It's been 6 months since my last post, what have we been up to to?

Our update......
Back in May we sold our home in Massachusetts packed everything up, after some extensive down sizing and headed south via moving truck.  Once everything was moved into storage the house hunt began, SweetPea had already been moved to Barefoot Resort in SC months in advance so we were home.  While some of our boating friends thought we would become true full time cruisers we wanted to put the money from the sale of our home into something a bit more grounded.
We purchased a house in Little River SC in September and after some updating we moved in a month later.

A couple weeks after moving our stuff in, we packed up the Jeep and headed to Austin Tx to visit our daughter, who moved there after we sold the house in Massachusetts.  It was a bit of a loop we spent time in Memphis, Nashville before hitting Austin for a week, on the way back to SC we hit New Orleans for a few days.  While on this road trip we decided that we wanted to feather our nest in SC for the winter, so these snowbirds have gone as far south as they are going this year.
So what's up for us as far as SweetPea and cruising?  All we know for sure is the boat needs to come out of the water before June for an insurance survey and we will have the bottom done and Jim needs to replace at least one of the holding tanks, I am sure other things will come up but for now SweetPea is still at Barefoot and time will tell where we will head from there.  In the meantime Jim has a deck to build and golfing skills to improve.
For those of you who have us on your email contact list our email address has changed you can find it on AGLCA membership list or leave a comment and I will send it to you.  Its always nice to hear what everyone is up to be it by land or sea.
Merry Christmas everyone wherever you find yourself this year and all the best for a happy, healthy and safe New Year!

Finally home back aboard SweetPea!

The last week in Massachusetts, has been a busy one, actually the last 2 months have been busy but the great push hit us the sunday before last.  On my last post I had mentioned we found a home for our 12 year old cockerpoo Barkley well it was not the best fit (3 children was more than he could handle).  He is now in NH and what a lucky dog,  he's on a farm with another older dog, 7 cats, chickens and lots of room to run.  I doubt he will be bored there, and his new family have done cocker rescue and are happy to have a cocker in the home again.

We managed to get our house packed and loaded the night before the closing, quite a task to get a 1800sq ft house packed on a 17ft box truck.  Some major down sizing but we did it.  We closed at 4pm on a Tuesday Jim drove the truck and Ashley and I drove the Escape aptly named, as we headed south spending what was left of Tuesday in NJ together before splitting up into different directions.

  
Jims mission, to get the truck to Myrtle Beach and unload it into storage.  Ashley and I drove to Austin Tx nearly a 2000 mile trek, we arrived there 3 days later.  Ashley safely delivered into the arms of her boyfriend, I spent a couple days and then flew back to Jim aboard SweetPea in SC.

  Alot of changes in a short period of time for this family and we are now spread all over.

SO, there it is, mission complete, at least that part of it.  Now aboard the boat after nearly a year away, the cleaning and re organizing begins again.  At this point we are unsure as to what our plans are for boating this summer,  we will more than likely, stay in the Carolinas have some work done on the boat (maintenance and updating) and begin our search for our land based home.  But in boating, plans can change at a moments notice.

Update
When Jim had met me at the airport he had rented a car for a week so we could tool around and get a better feel for the areas in which we thought we were most interested.  Well having a car was too good, since we sold our cars back in 2010.  So as Memorial Day weekend was upon us and the dealer ships had special pricing we bought a car!  Yes it is great to have wheels again.  We have seen more of The Myrtle Beach area in a week than we have in all our past visits put together.

Finally off to Myrtle Beach?

Yesterday Jim left Ma.heading back to SweetPea, and once again I am left behind.  As luck would have it 2 days before we were planning our trip back to the boat our realtor said an offer was coming in on the house and asked us to stay for a few more days.  On Friday the house went under contract, on Saturday Jim rented a car and Sunday he was gone, he should be back aboard by noon today.
He is on a mission, clean and air out the boat and move it to another slip, he will be back here again by Sunday.
The house was on the market for exactly 3 weeks and we now have just over 3 weeks to pack it all up!
So what now?  We still are not sure where we want to land NC, SC, GA or somewhere else?  Until then SweetPea will be our home, not a bad thing.
Our daughter Ashley is excited to be moving to Austin Texas and begin a new chapter in her life.  She may leave earlier than us once she works out her 2 week notice with her employers.
The times they are a changin, what do we do about an address for mail?  What do we do with all our stuff?  I guess it all goes into storage for now more thinning out needs to happen first, what to sell what to keep!  What about the dog?  Jim fears he will become shark food, I fear Jim will become shark food!
By the time all the dust settles we will be full time live aboards and no longer dirt dwellers?  I cannot believe that it has been almost a year since I have been on SweetPea more than a day or 2, time sure flys.
Times a tickin, stay tuned...........

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!

On the home front

On my last post I said I would post in a month unless something exciting happens.  Well, its been more than a month and nothing exciting has happened.

But we have been very busy doing all those things you never WANT to do, and finishing off many projects on the house that have either sat uncompleted or never got started and pushed off for another day.  Well, another day has arrived and turned itself into nearly 3 months!

The yard is what Jim tackled first so to keep the neighbors from stoneing us.  Then the dumpster arrived amazing how much "stuff" there is,  a local charity made 3 trips with a pickup truck.  We hired a painter to paint he never showed up, so we thought there is no reason we can't do it!  UGH!  At one time I actually enjoyed painting not anymore, doing a room is one thing but 10?  Yesterday we finally broke down and hired another painter to complete the rest of the house so we can more on to other items on the to do list. driveway sealed, clean and open the spa, deck stained, new gate built, house power washed, landscaping, mulching, new light fixtures here and there, mini makeover on 2 bathrooms and on and on. 

Boating?

Sadly SweetPea has been docked for 3 months the longest rest in 2 years,  Other than quick visits to make sure she is still floating no cruising has taken place we haven't even spent a night aboard since June.  If all goes well Jim will return to SweetPea and start on some maintenace he also is planning on replacing the batteries and doing some rewiring and on my last visit the dink was partially deflated so he needs to look into locating the leak.  We will also have a diver come in to clean the bottom and check the zincs again. 

It's  been a couple weeks since I wrote the above draft......here is an update to the draft

The house is done and will be on the market in next week, now Jim will be heading back to Sweetpea to do maintenace and get her ready to head south in the next couple of weeks.  Unfortunately  I will not be able to  make the trip south to Myrle Beach so we are looking for someone to make the trip with him.  if you or someone you know may be interested in being  a crew member aboard Sweetpea for this trip you can contact me , it should take between 2-3 weeks.  The cost is just what it would cost you to get to and from the boat and spending money for food  etc.

Summer in New England

No its not the North Channel its New England baby!

Yes we are still alive! 

Its been a month since our arrival back to our homeport and a year and a half since we have been landlaubers, so whats it like you ask?  Being back in New England is nice and the weather has been quite good, today is calling for 95 degrees again but we are also on the boat today so its much cooler, in the mid to lower 80's.

When we arrived we spent 3 days on the boat some visits from family and friends have been great and its always nice to see familiar faces and get caught up. 

After a long weekend on the boat we rented a car and went to our land home,  Jim had sold his beloved truck the week before we left (Oct 2010), and our other car has been sitting waiting on our return but was not registered.  We had the rental for 2 weeks as the car needed work done and we had to buy a new battery just to start it.  *Yes, cars are like boats that way, always better if they are used, just sitting idle isn't good for anything.  The yard was over grown and the house looked abandoned, it has taken alot of doing to get it close to looking good again but Jim has been diligent.  No he did not miss mowing.

After a couple weeks we came back to the boat to spend a weekend and decided since our anniversery was coming up (25years) we would plan a few days and take off on the boat.  We went food shopping and off to the boat for a short cruise, the plan was a night at anchor at Cuttyhuck Island then either over to Marthas vineyard for a couple days or over to Naragansett Bay to Newport RI. both are only a couple of hours away by boat.  Hmmmm, well as I said earlier, just sitting idle isn't good for anything?  We dropped our lines and off we went once we got into Buzzards Bay alarms went off the port engine was running hot,  Jim went down to the engine room to check things out everything appeared to be okay the strainers were clean water was pumping through  maybe we picked up something in the prop so back we went.  We had a diver take a look at the prop, no problem there since he was already in the water we had him clean the bottom and replace the zincs.  We still don't know what the problem is and the mechanic hasn't had a chance to look at it yet.  We are hoping that its only an impeller, unfortunately its the port engine which is very difficult for Jim to get to so we will have the mechanic look at it.

In the mean time we have been getting alot of use out of the dinghy clamming and taking rides up the scenic Westport River.

Fun in the sun at low tide on the river

We have a 5 foot tide swing here

The kids dive off of the rocks at high tide

Fishing in the back yard

Lobster boats at the wharf

Isn't she beautiful one of our dock mates its a Shelter Harbor made in NY it was designed by Billy Joel

Down the river

Sweet Pea in her slip

These are what we are digging, Quahogs better known in other places as hardshell clams.  The small ones are great for eating raw, also called cherrystones the medium are Littlenecks, the larger ones (Quahogs) will find their way into a pot of chowdah or I will make stuffed quahogs (stuffies)

We are allotted a peck a day, this is our daily allotment it takes about an hour to fill the basket.  Hey Mike, New England noodling.

On the way back to the boat we stopped at the wharf  to get fresh live lobsters from the fishing boats they cost about $10 bucks a piece.  Alot cheaper getting them from the lobstermen and it doesn't get much fresher.  Ahhhh New England seafood.

I plan to update once a month unless I have some interesting photos or something to say.  Maybe we will get the big boat off the dock by then.
We love to hear from our readers if you have questions or just want to say hello and let us know where your from.  If anyone is cruising by SE Massachusetts / RI this summer let us know!

9452 miles 1000 engine hours 17 months and 17 days

Jim and I with my sister Nancy and brother in law Ron came down to welcome us back home.

 Our Old time New England marina

 Some of the photos as we enter Westport Point Harbor

 

Some of our friends that came to welcome us home

sunsets over Westport

This is the final reading from the chartplotter

when we left back in Oct of 2010 the plotter was newly installed so we started with a blank slate.  total miles traveled 9452 miles just over 1000 hours added to the engines in 17 months and 17 days.

We made it ! Finally! Our homeport Westport Point MA

We left bright and early 8am, we moved over to the fuel dock we had enough fuel but as Jim said, today its Ball to the wall!  The weather today (Saturday) is was suppose to be the best of the weekend so in order to not have to hold up again I agreed to the Balls thingy!
In order for us to hit Westport Ma it was a 95 mile day and since we wanted to fuel up which meant waiting for the Milford Boat Yard to open up, we were their first fuel sale of the season and their first pumping of Valvetec, 200 gallons later off we went.  FYI diesel $3.99/gal cheapest price we could find in CT and NY. and its Valvetec!

 John and Sue aboard Mach Turtle came over for a visit when they saw the AGLCA burgee they are also members.

I love the name, though from TX they now reside in CT.

Leaving Milford CT

It was a pleasant day of travel though be it a long one, we made it to Westport at 5pm.

I am having problems loading photos so when we get to the house I will load in more.

Part 2 of our 110 trek from AC to Long Island Sound

This is just one of the quaint homes on the Bay

Wed May 23rd continued........
Once through NYC we took a starboard turn onto the East River and through Hell's Gate to this point it was 90 miles went pretty well though it was probably a bit much after such a long day and we still traveled on another 20 miles, it was exhausting. 
We travelled to Manhasset Bay/Port Washington NY where we grabbed a mooring ball which are owned by the town, best of all they are FREE!  This is a beautiful harbor with many restaurants nearby shopping of just about anything you need, the town also operates a water taxi that runs from 8am to 10pm and to our surprise it was operating pre Memorial Day weekend.  The moorings are free for 2 days during the week and are 1 night free on weekends but they can be rented for $25 if you wish to extend you time there (the town mooring balls are Yellow there is 20 of them).  The water taxi is $8/person for a round trip ride and they will take you anywhere you wish to go in the harbor, this is a very large harbor, the town also operates a pump out boat we did not need it so I am not sure how much that is. 
This is a wonderful stop and it looks like a great place to spend some time though we just spent one night.

Another cozy cottage

We left this nice quiet anchorage on Thursday with hopes to make it to Westbrook CT a 78 mile day, we waited a couple of hours for the fog to lift a bit and headed out once again at 9am.

IT started out with the predicted 1-2' seas but was real snotty by 1pm it was more like 3-4' with a few 5' thrown in , once again things started flying around the boat we called it quits and headed into Milford CT shortening our day almost in half. 

 Oh no, its Memorial Day weekend the start of the boating season here in the northeast, we had hoped more than 2 weeks ago to be safely tucked into our marina back home by now.  We are very lucky they had a slip for us here but they told us, for only one night as the marina is booked for the long weekend! 

It is now Friday morning and the weather report does not look very pleasant, luckily they had a cancellation and a slip has opened up so we will be here for another night. Tomorrow is looking very nice and we are hoping (praying) to leave early and burn some major fuel so we can get into Westport 90 miles, tomorrow (Saturday).  Wish us luck, and we hope the fog is not too bad.

To Bob and Denise traveling yesterday was just like last time (Oct 10th 2010) but with fog!.............. "boating is fun"