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4/17/2005
Zig and I will be at home until the 19th, to pack up the last few items, rent a van and drive across the country to join him, just in time, I hope, to miss out on cleaning the boat. I cleaned and polished Knotty Dog so thoroughly before I left last October that I threatened never again. Maybe that’s why Larry has been so anxious to get back and make sure it’s ready for us. It was a long, long, rainy winter in Santa Barbara this year. We had so much rain that we decided next winter we’ll be sitting on the back of Knotty Dog somewhere in the Caribbean. No kidding, so looks like we’ve got another foreign adventure ahead of us at the “end of the season” or so they say in New England. We are anxious to head north. Our plans are to quickly travel through the Chesapeake, as we thoroughly cruised that lovely place all last summer (at least everything south of Annapolis and St. Michaels). We won’t go so quickly that we will miss a quick stop in Crisfield for the ferry ride to Tangier’s Island that we missed last year. We’ll probably hit Cape Charles on the way up and Solomon’s for a quick over night. We do plan a couple day stop in Baltimore to see the lovely harbor that everyone has been saying “we have to see”, then up through the C&D Canal, down to Cape May, on the outside up to Atlantic City for an overnight, and up to New York where friends will join us for a slow cruise up the Hudson River. We’ll slow down a bit in the area to take in New York, a few shows, museums, restaurants, and more friends and then head out via Long Island Sound, stopping at Mystic Seaport for a momentous champagne toast to celebrate the long journey around, and then on to Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket where more friends join us. We plan to stop in Falmouth and see old friends that we knew when we had our first boat, then Boston, maybe Manchester on the Sea, and on up to Maine for an extended period while several other friends join us. We pray for no fog in Maine when they visit as we want them to enjoy the surroundings. If time permits, we’ll find ourselves exploring Nova Scotia for part of September but right now things looks pretty full and busy. In September will have a final visit from friends in Bar Harbor and then we will head to Newport Rhode Island to leave Knotty Dog for a few months for rest and maintenance. At that time we’ll head home for a couple months to prepare for taking Knotty Dog to the Caribbean and beyond. Whew! That was a mouth full. We’re hoping we’ll catch up with many old friends from the New England area. We haven’t seen them for 10 years, that’s way back when we first began experimenting on the water by taking our first sailing lessons on Boston Harbor. It’s going to be a fantastic summer! Right now, Larry is busy at North Atlantic Yacht Basin, in Great Bridge near Norfolk, Virginia at the moment. You can check the website out for pictures of the yard which is truly amazing place right on the Intracoastal Waterway! He and the Knotty Dog are in the shed right now and the wind has been blowing a steady fro the last few days from the NE 20-30 knots and has literally blown about 3’ in water depth out of the Albemarle Sound and the Intracoastal where the boat is. Larry estimates that the water level which is not effected by tides, is about 3 feet low. You can actually see the exposed bottom sides of the boat. He said the boat is sitting on the bottom and the front of the boat is slanting up. Darn, no pictures to show you, as I’m the picture taker and still in Santa Barbara. Larry has been busy rewiring the electronics hoping to solve some of the problems we had last year, like the screen going blank at the most terrifying of moments, etc. He’s also been busy installing a new chart plotter program and polishing the fuel, whatever that means. He said that that is about all that he can do until the water fills up in the Intracoastal so they can pull the boat out of the shed. They are hoping to do that Monday, the 18th. They’ll haul her out to check the zincs, clean the bottom and doing any necessary painting. Then they will put her back in the water and Larry can bring her around to the outer dock which is on the Intracoastal and start the refrigerator, water system, turn the engines on, etc. and actually move in. He can start to check everything to make sure all is in perfect working condition. The temps are around 60 degrees but should warm up in the next few days so he’s a little chilly in the boat with only a small space heater to keep him warm while he works. Ziggy and I will be leaving, Tuesday the 19th, in a rented van filled with more stuff and will be traveling across the country on Interstate 40 to Oklahoma City. Much of it as you may know is along the old Route 66 so we are hoping to see some nostalgic roadside diners, and signs, etc. Route 66 heads north towards Tulsa at Oklahoma City so we will say “good bye” to the old HWY there and then continue on Interstate 40, passing through, Little Rock, AK, Memphis, TN, Nashville, TN, and Ashville, NC. By then Zig and I should be within a days driving distance of Knotty Dog. If we’ve timed it right, that boat will be “chicken bone clean” and ready to go. We’ll just provision it, study the charts, and head on out May 1st if weather permits.
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Well,
May is almost here. That’s our starting date to head North from Atlantic Yacht
Basin, where the boat has been resting all winter. Larry has been impatient the
last few weeks, anxious to get on the boat again. So, anxious that he changed
his airline flight to a few days earlier and left on the 14th to get
things ready.