It's Hot, Hot, Hot!

Too hot in South Carolina, time to head to the coast and north. We zig zagged our way up to Charleston to stage for a 30+ hour offshore trip to Cape lookout.

We anchored in Charleston Harbor for the night and left at first light




It's a big harbor so we did get a great sunrise before we reached the ocean.





The good news was once we got out past the harbor and headed north it was cool and calm. That's the bad news too. Not enough wind, in the right direction to sail.




We made it to the anchorage in Cape Lookout bight .... Beautiful!



More on our adventure at the cape to follow.



[]

Headed to Low Country

We wanted to check out the anchorage and the inlet at Cape Canaveral for future use. It would be a good inlet for a trip from the Bahamas to the US. It would take advantage of the gulfstream current and give us a free ride north.


We sat out some storms in Cocoa and then headed to the Cape Canaveral anchorage before the lock and bridge.



Here is Freedom in the lock. A couple of manatee locked through with us.






We had 2 beautiful nights of sailing to get to Beaufort, SC.





We made it to low country, so beautiful.





We have been enjoying the town, meeting with old friends and yes sitting out more storms.

Taking our Time

We are slowly heading north, taking our time. We stopped in Vero Beach to get the bottom of the boat cleaned. There is a diver there that is good and very reasonable. We figured the newer bottom paint was doing its job keeping the barnacles off...and it was. The propeller was in desperate need of a cleaning. While here we took advantage of the free (air conditioned) bus system and headed to the beach

It's loggerhead turtle nesting season.





We enjoyed dinner and cocktails at a beach front restaurant.




Toured the grounds at the Driftwood Resort. An eclectic old Florida gem.








We are shaking off the cobwebs. We sailed up to Cocoa, Florida to catch up with some friends.




Now we wait out some stormy weather and plan our next leg.

New and Improved

This could be the biggest improvement to Freedom yet! When we first purchased Freedom we had intended to upgrade our manual windlass to an electric one but it was a big and expensive project. We also found that the manual windlass worked really well and was not has difficult to deal with as we thought.

For our non boating friend, a windlass raises and lowers the heavy anchor and anchor chain. Our anchor is 65# and we have 200' of chain (about 200#).

Here is the manual one.





You use a handle to ratchet the chain up.

Our new electric one





Just press a button.

Winter Continued...not so cold.

Weather has been outstanding this winter. Yes, some wind storms, some rain, and some cold evenings, but few and far between. No Bahamas for us this year. Too much work for Ed so we stayed in Stuart, Florida catching up with our friends on their way through.

Christmas and Santa's helper.


New Years Eve party with the gang.


One of the tastiest prime rib meals evah! Cooked by Ed on the marina grill...yum.


Superbowl in the great outdoors on the big screen.


An unexpected visit from our good friend Tim.


Saint Patrick's day with our good friends, complete with corned beef and cabbage prepared by Pierre....yum.



Don't think we have just been partying. We've put in some hard work too.

This is our new boom vang!



We replaced our forestay.




Lots of other boat projects as well including a new anchor windlass....pics to come.


Sunsets here are always superb, one of the many reasons we keep doing this.

A panoramic view of the sun setting.

The Long Cold Winter

Last fall we enjoyed our stay in Annapolis. Visiting with friends, exploring one of our favorite cities and attending the boat show.

Everyone flocks to the boat show.


We took our time heading south down the Chesapeake Bay, through Maryland and Virginia. Ed had to attend the Fort Lauderdale boat show for work so we parked in New Bern, NC for a few weeks. We had a spate of very cold evenings while there but things warmed up for us as we headed south again. We needed to get south for two reasons. We had a surprise party to go to in Texas and wanted to stay warm.

We headed out the Beaufort, NC inlet with pefect weather! We made it all the way to Fernandina Beach, Fl where we took on additional fuel and headed back out to round Cape Canaveral. We actually talked (on the VHF radio) with our Detroit dock neighbors Jeff and Mary off the coast of Canaveral. They were sailing with thier much faster boat, passed us and headed to Fort Lauderdale as we headed to Stuart. It's a small world!

Our timing was great. Nice and toasty warm in Stuart and plenty of time to rent a car and sneak into Texas to surprise our nephew for his birthday!

Family...see the resemblance?



A fun time was had by all.


It was really great to spend time with family!

It got really cold while in Texas so it was time to head back south. One last side trip, we stopped for lunch in New Orleans. I had never been to this unique city. Gumbo, etoufe and po boys, oh my.