Ah Charleston

HD has been tied to the Maritime Center's floating dock for three weeks while the crew is house hunting. Plan is for her to stay here while the crew Holidays in Nicaragua with a house full of the bestest folks ever. The first week of January she will head south for Florida for a couple of months while the winter in Charleston passes by.
Haven't found that perfect house yet but have decided to definitely to live downtown Charleston.
We are constantly impressed more each day with what this city has to offer. The food, coffee shops, french bakeries, musical performances and even the people are freindly in the doctors offices.

                                               5K Reindeer Run in Charleston

                                              After the local performance of a Christmas Musical

                                                     What can I say---does it get any better?

We are finding that when you are tied to a dock with shore power that things tend not to break. Even have had the opportunity to make a couple of repairs. Not the least of which is taking care of the diesel manifold leak and finally tracing the source of the fresh water in the bilge. So we will be ready for the open seas next month.
Merry Christmas to all.

Post election Blues....

HD spent the passing of Sandy tied up to floating docks in at Ocean Marine Yacht Center in Portsmouth, Va. While we were prepared we didn't see winds more than mid 30's. Before the storm an aircraft carrier passed us on the way to their dock.

We kept entertained in the local coffee shop, ....... and went to the Commodore Theater to see Argo. Built in 1945 and recently refurbished by a very nice Norfolkian. He has it set up with cafe tables where you order dinner using the old, heavy black telephones we grew up with. Nice experience that we will do next time through as well.

As soon as the aftermath of Sandy went north we headed south on the ICW to Oriental, NC, "the sailing capital of NC". But not before taking our instruments off the top of HD's mast to save having to replace them after getting clipped off by supposed to be 65' bridges.

Photo taken from the top of the mast after I removed the instruments!

Ready for lift up the mast-this is when I remind Cin of how much I love her! (before she hoists me up)

Oriental is physically a small town with a coffee shop across the street from the "free" town dock. Picture taken form the  deck of the Coffee shop.

A great hardware store with bargain pricing on stainless steal screws and bolts, a nautical seamstress, a resale nautical shop with everything, and an extremely friendly Baptist Church. This all makes for an enjoyable 48 hours until the meter is up on the free dock.

Since we have migrated down the ICW to Morehead City where we spent election night holed from up the inclement weather with Margaret Smith doing endless loads of laundry.

We enjoyed the warm hospitality and catching up before shoving off towards Southport where we will meet up with Joe and Barbara Hauer for dinner and conversation.

More Pics from Annapolis

Our  attempt to catch a blue crab for Sophia was just that, an attempt:

In addition to Sophia taking multiple steps on purpose on her own during the week she learned to say "hot" "boat" "light" and built a warm relationship with the crew:

After a farewell dinner the guests were off to London and Cin to Bar Harbor with her mom and Lisa to view the fall leaves.

Upon Cin's return early next week HD is off to warmer weather.

Annapolis

Attending our fourth Sailboat show here. Got some info from vendors to fix a few pieces of hardware we have onboard. Not exciting this year. Maybe its' because it is smaller this year, the weather didn't cooperate or is it we were anticipating the arrival of our London guests?

It got a lot better with their arrival even if they had more gear than even all the stuff Cin has wanted to buy the last year and a half.

The weather turned cold but we had a nice sail to St. Michaels in our PJ's.

Then there was a lot of splorin to do:

The crew is back onboard HD after leaving her in Cape May to drive north to attend a very special party this past weekend in Connecticut.

Having just left Stratford, Connecticut a few days ago this land excursion was necessary to position HD in the Chesapeake for  the Sailboat show that starts Thursday and more importantly be ready for her youngest crew member to arrive in two days. Not being sure of Sophia's sailing skills (although this is her second cruise on HD) we wanted to save her  the North Atlantic Ocean passage between NYC and the Delaware Bay.

Now HD is back in the more protected Chesapeake Bay and will be in Annapolis by night fall to attend the sailboat show this weekend. AND tomorrow we test sail an Oyster 46' as we are contemplating a new boat. These are made in the UK and are a true blue water world cruiser. So the decision is whether to make the splurge and continue cruising for a while or stay with HD and consider a land base as well.
My guess is that an Oyster is in our future and if we go used in our very near future as a new one takes a year to build.

Note; Sailed the Oyster 46 and it definitely doesn't have the sailing symmetry of HD. Gives us something more to ponder

Back in Connecticut

The ten day trip back to Stratford, Ct. with stops in Boothbay and Portland, Maine; Provincetown and Martha's Vineyard, Mass. and Newport, RI was accompanied with some good winds.

Provincetown afforded the most entertainment including "drag karaoke".

Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard was a better experience than last years stop at the other end of this Island at Edgar Town. Especially nice was the remote town of Menemsha where on can gorge on Lobster on the dock.

One of our less stellar takeaways from here is my new Mac Book Pro computer becoming water logged courtesy of a gentle local soul offering us a ride back to our harbor  in his truck. Seems the dinghy he had in the back of his truck was filled with water and our back packs got immersed with both Macs in one. So this is being composed on my new MacBook Air which is much smaller and lighter to rival Cin's iPad for schlepping to coffee Shops.

Spent 4 or 5 days in Newport and once again fell in love with this very nautical town. The supper sailing yachts are second to none and we once again saw "Isabel", John Kerry's $7MM yacht that we were dock mates with at Harbor Island in the Bahamas last spring. BTY even Isabel is small compared to the mega yachts moored here.

Newport afforded us a chance to hook up with Jon and Nancy before we headed south and they layed up their Tartan 43 for the winter deciding to be land based in their homw on Martha's Vineyard until spring.

Then the best of all as we arrived in Connecticut we were greeted by this:

HD is on to Annapolis for the Sailboat show as ther crew returns via land for Sophia's first Birfday Party and sailing with Chrissy and Sophia for 9 days in the Chesapeake. FUN!

Maine!

We've been cruising the beautiful coast of Maine since our last Blog. Joined the scheduled cruise of the Tartan Owners North East (TONE) in Gloucester, Ma and headed to Sebasco with 14 other Tartans. Had heavy fog on the way up so stopped for two days at Kennebunckport where the shopper had a field day.

                                            I woke up one morning and saw this. I can't explain

Camden is a very beautiful town among very beautiful towns and harbors. Certainly a favorite. Mainiacs are especially friendly, honest and welcoming. Camden was our last stop with TONE and we met up with our sister ship and friends from the Vineyard, Jon and Nancy Newman. They talked Cin into hiking Mount Battie while the captain attempted to get the non working generator looked at

                                                        Thats a seal in the fog.


We had the pleasure of Ali and Phil joining us in Rockland for a two day sail with some good wind, although brief. Explored secluded Seal Bay where Cin harvested mussels from the shore and she and Ali cleaned the barnacles off and spiced them up to cook on the grill.

                                                             Cin harvesting mussels

                                                                     I like this one!

 After some homemade pea soup the group had to stop gorging half way through the grilled fresh veggies from Ali's garden. It seems there was not a bucket available.

                                                  Happy hour at the Happy Clam

                                               Lobster on the dock in Tennants Harbor

                                         Returning from a run to the bakery in the morning

After dropping Ali and Phil back at Rockland HD we had a week to kill before HD got some needed work done so we headed for North East Harbor and Bar Harbor home to Acadia National Park. On the way we managed to snag the line of a  lobster pot three different times. It seems when there is an 11 foot tide to deal with the lobstermen add another float to their pick up buoy which creates a hazard just below the surface between the two.

We knew this ahead of time however didn't execute very well and luckily only fouled the rudder and not the much more serious propeller. The captain donned the scuba stuff and cleared the one that wouldn't shake loose. My three millimeter wet suit is very suitable for the tropics but not so warm in Maine's cool waters.

During the next two weeks  HD was scheduled to get ALL the nagging miscues by her builder and some needed maintenance  finally fixed by the very skilled group employed by Peter Johanson at Johanson's Boat Works.

While the work got done we did our best to help by staying out of the way.

Nagging issues courtesy of Tartan: 1) Program the inverter/charger to work as designed. During this process we discovered that both house batteries needed to be replaced. 2) Reattach the boom to the mast using the proper hardware. 3) Fabricate and replace the fitting that attaches the boom vang to the mast. 4) Reengineer the main sheet system,  reattach the flip flop block, repair boom damage, and install new protective covering. (Seems we have learned that all sailboats regardless of size should have control of the main sail) 5) Properly commission the Ray Marine Auto Helm to work as designed. ( Second defect discovered in this system as the hydraulics were also addressed last January after learning of their incorrect installation) 6) Reattach all twelve of the fuel lines to stop the constant leaks. 7) Fabricate and install "scupper" guards for the anchor locker water letter outers in order to prevent another rupture of the anchor locker floor allowing sea water to enter the bilge.


The  most expensive maintenance item in time and money her toe/rub rail was stripped to the bare teak and varnished with five coats. This took two men the better part of two weeks to complete while working around the weather.  The crew learned a very expensive lesson to not let the varnish get too weathered from the sun and salt and to put a single coat on every 4 months or so. They also refinish the cherry table and trim around galley sink, changed the oil and filters on the engine, fixed the generator's malfunctioning sensor switch which is how we originally got hocked up with these guys when Jonesy came aboard to get our generator going.

The boat was ready to go Friday afternoon and after a weather delay Saturday we finally left Maine on Sunday 9/9/12 and headed south seeing our first whales the next few days. It has gotten cold up here!