12-25-12 - MERRY CHRISTMAS! A great time with family, especially little Crawford on Christmas morning.  Got a few boat "necessities" including some great books to read along the way.

12/21/12 - Well, the Mayans were wrong and we are all still here! With Christmas almost here it's time to savor our shore leave and get into a traveling mindset.  By the way, we are creaky Cruisers in body only.  In my mind, I am still a teenager (albeit a much wiser one) and hopefully will get a chance to act like one during our journey. We have done all we can to geezerize the boat so hopefully we won't creak much along the way.  You'll know me when you see me.  I'm the guy whose days of leaping joyously from boat to dock are long gone! But I still have a big smile on my face while we are cruising and the sundowners still slide smoothly down my throat.

12-17-12 - And now a few words about the captain: I went fishing for steelhead trout yesterday and some nice fish were caught. So obviously I enjoy being on the water!  I have been sailing since 1987, on the Great Lakes up to 2001.  Since then on the east coast mainly in NC waters with one previous trip down the ditch to Florida.  Professionally I was a school teacher for 32 years at good old Sandy Creek Central School in Sandy Creek, NY. I taught 6th grade, 2nd grade and coached a lot of hoop in what was a wonderful career. These days I run a bed and breakfast in Pulaski, NY called Woodlawn Bed and Breakfast.  Check us out on the web at woodlawnbb.com and on Facebook. If you like to fish for trophy salmon and trout, then you need to look us up!  we are a mile from the Salmon River, a world class fishing destination!
***I am married to Joanna (the admiral).  Info about her is in an October post.

12-13-12: This is the view of Northwest Creek from the marina. Peace and tranquility!

12-12-12- Just spent a week in NC getting the boat set up. It was a busy week of putting up sails and canvas and getting the boat ready to travel. Lookin' good!  CrossRoads is a 1985 Irwin38.  That means she is 38 ft. long and a little over 12 ft. wide.  The fact that she is over 25 years old means we sail an antique boat!  But she has been well-cared for and will stand us well as we travel.  She weighs in at 10 tons, but I am sure is more than that right now all loaded up for the journey ahead. She is 54 and 1/2 ft. tall and draws 4 and a 1/2 ft. of water.  Those two numbers set a limit on where we can go but we still can travel most places without problems.(Most ICW bridges are 55ft. or taller.) 

We keep our boat at Northwest Creek Marina in New Bern, NC. It is by far the best marina on the east coast and a very safe hurricane hole. It is the starting place for what will be our 2400 mile journey.  january 4th of 2013 is the shove off day...just a few weeks away!

11/26/12- Why we sail south!
I just spent the past few hours cleaning up after 10" of snow from an early season storm. It was fun working outside in the snow but even more fun to think of the fact that not too long from now we will be basking in the warm sun down south.  Next week I will be on the boat setting it up for the trip.  I have stuff packed to go and hope to be on my way to NC this Saturday.  

November 14, 2012

Can I handle this?
 I have been planning for this trip for well over a year and working hard to get ready.  I am excited about the journey, but also a little worried about whether I can handle the burden of command. This is not our first trip down the ICW, so I have experience from 2006 to call on which is a great comfort.  I also have my faith in the good Lord to bless the journey ahead.

However, I am not as spry as I once was (<---that's being kind) and it can be draining and stressful having to worry about boat systems and weather and navigating and keeping my family safe.  And so I worry about the stress of command wearing me down. The alternative of course is sitting home by the fire, but that doesn't contribute much to a life well-lived, and hopefully I will have plenty of time to hang out by the wood stove down the road.

So I gotta overcome inertia and do this now while I still can.  The good news is that we won't have a "schedule" and so can travel at our leisure.  I hope that this will allow us to soak up the ICW along the way, as for us the journey really is the destination.

In 2 weeks I head to North Carolina to take the boat out of hurricane storage mode and set up to go. Time marches on!