12/27/2010 in Florida

I am in Florida for the Holidays with the boat at the dock in St. Thomas at Crown Bay Marina.  The family had a great Christmas in Mt. Dora.  Nicki and I will fly down to St. Thomas for some more island cruising on January 11th.  Nicki does not have a return ticket yet, so she may decide she likes the warm weather.  Most of the pictures are from when Erin visited the Islands for a week.  I will post more when we return to the Islands, but they will be spaced out erratically.  Internet access is limited.

                                   Erin on a trail on St. Johns Island

                                 Dave at a Sugar Mill ruin

                                        A waterfall on St. Johns Island

                                 Some of the wildlife we ran into on a trail.

                                          Another Sugar Mill Ruin

                                 They like their loud colors in the BVI

                                  Erin in front of one of the caves at Treasure Point.

                                     After snorkeling at treasure point.

                              The Indians rocks, a snorkel spot in the BVI.

                               Erin on one of the nearly deserted beaches.

                                           On the Billy T boat bar.

                                  Our new house in Mt. Dora, FL

The family photo in Florida

ST. Thomas, USVI

The crew has all gone home and Erin has arrived for a one week stay.  After that I go to Florida for Christmas and New Years and then back to St. Thomas with Nicki.

This is the crest of one of the large waves that helped push us to the islands.  As you can see the crests are far apart, but when in between crests you can not see anything but the front of one and the back of the other.

These are the motorcycles we rented to tour St. Thomas

                                     Another rough day in the office.

Kyle with a Conch that he picked up, cooked and ate.

The group at Foxy's Restaurant on Jost Van Dyke

Another sunset while anchored in a bay.

The crew on their last day in the Virgin Islands

The dinghy



Honeymoon Bay, USVI. 11/20/10

Just another day in paradise.  We spent the day in Honeymoon bay, snorkeling and swimming.  There is a small bar on the beach that Jim and Karen went to for an evening cocktail.  Today we plan to go to Christmas cove, where the snorkeling is supposed to be very good. 

St. Thomas, USVI, 11-19-10

We made it to St. Thomas in 10 days.  The wind was behind us the whole way.  The waves were big but rolling.  We only had one 2 hour spell of 40 knot winds behind us.  The rest of the way it was 15 to 30 knots and a very nice ride.  The traditional easterly winds did not kick in until we arrived in St. Thomas.  The weather is great, but I have very limited access to the internet.  All is well. 

11-4-2010, Norfolk.VA

The boat has been in Norfolk for two weeks now.  The winds are out of the South today.  Hurricane Tomas is still close to Hatti and is projected to move North from there.  We plan to leave Norfolk tomorrow morning.  We will be heading South instead of SE toward St. Thomas.  By Monday we expect Hurricane Tomas will be well North of our position.  I have a Satellite phone to keep in contact with Nicki and/or Steve for daily updates on the weather.  We also have a SSB receiver to pick up broadcast weather information.  We expect to have a NW wind for the next two or three days.  This will probably be my last update until we get to St. Thomas, unless we are forced back to the coast due to bad weather.


                             All is well in the marina the night before departure

The Battleship Wisconsin

The Nauticus Museum and Battleship Wisconsin that we toured while in Norfolk

A ship in Chesapeake Bay Harbor

Kyle flirting with the locals

10-24,25,26 Norfolk, VA

The boat is in Norfolk, VA with Kyle.  Jim and I both flew home until next week, the official end of hurricane season (per my boat insurance company).  We can not leave the coast or go further South until Nov. 2.  I will probably have one or two more posts before we head for St. Thomas.  This is our time to rest and relax before the longest leg of our trip, about 1500 miles.

10-21, 10-22, and 10-23-10, Norfolk, VA

Saturday, October 23, 2010

We left the Weehawken Lincoln Marina at about 8:30 AM on the 21st (Thursday) and sailed past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  The winds were predicted to be out of the WNW at 10 to 25 knots.  That is a little on the high side, but a perfect wind direction.  The predictions were right on the money. We made it to Norfolk and into our slip by 7:30 AM on Saturday, the 23rd.  The weather was great on the off shore trip.

Lady Liberty standing on our boom holding onto the side stay

She decide to sump ship

The barges in New York Harbor

On the Atlantic at last

Sunset on the shoreline

One of the two birds that we provided a resting perch for

Jim hard at work cleaning the boat

                              
     A navy ship across the creek from us

10-20-10, Weehawken, NJ

A view of the city from the Marina

Time Square

Today we took a bus to New York City.  We visited Times Square, Central Park, and other points of interest.  Tomorrow we will leave for Virginia.

A chocolate lovers paradise.

                        Kyle providing the Central Park slack-line entertainment

                                                  Central Park

 

10-19-10, Weehawken, NJ (across the river from NYCity)

We made it almost to the end of the Hudson River today.  We docked at Lincoln Harbor Yacht Club across the river from New York City.  We had to motor all day since the wind was light and on our nose.  The scenery today was awesome.  The river was 150 feet deep in several places.  There are a lot of huge cliffs along the river.  There is a current in the Hudson River that was between 0.3-2.0 knots against us when the tide was ebbing and the same amount increasing our speed over ground when it was flowing.  The evening skyline of NY City from our marina is quite a sight. 

                                                        West Point

Some of the cliffs

A tug we passed that was pushing 11 barges.

The view from our boat in the Marina

10-18-10, Newburgh, NY

We left Catskill at about 7:30AM with our mast up and there was no wind.  We motored most of the way to Newburgh, NY.  We had the sails up for a short time.  There were a lot of huge houses we saw along the way.  When we pulled into the Marina in Newburgh, we were the only boat in the Marina.  They had to turn the water back on for us.  After we got the boat tied off and before we left the boat, a rat was eating sea gull crap off the dock next to us.  We probably should have left at that time, but stayed.  Tomorrow we will determine if we made a mistake or not. 

                               As we started the day on the Hudson.

A light house on the river

More fall colors

One of the huge houses on the river

SUNDANCE in the empty marina

Jim talking to one of the locals