Its with mixed emotions....

Yes, we are still in Massachusetts, YES the house is NOW on the market and SweetPea is still in South Carolina, so what's happening with us?
To begin I guess to best understand is to state the fact that Jim and I are creatures of great extremes.  When we purchased SweetPea we moved aboard and were all in, less than a year before we did not even know such a purchase would take place.  We had owned a 17 foot bass boat for 20 years and thought of purchasing something larger but at that time we were thinking 20 foot maybe.  The year before we bought a camper which we moved to a lake in RI to spend summers fishing and have a summer getaway.  It was a plan, a good plan, but little did I know what was to come next.  About a month after we closed up the camper for the winter Jim told me about the boating blogs he had been reading and about this boat trip you could make that was 6000 miles ( the great American loop).  Jim is the big dreamer, me, not so much, I rolled my eyes and tried to make it look like I wasn't really interested but wow how cool was that!  I started to read the blogs and was really fascinated, it had all my favorite things boats, water, travel and the stories were amazing, the pictures incredible.  Could we really do this?  Well 6 months later we were looking at our next boat and it was a bit larger than the 20 foot fishing (lake boat).  It started out 32-34 feet, actually we were thinking maybe a Mainship, hey it doesn't cost to look?  Right?  As the dream grew so did the boat, 34' to 40, we travel down to Myrtle beach to look at some boats and ended up at the AGLCA rendezvous.  OK, I was sold ! after actually talking to these people who were doing and " living the life", 2 months later we had found and purchased our new to us boat that had grown once again to 44 feet and it was located only 20 mins from our home.  We moved aboard and visited our home a few times over the summer and that fall 2010 we dropped our lines and headed south!  "Holy crap I think we have more balls than brains"  this is what Jim said as we were heading out of the safety of our harbor with not much more than 15 hours of experience with a boat of this size..........
We returned 18 months later back to our home port to sell the house, that was May 30th 2012 after 8800 miles of boat travel.  It's all here on the blog if you want to read about it.

Back to present day,
The house went on the market 2weeks ago and I haven't been back aboard Sweetpea since the day Jim left heading to South Carolina in September 2012.

Selling the house is more emotional than I had anticipated,  I love this house and we have spent 10 of the 12 years we have owned it, updating, to get just the way we wanted, only to sell it.  If I could move it I would, but its not a boat.
Tomorrow we have an OPEN HOUSE, and tonight we pick up our daughter (SweetPea) who has found herself a new love in Austin Texas where she is planning to move.  So it's one day at a time for  all of us. We do have to get back to South Carolina in the next few days (week) to move the boat to a different marina, that is set in stone, where?  We have not decided yet.

Heading South?

We are still at home in Massachusetts but we plan to return to Myrtle Beach sometime the first week of April.  Once we clean up restock etc. we will head south to Port Royal SC more on that later.......

Happy Thanksgiving from Massachusetts

 Jim arrived back in Ma. from Myrtle Beach Sunday leaving SweetPea under the watchful eyes of some fellow loopers and an attentive dock master.  We will remain home through the holiday's and hope to return back to SC at the end of the year or the beginning of next..  It will be a bit of a challenge sharing 1 car among 3 people but then again, we have spent the last 2 years without any car at all!

This year we are spending the holiday's at our home in Massachusetts for the first time in 2 years. Well actually, we will be spending Thanksgiving with my sister and brother-in law at their home in Barrington RI, along with their big Portuguese - Italian family, always a fun and lively group.

Friday we will celebrate Thanksgiving a second time at our BFF Pats home for what she calls her mini Thanksgiving.

Also, since we are home in the next few days I will have the chance to deck the halls which will be fun and its always nice having a large fully equipped  kitchen for cooking and baking.  It is not nice however to be donning coats, sweaters etc. but hopefully this will be the last winter we will be doing this, at least the heavy wool coats.

While Jim was in MB, SC he rented a car on the weekends to check out the area a bit better to figure out where in the area we may want to purchase our new home, he found a couple of areas he liked but we have decided to extend our search a little further south to include the Beaufort - Port Royal and Hilton Head area as well.  So our options are still open right now, time will tell.  I guess even though we are living on land at the moment, we will maintain our boat schedule which means " our plans are written in the sand."

To our looping friends ........

I am following your blogs, keep them coming, it's nice reliving the loop through you, though many of you will be completing it in the next few months.  We hope to see you at some point on the east coast as you pass by.

To our looped friends.......

Whether your still on your boats or on land we know we will see some of you in the up coming months have fun and enjoy, we wish we were there with you, especially those of you in the Keys and the Bahamas!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Thanksgiving with loopers 2011 in Alabama

Baby its cold outside!

Jim is in SC with SweetPea and I am STILL in Massachusetts its 32degrees here this morning, Dam its cold!  In Myrtle Beach the low temps there will be our high for the day.  ARGGG!  I hope to be heading down that way in the next week or so. 

We need a new dinghy!  When Jim left Ma. he left without our dinghy I was not happy about him being without a dink especially since he had planned to anchor out along the way, but there just was not enough time to address the problem, so we are now looking into some different options.  We have had SweetPea for 2 1/2 years and have now been through 2 dinks, I guess we are not meant to own an inflatable so our options are......

We have been looking at something or anything that does not deflate so far we are very interested in a bullfrog which looks like a RIB but is a hard surfaced but foam based, the problem we are having with this is the cost of shipping it from the west coast.  There are other manufacturers of this type of boat but they are either lower quality and not UV protected or outrageously expensive or both.  Then there is a Boston Whaler, which we have dreamed of but, it will mean changing our davit system which is another added expense plus we are limited to size and weight of course.  So the search is on for an 11 foot Whaler without a console not an easy task I will add.  Yes there are other options, but these are the 2 we are looking into now.  After all, when you are a long term cruiser your dink IS the family car.  If you or someone you know has an 11 foot Boston Whaler and would like to sell it let us know.  FYI it needs to be an older model as the newer ones are much heavier.  And a 9 footer is too small for us and a 13 footer is too big for SweetPea.

Thank You to Terry and Charlene for lending a hand with SweetPea in getting her to SC.  We hope you enjoyed the 1000 mile trip Jim could not of done it by himself, we hope to see you again.

Make sure you VOTE today and when you are standing in line remember you live in the greatest country on earth!  But also remember that their are many people who because of Sandy are homeless and living without electricity and heat with the temperatures dropping and more wind and rain on its way. 
Consider giving a donation or blood to the Red Cross @ http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations

Myrtle Beach SC, 3 days out?

Those of you who follow our blog know that Jim has been heading south for the last couple of weeks from our homeport of Westport Massachusetts to Myrtle Beach SC. This area will become our NEW homeport.

 Unfortunately, I am updating this blog from long distance as Jim is traveling without me aboard.  We had placed and add on the AGLCA for crew to help with this journey south.  Terry and Charlene who are from Tennessee came to Westport MA to not only lend a hand but to experience what life on the water is like especially on the BIG water, as their experience has mainly been on somewhat smaller boats and mostly on the rivers system of TN.  They hope to travel the Loop in the future so this is a great experience for them to see what traveling the east coast is like.  For those of you who have travelled this area, know, that it is among the most intimidating portion of the loop as a large part is on the outside (Atlantic ocean) not necessarily bad, just much different than the protection of the ICW or the inner rivers.

 Each night when Jim has SweetPea tied up for the night he usually calls or e-mails me to let me know where he is and how the days journey was.  Usually my question is "how are Terry and Charlene handling it" his answer to this question is "Oh, their fine" he says that they are great to travel with, very helpful and pretty low maintenance.  WOW what more could you ask for?  At the end of each day Terry gets out the hose, boat soap and bucket. Jim has had to resort in kicking them off the boat to "GO check out the area, have fun, be back before midnight and don't bring home any strangers."   

Generally, the weather has not been bad and Jim is very patient in waiting on good weather and is less likely to get caught off guard, I however, am alot less patient with this area and I tend to be much more destination oriented, though I have gotten better, Jim may not agree though. *smile*

So, all is well on SweetPea, they are now on their way to Belhaven NC having left Alligator River this morning.  If weather stays good they are maybe 3 travel days to Myrtle Beach (Barefoot Resort and Marina) where the boat will remain for at least a month but maybe until after the first of the year.  Time will tell.

Side note: While Jim was docked at Norfolk Waterside someone came by the boat, since Jim had turned in for the night he didn't know who it was but was curious and hoped he would find out via an e-mail, he is still wondering who stopped by.

Its our 2 year Cruising Anniversary

Hard to believe its been 2 years since we left our home port of Westport Mass. what an adventure we have had, the places we have been and people we have met along the way has been nothing less than incredible.  SweetPea has traveled more than 10,000 miles now, maybe not alot in car travel, but considering we travel at 10 miles an hour on average that's alot.  I think to best understand it, what a person would travel an hour by car takes us a full day.  After all it's all about the experience not the destination. 

This time last year we spent our 1 year anniversary here........




With all these wonderful people on some unknown Island on the Tennessee River

 

And enjoying this beautiful sunset at the end of the day






Our 2nd anniversary is here......



Beautiful Cape May NJ and while docked this is the view..........




                                       But I, (Dale) is here!...........
                                   

But then If I wasn't there these fine folks won't be here.............

This is Jim's crew, Terry and Charlene on the bow of SweetPea

 

Sigh! .... Well as Charlene said to me as I was leaving SweetPea the night before they left port,  "I wish you were coming with us, but then again, if you were, we wouldn't be here!" LOL

Enjoy the trip, but I wish I was there too.

Happy Anniversary Babe be safe.

 

SweetPea heading south without me?

SweetPea left Westport MA on Friday Oct 5th, aboard is Capt Jim and the crew which includes Charlene and Terry Wiley who came aboard to help get SweetPea to Myrtle Beach.  We found Terry and Charlene via the AGLCA or did they find us?  They are from TN and flew up on Wed the 3rd and were very excited about the trip since they have no Atlantic Ocean experience and hope to do the Great Loop trip in the very near future.  Hopefully they will still want to do the trip after this adventure. 

Thus far they have spent a night in Milford CT a very nice town with alot to see and do with everything located directly off the dock.

Day 2 was on a mooring ball in Port Washington NY another wonderful stop though being the end of the season here and a quick overnight I don't think anyone went ashore.

Oh! I should say now that you may be a bit confused, I am, unfortunately, not aboard for this trip as I have some things to take care at home.  More about that later.

From Port Washington the next day was to Sandy Hook NY, there the hope was to hook up with a buddy boat for the trek down the NJ coast.  A few days before Jim left Westport we got an e-mail from our loop friends Gene and Ginny, they had brought their boat Free2B back to their home port (Orwell VT) for the summer and were planning to leave about the same time as Jim.   They were located about the same distance north from NYC harbor as SweetPea was east of NY.  Sure enough about an hour after Jim was docked in came Free2B, they will now travel together to Annapolis MD. 

This morning I heard from Jim and sure enough they are now heading from Sandy Hook NY to Cape May NJ. 

Sorry no picture today but when I get some sent to me I will add them, (unless Jim adds some himself, hint hint)

PS...... It was 37 degrees this morning here in Massachusetts brrrrrr!