Summer Cruise Part III – Ramea – Francois
Sunday we left Ramea. Destination was the highly recommended town of Francois. It was pretty calm, just a 25 mile motor boat ride. Francois (the locals pronounce it Franz-Way) is located in a natural amphitheater with 600 and 700 foot hills surrounding it. It’s really an astoundingly beautiful place. Before we had the lines on […]
Summer Cruise Part II – Halifax – Ramea
We spent a few days in Halifax and left on Wednesday the 23rd of July. The forecast looked fine and we had planned to go nonstop to Francois, Newfoundland. The best laid plans… As has been the norm around here, the forecast was less than reliable, so when our nice favorable breeze dropped off to […]
Summer Cruise 2015 Part I – Rockland, Maine – Halifax, Nova Scotia
After the usual 229 changes in plans and schedules our summer cruise started by Nick and Carol, our crew and great friends, arriving in Portland, ME on July 7. TJ flew into Rockland the day after. As a special treat we got a visit from Liz and Andy, who were just a stone’s throw away […]
North we go!
We met up on March 15th at JFK airport, Jenny arriving from Europe, and me from Dutch Harbor. We rented a car, drove to Rhode Island, and set to getting the boat ready to go into the water after her long, cold winter layup. Thankfully, everything seems to have survived the winter just fine, which […]
The million dollar wave
So, there we were, riding along on our way out from Dutch Harbor for our second trip of the year. The weather was a little heavy out of the NE, nothing much for the winter season, maybe 40 knots with some gusts pushing 55. The sea was running about 15 feet, again nothing especially noteworthy. […]
Fall and Winter 2014
The last 3 months of 2014 were slightly turbulent – high time for a blog update! TJ left for Alaska in early October, expecting to fish for a trip or 2, then come home and sail Rocket Science to the Caribbean. Instead he ended up returning to Seattle on the ‘Constellation’ on November 30 and […]
The Boat Yard Diaries
The Boat Yard Diaries After sailing approx. 7000 miles in 10 months it was time to give the old girl some love. After talking to various boat yards in Rhode Island we decided to go to Brewer’s Cove Haven Marina & Yacht Yard in Barrington. When asked about pricing they told us to come over, […]
Canals, bays, the stepmother of all lightning storms and damned flies
We got out of Annapolis on Labor day, and made a 25 mile run up to the Sassafras river, where we spent a night anchored outside the mouth in 12 feet of water way out away from shore. The Chesapeake is awfully shallow up on the north end. We had originally intended to go straight […]
All hail to Baxter!
Ok, Baxter may now officially be called a salty dog! We don’t count miles all that much, but I was thinking about the mutt the other day while he was cocooned in a beach towel on the downhill side of the cockpit, his normal position when he’s standing watch with me, and I got to […]
Hello, Annapolis! Ego alley and other discoveries
We had a pretty nice sail up the coast, reaching most of the time. The wind was sort of puffy, a few hours with sailable conditions, and others spent motoring. Cape Hatteras was a non-issue for us, which was nice. It’s known to get pretty sloppy around there on a fairly regular basis, so we […]