Update 1/23/09 - Jacksonville to Vero

Time sure goes fast when you are having fun!

I can't believe another month has gone by already. Our visit to Maine lasted until 1/7/09 at which time we flew back to Jacksonville. We had a nice Christmas celebration at home with family and another visit to cape cod to visit my mother, sister and brother and his family. We also got in a number of visits with friends and hope to see some of them here in Florida this winter.

Sun Cat was waiting for us when we returned to Jacksonville. She had gottem a new coat at bottom paint. I was very pleased with the service at Lamb's. They did a good job, at the agreed to price and in the agreed time frame. They also were very good to work with.

When we got to the Jax airport we were greeted by Phil and Alice from Wonderland and Paul and Sue from Sweet Dreams and we had a nice dinner out with all. The next day Lamb Chop's crew, Tim and Jan arrived . After a day of working on the boats all 8 of us jumped in Phil's mini van and went to a Barefoot Man concert at the Villages as guests of Sue and Paul. It was a really good time in spite of arriving back at the boats at 0100.

On Sunday it was time to get moving so we headed down the river accompanied by Wonderland and Sweet Dreams. We spent a night rafted at Pine Island and then headed for the Seven Seas Marina in Daytona where we were joined by George on Time Out. We had a nice pot luck dinner that evening on Sun Cat and all had breakfast out the next morning. All but Sun Cat headed south after breakfast.

We took a good walk and then met up with our friends Bruce and Ellie. Ellie made another wonderful dinner and we had a nice afternoon and evening with them exchanging travel stories. On Tuesday, Lamb Chop joined us at Seven Seas and on wednesday son Steve joined us about noon time, having flown down from Portland to Daytona that morning. We had a nice beach walk and toured Daytona a little.

The next day we headed south. The plan was to anchor off of Titusville for the evening but the wind was wrong for that so we anchored behind the NASA causeway. Sue on Sweet Dreams called us and said they had just spent 3 nights on a dock at Cocoa where they had rented a car and toured the Space Center. Our plan was also to tour the Space Center so we planned to head for the same dock the next day as Wonderland had also called to tell us about the dock. She also said there would be a rocket launch from the Space Center that evening. We had a nice dinner on Sun Cat that evening, all sharing a beef stew that Jan had made.

We arrived at Cocoa early afternoon the next day and found the dock wide open so we pulled in. We rented a car that afternoon and the next day drove over to the Space Center which was about 30 minutes away. Jean and I had visited the Space Center a number of years ago with Bruce & Ellie but we found the exhibits far more extensive this time and all 5 of us felt we had information overload by the end of the second day. The trip there made for a very interesting weekend however! When we were headed down from Daytona to Titusville through mosquito Lagoon we could see a large building. This is what it turned out to be. Its the Vehicle assembly building where they combine the shuttle, the fuel tank and the booster rockets and mount them on the pad prior to transport to the launch site.




The final product looks like this.






And this is a model of the shuttle. Our space adventure ended as we watched the launch of a delta rocket that evening while sitting on the sundeck. It was spectacular and one can only imagine what a shuttle launch would look like after that.

After Cocoa, we traveled to Vero Beach where we were assigned to moorings at the municipal marina. Lamb Chop wound up at the north end and we wound up at the south end. We walked over to the beach, enjoyed happy hour at the Pearl and at Mulligans, walked the park-the fitness trail confirmed the shape we were in! On Wednesday we went to the McLarty Treasure Museum at. Sebastian Inlet State Park . The Museum presented the story of the 1715 Spanish Treasure fleet and the subsequent efforts to salvage and find its cargo after it was sunk by a huricanne. The Museum also displayed many artifacts from the fleet.

Steve left for home later that afternoon and we spent a quiet night at Vero. The next day, we left for Stuart where we visited our friends Bob and Allie from Bali Motu at their new house in Stuart. Sun Cat and Lamb Chop were the first boats to utilize their new dock and we had a nice visit with Bob and Allie, touring their construction project and enjoying a nice dinner out.
Today we motored down the ICW to Lake Worth (North Palm Beach) through numerous Manatee zones. We and a nice relax afternoon anchored here with 25 +/- other boats.

Still having a great time.

Steve & Jean
M/V Sun Cat

Update 12/21/08 - Let it snow!

Update 12/21/08 - Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!


What are we doing here? We've asked ourselves that a few times since we came to our home in Maine two weeks ago, since then we've had the coldest day of the year so far, an ice storm that took out our power for 22 hours, two snow storms, the last one yesterday dropped about 4 inches of snow. Today we have a third storm going which is expected to last most of the night and drop 10 to 18 inches more on us! Included is a picture of the house after yesterday's storm.

The answer to what we are doing here is to visit friends and family which is going quite well. we've spent time with both Bill and Steve, made a trip to Cape Cod to visit my mother and brother and have spent several evenings with friends and neighbors. We've also had time for a few shopping trips and to decorate
the house.

Since my last update, we spent another month or so in Hilton Head and then worked our way south through Georgia to Jacksonville, where we left Sun Cat to have her bottom painted.

At Hilton Head, we walked, biked and enjoyed the pool until it got too cold to go swimming. We then concentrated on walking and biking and took a number of long beach walks. We also did some boat projects and went out with Pat & Pat from Salty Dawg a couple of times.

In late October, we traveled back to New England for a week where we spent a few days visiting friends and family in Maine. I also finished winterizing Trader and got her covered for the winter. We then went down to Cape Cod where we celebrated my Mother's 90th birthday. The celebration was a nice party attended by Mom, Ron & Brenda, my sister Sue and Jean and I.

When we returned to Hilton Head, we took a day and visited Tybee Island where we toured Fort Pulaski. This fort controls the entrance to the Savannah river and was captured by Union forces during the civil war. The fort is notable because it was the first use of the new rifled cannon against a masonry fort with the result being that masonry forts were obsolete.

On the first weekend of November we attended the Hilton Head Concours de Elegance, an annual event featuring most older classic cars and race cars. We attended the Saturday event which included a drive in rally by many car clubs and an auction of mostly classic cars. It was great to see all of the older cars, especially those from the 50’s 60’s. Pictures of some of the classics are included with this update.

Early in November, we left the marina for the first time since may, We traveled out to the anchorage at Bull Creek where we met up with George and Marion on Time Out. We had not seen them since May and it was great to catch up. We were joined for the afternoon by Pat and Pat from Salty Dawg who had dinghied out to the anchorage. They had a rather rough trip back but made it before dark. we spent the night rafted with Time out and then returned to Hilton Head while they headed on to Georgia and a tour of the St John river in Florida.

On our way back into the Marina at Hilton Head I decided it would be a good idea to run up the engines to give them a test. I discovered that neither engine would get close to its full RPM, confirming my suspicions that the props had been badly fouled during the long period of inactivity. The result was that we hired a diver to clean the props and bottom. The diver indicated we had over 2” of muscles and other growth on the props. No wonder we couldn’t get any speed!

For the next couple of weeks we continued walking and biking around Hilton Head. This included a long bike ride sown the beach which was something we had never done before. We also spent a day playing tourist in Savannah with the crew of Salty Dawg. What a nice town Savannah is to visit. I’ve added some pictures of savannah to this update as well.

The time had come to leave Hilton Head as we had reached 179 days. If we stayed 180 we might be liable for South Carolina property taxes. So we left and headed for Georgia where our first stop was Skid away Island .

The purpose of our stop at Skidaway Island was to visit with Bruce & Jean elder, a looper couple who we met at the rendezvous in Penetang. Unknown to them they had had some influence on our choice of boats for the loop as we had really liked the layout of their boat. we also wanted to see Skidaway island. We stayed at the island for two days and had a very nice visit with them. We had a personal tour of the entire island by Bruce, breakfast & dinner at one of the country clubs and a good walk along the shore bike path. We also got a look at Bruce's classic cars.

The next day we went to Walberg creek where we anchored with several other boats. We then went to the anchorage at Wahoo creek which is one of our favorite anchorages in Georgia. We were joined there by Lamb Chop who had been working their way down from the Chesapeake for the past month. It was great to see Tim and Jan again! We would cruise together from there to Jacksonville.

After Wahoo we traveled to the Frederica River where we anchored off of the fort as we had done in May. We were disappointed to find that the dinghy dock was under repair and there was no way to get ashore. We spent a nice evening there and part of the next day and then moved down to Golden Isles where we anchored near the marina for the night. The next morning we went up to Brunswick to purchase fuel at a low price and then traveled to Jekyll Island where we went into the marina for the day, arriving before noon. We took the courtesy car and went to the store and then did a driving tour of the island. this included a stop at the Horton House, which was built in the early 1700's and was the original plantation on the island. A picture of the Horton House is also included with this update.

The next morning we borrowed the courtesy bikes and rode to the Jekyll Island club for breakfast. It was wonderful buffet in very pretty surroundings. when we finished we were walking around the club when the bell captain offered us a tour of the Presidential Suite., so up we went to the fourth floor. As expected, the suite was very elegant. it also included the cupola which provided a panoramic view of the ICW and surrounding marshes. We then biked over to the beach and rode the bikes several miles down the beach before returning to the marina.

Our next stop was St Mary's, GA where we anchored with around 70 other boats for the Thanksgiving events in St Mary's., arriving on Tuesday night and leaving the next Monday. while there, we attended several happy hours with other cruisers, we also walked around town quite a bit. Its a pretty town with a number of old southern houses. On Thanksgiving Day, we attended dinner with about 200 other cruisers and some locals. The way it works is the local community provides turkeys and hams and the cruisers provide the fixings, side dishes and deserts. On Friday they had a nautical swap. Lamb Chop was able to purchase a big Delta Anchor very reasonably. That Sunday night we got some very bad news that one of our cruising friends had died in her sleep the night before while at anchor. It was certainly sobering news. Our thoughts are with her family.

We left St Mary’s the following morning and traveled to the marina at Fernandina Beach, Fl. The wind and current were quite strong which made docking an adventure. at Fernandina we were joined by Larry and Sue on Sue Sea Q, John and Pat on Gypsy Time and Ron and Janice on OB Too. Tom & jerry Claire from Sea Knight live there and they were able to join us also. Tom took us around shopping and then we had a good happy hour on Suzy Sea Q and all went our for Pizza. We hadn’t done that for a long time.


The following morning we left with Lamb Chop and Suzy Sea Q and went to Jacksonville. We had timed the tide right and got a great push up the river, picking up 3-4 knots as we went. We tied up the boats at Jacksonville Landing which is a free dock right in downtown Jacksonville. The Landing has shops and restaurants and in a lot of ways is similar to Waterside in Norfolk. They had a 60 artificial Christmas tree at the Landing with over 87,000 lights and every evening we were treated to a light show as well as various performances, mostly by school groups. We attended one by a middle school jazz band that was especially good.



We wound up spending 3 days in Jacksonville. One of our adventures was a trip on the monorail to the south side of the river. There we visited the maritime museum and the science museum and took in a show at the planetarium. We also sampled the fare at the River City Brewing Company. One evening there was an art show downtown. apparently they hold this once a month. They way it works is they open a number of buildings and various artists display their work. They also serve free wine and soft drinks in a number of the locations. It gave us an opportunity to tour some of the facilities in downtown Jacksonville that we might not have gotten into otherwise and made for an interesting evening overall.

On Friday, Lamb Chop headed downriver again to visit St Augustine and we traveled about 5 miles further up the river to Lamb’s Marina where Sun Cat would stay while we went to Maine for Christmas. We were greeted by Pat on Salty Dawg and Phil and Alice on Wonderland and wound up going out to dinner with them and Pat & Clyde on Momacita.

The next morning we were surprised to receive an email from Joan on Christine that they were headed up to Jacksonville to see us before we left. We quickly finished our packing and boat projects and they arrived around mid-day. We visited with them and Pat for a while and then we all took a trip to the used book store before having an early dinner at Tom & Betty’s, a local restaurant with good food and low prices.

The next morning, Pat was kind enough to arise at 0500 and take us to the airport for our trip home which was fortunately uneventful. Thank you Pat!

I started this update with our Maine activities. The next update should come out in early January. In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for a healthy and prosperous new year.

Steve & Jean
Relearning how to shovel snow!

Update 10/10/08 - visiting The Villages and Hilton Head

Update 10/10/08


A more timely hello to all!

This is the third of three updates I’ve posted this weekend. Hopefully I can keep things more up to date from here on out. In this issue you may learn what a “chucker” is. Our first week at Hilton Head went by all too fast. We did a fair amount of cleaning on the boat and some basic shopping to reprovision the boat. In addition, we made good use of the pool and took two long walks down the beach to Coligny Circle where we had lunch and walked back. We also had a nice evening with Pat and Pat from Salty Dawg who are staying in another marina on Hilton Head. Its interesting the comparison of Hilton Head now versus when we were here in July. In July, the place was jumping but now there are a lot fewer people around and the weather is great. We heard that in addition to the usual seasonal factors part of the issue is the weather forecasting. When there is a hurricane offshore, the weather channel (and others) says that a hurricane is threatening “the Carolina’s”. However, the forecast is really calling for a hit on the North Carolina shore with the storm staying well away from Hilton Head. Regardless, lots of people hear this and cancel their reservations here. This area actually hasn’t had a hurricane in over 100 years. Part of the reason is that the gulf stream is well off shore here whereas it is very close to the southern North Carolina coast.

We decided that since we had time we would take a car trip and visit friends in Florida. Our first stop was the Villages where we visited Paul and Susan from Sweet Dreams. The Villages were one of the areas of Florida we wanted to see and it proved to be quite interesting. We learned to play “pickle ball” and played it all three days we were there. Pickle Ball is a game somewhat like tennis except its played on a smaller court (see picture), with a paddle that looks like a ping pong paddle but smoother and slightly larger, and a whiffle ball. I kept expecting the ball to bounce higher but it didn’t! In any event it was fun and good exercise. In case you are wondering, the game originated in Seattle and is named for someone’s dog!

We also took a tour of the Villages, attended a pot luck and went to a happy hour. The happy hour almost rivaled Sparky’s in Marathon with all you can eat wings, $5 pitchers of beer, good music and good company.

On Saturday, we also attended a polo match - a first for Jean and I (and most of the people we were with). We took the golf carts to the polo field. Golf carts are the preferred method travel in the Villages as there are cart paths to go everywhere. At the field, we set up for a tailgate party and waited for the match to start.
Up until now, if you asked me what a chucker was, I would have thought it had something to do with throwing something as a part of a game. However, a chucker is the equivelent of a period in hockey with a match consisting of six, ten minute chuckers with an extended half between the third and fourth chucker.
A team consists of 4 riders who might use up to eight different horses in the course of a match. The field is big, approximately 300 yards long and about 100 yards wide. This meant that the action was often a long ways away from us even with our centerfield position which made the tailgate activities even more enjoyable for all. After the match, we traveled to some friends of Paul’s and Susan’s for more party and a soak in the hot tub.

We left the Villages on Monday and had a leisurely drive through rural Florida (there really is such a thing) to Daytona to visit our friends Bruce and Ellie. Bruce and Ellie live in another interesting gated community as this one was a naval aviation training base at one time and the community has its own airport and many of the houses have their own hangers with taxiways running through portions of the community. We had a good visit them also. We took a golf cart tour of much of the complex, checking our some of the more interesting (and in some cases more extravagant) houses. We also saw several slide shows Bruce had compiled, including their trip to Alaska in June. After a nice dinner, we all sat up much too late and way too much on the edge of our seats watching the Red Sox beat the Angels to win their American League Divisional series. Next stop-Tampa Bay Rays.

Our drive back to Hilton Head was uneventful. The next day we watched as a technician from Caterpillar installed new injectors on the starboard engine. I ha intended to do this by myself but decided it was more complicated than I wanted to attempt. This turned out to be a very good decision as I learned what was really required and it was well beyond what I wanted to attempt. Sometimes discretion is definitely the greater part of valor!

The last few days have had on and off showers but we got in a trip to the beach as well as a few shopping expeditions. We are continuing to enjoy the warmer weather and the general ambiance of Hilton Head.


Steve and Jean
M/V Sun Cat
Hilton Head Island

Update 9/28/08 - End of summer boating in Maine

The summer and the month of September have just flown by!

We are back on Sun Cat in Hilton Head after a very busy (some would say crazy) month and a half, We spent much of August working on the house as it had not received much in the way of maintenance in the past 3 years. Among other things Jean washed over 400 windows and I fixed windows and doors and painted the porch. We also had a new roof installed, including all new lumber on the porch roof as the 100 year old boards had become very weak. The house looks great now.

Although we spent a lot of time on the house, we still got to do some sailing, mostly over long weekends. The weekend before labor day, we set out on Thursday, spending an evening in Harpswell harbor and then spending a day and evening visiting friends at Great Island Boat Yard. That Saturday we spent the day at the cottage of Bill & Valarie Sowles, a couple from Maine that we had met in the Bahamas this winter. We enjoyed a very nice dinner and breakfast the following morning with them.

Labor day weekend we started very early, setting out on Wednesday to meet up with son Steve who was traveling down from Penobscot Bay. We got a late start so we spent the first evening at Cliff Island where we walked around a bit and visited with some of Jean’s relatives there. The next day we traveled all the way to Teal Island where we met up with Steve. Teal is at the eastern end of Muscongus Bay and we were able to pick up a mooring there for the evening that looked like it would hold a big ship. The sunset was gorgeous (see picture). After that we went to Seal Cove, a pretty anchorage up the Damariscotta River above East Bootbay. The following day we stopped at Seguis Island and climbed to the lighthouse. Seguin has a “first order” Freznel lens and we were able to go up into the lighthouse to see it. We then went to the Basin where we met up with our friends Larry and Cathy on Moondance. The next day the three boats went to Sebasco where we spent a nice afternoon enjoying the pool and then walked around the golf course and climbed Robinson’s Rock the next morning. Robinson’s Rock is interesting. During the Revolutionary War, the colonists would hold up 2 large white boards in a cross pattern to signal the colonists in Portland that there was a British ship in the area. Portland is approximately 20 miles from this spot!

After a (car) trip to Cape Cod to visit my mother and brother , we enjoyed a weekend with Bill and Steph, taking a day trip to Jewell Island . It was nice to get in a visit with them

After that, we were off in the sailboat again for one more trip, this time to meet up with some of our looper friends, including Allan and; Susan on Kaos, Rich and Sue on Lionheart and Russ and Molly on Total Return. Kaos and Lionheart had been traveling together for most of the summer doing the “Downeast Loop” which takes one up through NY State, out the St. Lawrence, around nova Scotia dn then down the Maine coast, eventually arriving back in New York. We had planned to meet up in Boothbay but they wound up ahead of schedule so we met up in the basin instead. We had a quiet evening at the basin and a great happy hour on Kaos. A picture of the three trawlers anchored is included in this update

The following day we all stopped at the Dolphin Marina for their lobster stew and blueberry muffin lunch and then went to Jewell Island for the evening. At Jewell we tried an interesting raft, with Lionheart and Total return anchored facing one direction and Kaos and Trader facing the opposite with the sterns tied together. This might be a good time to explain that Trader at 35 feet is considerably smaller than the others. The other three are trawlers with Kaos being 46 feet, Lionheart being 54 feet and Total return being 57 feet.
This rafting arrangement was intended to hold everyone in the middle of the harbor no matter which way the wind came from.

We had intended to tour the island the next day but it didn’t work out. The wind came up very strong and when we put out an extra anchor the raft appeared to move even though it looked like the two windward boats (now Trader and Kaos) did not seem to be moving. In any event we broke up the raft, Total Return headed for Boston, Kaos and Lionheart anchored in Chandler’s cove to sort out dock reservations in Portland, and we headed for the yacht club. The following evening (Friday)we had a nice dinner at our house with the crews of Kaos and Lionheart.

After that it became a mad scramble to get ready to return to Sun Cat on the following Wednesday. With the help of Steve and a lot of friends, we took Trader’s mast down on Saturday, then got a call from my bother that my mother had gone to the hospital and we needed to be there on Sunday and Monday. After a fun dinner at the house on Saturday night with our friends Doug and Maggie, we set out early on Sunday and spent 2 days on Cape Cod helping Mom. Tuesday was spent packing and doing last minute errands and then we had a good flight (starting at 0545) to Savannah. By 1430 we were back on Sun Cat and pleased to find it in good shape.

It’s good to be back on Sun Cat in warm weather!

Steve and Jean

Update 8/11/08 - Our downeast trip on Trader

Hello to All

We are back in South Portland after a rather soggy trip downeast. I can’t remember a summer when there has been so little sun and so much rain!

In any event, we had a fair trip. From McGlatherty, we sailed up to Northeast Harbor on Mt Desert Island. Northeast is one of our favorites because there is a lot to do there and the (free) bus service will take you all over the island. We went to the farmer’s market and bought some steaks and then did a little shopping in NE Harbor and took the bus over to Bar Harbor to play tourist with the tourists for an afternoon. We also took the bus over to Southwest Harbor to visit the West Marine store there, only to discover that there was now a West Marine at NE as well! We had a very wet walk in the rain in SW Harbor but did find the part I wanted. Unfortunately it didn’t solve the problem so its going back eventually.

We then went up Somes Sound. For those not familiar with Maine, Somes Sound is a natural fiord with mountains around it and very deep water. Its absolutely gorgeous (when there is no fog so you can see it). We picked up our favorite mooring off Man-O-War brook and spent two days there, largely doing boat projects, working on organizing some of my loop pictures and playing cards.

The following day we motored up Eggemoggin reach to Buck’s Harbor. The wind was very light but it visibility was good and we enjoyed a trip through another lovely part of Penobscot Bay. The next morning we went to the farmer’s market in South Brooksville, and then set out on a nice sail all the way down to Rockland. It turned out to be one of the best sailing days of the trip. The following two days were spent in Rockland, walking around town and dodging raindrops. From there we went to Tenants Harbor and then had a very wet trip to Boothbay the following day. Our reward for that soggy trip was a nice dinner ashore with Greg and Barbara Franklin on Gonecruzin who were doing the Downeast loop.

The next day was spent in Boothbay playning tourist and then we went to Sebasco resort where we spent an afternoon enjoying the pool and the sunshine. We’d planned on a walk the next morning but the weather was threatening again so we headed back to Portland and just beat the bad weather as the rain started as we rode the launch in.

The pictures in this update are from our anchorage in Somes Sound showing Man-O-War brook and the mountains surrounding the cove we were in, Valley Cove. Also included is a picture of Buck’s Harbor.


Enjoy,

Steve & Jean