Update October 18, 2010 - Michigan to Hilton Head

The summer rocketed by and now September is over and its halfway through October. We’ve had a very busy time month since our last update and its time to fill everyone in on our travels and other adventures.

In the last update we were traveling with Eldon and Dianne on Maine Visions and had just reached Detour Village, Michigan. From Detour, we headed out the next morning, traveling through the Le Chenneaux islands to Hessel. The first couple of hours were rough as there was a strong westerly wind which was kicking up 3 to 5 foot waves in  Lake Huron. Once we got behind the islands things settled down and it was a good trip through the islands to Hessel.

Hessel is a pretty little town which turned out to be very busy as they were hosting a sailboat regatta and the harbor was full of Pearson Ensigns. However due to the strong winds they were not sailing that day. The full harbor meant that they had to scramble around to find space for us. They did, partially by moving the committee boat. Eldon went over to say thank you and we were invited to the dinner cruise that night. Amazing what a little rum can do! The dinner cruise was fun and we got a chance to talk with a number of the sailors who were from all over both countries.

Grand Hotel - Mackinac Island

From Hessel we went to Cheboygan where we rented a car and drove back to the Soo to get our car and Eldon’s plane. (He got back to Cheboygan long before we did!). The next morning I took a plane ride with Eldon and we flew over Mackinac Bridge and Island, Hessel and the Le Chenneaux islands and northern Michigan. It was a clear day and the scenery was beautiful. I also got to fly the plane a little – a very different experience!  The pictures below were all taken from the plane. They are the Mackinac Bridge, the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and the harbor there.

Harbor at Mackinac from the air

Straits of Mackinac Bridge

It was time for us to go so Jean and I headed south, stopping for the evening in Frankenmuth, MI, a town we’d never heard of. It turned out to be very interesting. The town had been founded mostly by German immigrants and  they had retained their Bavarian heritage and the downtown was primarily done in a Bavarian theme which was quite nice.  We had a good German meal there that evening.

The next day we drove through Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky, stopping for the evening at another interesting find, the Cumberland Inn. The Inn is owned by the University of the Cumberland and is quite nice. It was advertised as having a museum attached but no word on what the museum was about. We got there in time to tour it and found it was a private collection of stuffed animals from all over the world. It was quite interesting. After a swim in the pool, we found the problem. It was hard to find a decent restaurant nearby. The picture below is an example of the museum exhibits.

 

The next day we traveled to Hilton Head. The scenery on I-40 between Knoxville, TN and Ashville, NC was outstanding as the road ran along a river and through several tunnels.  We arrived at the boat about 4 PM and found Sun Cat had endured the summer nicely. The dehumidifier had done its job and there was no mold anywhere. The boat was dirty but otherwise in good shape. It was very warm with temperatures over 90. The weather stayed that way for several weeks.

Scenery of I-40

At Hilton Head, we’ve mixed trips to the pool and beach with working on the boat. Among the many boat projects we’ve replaced the radio antenna and main GPS as well as several lights, the refrigerator and the injectors on one engine. In the process I’ve rewired a good deal of the bridge, removing several hundred feet of no longer used wire in the process and eliminating a negative ground strip that wasn’t attached to anything. I’ve also done a great deal of routine maintenance including topping the batteries, and changing all of the filters and the oil in the engines and generator.  

We’ve also been fortunate to be visited by our friends and relatives. Alan and Susan on  Kaos stopped by for a few days as did Phil and Alice on Wonderland. We also had a couple of visits with Chuck and Claria of Odyssee. In addition, Ken and Sharon on Dockers Inn spent a month here and my brother and sister and their families also visited for a long weekend and more.  During their visit we again attended attended the  Jazz and Brew Festival here in Shelter Cove. Son Bill stopped on his way back to Florida and we visited one of Jean’s high school classmates.

Dockmasters office at Sunset - Shelter Cove Marina

To give one a feel for how things go for us on a daily basis, this was what today was like. We had breakfast and coffee in the morning sun out on the sundeck and then went to work on the boat. I’ve had a persistent leak around the starboard electrical connection box so we put the dinghy down and proceeded to clean out the old sealant and add new. Of course this meant turning off the power and sealing both the inside and outside of the box. This wound up taking about 2 hours. We then took a dinghy trip about 2 miles to a restaurant at another marina for lunch. Then we came back, secured the dinghy and took the bikes to the pool where I did some laps and we enjoyed the sun.  Then it was back to the boat where I fixed the head yet again. This was followed by happy hour on the sundeck where we enjoyed the live music from the outside restaurant about 200 feet away. After dinner, we took a walk around the marina, a distance of about a mile. Now I’m watching football and writing this after corresponding with several of our friends.

Still having a great time.

Steve and Jean

Update 8/15/2010 - Maine to Sault Ste Marie

 
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Greetings from Northern Michigan!

No Trader didn’t make a wrong turn. We are cruising for a week or so with our friends Eldon & Dianne on their Grand Banks 42, starting in Sault Ste Marie .

The Bubbles - Jordan Pond-Acadia National Park

Our trip in Trader went very well. After Perry’s Creek we had another wonderful sailing day to Northeast Harbor on Mt Desert Island. Northeast is one of our favorite stops and we spent several days there. We took the bus to Jordan Pond, walked around the pond, had a nice lunch and then walked about 4 miles on the carriage trails to the Brown Mountain trail head where the bus picked us up again. The picture to right is Jordan pond with the bubbles at the end. We climbed them last year.

After a trip to town for the farmer’s market we took a cruise up Somes Sound which is the only natural fiord in the US. Our favorite mooring was occupied so we went over to Cranberry Island where we picked up one of the town moorings for the night.Somes Sound is below.

Somes Sound

The next day it was a long mostly motor to Rockland. After a morning walk to the grocery store, we headed for Teal Island where we rafted up with our friends Larry and Cathy for the night. The next day we had planned to visit relatives in Round Pond, but they were not available and with threatening weather we headed for Boothbay again.

The next stop was Sebasco Resort where we had a nice lunch on the outside patio, used the pool and took an evening walk on the golf course. Sebasco is always a great stop! Then it was back to Portland to get organized for the next trip and the return to Sun Cat.

We had a good dinner with our friends Barb and Stew and did a CYC Wednesday night race on Trader with Steve and Christine and Christine’s kids.(I think we finished third!)

On Thursday we finished packing, visited our old house to say bye to the neighbors and hello to the new owners, cleaned up Trader and then headed to Steve’s for dinner.

Niagara Falls from Cave of the Winds

Then the current road trip started. First it was off to Cape Cod for a few days to see my mother. The next stop was dinner with my sister and husband, stopping for the evening near the Mass/NY border. Then it was on to Niagara Falls where we met up with Bob & Sharon of Catch Me If You Can, who happened to be there in their land yacht. We spent the next day playing tourists, viewing the falls, and doing the Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds trips (and getting quite wet!).The picture to the right is from the hurricane deck of Cave of the winds and the one below is on Maid of the Mist.

Wet but happy crew on Maid of the Mist

That afternoon we drove to Tim & Jans where we stayed for a short visit. The  next day we spent traveling through rural Ontario to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan where we met up with Eldon and Dianne. We played tourist a few days before taking off in the boat. We toured the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point on Lake Superior (Remember the Edmond Fitzgerald??) and spent another day riding an excursion train to Algoma canyon in Ontario.

Canal at the Soo - lock is behind us

Today we went through the Soo lock and motored 15 or so miles into Lake Superior and turned around and went back through the lock.Its always interesting to be a tourist attraction! The picture left is exiting the Soo Lock in Sault Ste Marie. We then proceeded towards the Straits of Mackinac, stopping this evening in Detour Village.

Update July 26, 2010 Hilton Head to Maine

It sure is nice to be boating again! Wind flowing through the bridge, dolphins swimming in our wake. Its too bad the trip was only 3 days!

At the end of the last blog we were in Jensen Beach waiting for the new windows for Sun Cat. They were supposed to arrive on Thursday (after a lot of cajoling of the manufacturer by Lamb’s) so we drove to Jax, stopping in Daytona for a nice lunch with our friends Bruce and Ellie. The next day it was on the Hilton Head where we left our car and drove a rental back, arriving Thursday night only to find no new windows. The truck that was supposed to deliver them had driven right by and they were now in Georgia. The folks at lamb’s then tracked them down and went to the depot themselves Friday noon to get them.

I should note here that timing was getting critical. The boat was not insured in Florida after 6/15 and that Friday was 6/11.  If we’d had to wait until Monday (6/14) we might not have made it.

Anchorage at the Wahoo River

In any event, the windows were installed Friday afternoon and we were able to leave on Saturday morning, spending the first night on anchor at Cumberland Island. The next day the tides were wrong for hitting the shallow spots on the Ga. ICW  so we elected to run outside from St Simons island to Sappello inlet. It was a good run except that it was very warm (over 100 degrees), so even outside it was not cool. We found out later the ocean temperature was 85 degrees! We spent that night anchored on the Wahoo River which is another of our favorite anchorages. The picture to right is the anchorage at Wahoo.

The following day we were up early and made it to Hilton Head in the afternoon. We got the boat secured and I told the dock attendant we would be up to check in the next day. We’d had enough of the heat and were headed for the pool!

It was very warm all the time we were at Hilton Head. We got in some swimming and biking and beach walks but the time went by too quickly and the following Wednesday we painted our way out of the boat and headed north again by car. The destination this time was Jean’s high school reunion in Vermont that Saturday. We chose to go up I-81 versus I-95 to see something different and were rewarded by a much more scenic drive through the mountains. We also saw something we’d never seen before when the car registered an outside temperature of 104 degrees on our way through Charlotte,NC. We picked out hotels with pools. On that Friday night we stayed in Albany and had dinner with Greg and Bill Gardiner and their wives. They are longtime friends from my childhood.

That Saturday, we had lunch with Jean’s niece and her boyfriend and then went to the reunion which was fairly well attended by folks who were now from all over the country. Jean had a good time connecting with her classmates, many of whom she had not seen for over 30 years. We hope to see some of them again.  We stayed that night at a condo with one of her classmates.

Bill's boat moored of their home on Lake Champlain

The next day we were off to Lake Champlain where we spent 2 days with Gold Loopers Bill and Jill from Transition at their home on the lake. While we were there, we took a trip to a nautical history museum that Bill used to be on the Board of and took a ride on the lake in one of the several classic wooden boats owned by Bill. The boat is in the picture sitting in front of their house. Then we headed west again to visit Tim and Jan from Lamb Chop.

We helped Tim and Jan celebrate Canada Day which included an evening boat ride with one of their friends for fireworks. It was a bit thrilling to skim over the lake at 40 knots in the dark but we had a good time and a great view of the show. We also took a trip to Toronto to see downtown. The trip up the CN tower provided a wonderful view of the city and Tim pointed out some of the landmarks and places he had worked. The tall ships were in so we walked along the docks and viewed the ships as well.

Toronto Harbor from CN Tower

That weekend, the four of us drove to Penetang, Ontario (Georgian Bay, Lake Huron) where we visited with Ron and Janice on OB2 and John and Pat from Gypsy Time.

Coming back to Maine, we were over two hours getting across the International Bridge but made up for that with a nice dinner in Clayton New York with George and Jane from Time Out and Lee and Carol from Carol Ann. We arrived back in Maine the next day in time to have dinner with son Steve and Christine. We had driven 60 hours and over 2900 miles since leaving Hilton Head.

The next three weeks were basically spent emptying and cleaning the house. The process took much longer than I ever expected. We took many trips to Steve’s with stuff to store or to use.  We had an auctioneer come and take a truckload of stuff away. We had a two day yard sale, we had a bookseller come, we had piano movers come and we had the Salvation Army come. Everyone except the bookseller took stuff away. Throughout this process, Steve, Christine and son Bill were a tremendous help. We couldn’t have finished it without them. I’m pleased to say we are all finished and the house is ready for its new owners.

We also took time to have a bit of fun. We had dinner with friends Larry and Cathy and Horace and Barbara, did a cookout at Fort Williams park with Steve & Christine, did a sailboat race, spent a weekend with Bill, had dinner with our neighbors, Rick & Pat and Dan & Merideth, and sailed to Peaks Island for dinner one night.

Yesterday, we started a short sailing vacation on Trader. The first day was 33 miles in light wind to Boothbay and today was 40 plus miles in as much wind as we wanted to Perry’s Creek, which is an anchorage on Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay. We had expected to meet a group from the yacht club here but instead of Centerboard Yacht Club we found another CYC, the Camden Yacht Club.

As I said at the start of this, its great to be boating again. We had a good sailing day today, seeing dolphins and seals and enjoying a warm sunny day although the wind was a bit strong.

Enjoying a Maine sail.

Steve and Jean

Update June 4, 2010 - Vero to Jacksonville

Hello to all

On the beach at Vero

I know, I did it again. Hopefully we’ll get cruising again by fall and I’ll find more time to keep these updates flowing. We said 2010 would be a transition year for us and it is certainly proving to be that. In the last update we had left Stuart and were headed up the ICW with the last update coming from one of our favorite stops, Vero Beach. The picture to the right is Jean with some great sand sculpture we came across on the beach at Vero.

After a couple of good days at Vero we motored up the waterway rather quickly, anchoring off Titusville for the night and then proceeding on to Daytona Beach where we spent a couple of days enjoying the beach and visiting with our friends Bruce  Ellie. The picture to the right is Seven Seas Marina in Daytona which is one of our favorite stops.

From there we motored all the way to Jacksonville Beach to get a good start on the river currents the next day as the current in the St. John going up to Jax can be fierce if it is running too hard against us. It meant staying at Beach Marine rather than anchoring out at Pine Island but as it turned out it was a good move for unexpected reasons.

We got off early the next morning but as we motored up towards the river we heard the Coast Guard announce a notice on the VHF that the St John River would be closed for approximately 4 hours that morning starting around 0830 while an underwater pipe was laid across the river. The exact location wasn’t clear ( I will eventually learn to understand southern drawl, even over the VHF) and we proceeded on while trying to find the location we were hearing on the chart.

When we reached the junction of the ICW and the St John River we held up for a large container ship to pass and began to follow him up the river. (He quickly outran us). At one point we passed two Sea Tow boats anchored and passed close enough to ask where the closure was and were told we were in it but that they hadn’t started yet. We made it through with about 20 minutes to spare. Had we stopped at Pine Island the night before we would have been held up for several hours while they laid the pipe and then had maximum current against us.

The rest of the trip upriver to Lamb’s was uneventful. That afternoon we drove back to St Augustine where we had a nice dinner with George and Jane from Time Out, stopping in Green Cove Springs to get our mail on the way.

The mail stop provided another surprise in buying a car in Florida. We had expected to pick up our permanent license plate for the car in that mail but it wasn’t there. We called the dealership to find out what to do and learned that Fl. does not mail the initial plate to the owner but instead sends it to the dealership. Luckily, the dealership had just received it and we told them to hold it as we could pick it up the next day.

Our plan had been to take the rental car from Jax back to Jensen Beach and pick up our car (about 225 miles each way), dropping the rental in Stuart. The dealership was in Palm Beach another 40 miles further so we added about 80 miles to the overall trip but were at least able to secure the plate before leaving for Maine which we had planned for the next day. We took Bill to dinner, said good by and got back to Jax tired but still on schedule.

We were 5 days and about 1800 miles in getting back to Maine. The highlight of the trip was stop to visit Lee and Carol of Carol Ann at their home in Maryland. We took their jet skis and did a +/- 25 mile trip up the river to Salisbury where we had a nice lunch at a restaurant on the water. I’d had little experience driving a jet ski and Jean and I had difficulty at times keeping up with Lee and Carol but it was a lot of fun with nearly perfect weather conditions for such an outing. It certainly is different traveling at 25 to 30 miles an hour over the water!

The following day we stopped in Cape Cod for a visit with my mother and brother and family. Mom is doing great for 90 plus and we were able to take her out to lunch twice while we were there.

We found the house in very good condition when we arrived and soon settled in and got organized. The house is under contract to sell with the closing scheduled for July so we had a lot of work to do. Our plan was to store the things we wanted to keep at son Steve’s house and set it up so we could stay there when we in Maine. We quickly discovered that the renovation project which Steve had started last fall was no where near complete so Jean and I spent most of the next month sanding, mudding and painting sheet rock, installing knotty pine wainscoting, cleaning up construction debris, organizing and cleaning the rooms downstairs and painting the floor at Steve’s while at the same time sorting and organizing things at our house. By mid May the project at Steve’s was finished but we had barely started! At least the project came out looking very nice.

On top of that Bill came back to Maine earlier than planned and we spent Memorial Day weekend at his place cleaning, organizing and fixing things to help him move back in and begin the process or readying that property for sale.

We did take some time to have a little fun. We went to two daytime Sea Dogs (Double A baseball) games, had dinner with Larry and Cathy at their home and on their boat, had dinner at Eldon and Dianne’s, went to a cook out at Dan & Meredith’s next door, attended a couple of CYC events and spent a beautiful day sailing Trader from South Freeport to her mooring at CYC. It was good to get out on the water again, this time under sail. I also was able to have lunch with my office partners and got a tour of the new office facility. It looks great. Nice job G! The picture to the right and below is Hadlock Field in Portland where the Sea Dogs play.

By the end of May, we had moved most of what we wanted to store to Steve’s and I had packed up what seemed like countless boxes of glassware and dishes. We should be able to wrap up the rest fairly quickly but that will be in July as we need to get Sun Cat out of Florida by June 15.

While we were in Maine, Lamb’s was working on Sun Cat. The front windows had been leaking for some time and the wood around them had rotted. We had been able to slow the leaks by covering the windows with sunbrella (which also is an effective and necessary sun screen). Therefore we had Lamb’s rebed the windows and replace all of the rotted teak around and under them. Also, we had been having trouble with the aft cabin windows leaking and after their removal determined it would be better to replace rather than refurbish them. So back in April, new windows were ordered from a place in Miami. In addition, I’ve been concerned with the rust spots on the engines so we had the engines cleaned and repainted as a step toward preserving them.

The new windows were supposed to take 3 to 5 weeks which would have been before Memorial Day. So we left Maine on June 1, stopping at Cape Cod again as well as to visit Jean’s sister Gail in NJ and my niece Kelly in SC. We had planned to leave our car at Hilton Head and drive a rental to Jax but since the windows are not in we decided to continue on and are presently at Jensen Beach at the condo. We hope to return to Jax on Tuesday or Wednesday and leave on the boat on Thursday or Friday. We had a nice dinner last night here with Alan and Suzanne of Kaos.

The weather in Maine this spring has been beautiful and we hope the summer will be more of the same. The temperature here in Jensen Beach Florida is in the high 90’s and we are about to head for the pool.

On the road again!

Steve and Jean

Update April 5, 2010 - Punta Gorda and Stuart

Well, I did it again. The months just seem to fly by! For someone not working at a job I seem to stay awful busy, and the time just flies! Therefore this update will cover 2 months of activity.

We left Ft Myers beach fairly early and had a good trip up to Fishermen’s Village in Punta Gorda. The trip up the Peace River was longer and took longer than I expected but was otherwise uneventful. The marina has a tradition of happy hour on the dock at 5 PM every evening and also has a nice pool. However it was so cold the happy hour only occurred twice and I only got into the pool 4 times. Way too much time was spent in long pants and jackets!

Highlights of our stay there included several dinners out with Ray and; Linda from Summertime and Jim and Trish from Great Expectations both fellow loopers. We also had a short visit from our neighbors, Rick, Pat and Dan but unfortunately it was too cold and windy to go out on the boat so we had to settle for lunch and a trip to Pine Island.

Larry and Cathy also visited us for several days and something similar happened. We had planned to take them out to Pelican Bay/Caya Costa State Park but once again it was much too windy. Therefore we had to settle fo a long bike ride, a trip to the Edson Ford estates and a Lee County park (to see the Manatees) in Ft Myers, and a trip to Boca Grande Island by car. We also had dinner out with one of Larry’s former business partners, Bruce & Doritt. The last day we finally got in a short boat ride down the bay and back. The picture to the right is Larry driving a power boat!

Larry at the controls

Other events included a trip to a jazz concert and rooftop bar with Jim & Trish, and a couple of pot luck dinners. These included a “B Dockers” party which was held away from the marina and included many people who had previously stayed at the marina and had now purchased houses in the area. We also played Mexican Train Dominoes with Ray and Linda several times, enjoyed the super bowl with Jim and Trish, took numerous bike rides and enjoyed the (free) entertainment at the Fishermen’s Village Shops. The month was over much too quickly.

Tim and Jan (from Lamb Chop) joined us our last day there for the trip back across the Okeechobee Waterway to Stuart. The first leg was back to Ft Myers Beach where we picked up a mooring for the night. Ray and Linda came over for happy hour and we had an uneventful evening. After getting fuel the next morning, we headed upstream stopping again at the Franklin Lock. Jean and Jan learned to play hillbilly golf at the RV park there. The next day we traveled through more locks, stopping again at Moore Haven for the night. We were able to get in a nice walk around the town, which had little of interest but the exercise was good. The picture below is Tim getting a little help at the helm!

Tim at the controls

A short day -15 miles followed as the wind was too strong to try to cross Lake Okeechobee, so we stopped at Clewiston and got in another good walk. Tim cooked some awesome ribs that evening. The next morning we got up before dawn and left as soon as it was light to get across the lake before the wind came up. We failed somewhat on this and had a somewhat rough trip across the lake. It was a relief to get through the Port Mayaca lock on the far side and we had an uneventful trip the rest of the way into Stuart other than being held up by two railroad bridges. The four of us had a good dinner that night with Alan and Susan from Kaos, trying out the 23oz drafts from the Jensen Beach Ale House.

The following day (Friday)we took a rental car and drove back to Marathon with Tim and Jan. We had a short but good visit there, partying at Sparky’s with a number of our boating friends and staying overnight on Lamb Chop.

We drove back to Stuart on Saturday arriving just in time to pick up Alan and Susan’s car which we would have the use of for the next 3 weeks. Thank you Alan & Susan! Son Bill arrived that evening and we commenced to get the condo set up the next day. We purchased a bed and some appliances and did a few minor repairs on the items identified by the home inspector. Bill was able to stay there by the second night.

The rest of the month was a blur. Rick and Betsey were renting a place on Nettles Island for the month and we were able to get together with them several times. Eldon and Dianne flew in for a couple of days to join us and we were able to go to the maritime museum with them. Larry and Sue (from Sue Sea Q) visited for a week by land yacht and we had a number of afternoons and evenings with them as well. Alan and Susan returned and we had a couple of nice evenings with them. We also ran into Mike and Judy, friends from New Brunswick and spent went out with them a couple of times and of course we spent many days and evenings with son Bill who put on several dinners for ourselves and our friends. The picture above is the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and the picture to the right is Jean and Bill on our (unsuccessful) trip to see Manatees. This was as close as we got!

After looking at our plans for the summer,we decided to buy a car and I learned all about buying, insuring and registering a car in Florida. Every state is different and insuring anything in Florida seems to be an adventure! The condo insurance took forever and we got quotes that were several times the entire house in Maine. Fortunately we also got some more acceptable ones as well. On top of that, the company Sun Cat has been insured through is getting out of the marine business so I was working on that as well. Combine these with doing our income taxes and way too much time was being spent on the computer! Fortunately the weather has finally warmed up and we were able to swim a bit in the pools at both the marina and the condo.

We left Stuart on Easter Sunday (yesterday) and traveled to Vero Beach where we got in a nice walk in the sunshine. This morning, we got up early and saw the shuttle launch. It is an awesome sight even from 50 (or so) miles away! We will be here for a few days and then will head up toward Jacksonville.

That is a quick summary of two months activities! Still having a great time!


Steve and Jean