Cruising The ICW With DIAMOND GIRL

Heading South 2011

2011-12-09T17:17:00.001-05:00

December 2011

Well our trip south is behind us, and we are on the West Coast enjoying our family for the holidays.

Our journey south was a little rougher this year. We had a lot of wind and rain and were held up on several occasions waiting for the weather to improve. When we started heading south, we left from Portsmouth, VA and went down the Virginia Cut Route, which is the alternate route to the Dismal Swamp. It’s a little faster and a lot more crowded but certainly not as pretty. We usually go south on this route and then come north through the Dismal Swamp. After an overnight stop in Coinjock, NC we crossed the Albemarle Sound and anchored in a very remote spot for the night. We had heard a lot of people talking about anchoring in the South Lake off of the Alligator River so we decided to give it a try. What we found was a very, very remote wide creek with shallow water and some really good protection from the wind. When it got dark we couldn’t see anything except stars. There was a carpet of stars as it was so dark and absolutely no lights or other boats. It’s a little off of the beaten path so a lot of people won’t venture in there, but we thought that it was certainly worth the trip.

Leaving Portsmouth in our wake.

In a lock heading to Coinjock, NC.

Sunset at South Lake...there is nothing around us.

In the morning when we left South Lake, we headed for Dowry Creek Marina. This is one of our favorite places to visit on the ICW. The marina is close to the little town of Belhaven, NC. We like the marina because of the people there. Mary, the owner, is just a very sweet lady and all of the other folks that live and work there are always very welcoming and helpful. Every night at 5:00 they have a cocktail gathering in the captain’s lounge. We always meet several new cruisers and usually meet up with some friends that we have already made. It’s always a nice stop and one that we will continue.

5:00 cocktails at Dowry Creek Marina.

Making new friends is always great.

A great place to gather.

At this point we were working our way south to meet some friends from Annapolis (Nan and Terry) who were going to be spending a week or so cruising with us from Southport, NC to Charleston, SC. We got held up in Carolina Beach, SC because of weather so Nan and Terry met us there, and when the weather squared away we took off and continued south. We had a blast with our friends on board. They are boaters also but had never really spent any time on the ICW. We introduced them to some really relaxed cruising (the way it should be), and we think they enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed having them aboard.

Nan and Terry with Elaine in Georgetown, SC.

After we dropped off our friends we continued south. We anchored out at Toms Point Creek which was a good stop, and then continued to Port Royal Landing Marina which again is a favorite of ours. While there, we got a phone call from some old friends from Ventura Yacht Club in CA (Dennis & Tina) who have a vacation home in Beaufort, SC. We met them for dinner and really had "old home" time. It’s wonderful to have the opportunity to see old friends in strange places.

Port Royal Landing Marina, Beaufort, SC.

When leaving Port Royal and Beaufort, SC, you are only a very few miles from the GA border. Savannah is only about 30 or 35 miles away. GA is notorious for shallow water. It’s usually the shallowest that you will encounter on the ICW. We always plan, as best we can, to travel on a rising tide because if you go aground the rising tide will you help get off. By the way, we never go aground….but we have been known to park in some “unusual” places. Everybody has this experience at some point when cruising the ICW. Everybody!

After we left the Savannah area our next stop was going to be the Duplin River for an overnight anchorage, but the weather turned really “snotty” on us so we cut our day short because we didn’t think crossing the Sapelo Sound would be wise in our little boat (25 to 30 knots of wind with large seas). Our decision turned out to be a smart one. A friend of ours, who was an hour or two ahead of us at that point, said that it was really nasty when he crossed and he has a much larger boat than ours. All was not lost, though, because the next day we met up with the same friends and celebrated Elaine’s birthday with a really nice dinner out at St. Simon's Island.

St. Mary’s, GA was our next destination. It’s a very small town on the GA and FL border. Again, we met up with some other cruising friends (Jim & Paula) who we had met there last year. Meeting with friends is one of the things that we especially love about cruising. The camaraderie is amazing! We have been very fortunate to make some special new friends over the last six years.

We finally got to our destination which was Palm Coast, FL. We know several people in the area and it’s very protected and secure. We leave our boat there every year and head out to the West Coast to be with our family and old friends for the holidays.

When we get back to FL, we will be starting our travels again about mid-January and cover the state of Florida. This year we are going down through the FL Keys again so stay tuned for additional postings.

As always, we would love to hear from you. Let us know what’s going on in your lives so we don’t lose touch. Also, sign up to be a “follower” on our blog and tell others who might be interested to check out the blog. The more the merrier. If you would like to view more pictures, go to our website www.picasaweb.google.com/budlloyd. You will be able to view all of our pictures as a slide show.

Enjoy!

Bud and Elaine

Starting to head South

2011-09-28T16:22:00.002-04:00

09/28/11

Here we are back in Solomons Island again. We decided to stop here after leaving Cambridge, MD and the MTOA rendezvous. We had a great time in Cambridge. The rendezvous was a great success and very well attended. Over 70 boats and around 200 people showed up and attended a lot of seminars, social gatherings in the evening and some great dinners. We always have a grand time at these events and see a lot of our cruising friends and meet a bunch more.

Elaine getting us registered for the event.
There were around 200 attendees.

The venue at Cambridge is one of our favorites. There is a park that is part of the marina so MTOA erects tents to house all of the events; i.e., seminars, social gatherings, dinners and anything else that they can think of to offer the members.

The town of Cambridge has a really long heritage. In years past it was a "Waterman" town and still has one of the largest crab packing facilities on the Chesapeake Bay. Right now it is trying hard to restore the town which has had a hard time through this recession. There are a lot of businesses struggling and a lot of empty store fronts. It will come back! It's too popular not to.

We have left Cambridge and are starting our trek south. We've stopped once again in Solomons, but will be heading out in a couple of days with our next stop in an anchorage and then on to Deltaville and Regatta Point Marina. We need to see the staff at Waterway Guide and also get our food stores up-to-snuff before really starting to travel every day.

As you know we go to Florida for the winter and spring. It's too cold up here and really nice and warm in FL (usually), and we can't resist the warmth. The distance from where we are now (Solomons, MD) is right around 1,000 miles to Palm Coast, FL where we will leave Diamond Girl for approximately 6 weeks so that we can visit family and friends in CA and OR. The trip takes us through some really delightful areas, and we will keep you up-to-date as to what's happening.

If you don't already know, you can view our photos larger and with more clarity by double clicking on them. They will enlarge and be much more appealing to view.

Also, don't forget to sign up to be one of our followers. Please don't forget to let us know what's happening with you and your family.

Bud and Elaine

You can see the park in the background.
Elaine is talking to some new friends.

One of the presenters at a seminar about Cruising the Bahamas.

Traveling the Chesapeake

2011-09-17T10:34:00.038-04:00

September 17, 2011

We finally left Solomons Island the 10th of Sept.. We had been there for 6 weeks and were getting anxious to travel again. We really love it when we are on the move.

Docked in a marina waiting for IRENE

Elaine and I left early morning and traveled north on the Bay up to the Choptank River on the Eastern Shore. It's a very large river and has numerous anchorages. Our destination was San Domingo Creek Some people call it the "back door" to St. Michaels, MD. The town boasts of a really nice maritime museum. The docents are in the process of restoring a number of sailing vessels and also sponser several sailboat races.

Entering San Domingo Creek

St. Michaels is a very small upscale town with very large homes on lots of property. The town is loaded with shops and restaurants. We anchored and stayed for several days. A few boats came into the creek to spend time at anchor so we had plenty of other boats around. The dinghy dock is also the local "watermen" dock, so it has a lot of character. Most of the watermen are friendly, but I'm sure that they think we "yachties" are a pain the you know what. But everyone gets along.
Since our MTOA organization is having the annual Northern Rendezvous in Cambridge, MD we moved a short distance and are here getting ready for the event. The distance from San Domingo to Cambridge is only about 20 miles on the river so we stopped part way here and spent the night in La Trappe Creek which is another creek that has some homes but isn't very developed. It is quite pretty and peaceful.

Stay in touch, and let us know what's happening in your lives.
Bud and Elaine

Beautiful San Domingo Creek

Entering La Trappe Creek off of the Choptank River

Summer 2011

2011-09-01T15:30:00.000-04:00

Well believe it or not, we are still in Solomons, MD. We came here to meet our daughter Michelle and her family and after 5 weeks we're still stuck. It hasn't been bad stop, though, as we had an absolutely wonderful time with family and grandkids and have met a bunch of really nice folks.

A Skipjack in Cambridge, MD

The reason we're still here is because we are waiting on batteries for Diamond Girl. We had to order the batteries (8 golf cart size batteries) because no one had that many in stock. We've been having issues with them for some time and decided that this was a good spot to stop and take care of the problem. Another good thing is that we have gotten a lot of small projects completed and off our list. It seems that there are always projects and something that needs to be done on a boat.
Diamond Girl is in really good condition and is ready for the trip back to Florida. We are anxious to get started. Before we start south we are going to attend a rendezvous for M.T.O.A. in Cambridge, MD, a little town that we have already been to this year. It's a cute little village that is on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. This used to be a major town for the waterman (commercial fisherman) and still has one of the largest crab packing houses in Maryland. It's very active with crabbers and is interesting to watch how they pack and can the crabs.

A small section of the Dismal Swamp

This year we are going to have our friends Terry and Nan meet us in Portsmouth, VA to travel with us for a week or so. We are planning on going back through the Dismal Swamp and show them that area. Right now all of the routes south out of Norfolk, Va are closed because of damage to the locks from Hurricane Irene. But hopefully they will both be open by the end of September.
Speaking of Irene, she was our first hurricane since we've be cruising...and we hope the last. Even though it was considered a small hurricane (catagory one), it still did a lot of damage to several states. North Carolina was where Irene made her first landfall in the U.S. There are still, 6 days later, areas that don't have any electricity and there are several other states that have the same problem.
It's amazing to see all of the trees down. You can't go anywhere without seeing trees laying on the ground. Some of the trees are broken off and a lot of them have been uprooted. One of our dock neighbors showed us a picture of a tree at his house that split right down the middle and then was also uprooted. The root ball was about 4 feet taller than he is.
Fortunately, we didn't have any damage at all. We took all of the canvas off of Diamond Girl, placed her in the center of the slip and tied 10 lines to her. Then we went and stayed in a hotel that is connected to the marina. We kept an eye on the boat part of the night and decided that there really wasn't much we could do so we finally went to bed and tried to escape.
In the morning we found the boat safe and secure along with all of the boats in our marina. There were some pilings that had broken off, but the boaters were able to get the boats involved resecured. We had about 60-mph winds and not very much of a tidal surge. The marina that we are in is about 4 miles off of the Chesapeake Bay and about a mile farther up a creek. It's very well protected and a great place to ride out hurricanes.
Oh, I almost forgot the earthquake!! Just a few days before the hurricane, we had a 5.9 earthquake. Almost unheard of in Maryland. Everyone was wondering "what that was." Well, being the only ones from California and just about the only ones to have experienced an earthquake, we became the go-to people for information. They closed all of the bridges in the area for inspections. We haven't heard of any major damage yet.

The party with entertainment...he's one of the boaters.

Of course, after events like an earthquake and a hurricane, it calls for a party. Soooo we had a BBQ party Monday night. People from around our marina and some of the other marinas in the area showed up, and we had a great time. One of the best things about cruising is all of the friends that you meet. One of the couples was from Germany (Barbara and Manfred). They had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and have only been in the U.S. for a very short time. They were great and fit right in.
Well, enough rambling for now. Please stay in touch, and let us know what's happening in your lives. Also, don't forget to sign up to be one of our followers. We love to know who is looking at our blog.
The Transients,
Bud and Elaine

Stern lines on the port side

Lines off of the bow

No canvas...ready for IRENE

Summer 2011

2011-07-24T14:27:00.000-04:00

7-23-11

In April when we last posted to this blog, we were in Vero Beach, FL preparing to start our annual trip north to the Chesapeake Bay. Boy, have there been a lot of things going on since then.

Looking out to the anchorage in Cocoa Beach

Over all we had a fine trip north. The weather at times was a factor, but all-in-all we had a good trip. Stopping in a lot of our favorite little towns and also staying and anchoring out in some new places. Once we left Vero Beach, we made stops in Cocoa Beach, FL, a really quaint little town with a nice anchorage that can hold a lot of boats. We continued on to one of our favorite stops, Palm Coast, FL. We stayed a couple of days in the marina and visited with some really good friends, Dave and Elaine, and got the boat ready for a lot of travelling. This is always a good stop for us. We know several good people to work on the boat, and we have always been very pleased with the marina. St. Augustine was our next stop, it’s just a short trip (20 miles), but we were going to meet some friends from Ventura CA that we used to boat with 15 or 20 years ago. Dennis and Tina Carlson were on vacation and called to let us know they were going to be in St. Augustine so we made plans and met them for a good “gab” session. It’s always great to see someone from our home state.

After a couple of days there, we pressed on with plans to go up the St. John’s River. The river passes through the middle of Jacksonville, which is the largest city in Florida, and is a major shipping channel. We went as far as the town of Palatka about halfway upriver. The river is about 150 miles long and is dotted with small towns and a lot of creeks and rivers that feed into it. It’s very interesting and has a lot of history plus you get the feeling of “old Florida” much more so than in most of the towns. Instead of taking Diamond Girl all the way up the river, we docked in Palatka, rented a car and drove all the way to Sanford, FL which is at the head waters of the St. John’s. It’s a really nice small town that has been revitalized and is more developed than most of the towns in that area. On our driving trip, we sort of “gunkholed” our way along the river, stopping in all of the little nooks and crannies everywhere…..it was fun.

Dick and Elle on Summer Wind Helping us celebrate

After a few days in Palatka, it looked as though we were going to have a pretty good weather window for traveling so we pulled our docks lines and headed north again. After a couple of days traveling, we stopped in the Duplin River in GA, which is familiar to us, and anchored for the night. About an hour after we got set, we noticed another boat coming in and low and behold it was some friends that we hadn’t seen for a while. They also happen to be the friends who spent our anniversary with us (in 2010) in Savannah, GA. Dick and Elle called us on the radio shortly after they got anchored and asked if they were included in this year’s anniversary celebration. We said of course they were. So we made plans to meet the next day in Savannah at Tubby’s Tank House for dinner. Tubby’s has become sort of a tradition for us on our anniversary. We had a great time with our good friends and also celebrated our 48th.

The walkway at Port Royal Marina

Port Royal was our next destination. It’s the neighboring town to Beaufort, SC. This happens to be among our list of favorite stops. We always stay a Port Royal Landing Marina. It’s very well run and is owned and operated by a really fantastic family. Everyone works there. It’s friendly and very welcoming to transient boaters like us. This year we stayed for six days. It was during the period of time when all of the tornados were hitting everywhere. We had really crappy weather with very heavy winds and a lot of rain. Fortunately, all of the tornados bypassed our area, but there were some very nervous times to say the least. This year when we left Port Royal, we went on to Charleston, SC but only stopped overnight and then left the next morning. We needed to make up some travel days, and this was a good stretch to do that. We’ve been to Charleston a lot so we didn’t think we were missing anything. After anchoring out for a few nights, we arrived in Myrtle Beach, SC. We needed fuel so we pulled into a very pretty marina for that purpose and ended up staying there for a couple of nights. There were some cruising friends there doing the same thing so we got together for drinks and dinner. Of course, we had a super time. One of the interesting things about cruising on a boat is that you meet an incredible number of people, become good friends in a very short time, and then you might not see them again for a couple of years. Then one day you stop somewhere, pull into a marina or drop the anchor, and after a bit you hear someone calling “Diamond Girl.” Then here are the friends that you met in God knows where, and it starts all over again. It’s wonderful…and one of the things we always look forward to.
We stopped in Southport, SC and visited some of our other cruising friends, Gwen and Walter. The next day we continued heading north. Our trip so far was fairly uneventful (which is fine), and we were really having a good time. The weather hadn’t been too bad, only a few delays and that’s to be expected. From here we made a lot of our usual stops, and one of them is in Elizabeth City. NC. We think this is probably the friendliest stop on the Waterway. There are some free docks located here and there is a welcoming wine and cheese party at 5 o’clock everyday (that is provided by the City). Really a great stop! You can’t walk down the street without someone stopping in a car and offering a ride or stopping you on the sidewalk and asking if you need help finding something. It’s amazing and happens to us every time we stop here.

Going through the Dismal Swamp and arriving in Norfolk, VA is always a good feeling. Number one, the Dismal Swamp is very unique. And number two, arriving in Norfolk marks the end of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (mile marker “0”). Our endless days of traveling to get here are done. Now we can just move at a casual pace and enjoy the Chesapeake Bay.

The thing we like about the Bay is that it has endless places to drop the hook and relax. There are very few restrictions on anchoring anywhere in the Bay or the many creeks and rivers that feed into the Bay. It’s not hard to find a place to anchor where you have 360 degree of protection and good holding ground. It’s great! This year we have stops planned in Annapolis, Baltimore, St. Michael’s, Solomon’s Island and many more.

Now as we write this, we have already completed a lot of those planned stops. We hauled Diamond Girl out of the water in Baltimore and did a bottom job. We visited with our dear friends in Annapolis, Nan and Terry, enjoyed the 4th of July on the Wye River with our friends Susie and Greg along with a bunch of other friends (Don and Susan, Paul and Sue, Ken and Marj). We have done this almost every summer with these friends, and it’s always a fabulous time.

Now we are in Solomon’s Island, MD getting ready for our daughter Michelle and her family to visit for a week…we can’t wait to see them. We’ve got some things planned and we’re hoping for good weather. Right now we are experiencing horribly hot weather (98 degrees with 80% humidity and 79% dew point). It’s ungodly HOT!!!!!!

Well, as always, we want to hear from you. Emails are the best way, and we really enjoy hearing about what’s happening in your lives. All we do is travel on our little boat 24/7/365. What a life!! But….HEY someone has to do it!

The Transients, Bud and Elaine

Manatee's in Palatka, FL

Believe or not this dock is 1500' long. It's a dock for a restaurant.

Friends anchored in the Duplin River in GA

Winter Cruising---It's a Tough Life

2011-04-01T09:11:00.000-04:00

The last time that we posted we were in Vero Beach, FL. Well, we are here again, this time to start our travels north. We have had an absolutely fabulous winter this year. The weather has been in the high 70’s or low to mid 80’s most of the time. That’s the reason we’re here……great weather.

When we left Vero Beach in January, we were headed farther south. We stopped in Stuart for a couple of days and then we were off to Lake Worth and Fort Lauderdale. Lauderdale is a town that is built for one thing…boating. You’ll see 200-foot mega yachts, too many to count. They say that Ft. Lauderdale has more mega yachts visiting than any other port in the world, and by all appearances you can believe it.

We stayed there for a few days and rented a car in order to drive down through the Keys. We drove straight to Key West, scoped out the town, and then turned around and worked our way back. We were updating the Waterway Guide so we needed to stop a lot and check-out some of the marinas and also the restaurants, markets and other services that boaters need or want (even tiki bars). While in Key West, we did find a great little Cuban restaurant that sort of reminded us of our favorite Mexican restaurant in Seal Beach.

It's Cuban and great!!

Once we got back to the boat in Ft. Lauderdale, we hung out for a couple more days and then decided that we would head north again and cut across the Okeechobee Waterway to the west coast of Florida. First we stopped to visit some really wonderful friends, Rick and Candice, and then we headed up to Tampa and did more Waterway Guide updates along the way. The weather continued to be nice until we got to Pelican Bay across Charlotte Harbor (on Cayo Costa Island). We anchored in this beautiful spot and the forecast was for rain and a lot of wind for the next day. So we said, “Hey, we’re in no hurry, we’ll just stay here.” Four days later we left after a bunch of rain and 20 to 25 knots of wind every day. We made stops in Venice, Sarasota and Bradenton. Each town was really nice and was everything that people have been telling us about. We went as far as Tampa, rented a car and scoured the area including St. Petersburg. The wind continued to blow every day. We got used to it being 20-plus from the north. We had to hold up periodically because it’s no fun to travel in 20-plus knots of wind every day. It’s one thing to be caught in it, but not smart if you go out in it knowing that it’s going to be nasty. We’re not in any particular hurry so we just waited it out.

The road across Caya Costa Island

The beach on the Gulf side of the island

Stareing at nothingness

It's really beautiful

There has been so little rain this winter here in Florida that one of the things we were concerned about was getting back across Lake Okeechobee while there was enough water. The Lake is extremely shallow to begin with, but with this year’s drought it’s even worse. Unfortunately, we had to bypass Punta Gorda which meant that we couldn’t see our great friends, Frank and Ellen, who live there. We made it to the Lake with enough water (6 feet in some places) to get through. It was interesting to wonder if you’re going to have enough water or not. We checked with the Army Corps. of Engineers before we went, and they told us we should be okay. We’re glad that’s behind us!

We made some stops in Indiantown and Stuart again and spent a few days. While we were in Stuart, we got together with some friends (the Belsons) from the Seal Beach Yacht Club in Long Beach, CA. They were in Florida visiting with some mutual friends from the club (the Landakers) who have a winter home here. We had lunch and did a lot of catching up with them. It was great fun!

The Landakers and Belsons from Seal Beach

We also stopped in Ft. Pierce and visited some cruising friends (Jim and Paula) that were there and had fun bringing each other up-to-date with our travels.

Jim and Paula on Sea Eagle

Now while we’re here in Vero Beach again, we are seeing a bunch of cruisers that we have met over the last 5 years plus catching up with some chores. Today it’s supposed to rain again, but Friday April 1st looks good for traveling. So we will be off, heading for northern waters. This year we are going to take a side trip and travel the full length of the St. John’s River. It’s located almost at the top of Florida and is supposed to be a really great side trip. We’ll let you know.

As always, we love to hear from you. Drop us a note and let us know what’s happening in your lives. Don’t forget to sign up to be one of our followers. We love to see who is following our travels. You can put a picture in the “Followers” section, also.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Winter Cruising in Florida

2011-01-21T12:54:00.000-05:00

January 2011

It’s amazing….for more than 20 years we dreamed of shipping Diamond Girl to the East Coast and cruising the ICW and the Chesapeake Bay. We are starting the sixth year of our dream and every now and then we pinch ourselves to make sure it’s real. Not very many people are privileged enough to realize their dreams but we have been. It’s also nice that we are still enjoying our travels and still like each other.

After all of the miles and 5 years of cruising... we still like each other

We arrived back in Palm Coast, FL on the 4^th of January and found that Diamond Girl was just as we had left her. The weather was very cold, in the 20’s at night and 40’s during the day, which is what we had left in California. We weren’t happy about the cold, but what could we do but grin and bear it. Reprovisioning and getting the boat ready to travel was first on our list. Cleaning, doing some annual maintenance and trying to get the boat warm, was also a priority.

As always we had a great time visiting our family and friends in Oregon and California. When we got back to Florida, we were very anxious to get underway again and continue our journey. We also need to do our updates for the Waterway Guide. We are doing all of Florida this year so we have a lot of territory to cover and needed to get underway.

Our first day out was uneventful which is always a good thing. We had decided to only travel for a short day, so we stopped in Daytona Beach and stayed at the Halifax River Yacht Club. The organization that we belong to, the Marine Trawler Owners Association, is a member of the American Yacht Club Registry; therefore, we can sometimes receive reciprocal privileges with yacht clubs. The Halifax River YC is really a great facility. We saw some cruising friends there and had a super time.

After a short stay at HRYC, we continued another 45 miles to Titusville to just spend one night and then continue on. Well, we met some more cruising friends and decided to spend an additional night so that we could visit.

Going into the Canaveral Barge Canal was on our itinerary for the next day’s traveling. We needed some fuel and we had heard that there was a marina on the canal with really great prices. It was worth the effort because we saved almost 50-cents a gallon. Hey….it’s better in our pocket than theirs. Right? The Barge Canal is a “man made” cut across Merritt Island to Port Canaveral (about 8 Miles) which is a large inlet from the Atlantic. If you go all the way across, there are several marinas on the Atlantic side. We didn’t need to go that far, we just needed to go about 4 miles for our fuel stop.

Canaveral Barge Canal

Intersting Signage

The trip for the last couple of days has been in good weather. The skies have been sunny, and we’ve had very little wind. As always, we need to be wary of the depths, but for the most part if you stay in the well-marked channels you’ll be fine. Our next destination was Cocoa Beach. It’s a small village and very cute. There isn’t much to it but there is a lot of shopping and touristy things to do. We anchored out for the night and went ashore for a short visit.

The anchorage in Cocoa....about 30 boats.

A cute and small village

A lot of court yards

Vero Beach was our next destination. We have been there several times, and it has become one of our favorite stops. There are always a lot of cruisers in Vero, and we are able to rekindle friendships that we have made along the waterways. Vero has only moorings and a small marina. The staff is very friendly, and the facilities are really nice for us cruisers. There is a Captain’s lounge, great laundry facilities and a free bus service that is unmatched elsewhere. The buses come twice an hour and because of the way they are routed you can get almost anywhere in town.

It's cocktail time!

Really good munchies

These guys don't even know each other....and their good!

Usually one night a week, there is an impromptu gathering of all of the cruisers. It’s a way of making new friends and catching up with old friends. Those with any musical talent usually bring instruments and have a jam session. It’s always entertaining. Everyone brings a snack to share and of course it’s always BYOB.

As always...STAY IN TOUCH!

We love to see who's following our travels so sign up to be one of our followers. And don't forget to send us email with what's happening in your life.

2010 TRIP SOUTH

2010-12-01T15:32:00.000-05:00

December 1, 2010

Our summer was fantastic! Not only did we get to spend some time in Kauai, but we also did a great driving trip. Spending time with our friends is always a special treat, and we did a lot of that too.

Kauai, HI

Well, after a great summer we always look forward to our trip of 1,000 miles down the ICW. Every year we seem to enjoy the trip more than the previous year. This year we spent a little more time in marinas than we did anchoring which is not how we usually do it, but we are working for the Waterway Guide again. This time we are updating the entire ICW and part of our responsibilities involves verifying the facilities at the marinas. We don’t critique per se, but we like to make sure that they are properly representing their facilities. So we tend to stop for the night and peruse what they have. It’s great…we meet a lot of new people and explore new areas. We still anchor out a lot, just not quite as much.

Marina being rebuilt

We left Norfolk, VA on the 9th of October and started our migration south. The weather was supposed to be good for us for the next few days. We stopped our first night in Coinjock, North Carolina. The marina only has one dock, but it is 1700 feet long. It’s a face dock so everyone is tied up on the same side (not uncommon on the East Coast). Their claim to fame is a 32-oz. prime rib dinner. We ordered half and still took some of it home. It’s fantastic! The next day we were off heading toward Belhaven, NC. It was going to be a long day so we got an early start. The hardest thing on this leg is the crossing of the Albemarle Sound. If the wind is blowing 15 knots or more and opposing the current, it can be HELL!!! We hit it on a really great day, very smooth, which was fine by us. We’ve had it the other way around and it’s not pleasant. We stopped at the Dowry Creek Marina. We are especially fond of this marina because of the people. They’re exceptionally friendly. We were only going to spend one night there, but they talked us into staying the next day because they had a group of Canadian cruisers there and were going to have a special dinner to celebrate Canada’s Thanksgiving. So we had an early turkey dinner with all of the fix’ns.

With full tummies and blown diets, we headed out the next morning to Beaufort, NC. While talking on the radio, we were told that some people we knew were going to stop for a night in a marina that we had heard about but had never been to before. So we changed our plans and spent a night in the River Dunes Marina in Oriental, NC. This is definitely one of the nicest marinas we have ever been to, and the facilities ashore are incredible. In the restrooms the showers are steam showers, there is a beautiful pool, two spas, cabañas, and outside bars. It is very upscale yet surprisingly inexpensive!

Beaufort, NC was our next destination. It’s not very far from where we were so we had a short day on the water. We hadn’t been to Beaufort for 3 or 4 years so we needed to make sure what was and wasn’t still there. We spent a couple of days walking around town and watching the local high school’s “homecoming” parade, and then we continued to travel down the waterway. Stops in Carolina Beach, NC, Myrtle Beach, SC and then onto

Homecoming Parade Beaufort, NC

Not quite Macy's Parade

Georgetown, SC were on the agenda. We have friends in Georgetown so we spent a couple of days there to visit with them.

Georgetown is really a pretty little town that has gone through a lot of restoration over the last few years. There are some very stately homes that have been restored and a lot of really old buildings in the town. It’s a nice walking town with friendly folks. Georgetown, at one time, had a small steel mill and also a paper mill, but those have mostly gone away.

One of the restored homes in Charleston, SC

Charleston, SC was next, but we decided that we have been there several times fairly recently so we would catch it on the way north in the spring. We anchored in Charleston, though, and continued on the next day to Beaufort, SC. Yes, there are two Beauforts. One is in NC and the other is in SC, both are small but charming little towns. Our favorite is Beaufort, SC., it’s incredibly friendly and very pretty. We also like to stay at the Port Royal Landing Marina. It is family owned and operated, has great hospitality, a loaner car, fun little bar and grill, plus nice facilities. We like to stop for a couple of days, especially when we have been traveling for several consecutive days.

South Carolina marina

When we got moving again, we traveled through Savannah, GA this time instead of stopping. We’ve been there several times and decided that we would stop next time going north. We think that when we do stop, we will go into the downtown area and dock. We usually stay on the outskirts of town and take a bus into the downtown area. Anyway, we anchored out for a night and continued on the next day. We decided to anchor in the Duplin River. There is nothing there, but it’s protected and secure for a night’s stay. Over the years, we have gotten used to anchoring in remote areas all by ourselves. The only problem with it is that if anything really happens, you’d better be prepared to take care of the situation yourself because it could be awhile before help arrives. In most of the really remote areas, your cell phone won’t work so you have to hope that the VHF radio aboard will be heard.

This year we decided that instead of stopping at either Jekyll Island or Cumberland Island, we would stop at St. Simons Island and also the town of St. Marys, GA for a change. Both places were really great. St. Simons is a resort destination with a lot of upscale shopping and some amazing homes. It was larger than we had visualized and much more developed. It was a good stop and one that we would probably do again. The town of St. Marys is quite small. The main part of town has one street with all of the businesses along it, and is only about 3 or 4 blocks long. When we arrived, they were filming a movie called “Eye of the Hurricane.” They had made the town look as though a hurricane had just blown through it….debris everywhere…it looked horrible. After they cleaned it up, it looked normal again. There is almost no automobile traffic, but it’s probably one of the friendliest towns we’ve been to in our travels. We met a couple, Jim and Paula, who we hung out with for a couple of days. It’s always fun to meet new cruising friends.

It's supposed to look like a hurricane just went through

A small house in St. Marys, GA

At this point in time, our trip south was almost complete. Florida is only about 4 miles from St. Marys, and our friends Dave and Elaine MacDonald’s home and dock are only a little over 100 miles away. They invite us to dock and leave Diamond Girl there while we travel home for the holidays. It is really great knowing that the boat is being looked after and secure plus we get to spend some time with them and have a ball.

Now we are at our youngest daughter’s (Traci and her family) home in Tualatin, OR. We got here for Thanksgiving and will stay for a time. Then we’ll fly to CA to visit our older daughter (Michelle and her family) for Christmas. The first few days that we’ve spent in OR the highs have been in the high 20’s and low 30’s, a far cry from the 70’s that we are used to in FL. Oh well! However, it has warmed up to the mid-40s during the day.

When we return to Florida after the first of the year, we will take a few days for projects on Diamond Girl and then get back to what we love to do……”moseying” down the waterway.

Don’t forget to sign-up on our followers list just to the left on this blog. We love to see who’s following us. Also, we love to get emails so don’t be bashful, because we want to hear from you.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL

Summer of 2010

2010-08-18T13:51:00.000-04:00

It’s only been about 3 months since we did our last posting, but we have covered a lot of ground in that time. We completed our trip north on the Intracoastal Waterway (the ICW), then left the boat in Annapolis for a couple of weeks to fly to Hawaii for a week on the beach in Kauai. After getting back to Annapolis, we rented a car and drove the entire Long Island Sound area (we drove through Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, part of Massachusetts and the full length of the northern shore of Long Island) and returned to Annapolis again. The reason we did the Long Island Sound trip by car rather than by boat is that the Waterway Guide wanted us to update as much of the landside facilities as we could within a fairly short period of time.

Kauai 2010

Here’s how we did all of our travels:

After leaving the Alligator River area (the end of our last posting), we crossed the Albemarle Sound and headed to Elizabeth City and the entrance to the Dismal Swamp. We had another great trip going up the Swamp and still enjoy all of the wilderness areas and the camaraderie that exists between the boaters that are doing the Swamp with you. There is always a group of boaters traveling together along the Dismal Swamp because of a bridge and lock at both ends that opens on a strict schedule. Because of the schedule there are always boats that accumulate waiting for an opening, hence you all travel together. Also because the entire length of the Swamp is a “no wake zone” so that means everyone is going to be going slow.

The Dismal Swamp

North Carolina

Upon leaving the Dismal Swamp, you arrive in Portsmouth, VA. We have been here many times and have always anchored out in a fairly large bay just off of the ICW. However, this time we decided to try the free docks that are available right in the middle of town. Well, for the very first time they were not fully occupied so we tied up and stayed for a couple of days.

Hampton, VA is one of our favorite little towns so we made that our next destination. It’s only a short distance from Portsmouth, but we always need to stay at least a day or two. Elaine has a favorite place to get her hair cut and the timing is always right, so that’s one of the reasons for the stop. After a couple of days, we decided that the weather looked pretty good for a trip north on The Bay. We took off early morning with Deltaville in our sights. The weather was predicted to be light so we thought that the long day would be great. It was….for the first couple of hours, but then everything started to go sour. The wind picked up to 20 to 25 and the seas got really rough. What was supposed to be a great day turned out to be “crappy.” We kept going and really got beat up, but we eventually made it. Good old Diamond Girl took good care of us once again. It’s really uncomfortable when it gets so rough, but the boat just plows on through it and we sit back and “piss & moan.”

The people who own the Waterway Guide also own a couple of marinas and had invited us to stop at their marina in Deltaville to get acquainted. We took them up on the offer and had a fabulous stay there. After a few days at Regatta Point Marina, we headed farther up the Chesapeake Bay to Solomon’s Island. As always Solomon’s is a wonderful stop. I’ve never really understood why we like it so much…but we do. We stayed on the hook for several days, saw some of our cruising friends who live there and met a bunch of other folks.

After spending time in Solomon’s, we moved on up the Chesapeake to the South River. It’s sort of the back side of Annapolis, but you’d never know it. The creek has homes on one side and a park that has been left natural on the other side. We’ve been here before and really love it because it’s so quiet. We stayed for a few days and then moved on to our friends Nan and Terry’s dock because that was where Diamond Girl was going to stay while we did some traveling.

South River

Annapolis, MD

Nan and Terry’s dock and part of the Luce Creek,

Annapolis, MD

We had a wonderful trip to Hawaii! We got to spend some really quality time with our daughter Traci and her husband Matt. Plus, we had a blast with Maci, our youngest granddaughter. We had won the use of a really nice condo for a week on Kauai. Since we won because we had bought the winning raffle ticket from Maci’s preschool, we thought they should join us on our getaway. We had a great time…a lot of beach time and pool time. We did a bunch of sightseeing and a lot of just loafing around, too. It was a fantastic break from the boat!

The Queen's Bath on Kauai

Everyone's having a good time!

We got back to the boat after being gone almost 2 weeks and, as always, it was great to be home with our own bed and routine. But we didn’t have long because we needed to leave in just a few days to start our “road trip” through the Long Island Sound area. So, we rented a car and left. For those of you who aren’t familiar with what the Long Island Sound is, we’ll try to briefly explain. It’s actually a bay that is created by Long Island, NY and the coast of several states; NY, CT, RI, and MA. It begins at City Island, NY and the top of it is Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. The length is about 200 miles long and about 15 or so mile s wide. The LI Sound is beautiful with a countless number of rivers, inlets, coves and tributaries along its vast shoreline. We visited anywhere that there was any kind of a boating facility. Remember, we said it was 200 miles long. Well, we traveled almost 2,000 miles. We rarely ever got on a major highway. We were always on secondary roads or just plain residential streets. We could never had visited everywhere without our little GPS for the car. We would call ahead to our next destination and get their street address and punch that into our GPS and off we’d go. We actually had a great time. It was a lot of work and took us almost 3 weeks, but we felt it was worth it. But we have to tell you…living out of a suitcase and a different hotel every night is not something that we want to do on a regular basis.

Mystic Seaport, CT

Cruising friends John and Media...their beach bungalow in

Watch Hill, RI

When we got back to Annapolis, we worked on the boat for a few days and then set off to cruise for the rest of the summer. We have visited a lot of the same places that we’ve been to before and also some new ones. There is so much to see and do in the Chesapeake Bay…it’s endless. It is a truly amazing area for boating enthusiasts.

We just escaped from a boat yard the other day after having completed several projects. We needed to have some fiberglass repair work done. Since it was going to take several days, we also had our dinghy pulled out of the water and blocked up so that Bud could completely recoat the Hypalon as the sun had really done a number on the fabric. Now everything looks practically brand new, and we are once again doing what we seem to do best - cruising and relaxing.

Please don’t forget to sign up to be one of our “followers.” We really get a kick out of knowing who stays up with us, and don’t forget to include a picture. Also, let us know what’s happening in your lives. We love to get your emails, too.

BandE

January through May of 2010

2010-05-10T19:42:00.000-04:00

Wow! Here it is May and we haven't done a posting since February. Well, we have a bunch to catch up on.

The last post left us in Naples, FL. From there we traveled up to Cape Coral and spent some time with our friends Rick and Candice who we had met 4 years ago in Deltaville, VA. We had a great time with them, as always, and then decided that we needed to get moving up the west coast of FL
.

Rick and Candice on Wings

Pelican Bay anchorage on Cayo Costa Island is a very popular spot with the local boaters. You will always find a good number of boats anchored there. It is one of the most protected anchorages on the west coast of Florida. We stayed there for just one night and then proceeded up to Sarasota. What a great city to visit. Everything is conveniently located near the waterfront, so from a boater’s outlook it’s great. Some very dear friends from our days in California (Dave and Nancy) were visiting his father who lives in Sarasota. We were able to spend some great quality time with them and reminisced a lot about the good ole days in Ventura, CA. We hadn’t seen them for a couple of years so we really enjoyed our visit. We stayed in Sarasota for about 5 or 6 days waiting out some windy conditions.

Pelican Bay on Caya Costa Island

Finally we were off to Tarpon Springs where we were going to leave the boat and travel by car up and around the Big Bend of Florida to Mobile Bay, Alabama. We got lined up with a marina, tied up Diamond Girl so we could leave her for a week, and rented a car for our journey. We had decided that taking the boat around the Big Bend just wasn’t practical for what we needed to do. As you might recall from our last posting, we are now working for Dozier’s Waterway Guide as cruising editors and part of our territory is the Big Bend area of FL. It starts around Tarpon Springs and continues along the “Big Bend” over to the Alabama border. Most of the water in the area is too shallow for our 4-foot draft on the boat. We couldn’t travel by boat into some of the areas anyway, so doing it by car seemed more practical. What we found was a very “down home” atmosphere. A lot of back woods type area. Very small marinas, some with limited facilities, some that catered to small boats only, some that were well maintained and some that were horribly maintained. All in all, it was a fun trip. We did a lot of updating for the Waterway Guide and saw a large portion of the country that we had never seen before.

Tarpon Springs...Sponge Capital of the World

When we got back to the boat, we decided to stay in Tarpon Springs for a couple of extra day in order to do some sightseeing. It is a small town that is advertised as the Sponge Capital of the World. It’s mainly a Greek population. The Sponge Docks are the one and only attraction and they are interesting. We did what is expected of tourists; we window shopped in all of the little souvenir stores, ate some delicious Greek food, and actually had a good time. We don’t know that we’ll go back again, but it was certainly worth seeing at least once.

Another work boat in Tarpon Springs

At this point we were interested in starting back down the west coast and heading across the Okeechobee Waterway to the east coast of Florida. We made stops in Bradenton, Pelican Bay again, and to Bimini Basin which is a really neat anchorage in the middle of Cape Coral. We spent a couple of days in Bimini Basin with outboard motor problems. Rowing our dinghy around isn’t exactly fun so we had a mechanic come to rebuild the carburetor and get us going again. Fortunately, it wasn’t a major repair and didn’t take very long because we wanted to get going again.

Crossing Florida on the Okeechobee Waterway is one of our favorite trips. It takes you right through old Florida. Most of the little towns were originally founded either for the sugarcane industry or the railroads. Some of them haven’t changed much and still have the old flavor to them. Unfortunately, some are slowly dying away because the young people move away seeking jobs that just aren’t available to them there. But for people like us, that like to explore around, they make for a great stop.

On the way up the Caloosahatchee River you have to transit three locks before you get to Lake Okeechobee. At the first lock, which is Franklin Lock, the Army Corps of Engineers while building the lock also built a campground and an eight-slip marina. You can stay in the marina for only 48 hours, and it is only $24 a night. If you have a Golden Passport card that is for seniors, you can stay for $12 a night. So... being old has some advantages. We stayed 2 nights! The next stop was a little town named Moore Haven. There isn’t much there, but it is a good spot to get an early start in the morning for crossing the lake.

Franklin Lock in Florida

Crossing Lake Okeechobee is pretty straightforward. It’s 25 miles across and extremely shallow. In the middle of the crossing you will find 12 or 13 feet of water in the marked channel, but if you stray out of that channel you might be aground before you know it. There is a very well marked channel, and if you stay in it there will be no problem. Once you’ve crossed the lake, there is another lock to transit and then you are in the St. Lucie River. Indiantown is just a short distance down the river and an interesting stop. It is one of the popular places to keep a boat for the hurricane season. They have a huge storage yard, and they strap the boats down with four-inch nylon straps.

Coming into Indiantown

We left Indiantown and took a straight shot for Vero Beach. It was a long day, but we were ready to get someplace to stay for a little while. It turned out to be a week. We’ve written about Vero Beach before. It’s a very boater-friendly town. All of the services are convenient to the marina for everything you might possibly need. Next we were off to Palm Coast. It’s a two-day run up the east coast to get there. We have some very good friends there (Dave and Elaine) who allow us to use the dock behind their house. We always have a great time with them and look forward to seeing them again.

St. Augustine was our next stop. We belong to an organization called the MTOA. It stands for Marine Trawler Owner’s Association. Well, they were having a rendezvous in St. Augustine and we wanted to attend. There were seminars, some workshops, and a lot of camaraderie. The group is made up of trawler owners who are very active with their boats. A lot of the members are just like us and cruise full time year around. These gatherings are a lot of fun, and we always look forward to attending. This particular event had about 50 or 60 boats and somewhere near 200 people.

After the rendezvous, Dave and Elaine MacDonald traveled north on their boat with us for a few days. When they left us to return home to Palm Coast, we began our trip north to the Chesapeake Bay once again. We have now done 4 roundtrips from Florida to the Chesapeake Bay since we came back here, and we’re starting our 5th. From Palm Coast, it is 800 miles up to the Chesapeake Bay which takes us about 3 to 4 weeks to complete (depending on weather). We enjoy stopping in all of the little towns along the way, and there are numerous anchorages that we like to stay in for a day or more. All in all, it’s a great time! Believe it or not, we still look forward to the trip every year.

One of the towns that we always look forward to visiting is Savannah, GA. We don’t stop right in Savannah but just outside of the city in a town called Thunderbolt. The marina is a really friendly place and quite convenient to the bus system if you need to go anywhere. But that isn’t why we stop there now. The real reason is because the timing of our arrival almost always coincides with our wedding anniversary, and there is a little restaurant that has almost become a tradition for us. It’s called Tubby’s Tank House. This year some new friends (Dick and Elle) just happened to be there too, and they joined us for dinner. It was a great evening! Tubby’s is not a fancy place; it’s just a very down-home style restaurant with a lot of southern hospitality and some great rocking chairs out on the front porch. We’ll do again next year! Also, every morning at 7 a.m. the marina places a newspaper plus a box of 6 warm Krispy Kream donuts on your deck. What more do you need in life…right?

Tubby's Tank House

Dick and Elle on Summer Wind

Right now, we are in the Alligator River Marina waiting out some windy weather conditions. Tomorrow we’ll leave and go across the Albemarle Sound which is one of the worst bodies of water that we need to cross on the entire ICW. You want to pick the weather very carefully as we have learned from past experience. The trip north is just about to end as far as getting up to the Chesapeake Bay. We should be there within a couple of days. This year, though, we have decided to continue through The Bay and head up to explore the Long Island Sound to Block Island. The people at the Waterway Guide want us to cover that area for them which will give us a purpose to travel farther north. It should be fun as well as interesting, and we are really looking forward to a new adventure. If you want to get more information about the Waterway Guide, go to www.waterwayguide.com. It’s a great publication, and we feel privileged to be working with them.

The end of another day in Paradise

Don’t forget to sign up to be a follower on our blog with a picture! We really get a kick out of seeing who likes to follow us around. The more the merrier. Also, don’t forget to email us and let us know what you are doing. We really want to know.

47 Great years together

Bud and Elaine

Cruising South Florida and the Keys

2010-02-28T15:55:00.000-05:00

When we left Vero Beach back in late January, we were going to continue down the ICW to Ft. Lauderdale to start our new writing assignment. Our first stop was at Lake Worth. It’s actually in Palm Beach and is very popular with the boaters headed to the Bahamas. It’s a large bay that is well protected with good holding for your anchor and some really pretty scenery. We were surprised to see Tiger Woods’ boat pulling into a marina just after we got our anchor set. The marina where we saw it is where he keeps his boat PRIVACY. We don’t know if he was aboard at that time but probably not.

After stopping there for the night, it was off the next day heading to Ft. Lauderdale. The trip isn’t too far, but there are 28 bridges along that stretch. There are probably more bridges in that section than on the rest of the ICW total. It took us forever. Between the “no wake” zones and trying to schedule the bridges that had to open for us, it was a nightmare. Fortunately we are able to get under most of the bridges without them having to open. However, it still took us almost 9 hours to go about 40 miles when it should have taken us about 5 or 6 hours (seems slow doesn’t it?). We did see a lot of fantastic homes. Some of the homes had to be 10 or 15 thousand square feet, and a lot of them also had huge boats tied up at a dock in front.

We stopped in Ft. Lauderdale at the New River Marina. It’s a great place because you’re right in the middle of town and walking distance to just about everything. New River is a very narrow, tight river running right through the middle of town and has an amazing amount of boat traffic. You’ll see little boats like ours (36 feet or smaller), and then you’ll see a maxi yacht of 150 feet or more. It’s unbelievable…and most of the river isn’t more than 100 feet wide with boats tied up on both sides. You have to see it to believe it. We wonder sometimes if everything will fit.

The New River...it's crowded and narrow

We stayed for 3 or 4 days in Ft. Lauderdale and then decided to continue to Miami. Miami is the very first place that we stopped after arriving in Florida four years ago. So we thought that it was the perfect place to begin our 5th year of full-time cruising. We needed to do a bunch of updating to the Waterway Guide so we took a couple of days and did some writing trying to get used to our new “job.” All we really do is update the existing copy in the books and make any changes or comments that we deem appropriate. In some of the areas there are a lot of changes and in others there are no changes to be made. It’s up to us. Anyway, after a few days in Miami waiting for some good traveling weather, we moved on south to Dinner Key which is in Coconut Grove, FL, and it’s in the upper Keys. We decided to stay in a marina because we needed to have someone come and check our batteries. We were having a problem and needed someone who knew a lot more than we do. After finding our problem, we had to wait out some bad weather before we moved to “No Name Harbor”. Still in the upper Keys, it’s a place we had heard a lot about but had never been to before. It turns out that it was everything everybody had said and then some. It was a great spot! There was room for about 20 boats or so to anchor and very popular with the local boaters who could come in and tie up for the day (overnights are not permitted on the wall) to the seawall and have lunch or dinner. It was crowded, but we had a good time.

No Name Harbor on Biscayne Bay

Bud and Elaine with Biscayne Bay in the Background

Again, we waited out some nasty weather for a couple of days and then were off to Key Largo, which is the official start of the “Keys”, at least according to a lot of people. We decided en route to skip Key Largo and continue along for 20 miles to Islamorada which is another spot we stopped at four years ago. There is a tiki bar and restaurant there called Lorelei’s that was closed the last time through because of damage from Hurricane Wilma. We anchored in seven feet of water just off shore and out of the channel and later in the day we went ashore for “happy hour.” Wow, what a great place. Part of the building is enclosed but most of it is open air. You can eat out on the beach where they have tables and chairs or in the tiki bar where they have live entertainment every night. It’s a really neat spot and one that is on our “do again” list.

Off the next morning bright and early to Marathon, one of the most popular spots in the Keys. Next to Key West, Marathon is a major jump-off spot for the Canadians who are going to Cuba and everyone else who is trying to get to the Bahamas. This year those two destinations have been tough to get to because of the weather. In order to get to either Cuba or the Bahamas, you need to cross over the Gulf Stream. When making the crossing, you don’t want any wind from the north because the waves in the Gulf Stream get huge. This year we have had a tremendous amount of wind and most of it has been from the north. That’s one of the reasons it’s been so cold down here. Well, when we got to Marathon everything was full. All of the moorings (225 of them) and the marinas (several) were jammed. Fortunately we had called a couple of days prior to our arrival, and one of the marinas said they were full but might be able to accommodate us. We called the marina and they said they could put us up if we didn’t mind being tied up to the seawall. “Absolutely” was our reply. Well, when we arrived there were four other boats tied up there also. We had everything including cable TV. In talking to the boaters behind us, we found out that they were from Simi Valley, CA (which is where we lived for 35 years). We couldn’t believe it! She had graduated from Simi High School, and he’d had a business there for a number of years before they moved to Colorado. It’s really a small world!

We ended up staying in Marathon for 10 days. We really had a great time. We knew several people in the marina and were able to get some projects done on the boat that we had put off. All of the services for boats are there and supplies are easily available.

Sunset in Marathon

Marathon is always crowded

We waited once again for weather to improve. We needed to cross the Florida Bay and enter the Gulf of Mexico in order to start heading up the West Coast of Florida. Our course would take us almost due north and, of course, that’s where all of the storms had been coming from. We needed a good 3-day weather window. A short stop in the Little Shark River, which is in the Everglades National Park, then on to Goodland was our itinerary. The Little Shark River is unbelievably remote. Nothing works there; no cell phones or computer, nothing ashore…nothing but mangroves. It’s very pretty and a really protected anchorage. The night we were there, there were fourteen boats anchored, everyone just traveling through the area.

Diamond Girl anchored in the Little Shark River

The second day we left early and traveled to Goodland. It’s a very modest town, what there is of it. We wanted to go there because the Waterway Guide hadn’t been updated in this area for quite awhile. Getting to Goodland is a real experience. Very shallow! Looking at the charts we knew that there were some areas that would be challenging. We were right! Our boat draws four feet. We got down to 4.2 feet several times while entering the pass to Goodland. Once we got into the pass and the small channel, it got deeper and that was a relief. We passed the small town, and found several markers that were missing (that’s why we were reviewing this area) and a few other shallow spots, but we also discovered how beautiful an area it is. It’s dotted with small islands that are nothing but mangrove forests. They are so thick that you can’t see into them more than a few feet. We were very glad that we had ventured into the area because not very many do with our size boat.

We stopped for the night at Marco Island. It’s an upscale area and the start of all of the high-rise condo buildings on the West Coast of Florida. You can see them for miles from out in the Gulf. We’ve been there before so we just used it as an overnight stop, and then we moved on to Naples. Naples, also, is a very upscale town. It’s much larger than Marco with more shopping, restaurants and boutique shops. It will definitely be a stop for us again.

The other day we had some California friends call us. They were here visiting some mutual friends of ours. We met for lunch and got caught up on all of the gossip from So Cal. We had great conversation and it’s always nice to be with friends.

We will be off again soon to continue up the Florida West Coast. And, as always, we will keep you up to date.

You know that we always want to hear from you about our blog. Let us know what you think of it. Emails are always welcome. We miss our friends and family so the more we hear from you the happier we are.

Signing up to be a follower of our blog is also neat for us. It lets us know that people really do want to hear what we’re doing. So sign up and include a picture. We’d love to know you’re there.

STARTING A NEW YEAR

2010-01-22T11:06:00.002-05:00

In the New Year, when we arrived in Florida from Portland, OR, we couldn’t believe that it was colder in Jacksonville than in OR. Something is wrong here. We had just spent Christmas with our daughter and her family in Portland, and before that we had Thanksgiving in California with our older daughter and her family. Two months in all. We got all of our annual doctor visits out of the way, saw a lot of our good friends, and were able to spend some good quality time with our family. It was great!

The one thing that is really difficult about traveling like we do is that we really don’t see our dear family as much as we would like. I know it’s our choice, but it is still tough. We’ll continue to cruise and enjoy what we’re doing, but we will still complain about missing family.

We left Palm Coast the 18th of January and are continuing south on the waterway. After stopping a couple of nights we finally arrived in Vero Beach, FL which is where we are now. Vero is a great place and sort of a gathering spot for cruisers doing what we do. There are also quite a few boats that wait here for favorable weather conditions for crossing the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.

This year we are going to be traveling and working at the same time. We have been hired by the Waterway Guide to be Cruising Editors, making updates and changes to their guide of South Florida, the Keys and the West Coast of Florida. It sounds as though it will be fun and interesting and still allow us to do what we love most….cruising. The Waterway Guide is the most respected cruising guide on the East Coast. Every cruising boater will have Waterway Guide aboard their boat. Our responsibility will be for the navigation, dockage and anchorage sections for each of the areas within our territory. It will give us the opportunity to go into a lot of areas that we might not have explored otherwise. The people at Waterway Guide have certainly been extremely nice to us, and have welcomed us into their fold. We’re looking forward to it with much enthusiasm.

We will leave here in a few day and start down to Ft. Lauderdale where our territory starts. From there down to Miami then down to the Keys to Key West. Hey…it’s a tough life!

Since we haven’t really done much since we’ve be back from the holidays, this will be a short posting. We’ll bring you up to date as we progress.

Also, don’t forget to sign up as a follower on this blog and don't forget to include a photo when you sign up. It’s fun for us to see who is following our exploits.

Emails are also important to us. It’s one of the only ways we can keep in touch with all of our friends

BandE

Diamond Girl

Cruising South in '09

2009-12-07T14:14:00.005-05:00

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!

We love to hear from all of our friends and family. Emails are always welcome. Let us know what you think of our blog. Also, click on the "Followers" button on the left, and let us know that you follow what we post.

Summer Recap

2009-09-08T14:36:00.047-04:00

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

2009-06-13T14:51:00.025-04:00

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!!

2009-03-03T12:51:00.041-05:00

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.

2008-10-09T15:26:00.018-04:00

October 19, 2008

Well 5 months have passed along with the summer, and we haven’t been very faithful about keeping up with our blog. What’s new about that….we’re having such a good time we don’t always have enough time to sit down and write.

We stayed in Norfolk until the end of June. After travelling home to CA for Taylene’s high school graduation (our oldest granddaughter) and Ciara’s graduation from Jr. high school (our second oldest granddaughter), we got back to the boat with the idea of spending a couple of days provisioning the boat, cleaning and saying goodbye to our friends. The day before departure Bud decided to put all of the boat’s systems through their paces and make sure everything was in working order (it was, before we left for the graduation). Everything worked great except for our 15-year old autopilot. So we called our local electronics expert who came to the boat that day, and he pronounced the “blankety-blank” autopilot DEAD!! So…the decision was made to replace it because we use it extensively. We were delayed about 4 days while we waited until we could have it installed. Bud did most of the installation and the electronics expert came and did the initial startup along with all of the calibration for us, and we were off the next day.

We had great weather for the first day of travel. We had flat seas, very little wind, and it was bright and sunny. We anchored for the night and remembered why we love to do what we do so much. We had a beautiful night, warm and calm, anchored in a beautiful creek. The next morning we started our day early. We had decided that we would go up the Bay to Solomon’s Island for a couple of days. The weather was predicted to be a repeat of the previous day, but boy were we surprised. As we left the protection of the creek everything started to deteriorate. About an hour after we left we were getting our butts kicked with big seas and about 20+ knots of wind right on our nose. This lasted for probably 10 or 15 miles. Finally everything started to get better and it became a very nice day once again. After we got in that afternoon we were talking about the day and realized that the bad stuff that we had encountered was as we were crossing the mouth of the Potomac River which is notorious for those conditions. Next time we’ll be on the other side of the Bay when we cross that area.

On our way to Solomon’s our brand new depth sounder that we installed during our stay in Norfolk started to act up by giving us random readings. One of the instruments that is critical to have while cruising back here is a very reliable depth sounder. So when we contacted our electronics wizard in Norfolk, he decided that the transducer must have “taken a dump” or something. We travelled the next day up to Galesville, MD where we knew there was a good boat yard to haul the boat out of the water to replace the transducer. We anchor a lot in water that is only 8’ to 10’ deep so we need a trustworthy depth sounder, and now we have one once again.

For the last 2 years we had been invited to some friends’ home for the 4th of July. They live on one of the most beautiful rivers we have seen. This year we were invited back again. Greg and Susie Kaufman live on the Wye River. We were among 4 other boats (and couples) who were invited for the weekend. We had a blast as usual! Good friends, great food, wonderful fireworks and thunderstorms….who could ask for more.

When we left the Wye River we went over to Annapolis for a few days. We stayed with our old friends, Terry & Nan Terhorst, for a while and then anchored out in Back Creek for a couple of days before heading up to Baltimore to see some cruising friends.

We stayed in Baltimore for a couple of days, then left and went to one of our favorite anchorages at Gibson Island. This is a private island that is a gated community with large homes. It is so heavily forested that you can’t really see many of the homes. But one of the homes is very prominent and sits on a huge plot of land with horses grazing in the back yard.
From there, we went back to Baltimore and into a marina. We had to make an unscheduled trip to California because Elaine’s father passed away on August 3rd. With everything involved in arranging his funeral and cleaning out his home to get it ready to sell, it didn’t leave us any time for socializing. We were in CA for almost a month. But we’ll be there again in December so we’ll definitely see y’all then.

When we returned to Baltimore tropical storm “Hanna” was approaching so we stayed at the marina until it passed. Fortunately, the only effect of it was a lot of rain and some wind. No big deal….thank goodness! We have actually experienced worse thunderstorms than Hanna. But we weren’t complaining.

When we left Baltimore we had a couple of weeks until we were going to attend a rendezvous for a group called MTOA which stands for Marine Trawler Owner’s Association. A rendezvous back here is sort of like a convention. There are several seminars of various topics (obviously all boating related) and a lot of socializing. This year it was held in Cambridge, MD, a very small historic town on the Eastern Shore of the Bay. We had a great time. We saw a lot of people that we have seen cruising, and met a lot of new people. We had a great time and won’t miss the next one in ’09.

Now we are starting to head south for the winter. When we left Cambridge after the rendezvous we made a couple of stops in favorite areas and right now are anchored in another very pretty creek just south of the Potomac River called Antipoison Creek. It is a lovely creek with a small amount of homes and very shallow (we anchored in 9’). One of the ways you find out the shallowness of the water is when you run aground in the dinghy. We just did.

We will continue heading south to Florida for the winter. The trip will take us until the beginning of November, and we are really looking forward to seeing some of the places that we have been before and several new and exciting ones also.

Hopefully, we will see everyone at Christmas time while we are in CA. We will certainly try!

2008-05-08T12:19:00.023-04:00

May 08, 2008

It’s been awhile since we posted to this blog.

We’re still in Norfolk, VA and have really gotten to like the area. Since we are going to fly home in the early part of June for our oldest granddaughter's graduation, we decided to stay put right here because it’s so convenient for getting to and from an airport and we’re settled nicely into a good marina at a reasonable cost.

March saw us getting pretty tired of the cold and wet weather that we had been experiencing. Florida was really looking good to us and our friends Brian and Tina Armstrong were going to be at their place in Palm Coast for awhile and invited us to come visit. Well, they didn't have time to change their minds because we rented a car and got on the highway before they could. We spent 4 glorious, warm days with them and had a ball. I'm not sure that our livers will agree, but we really enjoyed our stay.

On the way back, instead of driving up Hwy. 95, we decided to travel on some secondary hwys. and see something other than Interstate scenery. We travelled almost all the way on Hwy. 17 which goes through all of the little towns and out of the way spots. It took us a lot longer, but it was really worth it.

In the latter part of April we had a really great surprise. A couple that we have been friends with for a very long time (Ed and Barbara Kutchma) shipped their boat to the East Coast to cruise. They put the boat in the water here in Portsmouth, which is very close by, so we had old home week with them before they departed and started up the Chesapeake. Since they shipped the boat and then drove out here in their car, they didn’t have anywhere to store the car while travelling on the boat. So Ed called one night and asked if we would like the use of the car for a month while they travelled up the Bay. Of course we said YES!! They’ll pick the car up and move it up to Ed’s brother’s home somewhere in New York, probably around the end of May.

The weather (that we complained about during the winter) has finally started to get nice. We still have some severe thunderstorms now and then, but mostly it’s nice and getting warmer every day. Since it’s nicer outside we have been able to get a lot of our projects, on the boat, out of the way. We decided to pull the boat out of the water in April so that we could repaint the bottom and do all of the routine maintenance that is required every year or so. It had been three years since we had done ours last and it really needed attention. The bottom paint wasn’t in really bad condition, but all of the metal parts; i.e., props, shafts, rudders, trim tabs and all of the thru-hull fittings were really in need of care. Because the water back here is so warm (as much as 85+ degrees in the summer) the barnacles and other growth really flourishes. The metal items is where the bottom paint wears off first so that is where all of the growth happens the worst. The metal was so bad you really couldn’t tell what was under a clump of growth.

The yard where we did our haul out was very good. They gave us some really great advice as to how to help our growth problem with the metal, which was to use a product on the metal called Barnacle Barrier by Pettit. So we had all of the parts sandblasted to make sure they were perfectly clean and then they applied the barrier paint. Hopefully it works! We won’t know that for awhile. But everyone we talked to about it said it was a good move. When we got back into the water we continued to do projects. One by one they are coming off of the to-do list. Hopefully we are seeing an end in sight.

We still have a little time before we travel home so we’re doing some sightseeing. We drove down into North Carolina the other day with our destination the Outer Banks. We had heard a lot about them so we decided to go and see for ourselves. We weren’t disappointed. They are a very narrow band of islands that run offshore of North Carolina. It appeared that most of the houses that we saw were vacation rentals. Some very small towns mostly geared towards summer vacations. The homes were built up about 10’ or 12’ above the ground because of the tidal surges that occur especially when hurricanes approach. These islands are heavily exposed to hurricanes. The one thing that the Outer Banks have are great beaches. They’re wide open and not crowded at all. A lot of surfing going on without much surf.

2008-02-20T11:21:00.010-05:00

February 20, 2008

Being in a marina in the middle of a Navy base has its drawbacks. Not being able to sleep-in in the mornings because you have reveille at 0800 every morning, listening to the intercoms aboard the ships that are docked only about 200 yards away. These are only a couple of drawbacks. There are some really good reasons that it’s an ok place. Every morning you wake up and hear the national anthem and you always know when it’s sundown (taps). Those are only a couple of the good reasons that we like it here. We have really started to get acquainted with the area. We have met some really nice people, we have found some good restaurants around, and we have scouted out and found numerous services for the boat: i.e., electronic techs, boat yards, chandleries, divers, etc.

The weather has been a little different than we are used to…the other morning we woke up to SNOW on the docks. Now that’s different from Long Beach!! There was a little bit of ice on the docks but all in all we can only mark it down to something new and exciting. The water is around 48 degrees and the air is somewhere between 30 and 70, really not that bad because we are getting used to it (we don’t have a choice).

This past week we decided to take a drive up to Jamestown, VA. It’s only about 30 miles northwest of where we are, and we thought that we should see the 1st permanent settlement in America. The history on it goes back into the 1500’s and at one time was the center of the tobacco growing in North America. It certainly is a beautiful area. We were surprised to learn that the first Jamestown was actually on an island in the James River. The area is very heavily forested with a lot of under growth. It’s a very, very pretty spot with the water and marshes everywhere. We’ll bet that in the summer when everything is green and lush that it’s gorgeous.

2008-02-02T13:21:00.002-05:00

February 2008

It’s 2008 already and we are starting our third year of cruising. We can’t believe it!!
We had a wonderful holiday season with our kids and grandkids. While in California we were able to see a lot of our friends that we don’t get to see all the time. Unfortunately, though, we weren’t able to see everyone…hopefully the next time we can. It was great but being gone from home for 2 ½ months was too long. We really got to the point of missing our lifestyle and being on our own.

Right now we are in Norfolk, Virginia in a marina so that we can do some repairs and general maintenance. We need to replace some of our electronics, repaint the bottom of the boat, do some painting and varnishing, and just generally spruce things up.
One thing that we are learning is why everyone moves to CA. It’s cold back here. Norfolk has been having an unusually cold winter so far and boy are we learning how to stay warm. We are pretty happy with the area that we have the boat in right now. It’s right next to a very large Navy Amphibious Base. There is a lot of activity all the time. It’s also within walking distance of markets, marine services of all kinds and restaurants. All in all, a pretty good place for us to be for what we need to do. It’s also at the very beginning of the Chesapeake Bay so we won’t have a lot of traveling to do later this year to get out of the hurricane zone.

So far since we’ve been back we have done a few small projects and a lot of running around trying to get food and supplies on board. Next week we will be starting more of the serious chores but will also leave some time for sightseeing and just poking around to see the area.
Hopefully you will find this blog easy to use, but don’t forget that we still like to get personal emails and phone calls.

Take care and please stay in touch.

2007-06-01T12:31:00.000-04:00

August 2007

The last time we sent out our update we were in Myrtle Beach, SC, traveling north on the ICW. After leaving there we traveled a short distance to Southport, NC and set in a marina for 4 days waiting for a Nor-Easter to blow through. We had 50 MPH winds and lots of rain. No fun but we met some very nice people that were doing the same thing that we were. Waiting!!

When the storm finally passed, we continued on with a really good weather window for several days, stopping in some of the same places that we did last year. Because we enjoyed these places previously, we stopped again in Charleston and Georgetown, South Carolina, and Beaufort, North Carolina to name a few. We also visited some new places such as the Alligator River Marina…very small. They can only accommodate about 25 or 30 boats. When we got tied up we inquired as to where there was a market and were told that there was nothing for at least 10 miles in either direction. We were in the “Boondocks”! Very nice people that run the marina and again we met some friendly people who were traveling just like us.

Once we got to Norfolk, VA, we put the boat in a marina and traveled to see Bud’s mother and Elaine’s dad. We had a great time visiting and even had a chance to see Michelle and Scott and 3 of our granddaughters. It was nice to have a break from the boat for a couple of weeks. When we got back we did a bunch of chores on the boat and got Diamond Girl ready for a long summer in the Chesapeake Bay.

We really love to cruise in the Bay. There are so many places to see. I don’t think you could see it all in a life time. We visited some of the places we’ve been and some new ones. One of our favorite new stops was St. Mary’s College about 4 miles up into the St. Mary’s river. It has a very large anchorage in front of the college and good depths….about 10’ of water. We had heard from other people that the boaters that visited the anchorage were welcome to explore the college. So we took the dinghy and went ashore and looked around. What a beautiful campus. It’s very small and very, very old. It was founded in the early 1800’s. The boaters are also invited to eat in the school cafeteria. Again, we took the dinghy into shore in the evening and had dinner in the cafeteria. The food in cafeterias when I went to school was nothing like this one. The food was great!!

After leaving St. Mary’s we stopped for a couple of nights in one of our favorite places… Solomons Island. There are a lot of small marinas if you want them or you can anchor out as we chose to do. It’s got a lot of protection and good depths for anchoring. We also bumped into the very first people we met cruising on the East Coast. Bill and Jean Wright on Chapter 3 had just bought a condo there and spied us anchored out and came by to say hello. It’s always great to run into some of the wonderful folks that you meet along the way.

Leaving Solomon’s we decided to make our way across the Bay to the Eastern Shore. It’s very different from the western side in that it is much more rural with more farms and larger properties. It’s also more natural. In some of the creeks you won’t see any form of housing development. We anchored in a couple of very protected and beautiful creeks all by ourselves, never seeing another boat. We loved it! There are so many places to anchor that none of them get crowded, even though there are an incredible amount of boats in the area.

Once again this year we were invited to spend the 4th of July weekend at a friend’s house on the Wye River just outside of the town of St. Michael’s, which is a very upscale historic town. What a great weekend! Greg and Susie cooked about 3 dozen crabs to feed six of us. What a feast. Most of the crabs that they cooked came from under their docks. Of course if you ask the local people, they will tell you that the Wye River crabs are the sweetest crabs of all.

Departing Susie and Greg’s we then went back across the Bay (at this point it’s only about 7 or 8 miles across) to our friend’s Nan and Terry who live in Annapolis. We stayed at their dock for 3 or 4 days before heading again to the Eastern Shore and Rock Hall, MD. It’s a small town and not much to do, but we wanted to see it. We also had heard that the Sassafras River was a “don’t miss” area. So we traveled about 30 miles further up the Chesapeake Bay and turned into the Sassafras. Wow!!! What a beautiful river and very few homes or development. We ended up staying on the river for a week. The water was fresh water, not saltwater, so we really enjoyed being able to swim in very refreshing fresh water. This was a really nice stop and one that will be on our list of “do agains”.

Being so close to the head waters of the Chesapeake Bay, we had to visit the town of Havre de Grace which is on the Susquehanna River that feeds the Chesapeake Bay. This river is considered the head waters of the Bay. The town has roots that go back into the 1700’s. It’s still very small but being well preserved.

Now it was time to start heading back down the Chesapeake so we decided to anchor in a few spots that we hadn’t seen before. We stopped in the Middle River and anchored for a couple of nights in a lovely but very busy creek. The Middle River area is a suburb of Baltimore with modest homes and lots of boats. However, we were anxious to get further down the Bay so we only stayed for a couple of nights and then moved to the Inner Harbor section of Baltimore. Boy was that a shock to the senses. We hadn’t been in a large city for about two months at this point, and here we were anchored literally in the middle of everything. The noise was unreal. We got used to it pretty quickly, though, and ended up staying for 6 days. There was a lot to see and we tried to see it all. Where we anchored was in the middle of the Harbor Walk area with paddle boats and small electric boats for rent only a stone’s throw away. So we were encircled with rental boats all day long. (Actually we felt as though we were their target.) It was chaos!!

When we left Baltimore we decided that we needed a marina for a day, so we made arrangements with a marina in Fells Point which is a suburb of Baltimore. We stopped one day to charge batteries, put on water and do some much needed grocery shopping. Our next stop was going to be one of the places that had been recommended to us as so many are. The Magothy River is between Baltimore and Annapolis. Some of the area is privately owned and very exclusive. We anchored in what has become one of Bud’s favorite anchorages. Behind Gibson Island is a very large cove with good depths and is really protected and is also extremely pretty. At one point on the weekend there were probably 30 boats anchored in the cove and not one was even close…it’s great! We spent 4 nights here and loved them all. Usually there were only 4 or 5 boats left after all of the day-boaters went home, so after the weekend it was quiet.

We decided that before we stopped at our friend’s Nan and Terry’s place again that we would spend some time anchored in Annapolis. You can anchor just about anyplace even in the areas of marina’s, so we did what a lot of others do and anchored right in the middle of the channel. Everybody expects it and just maneuvers around you and it doesn’t seem to bother anyone. We really enjoyed experiencing Annapolis…it really is a charming town.

We are now at our friend’s home, at their dock, and will be underway in two more days. We’re getting some maintenance done which is always on the list. We will be heading down the Bay to Portsmouth, VA. We joined a group called the MTOA (Marine Trawler Owners’ Assoc.) last year and are going to a rendezvous, which is a gathering that is being held in Sept. It should be a lot of fun and I’m sure we’ll meet a lot of people. This group is made up of very active boaters, a lot of them doing just what we are doing. We still have plenty of time to get there so we are looking forward to a lot more exploring.

This year we will be leaving Diamond Girl in Norfolk, VA for the winter. We are in the process of making the decision to do the Great Loop next year. For those of you who are not familiar with what the Great Loop is, you should Google search GREAT LOOP for an explanation. We will try to explain it at a later time.

This will probably be the last update for awhile. We are planning on being in CA for Thanksgiving and Portland for Xmas so hopefully we will see everyone while we are in those areas.

2007-05-01T12:23:00.000-04:00

May 2007

When we last sent you an update we were in Vero Beach, FL just starting our second year of cruising. Well, believe it or not, that was 5 months ago.

We stayed in Vero Beach for 2 weeks! We couldn’t believe it (I guess that’s why the cruisers all call it VELCRO BEACH). We did a lot of mechanical work on Diamond Girl and a lot of socializing with friends that we had met there last year. Vero has a wonderful transportation system. You can go almost anywhere in town on the bus, and it’s all free. There is a bus stop right in the marina.

We left Vero and headed towards the West Coast of Florida to meet up with our daughter, son-in-law and 2-year old grandbaby in Ft. Myers Beach. We had to transit the Okeechobee Waterway once again, which meant that we had to go across Lake Okeechobee. Man…was it shallow this time!! Florida has been experiencing a drought and it was sure evident in the lake. I had called the Army Corps of Engineers before we started the crossing to ask about the depth, as they are the ones who control it. I was advised the shallowest places would be no less than 5.5 feet. Diamond Girl draws 4 feet. Obviously we made it across, but I’ll tell you it was 25 miles of nervous time. Oh well….that’s East Coast cruising. After crossing the lake you have to transit a narrow canal for about 10 miles before you come to a little town called Moore Haven. While moving through that canal we saw all kinds of wild life. There were otters, raccoons, and at least 25 or 30 very real alligators. More alligators than we have seen so far on our whole trip.

There is a small marina on the Caloosahatchee River that we had heard about from a lot of people. It’s called Rialto Harbor Marina. It is the most unique marina that we’ve ever been into. Only about 12 boats can be accommodated. Each boat has its’ own private dock and deck area. There are beautiful planters all around the decks. They provided you with BBQ’s on the deck and will come and light them for you whenever you want. It is like a B&B on the water. They have 12 acres of landscaped property that is very tropical in appearance. A real must-stop in the future!

Continuing down the river we called ahead to Candice and Rick Thiele who live in Cape Coral, FL. We met last summer while we were in the Chesapeake Bay. They invited us to stay at their dock, which we did for 3 days, and had a wonderful time. We left their dock and made a very short passage over to Fort Myers Beach where we met up with Traci, Matt and Maci. We had a great time with them. It’s always a blast to be with our kids and grandkids. We really do miss them very much and wish we could join up more often.

While in Fort Myers Beach, we decided that instead of heading further north on the west coast of Florida, we would start back across the Okeechobee again and explore more of the East Coast that we didn’t see last year. But before we left the West Coast we wanted to meet up with some very good friends that lived fairly close by. So after a phone call, Frank and Ellen Montemarano drove down from Punta Gorda and we had a wonderful dinner with them and got caught up on everything that had been going on in their lives for the past year.

Crossing the Okeechobee this time was going to be even more of a challenge. The water had receded a few more inches and was even shallower than a month or so before. Now, in May, the lake is impassable. It’s hard to believe that the second largest lake, within the boundaries of the U.S., is that shallow.

After coming all the way through the Okeechobee Waterway to the East Coast we stopped in a little town named Stuart. We took a mooring from the City Marina and settled in for a few days of really nasty weather. It blew 20 to 25 with gusts up to 35 for several days. While there we received a phone call from friends who live in California and were traveling with their airplane and were in Florida. Ivan and Liz Cox stopped in and stayed with us for a couple of days, then flew out and continued their trip. We had a great time and can’t wait to get other phone calls like that. We always like to hear from our friends.

After leaving Stuart we moved on and stopped in Vero Beach again for a few days then headed for Palm Coast to Tina and Brian’s dock. We were meeting up with some friends that live in Palm Coast and they were going to be traveling with us with their boat. We had plans to travel together up to Beaufort, SC. So after a few days of scrubbing and provisioning we were ready to leave. Only one problem….there are 4 bridges that we needed to clear to get out of the canals where Brian and Tina’s house is. We need to clear four 16.6 foot high bridges. Diamond Girl needs 16 feet of clearance. So after one try, without success, we tried again about an hour later after the tide had receded a little more. With Elaine standing on a railing to make sure we had clearance, we finally could see daylight over the boat. It was a very nervous experience. But shortly after all of the bridges, we looked back and saw Dave and Elaine MacDonald right behind us in their 45-foot trawler. They had Elaine M’s sister, Ann, with them for the trip. We had a ball! One of the stops was at Cumberland Island, GA. What a beautiful Island!! This island is one of the very few places in the world that has wild horses running free on it. We saw not only wild horses but an armadillo crossed a dirt path not more that 10 or 15 feet from us. I have video to prove it!!

After a week of traveling with the MacDonalds we left them in Beaufort, SC because we needed to start working our way north. We need to be north of Cape Hatteras, NC before June 1 because our insurance wants us out of the Hurricane Zone before June 1.

Right now we are in Myrtle Beach, SC. This is a really nice vacation area. More golf courses than you can count. We are sitting in Dock Holiday’s Marina waiting out some weather (again). Looks as though we might be here for another day or until we get some decent weather, I guess we could be in a worse place.

Keep those e-mails coming! We love to hear from everyone. Just remember no large attachments….but that doesn’t mean not to send e-mails.

2007-02-01T12:15:00.000-05:00

February 2007

Well, we've started year 2 of our adventure. We are now in Vero Beach, FL. We knew that this was a very "boater friendly" place to be because we had stopped here last year. We are on a mooring, side-tied with some friends that we met here last spring. We have stayed in touch with them by email and met up here just by chance. We have had a good time swapping stories of the past cruising year. While here, we decided that we needed to attend to a couple of additional mechanical problems. So we have taken a few extra days while we can get good mechanics to help us. It turns out that the problems with the generator and one of our heads have been more difficult to solve than we thought. We think that we have finally figured out the generator issue and are waiting for a part to be shipped in from the manufacturer. The head has to have a new motor so we are waiting for that also. Oh well....we'll get out of here eventually.

As most of you know, we spent about 2 months back in California and Oregon, visiting our kids and grandkids for the holidays. We left the boat in Palm Coast, FL behind our friends' (Brian and Tina) lovely home. We returned on January 5th and spent another couple of weeks working on Diamond Girl getting her ready for another year of cruising. We replaced our props because of electrolysis and did a lot of cleaning and scrubbing. All in all, a lot of work but well worth it.

So far we've only come south about 150 miles from Palm Coast. We're leaving here as soon as the parts arrive and we get them installed. We will start working our way across the Okeechobee Waterway headed for the West Coast of Florida. We're meeting our daughter and son-in-law and grandbaby in Ft. Myers Beach and will spend a week with them aboard. Then we are going to head north on the West Coast and explore up to at least Tampa and St. Petersburg. From there we will head south again, back across the Okeechobee Waterway, and up the East Coast through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia into the Chesapeake Bay. We might possibly get up to New York and the Long Island Sound. However, we really don't know how far north we'll actually get because we love the Chesapeake Bay and might get stuck there like we did this last year. There is so much to see and do...it's hard to believe. You couldn't do it all in a lifetime.

We are anxious to start travelling again. We seem to be happier when we are moving around and exploring new places.

2006-11-28T11:53:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-07-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-06-15T11:13:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-04-10T15:15:00.000-04:00

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.

2006-02-27T15:45:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-01-14T14:01:00.000-05:00

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!