Christmas Aboard

Christmas Day found us docked in lovely Georgetown, South Carolina. Our miniature Christmas tree was adorned with sand dollars and miniature crab buoys and topped with a starfish. We somehow scraped together enough presents given the limited shopping opportunities to surprise Amelia.

Georgetown is a pretty southern town, with a mix of antebellum mansions and shotgun houses, as well as a couple of pre-revolutionary war homes. It is interesting to experience the contrasts inherent in a historic port – shrimp boats docked next to restaurants, boutiques and a downtown harborside boardwalk with a view of the steel mill a few blocks away. The harbor, too, is home to contrasts with an assortment of liveaboard boats that range from traditional craft to funky home-made. We arrived after a couple of days in Myrtle Beach, where we checked into a marina at a fancy resort so that we could have fun poolside and celebrate Carole’s birthday.

The trip from Myrtle Beach to Georgetown down the ICW was beautiful. This stretch has a reputation of being the most scenic on the waterway, with overhanging live oaks and Spanish moss. It is also very isolated – we went for hours without seeing a single person, car or home, and did not see any other boats at all during our daylong journey. We’ve heard reports of heavy snow in Boston, so it is nice to be experiencing warmer holiday temperatures as we prepare to continue our journey south.

As we celebrate Christmas, we are thankful for our family and friends. Best wishes to all for a wonderful holiday and peace in the New Year.

Our Newest Crewmember

As we travel down The Ditch, we decided that we needed a little help keeping track of our position. After several hours of travel, with one buoy looking just like the next and and ever-changing but consistent rows of houses, docks, sand dunes and trees, it is easy to forget where we are on the chart. Accordingly, we enlisted, or should we say Shanghaied, one of Amelia's toys named "Meat" (yes, an odd name, particularly when the namer is a vegetarian six year old.) Meat is a two-inch tall meat-eating dinosour who now moves accross the chart each time we pass a navigational aid (buoy, day mark, turn, etc.).

Thanks to Meat we know know where we are on the chart at all times. Now if Meat could only tell us where the US Corp of Engineers has neglected to maintain the ICW water depth at more than six feet. This would enable us to avoid running aground when the chart says the water should be deeper, as we did leaving Oriental and three times yesterday. We had hoped that buying unlimited towing insurance would mean that we would not need to use it. We were wrong. Perhaps forward-looking sonar should go on Dave's Christmas list.

We are now in Southport NC, near Cape Fear. Southport is famous in Civil War history for being one of the few ports that the Union blockades could not keep closed, foiled by the tenacity and skill of local blockade runners (known locally as shoal runners). We will try to follow their good example and avoid runing aground (again) on the ever shifting Cape Fear shoals as we cross the border into South Carolina tomorrow, provided the weather cooperates, with the goal of Charleston by Christmas, or maybe New Year's Eve.

The Town Dock – Oriental, NC

We are waiting out a rainy weekend in Oriental, NC. Oriental is a friendly little town on the Pamlico Sound with 3,000 boat slips and only 850 permanent residents according to the experts at local coffee shop, The Bean. On The Bean’s front porch, the locals have an excellent view of transient boaters attempting to land and tie up at the Town Dock and the marina across the street. There, they rate the navigational abilities of arriving boaters using Olympic-style placards. As you can see, we got an average score of 4.7 (out of 10) but hope to do better upon departure.

Oriental has a fascinating website www.towndock.net which has a harbor webcam. In the current HarborCam, Serendipity’s mast is visible on the left behind the low building in the foreground (The Bean).

Over the past week we made good time motoring down The Ditch except for two nights and an entire day spent at anchor on the Little Alligator River waiting for dense fog to lift. The fog had not been predicted and we awoke at 5:30 AM to be ready to weigh anchor and set out at first light in order to cover the maximum distance during daylight and arrive at our planned destination before dark. As it gradually got lighter, we realized that we were in fog so thick that we couldn’t see more than a few yards from the boat. We spent the entire day expecting the fog to lift any minute and regularly adjusting downward our travel expectations. About 2:00 PM we finally realized that we would be staying at anchor for another night and relaxed. A good reminder to pick our anchor locations well.

One of the interesting challenges of traversing the ICW is dealing with the many lift and swing bridges along the way, as well as some locks, each with its own schedule. After going through the Alligator River Bridge we heard many complaints on the radio that the bridge had just closed (right after we were through), apparently for at least a day, for repairs. It underscored the importance of schedule flexibility when traveling by boat.

The canal down the Alligator River has been another eye-opener. While the canal itself is wide, the sides are shallow and littered with tree stumps and debris so the navigable portion is very narrow – in places potentially too narrow for two boats to pass. We were worried the entire time about running into one of the wide river barges that routinely use the ICW going in the opposite direction. In fact, the canal had us so spooked that when Dave lost his favorite hat to a wind gust, we didn’t even think about turning the boat around in the narrow channel to retrieve it. The area is quite beautiful and much more rural than expected but very remote. No cell phone access for three days was quite a surprise!

We expect to leave Oriental tomorrow to continue to Beaufort NC to pick up our mail and then continue south. In the meantime, we have some time to prepare to try to improve our docking score for the regulars on The Bean’s front porch.

Digging "The Ditch"

After leaving Annapolis last weekend, we had a brisk and boisterous sail down the Chesapeake Bay, with winds gusting to 35 knots, 8- to 10-foot seas and temperatures in the 30’s. We stopped over in Deltaville (running aground on entry and on exit) and had to chip ice off the cockpit cushions each morning. Then we ran aground entering the harbor at Hampton, just north of Norfolk.

We have finally made it into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), and are finally experiencing some sunny, warm weather with temperatures in the 60s. We had a fascinating trip through Norfolk VA (seeing all kinds of naval and commercial boats) and since have experienced a lot more nature as we wend our way down “The Ditch” as the ICW is called. Today we saw a lot of birds including a bald eagle. We stopped over in Great Bridge VA last night and are now in Coinjack, North Carolina, poised to continue south tomorrow to take advantage of the fair weather.

We celebrated Dave’s birthday yesterday and I am finally getting the hang of baking a cake which is more or less level (thanks in part to a little modification I made to the oven). Amelia is having a blast and we are enjoying being underway.

On Our Way (Finally!)

A month ago, someone posted a message on the Seven Seas Cruising Association Discussion Board asking if it would be crazy to leave Annapolis on December 1st and go south on the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida. While they got mixed response, we looked at each other and said "Yes - absolutely!" Well here we are on November 30th planning to shed our dock lines and shore power (with it our electric heat) and depart Annapolis at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning (December 1st) for points south.

The mechanical issues seem to be resolved and Dave is preparing a multipage saga of the work. If anyone wants to know the ugly details, just drop him an email at davidcarlson1@msn.com.

We will update the blog again as soon as our fingers thaw out.

All the best to you all,

Amelia, Carole and Dave

Mid-Atlantic Explorations

While marooned here in Annapolis, we’ve been trying to make the most of the time and learn more about the area. So for the past two weekends we rented cars and explored. This past weekend, we set out for the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay and saw some interesting harbor towns, visited the Museum of the Chesapeake, ate some good seafood, hiked around a wildlife sanctuary and chilled at a local café.

Last weekend we explored Baltimore and Washington DC, both less than an hour away. In Baltimore on Saturday we explored the inner harbor and spent the day at the National Aquarium. The Aquarium had some great exhibits including a re-created rainforest and the dolphin show, which Amelia loved.

In Washington, Amelia and I went to see Congress in session. Explaining the three branches of government to a six-year-old was a little complicated, but I think that she got it based on a lot of fantastic questions. We also visited the National Zoo and the Museum of the American Indian. Last week, we rounded out our visit to the Smithsonian with a day at the Air and Space Museum, where we saw wonderful exhibits on the origins of flight and ate lunch in the McDonalds where the staff didn’t believe we were really Americans because we didn’t know the menu by heart.

We have also had a lot of time to read over the past few weeks. I’m reading The Sea by John Banfield, a beautifully constructed novel about memory and loss. I just finished (and Dave will soon start) Beautiful Swimmers, which won the Pulitzer Prize twenty years ago for its nonfiction account of crabbing in the Chesapeake and the families who pursue a traditional way of life as watermen. Our visit to the Museum of the Chesapeake this weekend helped to reinforce the challenges of scraping out a living from the Chesapeake Bay waters. Before that I finished Water for Elephants, a story of a depression era circus, and also read Eat, Pray, Love, an autobiography that chronicles a young women’s search for meaning post-divorce. Dave and I are regularly reading together with Amelia. We are currently reading Matilda, and just finished James and the Giant Peach as well as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, all by the same author (thoughtful gifts from Dan and Pam). Dave is reading technical manuals for the boat (in hope of channeling the repair gods to complete the repair work) and chart books (plotting our course southward once we are set free).

So best wishes to all and, with luck, the next blog entry will be from somewhere south!

Amelia, Carole and Dave

The Last Boat in Town

While we wait in Annapolis as the engine repair work slowly proceeds, we have found interesting ways to entertain ourselves. Amelia has become an even more serious boater and is exploring alternative nautical sleeping arrangements. This week she hung a hammock in the main cabin and is sleeping in it nightly.

There are a lot of fun things to do in Annapolis and we’ve tried to take advantage of them all: visit the two-room Children’s Museum, take a historic house tour and take advantage of the many excellent dining options. I got a temporary membership to a local gym, figured out the local bus system (not easy), restocked the pantry and did a little early Christmas shopping.

Technically, our boat is not moored in Annapolis proper but rather is in Eastport, a community with a distinct identity despite the fact that it is a five minute walk away and was annexed by the City of Annapolis in 1951. It retains its identity through fierce local pride, a flag, an unofficial name (the Maritime Republic of Eastport) and a town motto: “We like it this way!” (also printed on the flag). It is an interesting community with a blend of maritime service industries, fine dining (thanks to spectacular harbor views) and the pretty little homes of local residents who maintain a strong sense of Eastport identity. Indeed, it has the feel of a mid-Atlantic Key West. Last weekend, we attended a venerable local event – the tenth annual tug-of-war, street festival, chili cook-off and benefit for the local elementary school. They were short of participants for the Annapolis side of the women’s tug-of-war, so I jumped in. Despite excellent coaching from the lady in the green baseball cap (“Ladies, just put your butts into it, and when they count down 3 – 2 – 1, start with a little tug on the two-count just to get us started”) our team lost to Eastport’s local team as it apparently does every year.

We’ve been counting down our time in Annapolis by the number of masts left in the City mooring field every time we walk across the drawbridge to go downtown. When we arrived, it seemed that there were fifty boats there and every mooring was taken. As of last week, there were only two masts and, after a run of nice weather this week, none are left. We have the lonely feeling of being the last boat here as all of the other transient boats have continued south to warmer weather. At our marina, and most others, about half of the boats have been pulled out for winter storage. We took a dingy ride yesterday across Back Creek for breakfast at the Wet Dog Café where they apologized for a limited menu – they are closing this week and only had a few things left. Café Guru, the café down the street that I visit every morning post-run for a latte and newspaper, closes (permanently, in fact) at the end of this week leaving a huge hole in the community, since it serves as the local gossip and tip-trading location for residents, boaters and racers.

Our mechanical problems are on their way to resolution and we hope to leave in a few days, but as with all things "boats" even that is uncertain. We may well be the last boat leaving town.

Waiting in Annapolis

It is fortunate that Annapolis is such a lovely town, since we are stuck, stuck, stuck here until our boat is fixed. The boat has been parked in the marina for nearly four weeks now. We were in Boston for the last two weeks of October, but returned to the boat last week, only to watch the weather get colder and colder. It is down to the fifties during the day and near freezing at night but we can’t leave until the motor is repaired. At least the mechanics were here today, making slow but steady progress.

We’ve been having a lot of fun exploring, and were even invited today to a local arts event. But we are itching to continue south, both because of wanderlust and the weather. I just hope we get to leave before the snow flies!

Cape May NJ to Annapolis MD via the C&D Canal

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We arrived in Annapolis today via the C&D Canal and a very pleasant visit to Gibson Island (thank you Bruce and Elisabeth) for 150 miles in three days or a total of more than 600 miles since beginning this adventure. We had a few exciting moments when we touched bottom for the first time Sunday morning exiting the marina on the C&D but just cleaned the marine growth off the bottom of the keel and we were on our way.

Yesterday, we continued our trip southbound and Amelia and Carole tried their hand at fishing from the boat. Bruce was kind enough to give us a lure guaranteed to catch striped bass, as well as a catch net. No luck so far, but we will keep on trying. We arrived in Annapolis mid-day and had a chance to explore this beautiful town with a rich naval history.

Now that we are in Annapolis we plan to leave the boat in a marina here until early November when we will return from Boston to continue the voyage south.

Cape May, NJ - Waiting for the Weather

We are learning that sailing requires patience. Back in the days of sail, when motoring was not a possibility, crews regularly “hove to” for weeks on end waiting for favorable conditions for entering a harbor. We are now experiencing our own version, waiting for reasonable weather to sail up the Delaware Bay to the C&D Canal to enter the Chesapeake Bay.

We’ve been ready to go at 5:00 am each of the past three days but each morning the weather has been uncooperative. Yesterday we woke to severe thunderstorms and heavy rain. This morning we decided to abandon our departure plans due to gale warnings and 40 mile-per-hour wind gusts on the Delaware Bay. We were glad we did when a couple of boats pulled into our marina and the crews told us about the extreme conditions they had experienced. Doubly so when we heard about a 56 foot boat that ran aground and sank last night off Barnaget Light.

Luckily, we are marooned at the world’s nicest marina, in an area with great restaurants and services and a lot of fun activities. So far we’ve visited the zoo and the nature center, taken a trolley tour of historic Cape May and toured a restored Victorian house. And perhaps at 5:00 am tomorrow we actually will leave. And not too soon, since our 90-degree summer-like days have been replaced by crisp cool fall weather and we feel the need to continue making our way south before the snow falls.

Night Sailing

Sailing at night is, in a word, unnerving. But in our case it was necessary, since it was the only way to make it from Sandy Hook NJ to the closest southern harbor at Atlantic City while arriving to dock in daylight hours. We left Sandy Hook at 3 am, with a sliver of a moon (as well as our GPS) to guide us, and counted the minutes until dawn while making time along the Jersey coast, pulling into the Trump Marina and Casino in Atlantic City around 5 pm. I took a quick stroll through the casino, but it wasn’t really my cup of tea, and we elected to have dinner on the boat and leave early the next morning.

After another long sail, we arrived in Cape May NJ yesterday. We have a slip at a great marina right in the harbor (newspaper delivery to our boat and a welcome fruit basket, no less!) Cape May is a charming and historic town with spectacular Victorian seaside architecture. The late October weather continues to amaze us, with record-breaking 90-degree days. Amelia and I visited the county zoo today, and she really enjoyed seeing all of the animals as well as the long walk on land. We plan to stay here another day and then Thursday sail up the Delaware to the C&D canal, weather permitting.

New York, New York

We spent two days on a mooring at the 79th Street Boat Basin, enjoying NYC while waiting for the wind to stop blowing from the south so we can continue in that direction. The mooring field was a little rocky due to wakes from boats passing on the Hudson River plus considerable current with the tides but the great location, facilities and the price ($30/day) more than made up for spilling my coffee once or twice.

We made the trip from City Island down the East River with the current and up the Hudson starting at first light, arrived at 79th Street by 11:00 AM. Except for being pulled over by the Coast Guard for being on the right side of the channel near the UN building and fouling the prop on something floating under the Manhattan Bridge, the East River and view of NYC was spectacular.

We had a chance to visit with friends, sample some of the local cusine, and spend two days at the Museum of Natural History, where Amelia wanted to find every exhibit featured in the movie “Night at the Museum.” Lots of fun!

Marion MA to City Island NY

The past five days have been exceptionally fine for sailing south, with good winds and favorable tides and fantastic weather. We now find ourselves at City Island anticipating an early morning departure for points south. We've managed to make significant progress and solve (we hope) most of our mechanical issues. The marina last night in New Haven - the Oyster Point Marina - was a nice surprise: intimate, and with a great restaurant.

Favorable conditions have enabled us to settle into a nice routine of watches, home school lessons for Amelia in the morning and meals underway. Tonight, in a flight of culinary ambition, we actually baked a cake to celebrate Amelia's birthday tomorrow.

Living Small

I asked several real estate brokers I know – all specializing in city condominiums – what the size of the smallest unit they have ever sold. The answers varied, from a small 234 square feet “a tiny unit near Harvard Square”) to a relatively palatial 400 square foot loft in the South End (“but way too small for the couple that bought it”.) A few weeks ago I read about a tiny apartment in the Notting Hill section of London with a “coffin-sized” shower that sold for over $500K. When in college, I spent one summer living with a roommate in a dorm room that was under 200 square feet.

So, with the theory that you actually can live in a very small space, I measured the space available on our boat for the three of us to live, sleep, bathe, study, plan, read, cook and play. We have a total of 213 square feet, plus a back porch (the boat cockpit) of around 35 square feet (we can’t really count the space on deck since it is well taken up with lines, blocks, sails, kayaks, our tender and a mast).

What is it like to have three people share 213 square feet? Well, you run into each other surprisingly often – with us literally brushing past each other as I make something in the galley and Dave checks the engine. Or Amelia and I crossing over each other as we snuggle on the settee, her watching a video and I read a book. And you start to think of privacy in a different way, as much psychological as physical. Having your own little space in your head in your head is the key to living small.

Day 2 at Sea - Charlestown to Marion MA

After a really nice send-off last night (thank you Dan and Pam) we left Charlestown at 6 am. It was a beautiful sail out of Boston Harbor, a full moon illuminating the skyline while the sun was rising. The weather treated us well all morning, warm and windy, as we sailed south.

I guess it is part of the adventure, but we had a few very hairy moments near the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal. Managed to recover, however, only to sail into fog at the Canal exit. And I discovered that I am not as prepared as I thought when I had to pull out the technical manual to figure out how to turn on the radar. Raytheon, the radar manufacturer, could take a few lessons from Apple about how to make their equipment more intuitive - like adding an "on" button called something other than "X-limit Off".

Despite our shakedown misadventures, we arrived safely in Marion around 6 pm. Thanks again to all of our friends for their support and encouragement!

The Adventure Begins

23 Miles from Marblehead to Charlestown, Massachusetts on September 23rd.


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Two week countdown

The house is almost packed up, the new engine is installed, and we have had several fun events to say, temporarily, goodbye to friends.

Dave has been working hard to get the new motor tested, install a windlass, and take care of numerous other projects to keep our power consumption down and spirits up.

Now, the challenge is fitting several weeks worth of food, nine months worth of clothing, tools and possibly books, cds, dvds and my freeweights into a very small space. But, it will all come together, even if our boat looks a little junked up. One of the hardest things has been wrapping up work projects and saying goodbye to colleagues, but everyone has been incredibly supportive. Now, where did I put the foul weather gear?

Getting ready

Only 8 short weeks before we get ready to sail. So, what needs to be done? Getting the boat in order, of course, but also a million other things - from getting financial records squared away to preparing for home schooling for Amelia. So many things, so little time...