Cruising South in '09

Just like the geese, it’s time to head south for the winter. We had a wonderful summer cruising in the Chesapeake Bay, but we always look forward to traveling on the ICW. It’s beautiful and very interesting. There is usually always something new to see. Passing through the little towns, moving up or down the rivers and creeks, watching out for all of the shallow areas and seeing a lot of friends that we have made since we brought the boat to the East Coast is always a super time. We have made some wonderful friends in the last 4 years and always look forward to running into them in an anchorage or marina somewhere along the way. We’re all heading for the warmer climates in Florida and traveling on the same waterways, so seeing another boat that we know isn’t unusual.

We left Norfolk, VA on the second day of October excited about our trip south. Elaine and I decided that we were going to make the first day a short one and stop at Great Bridge to stay at the free dock that so many people had told us about. Also, everyone had told us that there was a really good Mexican restaurant, close enough to walk to, so we stopped. But before we got there, we had a call on the radio from friends that we met the very first year we started cruising. They heard us on the VHF radio contacting a lock and called us. Amazingly they were only about a mile from us heading north for new jobs. We both stopped at the free dock and renewed old friendships. It was great!

                                                              Good Bye Norfolk!

                                                        The free dock at Great Bridge Lock

                                                        Early morning on the Waterway

Leaving first thing in the morning, we continued our trip south heading for an overnight anchorage and traveled there with another boat that we had met the night before. We ended up cruising with Doug and Noodle, his cat, aboard “Water Torture” for the next few days.

                                                 "Water Torture" anchored in Broad Creek

During the day on the 3rd, we found out that Bud’s mother had fallen and broken her hip. Being 98 years old, her body just couldn’t handle it any more, and she passed away the next day (the 4th of October). Now we had to find somewhere we could leave “Diamond Girl” so that we could fly home. We finally decided to travel a few more days and leave the boat in Wilmington, NC. We knew some folks who had a slip we could use so that we could fly to California for her funeral. It’s always great to see our family but not under these conditions. We left “Diamond Girl” there for a week, and when we got back we had to do some preparation before we could get underway. After a couple days of provisioning, we were off again.

One of the things we wanted to do this trip was to stop in as many new (to us) places as possible. We pretty much pulled this off. We stopped in several places that we had never stopped in and a lot of favorite old haunts. We changed insurance carriers this summer, and as a consequence we are now able to be farther south earlier than we have been able to be in the past. Now we can go as far as Cumberland Island, GA before Nov.1, which is right at the GA and FL border. Before, we couldn’t be south of Cape Hatteras, NC prior to November 1. This means that we will be able to leisurely cruise the Carolinas on the trip north next spring.

                                              A navigation mark on the Wacamaw River

The weather going south was a little different than our past trips. This year we had a lot of rain (yuck!) and wind. We really didn’t have to hole up much, but we did have some “crappy” days of traveling. The visibility is extremely poor when it's raining hard as well as being uncomfortable. The wind doesn’t bother us a lot until it starts blowing really hard. We are used to traveling in 15 to 18 knots of wind, but above that it’s definitely not fun. So we look for somewhere to hide.  Georgetown, SC was one of those places.  We have some good friends who live there so we stopped and spent a couple of days with them while waiting for better weather.

"Diamond Girl" has performed great for the past 4 years, but this year we have had some unexpected issues with the boat. We had to rebuild one of our injector pumps, rebuild the freshwater pump, rebuild the electric motor for the head, haul the boat for an insurance survey, haul out to rebuild the dripless shaft seals, and replace high pressure hoses to the transmission cooler. As you can see, we encountered a lot of repairs (ouch!!!). That seriously hurts the cruising budget. Oh well, I guess considering how much we use the boat it’s not too bad. It would be nice to have a year without so many expensive problems, though.

Now “Diamond Girl” is in Palm Coast, FL. We have been there many times before as it is a good spot to leave the boat to fly home for the holidays with our kids. Our friends, Dave and Elaine, invited us to leave the boat at their dock. We know that the boat will be well protected and safe. We will be back on the water in January headed farther south and probably go over to the West Coast of FL for the balance of the winter and early spring. Then we’ll start the trek north again and continue having fun.  We're not really sure what next year will bring, but whatever it is I know it will be great!

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Summer Recap

It's the week after Labor Day and we are anxious to start traveling south to Florida for the winter. We've had a great summer in the Chesapeake Bay visiting with friends and seeing a lot of new and old (to us) places.

   Our first stop was Hampton, VA which is at the very bottom of the Bay. It's a cute little town, very friendly and a must-stop for us. We stayed a few days anchored out and enjoying not having to travel almost every day as we need to on the ICW. Our insurance dictates that we have to be north of Cape Hatteras between June 1 and November 1 (in other words, out of the Hurricane Zone). So because we don't want to be in cold weather, we don't leave FL until the end of April, which means that we have a little over a month to travel 1,000 miles to get north of Cape Hatteras. It's a lot of time considering that we only travel at about 9 or 10 MPH (or 7 to 8 knots).

                                                  Entering the town of Hampton, VA

   After leaving Hampton we traveled up the Bay stopping in Antipoison Creek (great name huh!). It's really a nice residential creek that is very protected for us to anchor. We just used it as an overnight stop because we wanted to get to Saint Mary's City. There is a great little college there and a large bay to anchor. We went ashore and did some exploring around and really enjoyed ourselves. You’re welcome to eat in the college cafeteria, which is very good, and walk around and see some of the old buildings and a really old graveyard dating back into the 1700's.

Graveyard at Saint Mary's College

Diamond Girl anchored offshore.

Looking from the college campus.

From Saint Mary’s we went to one of our favorite places…Solomon’s Island. There really isn’t much there but it is a very boating oriented little town where everyone cruising seems to gather. We know a couple of people who live here part of the year (who cruise part of the year) that we have met along the way. We stayed there for a few days and then continued up and across the bay to San Domingo Creek. It’s on the Eastern Shore of the bay and is a long and sheltered creek to stay in. You can walk into the quaint little town of St. Michaels where there are shops and restaurants and just about anything else that would attract tourists.

Once again this year we were invited to our friends Greg and Susie Kaufman, who live on the Wye River, to spend the 4th of July with them. We had a ball! They invite about 12-14 people every year and most of us come by boat. Some anchor out in their bay and some can be accommodated at their dock. Of course, in Maryland when there is a gathering of friends there usually are crabs to be cooked. Greg is the master at cooking crabs. Five or six dozen were steamed up and everyone ate their fill. What a great holiday.

Greg & Susie's dock

A partial pot of crabs.

Fabulous crabs!!

From here we went over to Annapolis. We stayed a couple of days in Annapolis proper then moved to our long time friends Nan & Terry Terhorst's dock. We needed to leave the boat at a dock so we could travel to Phoenix and they offered their dock once again. We were there much longer than expected but finally moved on to Baltimore, MD and visited some friends who live on their boat in a marina, Jim & Cathy Fisher.

We left Baltimore and visited some other of our favorite anchorages and after a couple of weeks on the hook discovered one day that our fridge had quit working. So after some scrambling around to get ice for a cooler, we put everything we could on the ice and headed for Annapolis....again. It was the closest town and we knew that you could get anything fixed on a boat there. Nan and Terry put us up again and we got it fixed.

Now we are on the Eastern Shore waiting out some really nasty weather that has been predicted. It hasn’t shown up yet, but we’re being cautious because we really don’t like to travel in crappy weather.

From here we will start to slowly meander down the bay and begin our trek back to Florida for the warm winter weather.

As always we love to hear from everyone.  Let us know what's happening in your lives. Email are always great. And let us know what you think of our blog.

Hope everyone is well and happy!!

BandE

June 2009

Our trip north this year was laced with a lot of wind and rain. We left Palm Coast, FL on April 20 and started our northbound adventure. The first night we stopped in Pine Island Loop which is a really quiet anchorage. This year there were 12 boats anchored for the night which is more than we have ever seen in this spot. But it was not crowded and everyone had a nice evening. The second day we traveled up to Cumberland Island which is in Georgia at the very southern end. Cumberland Island is incredibly beautiful. We did the usual walking tour with some friends we happened to be traveling with at the time and then stayed for an extra day before we continued our trip north.

Again on the trip north we had decided that we wanted to stay in as many new places as we could. Anchoring out is always our preference but not always practical. Periodically we need marinas so that we can do laundry, put water on the boat and do some major grocery shopping. We carry enough water for about 10 or twelve days and we try to keep about 2 week’s worth of food and everything else on board. We also try (not always successfully) to stay in marinas only one night a week if possible. Well, this year we couldn’t always do what we wanted to do. It seemed as though every time we fired up the engines we were expecting to have thunderstorms. Thunderstorms come in different categories. There are thunderstorms, strong thunderstorms and severe thunderstorms. Severe thunderstorms are not nice. When they are predicted we usually look for a marina. They can have winds up to 60 knots and very heavy rain. They usually are not fun but only last for a short time. This year we were plagued with them. Consequently, we were holed up in marinas much more than we wanted. But storms like these are common and you have to live with them.

We’ve traveled the ICW several times now so we kind of know what and where we like to stay. This year we stayed in a lot of new anchorages and a lot of our favorite spots also. We always stop in Beaufort, SC. This year we stopped and stayed a couple of extra days because we met up with some of our very first cruising friends from 2006, who now live on their boat in Beaufort. Chuck and Susan have stopped to rebuild their cruising kitty and also work on their new boat. It was really fun to see them and spend some time.

Charleston, SC is also one of our favorites except this time we anchored out 1 night and then kept on traveling the next day. We did stop again in Myrtle Beach, SC and then Southport, NC.
Once you get north to the Albemarle Sound, you have 2 choices in which to travel up to Norfolk, VA. Both are about the same distance but one is very pretty and different and the other is faster but not as picturesque. We chose the Dismal Swamp, which is slower but really pretty. First, you stop in Elizabeth City, NC and spend a night or 2 at their free city docks. It’s fun because you will meet a bunch of people that are doing the same thing you are and also the Mayor of the town. Every night at 5 pm the mayor and a couple of other folks from town come down to the docks and have a wine and cheese party for all of the cruisers. It’s really nice and very unique. It’s the only place that does it and they’ve become quite well known for it.

We went through the Dismal Swamp with 12 other boats, which is a lot. You have to transit 2 locks and twelve 40’+ boats really filled these small locks. There is a place to stop half way through. It’s a visitor’s center, the only one in America that services a highway and also a waterway. It was a blast and of course any time you put that many boats together I can guarantee there will be a cocktail party at 5 pm.

We left the next day and arrived in Norfolk, VA and anchored. We have been here many times and knew that there was a great anchorage. We stayed there for a couple of days and sat out a couple of really nasty thunderstorm systems that came through and then continued up to Hampton, VA which is one of our favorite little towns.

For the long weekend in May we were invited to join some friends that live in Norfolk, and are members of an organization that we belong to, M.T.O.A., to cruise up the James River to the Pagan River and go to Smithfield, VA. We had a great time. There were just 3 boats, everyone anchored out and we all partied for 3 days. After that we went back to Hampton, VA, got everything together and continued up the Chesapeake Bay.
We’ve made several stops at some of our favorite locations; i.e., Solomon’s Island, Broad Creek off of the Choptank River, and now where we are anchored in the South River in Harness Creek. It’s just south of Annapolis, MD and very, very pretty.

I know that I keep saying how pretty or beautiful it is. Well, I really don’t know how to describe the locations any other way. I don’t think that there is any place in California that you can compare to these areas. California is a beautiful state, but with a very different type of terrain and foliage.

We are going to leave here tomorrow and travel to Rock Creek just outside of Baltimore to see some other cruising friends from Maine. Then after that we are going to Bodkin Yacht Club for our YC’s opening day. Our little club doesn’t have the facilities to hold an opening day, so Bodkin YC and White Rocks YC are going to do a combined opening day. It should be fun, it’s a 3 day event and we don’t know a sole. It’ll be interesting.

If anyone wants to view all of pictures that we've taken to date please go to our website www.picasaweb.google.com/budlloyd and you can see everything.

We hope everyone is well and happy!!

April 11, 2009


Last fall our trip south to Florida was somewhat uneventful. We actually left the Chesapeake Bay the first part of October. We decided to leave a little early and take our time in some of the places that we hadn’t seen before. We had until the middle of November before traveling to the West Coast to spend the holidays with our families.

Anchoring in the Pungo River was a new spot for us. It was quiet, somewhat protected and a new stop. We like to anchor out as often as possible. There are a million different places to anchor along the ICW; it’s just a matter of where and how much you really prefer to be “out on the hook.” Staying in marinas all of the time becomes very expensive and our modest little cruising budget just will not allow it. Also, staying tied to a dock all the time just doesn’t allow you to see all of the out-of-the-way places that make traveling the waterway so fascinating.

The only real problem we had on the trip south was passing through Southport, NC. We lost our steering! Since our steering is hydraulic, once you lose the fluid all of the steering is gone. Fortunately, we have two engines which allow you to steer by using the engines. We made it to a marina about 10 or 15 miles further down the waterway and contacted a mechanic to do a rebuild of our seals in the system. Bud already had a rebuild kit just in case this should happen, so all the mechanic had to do was install the kit. If you see the inside of the system, you would understand why Bud was a little reluctant to do it himself. It’s very intricate inside with a bunch of little balls that have the potential of falling out.

After that, we didn’t have any issues to deal with except a really nasty thunder and lightning storm while we were in Charleston, South Carolina. We happened to be in a marina and decided to stay an extra day to wait out the storm. We were tied up on a very long dock next to a 149 foot mega yacht that had six full-time crew members. It was a beautiful yacht and dwarfed our modest little boat. The boat’s name was Sun Chaser. And you will see it in some of the mega yacht magazines.

We finally made it to Palm Coast, Florida around the 10th of November and had a few days before we flew out to Oregon so we took the time to do a lot of the maintenance that needed to be done on the boat. When we got back after the holidays we finished the remaining projects including replacing a cabinet on the aft deck and then got underway again.
We really enjoy cruising Florida in the winter. The weather isn’t normally too cold and the days are sunny. There are a lot of great places to explore. First, we stopped in New Smyrna Beach and then Melbourne on our way to Vero Beach. Everyone calls Vero Beach “Velcro Beach” because it is so boater friendly that you don’t want to leave. There are moorings to tie up to, a large dinghy dock and a very nice captain’s lounge. The city bus is free and stops within the marina grounds. It’ll take you almost anywhere you need to go. It’s walking distance to the beach and a nice little beach community along with numerous upscale shops. We stayed for a week and continued on to Stuart, FL, then over to Indiantown before we crossed Lake Okeechobee headed to the West Coast of FL. The trip from the Atlantic side to the Gulf side is a truly interesting part of Florida. It’s like stepping back into the 50’s; very old and charming in its own way. One of the things we enjoy about the trip is all of the wildlife. At one point we counted over 70 alligators in a 12 mile stretch of water. Also there were bald eagles, raccoons and snakes. All of them were on land and not a threat to us.

Once we got over to the West Coast we stopped and visited some cruising friends in Cape Coral. They have a beautiful home on a canal, so we tied up to their dock and enjoyed their hospitality. Unfortunately, though, we discovered that a very small fuel leak that we have had for 3 or 4 years had gotten really worse. So we decided to have it looked at again and see if we could repair it. It turned out that we had to have our injector pump rebuilt (ouch!!). So we were at Candice and Rick’s house for a week instead of just a couple of days. We had a great stay and hope that we didn’t over stay our welcome. We were really stuck! And they were really nice about it.


After we left Cape Coral we went over to Fort Myers, just across the river, and Bud’s brother, Jim, came and joined us for a few days. We’d had big plans of taking him out and visiting some anchorages that we knew and showing him what we do. Well, as is often the case in Florida, a cold front decided that it was going to pass through and sit on us for 4 days, so instead of doing what we had started out to do, we rented a car and did some sightseeing instead. We had a good time and hope he did too. It’s always great to get together with family along the way.

When Jim left, we decided to call some friends (Jay and Susan) who live in Fort Myers. They invited us to stay a night with them. They have a boat that is being prepped for repainting and wasn’t at their dock so we took its spot for a night and had a great time. The next day we started our trek back over to the East Coast.

Crossing Lake Okeechobee again wasn’t a big deal. The weather cooperated and we had a smooth crossing. We stopped in Indiantown and also Stuart on the way up to Vero Beach one more time. As you can tell, we have gotten too really like Vero.

Next week, around the 15th of April, we will start to head north again. This is the time of year when everyone begins to make the trip up to the more northern states mainly because of the insurance requirements and partly for the cooler weather during the summer months.

Be sure to watch the attached slide show below that has all of our slides of this portion of our trip. You should be able to click on it and watch.