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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.