We left Maine in late August and sailed into Southern New
England with stops in New Bedford, Newport, South Hampton, and Stonington where
we had a nice visit with our family. The passage to Annapolis took two days,
rounding the eastern tip of Long Island and going directly to Delaware Bay and ultimately
the Chesapeake.
Almost a month in Annapolis allowed us to do some maintenance
and provisioning along with socializing with all the cruisers who tend to
congregate there every fall. We spent
one day at the Annapolis Boat Show and then left the following day to travel
overnight down the length of the Chesapeake, as weather was beginning to
control our plans. We dawdled in
Hampton, Portsmouth, and Great Bridge, waiting for friends to catch up, and
took our time traveling the sounds inside of the Outer Banks. We finally got the weather window we wanted
and went offshore from Beaufort (Cape Lookout), NC to Charleston, SC where we had an extended
stay awaiting the first of November when our insurance allows us to enter
Florida. An overnight passage took us to
St. Augustine where we stayed a week. Then, it was back to the ICW for stops in
Marineland, Vero, and now our current location, Stuart, Florida. It has been a
wild fall, hurricane-wise, but we were fortunately never in the path of these
storms which ravaged other cruising grounds. While physically safe, we were
with other cruisers in spirit and morn all the loss destruction we have seen. We will be staying in Stuart for almost two months
as we do more maintenance and provision for our trip to the Bahamas, hopefully departing
mid-January. Meanwhile, we are enjoying
Stuart and looking forward to spending Christmas with some of our family and
greeting friends arriving by land in January.
So here’s a collection of pictures Burt took this fall on
our way south. (Note, if you double click the pictures they blow up to full screen for better viewing.) And, he joins me in wishing you a very Merry Christmas,
wonderful holiday season, and all the best in the coming year.
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| Stonington, Ct. |
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| Sunset at Stonington anchorage |
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| Pride of Baltimore visiting Annapolis |
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| Local favorite, Bear, in the Classic Boat Race in Annapolis |
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| British boat in the Classic Boat Race |
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| Looking out from our dock in Galesville (Hartge Yacht Harbor), just south of Annapolis. We even had a pair of eagles across the way from our dock. |
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| Hartge Yacht Harbor - sunset and moon rise |
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| USS Gerald Ford returning to Norfolk Naval Station - starting to fly the colors and assemble crew on deck for the formal return to the naval base. |
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| Large naval vessel in dry dock at Norfolk. |
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| Cape Lookout, NC - our staging point for the passage to Charleston. |
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| One of the sand bars at Cape Lookout |
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| Mother ocean treating us nicely on the passage to Charleston |
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| Ravenel Bridge spanning the Cooper River in Charleston |
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| Harbor traffic |
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| One of Charleston's famous fountains |
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| Angel Oak just outside Charleston - thought to be the Oldest Live Oak in North America |
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| Exploring Castilllo de San Marco in St. Augustine |
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| Decorative Spanish cannons |
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| Castillo de San Marco |
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| Spanish influenced architecture at Flagler College, St. Augustine |
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| Interesting fountain |
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| Quaint streets in St. Augustine |
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| Bird of Paradise along the way |
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| A stormy day in Marineland, just south of St. Augustine. Notice the beach is virtually non-existent. Hurricane Irma decimated the coastline here, even taking out a road that accessed shoreline million dollar homes. |
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| A year old dolphin makes friendly gesture through the glass windows of the tank at Marineland. This was an otherwise disappointing facility that has fallen on hard times. The marina across the street was lovely, though. |
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| A dolphin in the wild as it should be - probably somewhere off the Carolinas - and entertaining us as it plays in our wake. Even in the wild, they try to connect with us, making eye contact and staying with us as long as we pay attention to them (or until a tasty meal swims by). |
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| Exuberant on a mooring at Sunset Bay Marina, Stuart, Florida. The picture was taken by our good friend and photographer extraordinaire, Jim Austin. |
