fishing tournament in the area, all of the marinas were full and there wasn’t any place to anchor that would be close enough to town to explore. So we continued up to a very small town called Topsail and stayed there. Not much of a stop, but we made the best of it. After leaving there, we anchored for the night in a nice spot called Spooner Creek. There were some beautiful homes in the area, and the anchorage was extremely protected. It rained most of the night, but other than that it was pretty quiet.

The next morning we moved to Beaufort, NC. Beaufort is a small town with some very old, nicely restored homes but, again, there’s not a lot to see or do. We were extremely disappointed. We really wanted to be able to show our friends a great week, but unfortunately the area that we were traveling just wasn’t the greatest for sightseeing. It’s all new to us too! We now know that the next time we have visitors, we will plan a better area to tour with them.

After our friends left us and we departed Beaufort, we traveled on to Oriental, NC. We were fortunate enough to meet some long-time friends for lunch there. We knew Dale & Bev when we had our boats in Ventura, CA. Now they live in New Bern, NC. From there, we stopped in Upper Dowry Creek and got to Elizabeth City, NC. What a great trip….why couldn’t our friends have been with us for this leg of the trip? It was beautiful and every little town was great, especially Elizabeth City. Known as the “Harbor of Hospitality”, it sure lives up to its name. Elaine and I think that it’s probably the friendliest town we have ever been in. They have 15 slips for cruisers to use for 48 hours, free of charge, and at 5:00 every afternoon they have a complimentary wine and cheese party for all of the cruising boats. We had a ball and met some very nice people. It is definitely a stop for next year!

The next area that we would be traveling is called the “Dismal Swamp”; however, it was anything but dismal. This canal was hand dug starting back in the late 1700’s. It was ordered to be constructed by George Washington to allow a shorter distance to travel for the commercial boats. It is gorgeous!! One of the most scenic passages we have made so far. It’s about 45 miles long and there are 2 locks and 2 lift bridges; one lock and one lift bridge at each end of the canal. It’s almost impossible to make the trip in one day. But midway, there is a visitor’s center with free tie-ups for the boats transiting the canal. It’s the only visitor center in the country that services both a highway and a waterway. There ended up being 9 boats at the dock for the night. When you put that many boats together in one small spot, there will usually be a party somewhere. Yes, it was a great party!!

The next morning we shoved off and headed for Norfolk, VA and the end of the ICW (Intra-coastal Waterway). We stayed for a couple of nights in a marina because we needed to have some work done on our generator. We left the marina and anchored in Hospital Point anchorage for a couple of days. Then we decided to take a break form the boat for a week. We put the boat back in the marina, rented a car and drove to New Jersey to see Bud’s brother and family. We had a great time with them, and it was refreshing to have a break from cruising. We missed the boat, though, and were anxious to get started again. Upon our return, we did some quick provisioning and headed out.

On June 1, we moved to the Hampton River, which is just at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. It’s a pretty little town with a comfortable anchorage. We stayed there 4 days before heading to Sarah Creek. This is probably the most scenic, peaceful anchorage we have been in yet. It’s just across the York River from Yorktown, VA. You talk about history!! There are three towns all located very close together. They are Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg. It is history overload!! We did the Yorktown tour and went to Colonial Williamsburg. Williamsburg is an all-day thing. The whole town is living and working in the 18th century time period. It’s extremely interesting and worth the time to visit. It’s also an educational experience.

Right now we are in Deltaville, VA, anchored in Jackson Creek. It’s raining like “cats and dogs” today, but hey… what else does it do back here? We are still having a super time and loving the cruising lifestyle.

April 10, 2006



Hello to all our dear family and friends!

I guess that it’s time for us to let everyone know where we are and what we’re up to.

Since the last time we did an update, we have traveled a lot of miles. We were in Ft. Myers Beach at that time and were about to travel up the West Coast of Florida. Shortly after the update, we moved a very short distance to Cape Coral. We had made arrangements with a canvas maker in the area for him to come and measure our doors on the boat and make insect screens for us. We knew that we were about to get into mosquito country, and we were having trouble finding someone who would even talk to us about screens. We ordered the screens with the understanding that they would be finished the next week. So we took off to meet some good friends that we hung out with in Ventura who now live in Punta Gorda. We traveled up through the Pine Island Sound and met them in an anchorage called Pelican Bay on the island of Cayo Costa. What a beautiful place; very well protected with a ranger station and a trail to the other side of the island and the Gulf of Mexico.

After spending time exploring, we were off to their house. We had to time the tide in order to get up the canal to their house. Well, no matter that we waited, we still couldn’t get into their canal with only 4’ of water at best. So they made arrangements for us to leave Diamond Girl at a friends dock for a couple of days so that we could visit. We had a wonderful time. We ended up spending three days, and then we returned to Cape Coral to retrieve our new screens and be off across the state via the Okeechobee Waterway and a whole different world.

We stopped for one night in the city of Ft. Myers and then started across the OWW. It is really different. There are spots with beautiful homes setting on 5 or 10 acres fully landscaped, and then there would be a rundown mobile home with cars and refrigerators everywhere. The river that we were on was anywhere from a couple of hundred yards wide to a ½ mile wide. We even saw alligators!!! And we had our first experience with locks. We traveled through 3 locks and found out that they aren’t really a big deal, it just takes time.

Our first night on the OWW we spent in the town of La Belle. We had heard that it was a little town still living in the 60’s and everyone was right. We tied up to a rickety old dock at the Rivers Edge Motel. It really reminded us of the “Bates Motel”. The people were very nice and the dock was very cheap so it fit us well. We walked into town and had dinner at a little restaurant named Flora and Ella’s. It was great! Chicken and dumplings, greens and cornbread ($7.00) how could you go wrong.

After two days there, we traveled to Clewiston which is right at the edge of Lake Okeechobee. By the way, did you know that Lake Okeechobee is the second largest lake totally within the United States? There isn’t much to Clewiston, so we only stayed over night and were off the next morning to Indian Town. Again, not much there to see so we only stayed one night. We did walk to the grocery store and only saw a couple of houses. When we got back, we asked the lady in the marina office where the town was located. She asked if we had walked to the market. We answered yes, and she said “then you walked through town”. Really not much in Indian Town!

Stuart was our next goal. After about a 3-hour run, we anchored in Manatee Pocket, an anchorage recommended by the cruising guide books. Very nice, very protected. We anchored in about 6 feet of water behind some very nice homes. There were only 3 boats anchored there with a lot of room. We explored around and found out that there is a much better place to be. The next time we are down in that area, we will anchor in a different spot with more things to do. We did stay for 3 days and then started our trek north.

Vero Beach is an area that all of the boats talk about, so we decided to give it a try. It’s great. You can’t anchor there, but they have mooring buoys for only $10 a night. We signed up and stayed for a week. The marina has all of the things you need; dinghy dock, laundromat, and fuel. The city buses come right into the marina every 15 minutes and take you almost anywhere you want to go (for free). It’s great. We could see why everyone talked about it so much.

We wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center so we left Vero Beach and went to Titusville. We decided to stay in a marina this time. We rented a car and went to the space center for a day. What a great place. If you haven’t been there, it’s a must see. It takes at least a whole day to see it. We decided that we would do it again next year and see then what we didn’t see this time. While we were in our slip there, I decided to fill our water tanks. When filling our tanks they have a tendency to drip. Four manatees came over to the boat and were drinking the fresh water. Elaine was actually able to go down onto our swim platform and pet them. They are very friendly and huge!! Great experience.

Meeting up with friends in Palm Coast was our next desire. So we traveled to Melbourne for an overnighter and then on to Daytona Beach. It is a very nice town, but for some reason when we got there everything in town was closed. We still don’t really know why, but it was almost deserted looking. It was April Fool’s day, but that shouldn’t have anything to do with it….very strange. We moved on to Palm Coast and met up with friends. We had a wonderful time visiting with them.

After spending two days with our friends, we left and traveled to St. Augustine. WOW, what a great little town! We saw buildings that dated back into the 1500’s. It was amazing. We took a tour and saw a little bit of everything. It is a very nice place to stop and see.

Now we are anchored out in the Tolomato River just north of St. Augustine. We are waiting out a big cold front that is supposed to move through the area tonight. Strong winds and rain are predicted, so we thought that we would just sit tight and wait it out here. After this, we move on to Jacksonville. After a couple of days there, we will be continuing our trek north.

For those of you who might be curious, we have traveled a total of 730 nautical miles to date since we left Ft. Lauderdale and started our East Coast cruising adventure.

We will keep you updated in the future. Please know that we always look forward to hearing what you are doing too, so keep in touch.

February 27, 2006

Hi to all...

Here is another update starting where we left off before. Previously, we were anchored in Miami and had just set out a big blow with 40-knot winds. Well, things finally got better, and we were able to scout out the area and find a few things that were fun to do. We visited the Miami Yacht Club and had drinks and good conversation with some of the members. It is a very small club house and has a bar and a snack bar. The grounds are very simple and open onto the bay where we were anchored. We found the markets and did some last minute provisioning because we were going to head down into the Keys and didn't know where or how long it would be before we could be in a supermarket. We ended up staying in Miami for a week waiting for a good weather window, and then headed about 40 miles into the Keys; destination Key Largo.

On the way to Key Largo, we learned a lot about cruising in Florida waters....IT'S SHALLOW!!! Or down here they refer to it as "SKINNY WATER". For 40 miles, we never saw more than 9 feet of water! I repeat…9 feet of water. In California, we would consider ourselves aground in 9 feet. Well, that’s about as deep as it gets around here. We made it to Key Largo and anchored in 5 feet of water. That might sound ok to non-boaters, but consider that our boat draws 4 feet so you can see why we were nervous. We stayed in Key Largo for 3 days and found that there wasn't really a lot to do unless you were into scuba diving or fishing. There was a great TIKI Bar on shore called Snook's that had a great happy hour so that kind of made up for the lack of sightseeing.

After 3 days in Key Largo, we decided that we would move down the Keys again and stop in Islamorada which is on the Upper Matecumbe Key (about another 35 miles). We found that the water was even shallower on this trip. We had to power through some 4-foot deep water which was unavoidable in the channel. We made it ok, but “Diamond Girl’s” keel is very clean now because of the “scraping” on the sandy bottom. We stayed in Islamorada for another 3 days and found that there was a little more to do. Not much, but a little more. The one thing we did notice is that there was still a lot of damage from Hurricane Wilma. There were a number of boats still sunk with only their masts sticking out of the water, and still a lot of boats that were blown up into the mangroves. Not a pretty sight.

While I'm describing the Keys, I should say that the Keys are very narrow strips of land that probably aren't more that 1/3 to a 1/2 mile wide. There is a highway (U.S. Hwy. 1) that runs in the middle of them and goes the entire length of all of the Keys. It ends in Key West. All of the little islands that make up the Keys are linked together by bridges. One of them is 7 miles long.

Also, we want try to explain how much of a team effort it is to navigate through some of the areas. While Bud is driving the boat and trying to stay within the marked channels, Elaine has the binoculars, charts and the cruising guides laid out and is studying them continuously. She spots all of the markers and checks the depths. It truly is a two-person job. Some of the marks, particularly in narrow channels, are very close and you just don't stray out of the channels because you will be aground instantly. You really have to pay attention and study the charts.

Enough of that! We left Islamorada and decided to make a run for Marathon which is on Vaca Key in the Lower Keys. It’s only about 45 miles from Key West. Marathon is a very interesting place. It's a little more picturesque than where we had come from but not a lot. However, the entire area is very boater friendly. When we got there, there were probably 150 boats anchored in the harbor with another 100 on moorings. There was still room for a few more. It's a holding area for boats that are waiting to go on to the Bahamas or Cuba. The Canadians can go to Cuba for a 6- month period of time, so there were a lot of Canadian boats there waiting for a weather window.

Marathon has a little of everything. There is a morning "Net" which is on the VHF radio where you can buy, sell, get information and help for just about everything. It is a fun thing to do every morning. One of the marinas in town, The City Marina, has a dinghy dock, showers, water, laundromat, mail service, library/book exchange, pump-out service and bike storage all for $25.00 a week. A great service! And there is a fellow who has started a service called "The Smorgasboat". If you call him on the VHF radio, he will deliver the newspaper, gourmet coffee, fresh pastries, serve as a water taxi or just about anything else you might want or need. One of the things that we needed to get done on the boat was window screens. Bud finally made them himself. With those done, we needed to wait out another weather window in order to cross the Florida Bay and start heading up the West Coast of Florida. While waiting for the weather to improve we rented a car and drove to Key West for a day. We had been told by several people that Key West still had a lot of damage to boating facilities from Wilma. We spent the day and toured the Hemingway House and had a great time.

Something that we have found while we are out cruising is how easy we can make friends. We have met some really great people. While in Ft. Lauderdale, we met a couple who were in the slip next to ours who have been cruising for a year. We are planning on seeing them again this summer. While in Marathon, we met 3 other interesting couples. One is now in the Bahamas, and we will see them when passing through North Carolina. We also met a couple who have been out cruising for the last 14 years, and we traveled with them for the last 4 or 5 days. They are headed to Texas. It's amazing how you make friends, and then in a few days you leave and will possibly never see them again. It's sad, but on the other hand, you never know when you might cross paths again.

Well, after 3 weeks we finally left Marathon. We had a fairly good crossing of the Florida Bay. It was a little choppy and we took a lot of water over the bow, but all in all it wasn't too bad. We stopped for a night in the Little Shark River which is a verrrrry remote spot surrounded by nothing but mangroves; surprisingly pretty and very quiet. We had a delightful night there and left first thing in the morning for another 40-mile run up to Indian Key, another very remote place. We did a little scouting out of all of the little islands in the area, again it was very quiet. We couldn't believe all the stars at night. With no city lights in the area, it was extremely dark so all the stars were brilliant. This was a very nice place to anchor.

After one night at Indian Key, we were off to Marco Island which is about another 30-mile trip. Boy, what a sharp contrast to the places we've been so far. Marco Island is a very upscale community with high rise condos and hotels everywhere. We anchored in Smokehouse Bay and were treated to a stunning view of multi-million dollar homes (much like Newport Harbor, CA). We have friends, Clay and Debi, who live on the island so we were anxious to see them. They were the couple who came to Ft. Lauderdale to help us unload “Diamond Girl” from the ship. We had a wonderful day sightseeing with them. We ended up staying at Marco Island for almost a week. It was hard to leave such a great place, but we had more to see and do. Off to Ft. Myers Beach.

After a 40-mile run up the West Coast, Ft. Myers Beach loomed ahead. With all the high rise buildings along the beach, it wasn't hard to spot. We rounded the sand spit that sticks out from the land and found a wonderful little harbor. This little town is on Estero Island and like all of the other little Keys, it’s only about 1/3 of a mile wide. There are a lot of eateries and t-shirt shops and a bunch of tourist traps. The beaches are great. They are white sand that is the consistency of powered sugar. We have only been here for a couple of days but have already decided that this could be another place that we should revisit.

I think that brings you up to date so far. We will be here for a couple more days, and then we will be off to rendezvous with some friends from Ventura, California who we haven't seen for a number of years. They now live in Punta Gorda, FL. We can't wait to see them!

January 14, 2006



Hi to all of our dear family and friends,

Our last update ended with Diamond Girl being loaded onto the ship, and we were going to Portland for Christmas and then New Jersey for New Year's. Finally, we flew to Ft. Lauderdale and were able to unload the boat on the 6th of January. Our friends, Clay and Debi, drove over from Marco Island and gave us very needed extra hands. The unloading went fairly smooth, and it was incredibly exciting. We're here now and we can start our trip.

Before we could do much with the boat, we needed to do a lot of clean up and scrubbing. We moved Diamond Girl to a marina about 4 miles up the New River which runs right through downtown Ft. Lauderdale. Well....we just thought that loading the boat onto the ship was nerve racking. The trip up the river was its equal. It was very narrow with mega yachts in the 100' range parked everywhere. We also had a number of bridges that needed to open for us to pass under. It felt as though we had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. But with a lot of help from Elaine, Clay and Debi we made it to the marina. We had a great experience!

We stayed in the marina for 6 days so we could get all of the chores done and put the boat back together. We needed to reinstall all of the canvas, put everything back on deck and do 2 full scrub downs. Before we left Ensenada, we had to get rid of all of the items in the refrigerator and all of the perishable food that we had on the boat. Elaine made a couple of trips to the market and re-bought everything.

The marina that we were in, Marina Bay Marina and Resort, was very nice. There was a little of bit everything available to us; workout facilities, pool, sauna, laundry facilities, restaurant and bar. Also, we spotted a Manatee in the marina right in the area of our boat. It was a great spot to stay, and we met some very nice people who had been doing for the past year exactly what we were about to do. So we got a lot of great information from them about what and where to go. We hope to meet up with them again in the spring, if possible.

Well, on Friday the 13th of January, we left the marina and officially started our trip on the ICW. We decided that our first stop would be Miami. We entered the ICW on the south side of Ft. Lauderdale and traveled 31 miles to a great anchorage right in the middle of town. The weather was beautiful for our first trip, and we were very excited to start moving. Friday night everything started to change. First, we had a lightning show that was interesting, then the rain came and boy did it come. It rained like hell for about a 1/2 hour and then quit. But then the wind came up. Since about 4 AM this morning it has been blowing 20 to 25 knots with gusts up to 40 knots. That's not cool!! We have been hunkered down on the boat all day and staying in out of the wind. It's supposed to die down tonight. We certainly hope so. The weather for the next couple of days doesn't look as though it's going to be great so we will probably just stay where we are and wait for a better weather outlook. That's why we say, "Our plans are cast in jello."

We think that we will be headed for Key Largo next. And then down to Marathon. We probably will stay in Marathon for a week or so. Everyone says that it is a great place to hang out. We will see for ourselves.

That's about all for now. We will send another update when we have something else to report. But for now, we hope that this finds everyone in good health and happy!