Great Loop Completed !

June 5th ... 3:05 pm .... we pulled into Solomons, MD, from the south, completing our circle. Happy, sad, "what do we do now??" , "where did the last 13 months go?" feelings, but a lovely day on the Chesapeake. We had stayed at the Tides Inn Marina the night before, as a special treat to ourselves, which was heavenly, and we slowly motored up the bay, memorizing every sight and sound we could along the way. The "what do we do now?" question was quickly answered .... since Peter decided to go back to Plan A, putting Moon Beam on the market after our trip ..... but first, I shall back up to our last stop in Georgetown, SC.

May 24th ... we loved Georgetown. Very quaint, with lots of interesting shops ... and a lovely waterfront. And as always, very friendly boaters. As we pulled into the docks, we met several couples on adjoining boats, who invited us to join them at a local restaurant for dinner. OK! Lots of fun. We took an extra day to explore Georgetown .... and do the trolley tour to learn the history. Seems all of these southern towns have their local heroes and interesting stories.

We left on the 26th, still on the ICW, which at that point meant the Waccamaw River. The river is very deep and edged with tall cypress trees growing right out of the water. As the cypress wound down, we passed numerous canals that used to be part of the extensive rice fields from the 1800s. We passed Pawley's Island, but missed seeing Peter's Aunt Gret who had left her home in Pawley's for Syracuse just two days before. North of Pawley's Is., the river was narrow, and we wended our way through trees along this beautiful stretch, before getting to the much busier area of Myrtle Beach. Every single marker on the river boasted a family of osprey, with a vigilant parent on duty to guard the nest. The next day we left Myrtle Beach early and continued along narrow rivers and wide bays past Carolina Beach to Cape Fear, then stopping near Wrightsville, NC at Masonboro Yacht Yard and Marina. We were getting anxious to move quickly, as we were planning on meeting our good friends from Charlottesville, Janice & Rick in Beaufort, NC the following night. Therefore, we planned on taking the outside passage in the Atlantic the next day to avoid the kazillions of bridges and no wake zones along this stretch of the ICW.

We left at 6:15 am, May 28th, going out through the Masonboro Inlet, with the assurance of good weather and fairly calm winds. Best laid plans ... and all that. The Atlantic Ocean did not want to be predictable that day, and what we encountered was very different from what was fore casted. The waves were anywhere from 3 to 7 feet, but the problem was that they were very close together and hitting us from the northeast. By 9 am, my captain decided it was not looking good, with winds picking up further, and he decided to turn around and head back to the inlet from whence we came. Tigger & Kitty applauded the decision from their hiding places on the boat. But before we headed back, he said he needed to go onto the bow and secure the anchor line which had come loose from the pounding seas, causing the large Ultra anchor to swing violently. My feeling was "better the hull get whacked" than Peter go overboard, but he was determined to protect his bateau. Very unsafe ten minutes aboard Moon Beam. I was not able to keep her headed north, so we got broadside to the waves .... and we were rocking n' rolling fiercely, while he secured the anchor at the windlass. Somehow, he managed to hold on, adjust the line, and then he crawled back to the pilot house. Given the short duration on the waves and the violent rocking, I would have been hard pressed to maneuver Moon Beam near him had he fallen overboard. What we "shouda done" was wait until we had turned around and were heading back, with the wind and waves behind us, as once we did that, it was smooth sailing, with a very rapid trip back to the Inlet. Once on our way back, we were able to survey the damage left by the loud crashes from the salon, where a cupboard lock had been jarred open .... and things had flown!

Back on the ICW, we were rewarded with the sight of lovely homes, along with the kazillion bridges. It was slow, but it was very attractive, and looking out to the east to the Atlantic, you would never have known the seas were so rough. We called Janice & Rick ... and planned to meet them in Swansboro as we knew we would not make it to Beaufort. This meant an enormous amount of re-finagling on their part with their car, which they were leaving in Belhaven, NC and their rental car, which they were picking up in Belhaven and planning on dropping off in Beaufort. But they cheerfully adjusted .... and they found their way to us that night by 9:45 pm at Casper's Marina in Swansboro. They definitely felt the brunt of the adage, "you can say where or when .... but not both!"

Rick took the rental car to Morehead City the next day, while Janice came with us on Moon Beam, and we rendezvoused in Beaufort, NC around 10:30 am. Rick had taken a taxi from the car rental place, and had time for a quiet cup of coffee on the waterfront and a quick scope of the town by the time we got there. Misson accomplished ... and on to our terrific time with them. There are lots of friends who made enormous efforts to join us along this trip, but none more than J & R!

Beaufort (pronounced "bowfort" in NC, rather than "bewefort" in SC) was a busy place with lots of tourist-y shops along the waterfront, where we were docked. Janice and I walked around its perimeter looking for a grocery store and a restaurant for that evening, but neither was available, the restaurant being fully reserved on Memorial Day Weekend. We joined Rick & Peter at a very interesting museum that featured everything local from boats to stuffed snakes. We then enjoyed the lovely evening aboard Moon Beam, with a nice sunset on the bridge.

The next day we left at 9:30 am, heading to Oriental to stay at the new River Dunes Harbor Club & Marina. We arrived after lunch and had the afternoon to tour the facility, which is lovely with homes, harbor and clubhouse .... and enjoy their pool. On May 30th, we left at 8:30 am and travelled out the Neuse River to Pamlico Sound, then up the Pamlico River to Belhaven, NC ..... where Rick was very relieved to see their car waiting at River Forest Marina! It is a bit remote, so we understood his pleasure in seeing all was well. They treated us to a car ride to Food Lion (big treat!!!!!!!) and then drove us 50 miles each way to Washington, NC for dinner! One does not appreciate a car until one has not had same for almost 13 months! Sadly, Janice & Rick left the next day, June 1st. We could not have enjoyed their visit more ... and were so grateful for having them on board. It was such fun. Thank you for everything, R & J!

Peter, Tigger, Kitty and I headed north that day, on the Pungo River to the Alligator-Pungo Canal, which brought us to the Alligator River Marina (are there really alligators this far north?), just south of Albemarle Sound. My dear Aunt ... Margaret Anne ... had told us that a trip across that sound with Norman and their daughter Kim had been one of the worst experiences of her life. The sound is shallow, and when storms or winds whip up the water ... it can be horrific. And according to Margaret Anne, she and Kim were below in their sailboat and Kim was confessing everything she had ever done .... so at least it must have been interesting, if MA was able to concentrate and remember any of it! :) Fortunately, our experience was very different. It was cloudy and grey .. but very calm .... and we were across in no time. We stayed at Coinjack Marina that night, having taken the Virginia Cut Route rather than the Dismal Swamp Route. Guess who made that call! Two Navy 33 ft rigid inflatable boats (RIBS) docked in front of us. Powered by twin 450HP diesels, these have to be the fastest RIBS in the world. Despite the evil looking boats and all their camo gear, the sailors weren't taking things too seriously as they had their fishing rods on board.

By now we were getting close to the Chesapeake. On June 3rd, we travelled across Currituck Sound and then through the long canal leading to Portsmouth, VA, where we had hoped to meet up with Daisy and David, other dear friends from Charlottesville. But we were disappointed that at the last minute, they were unable to meet us, so we ambled on under many bridges and one last lock, which only regulates the effect of the tide. It was a slow day, with time waits of 30 - 60 minutes for bridges, but it was lovely nonetheless. We stayed at the Tidewater Marina across from downtown Norfolk that night .... and loved our genuine Maryland Crab Cakes at their marina restaurant. Heaven. On the 4th, we pulled out of the marina at 7:25 am and travelled up the Elizabeth River to the Chesapeake Bay.

Norfolk. Wow. Very impressive trundling through the harbor with all the enormous ships, including container ships such as the one which delivered Moon Beam in 2009. Lots of activity, as one would imagine, and we were very impressed with the captains of those vessels who were so calm and polite on the radio to smaller vessels who clearly had no idea of what they were doing as they crossed in front of ships 50 times their size. We passed four "war ships" ... that is how they identified themselves on the radio ... which were bringing soldiers home from Iraq or Afghanistan. Major emotion !!! God Bless! There were also many aircraft carriers, guided missle cruisers and other unidentifiable nasty looking craft. We chugged up the Chesapeake and pulled into the Tides Inn, on Carter's Creek off the Rappahannock River at 3:25 pm ..... and went directly to the pool. HOT! Before treating ourselves to dinner at Tides Inn that night, we sat in the safety of our pilot house as a violent thunderstorm came whipping through at about 6 pm. Major white caps in the creek!

Next morning, June 5th, we left Carter's Creek and spent a cloudy but beautiful day on the Chesapeake, before pulling into Solomons, MD and Washburn's Boat yard at 3:05 pm.

The End.

Only it is not the end. Moon Beam keeps on giving ... and I think she will for many years. We have already had a visit from Liz & Steve on Shingebiss, as they passed by our cottage this summer, with their friends Nan & Jack on The Eschaton. It was wonderful to see them again! We had not seen them since before we crossed the Gulf of Mexico, but had kept up sporatically through email. (Our home on Georgian Bay is smack on the Great Loop Route .... so we hope to have many visitors! As I type, there are two boats across the way in Regatta Bay with AGLCA flags.) Also, we are very excited about a Labor Day Weekend visit from Jackie & Brian whom we met on their boat Finally! in Demopolis, AL. We had travelled together for five days, after waiting out Ida for 10 days in Demopolis. They are from MN and are planning to drive here for a visit!!! Yeah!

Once back in Solomons, we set to work the very next day with our preparations for getting Moon Beam cleaned up and ready to show. Since Peter decided to try to sell her, I figured we needed to do it all now, so that our summer at Georgian Bay would not be interrupted if someone was interested. We worked for a few days, before Peter took Kitty & Tigger home in a rented truck full of STUFF. Kitty was relatively comfortable in his crate, but Tigger was jammed in between the front seat and the gear shift for the 3 hour ride. I needed them out of there in order to clean the interior with any chance of it remaining clean. By the end of the week, Peter was back in MD with my car .... ahhhhhhhhh .... and we worked for another three days before loading up the rest of the things in a trailer behind my Volvo. So many cubby holes and so many places to stuff stuff. We were exhausted ... but Moon Beam was glistening .... and every bit of "clutter" was removed ..... and as we left I actually became overcome with emotion and cried. She is such a good bateau, and she cared for us so well. Sturdy, Strong, Beautiful, Elegant, Comfortable. And she did not deserve that %^$&# plug connector problem which caused so many electrical hardships in the first half of the trip. Imagine using crimpers rather than hard-wiring those wires.

We left our lovely Moon Beam .... and once home, with everything in the front hall, we had to dig in again to figure out what to do with it all. Peter spent several days mowing and weeding outdoors, while I unpacked boxes and organized the stuff once again in the cellar and/or closets. And we happily saw a few friends whom we had dearly missed in Charlottesville. But it was HOT, and about a week and a half after getting home, we decided all the work would wait until September. So we packed up Tigger & Kitty once again and came directly to the cottage in Georgian Bay .... where we are now.

So why has it taken me so long to get this last blog page written? Work, travel, tiredness .... then lovely visits from family and friends here at the bay. Someday I shall have to write an Ode to Moon Beam. It will extole her beauty and her strength ... it will tell of the adventures she gave us and the marvelous places she allowed us to see .... it will reminise about the people we met and the new friends we made ... and it will give thanks to our dear friends and family who shared our adventures.

Thank you, Moon Beam.

Florida to South Carolina on the ICW

It's been a month and a half since our last blog page, and I am not completely sure why it has been so long .... but we have been busy ... lots has happened. We left Charleston, SC this morning, hoping to anchor tonight in Awendaw Creek near McClellanville (just south of Andersonville), but there is a storm approaching from the west that looks pretty awesome, so we shall push on for Georgetown, an historic town at the ICW mile 402, where we can tie up at a marina. Fortunately, the sunset comes later now, so we should arrive in the daylight around 6:30 pm. We are sorry to be leaving Charleston, as we have loved getting to know the city better. If we did not love Charlottesville so much, we would move there in a heart beat! So many beautiful old homes on the market, it was hard not to look "just for fun"!

After leaving "the Palm Beaches", we did stop in Stuart to see Jackie and Brian with their new boat "Gotta Smile" ..... remember, we need a picture with her name on the stern, J & B! It was great fun, and we all treated ourselves to a very fancy Easter dinner at Olive Garden! Then we were on to Vero Beach, where we had a grand time with Georgia, my college roommate, & Jeff, Peter's friend from college, who entertained us royally with dinner at their home and then their club! A very special highlight was seeing their son Alex, daughter-in-law Andee and meeting their muppets Avery and Ryder. We had a day on the water with them all, cruising the ICW and admiring all the beautiful homes and nature preserves. Then after we left Vero, G & J Joined us a few days later for a night on board in Cocoa, Fl. We all went to the Kennedy Space Center, did the bus tour of the launch pads, the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) and the main exhibit of the space shuttles and their booster rockets. We learned more than we shall ever remember, but the highlight was an Imax movie on the Hubble Telescope. OMG. If any of us think we are significant, we just need to check out the galaxies upon galaxies that are out there ...... with millions of suns, where distances are measured in trillions of light years. If the Hubble film comes to an Imax near you, we highly recommend it! After Cocoa, we stopped in Titusville, Daytona, and then Palm Coast, where we stayed at a wonderful marina at Hammock Beach Resort. We were missing our friends, Rachel & Peter, who were supposed to join us around Daytona ... real estate contracts and life got in the way ..... and to cheer ourselves up, we spent time looking at condominiums at Hammock Beach. We quickly decided they were not for us, and we moved on to St. Augustine, which we had also hoped to share with R & P. Very nice town, but much more touristy than we had expected. We did find one of the best restaurants on our trip, Collage, having asked a taxi driver where we should go. Should have given him a bigger tip! After St. Augustine, we travelled to Jacksonville, FL. We left the ICW and motored up (down?) the St. John's River, which was lovely. We were even able to find Ann & HB's home along the river .... and took a few pictures to prove it!

We left Moon Beam at Lamb's Yacht Center, a wonderful boatyard where mechanics finally diagnosed a persistent & irritating low fuel pressure problem, which had plagued us forever in our port engine. We found "Pet Paradise" for Tigger & Kitty ... and flew home to Charlottesville for 3 1/2 days to attend a beautiful wedding for a gorgeous bride, Elizabeth, and her beloved Chip. (Pictured here ... the morning after!) It was magical, and we felt as though we had stepped out of our land of shorts and visors into a fantasy world. What a treat to be there!

Once back in Jacksonville, we headed north, stopping at Fort George Island where we anchored in a lovely oxbow and toured Kingsley Plantation with its slave house ruins. In Georgia, we travelled through miles and miles of marsh lands ... for as far as the eye could see, in every direction. In fact, all of Georgia on the ICW was marsh land, and we were delighted to see that at least in some part of the country the wild life has it pretty good. Birds of all kinds, fish and of course alligators live a very rich life there. We had heard for years that shoaling was a huge problem in Georgia through lack of dredging, but we did not find any sign of it. Of course it did help to hit Mud River at high tide by accident, so we sailed through there. We may have "bumped" once, but nothing like what we had expected. We passed Kings Bay Submarine Base, home of 6 Trident class submarines and coast guard patrol boats with bow mounted machine guns!!!! Poof! Then we crossed Jekyll Sound to Jekyll Creek, where we stopped at Jekyll Island for the night and biked around to the Jekyll Island Club. Very attractive! Next, we stopped outside of Savannah at Isle of Hope Marina, along the Skidaway River, and visited for a day with my dear aunt, Margaret Anne. We had lunch with her at The Marshes and then spent the afternoon/ evening aboard Moon Beam. The picture of dinner on board is way out of focus, but I want her included in the blog! It was so lovely to have her on board ... we had been talking about it for 2 years. Also, this was the day Geoff sold his condominium in Charlestown, MA .... in one day! (And in no small measure on Jaimee's part in making it gorgeous!)

From Savannah, we motored north past Hilton Head, SC .... without stopping, as we know that area very well since Peter's mother and step-father lived there so long. It was fun to see it from the water, which is always so different. We saw the beach where Tigger played so many times .... as well as waterside restaurants we had visited .... and of course Harbor Town. The weather was gray and cloudy, but we were able to pick out a lot of places. From there we went to Beaufort, SC, (the town which woke up Confederate and went to bed Union) which we loved. Barry joined us for the night, as he was en route from Jupiter FL, being the good son in driving his Dad's car back to Long Island. As always, we had a nice, but too short, visit with him. And we were docked next to the Nina & the Pinta ...... I am sure you have all heard the story of the Nina, the Pinta and the Moon Beam! We took an extra day to explore Beaufort, which was good fun, clopping around in a horse drawn carriage, listening to the lore of the town. Every southern town boasts the oldest this or largest that, and it is fun to hear the qualifications. We saw the field where the football game in The Big Chill was filmed ... but unfortunately not that beautiful house, in which, it turns out, one of Peter's fraternity brothers grew up!

Then ....ta da .... on to Charleston, SC. Oh my, I think I have already said how much we loved it! No tours here, as we had done that before, but we did spend an awful lot of time just driving and walking through the historic district. What a great city. So manageable to walk around ... and so exquisite. We also had time to see Phil and Barbara, who live in Charleston. Unfortunately I neglected to take a picture of them on board! Phil is an old friend from Hamilton College, and we spent a wonderful evening reacquainting ourselves ... reminiscing with college stories, but also catching up with life in the following 43 years. Another huge treat .... once again with no picture (grrrrr) .... was seeing a very dear friend of mine from Dana Hall, whom I had not seen in over 20 years. Lynn, and her partner Jane, came for dinner on board ..... and we laughed as hard as we ever did in the Wee Tass Club at school. (Got it, Lynn??) I shall be sure to not lose touch like that again ... but it is difficult to know where someone is when they leave to go to China for a few years to teach English!! Poof. Such adventurous friends. Moon Beam stayed at The Charleston Maritime Center for at least two weeks, as we flew from Charleston to Los Angeles for Sarah's graduation from her MBA program at USC. That was a thrill ... and Geoff and Jaimee joined us, making it a wonderful family celebration. I could fill three pages with photos from our week there, but this is just one of the five of us. Congratulations dear Sarah on all you have accomplished!
While in LA, we learned of the death of Peter's sister-in-law, Donna, in Loveland, CO, so we stopped on the way back to Charleston to be with his brother, Dartt, for 4 days. We were able to attend Donna's beautiful service and meet D & D's neighbors and friends, which was a lovely experience. The following day we drove into the mountains to place Donna's ashes with those of their two sons and her mother. Donna had been sick for so long, and Dartt took such wonderful care of her. She will be missed by all who knew her, and we feel Dartt will be able to move forward with the support of his community, which he in turn supports so generously. Just after we left, Dartt purchased a touring BMW motorcycle .... and as of today, Peter says he has already had his 600 mile check. Happy travels, Dartt. Come see us in Virginia!

Once back in Charleston, we took another long look around ... and then chugged out, heading for Georgetown, SC ... where I shall continue on our next blog page. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I will add one more very happy note to this blog .... Geoff and Jaimee are engaged! After getting back to Boston, following Sarah's graduation, Jaimee's sister was married the following weekend. Then they took off for another sailing trip to their beloved BVI's, and Geoff said he was leaving with a ring in his pocket! He asked Jaimee's Dad for permission to marry his daughter .... on the morning after Jaimee's sister's wedding. We suggested he bring smelling salts for the poor Dad! But the joy is that Jaimee said "yes" on the patio at Caneel Bay, and we are thrilled!

As of this morning, we crossed the state line back into Virgina. We shall be staying in Norfolk, VA tonight, at ICW Mile 0, where the ICW ends in the Chesapeake Bay. We have come 400+ miles since I started this page. When we cross into MD, we shall also cross our wake, completing the Great Loop!