Marina life

For the next month we have decided to leave the Goose in a slip at Deaton’s in the town of Oriental NC. Oriental is a sleepy little town that must have 10 marinas and considers it's self the "sailing capital of North Carolina". Downtown Oriental & a couple of the nice houses in town.


These were just pretty.

We’re planning to drive back home to Grand Rapids and pick up 3 grand kids who will help up crew the boat north to the Chesapeake and beyond. For now, I am doing small projects around the boat and adjusting to the heat. It’s been about 90 every day. We’re thinking of sewing up a “boat sun awning” that should help cut some of the heat off from the boat. If that doesn’t work, then it’s to Menards to buy a $100 AC unit and set it on the deck, blowing into the main area to try to cool things down a bit. Deaton’s is very protected and a great place to leave the boat but in return for the great protection you gets very little wind. At the dock and a view of or neighbors.

Life onboard

I thought that I’d show you what we have to do when we need to go out to the store for a gallon of milk.

Get the dinghy down and blow it up tight.
Find the backpack and put in an extra bag for all of the other stuff that you will buy.
Dig out the bike and load it into the dinghy. (One mile is an easy walk but it’s hard to carry much back).
Say good-by to Edie and head to shore. Set the bike up and off you go. Find the store and lock up your bike.

Finally, load up and ride back home.Back into the dinghy, back to the boat and put everything away…total time 2+ hours compared to a 15 minute trip up to Meijer’s.
Hope that you enjoyed my trip to Piggly Wiggly!

Life offshore

We made it, 340 miles in less than 3 days. It was as easy a sail up the coast as you could ask for. The entire time the wind was behind the beam and we only had to run the engine about 5 hours when the wind died away. If all sailing could be so easy everyone would be doing it. Plus, it saved us over 500 miles of running the ditch! (About 10 days of mind numbing puttering all at 5 miles/hour).
The sunset was nice but this shows the waves that we typically had.
We enjoyed a full moon the entire time (sorry for the poor picture)
Part way through the 2nd day the winds dropped off (you can see how calm it became) and I went over the side to clean the bottom.
The sunrise coming into the outterbanks.

Ocean sailing

Just a quick note, we'er leaving cumberland Island headed for the Chessipeake Bay. There is a nice 4-5 day weather window and we hope to make it most of the way up there in one shot. Wish us luck!

Cumberland Island

We decided to motor up to Georgia and visit Cumberland Island National Seashore to see if we could find the wild horses that live on the island. It wasn’t a very long distance to go, about 25 miles, and along the way we found the cheapest diesel fuel in the south! In Jacksonville, the marina wanted $4.40 per gal and the marina in Ferdinand was $4.79! Now, just 3 hundred yards away, there was a commercial dock that sold fuel to us for $3.66… Yah HO!!! Over a dollar per gallon savings, what a find! When you are buying over 100+ gals of fuel this can really add up. Anyway, this Blog is about our hike around Cumberland Island. We did find the wild horses and deer and wild turkey and one great ruin of a mansion that the Carnegie family built in the late 1800’s. It was a great idea to visit the national park and we hope to return again someday. The live oak trees were right out of a scary movie.
skinny horses
What a ruin!
I just loved the smile on this fountian base.

Rain

We were going to leave Green Cove Springs today but a series of thunderstorms came through the area and with the wind gusting into the 50 Kt range I thought that it would be prudent to stay until tomorrow. We will be sailing off shore for several days on our way up to the Chesapeake Bay area.

Life without a car

Were back in Florida, the land of 90+ temp and high humidity. We flew from Grand Rapids to Orlando on Allegiant Air lines (very cheap!!!) but they don’t fly into Jacksonville so, we had to rent a car to drive the rest of the way to the boat. Tomorrow, I have to return the car to the Jacksonville International Airport and then spent 2+ hours riding two different city buses to reach the nearest bus stop to Green Cove Spring Marina. The problem is that it’s still 13 miles to get back to the boat! I’ll be bringing the folding bike with me and plan to ride the remaining distance back to the boat. With luck, I should arrive before it gets into the 90’s. Life on a sailboat,,, (and I’ll bet that you thought it was nothing but sundowners and beautiful sunsets).

Traveling with a dog

As you know we have a Cairn terrier (the same dog as the one in the wizard of oz) and she has to go with us where ever we go, it’s hard to find a dog sitter when you’re live on a boat. Now, that we have made it up to Michigan we and the dog have to get back down south again. We had planned on renting a one way car but found that the price of gas and the rental is more than two airline tickets and a dog fare. So, Edie now has an airline approved carrier that she just fits into. The 2 1/2 hour trip back on Thursday should be a memorable one.

Back home again

My friend Ralph was in Florida to PU a car and he agreed to give us a ride back to Michigan. (92 degrees in Fl)
It was a long drive but after 2 days and 1200 miles we are back in the land of cold temperatures (38 degrees one night!)and bare trees. It was like driving back into time as summer was put into reverse and we regresses into spring.
On the way up we went through Georgia and saw 3 separate areas where tornado's had tore up the country side. At one interchange, a tornado had destroyed a Ruby Tuesdays and many billboards beside the expressway.
After the storm we saw a complete rainbow that covered the sky.

We’re going to stay in Michigan for a week or so to see my daughter graduate and catch up with all of the grand kids then it’s back to the land of warm breezes and bugs!
Oh, and I had to toss this one in, at my granddaughters spring concert, (5th grade), the art teacher had the kids make an American flag out of their had prints. Pretty cool!