Green Turtle Cay

What a gorgeous island! It is one of the first settlements in the Abacos (northern Bahamas)...The views throughout the island are incredible. The homes are pastel colors. There are lots of really green plants, trees, palm trees, hibiscus and orchids. Each time you can get a glimmer of the Atlantic side, you see a green/blue water that is hard to describ. You take your sunglasses off and the colors are still amazing. We ventured into New Plymouth to see the town. There are about 500 full time residents. The town is a mix of yelow, pink and lite blue buildings. They have wrapped the telephone poles with Xmas decorations. This year is the first time they have been able to do that. They pulled together a committee to raise the funds. We had a goombay smash at Miss Emily's....It is always a stop on the walk thru New Plymouth. Miss Emily's daughter now runs the place. She is known for her version of the goombay smash...needless to say it only takes about two to feel the effects. The sunsets here ahve been beautiful....see pics of the island.

My Lucky Stars

They say cruising is repairing your boat in exotic places. The romance of fixing a macerator pump in a gorgeous anchorage like Great Sale Cay is not as glamourous as you may think. After 10 hours of motoring and then 3 1/2 hours it was fixed. That was at 9:15 at nite...but with crusing there is always give and take. John worked really hard to get it working. Our payback was at midnite when the meteor shower began. Imagine being in an anchorage where the seas were flat calm, not a cloud in the sky and you get to so many stars, that they are at the horizon. We saw 40 shooting stars. They were so bright that some them had a trail...AWESOME! We also had a star shine so bright that it shimmered on the water...Good stuff! Now we are anchored in Green Turtle Cay...we did talk to our dear friends on Seafox because they were lurking on the VHF radio...They are on Treasure Cay about 15 miles from here...We will see them when they get back from a snowy visit with their family in Rhode Island....

Total Relaxation

We are all here in West End, Grand Bahama Island. Blue Blaze and Far Point have arrived and all is well. The other sailboats have been wonderful...lots to talk about, happy hours and time to just shoot the ____....We are waiting for good weather to continue on...Looks like everyone will leave tomorrow morning: 5 sailboats and a Nordic Tug. We will travel with Far Point and Blue Blaze to our first anchorage...about 58 miles away (Great Sale Cay). Then onto Green Turtle Cay another 50 plus miles away. The grounds at the Marina/Resort are gorgeous. The current owner demolished all the old buildings and built new. The style is Bahamian expensive. The actual rooms go for 300-700 dollars a nite. They have a infinity pool, lounge chairs on the beach, pool table, fitness center....A lot of money was spent to create this place. The boats that come in here are HUGE...sport fishing boats and pleasure yachts. I took a pic of one...Lots of money. WE have been eating lobster with mustard sauce, lobster with rice, lobster tacos and lobster with pasta. At $5 a piece, it is a bargain. Each day a male bahamaian lobster diver comes and shows his lobsters and we would hate to refuse them. The lobsters have no claws but a huge tail. Great eatin'. Laura and I went to town on the resorts' beach bikes and visited the local liquor store in search of our favorite french table wine...Lamouthe Parrot, available only in the Bahamas. Upon leaving the liquor store I found my bike had a flat tire. We rode a short distance and a local said he could pump the tire back up...We were set to go again and 5 mintes later the flat reappeared...We started walking back to the resort when a resort SUV stopped to help us...Colby, like the cheese took good care of us and drove us back to the marina. The people here are really friendly... The skies here are just gorgeous. There is usually some billowy white clouds with a gorgeous blue sky background. See pics....

We Made It To The Bahamas!

Wow! What a crossing...We left at 8pm Monday nite with Blue Blaze and 3 other sailboats. At first we were motoring a little close to each other but we spread out for comfort...For some of the sailboats it was their first crossing. Unfortunately about an hour into the crossing, Blue Blaze had alternator trouble and smoke coming out from melted wires....They turned back and we asked if they were sure they could return safely...They indeed said they could...We continued on and the weather was right on our bow...18-22 knots of wind and about 6 foot seas...not the crossing we had intended but the moon came and lit up the sky....I saw a shooting star..pretty cool. We arrived 13 hours later, 3 sailboats later...the sun came out and all is good! We cleaned the boat and started to relax...sit at the pool...Pretty swanky place (my description not theirs)...see OLd Bahama Bay REsort and Marina website. Quite an indulgence...During the afternoon, 2 guys in a small boat came to greet us, selling conch and lobster..the lobster in the Bahamas has no claws but a huge tail. We bought 2 for $5 each...proceeded to boil them and eat them just as fast as we could. I cut up the conch and made conch salad...Yum! Blue Blaze has fixed their problems and will tentatively arrive Thursday morning at about 4am...Yeah! See pics of the conch on Kino's boat...

Time To Give A Hug To Those You Love

One of the best things about cruising is the wonderful people you met. The most fascinating thing about meeting new people is that you become quite close in a very short time...Unlike the land version, your new neighbors are there to help through thick and thin. We met an amazing couple from Alaska, that had brought their dog, Buoy. Buoy was a golden retreiver/poodle mix. One of those newfangled cross breeds. Buoy happened to be a very special and loving dog. After meeting them in Beaufort, NC and then in Charleston,Sc and then Jacksonville,Fl and now we are finally together in Lake Worth,Fl...We realized that Bouy was just one of the sweetest dogs...big, white curly fur and the spirit of a puppy dog (only 2 years old)...This morning, a devastating thing happened to Buoy and he is no longer with us....Life is always a reminder to hug those we love each day...remind ourselves that all is good in the world...

The Passage To West Palm

We left on Saturday morning from the St. John's River (Jacksonville, Florida) to go on a 2 nite passage to West Palm (about 240 miles)....along with our buddy boat, Blue Blaze. The wind was anywhere from 0 to 12 knots, the moon was full and the skies were clear. The most gorgeous sunsets and sunrises, shooting stars and lots of dolphins. The dolphins are atracted to your boat like a magnet, they love to cruise in your bow wake. We even saw some at nite through the water because the moon was so bright (like who turned the lites on)...amazing.John and I traded watches, about 3 hors on 3 hours off. You spend countless hours just gazing off onto the horizon to check for other boats...You can see entrance channel lights that from afar seem to take on other shapes until you are within a few miles of them. This passage was just perfect...We had to even slow the boat down to 4.4 knots to arrive during the morning hours into the West Palm entrance. Attached you will see a dolphin picture (not great) from alongside the boat and a pic of West Palm...

Lots To Give Thanks For

Not to sound too mushy....Happy Turkey Day to all our family and friends. We have seen quite a number of you the last 3 months...thanks for being a really wonderful part of our life. We will be shipping out on Friday, down the Intracoastal due to some strong winds over the weekend, we will avoid the Atlantic for now...Have a lot of stuffing,gravy, turkey etc...worry about the calories next week.We will be in touch....To everyone we have not seen recently, we have you on our minds and hearts.
We are celebrating T-Day with our friends from Blue Blaze at the Manges household...always outdoing themselves in a culinary way....
Hugs
From
S/V Freedom (sailing vessel)

Blue Angels

Wow! If you ever have the opportunity to see an Air Show with the Blue Angels, check it out. They were having a 3 day show in Jacksonville, in order to get ready, they had a practice day on Thursday. How exciting! They were using Beach Blvd as their air runway. Our marina is right on Beach Blvd. They buzzed past us, right over our heads, one at a time, three at a time and finally 6 at a time. We saw them , 4 at a time literally go straight up into the clouds at a 90 degree angle to earth.Then all 4 would meet up and then go upside down away from each other. Personally some rides at Disneyworld can produce fear and motion sickness....these pilots are unreal. You could hear them before you could see them. All of a sudden a Blue Angel would come out of nowhere and fly directly over our heads....you could almost see the pilot. The pics I took were not fabulous but it will give you an idea of what it was like. My Canon was just not fast enough to capture the pics I really wanted. All for free...

Friends and Vaccinations

Our Halloween weekend in St. Petersburg was an amazing time with friends....catching up and making new memories. Our friend Bob (Capt. Bivalve) had the Halloween spirit! We met at one of our favorite bars in St pete, Moon Under Water and he brought his costume along. Usually a deeply philosophical person, his costume beckoned a different side. See attached. Perhaps it was just a glorified beer glass holder...what fun! We also caught up with our old dockmates and had a wonderful barbecue...Our generous hosts were ,Jeff and Elise who made it a great weekend. This is where the vaacinations come in....they are both nurse practitioners...extremely knowledgeable, capable and always willing to share their knowledge. They certainly convinced us to get our Swineflu vaccines...we were not smart enough to get them in St. Pete....after we turned our rental car back in, in fact one day later and about 20 phone calls later, we found the only supply at the County Health dept in jacksonville...2 buses later (2 hours later)we found ourseleves at the Health Dept and recieved our vaccines...2 buses later(2 hours later) we were back at the Marina.
Mission accomplished. The only catch was when we got on the 2nd bus going to the health dept we overheard a person talk about her chills, aches etc. We were concerned that on the way to getting our flu shots we would get the flu....fortunately we feel fine 24 hours later. Thanks to everyone for a fabulous weekend. Miss you guys!

The Chaleston Shuffle

What an amazing city...Charleston,NC...tons of restaurants, incredible amount of history every turn you make, beautiful homes and really friendly people. Being the cheap sailors that we are, we took advantage of the local trolley to see the city ($5) for the day. We were in Charleston in 2001 and found a French resaurant that was affordable, casual and all the bread,stews etc are homemade. As I was walking hru the city I fell upon this amazing place once again...time to drool...cheese and pate platter with homemade bread..$9.50. We also walked throughout the Battery area that has all the old (Civil War) mansions that are in impeccable condition, beautifully manicured yards with fountains and flowers. We then left Charleston to Beaufort, SC and stayed until the weather was right to go on the outside to Fernanadina Beach, Florida. They have mermaid sculptures in the town near the businesses...pretty cool. We made our exit from Beaufort at 3:30 in the afternoon and made it to fernandina by 10:the next day. They sail mimicked a roller coaster ride that you could not get off of...big winds and waves and pitch blackness for most of the early morning. We did have 2 other boats that left with us and we were able to talk via the VHF....kinda nice to hear a familiar voice in the middle of such a wild ride. The other cool thing was all the shooting stars that we saw when the moon was bright!!!As we pulled into Fernandina, the sun came out and the weather heated up. It was a nice welcoming after wearing every piece of foul weather gear we have....Now we are in Jacksonville...back to warmer temps....Yeah!

The Skinny On The ICW (intracoastal waterway)

We left Beaufort,NC 5 days ago and are now in a Marina in Charleston,SC....The trip down the ICW was filled with incredibly gorgeous scenery, amazing homes, beautiful wildlife and Scary Skinny Water..When I say skinny I mean skinny. Skinny means shallow...the Icw is maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. Their job is to try to maintain the depths of the ICW at a minimum of 12 feet. Their mission is impossible because of one thing: Mother Nature. As you motor down the IcW you pass inlets that have water constantly flowing in and out of them from the Atlantic Ocean. This flow of water causing erosion and shoaling at each of these openings...One day (after the Corps dreges)the inlet could have 12 feet of water and then just a month later the water is only 5 feet..(at low tide)....Certain areas are worse than others. Bottom line: we never went completely aground.YEAH! We had some incredibly nerve racking scenarios but we did not go hard aground. Part of the time we had some huge motor yachts in front of us that would call us on the VHF and tell us about some skinny 5 foot depths and try to tell us what part of the channel we should stay closer to..At one partcularly shallow area John made the decision to go outside the channel marker to get to deeper water. This concept is counterintuitive...But it worked....Pretty cool! It's amazing you can actually start to think that 9.9 feet is deep water. We have a draft of 6.6 feet, meaning we need at the very least 7 feet to not go aground. We also anchored at a creek off the IcW
in rainy, awful cold weather. As soon as we started to anchor the wind popped up to 25-30 knots. The Nationl weather service came on to say that an unexpected gale came thru the exact area we were in...no where else. To say that the nite was dark(pitch black),windy and miserable is an understatement. The next morning in very foggy weather we preceeded to move further South. The sun finally came out when we got to Charleston...Thanks to Blue Blaze for their support...sometimes they would the lead boat and contact us immediately to tell us to go to the right or left to get to deeper water....Big help!Some pics of the ICW...

Time To Catch Up

Since I last left everyone, we were on Tangier Island. We sailed onto Willoughby Bay, just off the channel from Norfolk Harbor. It is a crazy place where you have to keep very close track of container ships. Navy warships, barges, and other boaters. We almost had a close encounter with a container ship. They appeared to be anchored in the channel (not that unusual) but upon the sun moving and finally shinning upon the bow, I yelled to John that it was moving very quickly towards us. They were being pushed by a pilot boat and the captain came on the VHF to warn us to get out of the way. Luckily, we were already moving out of his direction and over into safer waters. We stayed a nite in Norfolk with 3 other boat(all friends) and moved a slow 10 miles to Great Bridege where you can tie up for free for a nite.Great Bridge is like an oasis for a cruiser because you are no more than a 15 minute walk to a grocery store, drugstore, landromat, liquor store, bank...you get the picture. I can not forget the mexican resturant...all good things. One of the great things about fellow cruisers is that everyone has a specialty...One of our friends loves to bake bread (which we are very fond of) and he gave all of us a baking lesson. He definitely has the touch..the bread turned out amazing. It looks simple enough so I have purchased all the necessary ingredients. After the bread baking lesson we were give a tortilla making sesson by another cruiser...again it looks easy enough. They do not last in the fridge very long because they are so fresh without preservatives...but they do not last long also due to the fact that they are scumptious! I know you are thinking that it is a lot of work making bread and tortillas from scratch but that is one of the wonderful things about cruising. If you go to places where the bread isn't tasty, then you just make your own. The Bahams is known for many things but the bread is not one of them Our nite ended with Chris jackson reading an excerpt from his book Scimitar Moon...he is very talented and it is a treat to read...Pretty cool!.Now we are in Beaufort, NC...great town, very sail friendly. Beautiful day...No pics today....problem with website....

Life in Tangier Island

We are on the move again...going South. Our first stop was Tangier Island, Virginia. The island was founded in the 1600's..The town still has decendants from the original settlers. The main industry has been crabbing/fishing but tourism (ferries from the main land) helps when the fishing is slow. We came into Tangier on a blustery day and major concern that the depths going into the channel would be very shallow. We bounced off the bottom once coming in...not bad. We were glad to see Mr. Parks (79 year old owner of Parks Marina) waiting to help with the docklines. We had tried consistently to get him on the phone or VHF to no avail...His wife answers the phone but she is a bit challenging to talk with...he affectionately refers to her as "Fang"...as in Phyllis Diller. Anyways he helps us to tie up...our depth reader at the bow read 5.6 feet (we have a 6.6 foot draft---amount of water under the boat)..We were not going anywhere in a hurry. Then we assisted our friends on Blue Blaze...luckily uneventful. Then Mr. Parks, who was a crabber for 40 years took us on a golf cart tour of the island. What a character...he calls every guy on the island by the name of George...and every woman is Sweetie..The tour took about one hour...We met the local cop, known as Da Cop...he has a great sense of humor, definitely a half full glass kind of guy. His one daughter is the PA (Physicians assistant)on the island, the doctor comes once a week. In emergencies, a helicopter would arrive and whisk you away to Salisbury. The island has 3 resturants that basically close for dinner by the time October comes around. The internet and cell phone service is non operationalon the island. Despite how caught in time the island is, they have a part time resident who pilots his helicopter to his home on the weekends from DC....He also created a Tangier Island Museum that had closed by the time our tour ended. Here are some pics of the island and of course a pic of Mr. Parks...

Those Crazy Watermen

We stayed on in Solomons to be able to see the Waterman's Festival. The Festival has been going on for 7 years....about 5 other water towns in the Bay have this Festival. About 20 waterman/boats participated this year. They have 4 classes...rookie, charter, medium and large boats. They have contests that scare the bejesus out of you...The most exciting event is the one where the boats must basically go full throttle out of a slip(going forward not backing out) and then have to make a very sharp, fast port turn and back into a slip (about 3 slips away) at full throttle and place a line on each of four pilings. It is a timed event. The event gets so competitive that at one point a waterman, as he threw a line on a piling,he proceeded to do full summersault into the water just so he could get the line completely over the piling.The crowd went wild! The waterman who participate are anywhere from 20 to 68 years old. They can manuver their boats (one screw)so amazingly fast and accurate. The event is free to the public but a boot is passed throughtout the crowd to gather all the contest winnings to be passed out amongst the winners...John had a unique opportunity to get a ride on one of the boats because as they say the squeaky wheel get the grease...The announcer appreciated his enthusiam....He said it was great! It was over before it started...Then Jason (another squeaky wheel) played announcer for a bit of the festival....

10 reasons to Start Moving South

Life in the Chesapeake Bay is amazing...gorgeous starry filled nites, chilly mornings and Fall leaves on the trees....FALL LEAVES ON THE TREEEs...OMG...(omigod)..
Top 10 Signs that we should start to move South
10)Pumpkins being sold in the farm stands
9)Leaves are changing colors
8)Acorns are falling off the trees (dockmaster at Solomons said that is his first sign)
7)Lots of woolly caterpillars are being seen
6)Halloween decorations in the store windows(of course some are seen in August)
5)Fog in the morning
4)Cold temps overnite below 70 degrees
3)You start to rummage about your boat trying to find a pair of jeans and a fleece top
2)John dropped dinghy lock overboard in the murky Chesapeake water (need to go to clear blue waters further South)
1)We are weenies and we need lots of sunshine and warm days
See pic of the Chesapeake in the morning ....Great Summer!

Off the Hook with Johnny Depp

We finally left the dock at Solomons and had an amazing sunset dinner with Jason and Laura....Then off to Harris Creek, Tilghmann Island and St Michaels on the Eastern Shore. These incredible creeks meander back and forth with gorgeous tall grass waterfronts. These towns are are steeped in history and charm...Now onto Johnny Depp. We borrowed a car from friends ( a huge perk of cruising, great friends in wonderful places)and drove into St Michaels...a charming (that word has a comeback)16th century town...complete with incredibly restored houses, shops, a microbrewery and Johnny Depp's boat. The town had sighting of him throughout the day but no one could actually confirm his whereabouts. The boat is a 156 motorsailer...it's pretty much gorgeous. Due to a Vanity Fair artcicle that we read a few months back, we could confirm it was his yacht. He also purchased an island in the Bahamas so further research is needed. It was all lots of fun...the town was abuzz. The next day, the St Michaels newpaper ran a pic of his boat on the front page. The elusive Johnny was never found and the yacht had sailed off to a new port. Great fun!

Water, Water everywhere--including here

Wow! Time flies when you are having fun and working on a watermaker....This is definitely the royal "we". John has completed successfully building our new watermaker. Working towards self-sufficiency is a wonderful thing! It works really well! It will make 20 gallons per hour...our many thanks to Jason for his guidance and patience. On the pirate fashion front, John now has a pirced ear. Our multi-talented Jason transformed himself into a pierced earring piercer?(not sure what to call it)...either it was too much rum or a lifeling desire, John will be wearing pirate booty soon...Pics attached...

Pop The Trunk

No, this is not a detective series being acted out...I am cetoling(varnishing)the wood trim on our boat. "Pop the Trunk" is a song by the Aggralites, a reggae band that will definitely make you smile even if you are varnishing....As I stain trim, John is installing a DYI (do it yourself) watermaker...it is a reverse osmosis deal that will filter out the salt from ocean water so it is potable for us to drink...Pretty cool! The fun of boat ownership! The cool thing about being in the Chesapeake is seeing a lot of friends that have traveled up to this area or that live here. We met a couple in Bimini(Bahamas) and we were able to contact them, we found out that they are right here in this area for the summer. One last thought for the day...remember when your parents said that as you get older time will go by even quicker...THEY WERE RIGHT! Keep moving and love life!

Take Time To Smell The Roses

More land cruising..We are in Washington Dc and there sure is a lot to see. The Botanical Gardens were just reopened after a huge remodeling. The outside Gardens are amazing. See pics of the roses....They also have a small pond with cattails, a garden with orchids, and beautiful lilies....Then upon seeing that the Renwick Gallery (across from the White House)was free admission...of course we had to see what was being shown. The attached photo is of a gamefish made out of toys...see pics...art is sure "all-inclusive"....No matter how many times I have seen the White House, it always affects me, in a good way....see pics....

Tough Commute....

We traveled to the Bandalier National Monument...about 15 miles outside Los Alamos. The park has Indian cliff dwelling that you are able to climb tall wooden ladders to see. The dwellings are purposefully, about 50-100 feet off the ground. The Indians made these cliffs their homes because they were near rivers( drinking water and fish), wonderful, fertile soil and lots of wildlife to eat. The only issue I had was that they would have to cimb, sometimes 2-3 ladders (to get to the penthouse)to get to their ciff apartment. I am sure they had lots of groceries and drinking water, which would make the evening commute a big pain in the butt. The area that surrounded these dwelling were beautiful...near windy rivers and wildflowers. John and I climbed the ladders to get an idea of how this all worked. Their small cliff aprtments were rather sparse and quite low...they must of been rather short. SEE PICS....we also made it to Albuquerque and visited the PLaza...a gorgeous, authentic Mexican/Indian plaza. Lots of great food..hot chile of course. See pics of John's new hat...possibly a 20 gallon...what do you think?

Heaven On Earth

What can I say? I love the ocean and I love the mountains...We arrived in Los Alamos, New Mexico and we found the most perfect place...it's called Valles Caldera. Thanks to Prez Clinton, when he left office he signed off on a purchase of 89,000 acres called Valles Caldera. It was a privately owned ranch that was the most beautiful place on earth. It cost $110 million dollars, and it that was made into a preserve. The year was 2000...Until 2004, unless you were a researcher, you were not allowed into the park. We were able to go on a 4 hour hike that took place on the old 1930's logging roads. The cool part is that the roads were natural ....lots of tall grasses, wildflowers, wildlife and no other hikers becuz they limit the amount of people daily into the park. They have over 2000 cattle, 3000 elk, mountain lions, horses, snakes,chipmunks, squirrels,eagles,hawks and wild turkey. I am sure I have misssed a lot of other wild life. The place is spiritual...peaceful and big...BIG SKIES...See pics...right before we found this place we went through a hail storm...it went from 73 degrees to 53 degrees in 20 minutes...See pics....

Santa Fe Scenery

The great thing about traveling to new places is all the wonderful new sights you get to see. The Santa Fe area has it all. Delicious food, beautiful adobe architecture and this time of year, gorgeous skies and flowers. We drove up to Taos, at about 8,000 elevation. There is a gorge with a bridge that you can drive over, about 10 miles outside Taos. It is a mini Grand Canyon. The view is breathtaking...you can see forever out in the desert. My fear of heights was definitely working against me as we walked over the bridge...its about 650 feet above the Rio Grande River.See Pics. Then we drove back to santa Fe and took in some of the museums in the Plaza area. The adobe architecture is so different from anything out East. The brick colors against the backdrop of the blue skies is memorable. See pics..The holyhocks, cactus and wild flowers are all blooming right now. It is hard to believe how cold this place gets in winter...We visited the Georgia O'Keefe museum. Her artwork is incredible...it is so simple yet incredibly colorful. It is great to view the Santa Fe scenery through her eyes...WOW!