We are home in Portsmouth, RI

We arrived at our slip in Portsmouth about 4p.m. Sunday, June 27 after 41 hours. The trip was mostly uneventful, the shipping lanes were quiet during the night and the wind was light. We had some light from the moon through the clouds, so it wasn't pitch black. Sunday morning brought fog off Long Island which got thicker and stayed with us all the way to the Newport Bridge. Our friends on Rigamarole went into Block Island but we decided to continue on to our slip. Sunday was perhaps the worst day of our entire trip...the fog created almost zero visibility. We are now resting and fixing things on the boat. It is nice to be home to see friends after nine months. It is also nice to have the car, grocery shopping can now be done in an hour and I can buy more than I can carry in two small bags. We are going to take it easy for the month of July and then hopefully head up to Maine for August.

Lafalot will home soon, maybe by next weekend

The month of June has been one of high heat and moving almost every day to a new location. We left Wrightsville beach heading for Washington, NC to spend some time with our friends who live there. On the way we stopped to see Dave's cousin BJ and her husband Craig and Jim and Ellen. We spent 4 delightful days in Washington in an air conditioned house with our friends. Ray and Helen, our buddy boat were not so fortunate, as they were in Oriental, NC with their boat hauled for some repair work. On Wednesday, June 9 we met up with them in Belhaven, NC at the Belhaven Marina. This is a small marina with great bathrooms, they supply the towels for showers. Belhaven is a small southern town with a good hardware store and ice cream within walking distance of the marina(and a couple of restaurants also.) From Belhaven we went to Alligator River Marina. Then onto Elizabeth City so we could motor through the Dismal Swamp. For those cruisers who might want to do this a word of caution regarding Elizabeth City, the slips which are free are very short, they are probably good for boats up to 30-35 feet, but not for us. We tied up to the bulkhead by the park and Rigamarole rafted with us. The city is nice but is was too hot to really want to walk very far. On 6/12 we were at the Welcome Center in the Dismal Swamp. This is the oldest hand dug waterway in the country. It connects Virgina to North Carolina. There are two locks that you have to go through. More info on website www.DismalSwamp.com( I have not been on the site so I don't know how good it is).

It was interesting going through the canal, but oh so hot, trees and bushes blocking the breeze. We spent one night in Norfolk anchored at Hospital Point, then onto Deltaville, Va for 2 days, then to Solomon's MD. On June 18 we went to Oxford, MD to visit a couple we met in Marathon. We spent the weekend, spending one night at their house. Then it was onto Annapolis where we met up with Rigamarole. We are now in the C&D canal heading out tomorrow with Cape May, NJ. From there we will go overnight to Block Island. It has been very hot, 90's most days. Hopefully we will have fair winds. Hope all is well with everyone.

We are in North Carolina

We left Fernandina Beach on 5/16 and went to Cumberland Island for a quick walk around. We did not see any wild horses, but the island is pretty. We then went to Jekylll Island for 2 days. I actually swam in the pool while doing the laundry. It is a beautiful resort marina. We had lunch at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, very nice. On Tuesday, 5/18 we anchored in the Duplin River and on Wednesday arrived at Thunderbolt Marina, outside of Savannah. Thursday found us in Beaufort, SC in Factory Creek. We anchored in the middle of the creek and went ashore for Dairy Queen that night and breakfast the next morning. Friday, 5/21 we anchored in Steamboat Creek and Saturday we were finally in Charleston, SC. We spent the weekend, did some shopping and took a carriage ride. Monday 5/24 we only went to a marina across the harbor from Charleston called Isle of Palms because heavy wind and thunderstorms were predicted and Charleston harbor is not protected from the wind and waves. Tuesday we went to Georgetown, SC and then onto Barefoot Landing, near Myrtle Beach. Barefoot Landing is a big shopping area with a face dock . We had ice cream and dinner out and did some shopping, but a lot of the stores are closed. We are now in a marina called St. James Plantation. We had stayed here on our way down last fall. It is very nice and cheap. We are spending 2 days here as Barb needs a day of rest. We will move onto Wrightsville Beach tomorrow and catch up with our buddy boat. The weather has been good, hot as far as Barb is concerned, but nice. We have had some showers, mostly at night. A word of advice to anyone planning a trip down the ICW in the fall and back in the spring, make sure you have screens for your enclosure. the greenhead flies from Florida to North Carolina were fierce, they must have had nothing to do all winter but multiple. Hope everyone is well and happy and enjoying the spring.

We are in Fernandina Beach

We left Vero Beach and went to Coco Beach and stayed in the C0c0 Village Marina which was quite nice. Then on the Titusville where we anchored. We then spent a week in Daytona which included 2 nights in an air conditioned house with our friends Ray and Helen. Packet definitely liked that as it was quite warm (90's during the day). We then left Wed. 5/12 with Ray and Helen on Rigamarole to start our trip north together. We stopped at Palm Coast Wednesday night and enjoyed the marina although getting into the slip was a challenge , can't wait until we get north where there are floating docks and not poles. From Palm Coast we went to St. Augustine where we anchored. However we had to anchor twice because after a nice cocktail party on our boat( attended by the people on 3 other boats) our boat swung into our neighbor. Dave and I spent a sleepless night on anchor watch. The next day we set off for Fernandina. About a mile or so away we ran aground. Ray tried to push us off with his dinghy and a power boat tried with his wake but we were hard aground, so a call to BoatUS for a tow. We had to wait about an hour for that. While we were aground, you could see the shoal a small power boat ran aground near us. We finally made it into Fernandina, took Packet ashore, had a late dinner and early to bed. Today we are resting and going out to dinner and tomorrow we will be off to Cumberland Island and Jekell Island. Hope everyone is well and happy.

On te move North

We finally had a weather window to leave Marathon, FL to head North. We spent a rough night at Rodrigues Key on our way to No Name Harbor in Biscayne Bay Miami then two nights of rough waters at Dinner key moorings, but caught up with cruising friends and had a good time. Then onto Ft Laurderdale out Government cut into high seas and strong South wind. Had a bad accidental Jibe that damaged some canvas on the Bimini and broke a block and bent part of the boom vang. No one was hurt and we are still able to use the boat. We are now in Vero Beach (Velcro Beach to cruisers) and will be departing Monday to Daytona with stops along the way.

Still in Marathon

It is now April 13 and we are still in Marathon waiting for the wind to change from the north, northeast at 15 to 20 miles per hour so we can leave. The weather has been good, some very hot humid days and some nice hot (80's) windy(blowing 15-20 mph) dry days like today. We continue to meet new arrivals who are also waiting to go north. we will let you all know when we leave, maybe this weekend?? (Barb is getting anxious to leave as it is a long trip back to RI) Hope all is well up north.

It's April 4th and we are still in Marathon

We hope everyone had a nice Easter day. We went to the Marathon Yacht Club for an Easter buffet which was very good. The weather was in the high 70's, and windy and sunny. We hope to leave Marathon Wednesday if the wind cooperates. It has been blowing (10 to 15 knots with higher gusts) out of the east for the last 4 days. And of course east is the direction we want to go, so for those of you who are not sailors it would mean that we would be trying to sail directly into the wind, not fun, it would be very rocky and we would not make much progress. So we sit in paradise waiting for the wind to change to the south or southwest which hopefully will be Wednesday. Then we will head for Miami, a two day trip. We may visit a place called Dinner Key and see Coconut Grove and stay a couple of nights, or depending on the wind we may just keep heading north to our next stop which would be Ft Lauderdale and then to North Palm Beach. We are both well and have enjoyed our stay here. We have met a lot of people, one who is a member at the Marathon Yacht Club who has taken us shopping, to lunch and just about anywhere we want to go. He has been great and he has made the stay much easier for me. We met another couple who own an Island Packet and live in Portsmouth, RI. They will be leaving when we do, but will be sailing on the outside most of the way and not going on the ICW doing day hops as we do. Packet is doing ok, he seems to have aged on this trip but he still tries to chase the sea birds when in the dinghy. We hope all our RI friends have dried out and did not have a lot of damage from the rains. Spring is on the way and so are we, hopefully.