SV Blue Sky

Can you believe another month has passed by? Where has the time gone? For us it’s been a month on the hook near Liberty Marina in Edgewater, Maryland. Paul and Charlie spent 3 weeks without me while I drove across the country to visit friends and family and take care of stuff in BC. The main item being the sale of our car back to the Toyota dealer we bought it from. Peace Arch Toyota treated us well and gave us a fair price. Not only that but they were so understanding of our need and made the transition super easy.

So, what does a sailor do, when he no longer has a car? He buys folding bikes and a bike basket for the dog.

A few days ago we finally took the bikes ashore and ran our errands (banks, post office, grocery store, West Marine, and a treat at Starbucks). It took the better part of the morning for P to tune the bikes, then sort out the dog basket. We enjoyed the ride and Charlie figured it out, only getting excited and nearly jumping out when he recognized the grass near the marina when we returned.

Speaking of Charlie getting excited. Where we are anchored a lot of fishermen come to the little cove to catch crabs. Charlie keeps watch and barks at them when they get too close to the boat.

He also is determined to keep birds off the boat. The other day, a group of ducks were paddling by. Paul was at the stern pulling up the swim ladder at the time so Charlie was on the step next to him. The ducks came around the corner and Charlie got so excited he stepped into the water to chase them away. Thankfully Paul was able to grab him back onto the boat without having to go in. We are hoping Charlie has finally learned how to stay on board. Fingers crossed.

So I haven’t been keeping up with the blog. Why? Well it’s a long story, so here goes:

After two pleasant days of sailing up the Chesapeake we arrived at Liberty Marina, just south of Annapolis, June 1st and Paul immediately flew to Detroit to pick up our car from our son’s place in South Lyon, Michigan (check out Facebook – Garden Fort). He spent a day helping with a little gardening then drove the car back to Annapolis. Now that we have had the car again, the shopping began. I’ve managed to find myself some swimsuits, shorts, sundresses, tops, sunglasses and flip-flops (outrageous prices in the Caribbean kept me from buying much even if I did need it). Many of the clothes I took with me on our first season were too warm. I did manage to wear my hot-yoga clothes a lot though. I also filled up our pantry. Basically I’ve learned what we use and what we can stock up on while we have the convenience of a car. Anything heavy is a priority.

We also took advantage of being at a marina where we could have a few things shipped. So Amazon is doing a fair business with us at present. We also invested in a new cooler. It plugs in so we don’t have to buy ice and it can be set as a fridge or a freezer. We’ve been using it as a fridge for the past month, I don’t know how we lived without it. Our built in fridge is the size of a bar fridge and the freezer is a very small portion of it. Basically I can’t have much in the freezer once I make a little ice. So we’ve also placed an order for another small freezer which we’ll drop into our counter top. I will loose some cupboard space, but it will be wonderful to be able to take along more frozen fruit and veggies for those times when we don’t get to a store. We added a solar panel and have new batteries coming.

While we were on our passage we had some power issues in our master suite side of the boat. Basically we got nailed with a big wave, which woke me up by soaking me and the bed, and that followed with our lights beginning to flicker on and off. We assumed that somehow the water had also gotten in to the lighting wiring. We turned off our power and lived with flashlights until we arrived. Shortly after we arrived and were settled on the dock, Paul took down the ceiling to look at the problem with the lights and found many corroded wires. One big wave was not enough to corrode these wires, the water had been coming in longer than we were aware.

Upon investigation we discovered an area of about 8 feet where the caulking was broken between the hull and the deck of the boat under the rub rail. Paul tore apart the interior to get and better view and it became obvious that we had a hull deck separation that needed repair (with a gap greater than a quarter of an inch in some places allowing seawater to come into the boat when in big waves). We put in a claim through insurance, which came back as not covered as the surveyor pointed out it was a manufacturing defect. We contacted Lagoon and the hull warranty on our boat only goes 5 years, so no go there. We were on our own to fix it. Lagoon was helpful in having their designers provide us input on how best to do the repair resulting in a bond much stronger than the original factory. Then we got quotes, made a selection and last week the work was finally done (thanks very much for the great professional work of Osprey Marine Composites).

I could go into a lot of detail, but rather than bore you, lets just say it was a happy day when the repair was finished and I could sleep again knowing that no more water would be coming through. It’s just downright scary to think about it. This problem was likely cleverly covered up by previous owners as the insurance surveyor pointed out liberal use of silicone caulk which was not original but our purchase surveyor did not catch it. All I know is I’m confident that this part of the boat is now the strongest part of the boat.

Oh, we also visited Paul’s mom in Burlington when we first arrived. Then a few weeks later she was deemed unsafe to be in assisted living any longer and had to move to health care due to memory issues. So Paul went and helped move her along with his sister Linda. Then last week they called and said that a room had opened up in Memory Care, so Paul is there again today helping his sister Karen move her one more time.

So that’s why we’ve been on the dock for 2 months. And we were supposed to get rid of our car in June before we continued cruising. Well that hasn’t happened yet. So the plan is that we’ll move off the dock tomorrow, but anchor in a harbor right next to the marina. This way we can still receive the few packages that have yet to arrive. We can pay a nominal fee to continue to use their facilities while at anchor, so that will save some $$. Meanwhile, I (G) am going to drive the car back to BC visiting family and friends along the way. I’ll sell the car in BC and return to the boat in 3 weeks time. Paul will stay with the boat to work on various projects and take care of the dog.

I’ll ask Paul to post some pictures. Check back soon okay.

Sorry it’s a bit late getting this post done, however I must blame it on intermittent internet. We are now at Annapolis and have signed up for 1 month with Annapolis Wireless. While it’s inexpensive, it’s coverage is slower than high speed, so I’m hoping that I can get this posted without issue.

Here’s a brief outline of our passage.
May 15th – departure day, however we didn’t depart. We got our mainsail back by 11am, then Paul spent approximately 3-4 hours getting her reinstalled. I took the opportunity to finish deflating our kayak and SUP and stowing them away along with stowing other items that might go flying around the cabin should we experience rough seas. We went to the fuel dock around 5pm, and by 6pm we still had to get the motor off the dinghy for the trip. We were both tired and hungry. We decided that we needed a good meal and a good nights sleep before leaving. We headed over to the Fish’n Lime where we enjoyed a few glasses of wine and a delightful meal. Then back to the boat for one last evening in the BVI.
May 16th – Stowed the dinghy motor and got underway by 7:30am. Nice winds to start our passage. G’s shifts are 8-11 and 2-5, P’s are 11-2 and 5-8. Yes, that’s 3 hours sleep maximum for the next 10 days or so. Highlight was seeing a large ?MahiMahi jump along with many flying fish.
May 17th – Variable winds, looked okay to try our Parasailor. Unfortunately by the time we got it all rigged and ready to go the winds had died and we had to put it away for another day.
May 18th – Tried to use the parasailor again (it’s like a spinnaker, but with a parasail build into it). We kept screwing up the hookup. Decided we are too tired. It was a godsend as we went through a squall on my afternoon shift (G)
May 19th – Lighter winds, sailed mostly 4-5 knots all day. Clear skies at sunset allowed us to see the ‘Green Flash’.
May 20th – Mostly a windless day so we had to motor. Enjoyed some afternoon sun on the foredeck. Late afternoon, while P was asleep, I spotted a pod of False Killer Whales off our bow. I ran in to get the camera, they were gone when I came out. Charlie pointed them out again off our stern(pics to follow). This was also our one year anniversary for moving aboard the boat.

May 21st – Winds picked up. We are now more than 500 nautical miles into our trip.
May 22nd – South west winds today giving us a nice 8 knot sail. Gotta like that.
May 23rd – Dodged thunderstorms and gale force gusts all night. Neither of us got much rest. The boat looks like a disaster hit. We’ll clean up once the weather calms down and we catch up on our sleep.
May 24th – P spotted 6 dolphins off the bow this morning(pics to follow). Weather is looking favorable for the rest of the passage.

May 25th – entered the gulf stream at dawn. Needed to motor sail as winds were light to non-existent after we passed Cape Hatteras. The water is now more green than blue.
May 26th – 0059 docked at Blue Water Marina in Hampton, Virginia. Total distance 1516.2 non-stop nautical miles.

So when we departed we expected 4-5 days of motoring which turned into only 3 days. We can’t complain at all. We had great daily weather reports from Chris Parker, and chatted twice daily with other Salty Dawgs. We saw only a handful of boat traffic mostly nearer the US.

Glad to be back, but already looking forward to next fall when we head south again.

We’ve been attending daily weather briefings with our fellow Salty Dawg rally boats. Last night the group had a lovely buffet dinner at Pusser’s Landing in Soper’s Hole. A few boats departed yesterday, taking advantage of the wind. The rest are leaving today, the 15th of May.

We will get a late start as we have to pick up our repaired main sail this morning. Once we reinstall it (this will take a few hours), get our fuel topped up, and finish stowing our kayak and SUP, we’ll assess our readiness for departure, clear out at customs and immigration, then point the bow north.

Our plan is to sail as direct as possible from BVI to Hampton, Virgina in 10-12 days. At this point we anticipate 3-4 mostly windless days during the trip, and will have to drift or use the motors. Likely we’ll do a bit of both. Once we arrive I’ll do my best to put an update on the blog.

We went to the Michael Beans show at Leverick Bay the other night with our fellow Salty Dawg Rallyers. Paul won a ‘Blowhard’ prize (rum and a t-shirt) for the longest conch horn blow of 57 seconds. It was a fun night and the songs were very entertaining and about everyday stuff out here in the Caribbean. Michael is from Michigan and has some great tunes which mention places we are familiar with from when we lived in Holland, Michigan a few years back. He inspired me to write the following for our kids.

CRAZY PARENTS

We have some crazy parents

Who left us high and dry

To sail the deep blue ocean

To see the big blue sky

They didn’t take us with them

A visit we can take

If we fund it with our money

cause retirement means no cake

We often don’t know where they are

We can’t talk to them at whim

They blog updates as they desire

Between snorkel, play and swim

It’s a mystery why they made this choice

To head out to the sea

But a life on board called to them

And they went for it with glee

We miss our crazy parents

They miss us too they say

But for now they’re staying out at sea

To enjoy each sunny day