Okay, okay, okaaaaay. Maybe this story isn’t done…

We’ve been getting quite a few not so veiled comments and emails asking us why there are no more posts on this site. Ahh well, t’is the working world (and a few other things) that have wrapped us up in her grip and has yet to spit us loose.

After arriving home at the end of May, we jumped feet first into both house maintenance work and that paying sort of work that involves a commute of some sort. I was immediately back in the saddle doing some great editing and writing work. Blair spent the next six weeks sprucing up our house which we’d sadly neglected for this past year. He painted the inside of the house, I planted our garden, we hired someone to paint the outside and do quite a few handyman sort of tasks, we fertilized the weed patch formerly known as our lawn, moved one child out to Vancouver and sorted through all the correspondence and dust bunnies that had accumulated over a year’s absence. We’re happy to say that the neighbourhood children no longer dread passing our house late at night!

Stackpack Cleaning

Blair started work in mid-July with a good long commute from our country home in Navan to downtown Ottawa and across the Ottawa River to Gatineau, Quebec. We’ve had a summer’s worth of visits, lunches, dinners and wonderful catch up with all our friends and YES, we even did a little bit of sailing. Yes, that sailing thing…there is much to be said on that front. In our laid back frame of mind when we arrived back at Trident Yacht Club, we envisioned long lazy days on the St Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, leisurely sails and calm anchorages, sweet and warm winds with the sun on our cheeks.

Yes well….. Environment Canada declared this summer to be one of the rainiest, coldest summers on record. Most weekends it rained and with the rain came the accompanying rampant grass growth; growth so bad that we were cutting our lawn two and three times a week. On top of all that, Strathspey had a bit of a limp. Our fine boat has a few maintenance issues that made us want to cut our sailing season short.

A tight fit in Sackets Harbor, NY

First and foremost, Strathspey is sadly not a fast boat any longer! The Micron CSC that we spent hours applying last spring isn’t giving the performance we’d expected. Last April, I applied three coats of the stuff (black, red, black). The drill is that when you start seeing the middle red coat, that’s the sign that you only have one more coat of protection against algae forming on your hull. Well we’re down to the red coat and we’ve got quite the slime forest building up on Strathspey’s hull. On our weekends down at Trident, we’d swim around Strathspey while we were anchored and we’d spend a good hour or so scrubbing the algae off. But the next time we arrived back at Trident, there was at least an inch or so of slimy green strings clinging to her hull. So we’re sorely disappointed in the performance of this bottom paint which had been touted as the cat’s meow as far as algae protection in both fresh and salt water.

We’re also having problems with Strathspey’s Yanmar saildrive. The saildrive is immersed in oil which makes the gears shift smoothly. Where the propeller is connected to the lower part of the saildrive, there’s a seal that prevents lake (or sea) water from leaking into the gears. The seal is slowly giving way and is letting water leak into the oil. This doesn’t really affect Strathspey’s performance but it’s a crap shoot as to when the seal gives way completely and our transmission starts screaming for lack of oil.

Washing the dinghy

On top of all that, one of the coolest features on Strathspey has gone belly up. Our electric swim platform is no longer electric; in fact, it is no longer functional except when Blair lowers it using a strong line (much the same as a drawbridge). The motor that powers the swim platform to rise and lower still works but the steel bar that attaches the motor to the platform has corroded from all the salt water this past winter. So the motor can turn all it wants but our swim platform sits still.

So, all in all, it is time for us to haul Strathspey out and give her the tender, loving care she deserves after serving us so faithfully this past year. To that end, we’ve left Trident Yacht Club and sailed downriver to Williams Marina where we’ll haul out and have the Micron CSC removed, the saildrive seal replaced and the swim platform repaired. It seems early in the season to be hauling out. Especially when we hear from all last year’s cruising buddies who are scrambling to ready their boats for the return trip down south! But, there are other things that are keeping us close to home.

We’ve decided that it’s time to downsize and so we have listed our house. We love this house which we designed and built 20 years ago. We have wonderful memories of our children learning to swim here, heading off to primary school on their bikes for the first time and sitting up tall and proud in the family car while backing out of the driveway on their own for the first time. We love our wonderful view of long sloping farmland for miles and miles. We love our impromptu campfires with friends in the backyard. We love the young frogs yelling from the creek behind our house; peeping so loud that you think you’ll go deaf each spring. And most of all we enjoy our neighbours that have become our good friends rather than just the people next door.

Backyard cornroast

But, it’s time to find a house that will let us “lock up and leave” when we decide to go sailing. It’s a hard decision to make; you list the pros and cons and in the end, you go with the gut feeling that it’s time for a change. Our children have flown, our perspective after a year aboard a 35 foot sailboat has changed and that sense of adventure that launched last year’s cruise kicks in and we know that if we’re together then all is right in our world.

So here we are in an extremely (I have to repeat, extremely clean) house; our thoughts are ranging from what we’ll miss most about this home right down to when does common decency dictate that you quit adding to the back yard compost box. Life is still good and I guess this story is not yet done.

Toasting Strathspey

When we left Oswego, NY after getting Strathspey’s mast stepped, we headed due north across Lake Ontario with a faint south wind pushing us home. Our early bird status was confirmed by the 6°C water temperature and our solo sail all day. As we swung past Kingston, it was too funny as we both kept exclaiming and pointing out familiar landmarks and anchorages like we’d been away for years and years. But when we arrived at Trident Yacht Club around 5 pm, it was with no fanfare, pulling quietly into our old slip and securing ourselves like we’d only been away for a short weekend. We cracked open a bottle of bubbly that I had tucked away for the whole year in anticipation of this moment and we toasted each other and Strathspey for a fine year. At times Strathspey was a better sailor than I this year and I learned to trust that old adage that most often your sailboat can handle far more than you can. What a fine and wonderful boat to have carried us as swiftly and safely all those miles back here to Trident. Later that evening, Doug and Cathy from our sister ship Pleiades arrived to welcome us back in style with champagne, strawberries and chocolate; all the important food groups!

Radar down

We worked hard for the next two days, cleaning out a year’s accumulation of memories and dirt off Strathspey. We worked that is until the action became less of a sort and remove and more of just move it from here to there. Wisdom says that’s when you should quit the cleanup. So on Friday night, Blair and I were ready to quit cleaning and joined the Trident Friday night social. We got all our embellishments straight and told lots of tall tales that night. Then we moved a year’s worth of living into Trident’s laundry room to await pickup by Heather and Paddy who arrived Saturday morning with both a truck and a car. And if you can believe it, we filled them both!

Strathspey at dock

So right now, Strathspey is sitting pretty at dock. Sitting pretty and sitting a good deal higher in the water as well after Blair carted five huge loads up the dock making Strathspey rise a good 2.5 inches in the water. Our Canadian flag that flies from our stern has faded from a bright red to a threadbare orange this past year. We hear we’ve missed the worst winter for snow that Ottawa has had in years. It’s spring, the peepers in our back yard are yelling “pick me, pick me”, the lilacs are in bloom and now back here on dock, it’s a good time to reflect.

People ask us what the highs and lows of the trip were. I have to say, the best parts were those deserted anchorages. Anchorages like Lee Stocking Island on a day so calm that, on a bet, we could have swam the 5 miles over to Brigantine Cays. We dinghied over instead and spent the best part of the day on flat, mirrored waters, snorkeling and paddling lazily along the shoreline. Highlights too were those out-of-the way towns like Fresh Creek, Andros where we boldly wandered through the small batik factory, sorting through the finished wares to find a set of placemats that will forever take us back to this remote area when we set a winter’s table with them. Top shelf are the friends we made this year - friends from one end of the country to the other that will welcome us to dinner and long sessions of “remember when’s”. On the other hand, the lows are unforgettable as well; Dodging those skinny spots in the ICW, doing without refrigeration for six weeks in 85°F and of course, my least favourite, those following seas on long ocean passages with nothing but Saltines in my stomach.

People ask us, “Would you go again?” And we say, yes absolutely, but only after we’ve done more of the things on our “must do before rocking chair days” list. Number one on that list, as far as cruising is concerned, is to take Strathspey up to the North Channel of Georgian Bay and then perhaps on further north into Lake Superior. The North Channel is Blair’s Mom and Dad’s old stomping grounds, having sailed there for more than 20 years, so it would be wonderful to bring our own boat up there after all these years.

People ask us, “Are you sorry to be back? Are you dreading going back to work? Do you think you’ll have trouble adapting to not being footloose and fancy-free?” No sorry, no dread, no trouble. This trip has given us stories for years to come and friends in all corners of the country to visit. This winter, we’ll sit back in front of the fire and one of us will say “Do you remember when we got stuck behind Fowl Cay in 30 knots for four days and read five books between the two of us?” “Do you remember coming face-to-face with that Lionfish at Warderick Wells”. “Do you remember rebuilding the head when it was 90°C and dead calm?”. Actually, maybe we’ll save the head stories for around the campfire at night to scare the children (or the non-sailors).

People ask us, “Is it hard? Do you need all the finest equipment? Do you think I can do it?” We are both in agreement that anyone with a well-found boat and some mechanical smarts can do this trip. In fact, maybe that isn’t even the criteria because we saw many boats that made us wonder how they managed to get past Florida. The cruising community is full of people who are happy to help less competent boats along and maybe this is how these guys make it so far south.

People ask us if we’ve changed over this year. We say we’re the same people we were when we left. A wise person once said, if it were that easy to change, more would. I suppose there’s lots of reasons people go cruising but ours was pretty simple. We weren’t feeling jaded, looking for a way to jump start our lives or anything like that. We just wanted a year to try this sailing thing while we were young and nimble enough. Living and sailing on a boat isn’t exactly the lap of luxury and, although a good many steps above tenting, it does have much in common with that camping way of life.

Trident Yacht Club

We’re glad to be back home in Ottawa with our friends and family and we’re glad that Strathspey is snugged into her usual spot at Trident Yacht Club. We always appreciated this club but perhaps we had to take a trip away to realize how top shelf it really is. In the Bahamas, a yacht club like Trident would not hesitate to set it’s rates around $4/foot/night. Coming back to this well-run club with it’s brand new docks, beautiful grounds and involved membership is a real pleasure. We look forward to sailing Lake Ontario this summer and tucking into those great anchorages in the Thousand Islands. We look forward to those bright mornings, waking up to the loons’ calling and feeling that cool before the hot, hot July sun takes over. We look forward to diving into those clear waters to cool off at midday. It’s like Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home”.

And now this story is done.

Skipper’s View

Leaving Riverview Marina with our mast and all it’s accoutrements strapped down on Strathspey’s deck, we gingerly pulled out into the main channel of the Hudson River and turned north. We swung in behind a big tug and barge and initially couldn’t tell if Strathspey’s sluggish response to turns of the wheel were due to the whirling eddies kicked up by the tug or because she was unbalanced. Strathspey quickly settled into her normal rhythm and we motored north all day, very aware that if we had any engine trouble, we definitely could not simply pull out the sail while we troubleshooted any problems. All was well though and our first big test of how we’d handle big waves came almost immediately as a large sportfish boat roared by and kicked up a good wake. It was good to find out so soon in the day how that sort of annoyance would affect our steering and whether Strathspey would bob like a cork from side to side. Despite our strange configuration, Strathspey motored well and handled motor boat wake with ease.

Lock #2

That day we motored 40 miles north on the Hudson River, through the first lock at Troy and then turned left to enter the Erie Canal at the small town of Waterford. The Troy lock was our first experience of transiting a lock with our mast on the roof; an interesting experience at that. We’re especially glad that we positioned the mast so the top hangs out over Strathspey’s stern rather than her bow. At the top of Strathspey’s mast, we have a few expensive instruments that we’re partial to and would definitely miss if anything happened to them: wind anemometer (speed and direction), VHF antenna and mast head light. Over the years, we’d read all sorts of horror stories of people losing all their instruments because the mast was unstepped with the instruments hanging out, unprotected, 10 feet over the boat’s bow. Their instruments had suffered blows on various hard surfaces either while pulling into locks or when docking. While in the locks, as we rose up and the water rushed in, Strathspey inevitably did a sort of sideways teeter-totter with her midship as the fulcrum. The bow rode in close to the concrete lock wall and then the motion shifted enough to swing the bow out towards the middle of the lock while her stern rocked in close. The first time this happened, it caught us by surprise and the bottom of our mast gently kissed the lock wall before I was able to push off. Both of us realized that if the top of the mast had been hanging over the bow, all the instruments would have taken a good scraping. Over the past four days, we developed a good system to ride the locks and all was under control.

Flight of Five

As soon as we left Waterford, we climbed the Flight of Five; a set of locks that lifts you up 165 feet through five locks all within 1.5 miles. We barely had time to relax and motor out of one lock before we had to pull into the next one. The locking in and out wasn’t awful but it sure felt like I was practicing for some sort of imminent exam. The drill was to motor into the lock and stop Strathspey so Blair, who stood midship, could grab one of the long lines that hang down from the top of the locks. The lines are spaced out so theoretically you can hold one from the bow and one from the stern. So as soon as Blair had his line, I motored slowly forward til the bow was close to the next line, stopped Strathspey and then scooted forward to grab the forward line while Blair used his strength to hold us in place.

Rural setting

After our first day on the Erie Canal, we realized that it’s not a canal like Ottawa’s Rideau Canal. It’s more like a mini-ICW but without the skinny spots. This canal is made up of the Mohawk, Oneida and Oswego Rivers. Periodically, in fast flowing and shallow areas, the route was diverted through an honest-to-goodness canal for a short distance and then our path would join up with the rivers once more. There was only one section about 20 miles long that was a canal in the true sense of the word. The scenery is easy on the eyes - rural, with the occasional burst of wind blowing through your brain as freight trains roar past or when the canal swings closer to I90. But for the most part, it was pretty quiet.

Sign of Spring

It felt like we followed spring north because even here on this waterway the lilacs, columbines and Lily of the Valley bloomed right down to the water’s edge. We know that all the towns enroute like our business by the way the lockmasters were upbeat and friendly, the way each small town along the way offered inexpensive dockage to entice you in for an evening and most especially by the way that the entire canal system was buoyed for dummies; if one buoy will do the job, they’ve installed three!

No pride

That first day, we covered 11 locks and traveled all the way to Fonda. I know that seems like a lot of locks but we were the only boat on the canal that day and as we arrived at each lock, it was sitting open for us. We felt pretty special as the previous locktender would have called ahead to say we were on our way. We’d simply motor into the lock and before we’d even grab one of the lines hanging over the edge to stabilize ourselves, the lock doors were shutting. Each lock-through took no more than about 15 minutes; mere hiccups in our day rather than events that slowed us down measurably. When we arrived at Fonda, there was no available dockspace and because at this time of year the locks shut down at 5 pm, we didn’t have time to get to the next good dock. We were just really bold and tied alongside a barge, empty and parked for the weekend. We had a quiet night in this out of the way spot but it was definitely a first for Strathspey.

Ilion

Our second day, we’d covered six locks and 40 miles when we came upon the Ilion Marina. We stopped here for diesel and a pumpout and at $1/foot dockage with hot showers and laundry, we decided we’d gone as far as we wanted and tied up to their concrete wall. Concrete walls are your typical dockage spots here on the Erie Canal and if you find a spot with showers and actual power outlets, you count yourself lucky. The Ilion Marina was a good stop late on this Saturday night and likely an even better stop during the week when the Remington Rifle Company factory and museum are open for tours.

Lock #23

We took four days to travel from the beginning of the canal at Waterford to Oswego, NY. The trip was uneventful, even across Lake Oneida, the spot that’s flagged in everyone’s book to watch out for because on this shallow lake, high winds can whip up waves that wreck havoc on those unstable sailboats with horizontal masts. We can see that this would be a popular route in the height of summer, with all the free docks and well-maintained locks. We wondered at the lack of spiffy uniforms as each lockmaster greeted us wearing an assortment of what looked to be their change-the-oil clothes. Chatting with one of the lockmasters, we discovered that they are responsible for all aspects of their lock; maintaining the lock gears right down to cutting the grass and painting the gates their bright blue and yellow signature colours. This early in the season, these guys (and one woman on Oswego Lock#7) are in maintenance mode hence their apparel.

Right now, 160 miles and 30 locks later, we’re in Oswego, NY, a stone’s throw from Lake Ontario and Strathspey’s home waters. We’ve traveled far and fast since leaving that remote island of Andros at the end of March. We had a few things egging us onward and northward; We wanted to be home to see our son off on his own adventure on the west coast of Canada. As well, for insurance purposes, we wanted to be home so our house wouldn’t stand empty. And, because this was a one year sabbatical only, we had to be home to take our place in the working world once again on June 1st.

It feels good to be back here on Lake Ontario again. This is one of the best sailing areas in North America with wonderful anchorages and clean, clear water for swimming. Tomorrow Strathspey’s mast will be vertical once more and we will set our sails for Trident Yacht Club and home.

One of 30 locks we passed through

NYC Spring

Our last day in NYC was a sunny, spring day around 14°C and that meant everyone and their dog was outside; New Yorkers LOVE their dogs and the dog de jour seems to be the little Maltese tucked-under-your-arm things. We walked for hours through Central Park, past the Dakota, of John Lennon fame and then dodging all the cyclists along the river boardwalk, made our way up to our most favourite food joint here, Zabar’s Deli on Broadway and 80th. The smoked salmon counter here, easily 25 feet long, is a thing of beauty. Who knew there were so many different types of smoked salmon. Place your order and watch one of the five skilled artisans behind the counter use 10-inch long razor-sharp knives to slice your salmon into delicate wide ribbons and lay them lovingly alongside each other on a sheet of waxed tissue. This display is definitely worth the trip. For those of us who thought smoked salmon came in one shape and size, these carvers happily provide samples to help you decide which sort of salmon you prefer. We tried the Nova Scotia Salmon as well as some smoked Sable; both excellent.

Strathspey at 79th Street

We unhitched Strathspey from our mooring ball at 6:15 am in order to catch a favourable current to carry us upstream on the Hudson River. From the 79th Street Boat Basin north, it’s all new territory for us. We planned for two days to reach Catskill Creek where we’d arranged to have our mast unstepped and put to bed in a cradle on Strathspey’s deck. Riverview Marina is in Catskill Creek and it’s the last marina we can pull in to have our mast lowered before Troy, New York. Just past Troy, we make a left turn off the Hudson River and enter the Erie/Oswego canal system; a 180-mile canal with 30 locks and quite a few fixed bridges that are only 20 feet high (definitely too low to pass under with our mast in place).

Sing Sing Prison

Traveling up the Hudson River, the morning was cool enough that we stayed bundled up until about noon but by afternoon, the sun shone down and warmed us up enough so we changed into shorts and tees. That excellent current upstream had us traveling quickly past Sing Sing prison, Tarrytown (Sleepy Hollow of Rip Van Winkle fame) and West Point, the army’s answer to Annapolis’ US Naval Academy; all places we’d heard of but were surprised to see at water’s edge on the Hudson River.

West Point

Pulling in to West Shore Marina in Marlboro for diesel around 3 pm we decided to take a slip here, mainly because there are so few places to anchor in the Hudson River. This river’s water is deep, deep, deep right up to the wooded shoreline so there are few protected spots to spend the night. On top of that, we’d just turned the corner on a full moon’s extra high tide. This meant that the river had reached new heights and gathered up quite a few logs and other debris that we’d been dodging all day. When we walked into the town of Marlboro the next morning it was clear that it was just a widening in the road (Hwy 9) despite it’s efforts to promote tourism here, “We’re in the heart of New York State wine country”. It didn’t matter, we’d found the local’s morning hangout, had bacon and eggs (BAD!!, but good….sometimes ya just gotta do it) and read the New York Times; all this because happily we weren’t in a hurry that morning as the current dictated that we leave around 9:30 am.

Rip Van Winkle country

We loved traveling up the Hudson River with all it’s history and it’s wide rambling mountains; we passed through the Hudson Highlands, then a section of the Appalachian Mts and then into the Catskills. I can imagine this is a spectacular trip south in the fall by boat when the colours are at their peak. Now that we will be land-bound from September to May, we’ve even thought that this would be a wonderful drive or train ride to take sometime in October.

Herring

The river is particularly busy with fishermen right now. These guys are all after the Striped Bass, who in turn, are chasing the salt water herrings all the way up the Hudson River from the Atlantic. The fish run has just started and everyone’s excited in Catskill where we’ve pulled in to unstep Strathpey’s mast. Striped Bass grow big (up to 50-60 lbs) and everyone wants one. The limits are strict though; one fish per fisher per day. The two nights we’ve stayed here on dock, we’ve heard the fishers heading out, some at 2 am, some at 5 am and some at 6 am. On our way upstream, we passed nets strung out in shallower areas to snag the herrings. Here at Riverview Marina, they have a good business going, selling those live herrings to fishermen looking for bait to snag “The Big One”.

54 foot motorboat

As soon as we arrived at the Riverview Marina on Catskill Creek, we set to work taking down our sails, removing lines and building a frame for Strathspey’s mast to rest in for the next five days. Mike, the head honcho at the marina told us, “No matter how well you’re tied down, when that 58 foot Hatteras motor yacht roars by you, you’re gonna wish you’d had more tie downs”. Picking up some tips from another boat unstepped a day ahead of us, we made a trip to the local WalMart and picked up some super tiedown straps with mechanic winchdowns. The following afternoon, Strathspey’s boom was laid on her deck, her mast came down and was settled into it’s frame and surprisingly, all in all it was a relatively painless process. Riverview Marina staff was competent, calm (always important when mast unstepping), provided lots of good advice re the strapping down process and all this at a reasonable price.

So now we are a honkin’ big 54 foot motor boat with top speed 6.2 knots; can you imagine the marketing program to sell a boat like that? We’re taking a big breath now and wondering what canal travel has in store.

April, a cold month

Brooklyn made this wonderful cruising calendar to help us to keep that close-to-home feeling this year. Each month had super pictures of friends and family while the days and weeks were framed with season-appropriate decals. We hung this calendar in our salon and each day Blair would enter miles run, weather, important events such as anchorages, whether he played his pipes and birthdays. Brooklyn got April’s weather pegged perfectly with her decals. Interestingly enough, Blair has not played his pipes once in April; just too dang cold.

We left Annapolis early on Tuesday. That decision was still up in the air on Monday night though; it was raining hard and we couldn’t tell where the bounce was coming from - either swell from the bay or motor boat wake coming in from who knows where. So, with all that weighing down on us, it was hard to tell what the mood or inclination would be come morning. Much depended on weather, as usual. When we’re in harbour or at dock, I can always get great weather forecasts via the internet. I’ve bookmarked all the good pictoral weather maps of the Chesapeake and other areas all the way up to New York City so I can simply click on any spot in these maps to have a great 5-day forecast at my fingertips. It’s displayed in logical text format and easy to peruse it at leisure so as to plan our day. The problem in Annapolis was that Tuesday was bad - real bad; cold, 15-20 knots, gusting 25 knots and all of that from the northwest right from Annapolis all the way north to the top of the bay. This meant we’d be beating both the boat and our heads into the wind, not the most comfortable point of sail. On top of that, we’d be wearing every stitch of clothing we owned so as to stay warm.

Passing ships

On the other hand, by my calculations if we left on Tuesday, we’d hook up with relatively good winds and weather to sail down the Delaware Bay and up the New Jersey coastline to New York City. It was a toss up as to whether we’d leave to catch this weather window or stay and “bob” a bit longer on our mooring ball in Annapolis. We took the bait and went and it was just as expected, cold and windy, but we made it. We made it all the way to the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal that joins the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. Just before we entered the canal, the current changed directions and we were roaring along at 8.2 knots - what a treat to have the current with us for the 12-mile trip through to the other side. We passed two big ships heading the other way and squeezed way over to our own side to give them all the room they wanted. A tug, pulling a massive barge, overtook us at the far end of the canal but other than that, it was an uneventful passage. But we were pretty darn cold when we arrived at Reedy Island, our anchorage for the night.

Reedy Island view

I have a hat, a really warm hat, that suffers much verbal abuse from Blair. If he’s feeling kindly, he’ll simply say, “Mary, that hat really doesn’t flatter you”. If he’s feeling wicked, the insults never stop, starting with, “Oh, you’ve got the 10-foot pole hat on” (as in “I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole”). I wore it all day and that night in Reedy Island, I actually cooked dinner wearing the stupid thing before the Espar heater had thawed me sufficiently. In fact, I wore that hat all the way up to New York City where I bowed to that city’s fashion sense and stored it away, much to Blair’s delight. Our stay at Reedy Island was the coldest we’d had in awhile and that night the NOAA weather broadcast on VHF issued a wide-spread frost warning an hour after we arrived. They actually announced “Bring in your plants”. That night I really would like to have been brought “in” somewhere. Perhaps April is a tad too early to start heading home from the Bahamas…

Heading down the Delaware Bay the next day, we had very light winds (4 knots) but 2.5 knots of current so we were making good time motor/sailing towards Cape May, New Jersey, a spot where we would face the wide open Atlantic Ocean once more. Delaware Bay is a bay with little to recommend it; muddy, a very strong current, non-stop tug and tanker traffic heading upstream to Philadelphia and not a marina within 25 miles once you are well and truly committed to it. About halfway down the bay, Strathspey’s engine started sounding like a cigarette boat on a 1000-Island tour in mid July - think loud, think no muffler, think this is not normal! Even worse, water no longer spouted out her engine exhaust pipe.

Strathspey’s engine is water cooled. A water pump, the size of a teapot, sucks water in from her saildrive sitting four feet below the water and pumps it through a series of hoses and chambers surrounding the engine. This cool water coming in cools the hot water in Strathspey’s engine and hoses so basically it is a heat exchange. In order for it to work, Strathspey needs a constant supply of cool water coming in and going out - out the exhaust pipe. When no water is coming out the exhaust pipe, that is a bad thing - it means we are about to experience engine shutdown.

So, here in the middle of the Delaware Bay, miles from any help, we sailed slowly to the edge of the shallows and dropped our anchor out of the way of the big boats and started the deductive processes. The first thing Blair did was check the raw water strainer (clean) and inspect the raw water impeller and, because it was cracked, we assumed Bingo!, that was the problem. The fact it was cracked was a surprise, as it was only three months old, but we left that question for a while. I started the engine again, but still no water spouted forth from the exhaust pipe; okay turn it off and think some more. At this point, Blair feared the worst: those ever-present barnacles down here had clogged the water intake on the sail drive; a sail drive that was 4 feet below water - 16°C water! Blair donned his wetsuit (a short-sleeved, short-legged one at that), put on a neoprene hoodie, gloves and flippers to go overboard and try scraping the barnacles out. It was when he tied a line around his waist to keep him from drifting away from Strathspey, I had this terrible sense of dread. There was a 2.5 knot current, strong enough to hold our swim ladder out from Strathspey’s stern at a 45 degree angle. Blair got into the water and as far as the last rung when he said, “I can’t fight the current” and came back aboard. Time to think some more.

The culprit

We were that close to calling for a tow, using our US Boat Tow insurance package, purchased last year but as yet unused. Persistently running through all the scenarios, Blair figured as a last ditch effort, he would cut a section off the long hose that we use to fill our water tanks, hang one end overboard and attach the other end to the strainer and use that to supply water to the pump. Doing this, we could limp along to Cape May, dock, think some more and if need be, hire a diver to clean the water intake. Low and behold, when he took off the intake hose to the strainer, it spat out a 2-inch bony, lifeless DISGUSTING-looking fish. Crossing my fingers, I started the engine once again. Still no water. At this point, we were definitely thinking of calling for help. The problem seemed to be deep inside the heat exchanger and we had no means of attacking that one. As one last attempt, Blair dug out the spare water pump and began to replace the old one. Taking the old one apart and looking at it one more time - cleaning it and replacing the impeller, it just didn’t make sense that there was anything wrong with it, so he put it back on and said ” Give it one more try.” Success! Water shot out Strathspey’s exhaust pipe like the proverbial fountain of youth.

During the inevitable postmortem, we figured that the impeller just self-destructed due to overheating because of the lack of water. That unfortunate fish had probably been nosing around the sail drive at some point and when we started the engine, he’d gotten himself sucked up inside. We also thought that all our manipulations - starting the engine, sucking hoses dry, starting engine, priming pump etc etc, had finally worked our little fish far enough up in the system. That little sideshow took a good 2-hour bite out of our day and we didn’t arrive at Cape May ’til close to 7 pm, glad to be in shelter with another frost warning for that evening. Once again, I’m so proud of Blair and his troubleshooting prowess; an absolute must for any boat contemplating this trip. I tip my hat to him, even my 10-foot pole hat!

Last fall, when we stayed at Cape May, we were part of a big migration heading south. In early October last year, the anchorage off the Coast Guard station was full and it was warm enough for Blair to play his pipes. Not so this time. Here, on the last day of April, there were no boats anchored as we motored past at 7 pm. We went straight up the harbour to South Jersey Marina to top up our diesel tank. Once there though, it was too tempting to leave the prospect of hot showers and unlimited power so we secured a slip at low season rates because of the cold, plugged in, set the Espar on high and settled down to a fine dinner of Chesapeake crab cakes. A nice bonus was an inbox full of emails waiting for us. We’re often parked where we can’t get any emails so it’s great to savour all the missives when they stack up like this.

Harrah’s Casino

We left Cape May and had a nice sail up to Atlantic City. All morning, we’d contemplated just continuing on, sailing overnight all the way up to New York City. How nice it would be to get this relatively inhospitable coastline over and done with we thought. But it was just too darn cold. Despite being well-bundled, we were still cold and eventually put up the entire doghouse even though when it’s up, it’s hard to see the sails, hard to keep them well-trimmed and hard to see any other boat traffic. I just kept thinking about how cold it would be once the sun went down and once again I was the one who called “Uncle”. Blair’s got far more tolerance to discomfort than I do. We can be heeled up, sailing on an angle of 20 degrees (for non-sailors, think standing on your apartment walls), and Blair will say, we’re not heeling, we’re simply listing a bit to starboard. Ah yes…. In this case, rather than face a windchill of 10°C all night, we made a relatively early day of it around 1:30 pm and turned left into Atlantic City. This situated us well the next day for a long 13 hour run up to Sandy Hook just south of New York City. Relaxing, we enjoyed the greenhouse effect of the sun on our doghouse all afternoon and made an early night of it in order to up-anchor at 6 am the following morning.

Newest Tartan fan

The whole of the following day, running up the long New Jersey coast, we kept thinking, “We’ve did this bit before…” Last fall when we traveled the same stretch going the other way with Madcap, we left Sandy Hook at 3 am and arrived at Atlantic City 13 hours later. This time, the trip was just as long, the scenery just as monotonous and the only redeeming factor was that, because of longer daylight hours, we started our trip at a more reasonable hour. The New Jersey coastline is long and straight with few harbours for a sailor to take refuge in. I’d look over my shoulder at the shoreline and see a never-ending row of condos and high-rises with a large water tower to one side. An hour later, I’d see the same scene repeated. From this angle, New Jersey seems to be one long beach-side city. This was a day we were grateful for our autopilot which took us from waypoint to waypoint for 86 miles down the coast. The highlight of the day was a little redbreasted nuthatch that landed on Strathspey and stayed with us for a hour or so. He had absolutely no concept of humans; landing on my shoulder, my hat, Blair’s head, the steering wheel and often flying in and out Strathspey’s cabin. At one point, he spied a mosquito flying inside our dodger area and snapped it up with lightning speed. When we started dropping the mainsail for the swing around into Sandy Hook, this little hitchhiker disappeared. That night, the fog was so thick that we couldn’t see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from our anchorage.

NYC mooring

The next morning, we sailed under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and fought the current up the Hudson River past the Statue of Liberty, all the way up to the 79th Street Boat Basin. It was an auspicious day for Strathspey and crew as the Verrazano bridge marks the end of our time on the Atlantic Ocean. During this past year, we’ve spent 10 months on this ocean or parts thereof. As great as it was, Strathspey is like a fish heading upstream, homing in on that fresh water, up the Hudson River and then more than 100 miles of canal to burst out into Lake Ontario and home. New York is a great place to start that journey from. We’ll stay here a few days, wander around the city, pick up some boat parts and charts that we had sent to our friend and neighbour Derek, then head north a bit further.

Verrazano Narrows Bridge

Leaving Norfolk

The day we left Portsmouth, an early morning fog in the Elizabeth River had started to lift but the forecast was for patchy fog off and on all day. Other boats who had pulled out before us were reporting that once you got out into the bay, the fog was gone. Having been at dock for three days waiting out 30 knot winds, we were anxious to be moving, so we slipped our lines, turned on our radar and headed downstream towards Hampton Roads, the crossroads between the Elizabeth River and the James River. This is one of the biggest natural harbours in the world and busy (think hwy 400 meets the 401). After about 10 minutes, the fog closed in again and we were hugging the edge of the channel moving from buoy to buoy, hoping to stay well out of the way of any tugs or tankers heading our way. I had the AIS on so we could see what big traffic was moving and we were satisfied that it consisted of only very slow-moving tugs.

Green buoy 25

At one point though, the fog lifted slightly and we glimpsed an Aegis class missile cruiser through the fog on our starboard side. As we ghosted past the ship, an armed soldier walked down to the edge of the pier to keep an eye on us. A minute later, thinking the fog was too heavy, we turned around and slowly passed the cruiser again. This time, the soldier on the dock was joined by four more on the stern of the ship itself. They stood there and silently watched us drift by, their rifles at ready. We were looking at them nervously, they were looking at us and we were all probably thinking of the USS Cole in Yemen. We were likely too close for comfort even though we were in the channel, albeit at the very edge.

It was too coincidental that right at this point, the US Coast Guard came on the VHF radio and announced that there is a 500 yard naval protection zone around all the warships in this area and all vessels must keep their distance: “We will use all available resources to keep you at a distance; arrest, prosecution or defensive measures including the use of deadly force”. Looking at the soldiers with their rifles at the ready, and thinking the message was directed at us, Blair got on the VHF to say we were a Canadian sailboat in the vicinity of a US warship just trying to find our way through the fog. No answer. We laughed later when the announcement was repeated, realizing that it was a general warning about “Warship 87″ (the destroyer USS Mason) which was going to be underway and outbound through Hampton Roads shortly. These announcements were repeated frequently because there were quite a few warships heading out for exercises that day. It surely was not a good feeling to be challenged like that though. We got as far as green buoy #25 when the fog closed in completely. It was just too dense to continue so we throttled back and hovered at the buoy for about an hour along with the research vessel Fay Slover. Suddenly, with a slight breeze, the fog lifted and we could see all the tugs, tankers and every other boat who’d been hovering in place near buoys. It seemed everyone had the same idea - stop beside a known marker and don’t move until the fog lifts (another one of those Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt moments). Happily, at that point, we were all able to head out into the bay and enjoy a beautiful, hot sunny day on the Chesapeake.

Chesapeake crabboat

Now that we’re back into the Chesapeake, the crab pots litter the surface most everywhere we sail. Unlike Maine though, the crab pots are set out in orderly long lines so it’s relatively easy to pick a safe path between them. We haven’t eaten any blue crabs as yet and all our inquiries as to where to buy fresh seafood meets with the disappointing response that we should go to such-and-such a restaurant. This is quite a change for us because on our way down the eastern shore of the bay last fall, the restaurants were scarce and the seafood stores abundant.

Grog Island

We spent our 32nd wedding anniversary up the Dymer River in Rones Bay behind Grog Island. The guidebook description of this island was intriguing; it used to be quite a bit bigger but the winter storms are washing huge sections of it away every year. Pretty soon, it will only be a sand shoal to surprise unwary boaters. The night was dead calm and we were the only boat for miles around as we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and toasted each other. We were both feeling pretty content. After 32 years, the last one in pretty close quarters, we both agreed that together was the best way to have spent it. After all this time, we have two amazing children, enough trust and respect for each other to have sailed 5000 miles south and back in big waters, and best of all, we still laugh at each other’s jokes. What more can you hope for?

The next day we headed north in a flat calm with a slight chill in the air. It’s hard not to compare the different areas that we’ve sailed through but we both agree that as much as we enjoyed the Bahamas with its warm turquoise waters and beautiful beaches, there is definitely something invigorating about sailing up here. We get up early each morning, crisp mornings that mellow into warm days. As we head further north, the landscape changes, the seabirds are plentiful and the trees are fuzzy with buds, coloured that beautiful shade of tender spring green. On calm days like this, the Chesapeake is like a big bathtub; drop a coin on one side and you feel the wake on the other side. As we motored along on the flat waters, periodically we’d get caught up in a side to side rolling but when we’d look around we could see no sign of anyone out there - this wake had come from some distant motorboat long out of Strathspey’s sight.

Wisteria vine

Next stop was Solomons Island right at the mouth of the Patuxent River. We stopped in here for a few days last fall to explore and most importantly to get Strathspey hauled out and her anodes changed. This time, although we stayed at the same marina, Spring Cove, we had easier things on our mind, not the least of which was dinner with Faith and Chip Ross who we’d met down in Fernandina Beach last month. They have a beautiful century old home that they’ve lovingly and artistically restored; our favourite room was their kitchen/dining room that boasts a wall-sized collection of cookbooks. One of Chip’s hobbies is cooking and he didn’t disappoint us that night, serving up wonderful dishes with a Greek theme; feta and tomato/cucumber salads, Moussaka, Pastitsio, fruit and excellent European cheeses (read stinky here). Faith and Chip were “friends of friends” and we’re glad we looked them up when we landed in Solomons; they were interesting people and wonderful hosts who made our stopover in Solomons Island memorable.

That’s been one of the bonuses of this trip; all the new friends we’ve made over this past year. Some are sailors, some operate those gas-guzzlers (trawlers and motor yachts) and some are just as happy staying on land. I have to say that in most cases, these aren’t cheese and crackers type friends that you meet over drinks. They’re people that we played alongside, explored with, shared meals with and stretched our limits with. Always a chord was struck when we met them; sometimes in response to a joke or funny story or the way they matched our conversation, trading ideas and opinions, or sometimes they just reached out and made us feel at home through the goodness of their heart. They’re the kind of people that keep sending us emails updating us on their location and what they’ve been up to. The kind of people you promise yourself you won’t lose touch with. All of them without exception had a great sense of humour and sharp wit; high praise in our books.

Barge on the bay

On Saturday, we sailed north up the bay towards Annapolis. That day, it seemed that every fisherman in Maryland that owned a boat was trolling the bay. It was a hot, 80°F day and everyone was out taking advantage of the beautiful weather. These fishing boats took more than their fair share of personal space though and we had to keep a close eye out to dodge their fishing lines spread in a two hundred foot arc behind their boat. As well, the waters were busy with tugs pulling huge barges loaded with cargo. Just so we’d know what was coming our way, we set our VHF radio to a dual watch position to monitor channel 16 as well as channel 13 which is used by the tugboats. Eavesdropping, we heard two tugboat captains commiserating on how hard the trip had been that day because of all the fishing boats in their way. At one point in the conversation, one of the captains said, “Standby, I have to blow the danger signal just now”. More than once on our trip up the bay that day, we heard the tugs blast their horn to warn a drowsy fisherman to scoot out of their way. At lunchtime, Strathspey had to move out of the path of a cruise ship headed to Baltimore and taking up more than her fair share of the road. Her captain gave us one blast of his horn to say he was turning to starboard at the red buoy we were just abeam of; a blast that was so loud it made us bolt our food and just about knocked us off our feet. We’re pretty conversant with what each type of horn means but at such close range, to us all it meant was “I’m the boss and listen up!”

J Boats heading home

Turning left into Annapolis, it was a giddy feeling to sail into the “sailing capital of North America”. As we cruised into this harbour, there were at least five separate sailing races going on; Beneteau First One Designs, J22s, J80s, Lasers and Optimists. There were easily 400 boats tacking back and forth with many on a long downwind sail flying their colourful spinnakers. Amidst all this activity, we found our way into the main harbour and snagged a mooring ball, smack dab in the middle of the harbour, just off the main dock where so many times before we’d strolled during the Annapolis boatshow in October. The sun was shining and the pier was full of tourists, babies in carriages, kids on skateboards, people sitting in cafes under umbrellas sipping wine and beer. We had arrived and the weird thing was that because we were in the middle of all this, we felt no great urge to get ashore. After all, being on a boat in Annapolis harbour was what all those people ashore were yearning for. We broke out the libations and relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.

One thing I usually do when we get into any new town is fire up the internet and do a search on what’s happening ashore music-wise. We were beyond happy to discover that Nick Lowe, that icon of new wave music in the 70’s, was playing at the Rams Head Tavern here in Annapolis that very night. Blair called for tickets and they were sold out but were able to give him another number to call, “this guy might have some he wants to sell”. Oh, oh, that usually means inflated scalped prices but in this case, Bruce was happy to sell us his extra tickets for the same price as he paid; he had 8 tickets and was trying to sell 4 of them.

The nice thing about staying in Annapolis harbour is that the water taxi will pick you up at your mooring ball and deposit you just about anywhere for $2/person. But we just weren’t sure if the water taxi would be running late that night when Nick Lowe finished, so Blair pumped up our dinghy which had been rolled up and stored in it’s bag on our coach roof since we left Lake Worth three weeks ago. We’d not needed it because we were either at dock, anchored out in remote areas or depending on the kindness of strangers who were happy to either dinghy to Strathspey to visit or to pick us up and bring us to their boat. Either way, the dinghy got inflated and there were no complaints as we knew this would be a good show. Usually the warm-up act for these shows are local musicians with a goodly amount of talent but we couldn’t believe it when Ron Sexsmith, of Canadian fame, strolled out onto the stage. He was an added bonus and the highlight of the evening was a duet with Ron and Nick when the audience clapped non-stop for Nick’s encore. Excellent music and great venue for sure.

Maryland State House

Sunday, all the long days finally caught up with us and we slept til 9 am, a first for us. When we poked our heads out of the cockpit, we could see we were the only boat left in the mooring field; it was the end of the weekend and a grey and cool day to boot so we think that’s why everyone boogied on out. No matter, we spent the day wandering around Annapolis which is an architects dream destination - all these beautiful old houses and churches. We took ourselves down to the Naval Academy to tour the grounds but alas our driver’s licenses were not enough of a photo ID to get us onto the grounds, being non-Americans. It seems foreigners must present passports so we went back on Monday morning and wandered around this huge area completely enclosed by an eight-foot concrete wall; a little city unto itself.

John Paul Jones, America’s first and most famous naval hero, is buried here at the US Naval Academy in the Naval Academy Chapel. His life story spans more than one continent; he was born in Scotland but was commissioned into the US Continental Navy, at one time he served Catherine the Great of Russia and was buried for about a hundred years in Paris. The French connection is stretched even further now that he is buried beneath the Chapel in a marble sarcophagus that was modeled after Napoleon’s own tomb. The walls of the visitor center pay tribute to all the astronauts that were graduates of the Naval Academy with the centerpiece being Freedom 7, the Mercury space capsule that the first American in space, Alan Shepard, squeezed himself into.

The campus was busy with cadets walking to and from classes in black or khaki uniforms but while wandering around the town of Annapolis, both now and during boatshow season, we’d seen all the cadets in blindingly white uniforms. According to two young female cadets we talked with, anytime you leave the campus, you must be in your formal white uniform. We’ve enjoyed being here in Annapolis, discovering the naval history, being in the center of sailing races and scooping tickets to Nick Lowe. The weather turned soggy and gray with winds on the nose the day after we arrived so we’ve stayed longer than we expected. Tomorrow we push on.

Noah’s Ark

We left South Harbour Village Marina after three nights… three cold cold nights… nights so cold that when we woke up each morning, we put the Espar heater on before anything else. This was North Carolina and anyone who’d booked their golf vacations that week would have been sorely disappointed with this weather. Then, like a light switch, the weather turned. It got hot and sunny and we were in shorts and tees for the rest of the week.

Osprey nest

The north-south water traffic was down but that’s not to say that the waterway wasn’t being used. Every day, we passed small runabouts with people bobbing in the sun and fishing. On the weekend, the shores were full of kids, bundled against the cold but in barefeet and shorts running into the water up to their knees and back out again. The water temperature had dropped to 17°C but that didn’t seem to deter anyone. All the way up the ICW through North Carolina and Virginia, we’ve noticed small signs at the edge of the channel indicating that it was illegal to take shellfish from the area as it was part of a shellfish relay. In a shellfish relay, clams from other more polluted areas are moved to cleaner waters to give them a chance to remove contaminants. The clams are left here for a while (sometimes up to three months), while they filter all the pollutants out using the cleaner waters of the ICW. Looking down at the muddy ICW waters, we wonder at the clams’ other digs if the ICW is considered a cleaner home.

Sunrise on Cape Fear

Because of the tidal schedule, we’ve been leaving dock or anchorages at sunrise most mornings; a cold time for boating but one that ensured we arrived at the shallow, shoaled spots on a rising tide. From the Cape Fear River north, we played tag with two tugs pushing barges loaded with cranes. They were on the same sort of long-day schedules as us and we’d pass them each day, sometimes early morning, sometimes at mid day and then towards the end of the day, long after Strathspey was at anchor, the tugs would plow by at 4 knots and anchor somewhere upstream of us.

ICW wagon train

The number of boats heading upstream with us suddenly increased around Beaufort, North Carolina. It was like an alarm had gone off, signaling that it was time to head north. While most of the traffic last week was trawlers and sport fish boats, north of Beaufort we started seeing many more sailboats. While we waited for the bridges, the sailboats appeared one by one behind us and surprisingly, they’re all making long days like Strathspey. We traveled three days with Sabbatical and Eagles Wings from Sodus Point, New York, anchoring together each night after putting in long 60-mile days. Our last night together, we finally all met aboard Sabbatical and shared our stories. It turns out, we had friends in common as well - Tony and Monica of Kingfisher from Trident Yacht Club (again a pretty small world). The next day, at the fork in the road they went left to the Dismal Swamp and we stayed to the right, following the Virginia Cut north to Norfolk, Virginia.

Forecast

We’d been having good luck with the winds and current pushing us north, especially across the Pamlico and Arbemarle Sounds, larger sounds in North Carolina where opposing winds can make for a bad sail. After the Alligator River though, it seemed like the weather window was closing down on us. Early that morning we quickly crossed the Arbemarle Sound and were able to dodge the rain and high winds and get secured at the Coinjock Marina along with an armada of other tired and wet boats. By late afternoon, the bad weather arrived and that night, the weather forecast for this area flashed a tornado watch for Coinjock and for most of the Virginia coastline. This is a little too other worldly for us; as if high winds and freezing cold weren’t enough to test us, now a tornado loomed on our horizon. After raining all night, the tornado warning was replaced by flash flood warnings. This is record rainfall for Virginia and for us, the first really big rainstorm we’ve had in almost a year so we’re not going to complain.

At dock in Coinjock, the lightning storm was the worst I’d seen in awhile. Our friends Jim and Jeannie of Estelle, on a 400-mile offshore passage from the Abacos to Charleston, said they could see the fireworks from that far south even. Jim had mentioned last fall that in a lightning storm, your boat oven was probably the safest place to keep your electronics. Apparently a stainless steel oven prevents the setup of electrical fields that fry your instruments. So that night, for the first time ever, our computer, our portable GPS and our handheld VHF radio took up residence alongside the roasting pan in Strathspey’s oven.

In Coinjock, we visited with two trawlers who had braved the Albemarle Sound with us (Jim and Sandy Garrus of Footloose, an American Tug 41 and Jim and Mary Holmgren of Irish Lady, a Uniflite 46). We enjoyed good conversation ranging from American politics, particularly interesting right now, right on down to the tipping of dock staff. The tipping aspect of arriving at dock is always worth comparing with fellow boaters; yes/no, how much, who and when. Jim Garrus had a funny story about pulling into dock once and handing over some nice tips to the two men who helped him in; he found out later that one of the men was a fellow boater (a sailer no less) who had not protested one smidge when offered the tip. We all had a good laugh over that one, especially the fact that it was a sailor.

The Homecoming

We’re out of the ICW now, having busted loose on Monday amid heavy rain and the occasional thunderstorm. We’re in Portsmouth, right at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Last night we celebrated both our arrival in the Chesapeake and our leaving the ICW. We went to Fusion 440 in the historic area of Portsmouth, an excellent restaurant with the best fried green tomatoes I’ve ever had. The menu described them lovingly as a ” Biscotti encrusted green tomato tower with a fine herb Boursin cheese mousse, topped with jalapeno spiked grilled sweet corn salsa, and grilled scallion jalapeno aioli”. Definitely worthy of our ditch-the-ditch celebrations!

USS Wisconsin

Portsmouth is on the west side of the mouth of the Chesapeake and Norfolk is on the east. Both cities have historic downtown areas, museums and wonderful walkways along the Elizabeth River; that river that the ICW starts and ends its journey at. On Tuesday, we spent the afternoon at the National Maritime Center, part naval history museum and part USS Wisconsin (an Iowa class battleship with the most beautiful teak decks we’d ever seen). The museum was across the river from Strathspey’s dock so we traveled there by ferry for just $1 each. In a really odd coincidence, as our ferry left dock around noontime we were neck and neck with our traveling buddies Sabbatical and Eagles Wings who were heading upstream. We waved like mad but at this stage, we’re not sure if they knew who we were or just thought we were silly tourists aboard the ferry waving to a passing sailboat.

Superyacht Skat

On this trip, we’ve gotten used to seeing megayachts but in Portsmouth, there was one that made us stop and actually take photos when we arrived on the Norfolk side of the river. At dock, around the corner from the ferry, we stopped to admire the huge super yacht Skat that was being lovingly cleaned and polished by her crew. Skat is owned by Charles Simonyi, a former Microsoft executive, the fifth ever space tourist and Martha Stewart’s longtime boyfriend. On our way back to the ferry at the end of the day, we passed Skat once again and were in time to see a helicopter landing on its helipad. We stopped in the rain to gawk just a little bit as Charles and Martha stepped out of the helicopter and made their way into the yacht. To be truthful, I got a good look at him but I couldn’t swear that the blond with him was Martha.

While in Portsmouth, we actually went to a movie; definitely not the sort of activity we’re used to while aboard Strathspey. Joining us were Jim and Sandy from Footloose, who had pulled in to dock behind us earlier that day. This was no regular movie theatre though. We went to the Commodore Theatre, a restored 1940’s vintage theatre in the downtown area. It felt like we were at a Vegas show because rather than regular seating, the place was full of cozy little tables with dimly lit lamps and comfortable arm chairs. Once we were seated, we browsed through the menu and after deciding what we wanted, Blair picked up the telephone on our table and called our order in to the kitchen. We’d already eaten dinner but it felt like we were curled up in front of the television at home when the beer and popcorn arrived a few minutes later and we settled in to watch Leatherheads.

The weather in Portsmouth is gray, a little bit rainy and with a strong northeast wind it’s not so great for traveling up the Chesapeake Bay just yet. We passed through here pretty quickly on our way south in the fall so we think we’ll stay here another day to explore this area. It feels good to be here at the beginning of this big bay again and we hope to stop in some areas that we missed last fall. The bugs aren’t out yet and spring in the Chesapeake sure sounds like it might hold some promise.

Yogi Berra said it all. I spend an inordinate amount of time studying our charts. When I’m not looking at the charts, I’m flipping through the Reeds Tide Tables. I take way too much pleasure in calculating when we’ll arrive at various skinny spots and drive Blair crazy with reminders that “at this time of day, we should be hugging the green quarter of the ICW buoy lines”. None of this sort of rumination is necessary when we sail outside the ICW, but when we’re doing the ditch, I can’t help myself.

We stayed two nights at the Charleston Harbour Resort and Marina. It’s an easy place to spend time; close to the Yorktown aircraft carrier museum, a free water taxi ride across the harbour from downtown Charleston and a beautiful resort with golf course, swimming pool and acres and acres of beautifully manicured grounds in which to stretch our legs. Sunday morning though, we left the marina early enough to catch the first opening of the Ben Sawyer Bridge at 9 am to head up the ICW into a stretch of South Carolina we had not seen before. On our way south in the fall, we’d taken advantage of good winds to sail from Cape Fear on the ocean side of things all the way south to Charleston and so had missed most of South Carolina ditch country. This time, the winds were not cooperating and to keep that northward momentum, we opted to motor/sail up the ICW through this section.

Low Tide

The tide ranges, although smaller than in Georgia, still required a measure of caution and we moved cautiously through the ICW just north of Charleston at low tide, trying to make miles yet arrive at the shallow spots at high tide.

South Carolina ICW

It’s pretty unpopulated country on this stretch of the ICW; just miles and miles of empty marsh and tall grasslands, some abandoned rice fields and a gazillion ospreys. This stretch makes us chaff over the sameness of the ICW and for most of the morning, we groused about the constant North winds that require us to stay on the “inside”.

Waccamaw River

The primo spot on the South Carolina section of the ICW is the Waccamaw River. Just when you’ve had enough of that boring sameness, you enter the Waccamaw River. It starts just north of Georgetown and here the ICW ditchiness spreads its wings into a wide open, honest-to-goodness river where we caught a great wind and sailed northwards at 7 knots even on an opposing current. The sun was starting to set when we finally hauled in the sail and headed up the Thoroughfare Creek to anchor; reluctant because we were making wonderful time with beautiful scenery and for the first time all day were not anxiously watching our depth meter for shallow spots.

South Carolina marsh

The next day, we pulled our anchor up at 6:30 am so as to transit both Shalotte Inlet and Lockwoods Folly Inlet close to high tide. There was a mist rising from the Waccamaw River for the first few hours as we ghosted past small towns and marinas on our way north. On both sides of the river the Bald Cypress and Tupelo Gum trees grow out of the swamp without regard to being underwater. We cruised past abandoned rice fields and through private land - strange places with board fences strung across the tributaries that ran into the Waccamaw River. They obviously wanted no innocent trespassers exploring up these little creeks.

Golf over the ICW

We thought we’d seen just about everything but around Myrtle Beach, that Canadian winter golf mecca, we passed under an aerial gondola that moves golfers and their clubs over the ICW from one hole to the next. We’re getting into a more populated area now; one with golf courses, gated communities and upscale marinas.

The ICW in this area is quite shoaled now, especially in the areas that transit the minor inlets leading out to the ocean. The shape and depth of these inlets are in a constant state of flux, moving northward, moving southward. The Army Corps of Engineers, that maintain the ICW, are constantly moving the red and green buoys so as to mark the safe path through the inlets but it’s a tapdance and the steps keep changing. The only way to know what to expect is to consult the various websites setup by cruisers to help other cruisers make their way north. These websites post comments from boats who are ahead of us by a few short days. All comment that the waterway is shallower than when they’d done the trip south last November. The worst area flagged is Lockwoods Folly, a name that conjures up all sorts of mistakes made. We passed through Lockwoods Folly Inlet one hour before high tide and saw 8 feet on our depth sounder. This is an area of 4-5 foot tidal range so we’re glad that we’ve crossed this stretch when we did.

Fenced tributary

The last day on the water before we reached Cape Fear was cold. We had the doghouse up most of the day and were still cold. Taking turns at the wheel, wearing most of our warm clothes and trying to get some warm inside with cups of tea and hot chocolate, we decide to forgo anchoring that night and take a slip at South Harbour Village Marina so we could plug in and have hot showers. At the prospect of steady North winds of 25-30 knots, we stay three nights. This is a nice marina with scrupulously clean bathrooms, helpful and friendly dock hands and an excellent on-site restaurant, so not a hardship.

While Blair posted our position report, I made tracks for the shower and stood in the hottest water I could bear for at least 20 minutes. Once I finished, Blair did the same and reported back to me that he thinks he has used up the last of their hot water; this is a big facility (155 boats) so you get a full measure of how cold we were to have used up all their hot water. That night, we had an excellent meal at Josephs, their on-site restaurant, and when we returned to Strathspey, the Espar heater went on and stayed on for three days.

St James Cemetery

In the face of early morning temperatures of 8°C, we happily stayed at dock, rented a car and drove up the Cape Fear River to Wilmington, a small town with a big history. It was one of the last ports to fall to the Union forces during the Civil War and General Robert E Lee said it all when he wrote “We must have Wilmington, if we are to stay the course of this conflict”. We spent a goodly amount of time in the Cape Fear Museum soaking up some of this southern history and had an excellent lunch at Catch, a new seafood restaurant piloted by an award-winning chef. The historic center of Wilmington was busy that day with a pretty extensive film crew and all their equipment spread from one end of Market Street to the other. They were filming a vampire movie onsite and although we joined a big crowd of rubberneckers, we didn’t recognize any of the grade B actors sure to be in this film.

Azaleas

If we’d arrived here one week earlier, we’d have been in the middle of the 61st Annual North Carolina Azalea Festival, held here in Wilmington every year. Despite the unseasonably cold weather we’ve been getting, it is definitely spring here. Charleston was heady with the scent of honeysuckle last weekend and Wilmington was pretty in pink with almost every lawn sporting at least one azalea bush. Blair and I are in our element here because our rental car has a GPS which talks to us in a well-modulated female voice, indicating where we need to turn and even better, if we take a wrong turn, she simply recalculates a new route for us without scolding us for going off the rails.

Misty morning on Waccamaw River

Yep, we’re on a roll and heading north. We spent less than 24 hours in Lake Worth; just long enough to clear customs, stock up on some non-perishable groceries (those not requiring refrigeration of course) and top up our diesel and water tanks. We made 60-70 mile days, starting early and ending late, with the promise of a new fridge waiting for us down the line.

Following Us

In St Augustine, we caught up with good friends Corning and Tita Townsend on Blessed Spirit, a Passport 47, who had made the Gulf Stream crossing four days earlier. We swapped news over dinner and the next day we both pulled out of St Augustine harbour at 7 am heading to Fernandina Beach. No wind that day and a glassy flat ICW made for a long slow stretch to Fernandina Beach but the time passed quickly as we chatted back and forth with Blessed Spirit. I love their boat name and there was something calming and more than a little bit saintly to hail them, pronouncing it as “Bless Ed Spirit” like we were in church.

That morning, and every morning since, the dew has been heavy. The water temperature in Florida was still around 25 C but the air temperature dropped each night; enough that we needed blankets, a first since December. Overhead, flocks of Canada Geese are heading north to lay their eggs up on Canada’s tundra (or perhaps only going as far as the Toronto Zoo….).

Oysters

We’d ordered our new refrigerator to be sent to Fernandina Beach and in anticipation of much hard work and the necessary power for installing it, we pulled into Fernandina Harbour Marina and secured dockage. It’s an easy place to be based; close to excellent restaurants, an historic downtown area, good laundry and helpful marina staff. Blessed Spirit stayed on dock with us that night and we shared an excellent meal at Restaurant 29 – the same restaurant where I’d had my birthday dinner way back in November.

Brown ICW waters

The next morning we bid farewell to Tita and Corning with hopes to see them again soon. This was after pointing out the “ICW mustache” they’d picked up the previous day. The ICW water is muddy brown and full of tannin which quickly gives white hulled boats distinctive tan bow mustaches. Blessed Spirit had spent a goodly amount of time in St Augustine cleaning their white hull, yet one day later, after a 57 mile trip to Fernandina Beach, their brown mustache had reappeared on their bow.

Refrigeration Expert

Our good friends and fellow sailors, Steve and Sandi of Princess/Hillary had graciously received our new fridge via trusty UPS and dropped it off at Strathspey early the following morning. Steve came with sleeves rolled up, ready to lend his engineering and planning expertise and he and Blair had our new fridge installed and fired up that very day. It was too funny to hear the two of them, both high octane people in their own right, discussing, then discarding and then figuring out new ways to install the fridge. They worked well together and the end result was a fully functioning refrigerator installed in minimal time. Yippee kiyeah I say.

We joined Steve and Sandi and a group of their good friends for an excellent dinner at Pablo’s in downtown Fernandina that night. A bonus for Blair and I was the gracious after-dinner offer of the use of Dick and Tina Devoe’s car to run errands the following day. We hit the West Marine for “boat stuff”, Radio Shack to replace the salt-corroded base station for our Sirius Satellite radio and most importantly the Harris Teeter for groceries to fill our new fridge.

Tracking a Big Squall

We stayed three nights in Fernandina Beach, working on boat projects and waiting for the weather to clear a little for the trek north. The marina staff said 3 pm thunderstorms are common this time of year and we were treated to them a few times. In a fierce storm on Sunday, the thunder rolled and lightning flashed as we nervously edged away from Strathspey’s chain plates. We could see the squalls coming on our radar screen and ended up staying an extra night on dock so as not to be anchored out in this weather.

On our trip through Fernandina Beach last November, we decided that we would always associate this town with fine dining and this time was no exception. As well as eating out for dinner a few times, Steve and Sandi served us up that southern treat, Pulled Pork, slow cooked all day and wonderfully tender and tasty. Surprisingly, over this past year of cruising, despite all the gastronomical raving I’ve done in these posts, Blair and I have actually lost weight. Initially, while heading down the St Lawrence and during our overnight sails, I wasn’t eating much, trying to stave off wooziness brought on by rougher seas than I was used to. But our healthy appearance right now, I’m attributing to constant fresh air and exercise and probably due in large part to a diet of mostly fish, fruit and vegetables.

We finally slipped the dock lines despite overcast skies and headed north into Georgia. Life is looking decidedly much rosier now that we have groceries in the refrigerator. Amazing what life’s small pleasures can be…. We headed north via the ICW because the wind was blowing strong from the Northeast and will stay there much of the week. We can motor north into these winds in the sheltered waters of the ICW but it would be foolhardy to attempt that on the open ocean in the big waves that are sure to be kicked up.

Georgia low tide

Georgia has always been a bit of a bugaboo for cruisers because of all the skinny spots. We think Georgia is beautiful, wild and remote but we’re paying close attention to the tides and currents so we transit the shallow areas at high tide or at least on a rising tide. Georgia has HIGH tides (7 feet worth) which consequently mean she has corresponding LOW tides that in spots cause our depth alarm to sound. In preparation for our trip through Georgia, I’ve flagged five trouble spots where we’ll be doing the “ole soft shoe” through the shallow waters if we hit them close to low tide.

These days, we’re noticing that we’re part of an extremely small group of boats heading north right now. We see one or two sailboats or powerboats on the ICW each day but mostly we are by ourselves. Each night as we anchor, we are usually the only boat and so as a safety precaution I put out an extra anchor light in addition to our masthead light. Granted the weather hasn’t been top shelf but I also think we’re a few weeks ahead of the crowd right now. Interestingly enough, now that we’re headed home, Strathspey has that horse headed towards the barn mentality. That makes us sail/motor long days and often we try to determine the date when we anticipate busting loose of the ICW up in the Chesapeake.

Georgia April 7th

Georgia was cold. As we headed north, we were layering more than one polar fleece plus our foul weather jackets and toques. While anchored in the Frederica River, we put on polar fleece jackets to eat dinner in the cockpit. As the evening progressed, we added thick throws to wrap around our legs and then we figured why fight city hall and we put up our enclosure, aka “the house of dogs”, aka “the doghouse”. Our doghouse is a total cockpit enclosure that basically adds a relatively airtight, warm room above deck. Its see-through thick plastic walls let light in and if it’s a warm but buggy night, we can unzip the plastic to expose mosquito-proof screens. Pretty it ain’t (hence the name doghouse) but it sure is functional. Finally, one day while anchored about 30 miles south of Savannah, Blair said “enough is enough, I’m cold” and he turned on our Espar heater. Brrrrr…..

Pelican at our dock

We’d been moving steadily northward at a good pace, everything falling into place, with tidal currents and skinny spots well accounted for but all it took was for us to plan to be in Charleston two days hence to meet Blessed Spirit for dinner before they flew home to Maine. Foolish sailors who take to the ICW rather than sailing! Even more foolish to try to schedule anything while on a boat! We up-anchored at 7 am and were well in place, sliding through the infamous and shallow Hell Gate on a rising tide. A flooding current was pushing us along at over 7 knots. But we came to an abrupt halt two hours later at the Skidaway Narrows Bridge which was undergoing some maintenance and could not open for us. We dropped anchor and as the day progressed, four other boats dropped anchor behind us. All of us cooled our heels, as all the motorboats puttputted on by, smiling and waving and privately saying amongst themselves “aren’t you glad we don’t have one of those silly tall masts that require the bridges to open”. I had a shower, washed my hair, baked some scones, read a bit, organized a cupboard or two and then five hours later, the bridge tender announced that he’d have an opening in ten minutes and he wanted us through quickly. All five sailboats took off like a herd of turtles, quickly making for the nearest anchorage as it would be low tide shortly.

Blessed Spirit

The next morning we woke up to dense fog. Fog so thick that the cockpit and companionway steps were wet, droplets of water hung on our lifelines and the close shoreline was barely discernible. It definitely seemed that we’d tempted fate to plan further than a day in advance. We sent an email to Blessed Spirit to say we would be into Charleston very late that night and it seemed likely we’d not see them again on this trip. The fog finally lifted at 10 am and that morning’s delay meant we had a better tidal current than expected pushing us along all day at up to 7.5 knots and, even better, there were no tense moments transiting shallow spots. It’s always a juggling act to take advantage of daylight hours, tidal currents and rising tides and I must admit, this delay resulted in our best passage on the ICW to date. We arrived at the Wapoo Creek bridge just south of Charleston with plenty of time to spare before the last pre-rush hour opening at 3:30 (arrivals after 3:30, must wait til 6:30 for the next scheduled bridge opening). Tita and Corning picked us up in their rental car to go to Hanks Seafood in downtown Charleston. The food was excellent, the conversation scintillating and Tita snagged us a parking spot right in front of the restaurant; a pretty nice end to a day that didn’t look terribly promising. Best of all, the weather has warmed up considerably and we have shed our polar fleeces for the time being.

So, we’ve been putting in long days these past few weeks. For folks at Trident Yacht Club, it’s basically like sailing from Trident to Waupoos Island every day. For non-sailors, think about driving from north Toronto to Barrie every day (at 7 mph!). Either way, we’re making tracks northward.

We stayed five days in Andros and the wind howled out of the east most of that time so we sat back, enjoyed the remoteness of Andros and watched the weather with an eye to heading across the Gulf Stream. I’d talked to weather guy, Chris Parker, every day (embarrassingly sometimes twice a day) for a whole week, starting from our departure from Staniel Cay right through to when we left Andros Island. Because of poor propagation, Chris often can’t clearly hear boats calling him and throughout our whole time in the Bahamas he’d usually acknowledge me by saying something like “the lady calling” or “Strath Spray“. But by the time we left Andros, I’d called Chris so many times that he had the pronunciation of Strathspey down pat. As the week progressed, the forecast got more and more fine tuned; weather’s like that - 100% probability of correctness for today, 70% for the tomorrow and who knows after that. I kept checking and double checking that there would be a break in the high winds to let us sail out of Andros and make our way towards Florida. Chris’s initial forecast was that Thursday we’d get out of Andros to at least Chub Cay in the Berry Islands and maybe even as far as Bimini but Saturday didn’t look good for a crossing to Florida.

Sunset at Bimini

One thing we’ve become accustomed to in the Bahamas is that you take one day at a time and stage all your passages. According to Chris, we’d have a “brisk” sail from Andros Island up to Chub Cay on Thursday. But gazing out at the Fresh Creek inlet that morning, Blair and I looked at each other sceptically and we both agreed that if we got out there and either one of us wasn’t happy, we’d do a 180 and come back to dock. We pounded out of the harbour into high winds and big waves, moving pretty slowly until we turned Strathspey north and caught the wind. Surprisingly, it was a comfortable and fast sail due north to Chub Cay and when we slid into its small bay and dropped anchor, we looked over our shoulder and saw SeaYa II from Trident Yacht Club anchoring right behind us. We’d been looking for Sharon and Byrne on SeaYa II all winter so it was too funny to see them here and catch up with all the news at the end of both boats’ sojourn in the Bahamas.

Another hitchhiker

Friday morning, we up-anchored from Chub Cay at 5 am, sailed across the shallow Bahamas banks in 12-14 feet and pulled into Bimini at 7 pm; a long sail but an easy one. Halfway over the banks, I called Chris Parker once again and was happy to hear that the forecast for the next day had changed and was for fair winds and most importantly, flat seas all the way across to Florida. All we saw of Bimini, despite Ernest Hemmingway fame, was a low-lying island and our last Bahamian sunset ten minutes after we anchored. The next morning, we left Bimini in pre-dawn darkness and settled into a 9-hour sail up to Lake Worth, Florida. In the first two hours, we saw quite a few fishing boats, cruise ships and tankers and at one point in the dark, we were close enough to a tanker that it warranted a call to its caption to verify that he could see us on his port side. Once again, we’re glad we have the AIS system that shows us other boats, their trajectories and most importantly their boat names so we can call them. Happily, once the sun came up, the wind freshened, we got caught up in the Gulf Stream and averaged 9.5 knots (peaking at 10.5 knots) all the way into Lake Worth.

Patrolling Lake Worth

Lake Worth was a shock to us after the laid back Bahamas. It was spring break for high school students plus the Palm Beach Boat Show was in full swing. Talk about sensory overload! All the way in through the ocean inlet and up to our anchorage, we were flanked by roaring power boats, seadoos spraying rooster tails and rap music blaring from sound systems left and right. We followed the buoys in from the ocean, bobbing from side to side in huge wakes and found our way to the quieter anchorage at the northern end of Lake Worth. We cleared customs at the small private plane airport in Palm Beach, picked up some spare parts at the West Marine and hit the Publix grocery store for some welcome groceries.

Mile 0

After topping up with diesel Sunday morning, we fell into line and started up the ICW. What a shakeup to poor Strathspey and crew! It was Sunday, a hot sunny day in the mid 80’s and every one and their boat was doing the Sunday drive thing on water. We were rocked and rolled for a good 30 miles until we pulled into Peck Lake to drop anchor. The good thing about the ICW is that the traffic stops completely once night falls as there are few lighted buoys. We spent a quiet night at anchor despite a heavy rain and left at 7 am the next day trying to make good mileage north to Fernandina Beach and our refrigerator parts. We’d ordered both a compressor and a evaporator to replace the units that had failed in late February. A good number of phone calls and internet searches later, Blair concluded that the unit was undersized for the refrigerator to begin with. Our ice box holds 250 litres, while the system was intended for volumes up to 100 litres in temperate climates. The added strain of trying to keep the fridge cool in such constant hot weather finally did it in.

Grounded on ICW

Despite the hubbub of our first few days on the ICW, we’re glad to be back in the USA and heading northward to Ottawa, home and family and friends. We feel pretty competent to have kept Strathspey running well in the hot Bahamas sun and salt and feel pretty lucky to have a good weather window back to the mainland present itself to us just when we were ready to start heading home.

Windblow

Hindsight is mostly 20/20 of course and after almost four months in the Bahamas, we think we have better perspective as to how well we planned and provisioned for our time there. There were some things we were glad we did and some things we’d have done differently; as usual there are quite a few coulda, shoulda, woulda’s.

Things we did right:
1. We left the Abacos in mid-December, cruised straight south to the Exumas and Long Island and then worked our way back up to the central Exumas by mid February to meet our visitors. Because of this, we enjoyed mostly deserted anchorages for two months before we started running into larger number of cruisers. The weather in the Northern Bahamas tends to be windier with more cold fronts December through February but most of these cold fronts don’t reach as far south as the southern Exumas and Long Island.

2. We paid for a subscription to Chris Parker’s SSB weather service back in Lake Worth before we crossed the Gulf Stream. You can listen to him for free but if you are a sponsoring vessel, you can call him and get a forecast specifically for your current location and where you’re heading. We listened to Chris every morning and called for our personal forecast at least 20 times over the four months we were in the Bahamas. We made our return Gulf Stream crossing by ourselves without a buddy boat and in planning for this, I called Chris every morning for a whole week (sometimes twice a day on different frequencies) to verify the forecast for the crossing. At $195/subscription, these personal forecasts were less than $10/call: cheap insurance for a safe passage.

3. We purchased a wifi antenna booster which meant that we didn’t have to lug our computer ashore to find a wifi hotspot where we could send and receive emails.

4. We brought a minor rebuild kit for everything onboard plus spare pumps, switches and filters. In the most extreme case, because of calcium buildup caused by the salt water, Blair had our toilet apart twice over this past year and was glad of the spare parts he’d stored in Strathspey’s hideyholes.

5. Blair brought just about every tool he owned so he was able to diagnose and fix problems immediately. These tools took up a lot of valuable storage space but we were never able to say, “Geez, we should have left that one at home…”.

6. We had the best digital camera we could afford so as to record all the neat stuff we saw. The Christmas before we left, Blair bought me a Nikon D80 and it was one of the best investments in this trip. I’m amazed at the quality of pictures that we took. On my to-do list when we get home is to take the camera in for servicing and hope that all the precautions I took to protect it from the salt air have helped.

7. I made weather cloths for Strathspey. I whipped them up at the last minute, not thinking we’d need them but they provided excellent protection from wind and waves on longer rough water passages and much needed privacy in anchorages.

Things we’d change next time:
1. We’d clear into the Bahamas at a location that has both Customs and Immigration officials. That way we’d get a six-month visitor permit rather than the shorter three-month one provided by Customs agents. We wasted a lot of time in Georgetown trying to get our visitor permits extended.

2. I’d bring fewer clothes/Blair would bring more (but that goes for any holiday we take).

3. We would purchase a more powerful wifi antenna booster. We had a 9 db booster but Yagi directional antennas are available that would provide more powerful coverage.

4. We’d buy a hard bottom dinghy….. well the jury is still out on this one because they’re so heavy to lift but when you’re in one, you’re dry and you’re moving quickly through the rough seas.

5. We’d definitely buy or rent a satellite phone. Our cell phone bills were astronomical! On the other hand, our family was able to reach us in emergencies which was a relief.

On the whole, the lists balance out so we’re inclined to give ourselves a good pat on the back. No matter how well the trip across was planned, the important thing was that we made it across, sailed all the way down past the Tropic of Cancer, tested our mettle and were well found. Now there’s a whole new ball game ahead of us as we face the prospect of another 1700 miles home to Trident Yacht Club in Kingston.

Homeward Bound