Adventure awaits!
Follow the adventures of Pete & Kylie on their catamaran!
You can get a live feed of where we are by looking at the link here to Marine Traffic, a website that shows where most boats in the world are by their identifier known as an MMSI number. We are, of course, Buccaneer. There are a few imposters, but look for one of the UK flagged sailing vessels and you should find us!
Where are we now?
23 May 26
Annual Formal Inspection time!
For those unfamiliar with military terminology, an Annual Formal Inspection is an annual inspection (the clue is in the name!) of a facility by a senior officer to make sure that the facility in question is being run well, is clean, tidy and has all the resources it needs to complete its mission.
With Pete’s Dad being a retired Royal Navy officer and both having owned a sailboat for 18 years, a visit from Pete’s parents very much felt like that!
Luckily, we had had a good time to clean up and prepare the boat, so first impressions were positive! Having settled them aboard, given ‘the tour’ and a safety brief we ate aboard and formulated a plan for the next 2 weeks.
The outline plan was to head up the Hudson River to the start of the Erie Canal and, when it opened, head along the canal to a city called Syracuse where they were going to leave us, pick up a hire car and do a week-long road trip before flying back out of New York.
For the first day of their visit, we headed out of the marina where they had boarded and did a sightseeing cruise up the East River, under the Brooklyn Bridge, past the UN Headquarters and as far as the Harlem River before heading back down and re-anchoring behind the Statue of Liberty.
With the idea to head up the Hudson the next day, a chance comment about ‘how cool it would be to see the Queen Mary II come in’ led to a quick Google search (other search engines are available) and as chance would have it, it was due to arrive early the next morning!
So, we decided to stay put for the day and let Pete’s Mum & Dad recover from their flight whilst enjoying the magnificent views of the New York skyline from our vantage point.
It also provided the opportunity to do a couple of boat jobs, the main one being fitting a second radio that could be used at the helm station. Pete’s Dad may have though he was here for a holiday, but was soon given a screwdriver to help!
The Queen Mary slipped in during darkness, but we awoke to see her docked not far from us, so as we left we did a drive-by before heading up the Hudson. Very soon, the views changed as the city slipped behind us and the natural beauty of the Hudson River took over.
The trip up the Hudson took a week, where we stopped at a variety of small marinas or just anchored. We visited Kingston and the Hudson Maritime Museum, a lovely town called Coxsackie, did a quick supermarket dash in Albany, and eventually ended up at Troy.
Our trip up had taken us past West Point (the US Army officers initial training academy – their equivalent of Sandhurst), through the Appalachian Mountains, past lots of incredible houses and fabulous scenery.
Troy was our last stop before joining the Erie Canal where we waited a day as the New York Canal system only opens for the summer months due to the difficulty of keeping it open in winter.
All along our journey up we had heard how bad the last winter had been and many of the marinas had been severely affected by ice floes damaging the docks and their facilities. Troy was another fascinating town where we ate well, stocked up on more wine and managed to get some laundry done. We met some lovely people, none more so than a young man called Jeremy who was fascinated by our catamaran, so we invited him aboard for a drink and showed him around.
Whilst we think nothing of it, and catamarans are ten-a-penny down in Florida and the Bahamas, they are an unusual boat to do ‘The Loop’ and so we seem to attract a lot of interest.
The canal system formally opened on 15 May at 0800 and we had seen a collection of boats head past us to a town called Waterford which marks the start of the first flight of locks.
We decided to let the initial rush go first, so turned up at Waterford a few hours later and went ashore for a coffee and to visit the Visitor Centre and glean any information we could about how best to deal with the locks. We had watched a YouTube video the night before, so armed with that we felt confident we could cope, especially with 4 of us aboard.
The first flight, from Waterford, consists of 5 locks that need to be tackled in one go. In total, they raise you a height of 169 feet over a space of just 1.5 miles. All of the locks are run by lockmasters, so unlike the UK you aren’t racing forward to open gates, valves etc.
Our job is to get in safely and grab on to either a vertical pipe on the lock wall or, more usually, a set of weighted lines that need to be fed through the cleats on the boat and controlled as we either climb or descend in the lock. Some of the lines were new and clean, many were old and very slimy, so good gloves were a necessity.
If we weren’t before, after the flight of five we were lock experts and had our ‘routine’ down pat, even if the side of the boat looked as muddy as a rugby players changing room! So much for the ‘inspection standard’ cleanliness we had started out with!
Like many canals, the Erie Canal is not all man-made, but utilises the existing river systems or lakes as part of the route. Much of the first day was therefore spent cruising up the Mohawk River which provided some stunning scenery.
We spent 4 days in the end until we reached Sylvan Beach, a holiday town on the edge of Lake Oneida, anchoring every night, and traversing 22 locks, in all of which we were the only boat. We had certainly expected to see more of a rush of Looper boats as we meandered up at 6 knots (most boats are faster than us), but that wasn’t the case.
One downside of heading down the canal this early after it opens is that there is a lot of debris floating down and is perhaps one reason why many Loopers leave it a week or two before coming through. We are fortunate that our propellors are reasonably well protected by our stub keels and rudder, but even so we often had to coast through a barrage of logs in neutral and with our propellors feathered (folded away).
The benefit of it being so quiet though is that we have been able to stop wherever we wanted and there has always been the opportunity to tie up (for free) at the many town docks along the way.
It was on the way into Sylvan Beach that Kylie was excused boat duties for a number of hours to watch the Eurovision Song Contest, although we all had the opportunity to ‘enjoy’ the results section later on catch-up TV!
Pete also got interviewed by a TV crew who were looking into the impact of increased fuel prices on boating activity. When asked the question: ‘are you happy to pay more for fuel to prevent Iran achieving a nuclear weapon?’ he vacillated like a true politician. We weren’t sure if the agenda was looking for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but having got neither they soon poked off!
It was also at Sylvan Beach that we said a sad farewell to Pete’s parents, so after a fabulous ‘last meal’ at Caribbean restaurant, they picked up their hire car, and they set off for their road trip. Before they left, we had a written report and verbal debrief – we had passed our inspection with flying colours!
7 May 26
We are Loopers!
It was exciting to be starting our ‘Looping’ adventure, leaving Georgetown Yacht Haven to travel down the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. There were several bridges we had to go under along the way and, without our big mast, it was nice not having to worry about the height of any of them! With the benefit of the tide, we made great time and decided to continue down Delaware Bay to the Cohansey River, which had an anchorage which looked good on the map, but a conflicting tide and wind direction made setting the anchor interesting. We went to sleep pretty sure we were secure, but safe in the knowledge that the worst that would happen is we would drift into some mangroves!
The next day we resumed our journey down the Delaware Bay where there was a higher wind than expected and we had a miserable 7 hours in rough seas, made worse as there wasn’t even anything pretty to look at along the way – so Delaware Bay gets zero TripAdvisor stars! We couldn’t get to Cape May canal quick enough and were so glad to finally be in sheltered waters. With miserable weather set for the rest of the day, we anchored outside of the coastguard station, watched movies and had Pete’s favourite of macaroni cheese for dinner.
We have to let the Customs and Border Patrol know when we change state as a courtesy, so as we had now entered New Jersey we completed the form on the app. Normally there isn’t a problem and we get an acknowledgement straight away, but this time we had an email to say that they wanted to inspect the boat as they thought this was our first port of call since we had left the Bahamas. They were sending a team from Philadelphia in two cars, however they didn’t have a boat to get on board and by the time they arrived we had clarified with the office that we had already checked in so there wasn’t a need and a wasted journey for them.
We took the dinghy out to a local marina so we could get some fuel and go ashore, meeting a couple who had been anchored not far from us and had brought their boat in for some repairs; we later met them for a really nice lobster roll for lunch! As we were ashore, we had to make the obligatory trip to West Marine, before walking through the pedestrian high street which was full of independent shops and pretty buildings.
We continued our trip up north, stopping at Atlantic City; we had a calm sea day which was welcome after Delaware Bay! The seafront at Atlantic City has a 6-mile long boardwalk with souvenir shops, restaurants and, what it is famous for, casinos! As we are slightly ahead of the season, a lot of these were closed but we managed to have a drink in a themed restaurant called ‘Rainforest Café’ which had bar stools with tails and a walk around the casinos, although we didn’t take part in any of the gambling games that were on offer.
A long day of travel followed as we made our way to New York, with an impressive skyline waiting to greet us as we passed under the Verrazzano Narrows bridge. We had heard tales of New York harbour being extremely busy and difficult to navigate, however we followed the side of the well-marked channel and kept well out of the way of the fast ferries! Our chosen anchorage was amazing, with fantastic views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline.
The next few days we had set aside for sightseeing, however we found finding somewhere to leave the dinghy challenging, with the only place being a marina that charged us $50 for the pleasure! Undeterred, we spent the day walking around New York, the first and most important stop was trying out some New York pizza at John’s of Bleecker Street, a coal fired pizza restaurant that has been in business since the 1920’s.
Fuelled up and ready to go, we hit the sights, starting with a walk through the Hudson River Park which has lots of sports facilities, joggers, sunbathers and water sports. We then walked the ‘High Line’ a volunteer-maintained walkway that is above street level and full of plants to The Edge, which is a glass viewing platform overlooking the city. A beautiful view across all of the skyscrapers and harbour, however, we couldn’t see the boat by the Statue of Liberty where we had left it! Looking closer, we concluded (hoped!) that it was because there was a building in the line of sight, not that the anchor had dragged and Buccaneer was floating off into the Atlantic somewhere!
We explored further, sitting in Times Square for a while people watching, looking at the amazing huge advertising boards and admiring the people dressed up as King Kong, Bumblebee, The Hulk, Mickey and Minnie Mouse posing for pictures. It started to get dark and we made our way back, met by two autonomous Uber Eats delivery carts. Whilst they are the future, they had to stop every few seconds because people wanted to take their picture (Kylie included) and this was detected as a hazard, so it stopped until the hazard moved out of the way; at one point, two met up and a stand-off ensued!
After a bit of a treacherous dinghy journey back due to the wind picking up, we rounded the corner of the Liberty Island to see if we had a boat still…and we still couldn’t see it! However, this was mainly because the lights ashore were so bright and as soon as our eyes adjusted there was a dark outline of a catamaran (phew!). We enjoyed a lovely evening sat out looking at the magnificent lit up buildings and Statue of Liberty.
We decided to move to an anchorage the other side of Ellis Island the next day as that meant a shorter dinghy ride. We went to visit the 9/11 memorial and museum, which was a sombre but very informative place with lots of information and artifacts from the events that happened on the day.
As we were still struggling to find places to leave the dinghy, we decided to move down to Sheepshead Yacht Club and pick up our mooring ball. We were already booked into there for one night as Pete’s parents were flying in, but with somewhere to leave the dinghy (for free!) and easy access to the train, it made sense to get there earlier.
We had to wait for high tide so that we could get over the sandbar into the harbour and then found that the mooring balls were not labelled. It has been a while since we had to pick a mooring ball up and after a bit of swearing we managed to tie securely on. Pete then went out in the dinghy to go and see if he could find where we were supposed to be before finding a helpful member of the club who pointed us in the right direction!
Securely tied up again, this time in the right place, we went ashore for a milkshake at Ellen’s Stardust diner where the servers sing songs from Broadway shows before going to see Moulin Rouge the musical at the theatre, which was fab! We then went to Virgil’s Real BBQ, a restaurant just off Times Square that Pete was introduced to when he came to New York with work. Needless to say, we had the chicken wings which were great and then a mixed platter to share, also amazing!
The following day we needed to walk off our food so with a quick side trip to see the Ghostbusters HQ, we took a trip to Central Park to explore the many different paths, areas, statues and bodies of water – a sunny day with lots of other people about. We then took the train to Coney Island, a seaside resort with rides and places to eat that will be lovely when the season starts, but closed for us!
Finally, we had a day of boat jobs; cleaning, shopping and laundry before Pete’s parents arrived, just getting back in time for them to pull up in a taxi! Thank you to Dave and his friends for offering them some Japanese whiskey whilst Kylie finished putting the food away in the fridge!
28 Apr 26
Now we are a Cabriolet!
After a cold first night at Georgetown Yacht Haven, we felt rested after our long sail and ready to start tackling the long list of jobs we had saved up for the next couple of weeks; some for us to do and some for the technicians to do.
Warning: The following contains lots of technical sailing terms (that Pete uses) and simple explanatory words (that Kylie uses).
The next part of our adventure is following America’s Great Loop, a famous circular route covering 6,000 miles across America and Canada via rivers, canals and the Great Lakes.
As a sailing boat we are too tall to get under the bridges, so the main job whilst we are at Georgetown is to un-step (take off) the mast and become a motor catamaran! This means our air-draft (height) will be below the height of the bridges and we can get round without major detours.
Our first task was to take the sails off – we have 3 sails: our mainsail (the big one), our headsail (the smaller one at the front) and a Code Zero (the really big one at the front which only comes out in light winds) all of which had to removed, including the lines (ropes) and the fixtures…a big job!
Luckily there was no wind and we managed to get them off in one day. That makes it sound like a quick and easy job, but it wasn’t and took all day and a lot of work!
The next day we took off the boom and disconnected the electrics to the lights, radio, radar and wind sensor on the mast. We packed the sails away as they are off to a sail loft to be cleaned, dried, checked to see if any repairs are required and then safely stored until we bend (re-attach) them next year.
We have taken lots of pictures and put things in labelled plastic bags so we know what goes where and how everything is attached. We will replace the standing and running rigging (the metal wires holding the mast up and the ropes that we use to control the sails) when we re-step the mast (have it put back on).
It is recommended these are changed every 10 years and by the time we have completed the Loop our boat will be 9 years old and with the mast off already it is a great opportunity to do it. Hopefully our photos will still make sense at this point!
It was then time for the big crane! The boatyard people undid the final bolts holding the now very bare mast in place and attached the crane sling to the top of the mast before removing it completely.
We now have a cabriolet boat!!
We also had the boat taken out of the water for a couple of hours so it could have a power wash, we could inspect everything under the waterline and fully change the sail drive oil (the sail drive is part of the engine, not the sails as Kylie thought…wondering why a sail needed oil….).
We also changed the propellor anodes; underwater metal is subject to galvanic electricity causing it to corrode, anodes are pieces of soft metal attached to the propellors which are ‘sacrificed’ as they corrode quicker than the expensive propellors and therefore need to be regularly replaced so they continue to do their job.
We then had to build a mini-mast, made out of wood, to attach our new anchor light (switched on when it gets dark and you are anchored so that other boats can see you), steaming light (switched on when you travel in the dark), VHF aerial and flags.
After several trips to Lowes and the Home Depot we had all the components needed and set to it! Pete had the complicated job of making the mast base. Originally, we thought we could cut a thick piece of wood and slot it into the groove the mast came out of, but when we saw it there were protruding shapes which was to make that more difficult as they had to be cut out using a router so the wood sat flat. A pain, but good to know it is more that 2 bolts holding the mast on! Meanwhile, Kylie got on using the power sander to make the mast smooth (a lot easier and less sweary job!).
With the base fitted and a hole made for the upright to slot into, it just took the screwing of some bolts, and we once again had a mast! Halfway up the mast we have cut it and added a hinge so if we do come to some low bridges we can always fold it down. Pete then added the spreaders (shelf brackets) so we could add the lines for the flags and attached the lights and aerial before finishing the look with a coat of paint.
As if that wasn’t enough, we also turned the galley (kitchen) to all electric; we have been cooking on an induction hob for a few months now and all had worked well. We had placed it over the top of the factory fitted gas hob and we now felt it was time to permanently install it. As usual, this was more involved than we thought – the induction hob was bigger than the gas one, and what we thought was a wooden countertop with a veneer top was actually a solid worksurface. The small power tool cutter we had to do the job certainly struggled!
Then it was time to replace the gas oven with a combined oven/microwave/air fryer/grill and, as it was slightly smaller, meant we could add two new drawers underneath – you can never have too much storage! A complete re-model but it looks awesome. And Pete thought that without a house to maintain his DIY days were over!
Other jobs we managed to tick off the ‘to do’ list included installing new fans in the galley and 2 of the cabins, cleaning and fixing the seal of the black holding (poo) tank, a big re-stock shop, batch cooking, cleaning and getting our eisenglass (clear canopy) zip fixed. We also made sure we had any supplies we needed which meant lots of parcels being delivered to the marina!
It hasn’t all been boat jobs though! We have managed to spend some time with the great friends we met when we bought the boat back in August. They had all decamped from Georgetown to another marina further up the Chesapeake Bay called Chesapeake City for the winter.
We were able to join them for a great day out drinking, eating and catching up. We were back the following week for brunch, where they understood that if an Englishman asked for a cup of tea, it was serious business and brought the ‘posh tea’ selection box out for Pete to choose which one he wanted!
We then enjoyed watching a highly camp and cheesy but entertaining band called the Boy Band Project, before hitching a lift back to the boat on ‘Chaos’ which got us back a lot quicker than Buccaneer would have!
We got some great gifts of flake chocolate (thank you Simon and Russelle – I forgot to take a pic for this before we ate them!) and Buccaneer mugs (thank you Sean and Michelle!) before it was finally time to say goodbye to Georgetown Yacht Haven for another year, attach our America’s Great Loop Cruising Association (AGCLA) pennant and start the next part of our adventure!
22 Apr 26
Long sail back to Georgetown
We were going to sail directly from the Bahamas to Georgetown, but the weather window wasn’t quite long enough to make the whole trip, so we decided to split the journey with our first leg leaving from Bimini and following the east coast of Florida stopping in Port Canaveral.
The trip was mainly smooth; however the wind wasn’t always in our favour and we only managed to sail for about 3 hours. We took advantage of the Gulf Stream which is a strong current running from the south of Florida northwards, to give us a ‘push’ which meant at times we were travelling at over 9 knots!
The sea state became a bit rough as we got closer to the Florida coast, so we came in closer to shore to reduce the impact of the waves and into calmer waters.
27 hours and 188 miles later, we docked at Cape Marina, where we had stayed previously. It was nice to be somewhere we knew and this time the marina had hot shower water, which after a long sail is always very welcome! We met up with our friends who we had missed in Bimini as they were still in Florida after their cruise and who hadn’t flown home yet. They had brought important UK supplies of coffee and zaps!
We went for dinner with them at a local restaurant before they left for their flight and we had a well-earned sleep!
We also managed to meet up with one of the boats we had made friends with back in January as they were still in the marina having their engines converted to electric engines, so it was good to catch up and see the progress they had made.
There is always boat admin to do, and although we had checked into the USA using the Customs and Border Control app, as we are now on a visa we needed to present our passports and boat papers at the local office and see what our permitted length of would be stay for this period.
Whilst a visa allows us to stay in the USA for up to 6 months, the amount of time that is granted depends on several factors, so we had our fingers crossed we would get the maximum time. Luckily, as we had been outside of the USA for more than 30 days, it reset the 6-month period, which is what we needed for the next stage in our trip.
It isn’t all admin and boat jobs though! We took the dinghy out for a couple of trips around the Banana River and Merritt Island admiring some lovely houses that all make the most of their waterside locations. We also saw dolphins and manatees; Kylie finally has a wildlife video that is worth sharing!!
The next day we had a day trip away from the boat to Disney’s Hollywood Studios; an early start with a dinghy ride along the Canaveral Barge Canal to a marina and then a taxi ride to Hollywood Studios, chosen because there is a big Star Wars section!
The rides were good and we met Darth Vader and several Storm Troopers before finding out there was a reconstruction of Chalmun’s Spaceport Cantina in Mos Eisley which, although fully booked, would allow you go in to order ‘drinks to go’. This meant being escorted to the bar and out again – we got told off for walking around inside!!! Pete wanted to go on a roller coaster, so we went across to Toy Story land and onto the Slinky Dog Dash; not sure that is what he had in mind, but it was fun!
After a day of walking and queuing, we made our way back to the dinghy where we had a lovely meal at Dolphins Waterfront Bar and Grill before a late return to the boat.
We were then into the final preparations for our 5-day sail to Chesapeake Bay. When you do a long passage, it is easier to have prepared food ready so that you don’t have to worry about cooking.
Kylie spent a day using every utensil and pot and pan to make sure we had enough food in the freezer to last us, something that Pete always looks forward to as he is on washing up duties!
We timed leaving Port Canaveral so that we could watch the Artemis II launch at sea, something that was on our bucket list. After a smooth lock transition and bridge opening, we were back again in the open sea. Although not far in distance, the spot we were aiming for was still a 6-hour journey as we had to avoid shallow water and the restricted zones that were in place.
With the help of a good amount of wind we made it with plenty of time to spare and were only contacted by the Coastguard once to remind us that the part of the sea we were transiting through was to be restricted closer to launch time. We were ok though, anchoring in 40ft of water just outside the restricted zone about 6 miles away from the action.
We were watching the countdown closely and when it was cleared to launch, we took our seats on the top deck where we had an unrestricted view; it was as spectacular as we thought it would be, with the noise from the rocket making the boat vibrate! Definitely the best place to see it!
It was then time to start our long trek back to Norfolk, Virginia. We started our 4-hour watch system at 8pm; this is where you are ‘on watch’ and in charge of the boat for 4 hours and 4 hours where you could relax and mainly have a nap! The night was beautiful and calm with a huge moon making it look like we were still sailing in daylight. There were few other boats around and the sea was calm. The next day was also uneventful, and we managed to cover 183 nautical miles in the first 24 hours! The second night wasn’t quite as beautiful with the wind becoming stronger and more variable making the passage a little less comfortable and at midnight, we decided to reef the sail (make it smaller so that it has less power, makes the ride smoother and means we don’t blow over!). Despite that, we still managed to cover another 185 miles in the next 24 hours! The next 2 days were similar, with variable winds and sea states; to pass the time we read, ate and had naps! We also had an issue with the main sail one night which meant we couldn’t lower it and it took an hour the next day to winch it down using the reefing lines.
We reached Norfolk Virginia at 0300 on 5 April with both of us on watch to navigate the big shipping channels; it was surprisingly quiet and was an uneventful arrival, apart from the fact that we were travelling into the tidal flow making it slower than we would have liked.
Then we were back in the Chesapeake!
As we both felt fine and as it would soon be daylight, we decided to continue to see how far north we could get in the day. The Chesapeake Bay was a bit windy with a rougher sea state than Kylie would have liked and presented new navigation challenges with crab pots strung out, however we made good progress and decided to stop in places we knew, making an easier approach for anchoring and which meant we could make an early start the next day as we had already explored the area.
Total non-stop travel 102 hours, 730 nautical miles.
We made overnight stops in Solomon’s and Magothy River before our final run into the Sassafras River. It was lovely being back ‘home’ in Georgetown Yacht Haven and we are looking forward to a rest before starting the long list of boat jobs that we need to complete before the next stage of our trip!
It would also be a chance to catch up with some of the many friends we had made during our first time in Georgetown back in August when we bought the boat.
21 Mar 26
Bye Bye Bahamas!
Warderick Wells was beautiful, but we had some rocky seas which meant dinghying to the shore would have meant being splashed with waves and getting incredibly wet! So, we took advantage of a boat day to complete the 250-hour service on the port engine. This involved Pete spending another significant part of the day in the engine compartment changing filters, with Kylie passing him various tools, pumping out used oil and making many cups of tea! We stayed for a few days anchored alongside some big superyachts doing more boat jobs and walking along the island.
Back on our travels north we stopped at Shroud Cay, a pretty anchorage with a dingy route through the mangroves to the ‘Washing Machine’ which is a bit like a lazy river taking you from the sea, before bringing you into shore. Whilst there were lots of sea waves, the current wasn’t very strong and we didn’t seem to get the full experience.
Our final stop in the Exhumas was Highbourne Cay, where we saw some Nurse Sharks before taking our chairs to sit on the beach, our final beach stop before leaving this stunning island chain bound for Nassau on New Providence Island.
New Providence Island is completely different to the Cays we have visited over the last few weeks, evident as we docked at a marina in the main town of Nassau surrounded by huge cruise liners. The port is full of duty free and souvenir shops and lots more people than we have seen for a long time!
The marina was also next to one of the big supermarkets, the largest since we left Georgetown and enabled us to re-stock the cupboards with a huge shopping trolley full of supplies. Most importantly, there was a Domino’s pizza and Pete got his pizza fix!
We took a day to explore the tourist sites around the island including the Queen’s Staircase, Straw Market, Junkaroo Beach and the ubiquitous Pirate Museum.
The Queen’s Staircase is 66 steps that were carved out of limestone by enslaved people in 1793, and connects the town with the main protective fortification on the island, Fort Fincastle. It was dedicated to Queen Victoria in honour of her abolishing slavery in the 1800’s whilst the Straw Market is an undercover market where local crafts and Bahamian souvenirs are sold. Junkaroo Beach is near to the cruise port and is full of sun loungers, jet skis and other water toys with barely room to move. Completely different from Higbourne Cay which was a beach with just the two of us on it!
Nassau Pirate Museum was full of stories of real-life pirates, many of whom are part of one of Pete’s favourite TV series ‘Black Sails’ (worth a watch if you haven’t seen it!). It was interesting to visit and we somehow managed to leave without buying any pirate fancy dress or merch!
Our final day was spent walking around on the adjoining Paradise Island, mainly taken up by the huge Atlantis resort which we managed to sneak into via the beach and was interesting to look around albeit not the kind of place we could imagine relaxing in these days!
Having managed to avoid it for months, Pete’s hair was in desperate need of a cut. He had managed to find the odd barber along our travels so far, but it was finally time for Kylie to have a go. Having been coached by Paula (Pete’s second ex-wife and super-fast and efficient barber) in the UK, it was time to put her skills to the test! The only downside was that the clippers don’t hold their charge very well and ran out half way through, so the result was maybe not quite as even as she would have liked!
Leaving New Providence Island, we headed up to the Berry Islands, a small collection of islands to the north. We spent a lot of the first day sorting out our Code Zero (a large light wind sail) which, when it had last been packed away, had managed to fold over on itself so wouldn’t go up properly. We used it the next day on our travels, but as there was very little wind, it didn’t make much difference!
We then prepared for our 24-hour sail to Bimini, our final stop in the Bahamas. We had an early start to make sure we had the tide with us and, more importantly, to make sure we arrived in daylight to enable us to see and get through the shallow water of the entrance channel to where we were going to anchor.
The first part of the journey was downwind, albeit slowly as we were sailing and there wasn’t that much wind, however, overnight we turned into wind which is a miserable journey as we end up crashing into the waves. There was also lots of cruise line traffic and whilst the ships kept well out of our way, they were still very big compared to our little boat!
Arriving in Bimini, we navigated a narrow channel to our anchorage, which wouldn’t win the award for the prettiest place we have stayed as we were surrounded by rusting boats, but it was protected from the wind that had picked up during the day and the huge thunderstorm directly above us overnight. The island is also geared up for the cruise ship community, with the island mainly closed until the cruise ships come in, although this week is Spring Break so there were more people here than is usual at low season.
We were supposed to meet up with 2 good friends who were on a Virgin cruise from Miami, but due to the strong winds and rough seas, their ship was unable to dock and they couldn’t come ashore which was a huge shame as we had built our Bahamas cruising itinerary around being here on Bimini for that event! As consolation, we went on a walking exploration through the small towns and along the beach and had some nice conch fritters, grilled Bahamian prawns, fries and a couple of beers.
No island stop is complete without visiting anything with ‘Buccaneer’ in the name and we took the dingy down to Bimini south island and Buccaneer point – not a lot to see apart from an old boat wrecked on the shoreline, so we dinghied back over the channel for a final Bahamian beer in the beach bar.
Preparation is now underway for us to leave the Bahamas and start our long trip back to Georgetown Yacht Haven in Maryland (USA) where the boat is due to have some work done on it, including having the mast taken off, to enable us to cruise the Great Loop of North America. We were going to go back to Norfolk in Virginia in one go, a 3-day sail, but we don’t have the weather window in the near future, so are now going to take the journey in stages, starting with a 24 hour sail back to Port Canaveral tomorrow.
03 Mar 26
Fun at Georgetown Cruising Regatta!
We thought there were a lot of boats at anchor when we were here in Georgetown last week, however the start of the Regatta has bought lots of newcomers!
Whilst we weren’t going to race our boat, there were still lots of activities we could get involved in including the ‘Poker Run’ which was the opening event. This involved going to seven different bars, 4 in Georgetown, 3 on Stocking Island including the final stop, a pop-up bar on the beach. You could visit the bars in any order and at each bar you picked a card which became part of your hand. The Peace and Plenty hotel was a popular starting point as the furthest away from the end, a pretty hotel with a bar and pool overlooking the harbour – there was also a turtle hanging around the dingy dock wondering what was going on! We continued our quest to the other bars finishing the island with passable hands. We then moved onto Stocking Island, stopping at the Da Sand Bar where we sat drinking a beer on the sun loungers and then onto the Snappy Turtle for a snack. Kylie had now got a pretty poor hand, so she was just in it for the Poker card glasses and the sparkly pink flamingo glasses, (borrowed unfortunately!), whilst Pete was doing ok until the end.
Whilst the players seemed to be well spread out across the bars, the final pop-up bar on the beach, which was where you had to declare your hand, was incredibly busy with over 300 people and lots of dinghy’s on the shoreline. We had some punch called Bilge Water (not sure I would recommend drinking actual bilge water…) and waited to see how we had done. Unsurprisingly, we were nowhere near the winners, but it was still a fun day!
We had a great view of the ‘Big Boat race’, with the course set passing by where we were anchored. The first class to go was the catamaran class, which only had 2 entries in it – had we known we would have taken part with a guaranteed 3rd place in our first ever race! The biggest class was the monohulls who were zigzagging (tacking) across the harbour trying to get the best wind, whilst the final class had those boats that took this kind of thing seriously with stripped back boats and racing sails.
We were cheering on the Lagoon 42 (the same type of boat as ours) in the first class and it won, beating a higher performance cat! We then made the mistake of watching the England vs Ireland rugby game…with some choice words and coaching coming from Pete throughout!
Not all afloat, we climbed to the top of Monument Hill with fabulous views of the island and associated anchorage, followed by a relaxing afternoon on the beach at the Coconut Club with a frozen Aperol Spritz. This concluded our time at Georgetown and it was time to start our journey back north.
Before heading back north however, we decided to do a day trip south to Tropic of Cancer beach, some 15 miles south of Georgetown. The journey started well, but as we approached about 3 miles away, the depths on our charts were nothing like the reality and we were in danger of running aground. We therefore turned around and bugged out, heading for the safety of the open sea!
We had a loose plan of the Cays we wanted to stop at on our way back north, with our first overnight stop at Cave Cay, owned by the magician David Copperfield. Here we snorkelled down to ‘The Musician Mermaid’ a submerged statue of a mermaid playing the piano and a popular snorkelling stop.
We were the only boat anchored at Cave Cay, which was lovely and peaceful after busy Georgetown; Pete even got the floating chair out and read his book. The following day we were waiting for low tide to visit Ribbon Sandbar, and whilst it didn’t completely dry out we were still stood miles away from land in ankle deep beautiful clear water – a stunning experience and even better as we were the only two people there.
The last couple of days have been nature focussed. We visited Bitter Guana Cay, home of the endangered Bahamian Rock Iguanas; it is thought there are only 5,000 left and they only inhabit this island. They are distinctly brown and pink in colour and whilst they are happy to pose for photographs, they are still wild animals so we made sure we kept our distance so as not to frighten them.
Our next stop was Pig Beach on Big Major Cay, home of the original swimming pigs, who are not shy and even if you wanted to you couldn’t keep your distance as they swim out to your dinghy looking for snacks and attention. We had one smaller pig in particular who liked our boat and kept coming over, even having a little nibble of our dinghy oar on the way past!
Finally, we had a nervous approach to the anchorage at Compass Cay as it was incredibly shallow, with some areas as visible navigation only, which means you must stand on the front and spot rocks, coral and water that isn’t deep enough by eyesight only. At one point our depth gauge read 3.9ft which was interesting as we draw 4.1ft!
There is an interesting cave to snorkel into which we were going to check out, however when we got there it was high-ish tide with a strong current and after testing it out, decided it would be for another day! High tide did mean that Rachel’s Bubbles was at its best, a short dinghy ride and walk across the Cay led to a natural rock pool which faced onto the Atlantic Ocean. The swell crashing over the rock pool edge led to the water foaming (leading to the name) and was great fun to jump into and float back down the creek.
We finished our stay at Compass Cay at the marina, where there are several friendly nurse sharks you can swim with. Kylie was very excited as they let you touch them and one even allowed her to stroke it for quite a while – it had been fed so she was safe!
As always, there is something that breaks on the boat and this time it was our freshwater pump. We have two big water tanks in the front locker of the boat and a pressurised pump which moves that water to the various taps and showers – however for some reason the pressure regulator seemed to stop working and therefore there was no water pressure and no flowing water. Normally, hitting it with a hammer (no, really!) works and whilst this did the job for that evening, it wasn’t a permanent fix and a full replacement was necessary. Luckily, we have a big box of spares which included a new pump and Pete spent the majority of the morning swapping it over.
We are now on our way to Warderick Wells (try saying that without sounding like Tony Angelino from Only Fools and Horses!), part of the Exuma Land and Sea National park for some more snorkelling and an explore of the island before continuing our journey.
20 Feb 26
Buccaneer is boarded by the Herc mafia!
Apologies for the length of time since the last update, but we’ve been busy moving through the Bahamas island chain and hosting 2 of Pete’s ex-RAF friends who came out to stay for 10 days which was a whirlwind of activity!
Our last few days in the Abacos were spent at Hope Town, a pretty town on Elbow Cay. It is famous for its candy-striped lighthouse which is one of the last hand-fired kerosene lighthouses in the world – every day a group of volunteers help keep this important landmark working, something they petitioned to continue doing when there were plans to automate it. The town itself is a pastel-coloured delight, with lots of pretty houses and rental villas and was a beautiful place to wander around for the afternoon.
We were soon back on our travels south, this time to Little Harbour, a well-known stop off whilst waiting for a weather window to head south to Eleuthera. Little Harbour is the home of ‘Pete’s Pub’ a business with the right name for when Pete retires for the second time to his beach shack! The entrance to the protected harbour where we wanted to anchor was only deep enough for us at high tide, but this was too late for our long sail to Eleuthera the next day, so we anchored out in the rolling sea, not the best night’s sleep we have had, but the anchor held well and we were still where we were supposed to be when we woke up in the morning! We missed out on Pete’s birthday (bar owner Pete) pig roast and party which sounded like a fun day, but the wind was going to be in the wrong direction for the rest of the week and would have made for a miserable crossing!
We ended up following a convoy of other boats who also thought that it was the best day to make the crossing, and after a couple of nights at anchor, docked at Spanish Wells Marina to be able to refuel and use the laundry. It was during this stop we bumped into the business partner, Kevin, of our yacht broker Kyle, so had a good catch up with him. We then made our way south to Rock Sound harbour for our first airport pick-up. Rock Sound is a protected bay and there were a lot of boats anchoring and preparing for the 50mph winds that had been forecast for the next few days. To avoid these, we were going to Cape Eleuthera Marina, so just had a quick stop here to pick up Jim (Lord Jim Brockett!), one of Pete’s friends before making the move.
The marina was lovely, however they gave us a really tight spot which meant some precision manoeuvring from Pete – we have a 25ft beam and the posts were barely 28ft apart…difficult at any point, but worse when there is the start of a high wind. Being stern to (reverse parked) we ended up being a bit further away from the dock which meant a leap of faith each time we wanted to get on or off the boat!
Safely tied up, we went to speak to some of the other boat owners and see what their plans were for the high winds. We were going to go to the bar ('let’s go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for this to all blow over'), but it seemed most others were staying on their boat, so we had dinner, which was some really lovely Mahi and for dessert Kylie had deep fried cheesecake! We then went back to make sure all of our lines were secure and our fenders were in the best place to stop the boat banging into the dock.
Overnight, we clocked 46mph winds on our instruments, with some of the other boats clocking over 50mph; we got up several times in the night to move fenders, tighten lines and generally check that everything was ok. Pete slept up top in case there was an emergency, however he managed to sleep through all of the weird noises the boat was making and Kylie had to keep getting up to check them out!
We spent the following day relaxing by the pool and went for a quick walk around the island. Jim got the fishing kit we had out and we spent the afternoon making sure our fishing lines were attached to our fishing rods properly and being amazed at the number of different types of lures we had. Apparently, we were well equipped - all the gear but no idea!
Our next stop was Governor’s harbour, a small town halfway down the main island of Eleuthera, so we could go, somewhat appropriately, to ‘The Buccaneer Club’, a local restaurant with great reviews. It was dark by the time we set off in the dingy to get to shore and the sea state wasn’t great, but we were determined and having got soaked by the waves and struggling to find somewhere to tie up the dinghy we went for a beach landing which in calm water and daylight can be beautiful; in rough seas and in the dark, a bit traumatic! However, the food was lovely, the Buccaneer punch suitably full of rum and with our stash of Buccaneer merch we headed back to the boat in equally bad seas.
Returning to Rock Sound to pick up Kiddy, another of Pete’s friends, we decided to stop off on the way at Schooner Cay, a small, deserted island which we swam across to with a packed lunch to just sit and enjoy the view. Once Kiddy had been collected, the rum supplies had a major hit as we downed Dark ‘N’ Stormy cocktails, shorts and beers, all the while spinning numerous dits and reminding each other of what awesome and brave pilots we were back in the day! Jim and Kiddy now fly for the airlines, hence their ability to visit at short notice using staff travel discounts, but the flying is now a little more mundane!
With a full complement of sailors, we decided to leave Eleuthera and head across to the Exhumas island chain. Along the way we used the Code Zero sail for the first time (a big foresail that is a little like a spinnaker) and pressed all 4 fishing rods into service. Pete’s line was the first to catch a fish, a small grouper, but we also lost 2 lures and a whole length of fishing line in the process. So far, the fish were winning! When we reached the other side at Norman Cay, we found a quiet anchorage and started to even the score when Jim & Kiddy found 2 huge lobsters, which meant christening the newly refurbished BBQ and having an epic seafood feast that evening.
Fully sated, the next day we stopped just around the corner to go snorkelling on a submerged C46 Curtiss Commando plane that had reputedly been drug-running when it crashed in shallow waters in the mid-1980s. It was remarkably well-preserved and full of inquisitive sea life. Another first that day was making bread on board until the expert guidance of Jim, very familiar with the process having done so many times whilst sailing around the world himself 20 years ago.
One of our stops on the way south was Staniel Cay where we explored Thunderball Grotto, a remarkable cave that featured in the James Bond film of the same name. It was a wet and wild journey to get there, so we stopped off on the way back to see the ‘pet’ nurse sharks at Staniel Yacht Club. Heading further south, we followed the line of the deep water drop off to the east of the Exhumas chain and were rewarded with our first ‘proper’ fish, a medium sized Mahi Mahi. These are fast swimming fish with incredible strength, so it was a team effort to get it aboard. Once we stopped for the night, an operating table was set up in the cockpit for our first filleting session which seemed to go pretty well and not much was wasted. Needless to say, Mahi fillets were on the menu that night!
Sadly, Jim’s time had come to an end and we headed further south to Great Exhuma Island where we dropped Jim off at a marina for his flight back to Nassau and the UK. Once we had said our farewells, we headed further south another couple of hours to Georgetown, the ‘capital’ of the Exhumas. Another Mahi was caught on the way, along with a small tuna fish, so the freezer is starting to get full of fish fillets! Georgetown is a bit of a magnet for sailing cruisers and we were blown away by just how many boats were at anchor here. There is a cruisers regatta starting next week which will have attracted many, but others are here as a gateway to some of the more unexplored islands further south and the rest of the Caribbean beyond. We tried out the first of many beach bars in the area and found ourselves bemusedly watching the Superbowl in complete ignorance of how the game works!
Having been travelling constantly since our guests had arrived, we had a chill-out day in Georgetown, visiting the town and shops, renewing our fishing licence with Bahamas Customs (an exercise on old-school bureaucracy and form filling!) and eating a fabulous fish curry prepared by Kiddy, before heading back to Emerald Bay marina to say goodbye to him. It has been absolutely wonderful having them both to stay, but we needed a base to catch up on laundry and cleaning before heading back to Georgetown to join in some of the regatta events.
Thanks to Jim for the ace compilation video!
21 Jan 26
Tropical waters - at last!
Our trip over to the Bahamas was smooth – we had heard horror stories of the Gulf Stream and how crossing it can be a miserable experience unless you have the right weather window. Luckily for us, the wind was coming from the south, which meant it was blowing in the same direction as the Gulf Stream, making it optimum crossing weather. We still noticed a drop in speed as we crossed it and were pushed north of the Bahamas as we crossed, still ending up near enough to West End, a port of entry on the northern tip of Grand Bahama island where we could clear customs and immigration.
As we neared land, we raised our ‘Q’ flag, the yellow quarantine flag which indicates that we haven’t officially cleared customs or immigration – this needs to be flown until you are stamped in, when it gets swapped for a courtesy flag – this is the flag of the country you are visiting.
As Pete is ‘Master’ of the boat, (something that he loves being!), only he is allowed onshore taking all the documents with him, whilst Kylie must wait onboard. The Bahamas has a great ‘click to clear’ process where you enter all your information online, so it was a quick process, and we were soon having our first cold beer!
Although we had stocked up on lots of shopping before leaving the USA, we still needed to get some fresh groceries which we weren’t allowed to import, and walking into town we were offered a lift by Carl, a local who seemed to know everybody. A well-stocked supermarket meant we were now ready to work on the next part of us being self-sufficient...our watermaker!
Water in the Bahamas is not always readily available and when it is, you need to pay for it. In order to become more self-sufficient, we have a watermaker; we had tried to get it working whilst we still in the USA, but we kept getting a pressure warning error and even with the new part, the error wouldn’t go away.
However, Pete took the box apart and found the manual override button, so now it all works fine! By throwing a pipe overboard we can take sea water, put it through some filters, get rid of the salt (by black magic!) and get drinking water which is of better quality than that we got from the water pipes in America. That, alongside our solar panels charging our batteries, means that we are free to anchor where we wish and still have our creature comforts!
Our exploration of the Bahamas had started with the Abacos a series of islands (cays) on the outskirts of Grand Bahama and Great Abaco Island. The waters here are known to require careful planning and good charts; there are moving sandbars, reefs and shallow waters to negotiate, but it is worth it for the lovely aquamarine water and beaches.
We have been snorkelling, seen turtles, rays and sharks walked through little towns and sat in the sun reading and drinking beer or rum punch. At Noname Cay we went to see the swimming pigs, who didn’t swim (just paddled), but still took the apples we had taken to feed them!
We also took part in a dramatic rescue of a Canadian couple who were out in their dingy and lost power…they had a black labrador, so Pete was always going to be going to help them! They joined us for drinks later and left with a bag of chips, something they had been craving but couldn’t justify buying as they were on a tight budget!
A sad moment for Pete: his beloved Gill sailing cap that he had taken on many adventures, (first photographed appearance in 2010), finally had to go. It was beyond saving, falling apart, incredibly sweaty and nothing like the dark blue colour it was when first purchased. It will, however, remain immortalised at the ‘signing tree’ on Allan Pensecola Cay, where boat memorabilia is tied up to decorate it and is a tourist attraction in its own right. Whilst we may not agree with the premise of ‘boat junk’ being left behind, at least this way the cap has a second life and is with other pre-loved items. Despite its venerable age, it is (was) still outlived by one of his T-shirts that is now 35 years old!
We have had a few windy days and nights whilst here which has meant we have managed to keep up with ‘The Traitors’ and we are looking forward to the final this week. Pete thinks that Stephen will win, and Kylie just hopes that Rachel gets found out!
If it looks really bad weather then we consider staying in a sheltered marina, and one of those visits was to Green Turtle Cay where we hired a golf buggy for the day to explore the island. We hoped to dine in ‘town’ but the power to the island was cut off, so no-one was serving food. Instead, we had a local cocktail, Goombay Smash, by candlelight with the delightful Miss Emily at Blue Bee’s Bar and being entertained by Brendal, a local celebrity who runs a dive shop which has been frequented by the rich and famous. He was keen for us to over-indulge on the cocktails until he learnt that we had hired our golf buggy from his shop!
We are finishing our tour of the Abacos in the next couple of days before heading further south to explore Eleuthera, a group of islands on the way to the Exhumas.
6 Jan 26
To Boldly Go...!
Being anchored near Cape Canaveral, we took a trip to Cocoa Beach during the day on New Year’s Eve. However, Kylie’s never-ending attempts at videoing dolphins was again thwarted: as we approached the shore on our way there, they were swimming underneath us, however because we were on the water her phone was in a waterproof bag and by the time she had got it out, they had swum away…the quest continues! If anyone wants to see any of her sea videos with commentary on how the dolphins have just swum away, we have lots of them!!
We had a relaxing walk on the beach and lunch on the pier overlooking the sea at a lovely restaurant that Pete had been to before when he had the arduous task of visiting Cocoa Beach on a work visit 2 years ago. He was also here during his Hercules days and still remembers having a whip around with his crew to pay for the co-pilot to be able to judge the local wet t-shirt competition as a birthday present! And no trip to Cocoa Beach is complete without a quick look around the iconic Ron Jon’s surf shop, which we managed to do without buying anything!
In the evening, we took a short dinghy ride to Grills, a local bar and restaurant. The food was good and they had a live band…which was outside…and it was (relatively!) freezing! The band started off with an iconic Blondie song, so that meant we were there to stay, spending the evening sat under the patio heaters in our coats but still managing to have a nice time and see New York’s New Year ball drop on the TV screen. All of those in the know had turned up in hats, gloves and big coats!
New Year’s Day was spent on the boat, doing some odd boat jobs and just relaxing before heading out to the Kennedy Space Centre. Kylie has always wanted to be an astronaut and is distraught that they aren’t looking for HR professionals to take part in Project Artemis, NASA’s current missions to set up a settlement on the Moon and, eventually, Mars. We went on some of the rides and had a go on their new VR experience collecting minerals for the Moon settlement – all very cool!
We also met and chatted to an astronaut – Norman Thagard - who has spent over 140 days in space. Finally, we saw where the SpaceX launch was going to be and looked round all the past and future rockets and space exploration vehicles. Although we have both been before, it is always a fabulous day out.
Unfortunately, the SpaceX launch scheduled for that evening was delayed a couple of days, so we spent a few extra days in the Banana River. When the launch evening came, we moved the boat so that we had a better view of the launch pad and when it came to ‘blast off’ we saw and heard it all – a spectacular sight!
The next day we headed back to a marina, through a lock and a drawbridge, both requiring a bit of technical driving and throwing of lines. Luckily, both were successful as there were some fisher people on the bank videoing us going by! We did this to make our big provisioning shop before we go to the Bahamas a little easier. However, after filling two big trolleys of things in the supermarket we decided that we should stop as we had to get an Uber back and it all had to fit in the boot of whichever car we ended up with! That, and we had been shopping for 3 hours, so Pete was getting bored!
Back at the marina we were invited onto ‘Firefly’, another catamaran docked nearby, with another couple from ‘Dreamweaver’ for drinks. All of us are new boat owners and had lots of tales and tips to help each other with our travels.
The next morning was an early start, however not as early as anticipated due to fog and bad visibility. We still managed to leave with the tide, heading for Fort Pierce, our next stop down the east coast. Coming into the channel, the tide and wind were not in our favour, and we had to take it carefully leading ‘Firefly’ in behind us. We anchored in one of the inlets and were joined for dinner by the son of one of Pete’s university friends who is currently undertaking his commercial pilot’s licence training nearby.
Another early morning followed, straight down the east coast to West Palm Beach, a truly Floridian experience with lots of powerboaters, paddle boarders and sunshine. Another night a marina so we could ensure we had fuel, water and the rest of provisions whilst waiting for the best weather window to go to the Bahamas. Luckily, that was the next day, so we had to clear customs and do a final shop to ensure we were ready to go.
Our visit to CBP (Customs and Border Control) was fortuitous. We had read various different accounts online as to what we needed to do, ranging from ‘do nothing’ to ‘you must check out in person’. As there was a CBP office where we were, we decided a visit was the best option and a very helpful officer gave us lots of forms to fill in, which we quickly did before they closed. It seems that had we not done everything ‘above board’ then we may not have been allowed back in!
We then went onto complete our provisioning, this time a food shop to make sure we had enough stores to see us through the next few days. A final round of laundry, a quick drink in the marina’s Tiki bar, an appreciation of the West Palm Beach skyline before bed in preparation for an early departure to the Bahamas!
31 Dec 25
Merry Christmas & Happy New year!
For Christmas, we had a prime mooring spot in St Augustine harbour, close to the Bridge of Lions and in front of downtown St Augustine. St Augustine lays claim to being the oldest city in the USA and its Spanish heritage is reflected in its architecture and culture. If that weren’t enough of a reason to visit, every year they decorate all the buildings on the harbour front with Christmas lights in an event called ‘Nights of Lights’ which attracts thousands of visitors, with the population of the city doubling over the period.
People just come to wander through the historic district, take horse buggy rides or trips around the harbour. The harbour was therefore full of sunset cruise boats decorated with fairy lights and we were entertained by groups of party goers singing along to all the classic hits! Because we were near the old Spanish fort, Castillo de San Marcos, we were also regularly ‘fired upon’ by the roving pirate ship and fort cannons.
Dressed in our best Christmas rig, we spent Christmas Eve walking around town, enjoying a beer and cigar in one bar before ending up in Pierre’s Bar, listening to some great live music. Whilst we had been told that generally restaurants had a two-hour waiting list, they ended up ‘reservation only’ and the only place that would feed us was the Grilled Cheese Gallery, where we had mac ‘n’ cheese in a toastie – I think that Pete secretly preferred that over any posh restaurant!
Christmas day was a relaxed day spent on the boat with Pete’s classic Eggs Benedict for breakfast followed up by catching up with our families by video call. When it came to cooking Christmas dinner, who needs a double oven range and a 5-ring induction hob?! All it took was an air fryer, a 2-ring induction hob and a delicate balance of using them to ensure we didn’t overload the batteries!
We also made brandy butter (with rum of course in lieu of brandy) which we enjoyed with a Marks & Spencer’s Christmas pudding brought out from our trip back to UK. If that wasn’t traditional enough, we followed all that by watching the King’s speech and the Strictly Christmas special!
Boxing day entailed a trip to the shops by dinghy followed by some boat jobs. Kylie’s phone, once full of pictures of nights out and great scenery is now filled with pictures of the price of jumbo refills of various household products from Home Depot – all ready for our big reprovision before we leave the US and head to the Bahamas.
Back on the boat we put the sails up so we could mark the lines (ropes) so we can reef quickly without having to stand outside in (generally) bad weather. Reefing means making the sail smaller in stronger winds to stop us blowing over. After a slight mix up with the restaurant booking for the evening (we hadn’t made one!) we had a lovely meal in the Collage restaurant, a small venue just off the main tourist street.
The next day was more boat jobs, this time sorting out our watermaker. We were told not to run it in the Chesapeake and to wait until we got to clearer waters, and as we are getting closer to that day, it seemed like a good opportunity to get it going. As with everything on our boat, what should have been a quick job turned out taking all day. Pete was following the layout diagram in the manual identifying the different parts and Kylie was happy writing labels with the label maker, so we knew what everything was.
All good, until we tried to flush the system with clean water and we got a pressure error message, which took all day to investigate and is still not sorted; a call to the dealership is needed to talk through the issue and to get any new parts. Kylie also put her sewing skills into use by fixing part of the canopy which had started to come apart.
It was a truly wonderful time in St Augustine, but the wanderers needed to keep wandering! We left in pretty poor visibility for an inlet further south where fortunately the visibility picked up for our approach. A quick night at anchor before heading further south along the Space Coast to Cape Canaveral where we will be for New Year’s Eve. It was a beautiful run and we were blessed to see giant Manta Rays jumping out of the water and even a Hammerhead shark swimming under the boat!
Dodging 4 giant cruise liners on our way in, we are now anchored up the Banana River with views of all the launch platforms at Cape Canaveral in the distance. There is due to be a launch on the evening of 2 January, so we will stay here till then to watch it.
So, after 1478 nautical miles traversing 8 US states and 4 months of living in a space not much bigger than a squash court, we end 2025 having met some wonderful people and seen some of the spectacular scenery here in the US. This time last year we had both just retired and were about to spend 6 months preparing for this, doing DIY, selling everything and generally simplifying our lives. Has it all been worth it? Most definitely, and if this year is anything to go by, then 2026 will be even better!
Wishing you all a peaceful end to 2025 and all the very best for 2026.
23 Dec 25
Rounding the Cape!
With the boat as serviceable as it could be, stores provisioned, safety kit double checked and having picked an appropriate weather window, we set off at midday on 12th December at full speed to ensure we could round Cape Hatteras the following morning in daylight and catch the calmest of the weather.
You may ask why we went 'outside' the Outer Banks when there is a much safer and easier route using an inland stretch of water called the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW) which runs all the way from Florida up to New York. Sadly, our mast is too high to use this route. The maximum clearance height for all the bridges on the ICW is 65' as dictated by the US Corps of Engineers; we are 67'8"!
In the event, it was beautifully smooth sailing and rounding the Cape we saw lots of dolphins and even a Right Atlantic whale. These are some of the most endangered whale species due to them being over-whaled in earlier times for their abundant blubber and there are only a recorded 350 or so of these magnificent creatures left.
Then it got rough. We were aiming for a town called Beaufort, North Carolina, which meant heading into wind with some fairly large waves. All in all, it was a miserable 12 hours as we headed for a protected anchorage outside Beaufort. During this leg, a boat ahead of us decided to take a shortcut to the anchorage but ran aground – the shoals around these capes are treacherous and many of the charts just say ‘inaccurate depths due to constantly shifting sands’! We offered assistance on the radio, but quite frankly there was little we could really do to help, and they called out the equivalent of the AA to come and help tow them off.
We crept into the anchorage in the deep of night and anchored by torchlight, waking up to a most stunning view and dolphins all around us. It was a short hop to Beaufort itself where we had booked into a marina for 2 nights as the next day was forecast to be very windy.
Once rested, we set off again aiming for Charleston, South Carolina which would be another 36-hour passage. If we thought it was cold in Virginia, North Carolina played a blinder as we left the salt spray was freezing on impact with the boat, making getting the sails up a miserable endeavour. Luckily, our stunt captain had the short straw for that and even had to scrape the ice off our windscreen!
The rest of that passage was thankfully uneventful although Pete did see a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral during the night from some 200 miles away. We finally rocked up to Charleston late in the afternoon, picked up a mooring buoy and said goodbye to Kyle.
We were moored in a very fancy area called Daniel Island, so as we walked to the supermarket for provisions, smelling a bit and looking quite dishevelled, we peered into the swanky restaurants we passed like the poor Cratchit family in A Christmas Carol!
Catching up on rest, we also gave the boat a good clean before setting off again – we are making our way down to Florida for Christmas in a series of day hops. We travel as far as we can in the ‘big sea’ and then duck into an inlet to anchor for the night. The first night was spent up the appropriately named Morgan River where we anchored off Morgan Island. It is a federally protected area where some 4000 Rhesus monkeys live who are being studied for health reasons. This meant we couldn’t go ashore, and although we could hear them there was no sight of ‘Morgan’s Monkeys’!
We spent the next night in the Savannah River, Georgia and the next outside St Simon’s Island before finally reaching Florida at Fernandina Beach. Its lovely to be back in a warmer area and able to swap thick sailing trousers for shorts again!
For our final leg before Christmas, we headed further south to St Augustine where we are moored just off the fort and in full view of the town and its beautiful Christmas lights. Our general direction after this is to head further south to reprovision and traverse international boundaries at last by heading to the Bahamas for 3-4 months!
So, it's time to wish all our followers an amazingly Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy 2026.
4 Dec 25
Back to the boat!
So, you may be wondering where we have been….a three-week trip to the UK ended up being closer to a month – it seems that fixing boats takes longer than anticipated!
However, we are now back on board with the heating on, fully serviced engines, a fixed engine blower, an inspected mast with new shrouds and a much lighter bank balance! As is always the case, we came back to other things that needed attention, the batteries for some reason were not charging properly and we are still at Severn Yachting Centre whilst they continue with the fixes.
Our journey to the airport to fly back to the UK was slightly traumatic with a late bus and then the connecting bus not turning up, meaning a long (and expensive) Uber trip from Williamsburg to Washington Dulles airport. I am not sure the driver who took us on the second part of the journey knew what they had accepted as we got caught in the Washington rush hour traffic.
However, the trip was a success, and we are now holders of an American visa, which means we can now check in/out of the USA on the boat, something that we are hoping we will be doing shortly when we leave the USA to go to the Bahamas.
One of the other reasons for flying back was that both of us had the chance to march past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday as members of the 216 Squadron Association. In previous years, Pete was unable to participate as he was still serving, but now he is officially a ‘Veteran’ he could. It was a very poignant day and we were blessed to be joined by our family afterwards who were there to (endlessly) clap the Veterans.
We managed to catch up with a few friends who were around, but we certainly didn’t enjoy the wet, grey and cold November in the UK…never again! Our future visits will always be in summer!
Flying back to the boat with almost as much stuff as when we came out in August, we had a few days in Washington, where we finally (third time of trying!) got to the Air and Space museum, which was awesome.
So, the outcome of the delayed boat repairs meant that we were still in Virgina at the start of December and Virginia can get very cold! To kill a day waiting for the boat to go back in the water we went to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg for their Christmas Town event. What we imagined was an evening eating lots (we had paid for all day dining, going on lots of rollercoaster rides and savouring the Christmas atmosphere.
What we got however was a bitterly cold evening, most rides out of service either for winter maintenance or because of the cold, some dreadful fast food and quite frankly a somewhat deflated Christmas atmosphere! Kylie however, got to meet Santa in Williamsburg at their Christmas market which was much better!
The boat finally went back into the water, and we were able to move back aboard. Due to the nature of the next few passages, we had engaged the services of our yacht broker, Kyle, to act as a skipper as he also does yacht deliveries. However, being ready later than anticipated, Kyle was unavailable for another week, so we had to stay in Virginia and endure the cold. And how cold it was! The heating on the boat was working flat out and one day we awoke to 4 inches of snow! Not quite the ‘tropical life’ dream both of us had imagined!
Clearly, the only answer was to build a snowman onboard, shovel it off and just shiver our way through, catching up on Strictly Come Dancing! As a result of the cold, the marina had turned off the water supplies to the docks, so we had to hand fill our tanks with 14 separate jerry can fills.
Finally, the boat was ready and our captain arrived, so we set off on what would be our most demanding passage so far, going into the big sea and travelling down the Outer Banks and around the infamous Cape Hatteras. Having passed that way by road when we were on our boat buying trip, we had visited the museum at Cape Hatteras which is somewhat ominously titled the Museum of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
The main reason for Cape Hatteras earning that title is the frequent big storms and a confluence of the cold, southward flowing Labrador Current with the northbound, warmer Gulf Stream flowing up from Florida. When cold and warm air mix, bad things happen! It would also be Kylie’s first ever overnight passage with a working watch system where everyone would do 4 hours on watch; 4 hours on standby, cooking and being available to help; and four hours of sleeping. After the relatively benign and sheltered waters of the Chesapeake Bay, this would be something very different…
24 Oct 25
On the trail of the lonesome pine!
This was a different week for us, as we tied the boat up at Washington Sailing Marina and left it all alone for a week – our first absence! The weather in the Chesapeake was forecast to be a bit rubbish, so we took advantage of this to undertake a side quest by taking a road trip along the Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway.
The Skyline Drive is a 105-mile scenic route through the Shenandoah National Park with a speed limit of 35 mph to make sure you slow down and enjoy the drive. It is devoid of shops, garages, billboards and all the usual accoutrements of a drive along any usual road in the USA and is focussed on showing off the beauty of this amazing national park.
As it was fall, the leaves were turning to an amazing kaleidoscope of reds, russets, orange and yellow: consequently, Kylie took millions of many tree pictures, but we will spare you most of them. However, needless to say, the scenery was stunning and the photos just don't do it justice.
At the start, despite the Government shutdown, there was a very helpful Park Ranger suggesting some nice walks to break up the drive, which was very welcome after weeks at sea with little exercise! This was the most stressful day of our travels so far for Pete as Kylie was driving for some of it! We ended in Waynesboro where we met up with one of Kylie's friends for dinner, Antony, who used to be a cadet at 216 (Redditch) squadron.
The following day we started driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is a mammoth 469-mile drive, and whilst a similar concept to the Skyline Drive, covers a much wider variety of landscapes as it joins the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the north with the Smoky Mountain National Park in North Carolina to the south.
As the name suggests, it follows the Blue Ridge Mountain range and construction began back in 1935 as one of the ‘New Deal’ projects initiated by President Roosevelt to provide artificially created employment following the Great Depression.
On our first day we covered 120 miles with 4 separate hikes along the way, ending up in the city of Roanoke which was a major economic hub and stopping point along the Great Wagon Road which, in the 1700’s, brought new settlers down from New England to the expanding Appalachian region.
The next day saw us hiking to the famous McAffee Knob ledge, one of the most photographed and Instagrammed points on the Appalachian National Scenic Trial, which is itself a 2,197-mile hike from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. It intersects the Parkway in many spots but is a separate and distinct path of its own. We managed to complete just 0.5% of it throughout the week, so not sure we will be joining the 2,000-miler club for those that have completed it all anytime soon! Another time maybe!
With sore legs, the next day we retired to the car and saw more spectacular views, including a stop off at Mabry Mill, a restored historic gristmill, which would usually have demonstrations, but is currently closed due to the Government shutdown so we could only look around the outside of the buildings, and the Blue Ridge music centre which celebrates the musical history of the area.
We stayed the night in Blowing Rock which is a ski resort in the winter and is full of up-market shops and places to eat. As it was Friday – and Friday is pizza night - we headed to Mellow Mushroom, a great pizza place near to our hotel.
Our final day on the drive was another beautiful day, and we stopped at another iconic viewpoint, this time the Linn Cove viaduct, a famous bridge built on the edge of Grandfather Mountain. We then had to do a significant detour near to Linville Falls as the Parkway was still severely damaged following Hurricane Helene in 2024, before finishing our road trip adventure at Cherokee with enough time to visit Oconaluftee Indian Village, a living history museum showing life within a Cherokee village in the 18th century.
We had now got as far south as we could, and it was a long drive back to the boat, taking almost 12 hours on the interstates, but the boat was still there when we got back and had survived the bad weather! Just enough time for some laundry, dinner at Founding Farmers in the evening and some early morning food shopping before heading back down the Potomac River and the Chesapeake towards Severn Yachting Centre where we will be leaving the boat when we return to the UK at the end of October.
12 Oct 25
Up the rivers!
These last 2 weeks saw us exploring 2 rivers, the Patuxent and the Potomac although unsurprisingly, the weather is starting to cool down and there has been some bad weather around, some of which definitely affected us.
Our first port of call was Solomon Island which, we understand, is a pretty lively place during the summer. This time of year it is definitely winding down, so our stay was pretty laid back. After a day visiting the Patuxent River Naval Air Station museum, we treated ourselves to one night in a marina and were very grateful to the Solomon Island Yacht Club for allowing us to stay with them. Everyone was most welcoming, and we had an extremely pleasant night talking to many of the members.
We had been warned that, as is common in yacht clubs, that they would want our RAF Sailing Association pennant to join their collection. We should have bought more, but right now only have the one, so were relieved to find out that they already had an RAF Sailing Club pennant in their collection. Although not the same one, it nonetheless looked pretty similar, so spared us giving ours up!
Our next few nights were spent in some beautiful and quiet anchorages up various rivers and creeks and a brief visit to Sotterley Plantation, a museum dedicated to educating about the impact the slave trade had on the success of early America and the tobacco trade.
It was then time to say goodbye to the Patuxent River and start making our way up the Potomac which would take us all the way to Washington DC. Some great promotional advertising led us to Leonardtown first, but as it was out of season and a Tuesday, everything was shut!
Craving a bit of civilisation after so many quiet nights at anchor, we then planned to go to Colonial Beach, but the weather had other plans and after a couple of hours bashing to windward and fighting some pretty big waves, we diverted to a safe anchorage hidden behind Cobb Island for yet more solitude!
The river started to get busier as we approached Washington and after a night at the National Harbour, we finally anchored right in the heart of the city in a police anchorage with views of the Washington Monument.
Along the way we had 2 of those ‘isn’t it a small world?’ moments – the first was a boat that overtook us and then called us on the radio as they had noted the RAF Sailing Association ensign we were flying. The skipper, Fred, had been an exchange pilot on 101 Squadron based at RAF Brize Norton in the late eighties and there were a few rogues that we both knew from that era. We exchanged email addresses over the radio, and he was very kind to send us some pics of us and the boat as they went past.
The other moment was in Washington where there was one other catamaran in our anchorage. The skipper came over to say hello as he too had noted the ensign, and he was an ex-USAF C130 pilot and it turns out Pete had been flying in and out of Bastion in Afghanistan at similar times.
It was strange and at the same time wonderful to be anchored in the heart of Washington. After the peace and solitude of many of our anchorages so far, the noise of traffic, emergency sirens, planes and helicopters very much reminded us of the days when we used to live in London when the beat of the city could be heard throughout the night. Although not in a marina, we paid the princely sum of $10 for dinghy access, for which we could also use the showers and laundry facilities. After a week of conserving water, the chance to stand under a hot running shower without a care for how much we used was bliss!
The waterfront in Washington has been redeveloped over the last few years and is now a very cool place with lots of bars, restaurants and event spaces. We spent most of our first afternoon there enjoying various complimentary food giveaways and even found somewhere giving out free cocktails with the price merely being a little bit of education into the importance of the First Amendment! There was even a caricaturist doing free pics!
We had hoped to visit the National Air and Space Museum, as it was somewhere we didn’t have time to go to last time we were here, but sadly the US Government shut-down stymied that plan as the Museum shut the very day we were going to go.
There is some horrendous weather on the East coast right now, which is affecting much of the Chesapeake Bay. Thankfully we are pretty sheltered here at the top of the Potomac and it is fortunate that we have picked this next week to tie up Buccaneer for the week whilst we go on a road trip to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway, a 479-mile drive through the Blue Ridge mountains.
One downside of our road trip however is that we will miss the chance to go on a river cruise next weekend with Captain Sandy from Below Decks…gutted!
30 Sep 25
Our first boat guests!
It was a relatively short trip to Annapolis, the self-titled US capital of sailing, and with 6 days spent at one of the marinas, like all capitals it was refreshingly expensive! We try and anchor when we can now, but we needed to be at a dock for our technician to work on the boat and to facilitate Kylie’s uncle and aunt’s arrival. It was a very tight spot to dock, with some advanced level driving from Pete - nothing like reverse parking through a small gap with boats behind you to focus the mind!
Another boat issue reared its head on the way when the fridges and freezers stopped working, so we spent some time trying to work out what was wrong with them; luckily nothing more serious than a blown fuse, but a blown fuse in a place we didn’t know we had fuses!
Our electronics expert come and look at our chart plotter, AIS and Victron battery system. Some work was needed on all 3 elements, but as they were a local company they came back within a couple of days to complete (most) of the work. We can now ‘see’ how much big, beautiful solar power we are getting into our batteries!
We are now used to being without a car, so we walked to the supermarket to get supplies with our granny trolley – it was a great success, albeit it caused some amusement with the locals! However, much better than trying to carry everything back to the boat, so we are prepared to be the entertainment!
Relaxing back at the boat and pondering which pizza to order as a treat for our endeavours, our visitors arrived – 24 hours early! However, it was lovely to see them, and we spent the next few days sightseeing in Annapolis, taking the boat for a tour of the harbour, which included going under some bridges for which we have a tight clearance(!), relaxing on the boat and going out for some nice food. Annapolis is also the home of the US Naval Academy, our equivalent of BRNC Dartmouth. As foreigners we are not allowed entry to the site, so we had to make do with a drive-by from the water instead.
After saying goodbye to our guests, we set off to Oxford and Cambridge, two small towns on the Choptank River, although Oxford was most definitely the smaller of the two. Arriving in Cambridge on a Friday evening, we hadn’t known, but there was going to be quite a lot happening that weekend. Firstly, 12 Skipjack boats, the traditional sail boats used by the Oystermen, were gathered for a procession and a race on Saturday morning. We had unwittingly anchored next to the course they were due to sail, and so we sat on our beanbags watching them with a ringside view as they sailed straight past.
We then cheered the Red Roses onto their World Cup victory before heading into town for Cambridge’s annual food festival. The local restaurants taking part had a choice of making either a crab cake, crab stew or soup, crab salad, Eastern shore fayre or a dessert – the food was quite superb, and we made sure we tried everything that was on offer, listened to some great local bands and drank yet more local speciality beers. We also decided that, as we have been in the land of the oyster for over a month now and that neither of us had ever had one, we should be brave and try them out – Pete’s review speaks for itself!
16 Sep 25
And we're off!
We set off for Rock Hall in the morning of 6 September for our first real trip out! Taking baby steps, we motored the whole way which took us 6 hours. The trip was uneventful, but the entrance into Rock Hall was pretty tense as the water was very shallow, even for our 4-foot draft! Rock Hall is a small town with a rich fishing history of Chesapeake Watermen who made the area wealthy by harvesting oysters and blue claw crabs. We went to shore to look around which, other than the museum, didn’t take long! However, there was the annual Rock Hall Bike Fest in town, so we joined them for a beer and enjoyed the live music. It was very much beards, denim and Harley Davidsons all round!
Having been there for 2 days, we had exhausted all Rock Hall had to offer so headed over the other side of the Chesapeake to the Magothy river, this time testing out the sails, although there was little wind! This was also our first time anchoring, in a beautifully sheltered spot surrounded by very expensive houses.
We explored the river by dinghy, primarily looking for somewhere to get ashore, which is quite difficult in USA as most of the shoreline is privately owned. However, we passed a couple of people sitting on the dock that we spoke to and they let us use their dock and very kindly drove us into town so we could get some supplies.
After three restful days at anchor, we headed back to the East coast of the Chesapeake, undertaking our first under-bridge crossing. Even though the posted clearance was 185ft vs our 67ft height, it still looked alarmingly close. We will need to be braver in the future as some of the bridges are significantly lower.
On the East side we anchored at Kent Narrows, a place we had been warned would be bad for our liver! Sure enough, there were lots of dockside bars open late into the night. It would have been rude not to try them out and we had some nice cocktails in Big Owl Tiki bar and Red Eye Dock. The next day we spent walking the cross-island trail which heads west across Kent Island towards Terrapin Park, alas sadly no terrapins spotted.
Still awaiting news of our technician’s appointment in Annapolis, we headed down to St Michael’s, another beautiful fishing town with charming heritage properties, and famous for fooling the Royal Navy during the War of Independence by blacking out the town and putting lamps upriver in the trees so when the Navy launched their cannons, they overshot the town. It seems everywhere we go in this area they take great delight in advertising how they outfoxed the dastardly British one way or another!
Our final day in St Michael’s was marked by the strongest winds we have experienced yet, up to 25knots, which confirmed how good our anchor was, even if Pete did stay up late keeping watch! Our next plans are to head to Annapolis where we can get some electrical work done and prepare for our first boat visit from Kylie’s aunt and uncle.
5 Sep 25
We're aboard!
It will be clear for those that do look at this that we haven’t really posted anything for 3 weeks now. Has it all gone wrong? No, not at all, but we have been very busy! So what’s been going on? Well, we officially took command of our new vessel on 18th August at Georgetown Yacht Haven, a wonderful marina set on the stunning Sassafras River.
A few extracts from the log:
18th August: Handover Day! Met previous owners at the dock where Sea View is moored. Ed and Georgia took us to the boat where we went through all the boat systems for final acceptance. This was all satisfactory, so final contract was signed and money paid. We are now poor! Returned to boat and had a cup of tea using the one mug left aboard and a paper cup stolen from the hotel. Had a cursory look around at what had been left aboard and made the first of many shopping lists. Left the boat and spoke to Linda and Chris, the marina managers, about plans to come alongside temporarily for loading. Headed back to our hotel for the evening for a combined wedding anniversary, birthday and boat ownership meal which was wonderful.
19th August: Last land breakfast and checked out of our hotel. Did big Walmart shop and, more importantly, got beer, gin and rum! Headed to boat and started shuttling foodstuffs and hand luggage aboard. Cleaned our cabin although the boat had been left pretty spotless. After dinner sat out drinking first beer, G&T and rum.
20th August: First breakfast aboard. Was informed that a slip was available, so made preparations to move. Slipped our mooring and conducted manoeuvring exercises prior to first docking. Docking went well – the Bluetooth headsets, called ‘marriage savers’ worked a treat! Tied up and celebrated with a beer (you can see where this is going!). Loaded our bags and met Simon, the first of our boat friends.
21st August: Overcast day as Hurricane Erin passed the East coast, but very little wind here. More cleaning and found a power issue that needed investigation.
22nd August: Remnants of Hurricane Erin have brought an extra high tide. As we are on a fixed (not floating) dock, this meant keeping a keen eye on our lines which were quite tight in the morning. One of our boat neighbours, Sean, is an electrics guru, so is going to come and look at our electrics issue. Unpacked most of our bags and most things have a home now, although all is subject to change as we move forward. Sean identified the electrics issue, so the first of what I am sure will be many replacement boat parts was ordered. Friday night always used to be our pizza night, so why change? Pizza was had!
23rd August onwards was more cleaning, more boat jobs and more shopping, including $500 worth of tools for our future life of boat repairs!
We had planned to leave Georgetown by the weekend, but it was Labour Day weekend, and we were told that it would be busy everywhere and, without booking anywhere, we were better off here. Besides which, there were going to be fireworks on the river and some great parties. Well, who were we to argue?
At one point we were pulled over by the River Police as our dinghy wasn’t displaying the correct registration details. Having just equipped it with lifejackets and lights we were fairly compliant with the other rules, but as our fuel tank is in a closed compartment we should have had a fire extinguisher onboard and a ‘sound making device’. Apparently, having Kylie onboard didn’t count! In the end we just got away with a warning, but we do have our first rap sheet!
Labour Day weekend was as good as promised and by this time we were back on our mooring buoy, so we watched a river boat parade and later, the fireworks which were right over our heads and quite spectacular. We enjoyed a fabulous weekend with our new boat friends and all the lovely people at the marina, listening to great live music and drinking cocktails to excess.
Our boat has finally been de-registered from the US Coast Guard records and we have registered it as a UK vessel with the name ‘Buccaneer’. Now a foreign-flagged vessel, we also had to apply for a US cruising permit and do all manner of other admin to get us street legal. This was helped no end by getting our installed Starlink dish up and running which gives us broadband internet anywhere, even on the move!
Our final task before leaving Georgetown was to perform a renaming ceremony. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and so changing the name of a boat shouldn’t be taken lightly. With a small audience we asked Poseidon to purge the name ‘Sea View’ from his records and recollection before beseeching him to accept the name ‘Buccaneer’ to his ledger, guarding her with his mighty arm and trident and ensuring her of safe and rapid passage throughout our journeys in his realm. This all involved the sacrifice on copious libations to appease him!
Finally, a each of the four wind gods were addressed: Great Boreas of the North, Zephyrus of the West, Eurus of the East and Notus of the South. In turn, they too were offered libations and asked for their permission to use their mighty powers in the pursuit of our lawful endeavours and sparing us from the overwhelming scourge of their respective breaths. More drink was spilled and drunk, but we are finally now officially ‘Buccaneer’!
We are moving tomorrow and heading for a town called Rock Hall. We have loved our time in Georgetown, everyone has been so friendly and helpful, and the location is simply stunning. We very much hope we can visit again next year as we traverse back up the East coast of the US.
17 Aug 25
And so the adventure begins!
So, after arguably 52 years preparation, but more realistically the last 5 years, we are finally out in the USA and pick up our new boat tomorrow. It has been a hard slog since January when both of us finished full-time work to cut our ties to land life, but the house is now ready for renting, many of our possessions have been sold, given away to charity to just disposed of and we are left with 4 big and 4 little bags which contain our worldly possessions! Aside of course from a 42-foot catamaran that is sitting in the Sassafras River near Georgetown, Maryland!
We’ve said our farewells to friends and family, the neighbour’s cat who thinks she lives (lived) with us, had a party or two and made as much of our life as online as possible.
Tomorrow, we jump on board and confirm that all the boat systems are still working since the survey was completed 2 weeks ago. Assuming they are then we sign our final acceptance document and become the new owners. Then the adventure can truly begin!
So how does it feel? We’d be lying if there wasn’t some trepidation about this new and unfamiliar life we are about to embark on. There is so much new that we have to adjust to: living onboard what is effectively a small apartment in close confines, understanding the boat and all its systems, living in a new country – oh, and of course the simple and obvious fact of having to sail everywhere! Our dinghy will be our ‘car’, there’s no postie, getting groceries is no longer a quick 5-minute trip to Morrisons (other supermarkets are available) and our lives will be dominated by the weather.
Even as we type, Hurricane Erin, the first ‘official’ hurricane of 2025, is barrelling towards the Caribbean, potentially hitting areas where we hope to be in a few months’ time. There have been plenty of other ‘minor’ tropical storms leading up to this, and the hurricane tracking website is our new best friend! Where we are in the Chesapeake Bay is relatively sheltered and rarely experiences hurricanes, but rarely doesn’t mean never!
But no adventure comes without leaving your comfort zone and we are excited to start ours. As Mark Twain allegedly wrote:
‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.’
FAQs
- Have we got a boat yet? Yes! A Lagoon 42 called 'Buccaneer'.
- Do we have a route yet? Sort of...at least one lap of the world, We are in the Bahamas at the moment, and plan to head back to the US in early April to remove our mast and do 'The Great Loop' - a 6,000 mile journey around US and Canada along waterways, canals and the Great Lakes.
- Will there be pirates? Hopefully only Pete!
- Does Kylie like sailing? Not really. Well, not yet anyway.
- Why a catamaran and not a 'real' boat? Because catamarans have much better living space and for most of the time we won't be sailing, just anchored or moored, so a cat lets us live on the level.