Bad Blogger, BAD!

Well, sorry. I have been a bad Blogger. It’s been a long time since an update, but here I am in Charleston SC, getting the boat ready for the new season, and I haven’t even told you about all the fun and challenges we had LAST season and during the summer on the East Coast of the US. There’s lots to tell you about! But first, I thought I’d share some of my impressions after a year of sailing sage.

I loved our time in the Caribbean. If it wasn’t for Hurricane Season I’d stay there year round till I got bored. The warm clean water and the warm friendly people, the fresh tropical fruits, the great trade wind sailing, and the fellow cruisers we met, all made the time there unforgettable.

Here are some photos of the trip up:

We had visits from family and friends, which are always fun if the logistics work out. We participated in a Rally of Balance Boats, and the Caribbean Multihull Challenge in Sint Maarten. We spent a little too much time in Sint Maarten waiting for parts and getting dings fixed. We spent time in Antigua, including some time where Liz headed home and I had a great visit from my old friend Mike and his family. Then sailed up to the BVI, and on to Culebra. Back to the USVI to plan the trip north. We hired Emmy to help with that passage, and we were glad we did because it was a bouncy one, including getting blown off to Bermuda to wait for a storm to pass before we could find a good window to the Chesapeake.

We had scheduled 3 weeks for on the hard maintenance with the Balance Team in Cardinal VA, but that turned into 10 weeks, during which we visited UVA in Charlottesville, where Liz went to Med School, Washington DC, and friends in NYC, and upstate NY. It was August before we launched the boat again. August in rural VA is hot, but not in the same way as the Caribbean. We had planned to be north in Maine by then, but we didn’t make it that far. We sailed quickly north from VA to NYC, spent one night behind Sandy Hook NJ, and then headed up the East River past Manhattan for Long Island Sound.

The sound is pretty. The facilities are great and we met some very nice people. Unfortunately we needed a mechanic to help us correct some user error, but we found a great one in the little town of Branford CT.

We made it as far north as Block Island RI before being chased back into the safety of the sound by the approach of Hurricane Lee. We found the North Fork of Long Island to be charming and had a great lobster lunch at a funky fish shop in Cutchogue Harbor. It was a little place with plastic forks that was as good as the white tablecloth places and half the price. Then it was time to head south again, so we made a second pass at the east river and tied up in Brooklyn to wait for a weather window to go back to Hampton.

The window was small and not great, but we took it. The morning of departure Liz tested positive for Covid. We left anyway and sailed south in about 20 knots of north east winds. Triple reefed for comfort we still were sailing at good speed and made it to Hampton in short order.

Then on to Charleston. Because Cape Hatteras can be tricky, we hired Emmy to come back and help with that. Right before she arrived I tested positive for Covid, so we gave Emmy the option to bail out, but she wanted to come along anyway, so Dr. Liz scrubbed the boat and we instituted a strict Masks ON protocol, unless outside or in the cabin.

The trip around Hatteras was actually pretty easy. Weather was good the whole way, and we motored more than I usually like to, but it was fine.

I was able to stand watch most of the shifts, but Emmy and Liz let me sleep more than usual, and it helped me get over the covid quickly. Arriving in Charleston I was already feeling better, and no more tired and useless than I would have been after a normal passage.

Emmy headed out and Liz and I prepared the boat to be left for a visit to the west coast. We were expecting some folks to work on the boat while gone, so we made it easy on them by cleaning better than usual. The plan was that I would return at the end of November and sail with friends aboard to the Bahamas. Liz would join there.

And that’s where we are now. Quick catch up, few details. Our trip north was nice, but next year we plan to end the season in Grenada, south of the Hurricane Zone. For now we are going to play in the Bahamas for now, and work our way south as the weather permits.