It's beginning to look.........

.........a lot like Christmas! All the small towns here in Florida seem to have holiday festivals.







Titusville even had snow!






Look at it piling up on the palm tree.






In Cocoa, the kids got to experience tubing down a snowy hill.






Frosty the snowman made an appearance.







Christmas trees light up the night.






Of course, the sunset here in Melbourne Florida is the best light show!

A Day on the ICW

We spend many days traveling the Intracoastal Waterway. This is an inside passage that allows protection from the big winds and waves of the North Atlantic ocean. It can be challenging with heavy currents, big tidal swings, lots of boat traffic and bridges.

Here are some pics of our trip from Daytona to Titusville.



We got an early start before dawn but with enough light in the sky to navigate. We were rewarded with a beautiful sunrise.

There are "high bridges" that are fixed. Most are supposed to be at least 65' vertical clearance at high tide. This is good as Freedom needs about 63' (more is preferable).

Here is a picture of a gage on the bridge to help determine clearance. Heights vary with
tide and winds. High winds can drive water to higher levels giving less clearance. This one showed about 64'. 

This is a Bascule Bridge. It is much too low for us to get under. We call the bridge tender on the VHF radio and request an opening. Some will open on demand. Others have a schedule. This one opens every 20 minutes when requested.

Timing for the bridges is crucial. If you arrive too early you have to jockey around waiting. This can be difficult with current pushing you towards the bridge, especially if there are multiple boats waiting with you.

It was an easy day of travel. We arrived in Titusville in time to visit with our friends from Old Rosie, Ben and Jane.

Thanksgiving

Road Trip!

We got the call. Time for a road trip.


Freedom is tied up safe and sound in North Carolina where the cotton is ready for harvest.


Autumn is the perfect time to hit the road.




Love driving through the mountainous areas of North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.


Brrrrrrr.......it is cold in Michigan. Good thing we have warm family and friends to visit.



The reason for the trip? Ed had a big studio shoot.

"She"

"A ship is always referred to as "she" because it costs so much to keep her in paint and powder".
 
ADM. Chester Nimitz

New Bern

After picking up our rental car from Enterprise for our drive to Detroit, we ventured into New Bern for a look around and dinner.
They seem to have a thing for bears here.






It's a very nice little town.








And to top it off, it's the birthplace of Pepsi.



Dinner was very good. We'll have to come back and spend more time here someday. Meantime we've temporarily become dirt dwellers and car drivers.

Nice Work!

We replaced an old Taylormade fender under their lifetime warranty. Thank you Taylormade.
A new fender deserves a new fender cover. Chris did a fantastic job fabricating the new cover. Here it is next to an older one. Sharp!

Moving South

It is starting to get chilly, especially at night. It is time to move south.

After you pass through Norfolk, Virginia there is a section with lift bridges. These bridges have restricted openings during the week. The weekends are less restrictive and if you are folowing a tow and barge you can sail through on their bridge opening (they arrange opening reservations). Here is the one we were lucky enough to follow through.





Monday was our day to travel the Albemarle Sound, the Alligator River, and the Alligator Pungo Canal. What a great day with beautiful sights.


Here is Ed using our new traveler controls as we sailed the Albemarle Sound.




The Alligator River is shown below.....not a single gator was seen.










The Alligator Pungo Canal reminds us of our river travels.

Sodden

sod·den

ˈsädn/

adjective

saturated with liquid, esp. water; soaked through.

It's October so we must be in Annapolis for the US Sailboat show.   To say that it rained and was chilly, wet and windy is an uderstatement.  We had a rainstorm stalled over Annapolis and it poured, in buckets, for four of the five days of the show.  Sailors are troopers, we didn't let rain stop us, we donned our foul weather gear and trudged, sodden through the show.  What a blast.



Ed shot videos for Sail magazine. He rigged a plastic bag around the camera to keep it dry. The show must go on.









It was not all work. We spent a lot. A lot of time hanging with friends at Pussers (the local restaurant and bar). And a lot of money on cool boat gear, in fact all the money we made on the Sail magazine shoot.






Monday was the final day of the show. It was bright and sunny.....yay!






We are now getting underweigh to head south.

All American Breakfast

We were invited to breakfast by new cruising friends Craig and Carol. They just started this summer. "Chick and Ruth's" is a local fixture in downtown Annapolis.



Big portions of great food. But this place is better known for leading everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance twice each morning! Everyone stands and faces the flag. Hats off for the men. And loudly, everyone recites the pledge (including "under God").
No, they aren't pledging to the TV in the picture! The flag is in the front room.



This was the Wednesday morning cruiser gathering. Well, actually a CLOD meet. CLOD? Cruisers Living On Dirt. The acronym applied to former cruisers who moved back to land and became "Dirt Dwellers". Lots of cruisers move to Annapolis to sell their boat and then stay here to live. Not a bad choice. We expect this choice to be a LONG way off. But it made for a nice morning of socializing.



We're getting a few projects done, enjoying Annapolis and awaiting the Sailboat show. I have a few days of work there. We'll spend all my hard earned money in the Pussers bar. If there's any left, we'll spend that and more at the show. There's a law that says sailors aren't supposed to have any money so we need to keep legal.

Wired!

We are still in Annapolis, enjoying the town and visiting with old friends like Lawrence and Elaine on Elle and I, whom we met last year in Northport, NY.  It had been almost a year exactly since we had last seen them. Here is Elle & I anchored in Spa Creek.  We've also met a few new friends, but most of our time has been spent working on projects.   We had the boat hauled out of the water to inspect the bottom, we needed to make sure that there was no below the water line damage from the lightening strike on Labor Day. All is good with the boat bottom, now we need to replace the wind instrument that was fried.  

One issue on a boat when installing new systems is the wiring!  The idea is simple, attach the new wiring to the old and pull it through.  The reality is a little more difficult.  In an older boat there are dead wires that previous owners left laying around below the floors and behind walls. This makes finding the correct wire among the spagetti of wires difficult.  We are pulling some of those old wires out to get rid of them to make more room and this can be time consuming.  We also ran into some very tight spaces for the wire and tight for us to fit into to guide the wire.  

We have the new wind display and the new tri-data display in place and all wired up, this was the easy part.  We still need to go to the top of the mast and install the anemometer and run the new wire down the 63 feet of the mast and insert the speed wheel into the bottom of the hull.  The speed wheel requires us to pull the old one (opening a hole through the hull UNDER WATER) and QUICKLY install the new one. We'll let you know how that goes.