"It's More about the Journey Than it is About Arrival at the Destination" Well, not always!!!!

Still pushing South, still cold and dreaming about the Bahamas!! We left Norfolk, VA yesterday under grey, rainy skies and arrived at Goat Island anchorage under grey, rainy skies (although Mark continued to wear boardshorts).

We encountered 5 bridges, 2 locks and a pinhead on a 45' Hunter. Things did improve when the Hunter hit bottom at mile 3 of the Dismal Swamp http://www.fws.gov/northeast/greatdismalswamp/ and decided to head back towards the Virginia Cut. I was very polite when I asked him if we could pass to starboard since he got so spooked and had reduced speed to under 3 knots.

FYI to brother-in-law Jim, I am reading a great book called "Blackwater: The Rise of an American Mercenery Army". The name Blackwater comes from the color of the water in the Dismal Swamp where the firm owns a 6000-acre training facility. Read the book everyone, scary , scary...

We have some video showing the colour of the water, it's just like Newcastle Brown (mmmmm.....). The kids mentioned it looked like beer. Mitchell was afraid the boat was going to get drunk.

O.k. So maybe we are expecting too much from todays technology. We are currently anchored "apparently" way off the beaten track on the Alligator River, North Carolina. We have just spent 30 minutes trying to get a Google Earth link for you, but no luck. Even our GPS plotter lost satellite signal just as we were entering the anchorage. So you will have to be satisfied with some pics (no video) and my wonderful prose!!

So we will head out again early Saturday morning, trying to maintain at least 50 miles per day (to get us to Georgia before Mark goes back to work).

Long days on the water, ending with a rousing game of Sorry or family movie night (just started the Indiana Jones Trilogy, we don't count the Crystal Skull because it was so awful!).

Hope you are finding all this as interesting as we seem to think it is.

"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

See, told you there wasn't a Someday!"

PS. Stolen from a T-shirt in Annapolis.

Sunny skies from the Crew of the " Dad, the port bilge is STILL leaking".

Pushing South

So I was a few days late getting back to the boat, but we are off again. I arrived back in Virginia on Sunday night, and after a good meal with Steven and Jodi, it was back to the boat as a complete family for the first time in 5 weeks!!!

Monday was used to get a few last minute projects out of the way, including the installation of our new water heater (cold showers just not going to cut it).

We said our good-byes with a special thanks to everyone at Olversons!! Steven, Jodi, Jacob, Beverly-Anne, Fred and Cass, and of course Uncle Pete really made the place feel like a second home. We have already threatened to return in the spring!

Thanks of course to our old (old meaning we have known them for awhile ;-) friends Bobbie and Gord. Without them we never would have wound up in Lottsburg!!

So the push begins, yesterday we put around 50 miles under our keels and spent the night anchored in Horn Harbour http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.36528,-76.271768&spn=0.017157,0.042186&t=h&z=15. Another great spot for our shallow draft catamaran, we saw less than 5' of water depth a few times coming in off the Bay.

It was a pretty breezy night, gusts over 30kts, but we all slept great. The forecast was not looking good for Wednesday, 4-6' seas and 20kts gusting to 25kts. We got underway around 0900hrs, the wind and seas weren't much of a concern, and we made it to Norfolk by around 1630hrs. Below is a pic as we motored down "Carrier Alley". The aircraft carrier "Harry Truman" was there. 6200 crew, 80 aircraft, cost of $4.5 billion , range of 3,200,000 miles on 4 nuclear reactors!!

We are sharing the anchorage at Hospital Point http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=36.844358,-76.29962&spn=0.004319,0.010546&z=17 with 8 other boats, 5 of which are from Canada (and one, another Gemini, we saw in the 1000 Islands last summer).

After a nice supper, we had another family game of Sorry (I continue to kick butt in the standings!!!), then read another chapter of Farley Mowats "The Boat Who Wouldn't Float".

We also had hot showers onboard Charlotte-Ann for the first time.

Kids are in bed, Lisa and I are having a glass of wine (Merlot Box-o-Vino). We have another early start tomorrow, hopefully we will get all the way through the Dismal Swamp.

Heading South Again!

This will be short, not even any pics. Mark (that's me) got home late from work on Sunday. We got a few projects done on the boat on Monday and left Olverson's this morning. We are now anchored about 25 miles north of Norfolk, VA and hope to get there tomorrow. Weather looks a bit dodgy so we will have see how it looks in the morning.
Our Internet connection is alot slower than normal so I'm gonna end here. More info once we get off the Chesapeake and closer to civilization.

Later,
Mark, Lisa, Delaney and Mitchell.

Life on the boat while Daddy's gone to work!

So we have almost made it through the first month of Mark being gone. Being at Olverson's Marina has made it quite easy. We have all made some pretty good friends. Jodi and Stephen (the owner's daughter) live on the marina property. Jodi and I have really hit it off, having alot in common (we both like wine). Their children are pretty much the same ages as Delaney and Mitchell. We tend to have dinner together most nights (only way we can pull our kids away from playing and get them to eat). Mitchell and their son Jacob have built a skate boarding ramp together and have spent hours at a time on it. Their daughter, Beverly-Anne loves pets, having 2 dogs, a pony and a guinea pig.













We were able to celebrate Mitchell's 7th birthday up at the club house with some other "boat kids" (Chantelle and Corwin). We had pizza, cake and a pinata.

The kids and I also took advantage of being so close to Washington DC. We rented a car and spent two nights, three days exploring Washington. I highly recommend this trip to all families. There is so much to see.

Oh ya, I guess I should mention schooling. We have started our lessons, and are having alot of fun. The other kids are all at school through the week, so our only distraction is Uncle Pete who goes fishing every day and spends a couple of hours cleaning them at the end of our dock. He has taught me how to clean fish, and often provides us with supper for that night. Not that we haven't been having a great time, but I think we are all excited and anxious to start heading further south. Next stop.... Georgia!!!!!!!

Welcome to Olverson's!! Where'd our Kids Go????

As I mentioned at the end of the last entry, we moved about 7 miles from Annapolis to a great little anchorage on Harness Creek. We shared it the first night with another Gemini (Lilly Pad), but after that our only neighbours were 3 Blue Herons, 2 Osprey's and a Bald Eagle!!!

There weren't any jellyfish, so we were all able to swim, and the anchorage was so small and protected the kids were able to explore on their own, rowing to shore and searching for "stuff".

As secluded as it was, it was adjacent to a 460 acre park with fantastic walking and biking trails. We threw the kids bikes in the dinghy and rowed ashore to let them burn off some more steam. After about 45 minutes on the trails we came to "civilization" where Lisa and I caved to the pressure and took the kids to McD's for lunch. We also picked up a few few things at West Marine and a grocery store, but thankfully this didn't take too long and we were able to get back to the peace and quiet of the anchorage quickly.

We left Harness Creek early Wednesday morning and headed towards Solomons Island, VA. The wind was out of the NE so we were treated to another great day of sailing.

Our anchoring guidebook (Skipper Bob) told us Solomons could get pretty busy, and busy isn't what we were looking for, so we went about 5 miles up the Paxtuxent River to Mill Creek. Again we were surrounded by not much, which suited us fine. The downside was there were alot of jellyfish /sea nettles, which meant no swimming (although we saw locals in the water wakeboarding). The kids kept themselves busy, we played a few games of Sorry, and had a family movie night (Sharkwater). We stayed 2 nights, again getting an early start (0600hrs) on friday morning. Just so no one thinks Mark is running a military camp with all these early starts, I'll clarify what happens. I will wake up around 0600hrs, get the engines warming up and pull the anchor. I will hear a little grumble from the kids, but that's about it. They stay sleeping, usually until around 0800hrs.

Friday it was time to head to head another 30 miles down the Bay to the mouth of the Potomac River. We then had another 12 miles to go up the Potomac, onto the Yeocomico River and eventually arrive at Olversons Marina in Lottsburg, VA.

Our original plan was for Lisa and the kids to stay in Oriental, NC. It was cruising friends of our's(Bobbie and Gord) who ironically we met in Oriental 11 years ago on our first trip South, that recommended Olversons. We decided to stay at here for a few reasons, the most important being the fact that there are alot of kids here, but also that it provides better hurricane protection than we would have in Oriental . Hurricane season doesn't end until November 1st, and September can be the worst month.

We got to Olverson's around 1500hrs, and before Lisa and I could get the lines tied, the kids had disappeared!!! They were met at the dock by a couple of liveaboard kids, then met up with the grandkids of the owners. That was it, they were gone, finally getting a "kid fix" after nearly 4 weeks of it just being the 2 of them. Mitchell hit it off with one of the boys right away. I passed them as they were discussing the best way to approach a gravel ramp and how much air they figured they could get riding their bikes off it. Jacob also has a dirt bike (he had it taken away for 2 weeks because of a recent "stunt"), and a quad, skateboard and scooter. Delaney disappeared as well. When I finally found Mitchell he said Delaney was down on "C" dock crabbing! The kids here drop crab pots , hoping to get some big enough to eat (and they usually do).

Yesterday Lisa and I used one of the courtesy cars and ran into town for some more groceries. I avoided some of my boat projects and we all hung out at the pool (yes, it's still summer here, mid-20'sC). As a side note, yesterday was only the 2nd time I have connected our shorepower cable since leaving Bath in June!
Last night we had dinner with a family with twins who liveaboard their Beneteau 50 (Sasha, Phillip, Corwin and Chantelle). They are out cruising "indefinitely". The kids disappeared soon after supper, we found them a little while later down the dock enjoying some evening entertainment.

As much as our kids think they are night owls, they still need their sleep, so they relauctantly came back to the boat around 2100hrs (very late for them). Mitchell and I went back a little earlier, crawled up into mine and Lisa's bed and read a few chapters aloud from Farley Mowats "The Boat Who Wouldn't Float".

Both kids were in bed by 2130hrs, when Lisa and I managed to sit out in the cockpit and enjoy a glass of wine (yes, once again from a bottle).

So this will be life (for Lisa and the kids) for the next 4 weeks. I return to Newfoundland on Tuesday, and funny enough that will be the first day of school for the kids. Fingers-crossed this whole Homeschooling experiment works out!.

In memory of Lisa's sister, Varuna, who passed away last night after a hard-fought battle against cancer.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.Dream.Discover."

Mark Twain

Lisa LOVES Annapolis!!!! US Navy Issues "Cougar Alert".

After a quiet night in Still Pond Creek, we left for Annapolis, Maryland under grey skies. Running with the outgoing tide, we averaged 6.5kts and did the 30miles run in a little over 5 hours.

We decided just to grab a mooring ball off the US Naval Academy rather than anchoring out.

Annapolis is a sailing town, everything is geared towards providing services that help rather than hinder visiting boats (some waterfront towns make it tough to land a dinghy, get water, etc... even though boaters are spending money in their communities). The mooring balls are $30./night and are right off the downtown. The Harbour Master comes out to you and you can pay with cash or CC. For $5.00 you can have a boat come out to you and get your holding tank pumped out. There are dinghy docks scattered allover, and we noticed that few, if any people bothered to lock them up.

The main dinghy dock we used was right next to a small seating area devoted as a memorial to Alex Haley, the author of "Roots". It is the Kunta-Kinte Memorial, apparently the slave ship he was on made landfall in Annapolis.

Here the kids are sitting next to part of a statue at the memorial. What you can't see is a bronze statues of Alex Haley reading from a book to the kids (you can just see his foot, bottom left of pic).

Apart from sailing, Annapolis is home to the US Naval Academy. This means lots of young sailors! Lisa REALLY enjoyed Annapolis.

We walked around the Academy grounds and toured the visitors center. We even managed a family pic with "Chalotte-Ann" moored in the background (look closely, she is there).

We played tourist for a couple of days, really enjoying the town. We dinghied around the area and found a great little spot for lunch (Davis' Pub). In the fall Annapolis hosts a huge Boat Show. Lisa and I have already made plans to come to the show after this trip is done, but without kids!

The only downside to Annapolis is that Delaney and Mitchell have both developed a catamaran- specific strain of "two-foot-itis". Mitchell really liked the 42' Fountaine-Pagot with the SCUBA locker on the transom , Delaney liked the Jaguar 35 with the huge cockpit. I'm still partial to the Lagoon 44 (Lisa seemed to like it as well).

Yesterday we did a short trip to Harness Creek on the Southern River. We shared the well-protected anchorage with another Gemini (Lilly Pad). We just woke up after a great nights sleep.

I'll add some pics on the next entry, right now our Internet connection keeps dropping out, I'm losing my mind.

Later,

Crew of the "The Buzzing Sound from the Inverter Can't be Good"

No Knives, No Forks, No Plates . Just Wooden Mallets!!

After our night at anchor in Chesapeake City, we moved over to the town dock first thing yesterday morning. We needed to fill the water tanks and let the kids do a bit of running around. The kids have been given chores around the boat, in addition to the typical ones like keeping their cabins clean or helping with the dishes. Mitchells job this morning was to properly stow the anchor rode.

We then moved on to more important things such as visiting the ice cream shop next to the dock! It was here that Lisa met a very helpful young girl who offered to drive her to a grocery store once she got off work. Catherine (sorry if I mispelled it) was a great help and we wish her the best of luck with her ambitions to open a bakery in New York City.

Lisa and Delaney then went for a walk around town while Mitch and I got on the bikes and visited the C&D Canal Museum (very cool).

The town of Chesapeake City was really neat, all the houses date back to the mid-1800's and have been restored and maintained. They all have names, typically of the original owners, as well as the date they were built.

Before heading out for dinner, we did a little survey of our 3 Most Favourite and Least Favourite things about living aboard/cruising.

Lisa Most Favourite: 1. Anchoring out 2. Swimming off the boat 3. Having a family supper every night

Least Favourite: 1. Running out of ice 2. Refrigeration issues 3. Mark always being busy

Mark Most Favourite: 1. Spending time with my family 2. Time on the water 3. Seeing new places and faces

Least Favourite: 1. Fixing things on the boat 2. Our smelly head 3. Lifting the outboard on and off the dinghy

Delaney Most Favourite: 1. Staying in nice anchorages 2. Having fun swimming 3. Exploring new places

Least Favourite: 1. Getting seasick 2. No TV 3. No ice cream

Mitchell Most Favourite: 1. I got to start the dinghy engine 2. Nice showers 3. Not getting seasick

Least Favourite: 1. No steak and asparagus 2. Can't wakeboard on mom's board 3. I can't think of a third thing.

While we were looking for a place to eat, we came across this fellow sitting in front of his house. I am terrible with names, but we stood and chatted with him for about 20 minutes. He has lived in Chesapeake City his whole life, but also has had a place on Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick for 50 years. I am sure he has seen alot of changes in the town over the years but he still had only good things to say about it. I spotted a print of the washed-out main deck on an old sailing ship that I bought for $10.00 (including the frame). It's jammed up in the main cabin on the boat waiting for our return home.

Looking for a place for supper we wound up at the Tap Room. We ordered a dozen crabs and had a feast!!

After a great meal we headed back to the boat, kids straight to bed, adults sharing a nice bottle of wine (No Box-o-Vino tonight, we actually had wine out of a bottle!!).

This morning we were off early, going south again as we entered the Chesapeake Bay. Right now we are anchored in Still Pond Creek, a nice little anchorage perfectly suited for our shallow draft catamaran (we are in 5' of water now, but saw 2.6' at one point).

If the weather co-operates we will be off for Annapolis in the morning.

Later,

The Crew of "Why Are we Getting Water in the Port Hull and Can't Get it out of the Starboard Galley Sink??"