May 31st 2014 .........
Well to wrap up the blog on our travels, we made it safely to our home in Sudbury, Ontario on June 1st, unpacked and returned the u-haul.
Now we start the exciting part of selling our house, starting new job(s), and buying a house in Toronto.
In summary of our trip(s), we drove over 10,000 kms driving west via the northern United States to Alberta and British Columbia to ski and hike in Feb. and March of 2013, returning via Canada to Sudbury and Sarnia, and we then flew 17,000 kms to Santiago, Chile via Peru, the Amazon, and hiked the Inca Trail to Macch Picchu with our good friends the Patrick's followed by sailing over 5000 nautical miles which is about 10,000 kms. During the 17 month practice retirement we took off and landed 17 times in airplanes which also included a trip out to Newfoundland August 2013 to visit Kevin while Jazzebelle was getting outfitted with new canvas. We lived on the boat for 11.5 consecutive months sleeping elsewhere only during our 9 nights while in Newfoundland and our 3 night trip driving to the Annapolis Boat show as we did not make it there by boat.
We spent the recent month of June preparing our house for the real estate market and shopping for a new home in Toronto.
It has been wonderful seeing friends and family, as well as attending our son Ross's graduation from University, (although he is returning for a masters and his 5th year of running eligibility so not done yet)! We had a lovely reunion with Julie's family at Ross's season opener where he performed a personal best in the 1500m race. Mom, niece Alicia, and brother Dan made the journey to Guelph which was wonderful. Hard to believe it has been almost a year since we saw everyone.
Thanks to all our supporters and followers who encouraged the writing of this blog as it will be a wonderful keepsake of our adventures.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Friday, 11 July 2014
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Day 342, Friday, May 30th
Day 342, Friday, May 30th - return to Canada
It is time to put the blog to bed. After 16 months of non stop travelling we are heading "home". We have worked very diligently to get the boat ready for sale.
We wake up in a normal bed as we stayed the night at Brad and Laura's in Crownsville near Annapolis. We are all loaded and ready to go, with 1 stop needed at the boat and a final good bye to Jazzebelle.
Boy this uhaul points well. We can go in whatever direction we want which is a treat, and not worry about anchors dragging or storms. We set out by 8:00 for the 10 hour drive to Port Credit. Julie contacts Diana and Paul to see if we can crash at their place overnight as we want to catch Ross's season opener in Guelph the following evening.
The drive north is uneventful. Roads are good, traffic is light, and the speed is incredible. We can't believe that what took us months to accomplish by boat we will do in 10 hours. Originally we crossed the border at Fort Erie to Buffalo by boat September 7th 2013 and got to Annapolis about October 23rd, and now in 10 hours we will travel from Annapolis and go over the river we navigated on our way south. Wow, a lot of effort to get that boat south.
As we cross over to Canada there is a feeling of excitement being back in our homeland. There is nothing like Canada, snow, bugs and all!
We make it to "Noel Hotel" by early evening and have a visit with Diana, and Paul and their dogs Alice and Toby of course.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
It is time to put the blog to bed. After 16 months of non stop travelling we are heading "home". We have worked very diligently to get the boat ready for sale.
We wake up in a normal bed as we stayed the night at Brad and Laura's in Crownsville near Annapolis. We are all loaded and ready to go, with 1 stop needed at the boat and a final good bye to Jazzebelle.
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| Packed for home |
The drive north is uneventful. Roads are good, traffic is light, and the speed is incredible. We can't believe that what took us months to accomplish by boat we will do in 10 hours. Originally we crossed the border at Fort Erie to Buffalo by boat September 7th 2013 and got to Annapolis about October 23rd, and now in 10 hours we will travel from Annapolis and go over the river we navigated on our way south. Wow, a lot of effort to get that boat south.
As we cross over to Canada there is a feeling of excitement being back in our homeland. There is nothing like Canada, snow, bugs and all!
We make it to "Noel Hotel" by early evening and have a visit with Diana, and Paul and their dogs Alice and Toby of course.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Monday, 2 June 2014
Day 341, Thursday, May 29th
Day 341, Thursday, May 29th
We wake up for the last time aboard Jazzebelle. The reality that we have achieved our year of
sailing is slowly surfacing. We are very
proud that we were brave enough to leave our jobs and head out on a lifestyle
not quite as luxurious as we were used to, more stressful, and far away from
our friends and family to discover what life aboard a sailboat would be
like. The trip has met our expectations,
lots of downtime, but more highs and lows than our “normal” life.
One thing for sure is friendships are numerous and strong in
this nomadic life.
Tim the broker meets us at our boat to review the boat
itself and provide some advice on how to best leave her so she is appealing,
clean and well aired out. After the
meeting Tim gives Dawson a ride to pickup our u-haul as we have a pile of stuff
loaded under the boat, as well as the load at the Sitler’s house. Amazing how much stuff we have. We may not have fit it all into a cargo
van. The u-haul rental establishment
only had a 10 cubic foot truck as its smallest self drive vehicle but we know
we will be able to fit everything it in.
Funny how the beginning of this trip started with a u-haul
full of Toronto stuff heading up to Lively, and now it is a truck full of stuff
moving up to Lively again.
Dawson spends a couple hours coordinating a few minor
repairs as well as changing out the bow navigation lights and changing the
thruhull fitting for the watermaker. We
decided to hire a company also to compound and wax the hull. We are tired of cleaning! Time to go home. We thought we would do it but when you
realize all our buffers and rotors, electric extension cords, and ladders are
not on the boat, it makes sense to pay someone to do it.
By late afternoon we check Yachtworld and see that
Jazzebelle is listed now. She looks
great. Hopefull she sells quickly. It will be much easier that way.
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1998/Caliber-40-LRC-2725342/Annapolis/MD/United-States#.U40q13JdWAg
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1998/Caliber-40-LRC-2725342/Annapolis/MD/United-States#.U40q13JdWAg
We head off for a Thai dinner at a restaurant recommended to
us by Lynn and Ian from Windward, and they are correct, it was excellent.
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| Cole and Alexandra before bedtime! |
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 340, Wednesday, May 28th
Day 340, Wednesday, May 28th
As usual we are up with the sun. First job is a pump out and cleaning the
holding tank. What a way to start the
day. Oh well, can’t be all play.
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| Jazzebelle being hauled |
We watch the boat being pulled out with mixed feelings as
she has been such a major part of our life and we know we are saying good-bye
to her, possibly forever. We loved the
Caliber 40 and will return to the waters and the Calibers in the future. After all our time shopping for her, she was
the right boat and kept us safe in some scary weather (although we mainly timed
the weather perfectly to avoid storms).
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| Watching with smiles |
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| Back to cleaning, stuff comes out of everywhere. Boat puking is the term we use. |
At about 5:00 we head over to Davis Pub via dinghy. We have to take a couple stabs at finding the
dinghy dock, lots of private clubs that won’t let us tie up the dinghy. Finally we find it and join another couple
outside as there is a table shortage. It
starts getting cold, so we transfer inside where it is also cold, but at least
no breeze. The rain has held off for
most of the day, but it is now starting to drizzle.
Back at the boat we do manage to make some coffee with our
fingers crossed hoping we won’t run out of propane.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 339, Tuesday May 27th
Day 339, Tuesday May 27th
Today, we meet with the new broker, Tim in morning to review the listing.
On the way back to Crownsville from the boatyard, where we
met Tim the broker we stop at Enterprise to return our rental car. IT is not due until Wednesday, but it would
be too complicated to get back to where we leave the car when we transfer the
boat, so we are just returning it early.
Renting cars in teh US is easy and cheap. We sure have enjoyed having the van for the
week.
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| Julie taking out the battens from the main sail |
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| Dawson with the help of Keith flaking the sail nicely |
We get landed safely, another of the 150 landings we have
done in the last year. Once landed we
start stripping off sails. We get a good lesson from Keith who is also a broker
on how to manage large sails and fold them in confined spaces. The winds are starting to whip up and we get
the last sail folded just in the nick of time.
We get shelter in our full enclosure which is great and
appreciated. The neighbour boat had to
hide down below in his new boat.
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| Ugly sky coming, work fast! |
We are getting there.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 338, Monday May 26th
Day 338, Monday May 26
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| Cole, Brad and Alex |
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| Alex enjoying the whole boat |
Back on our heads....cleaning, packing, waxing,
staining,...... By 2:00 we are tired
but looking forward to taking the Sitler’s out for a sail. Just off their house the Severn River widens
sufficiently to have a little sail around.
By 3:00 we are off, with our youngest sailor yet, Cole, and a possible
replacement for Julie, Alexandra.
Alexandra is quite taken with handling the wheel. Sadly she can’t see over the coach house to
know where to steer.
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| Will Julie be replaced with Admiral Alex? |
The winds were very light which was perfect cause you realize
the kids have no handholds. They can’t
reach the high stuff and are too short to brace themselves with their
legs. Lucky it was light winds. At first we thought we did not have enough,
but it was fabulous. It was one of the
few sails we undertook just for sailing sake.
Normally it is always to “get somewhere”, versus just to enjoy. Before we knew it , it was 5:30 so we headed in as we had a pizza night
planned. Brad, Cole and Dawson headed
off in their convertible for the pickup, while Alexandra, Laura and Julie
organized from the inside. After pizza
we enjoyed a homemade peach pie made by Laura.
It was wonderful, her first pie!
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| Julie blogging at the Sitler's |
We did not stay late as the Sitler’s had to go to work the
next day so we headed down to the dock and called it a night.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Thursday, 29 May 2014
Day 337, Sunday May 25
Day 337, Sunday May 25
It is the long weekend here in the USA and the weather is
beautiful, so lots of boats going up and down the river, which is nice, but
..... where we are docked we are not sheltered from the wakes and we are
worried about banging up against the pool slide located at the end of the dock
that hangs out about a foot. When we
sense a particularly large wake we dash up on deck to help shield the boat from
moving about too much. Luckily it all
worked out and we really didn’t have to dash up at all, but better safe than
sorry. Hopefully tomorrow it is no
worse. It is an excellent protected
spot, we just don’t want to damage our wonderful hosts dock or toys.
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| See how clean the boat is! |
Mid morning Dawson contacts our broker as he thought the email from Pat had said to give him a call. It did not, however they had a good conversation and Pat indicated that there was not a good match for us as customer and broker and he would pass us back to Tim the owner who we had made original contact with and had been recommended by friends. We were satisfied that this would be the best course of action for all concerned and shared a few emails with Tim to get the ball rolling on listing Jazzebelle for sale (versus sail).
We continue to apply Cetol to the bow sprit and
eyebrows. Today is the 3rd
and last coat, and so we remove the masking tape about an hour after
application. It is now hot and sunny so
the masking tape is gooey, so now we have a goo gone job for tomorrow. One step forward, a half a step backwards....
and we even used the good masking tape to minimize this. Oh well.
Once this work is done, we head back into town to Home depot
to pick up a few more things we need. This
time we avoided rush hour as it is the weekend.
Our last stop is Trader Joe’s for a few groceries and we are back to the
boat awaiting the Sitler family return as they are expected back from their
family holiday today. We have dinner,
but the Sitler’s have been delayed and it is 9:30 at night before we see any
lights on up at the big house.
We head on up to say hello and pass along the few groceries
we had picked up for them. Everyone is
tired so we plan on getting together for a sail tomorrow and bid our good
nights.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 336, Saturday May 24th
Day 336, Saturday May 24th,
Day 336 began as many others, up with the sun, brush our
teeth and a cup of coffee in the cockpit.
A great way to start the day!
Today is another work day with the continuation of off loading stuff and
prepping the boat for going on the hard and for sale.
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| Good coffee |
Today we apply the second coat to the very limited teak on
Jazzebelle. One of the concepts of
Caliber yachts was to build a boat with less bright work to allow for more
sailing. A very good idea and one that
Julie and I appreciate. By 2:00 we are
ready for a break and head into Annapolis to pick up a few things, get a coffee
and do some blogging. Just as we are
about to start blogging, we get an email from our broker with the revised
listing. We read through it but realize
there are still numerous adjustments needed to the brochure. We spend the next 3 hours, reviewing and
editing. This is not making us happy. Sadly we don’t get any blogging done.
It is time to move on as we have been sitting at the coffee
shop for almost 3 hours. Luckily there
are lots of seats. We are customers, but
this is pushing the coffee loitering to new heights. Our parking meter is about to expire so we
head off having sent the new edits along on their way.
Back at the boat we have a quiet dinner and head to bed.
Cheers
Dawson and Julie
Monday, 26 May 2014
Day 335, Friday May 23
Day 335, Friday May 23
Continued sanding, had some electrical mystery that Dawson
worked on in the morning. Stained the
eyebrows, which is the teak edging on the deck (kind of like crown moulding in
a house). Dawson sanded and stained the
bow sprit.
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| Stuff packed in Laura and Brad's garage |
The boat is cluttered again.
It does not take much to make such a small space a mess. Everything has been pulled out and no longer
has a home so it is challenging to remember where stuff has been put. Similar to when we moved on to the boat.
By 3:00 we had completed the work we had planned for the day
and were heading to Arlington just west of Washington D.C. A friend of Dawson’s from university is in
Arlington for the weekend having driven down from Toronto with his girlfriend
Teresa who is an avid Albacore racing sailor.
They are taking part in an Albacore regatta this weekend which is about
an hour from where we are docked, so it seemed a great idea to meet up and
catch up. We were joined by Barney and
Lee who are hosting Mike and Teresa as well as 2 other captains and their crew
who are in town for the great Albacore regatta.
An albacore is a dinghy sailboat that was originally made in the UK.
We get to Arlington shortly after 4:00, find the restaurant
we are meeting at 7:00 and wonder what should we do for 3 hours. We look on trip advisor for some suggestions,
but nothing seems to fit the time slot that would not get us caught up in
Washington DC rush hour, so we decide to head over to the mall at Falls Church a
few miles away and pick up some odds and ends we need to put the boat to bed. While killing our 3 hours we get the first
draft of our boat listing and it is all wrong, well lots of errors in it. We are frustrated as we had provided a
detailed listing and had the broker to the boat for a tour. We sit in the van and start listing the
corrections needed, but run out of time.
We will have to draft a correcting email later.
Soon enough we were heading back to Arlington and meet up
with Mike, Teresa at an Italian restaurant.
We have a lovely evening complete with lots of laughs, and are heading
back to the mothership by 11:00. We
could have stayed the night in Arlington, however the hour long drive beckoned
us back to our nest. On the way back we
made 2 wrong turns. Driving the highways
here is interesting. There are numerous
highways going in all directions and with sweeping cloverleafs on all of them,
interconnecting the web. So by missing 1
of our turnoffs, we then did a square, encompassing backtkracking and doing 4
cloverleafs to correct ourselves.
We must have been tired by the time we are back in
Crownsville as we even drive past the home we are docked at and we were both
looking for it. It is a neat little
neighbourhood on a narrow peninsula, with lots of trees and a very narrow, winding
road.
Once home, we draft an email to the broker and there is a
list of 25 changes to the listing.
Dawson falls asleep and Julie sends it along, only to find out that she
quoted a couple things wrong too, so now we have errors on errors contrary to
the listing document Dawson painstakingly put together over the last
weeks. Oh well, fix that tomorrow.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 334, Thursday May 22, Work, work, work, work
Day 334, Thursday May 22, Work, work, work, work
We continued to empty the boat out and clean and sand. Pat our broker was scheduled to come visit the
boat. He arrived and we spent an hour
going through the boat and items we have for sale. We also asked for advice on repairs etc. Pat did not seem that interested, although he
was the broker who sold the boat to the previous owners, Glenn and Solange.
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| Safely anchored at Brad and Laura's |
After Pat left, we went to the store to get more sandpaper
and a few other things. We head in at
4:00 and the traffic is heavy. Our first
clue is that as we are driving out the windy, narrow road, there are numerous
cars careening around each bend heading straight at us. We make it to town safely but sadly take a wrong
turn. We pull into a spot we think we
can get turned around, but the spot leads to nowhere, and there is a divided
road and lots of traffic so we decide to have a beer and a snack at the “spot”
because there is a Mexican restaurant here.
It was a great idea, as an hour later traffic had cleared and we found
our way to where we were going.
Back at the boat we spend a quiet evening.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 333, Wednesday May 21, Work, work, work
Day 333, Wednesday May 21,
Work, work, work
So the work is beginning to get the boat ship shaped. We started with cleaning windows and screens
in the morning. Then we got picked up by
Enterprise rental to coordinate vehicle pickup.
We rented a small car for a week as Crownsville is not located near much
and a car is a must. When we got tot eh
rental place turns out they don’t have the crappy little car we rented for $200
for the week and they upgraded us to a brand new van with leather
interior. Bonus, for us as we can now
use the van to store all the stuff we are packing up so that we can get photos
without clutter.
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| Julie confirming rental company pickup |
First stop is Home depot for bins, and sandpaper, then we
are off to the marine store to pickup a new solar vent and a navigation light
for the bow.
Once we got back to the boat, which by the way is a
beautiful drive, we started sanding the eyebrows of the boat, and the bow
pulpit. Sadly the sawdust from the
sanding fell on all the windows we had just cleaned. A bit frustrating. Grrrrrrr
Luckily we don’t have a lot of teak as the sanding was hard
work, all by hand of course. We worked
until about 5:00 sanding, removing the anchors and cleaning the anchor well, and
then headed to town to meet George and Jackie off of Heritage that we had
Easter dinner with in Georgia. George
and Jackie are from Sarnia where Julie grew up so kind of neat.
Dinner was at a great local pub, but we were soon back to
the boat for an early night.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Day 332, Tuesday May 20th – 10 more sleeps
Day 332, Tuesday May 20th – 10 more sleeps
Well we wake up to a cold morning as we get going. We bundle up, and get the coffee on.
We set sail out of Solomon Island at 6:00 a.m. and the winds
stayed with us for about 3 hours, but then died off as anticipated. We were surprised we even got 3 hours of
sailing in. Today’s journey to Annapolis
is in 2 parts as we anchor near the naval academy around 1:00 to watch the Blue
Angels practice session for tomorrows air show.
The Severn River which we will then take up to Brad and Laura’s house is
closed until 4:00 as a safety precaution during the flights.
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| Leaving Solomon Is. Lots of boats here. |
Once again we have been welcomed to use Brad and Laura
Sitler’s dock and house to “get organized”.
Brad and Laura are friends of a friend of Dawson’s from University. They welcomed us and treated us wonderfully
last fall when we passed through. What
wonderful people! Thanks!
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| Freighter Georgia Hwys that called us to make sure there was room to pass |
As we plod along, Dawson makes some calls to organize our
plans, he books our haul out, and our U-haul so plans for living off the boat
are becoming a reality. We are hoping to
make Canada the 31st so we can attend our son Ross’s season opener
for the 1500m race.
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| Blue Angels in formation F-18's |
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| Blue Angels with schooner from "The Wedding Crashers" in front |
The haul out is occurring in Annapolis where Jazzebelle will
be listed for sale. Our amazing
adventure is 10 days from finishing.
That however opens the door for the next adventure. Already Julie is combing the travel guides
for our next destination although it will be more a short vacation.
We make good time getting to Annapolis around 1:00 as
planned, still 7 hours at the wheel doing only 6-7 miles an hour, listening to
the motor for 4 of those hours. Today is
potentially our last opportunity to “sail” on Jazzebelle. We are hoping to go out for a sail on Monday,
but will have to see what the weather is like.
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| Boats anchored with Blue Angels in the background |
The air show is neat to watch. There are hundreds of boats anchored. Most of them with dinky little ropes holding
what may or may not be a suitable anchor.
It is all during daylight and temporary so not an issue. The show lasts about 2 hours and then we
doddle as the river we need to access is closed for a while longer. Finally we decide we have delayed long enough
and head up the Severn. We need to weave
around some party boats that are doddling even longer than us. The trip up the Severn is uneventful. Quite a bit of traffic all going our way, and
after almost an hour we are all tied up to the Sitler’s dock. No one is home to say hello to so we just
cook dinner and make plans for tomorrow, then off to bed.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 331, Monday May 19th – Victoria Day in Canada
Day 331, Monday May 19th – Victoria Day in Canada
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| Dawson washing down the anchor chain |
We enjoy a slow start to the day as we are looking at a easy
40 mile sail up to the Solomon Island.
We up anchor just before 9, the bottom provided good holding but the
anchor chain needs to be hosed down to get rid of mud before going into the
anchor locker. On the way out of the
harbour we pass the fish factory where there was a number of fishing boat tied
up the day before. Today they are all
out except for one; proof the menhaven fishery is still going strong.
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| Fishery plant with the fleet gone |
Again the winds are forecasted out of the north. Dang!
Not as strong though and our heading for the first hour is NE so we are
able to sail, but soon enough the cloth comes down and the engine is turned on.
The winds and waves are not too bad so
we can motor directly where we want to go which is due north. There is a current of about a knot against us
so our speed is not our fastest, but reasonable.
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| Aurora under sail |
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| Fisherman on his way home |
After a couple of hours we hear some announcements on the
VHF and there is a spotter boat telling people where to go and asking their
intentions etc. as they are doing some military exercises. Braveheart who is ahead of us is in “their”
zone and is asked/told to stand off and change directions. They do of course as no one wants to get in
the way of the military. Mike radios us
and tells us he gets to see a bit of an air show. We are too far back and miss it.
The winds pick up for an hour or so, but lay down again
after lunch so we plod along. We are
able to put our sails back up around 2:00 which is nice. By 4:00 we are pulling into our anchorage, getting the hook
dropped, lowering the dinghy and putting the outboard on it. We have anchored here before on our way south
and it is a well sheltered spot. It
takes 2 tries however to get the anchor to hold. Winds are supposed to be “medium” tonight so
we want a good hold. We choose to go to town for an
explore. We find a place to dock the dinghy near a few
boats that we sailed with for the day who have taken a slip. The walk to town is about 30 minutes, but it
is 6:30 somehow by the time we sit down to a beer and blog. We stay at the Lighthouse restaurant for an
hour and then head back to the dinghy dock and our mothership. We recognize a few boats in harbour but do
not see anyone we know. The town is
spread out a bit and it is a typical tourist town set up for hot weather
activities, lots of restaurants and a nice boardwalk. There must be about 10 marinas and 2000 boats
in harbour, yet the population of the town is probably 2000 people.Monday, 19 May 2014
Day 330, Sunday May 18th
Day 330, Sunday May 18th
We head out of Fisher’s Bay very early to get a jump on the
days movement. Turns out it was a dumb
move as the winds were building and scheduled to stay strong in the wrong
direction until about noon. It was
blowing over 12 knots right on the nose.
By noon we had already been underway for 6 hours and were exhausted from
being bashed about. We could not even
make very good headway into the wind and waves under motor, so reefed our main
and our headsail and tacked way out into the bay to keep our speed up. We had planned on making it to Solomon
Island but decide we have to look for alternatives. We decide to head in to Reedville although it
means we only made about 20 miles on our journey to Annapolis. It is an easy anchorage to access, and by
1:00 we have anchored just down the creek from another Caliber 40. We have lunch and launched the dinghy so we
can enjoy wandering around a new town.
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| View of fishing ships as we come into port |
On the way to shore we stop and chat to a fellow couple in their dinghy who own the other Caliber 40. They invite us to drop in later so we agree we will visit after our tour of the town.
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| Julie in front of a bank that has closed down |
Our town tour takes us to the museum which at first we
struggle to access as the doors do not open so we peruse the grounds which have
many boat displays and talk about the fishing and oyster industries. We try the doors again, (all of them), and
with no luck even though the big “open flag” is flying we head off to walk up
the street and take some pictures and making up stories of where the museum employee
has gone and what they are up to that caused them to leave the museum locked
when it was clearly advertised as open.
The walk is quite nice with a number of older homes to look
at boarded by beautiful hard wood and pine trees. We also spot a bluebird which we photograph
so we can confirm it species. We turned
around from our walk and as we were passing the museum we see a car there so
decide to head in and try again. The car
belonged to the curator and he assured us the museum was open and sure enough,
he could work the door. We were greeted
by the 2 employees who had not heard us trying to get in earlier. We paid our entry fee and then enjoyed an
hour being toured around by Linda, through the historical home. Linda was also a sailor who had undertaken
adventures offshore. We also got to see
a video and the many models, and displays of the museum. It really was an excellent museum. The village of Reedville’s economic boom of
fishing Menhaven, continues today and we watched a 12 minute promo video of the
industry which was quite ensightful.
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| Julie with Linda from the museum |
We really have enjoyed many of the small towns, and the many
welcoming people. We have found the
Americans to be super friendly and helpful to us travellers.
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| Gable inn, impressive |
After the museum we head to the dinghy dock restaurant for a
beer to say thanks for letting us tie up to their facilities. Next stop is our boat to grab an appetizer
and a drink to take with us over to “Aurora”, the Caliber 40 in the bay owned
by Lidia and Bob. We have a lovely visit
and tour of their boat. They even invite
us for dinner which we oblige. Lidia and
Bob are from an area just south of Reedville close to Deltaville. Again they show fabulous hospitality inviting
us to join them for dinner aboard Aurora.
We did have an interesting conversation though about gun laws. Julie started that conversation and given it
is a controversial subject we had an interesting conversation. Lidia was also able to provide a different
perspective having been raised in Poland during the communist regime and was
involved in the solidarity movement and escaped as a refugee to the United
States. It reminds us of how our
perspective is developed from our environment and it takes listening to other
situations to sit back and try to understand differing attitudes and
opinions. Needless to say both Lidia and
Bob very much supported the second amendment of the constitution, about the
rights to bear arms (or is it “the right to arm bears?”, Bob was not to
exciting by this comment) based on the ability to defend yourself from Tierney. Having always been raised in a peaceful
democratic country we have never imagined needing guns to protect our rights
from the government. The USA on the
other hand has lived through a war of independence from Britain, and a civil war. Not to say we agree all their points, however
their perspective shed that we have not previously thought about.
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| Jazzebelle at anchor |
We get back to the boat well after boaters midnight, hoist
the dinghy and jump into bed.
Cheers
Julie and DawsonrDay 329, Saturday May 17th
Day 329, Saturday May 17th
 |
| Back with the freighters |
We get off the dock by 8:00 quite easily as the wind is
minimal and the fact that Julie has become very skilled at the helm. We are hoping to be able to sail as the winds
are forecasted from the Northwest and we are going north. Sadly we struggle to keep the sails
full. At least the winds are not too
strong so we make reasonable headway. We
have targeted to make Fisher Bay on the south side of the peninsula Deltaville
is on. By 1:00 we have been bouncing
along into the waves and head west into the anchorage. It takes an hour to reach the dock where we
have decided to purchase a bit more diesel fuel to ensure we don’t run out and
to get a pumpout. There are no workers
around, and no one answering the radio so we tie ourselves up and go to the
office. They tell us it is self service
so we head back to the pumps and put in 30 gallons. Seems weird to fill our own tanks as it is
illegal in Canada but is standard operating procedure in the States and
Bahamas. You would think we would be use
to it by know. Oh well old habits die
hard as they say.
 |
| Got to sail for a while |
Next is the pumpout but the machine says we need a token so
up to the office Dawson goes again and pays for the token and the fuel. Back at the pumpout machine he realizes the
clerk did not provide a token so back up to the office he goes. This time we are ready to go. Again self service on the pumpout. We read the instructions....it seems to kind
of be working, but Dawson calls on the intercom to make sure it is doing its
job and we get the manager out to assist.
Yes, turns out everything is good, and we enjoy chatting to the
manager. In a short time, Dawson has
gleaned the highlights of his life which are interesting.
Back on the boat it is now almost 3:00 and we head for the
anchorage. We have anchored here before
and it is an easy, safe spot. It only
takes 30 minutes to get all organized and we are in relax and domino mode when
we see Braveheart enter the anchorage.
We have not seen Braveheart since Georgetown Exumas in February, but we
quite enjoyed meeting them, particularly Mary who was one of our fellow Bridge
players. Sadly none of us wanted to get
our dinghies disconnected so we just visited using the radio, but it was still
exciting to reconnect after such a long time.
The evening stayed quiet, and we enjoyed a nice glass of
wine with dinner and again called it an early night.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 328, Friday May 16th
Day 328, Friday May 16th
We wake up in Hampton and Dawson starts his day installing
the autohelm part we had delivered to Bluewater Yachting Centre. We are here for 2 nights due to rain and high
winds. We are now 1 day from our
destination in Deltaville. It really
feels we have come full circle now. The
trip is winding down. We tried to keep
the journey north a holiday by not rushing, enjoying towns and time as we went
along, but we both now feel anxious to start another chapter in the book of
life. There is lots of organizing and
planning to put the boat to bed, and transitioning to selling the Sudbury
house, and buying a house and getting moved to Toronto.
The rain starts to fall quite hard around 7 but the high
winds forecasted do not appear, at least where we are. Dawson finishes re-installing our Autohelm
and it checks out so we are both happy to have “Jim” back on board. We had missed him! We
then have an in depth discussion on whether to list Jazzebelle with a broker or
to put her on the hard to sell our selves.
In the end we decide we will contract a broker, one more item to add on
the list of things to do to rejoin the working world.
It rains hard until about 11:00 and then we head to the
library to use the internet. It is about
a 15 minute walk to get there. We spend
about 3 hours reading contracts, blogging, planning, and general
communication. By the time we leave the
library, we are now starting to discuss moving the boat to Annapolis as the
broker we are going to use has recommended a few spots there. Annapolis is about 2 days sail north of
Deltaville. Oh well, the holiday
continues.....
 |
| This is our barking dog! |
 |
| Dawson in front of the Barking Dog |
As we are walking back to the boat a man in a
suburban offers us a lift and we accept it with pleasure. It is these random acts of kindness that
makes the trip for us.
Now it is time for laundry, happy hour and a shower. We stop and chat to some fellow boats, Carol
and Dennis of Calyx who are from Jersey and are docked across from us. This is their 7th year of spending
winters on the boat and going back and forth up the coast. They are departing in the morning up the
Chesapeake as well. Both Dennis and
Carol are 75 years and still sailing strong! They have to get home cause Dennis's mom is not doing well. His 105 year old dad had passed away last year. Wow what longevity. I touched his arm hoping to pass on some health.
A nice dinner, a game, a coffee and off to bed.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Friday, 16 May 2014
Day 327, Thursday May 15th
Day 327, Thursday May 15th
 |
| crossing the state border |
 |
| From peaceful to.... (see next photo) |
Finally the 5 boats are in the locks and being lowered. By 12:05 we are pulling out of the locks and
speeding along for our destination 3 hours upriver. Our destination is Hampton which is the town
we left the USA from last November 4th and did our big passage to
the Bahamas in 5 nights/6 days. It just
took us a month to get back here by hopping up the coast.
 |
| Getting grey out |
The weather continues to deteriorate. We are able to put up the jib as the winds
are behind us. By 15:00 we have reached
the channel that marks the entrance into Hampton and our safe haven for the
next 2 nights. We dock safely in a tight
spot, which may be a challenge to get out of.....worry about that later.
 |
| Can't get under this bridge, we have to wait |
By the time we get stuff put away, go see the dockmaster,
Dawson picks up his part, we have a happy hour, it is time for dinner so we treat
ourselves to the on-site restaurant which has a fabulous broiled seafood
platter. Julie certainly enjoys her
choice of food.
Back at the boat we continue our banter about whether to
sell the boat. Sadly we don’t see
ourselves adventuring for many years on an extended basis so have decided to
sell Jazzebelle as it is unfair to leave her in drydock for extended periods
and she is too much boat to bring north for weekend sailing, and lastly, next
trip we would like to start the trip further south. It was a very long way bringing the boat all
the way from Canada’s great lakes.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
Day 326 Wednesday, May 14th
Day 326, Wednesday May 14th
 |
| Fuelling marina |
We set out after a leisurely breakfast and a run for Dawson
from Elizabeth City which is about 50 miles south of Norfolk. There is not much to the town to justify us
staying for a second night even though they have free dockage. We decide we will head into the Dismal Swamp
and spend a night there instead. The
Dismal swamp is not named very well. It
is absolutely beautiful and pristine.
The reflections on the water and the sweet smell of flowers permeate the
air. It is a beautiful ride as we cruise
along using the iron genny.
 |
| The channel called the Dismal swamp |
The first
stop however before we get into the swamp is at Lamb’s marina for some diesel
fuel. We pull into a creek and see the
marina, but no one is answering the radio and we don’t see where the fuel docks
are. Since there is no wind and current,
we just sit at the entrance way and Dawson stands on the deck yelling to shore
asking where we should go. We don’t want
to go down a narrow fairway (channel between docked boats) and get to a
shallow, narrow dead end. Someone yells
a direction to go and assures us there is lots of water depth so we proceed
forward. We have no choice, we need fuel
and this is the only spot. Makes us
wonder why we did not get fuel at an easy spot.
Oh well, so far so good. We go
about 400 meters and see the end of the fairway and yes it is a tight fit to
turn around and get situated at the docks, but we manage like pros. It really helps with no wind, as we just nose
up the bow and throw a midship line and they pull us over.
 |
| Looking over the stern |
Once fuelled we head off, the take off goes well as Dawson
pushes out the bow, jumps on the stern and Julie manoeuvres the vessel off the
dock and in the right direction.
 |
| First lock in a long time |
Shortly after leaving the fuel docks, we encounter our first set of locks (there are 2 in this canal). It is scheduled to open in about 20 minutes so we mill about. The lock tender comes over to tell us he will lower the water level so he can open the doors and we will get a bit of turbulence that will just "push us back". Well, since he was so calm about it we figured this was status quo and waited to be "pushed back". Sure enough a current of water came and started pushing us but we headed for the shore. By the time we realized corrective action was required we were angled 45 degrees and heading for shore. Julie guns the boat and tries to straighten her out, but is still heading for shore.
We hear the noise of branches scraping overhead as we gain control and angle away from shore, but not before a bunch of small branches and leaves have laid a layer of brush on the deck, in the cockpit, on the bimini and doger. No damage as it was the backstay that moved the branches that shed on us. A bit annoying though. Had the lock tender not indicated we would just "float back" we would have backed up and been more ready. Lesson learned!
 |
| leaves and branches on dodger and bimini |
We spend the next 4 hours enjoying the ride. When we arrive to our destination at the
Dismal Swamp visitor centre there is no room at the seawall, but another boat
has rafted so it looks like the order of the day. We hail “Field Trip” and they welcome us to
raft along. Bob and Martha are very
welcoming in allowing us to cross over their boat to shore.  |
| Julie on the bike trail |
It is now 15:00 and we want to see some of
the State Park so we head across the canal to the museum and are able to rent
bikes for an hour. It is 15:30 by the
time are bums are in the seats so we have only 1 hour until the bikes need to
be returned. We giv’er, as they
say. The path is mainly hardpack, but
with some potholes and sandy spots. We
manage to bike 9.5 miles round trip. We
see a racoon on the path, 5 turkeys (2 sightings), lots of greenery, some
birds, a still, some kind of historical skiff, some still green water, and that
is about it. The biking is fun, feels
good to get the cardio going. This is
only our 3rd time on bikes the whole trip. Last time was last November at Hope Town in
the Abacos. Next time for sure we will
bring bikes with us, even though they will become rust buckets in a year of
use.
 |
| Dawson pulled over at the old still |
Back to the boat, we cook up a fabulous dinner, have a game
of King’s cribbage and head to bead for an early night.
Cheers
 |
| Colour sketch of Dawson on the trail |
Julie and Dawson
Day 325, Tuesday May 13th
Day 325, Tuesday May 13th
As predicted last night was very calm and we had a restful
night. We slept in later than planned
and lots of boats had already upped anchor.
We still were underway by 7:00 a.m., but had planned on a 6 a.m. departure.
Oh well, schedule really does not matter, yet. There are lots of anchorages where we are
going, however we were hoping to get one of the free docks at Elizabeth City
which is 75 miles away.
We are on day 8 of actually traveling the ICW although it
seems a lot longer, having taken 2 days off in Wrightville Beach, 2 days in
Beaufort and 8 days in Oriental.
Today our speed is a bit slower, there is no current to help
us. Luckily no current against us
either. We typically have been going
about 8 statute miles per hour, but today only slightly more than 7.
We travel the Alligator-Pongo channel which is cut through
some marshland in the middle of North Carolina nowhere. A few homes, but not many. We did not see any alligators either. There are crab pots everywhere. We have to dodge around them for hours to avoid fouling the engine. Turns out mid May is the start of crabbing season so everyone has their pots out.
 |
| Pretty flowers for the boaters |
 |
| Dawson in front of the spot the Wright Bros. got interviewed |
As we arrived at the docks there were members of the community
to catch our lines. They were very
welcoming and friendly. Julie was called
to the park area in front of the docks to receive her roses. The greeters cut fresh roses for all the
arriving boaters. Very nice. We headed into town for a beer and an
appetizer on the waterfront and caught a bit of the history. The
community is fairly small, but we managed to find a suitable spot. After an hour or so we headed back to the
boat for our Ceasar salads and an early night.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
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