October 2005

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Saturday October 1, 2005
For those of you still following our progress, we are still here in Baltimore. We did not plan to stay here quite this long, but a few unforeseen small interruptions came up (as usual) and as soon as we get them taken care of, we plan to take off. The weather has been gorgeous... a little cool... but still great. The nights are getting down in the 40's, so we are anxious to head south. This weekend was the famous Fell's Point Festival. It is a really big thing around here and since we had to stay anyway... what the heck... we are not ones to pass up a beer garden. It was nothing special. Just an excuse to eat lots of greasy food, drink beer and buy a bunch of junk. We managed to do 2 out of 3. (There is no room for any junk on the boat.) The marina was full with people coming in for the festival and we met some people who were docked next to us at the beer garden. It turned out to be a fun day.

Monday October 3, 2005
Our little Frankie dog had a knot on her head and the vet had to take a biopsy to see if she was OK. It turned out to be a happy ending for all of us... but for everyone who knows us and how much our girls mean to us... it was a pretty awful time waiting for the test results. We tried to keep the faith. We knew Frankie had a lot more cruising to do and she is a brave little girl. She does have to put up with a really bad hair cut for a while, and although she does take some ridicule from the other dogs about her "doggie do"... she is going to be OK!!

Wednesday October 12, 2005
Well the day has finally come! We are headed South once again. When you see the pics as to how we are dressed,we did not wait a day too soon. It was cold and wet and windy. Great sailing weather!!! What a life we have!! We set out from Baltimore and after getting out of the marina and into the bay, we turned off the engine and sailed the entire way. Since we had a north wind, we were flying and needless to say... Larry was thrilled. We didn't even care that we were cold and wet. We anchored in Selby Bat off the South River. That is just South of Annapolis. It was a great anchorage... smooth as glass and peaceful. It is great to be back on the road again.

Thursday October 13, 2005
Another wet and cold day..but we got to sail our hearts out... again!! We went to Solomons Island and anchored in front of the Holiday Inn Marina because we read that it was dog friendly. The weather is so miserable... it feels like we are walking through a wall of water. Not really rain, just misty cold wet stuff. We are grateful for our foul weather gear... wish I had bought some for the dogs.

Friday October 14, 2005
Another sailing day... I think Larry is going to die a happy man if this keeps up. Three straight days of perfect sailing weather... what more could a sailor want? We anchored in Reedville today. We came through here before and stayed at the marina but decided to anchor right in front of the restaurant. A funny thing happened while we were eating. First let me say that when we first decided to go cruising, I had gone online to look up information on how to cruise with dogs and adaptations for them onboard. I came across a great website of 2 cruisers who had a 40 Island Packet and had 2 Golden Retreivers. They had a wealth of information and a great website as well. I had shown Larry the site and referred to it several times. I even printed up things off of it and have it in my "doggie file". Well, we while were eating at the restaurant here in Reedville, who pulls up in their dinghy? Yes, you guessed it... the people who wrote the website. The sad part is I did not recognize the people, I recognized the dogs. Of course, I talked to them and they were so nice. They have been doing this a while and their dogs are great. Too bad I had left the camera on the boat. We hope to meet up with them down the way a bit.

Saturday October 15, 2005
Larry and I sailed to Deltaville today. We got in early.. it was only 30 miles or so and we rested a bit. We dingyed in with the dogs for a walk and to get some water and met a nice woman, Kay Little, sitting on the dock. She was waiting for her cousin, Chip, to pick her up in his dinghy that had no engine. She, her husband and grandson were visiting Chip just for the day and she was quite fascinated with the whole "sailing" thing. We offered to give her a ride since it would be faster and she had waited a while. Chip has been sailing for 10 years on a wooden boat and he is truly a seasoned sailor. We exchanged boat cards and hoped to hook up farther down south (with Chip). Kay was such a sweet lady.. the kind of nice acquaintence we like to meet along our way. But not surprising that she was so friendly... she was from North Carolina... good old Southern gal. We are headed for Hampton Roads tomorrow.

Sunday October 16, 2005
The sun is out again today!! It is glorious! We sailed most all day... about 2 hours wing to wing. Larry was in heaven once again. This is definely what he signed up for!! We got into Hampton Flats (just north of Norfolk, VA) intending to anchor but the anchorage proved to be too shallow. So we got a slip at the City Docks. Since we had about 20 wet towels and lots of stinky warm clothes (yuck), we are going to stay 2 nights to catch up on laundry and wash the boat up before we go through the ditch. There was a trawler that we assume was on auto pilot with either no one at the helm or not paying attention. We got pretty nervous when he got this close and Larry sounded the horn. He turned at the last minute. (Another reason we had extra dirty clothes.) A boat sailing near us took a picture and gave it to us at the next stop. It is not often you get to see yourself almost getting smashed. Sort of eerie... but cool.

Wednesday October 19, 2005
Well, we have kept a steady pace for the past few days and plan to continue through the week as weather permits. We can't believe that Wilma has been cropped up, but we will just have to wait to see what she brings with her. We are staying in Coinjock, VA tonight and docked next to the nicest people. Bruce and Barbara have a miniature daschund named Willow that is less than a year old and absolutely precious. Of course she is a bundle of energy and old Syd and Fran are too tired to be bothered. Bruce was a school superintendent in New York and Barbara worked for UPS. We went to dinner with them and they told us about a Marina only 40 miles ahead that we thought was too shallow for us. We plan to go there tomorrow with them.

Friday October 21, 2005
We went to Alligator Marina yesterday and dealt with Miss Wanda, the marina owner. She was not very friendly but luckily we hung out with Bruce, Barbara and Willow and had a great time. We had drinks on Messin' About, Bruce and Barbara's boat, then went to the little restaraunt to eat. I never thought I would be having cocktails with a school superintendent, but Bruce is so cool and down to earth, he makes you forget he is a Dr. He and Barbara are some of the nicest people we have met so far and we are planning the next few days traveling with them. Today we are in anchored in Belhaven and they came to the boat for drinks and dinner.

Saturday October 22, 2005
We went to the Belhaven Festival where the highlight of the entire thing was the lawn tractor pulls!! Wow, what an exciting day for us. They let us in even though we had no tatoos. All joking aside, it was a first for me so I got educated on the rules of the game. Interesting!!?!! I guess we are getting pretty desperate these days for entertainment, but the best part... it was free!!!!

Sunday October 23, 2005
Well what a day we had yesterday. Larry and I went into town to walk around with the dogs and a lady stopped to pet them. Within 20 minutes, we found out she was a sailor, had a Catalina, lived within an hour from our anchorage and we were invited to her house for a fish fry that night! Since we had decided to wait around to see what Wilma was going to do, we took her up on her offer and went into Jordan Creek to anchor for the night. Unfortunately there was not as much water as she thought so we could not go all the way in. No problem. We dropped the hook right off their dock and dingyed into her house. Diana and David have a lovely home nestled in the woods surrounded by a few of their close friends as neighbors. They have built themselves a paradise on the water with their boats right there and a gorgeous view. We had a great time meeting other sailors, swapping stories and just enjoying their hospitality. It is not often you meet people so friendly and gracious but we were definitly lucky to come across these two fine people. They will remain a highlight in our travels and hope to one day meet up with them again. Left Jordan Creek Sunday morning and spent the night in Oriental, NC.

Monday October 24, 2005
Woke up in the rain, left Oriental and got to Beaufort, NC around noon. We will be here a while, a week to 10 days, to get a few boat jobs done. We like it here and the people are very friendly.

Wednesday October 25, 2005
We are getting all sorts of stuff taken care of. We got a survey done on the boat for insurance purposes, so the boat was pulled today. The surveyor said everything looked pretty good so we feel good about the boat. Larry got MORE extra parts. We bought a satelitte phone at the boat show and we got that up and working. We are having davits put on the boat and the guys are coming for that this week. Larry bought 200 more feet of anchor chain. (You never can have enough anchor chain) These are all things that need to get done before we head south, and we heard that with all the damage in Florida, that not only would we have to wait to get work done, it would be cheaper here.

Sunday October 29, 2005
We met up with some friends, Linda and Gary, that we met in Deltaville. They pulled in this marina a couple of days ago. We went out for dinner and to a Halloween party at the Tiki Bar. The food was not great but we had a blast. They are really fun people and we look forward to seeing them again down island.

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