I was able to travel to Zadar, Croatia this past week for work. It was fantastic.  I absolutely cannot wait to travel back when Lisa and I are retired and sailing around the world.  I didn't get to do any sailing during the trip, but from what I've seen around the city and the waters surrounding it, I would guess it is fantastic sailing.  If you are spending time in the Adriatic you should make a stop here.

The ancient city of Zadar was settled as far back as 9th century BC and is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Croatia.  Zadar is situated along the Dalmatian coast and has the Mediterranean climate you expect from places like Italy and the French Rivera.  I spent most of my time walking around the "Old City".  This is a walled city that has buildings dating back through the ages.  There are a few open air markets scattered about and many restaurants offering sidewalk seating so you can enjoy the comfortable breezes while you partake in a variety of Mediterranean fare.  Fresh seafood is the standard course throughout Zadar, and with good reason.  The people of Croatia have been fishing the Mediterranean for centuries, and it shows.  There are people still spear fishing right off the seawalls.  While the abundant history is a great attraction, there are more than a few modern sights along the water.  The Monument to the Sun consists of 300 glass plates right on the stone-paved waterfront that represents the Sun and other planets of the solar system.  At night the glass lights up producing a show of light.  Adjacent to the Monument to the Sun is another recent addition to the spectacular waterfront.  The Sea Organ was opened on 15 April 2005 and consists of a series of tubes located underneath the marble steps that run to the water.  As the tide comes in and out pressure creates different notes via the air being pushed up the tubes, much like the popular blowholes in the Caribbean.  
 
Click the link to see a short video of the sights around the city of  Zadar.  If you've been to Croatia sailing please let me know the places you enjoyed the most so we can plan our return trip.

​I was in Nairobi, Kenya for work last week.  Unfortunately I was only able to spend three days in Nairobi.  Sometimes these trips are too fast.  With doing all the things I was being paid to do, it didn’t leave much time for sightseeing.  Most of my photos are sadly from the window of a moving car.
 
Nairobi is the capitol of Kenya with a population of around 3.1 million people.  One of its well known attractions is the Nairobi National Park, which I unfortunately didn’t have any time to see.  The city has many things to do during the day and night.  You have your pick from safaris, restaurants, golf, rugby, soccer, and many other events.  Everything that can be found in a large city is here.   They just have the added benefit of giraffe, wildebeest, monkeys, and other animals right around the corner in the National Park.
 
I flew into Nairobi and stayed at the Tribe Hotel.  This is a very nice hotel with an expansive shopping mall only 100 yards away.  The hotel and grounds were beautiful and contained their own pool and waterfalls.
 
When we arrived we met James, our driver for the trip.  He was gracious enough to give us lots of information on the city as we traveled around for work.  We did find time for one quick stop at city park so I could feed some of the monkeys and walk through the park on our way back from work.
 
We didn’t have much time for the local cuisine either since we were in and out after only a couple days.  We stopped by the Mediterraneo, had some shrimp and a Tusker beer.  We also found time for some local fare at Ranalo Foods.  I got the BBQ and James ordered the fish.  Apparently the owners of the Ranalo grew up in Kenya and are avid fishermen.  All the food was delicious.
 
It’s disappointing the trip was so short.  I’ll have to look into sailing into Mombasa while we’re on our circumnavigation and try to talk James and his family to come down to our boat so I can return the favor of hosting him while we’re there.  Hopefully we’ll see them soon.

I was travelling again for work and ended up in Philadelphia PA for a few days.  The current city is so much more than William Penn could have ever imagined.  With over a million and a half residents this colorful  city is a collection of some 109 neighborhoods, all with their distinct character.

With all the different neighborhoods it is difficult not to find some great food for whatever you are craving.  Along Benjamin Franklin Parkway there are numerous restaurants which my taste buds had the pleasure of trying a few.  Of course I couldn't leave the city without getting a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich.  A good friend of mine came down for a few hours to visit and we stopped by Con Murphy's Irish Pub for a pint and some good grub.  I got a great Philly cheese steak and Greg got a pot pie.  Who goes to Philly and doesn't get a cheese steak? We hung out for awhile enjoying a couple beers then walked around the city for awhile.  It's always great seeing old friends. 

Most of my time was spent in and around Logan Square.  The large parks, and ornate architecture can make people stop to take notice.  Walking along Benjamin Franklin Parkway you will pass some amazing places; the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Rodin Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia City Hall, and the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.

The Museum of Art is a great attraction in its own right, but it is most likely known for the "Rocky Steps" and the bronze statue.  The statue has since been moved off to the side of the art museum, but remains on the museum grounds.  During peak hours you have to wait in line to get a picture as it still draws crowds to this day.  A quick picture and a run up the steps are major attractions in Philly.

The Rodin museum was first opened in 1929 and after a recent extensive renovation it is very similar to what visitors would have experienced the opening year.  Many of Rodin's famous works are on display in and around the museum.  The Burghers of Calais and The Thinker are on display outside for everyone's enjoyment.  There are over 120 of Rodin's sculptures at this museum and you should give this attraction some serious thought.

Philadelphia City Hall is the largest municipal building the United States has to offer.  Like most large government undertakings, this building was either deemed the marble monstrosity or the marble masterpiece.  During its 30 year construction there was a heated debate over scope of the design and costs of such an elaborate building.  Alexander Calder created over 250 sculptures to include the 36' tall statue of William Penn atop the building.  At 548' Philadelphia City Hall was the tallest building in the city until 1987 and it offers breath taking views.  You can purchase tickets at 15 minute intervals for less than $10 and take the elevator all the way to William Penn's feet.
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I enjoyed my time in Philadelphia and am looking forward to heading back to see more of the city.  If you're travelling the East coast you can read about our NYC trip here.

We attended the Miami Boat show this year.  It worked out really well since the week before we had a blast with friends on a Carnival Cruise that was based out of Miami.  So we got off the boat checked into our hotel and explored Miami for a few days before the sailboat show.
 
Overall we weren’t impressed with Miami.  I know some people love the area but our experience wasn’t all that great.  We stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacations at McAlpin-Ocean Plaza.  It was a nice 2 bedroom suite that was just across from the beach.  The location was perfect and the hotel would provide beach towels to take with you to the beach free of charge.  There were several restaurants immediately around the hotel.  The weather was as good as you’d expect, but traffic was as bad as NYC, parking was more expensive, and the public bus transportation was a little confusing to someone not from the area.  The public transportation web site and signs at the bus stops list routes with numbers, 103, 120, etc. however the buses have letter designations.  I passed on our bus a couple times because I didn’t realize the “C” bus was the 103.  To make things even better the “S” bus took us home.  Most things were minor irritants taken in isolation, but the transportation and several small things during our stay just left a sour taste in our mouth.  I’m sure we’ll give it another try when we’re sailing around, but so far it was disappointing.
 
The first day of the show a military friend of mine, Brad, came down to see us and the boat show.  He’s a sport fisherman so he was looking at the power boat show most of the day while Lisa and I hit up the Strictly Sail Show.  We had lunch at Whiskey Joes and Brad ran into George Poveromo and was able to meet him and grab a picture.  Needless to say Brad had a great time.
 
While we were at the sail show we toured the Maverick 440, Bossa Nova.  It is a nice boat and had a lot of attributes, but  I think we are going to stick with the FP 40 Lucia.  The Antares 44i Ona was at the show and is currently for sale.  Unfortunately even a newer used Antares is a little out of our budget.  Antares does produce some spectacular  liveaboards.  If you have money to burn you must check out their boats they are the gold standard for catamarans.
 
The next day we returned to the show and were able to get aboard the new FP 40 Lucia.  My biggest heartache with the entire FP line is the helm location.  They have the helm raised above the hard top bimini.  While you can enclose this raised helm, it is not as weatherproof as the one level hard top the  Antares and Maverick makes for their boats.  The raised helm also obscures the aft starboard hull unless you are standing up and almost all the way outboard.  However, all boats are compromises and overall the Lucia is a fantastic boat that will more than make us happy as we safely and comfortably circumnavigate the globe for our retirement.  We’ll post more about the boat and purchase process as we get closer to sail away time.
 
Friday we had some time before we met up with one of Lisa’s friends from work who was hanging out in Miami.  We sat in on a few of the free seminars provided by the Strictly Sail show.  First was a brief on the America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association by Kimberly Russo.  This was an informative brief on the Great Loop that covers the East Coast ICW, Great Lakes, Mississippi, and Gulf Coast.  This brief has given me some ideas on our route after moving aboard our boat.  I didn’t really consider this route before the brief.  I didn’t think it would be feasible with a 40’ catamaran, but now this may be a very good possibility.  We may spend a year doing this route before we start our worldwide circumnavigation.  This will allow us some time to get familiar with our boat, shake it down  and spend some time home in Cincinnati before we sail away. 
 
We also sat in on a Basic Diesel Maintenance seminar by Carl Schlemmer and Doug Dykens.  This was alright if you’ve never seen a diesel engine before and don’t know they come with manuals.  The synopsis is, your boat has a diesel engine and check the manual for the maintenance schedule.
 
The last free seminar we attended was on preparing your boat for a long cruise by Tom Hale.  This was pretty good and covered a lot of material on:  communications, provisioning, navigation, and many other subjects.  There was a lot of ideas and considerations covered that people can easily overlook when planning for an extended cruise.
 
After our day at the show was finished we met up with Cheryl, Lisa’s friend from work.  While she was back at Bragg working, Lisa was off playing in the Caribbean and looking at new boats.  So she decided to head down to Florida to see, not only us but her husband Mike who is taking a course to get his fixed wing ratings.  He has been staying just a little North of Miami flying around and having fun.  We met them at our hotel and had dinner at Madero.  The food was fine, but at least we had some good conversation.  After they headed back home for the night Lisa and I went upstairs and started packing for our trip home.
 
The next day we started the long drive home, but the trip wasn’t complete without stopping by Cracker Barrel and seeing Brad again, along with his wife and kids for breakfast.  We hung out for a while catching up on their new jobs and living the post-military life.  I can’t wait.  We’ll have to swing by their new place with our boat in a couple years.
 
The Miami Boat Show was actually two shows in one this year; the Strictly Sail Show and the Miami International Boat show.  The venues were spread out between Biscayne Bay and the Miami Marine Stadium area on Virginia Key.  The Boat show had water taxis and shuttle busses set up throughout the city connecting the two shows and all the associated parking locations.  We took public transportation from our room to the show and then water taxi rides between the two shows.  The average wait for the water taxi was about 20 minutes and the ride between the shows took about 15 minutes.  The Biscayne Bay area was much better for amenities.  There were plenty of local shops and restaurants, but the Power Boat show had many more marine vendors.  Albeit they were geared toward power boats.    If you are looking at seeing both shows you really need a full day for each one.  The boat show was a success, as we found our retirement boat. In comparison to the other show's we've attended, the Miami boat show is huge, especially with the power boat section; however,  I think the October Annapolis show is a little bigger.  The Miami show is a lot bigger than San Francisco or the Spring show in Annapolis.
 
So far we have been to the Strictly Sail Pacific in San Francisco, Annapolis Spring and Fall Shows, and the Miami International Show.  If I had to rank them from best and largest to smallest it would be Annapolis Fall show, Miami Strictly Sail show, Strictly Sail Pacific, and then the Spring Annapolis Sail Show.  All are good venues to check out new toys, but if you can only make one make it the Annapolis Fall show.
 
It was a great vacation and a great thing about military life is you seem to have friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing.  The last two weeks we linked up with three different friends we’ve met  since our time in the service.  

​A friend of mine from Colorado loves to take Carnival cruise vacations and he talked us into one a couple years ago and we went again this year with him and his family.  We took an 8 day cruise through the windward islands of the Caribbean.  Our first stop was in Grand Turk where we had 8 hours to check out the island.  Lisa bought us some snorkel gear for Valentine’s Day and we opened it up a little early so we could check out the sea life near the beaches of Grand Turk.  We could have had better sights if we took an excursion but even just around the beach we saw a lot of small fish and the shallow water had hundreds of conch shells on the sea floor.  The next day we cruised into San Juan, Puerto Rico.  With our snorkeling completed in Grand Turk we decided to take a walk through the town and up to Castillo San Felipe del Morro.  El Morro is still an imposing structure that guards the entrance to San Juan.  Original construction began in 1539 and el Morro has been nearly continuously upgraded over the years and comprises over 70 acres.
 
Our next stop was St. Kitts.  Neither one of us has been zip lining but we were able to check that off our bucket list in St. Kitts.  We booked an afternoon with Sky Safari Zip Lining.  Their tour encompasses 5 total zip lines.  A trainer line to get everyone familiar with their system and the zip line as well as preparing you for the stop at the end of each zip. There are 4 other zip lines that range from 10’-250’ off the ground.  The lines allow speeds up to 80 km/hr.  The tour started with a block of instruction and a ride on the training zip line.  Then our group jumped in the back of a pickup truck for the ride to the top of the mountain.  Our guides “Cheesecake” and “Gorgeous” were fantastic and made the trip easy and entertaining.
 
The last port of call was St. Maarten.  Here we did what we love doing, we went sailing.  We booked an excursion with the America’s Cup Regatta.  We sailed the 12 meter 1987 Stars and Stripes US-55.  Lisa was tasked as one of the 4 Primary Grinders and I was the Backstay Grinder.  The ship’s Captain was CPT Morgan, yes really, CPT Morgan.  And yes, he’s heard it before.  He and his 2 man crew were incredible during the sail making sure everyone was doing the correct things at the right time to ensure we were getting all the speed out of the boat we could.  The race consisted of 4 laps around the course and lasted about an hour including our training time.  We ended up losing to Canada II, but I was offered the chance to take the helm on the way back to the drop off point and gladly accepted.  Sailing an America’s cup boat off the coast of St. Maarten is something I’m not likely to forget anytime soon.
 
While sailing an America’s Cup racing boat is pretty awesome, I found out about another great event to make your Caribbean cruise fantastic if you own a motorcycle.  ETA Motorcycle Cruises LLC will arrange for you to take your own bike on the cruise with you.  They arrange for storage on the boat, gas, customs fees, and escorts around the islands you explore during your cruise.  Ever want to drive your bike over the gangplank from a cruise ship then tour beautiful Caribbean islands?  Now you can.  If I wasn’t going to be selling everything and sailing away, this would be at the top of my vacation list.
 
Cruising on a Carnival Cruise ship with 3000 of my closest friends is nice, but I can’t wait to see the same islands again from our boat and enjoy the tranquility of Caribbean.

I had traveled to Bratislava, Slovakia for work and was able to see some of the sites around town.  Bratislava has a storied past.  It is currently the seat of power for the country of Slovakia.  Those of you a little older may still remember the country of Czechoslovakia.   Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into Czech and Slovakia in what was known as the Velvet divorce.  This parting of Czech and Slovakia was decided after the overthrow of Communism in 1989 with the Velvet Revolution.  Soon after their independence, Michal Kovac was elected President of Slovakia and their country has continued to progress ever since. 
 
I was able to visit Bratislava castle which sits upon a hilltop overlooking the Danube River.  This castle has been restored and hosts a museum that details history of the castle and the surrounding town of Bratislava.  The castle provides a great view of the city and you can see the UFO Bridge & Tower.  This bridge spans the West and East sides of Bratislava and is the 7th largest hanging bridge in the world.  A 45 second elevator ride can take you to the top observation deck where you can dine at the restaurant or simply take in the great views.  There are great parks and pathways along either side of the Danube.  These are great for the evening stroll or keeping in shape with a quick jog along the river banks. 
 
A few blocks from the Eastern river walk, sits St. Martin’s Cathedral.  This is the largest, as well as, one of the oldest churches in Bratislava.  This church held 19 coronations when it was under the control of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1563 through 1830.
 
The city is festooned with many statues.  Perhaps the most photographed is Cumil “the watcher”.  This bronze statue of a man poking out of a manhole cover was created in June of 1997 by Viktor Hulik.  Rumors surround the statues intentions.  Perhaps he is the stereotypical communist era worker that is more concerned with watching the world go by than his actual work.  Or, he is simply being creative and gaining the best view of the beautiful ladies of Bratislava as they pass by in their flowing dresses. 
 
While this land locked destination won’t be on the stopping list for most cruisers, it would make a great destination if you have time to travel overland through Europe.  Bratislava is located on the Danube, so it could be possible to make the journey along the river with the right boat. 
 
What did you think of your trip to Bratislava?  Is it on your “to see” list?

​We were relaxing in the hotel and getting ready for a long night at Times Square.  If you’re going to try and see the ball drop for NYE you need to be prepared for a long day, especially if you want to be up close to all the action with the cool kids.  Times Square starts filling up around noon and when each section is filled the NYPD will block off a section of the street.  Once you’re in, you’re in—think of a heard of corralled cattle.  If you leave to go eat or use the restroom you lose your spot.  The surrounding restaurants will sell party passes that you can purchase to stay around Times Square, however we’re not loaded and we stopped keeping up with the Joneses a few years ago.  Instead we opted to eat dinner at McHale’s Irish Pub at 5pm.  We hung out until around 8pm when the restaurant started to fill up.  From there we had to travel up to 52nd street and enter the party pens, that is what I called them at least.  The NYPD keeps everyone behind barricades during the celebration for the anticipated ball drop.  As the closer pens clear out from people succumbing to their needs and finding a restroom or a drink they will allow partiers to go from pen to pen making their way closer to Times Square.  By the time the ball dropped Lisa and I had made our way to 49th Street.  Keep in mind the ball drops at 45th.  Even though we were four NYC blocks from Times Square we could still see the ball.  It is surprisingly small when you see it in person.  Almost immediately after midnight the crowds disappear and we were no exception.  I think we were asleep by midnight 30. 
 
The next morning we woke up, grabbed breakfast at the hotel and drove out of town.  We drove by Times Square on the way out of the Lincoln Tunnel back to North Carolina.  The drive out of NYC at 7 am on January first was great.  There were only a few cabs driving around, as opposed to the bumper to bumper traffic we had going into the city.
 
We enjoyed the NYC trip and can’t wait to go back on our sailboat to see it all from the water.  We didn’t get to see everything since there is so much to offer, but we’ll be back someday.  The traffic is horrible nearly any time of day, except early on 01 January.  The subway was a great way to get around town.  We bought a couple passes with $20 on them.  Each trip runs $2.75 so it was more than enough for us to get around town and see the sites during our three day trip.  If you pick up a subway map it’s pretty easy to figure out the system and plan where to transfer trains.  I thought it would be cheaper to drive and it was, just not as much as I thought it would be.  Parking was $42 a day at the hotel.  We paid around $60 in tolls to get from North Carolina to NYC and back.  Airline tickets for 2 would have been about double what we paid to drive round trip and I wouldn’t have to sit in the car for a full day each way.  Live and learn I guess.

You can check out a little video of our time in NYC here.

Lisa’s birthday was on the 29th and I wanted to do something special, as I always do, because I’m awesome.  Being so close to NYC, I decided to surprise Lisa with the Broadway show Wicked, on Broadway.  I’m not a big play guy, because you know, I’m a man.  But, Lisa loves the arts, whatever that means.  If I was going to take her to a show I figured I’d do it right and go to NYC.  With her birthday being so close to New Year’s Eve we made a week of it and stayed in the city to watch the ball drop.
 
I didn’t let Lisa know what her birthday gift was and she was guessing every stop during our drive to NYC.  She was able to whittle it down to NYC after passing Baltimore and guessed it was a show in NYC. When we arrived to the hotel Lisa and I got showered up and went looking for something to eat.  Gotham Pizza was right across the street from our Hampton hotel so we stopped by there before our show.  We had tickets to the 8pm show of Wicked at the Gershwin Theater.  I was actually surprised that I enjoyed the show.  Not enough to spend the money on tickets again, but it wasn’t a horrible experience.  We had middle seats in row K.  They were some of the best seats in the theater.  The lead characters Elphaba, and Glinda were great.  Glinda made it entertaining and was hysterical in several  scenes of the show.
 
The next day we took the subway around Manhattan.  For our first stop we went down to see the WTC memorial.  We were able to see the outside memorial pools with plans to tour the inside.  The line was about two hours long though.  We decided to skip the inside and went looking for some lunch.  We went to Stage Door Delicatessen since it was close to the WTC memorial.  Lisa and I got a slice of pizza upstairs before jumping back on the subway uptown to Central Park.  We transferred from the E train to the B train and got off at Cathedral Parkway, 110th Street station.  We wanted to start at the North end and walk our way back to our hotel.  We started in the North Woods working our way past The Pool, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, The Belvedere Castle, and ended at Bow Bridge.  We got a hot sausage and some toasted almonds from the street vendors in the park.  By the time we made it to Bow Bridge we decided that Central Park is a whole lot longer than it appears in the movies and took the subway from 72nd street back down to 50th to our hotel with plans to finish the South end of the park the next day.
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On the 31st we changed our minds and skipped the South end of Central Park.  Instead we jumped on the subway to see Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Empire State Building, and Madison Square Garden (which is surprisingly round).  We didn’t go up to any of the observation decks as, we’re poor and the lines are atrocious.  If it’s a tourist attraction in NYC during the holidays and you don’t pay for expedited service, plan on standing in lines for hours to see anything.  The WTC, Empire State building and Rockefeller Center all had lines wrapped around the buildings, and the buildings are huge.  After our subway ride to our hotel we stopped at another pizza place, Famous Amadeus Pizza.  There really is a pizza place on almost every corner in NYC.  Out of the three, Famous Amadeus was the best.
 
Stay tuned to see how New Year’s Eve went.

I have been traveling for work for a few weeks and haven’t had time to make it to the boat.  I was in Ukraine for awhile for work and this left Lisa to take care of everything at home like she normally does when I’m gone.  She’s always done well with me being deployed and taking care of the house and everything else back in the States.  Now she also has the task of maintaining and checking up on our boat while I’m off globetrotting. 
 
Like most things, the boat doesn’t like sitting around lonely at the dock.  It likes to be ran and worked out.  Since I was going to be away for three weekends this was Lisa’s responsibility to tend to.  She drove down on the weekend to check on the boat with Sophia.  She ran up the engine and was going to take it out but the winds weren’t cooperating and she didn’t want to just go motoring around Oriental so stayed tied up at the dock, relaxed and enjoyed the unseasonably sunny warm days.  It’s a tough job but someone has to do it.  She was enjoying 70 degree temps while I was living it up with 34 degrees and rainy.  She unfortunately didn’t take any pictures so feel free to ridicule her for her lack of media savvy.
 
I was working in Lviv, Ukraine and was lucky enough to have a couple days off during my stay.  I took advantage and toured some of the city.  My hotel was right in downtown Lviv next to Rynok Square so it was easy to get around and see some of the sites.  I took a walk up to the top of the Lviv town clock tower.  It is about 4-500 steps up to the top for a great panoramic view of the city.  I also walked up to High Castle Hill.  This was about a 5 mile round trip and climb up another large staircase to see all of Lviv.  There are street performers all over the Square providing entertainment.  Since it was near Christmas the Lviv Christmas market was in full swing with lots of booths selling different food and souvenirs.  I was eating out every night as my hotel room didn’t have a kitchenette.  I had Ukrainian, Greek, Italian, and American food.  One of the highlights was TEX MEX BBQ.  This place is run by an American ex-pat in the heart of Lviv.  I usually try to experience local food and eschew “American” restaurants when I travel, but because I was in the area so long I tried out TEX MEX.  This place is outstanding and I ended up eating there three times.  I tried the Tex, the Mex, and the BBQ and all were fantastic.  Michael is a character and is usually found walking around interacting with all his customers when he’s not in the back cooking, as he is the owner and head chef.  It is amazing when people work so hard and accept the challenge to start a business.  It’s crazy when they decide to do it outside the US as an ex-pat.  If your travels take you through Western Ukraine you should definitely stop by and see him.

We wanted to end the Summer sailing season right.  Lisa and I drove down to Oriental Thursday after work and dropped off Sophia at the Pet Parlor for boarding and grooming while we went to play on the boat all weekend.

After getting Sophia settled we dropped off our luggage at the boat, started the air conditioner and turned on the newly installed refrigerator.  We just had a cold plate installed in the ice box and now we no longer need to buy bags of ice every weekend.  It actually gets cold enough to keep frozen items frozen, if they’re right next to the cold plate…Brrrrr.

Once our baggage was secure we left for Walmart to get provisions for the weekend.  A working stove and ice cold fridge allow us a lot more options for staying and eating onboard and we were going to make the most of it.

Friday we woke an hour before sunrise to get a head start on the crowd heading to Cape Lookout.  With it being a long weekend we knew it was going to get crowded.  We showered, ate breakfast and started the engine to pull out into the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW).  The trip down the ICW was a smooth ride passing under a couple 65’ bridges and a raised railroad bridge before making it to the Atlantic to sail over to Cape Lookout.

When we pulled into Cape Lookout we anchored on the North side of the bay in 8’ of water.  We dropped anchor and backed down to ensure it was set since we were planning on staying all night.  I grabbed the snorkel and jumped in to check the anchor, look for shells and start getting some of the barnacles off the bottom of the boat.  Lisa grabbed a kayak, her treasure wand (metal detector) and headed for the beach.  She found three cans buried in the beach.  It wasn’t quite the treasure she was wanting but she did find something.

When she paddled back to the boat Harry and Alisha were pulled up and tied to our stern.  They stopped by to say hi and see what we were up to for the weekend.  About 30 minutes into their visit Harry let me know that the depth finder in his dingy was reading 3.5’.   This was about the time we also noticed the boat was no longer really swinging with the current.  That’s right we were stuck in the mud.  Luckily for us sailboats are built pretty well.  The water eventually went out another foot before the tide turned and started coming back in.  We ended up listing almost 20 degrees at low tide.  After waking that morning at 5:30 we were now tiredly waiting for the tide to return.  I think we broke free around 2230.  So Lisa and I are now free and moving around Cape Lookout in the middle of the night trying to drop anchor again.  This is made a little more difficult by our chart plotter.  Apparently the designers at Standard Horizon didn’t think to put a dim switch on their chartplotter.  Lisa was struggling to see me up at the bow while looking past the blinding light of the plotter.  We did get set securely on the second pass to drop the anchor.  Once we were set again, this time in 15’ of water, we cleaned up the boat and crashed for the night.

The next day we woke again at 0600 so we could head back to Morehead city and pick up Debbie and Dale, one of Lisa’s co-workers.  We pulled into the Morehead Gulf Docks to grab a couple gallons of fuel and pick up our friends.  Oh, but not so fast.  First while transiting the narrow channel Lisa was making a 180 turn back to the dock and took her eyes off the depth finder for a minute while trying to avoid a hobbie cat and ran us aground.  Yep, two times in one trip.  This time though we stopped the boat immediately.  Well, the boat stopped anyway.  Lisa put in just a bit of reverse and I ran to the bow to try and rock the boat.  We were also helped by a couple speed boats that came at the right time with the right wake and we rocked the bow down, Lisa felt the boat break free and gave it some gas in reverse.  We were free again.  We were only stuck for about 3 minutes this time around.  It was becoming a rough weekend.
 
We picked up Debbie and Dale and all the desserts Debbie’s mother made for us.  After getting topped off on fuel again we set sail back for Cape Lookout.  It ended up being a great morning sail.  The sun was peeking out making it not too hot and a nice 10-15 knot wind.  We had the main and jib out up to the entrance of the channel.  While we were furling in the jib the jib furling line tore.  Luckily it didn’t break completely.  The outer cover split leaving the core still intact.  I went forward to coax it through the blocks so Dale and I could get the sail furled.

After fixing the latest issue we motored back into Cape Lookout and anchored back near our midnight anchor spot.  We set the anchor again and we all got into the water for a little while.  The wind was a bit stronger though and it wasn’t really kayak weather so we hung out on the boat ate, drank and splashed around the water.  I double checked the keel bolts and dove under to look at the keel and rudder.  There was no damage, but I’m glad I checked.    Sinking due to damage to the hull is generally frowned upon while sailing.  It was great having guests for the weekend but as most weekends go it ended too soon.  We woke early, but not early enough.  With the refrigerator running I wanted to get up at 0530 to start the engine and recharge the batteries.  Unfortunately I didn’t hear the alarm and woke up around 0700.  This was apparently too long for the batteries.  We couldn’t get the diesel to turn over.  We called TowboatUS for a jump and after waiting an hour they arrived, jumped us and we were on our way again.  We dropped off our friends back in Morehead City and motored back home to Oriental.

We cleaned up the boat slept through the night and picked up Sophia on the way back home.  It was a great end to the summer sailing season.  Even though we had a few issues we got to know the boat and build some confidence with problem solving while on the boat.  The grounding was stressful at first but there really was no danger of damage or injury.  We just waited for the tide or backed off the sandbar.  I will have to replace yet another line but so goes sailing.