We left our anchorage off the Coast Guard station by 0800, and we were under two bridges before 1000. A short while after that we were pulling out canvas and sailing the Neuse River, a massive inland sea just inside the Outer Banks National Seashore.

It was a beautiful sail. Full sails downwind, then rounding up into the Pamlico on a beam reach. We were one of three or four sailboats out enjoying the 20-knot wind. By 1500 we were tucked into a protective cove for a nap. The long passages of the previous days take their toll, and a body needs time to recover.

After, we had the best meal, a new find in the pantry, Costco ribs. We drank wine with dinner, watched a movie, and went to bed early. We missed our nightly game of Hearts with Kenzie. (Hearts for three, just pull the deuce of diamonds ♦️.) But it was good to be back in our beautiful life, just the two of us again.

Down the Pamlico and Up the Pungo

A simple day of travel on the ICW, the Dragon 🐉 doing all the work. Angelfish 🐠 is more smoky now. We need to replace the turbo on our engine.

We crossed the Bay River up to the Goose Creek canal, cleared the fixed Hobucken Bridge easily, and motored up the rest of Goose Creek back into the Pamlico Sound.

There a passing motorboat took a picture of Angelfish 🐠.

We had a short sail up the Pungo before the wind came on the nose. Out came the Dragon 🐉, and we motored down to an easy anchorage just before the canal to the Alligator 🐊 River.

North on the ICW

The next morning we made the long run up the canal, into the Alligator 🐊 River, and across the Albemarle Sound. As we still had daylight to spare, we pushed up the North River to anchor in Public Creek.

We had meant to stop at the famous Coinjock Marina for fuel. Coinjock sits at Mile Marker 50, a long single face dock that happens to land at just the right distance for a day’s run, the first or last real stop before you cross the Albemarle. So nearly everyone on the ICW ends up there. The restaurant has run since 1978 on the strength of one thing, a 32-ounce prime rib you reserve ahead because they run out. As the t-shirt in their shop asks, “Where the hell is Coinjock?” The answer is, wherever your fuel and your daylight run out.

Not this night. The Alligator 🐊 River Bridge had been broken for two days, and all the northbound traffic that had backed up behind it descended on Coinjock at once. No room for us. We tucked in among the crab pots just south of the marina and planned to fuel up in the morning.

North to Great Bridge

The next morning Angelfish 🐠 pulled up to the Coinjock fuel dock and we started filling her tanks. I mention this only because of the shock that came with it.

Part of our big refit last winter was recommissioning the keel tank, a 45-gallon auxiliary that feeds the main. Back at Wrightsville Beach I thought I had transferred all 45 gallons into the main center tank for the run to Coinjock. None of it transferred. Operator error, as it always is. So while the keel tank sat full the whole way, the main center tank had quietly run down to its last six gallons. The poor Dragon 🐉 was maybe four hours from running dry, and I never felt it coming. With the war in Iran 🇮🇷 driving prices up, we paid a premium at the pump. We were just grateful to be standing at a fuel dock and not drifting in the ICW.

We pushed off north with strong winds out of the south, the Genoa full and adding to our speed. Soon we approached the Pungo Ferry Bridge, the skinniest air draft of the whole trip. We’ve had to anchor and wait for the tide to drop here before, just to squeeze under. K had her binoculars on the height boards as we came up on it. The board read 64.0 feet. We stand 64.5 to the top of our springy VHF antenna, so we crept under with the whip pinging each span.

The bridges on this stretch all open on a schedule, every hour or half hour. Rather than sit and wait, we timed our speed to arrive just as each one opened. That meant going slow. We averaged under four knots that day, limping along through four bridges.

The last was the bascule bridge at Great Bridge, Virginia, which opens every half hour. We caught the three o’clock and pulled over to the free dock just past it. We were meeting friends who also own a Cabo Rico 45, the very last one built, stuck deep in their own massive refit at Atlantic Yacht Basin. We had dinner and swapped refit stories, and told them what we’d needed to hear last winter, that it does end, and the adventures do come. Honestly, they were in better spirits than I was a year ago. I honor them for it. We spent the night with barges rolling past, keeping the ICW alive until dawn.

One Long Run

We woke to geese honking and the bascule bridge horn announcing its first opening. The day promised to be a hot one. This was our last run of the ICW before the Chesapeake.

Timing is everything here, and sometimes waiting is the smartest move. By 0900 we cast off and entered the one lock we cross on the whole ICW. For a cruiser it’s gentle, a rise or fall of only a foot or so, but it’s the feeling that matters. Northbound, it’s the last gate before Norfolk, the gate that opens onto home. Its real job is to keep the salt water of the Chesapeake out of the fresh river systems to the south.

We were second in line, holding our dock lines around the bollards to keep Angelfish 🐠 in place while four more boats crowded in behind us. Then the strangest thing. When the gates opened, the third boat in line cast off and cut to the front to be first out. The lock is only about four boat-widths wide, and it got tight fast. A bad move, and the radio lit up with invective.

As we left we heard the No. 7 railroad bridge ahead was broken. Closed until further notice. We could be stuck. One of the bigger boats in our group turned around and went back to wait at Great Bridge. We motored slow on purpose, buying time for repairs, both of us scanning the banks for anchorages where we might wait it out. Cruisers have been stuck on this side of that bridge for days.

Then word came over the radio that the railroad had put a man on the bridge to open it by hand while they worked. We motored through at 5.5 knots and into the busy port of Norfolk. The wind picked up as we came out, and we flew through the harbor under full sail with three knots of ebbing tide under us. Sailing by the naval yard in Norfolk we saw the Coast Guard tall ship.

Once out in the bay we had a choice. Pull into Chisman Creek and take a comfortable three day passage up to our slip, or push the first day, anchor near Deltaville, and do the Chesapeake Bay passage in two. We’d be arriving before sunset either way, so we pushed on.

We anchored off Gwynn Island, near the mouth of the Piankatank, by Godfrey Bay. It was blistering hot. I grew up in DC but summered on the Severn, and this water, the whole Chesapeake, is the water of my youth. So I took a dip in it. The sea nettles were late this year, and I swam without a single sting. After, we sat on the foredeck with a bottle of bubbles and toasted our return to the bay, Bill Evans playing “Peace Piece” low on the speaker.

The next morning, to our great surprise, a pod of dolphins visited us.

We are two days from our slip. But it already felt like home.

I woke before sunrise to catch up on my log. There is something special about the secluded inland anchorages at dawn. The light is warmer than at sea. The air fills with a Morning Pro Musica of birdsong, as if edited by Robert J. Lurtsema himself. The air is cooler and still. The anchorage is a glass reflection of all that sits above it, the shore mirroring itself in long lines with elegant twists and turns.

Angelfish 🐠 sat quietly in the middle of all this. Coffee made, I wrote in pleasant wonder, extremely content.

This stretch of the ICW is, in my opinion, the prettiest of them all, and with so many beautiful anchorages ahead we’d slowed the pace to explore one more before rejoining civilization.

Kenzie slept. K and I sat in the cockpit until about 0800, when we decided it was time to move. Honestly, I don’t know what made me check the weather sooner, but a routine check offered a tremendous gift. A wonderfully beautiful multiday weather window had opened up for an long offshore passage.

We were anchored just south of the Georgetown Inlet, the one inlet we’d been aiming for on our last ocean passage. In two hours we could be back in the open sea, sailing for North Carolina non-stop. No bridges, no shallows, no other boats to contend with. A straight shot across open water.

I told K, and she went below to make everything ready for sea. I fired up the Dragon 🐉, pulled up the anchor, and made for the inlet.

Soon Angelfish 🐠 was fighting out against an opposing tide. I had the Dragon 🐉 at close to max thrust to compete with the 2 knots of current shoving the bow around. We crawled forward.

Once out into the ocean, we set all sail in 13 knots of wind and took off. I kept the Dragon 🐉 running low, and as the wind soon died to 6 knots we made our way toward North Carolina.

Midway, a pair of dolphins visited us, and over the course of the day we saw two mylar balloons floating in the water. Other than that it was a completely benign passage. The swell and the wind ran more northerly than predicted, but not by much.

By nightfall we were passing the dangerous Frying Pan Shoals. K and Kenz had the helm, but I came up mid-watch to keep an eye on the tricky cut between two shoals, marked by buoys but still no place to relax. Once through, it was a straight shot to Wrightsville Beach.

We reached the Masonboro Inlet at 0130. I was back at the helm. This is not a class A inlet, but Angelfish 🐠 knows the way in after doing it several times, and she knows which shoals to keep wide of. By now all the wind had died.

K was on the bow with the flashlight. We talked each other in over the headsets, found our spot, and dropped the hook. Soon we were safe and secure. This is the third time this season south and back we have entered an inlet in the dark. It might be time to consider some low-light optics aboard Angelfish 🐠.

It was a completely different passage from our last one. Comfortable, safe, and boring. I wish I could have done more of it without the Dragon 🐉, but I’ll take boring over anything else on an ocean passage.

We chose Wrightsville Beach because it’s close to an airport. Kenzie’s stay was ending, and this was the place to send him home.

We hung around on Friday, resting up from the passage and taking in the sun. We watched two or three dozen swimmers out for their morning exercise. At Wrightsville Beach, swimmers in their caps with trailing flotation buoys are like joggers in Central Park. As they finished, the paddleboarders came out. They’re a chatty bunch, and because sound carries so well over water, we got all the tea on every kind of family drama.

Kenzie was fascinated by the boats that zoomed past with dogs at the bow, like figureheads on old sailing ships. There’s a lot of skiff traffic here on weekends, especially kids running out to the sandbanks for a day of fun.

For dinner we dropped the Coconut 🥥 and took the tender to our favorite Mexican spot, Tower 7. We walked the beach after, looking for sharks’ teeth, and found none again. A local once told me that the first one is the hardest. Find that, and your eyes finally see them all.

Saturday morning I was up writing with my coffee. Kenzie was flying back to Boston today. We will miss his company. His Uber wasn’t until 12:30, so we sent him off with a big brunch. He’d come aboard knowing nothing of this life but a few day sails, and he was leaving us a veteran passage-maker, a man who’d been thrown across a cockpit in the dark and stood a night-watch through Frying Pan Shoals. It breaks my heart to see him go.

After he left, we decided today’s weather window was better than tomorrow’s for the crossing to Beaufort, the sea state especially. So even though it meant arriving after midnight, we set off to sea.

It started incredibly. A beam reach in 13 to 22 knots, all sail up, screaming along Dragonless 🐉 at 8 knots. The wind shifted aft and we fell off to a broad reach. I pulled in the staysail and reefed the big main so it wouldn’t block the even bigger Genoa, and we kept making excellent time.

Many times, dolphins joined us. I think they were mad we didn’t go to the bow to greet them, so they jumped and stared at us near the cockpit before moving back forward to ride our bow wave.

The plan was to ride the flooding tide into the Beaufort Inlet, a beautiful well-marked Class A channel, and tuck into an anchorage we know by the Coast Guard station on the Morehead City side of the big harbor.

The crossing wasn’t uncomfortable, but it tossed us about every six to eight seconds, steady as a metronome. When the wind dropped to 10 knots I pulled the Genoa in and brought the main back out. Under 12 knots that Genoa can’t hold its shape. We’ve got a new whisker pole that would have kept it full, but a pitching foredeck at night is no place to learn a new trick. So I ran the main out on the boom and held it with the preventers.

The rolling got tedious. We’d been flying, but now we were down to 5 knots. So I woke the Dragon 🐉, brought him up to 2500 RPMs, and we were soon motor-sailing at 7. We rode the last three hours of the ten-hour passage like that.

By 2000 we were in the Beaufort Channel with the sails furled. Thirty minutes later the hook was down, and we shared a glass of wine before bed.

We must have slept hard. The next morning there was another boat anchored right beside us, and we’d never heard it come in.

An uneventful passage. I can’t believe I just wrote that. It must be five years of cruising Angelfish 🐠 that makes a ten-hour passage across the North Atlantic, arriving in pitch dark at a busy channel, feel routine. No harder than a ten-hour drive down the highway. Except out here, but for the dolphins, we were the only living thing on the road. The sea has become our natural environment, and we move through it like locals.

This anchorage is the latest step toward the Chesapeake Bay. From here we take the ICW to Norfolk, Virginia.

So we fired up the Dragon 🐉, pulled up the Rocna, and headed up the Stono River, the marshlands close around us. No more night watches. No more standing waves. Just the slow brown water, the birds, and the occasional southbound boat.

This is by far the most beautiful part of the entire inland waterway. From just south of Charleston up to Myrtle Beach is a natural wonderland of rural marshland, teeming with wildlife, cut through with deep winding rivers.

Right before Charleston there’s one tiny canal, maybe two boat lengths wide, that ends at a drawbridge. We arrived late and had to wait 45 minutes for the next opening. That meant holding my 38,000-pound vessel in place while the current and wind pushed her around. It takes practice, but there’s a real pleasure in it, letting the Dragon 🐉 nudge and turn her, keeping station without moving forward or back. Standing still is its own kind of seamanship.

When we reached Charleston Harbor the predicted wind came down on us. Kenzie got a real lesson in how a calm morning turns to chaos by afternoon. We’d meant to cross the harbor and carry on east toward the next stretch of the ICW, but the wind kept building, 30 knots now, and even reefed down we were heeled hard and pounding into a steep chop where the north wind shoved against the ebbing tide. The anchorage we’d picked wouldn’t give us enough cover from that. So while I sailed Angelfish 🐠 across the harbor, K went hunting for shelter on the chart. Maestro that she is, she found it, tucked in behind the USS Yorktown.

The old carrier had drawn a crowd. A dozen boats were nestled into her lee, all of us after the same thing, that wall of steel between us and the wind, flattening the chop in its shadow. We motored up into the pack and dropped the Rocna off her bow.

Here’s how we set an anchor. After it’s down, we let out chain to about 3-to-1 scope, three feet of chain for every foot of depth. That’s the minimum for an anchor to hold. K waits while the wind and current stretch the chain out straight, and the Rocna begins to dig into the mud. But you can’t trust it yet. Once it seems to bite, K lets out more, 5-to-1 or 7-to-1, depending on how hard it’s going to blow. Then I put the Dragon 🐉 in gentle reverse and pull on it. If it holds, I add power, driving the anchor deeper. And when I think she’s ready, I back down hard, full reverse, up to 2000 RPMs, and try my best to drag it out of the bottom. If it’s caught, the boat doesn’t move. The engine roars and Angelfish 🐠 sits there like she’s bolted to the seabed. That’s how you know you’ll sleep through a night blow.

Not this time. She moved. I felt it before the instruments said so, the water sliding past the hull when we should have been dead still. The GPS confirmed it, speed over ground climbing when it should have read zero. We were dragging, and dragging backward, toward the boat anchored close behind us. The fellow was out on his bow watching us come, while up above, tourists leaned over the flight deck rail of the old Yorktown, taking in the show.

No time to think it over. I called K on the headset, we hauled the Rocna up, mud washing off the chain, motored to a fresh spot, and started over. This time when I backed down she bit. Full reverse and Angelfish 🐠 didn’t give an inch. Set hard.

We let out our storm scope, ten to one, and ran the snubbers nearly to their full length. Three braided lines that stretch as the wind shoves the boat around, taking the shock so the anchor stays put. Then we sat back and let it blow, sitting on the bow, drinking Campari Spritzs. We rode out the wind in the carrier’s lee.

That night the weather settled and we had quite the light show.

Charleston shining off in the distance.

The next morning we carried on, and after passing under two bridges we had the wonderland to ourselves. Now and then the cuts between river systems ran shallow, but we always had just enough water under the keel to pass.

The weather is cool now after the storm. We wear sweaters in the morning, coffee going cold in our hands while we watch the marsh wake up around us.

At one point a squadron of pelicans took up a V formation and led us down the ICW, low and slow over the water, like they were showing us the way. It was all so serene.

Our only real trouble was the current, against us most of the way, and the invasion of greenhead flies. We fought them off with two swatters, dead bodies littering the scuppers. A few minutes of peace, and then the swarm came back. And again. And again. There is no winning against a greenhead fly. There is only the next fly.

That night we anchored in Minor Creek, just south of the Georgetown Inlet, the very inlet we’d set out for from Port Royal Sound two nights before, the run the sea turned back toward shore.

Our plan is to take the ICW north. In three days we’ll reach Wrightsville Beach, and from there, when a window opens, we’ll head back out to sea for Beaufort, North Carolina.

But for now the sea can keep its foul weather. We have the marsh, the birds, each other, and nowhere we have to be today. If only we could do something about the greenhead flies.

Well, that didn’t work. Not one bit.

After arriving in South Carolina from Florida, we had spent two days on the Beaufort River. The second night we anchored off the adorable town of Beaufort, where the three of us celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with one of the best meals we’ve eaten outside our own kitchen. We stayed up well past Sailor’s Midnight (a wild 2030) and slept well as millions of tiny shrimp ate whatever they could find on the hull of Angelfish 🐠. The sound is a not-unpleasant chittering of song, like they’re all in one quiet conversation about how dirty the growth is down there.

We’d decided to stay put and wait for a weather window rather than face the skinny waters and bridges of the ICW from here. The next section is notorious for shallow water.

Still we wanted to push north. A VERY narrow weather window appeared to open, and we decided to jump on it. Kenzie had to get back to Boston, and we were over a week behind schedule. If the next window collapsed, we would turn back up the Beaufort River and take the inland waterway.

We went to bed at 1930. All three major weather models agreed. By midnight the tide would have almost two knots of ebb, the light southeast wind would be dying, and by 0100 the seas would be calm and the wind would back to the west.

When I woke at 2330 the wind was still from the southeast, but not at 6 knots. Closer to 11. Not bad, I thought. The models still promised 3 to 6, but close enough, and that storm on Tuesday was still on its way.

For an hour and a half we banged into standing waves where the ebbing tide ran against the opposing wind. Everyone was up. No one was comfortable.

When we finally rounded the last channel marker, we turned to put the seas on our beam. While we were getting the mainsail up, Kenzie was thrown across the cockpit and into K, squashing her into the seat. Poor K. The first year we cruised, I was the one the sea threw into her like that. Five years on, it was Kenzie’s turn. She’s tough, though, and with her usual graceful good humor she just pushed him off.

With the main finally set, the big sail slowed the lateral roll of the swell. The ride got considerably more comfortable.

I kept the helm till 0300. We were motoring into a 2 to 3 foot swell, four to six seconds apart, more or less as predicted. But instead of three knots of wind we had 6 to 11, gusting into the teens. More than promised, and more easterly than promised. The main was hauled in tight, catching what it could and steadying the boat, but the Dragon 🐉 was doing all the work.

Still, we were making good time. So I let K take the helm and went below for three hours.

I was deep asleep when the alarm for my shift went off. I’d been somewhere bad in my sleep, the kind of dream you’re grateful to be hauled out of. I can’t recall it now, something to do with deadlines and pressure from clients. My old life, finding me even out here. I came up out of it not knowing for a moment where I was. Then a swell nearly threw me from the bunk, and I knew the night had turned while I was under.

The motion told me how bad. From the bunk to the bottom of the companionway I was thrown about like a fish out of water. Angelfish’s 🐠 steady ride was gone, the bow rising and then the slam, water flung back over the dodger, the rigging loading up hard with each wave. I climbed into the dark cockpit, the red night-watch lights barely showing the scene. The clouds had held off the dawn’s light.

K was crammed into a corner of the helm seat, holding on, a raincoat and a blanket against the wind and spray. I worked the sides of the enclosure closed against the weather, no easy job as the boat threw me around. The bow kept coming up and falling. The wind had shifted further north and built while I slept. It was on the nose now, a steady 20 knots.

The mainsail was flapping, no use to anyone. I reefed it in, mostly to save it. With no wind to help her, the Dragon 🐉 was pushing us along at 5 knots. To make Georgetown Inlet before sunset we needed 6.5. The bow stopped cold with every wave. The numbers had already decided it. We weren’t going to make our destination. This was not the weather we’d planned for. The forecast that put us out here had simply been wrong, and there was no taking it back now. We were in it.

I tacked toward land. Put the Dragon 🐉 in full flight and ran for shore. Off the nose of the swell the ride eased, but K was toast. She needed rest, and knew she’d be sick if she went below. We were all queasy now. 🤢

The sea state was better near shore, but we couldn’t enter the Deveaux Inlet on this tack. To reach it I had to come back around, put the bow back into the seas, and beat my way up toward the entrance. For a second, just a second, I wondered if we could ride this calmer water north and salvage the passage after all. But when I came back onto the wind, Angelfish 🐠 was pounding again. The sea had answered the question for me.

The inlet looked promising. Not a big class A inlet, but one with navigation buoys marked through the shifting shoals. As another wave broke over the bow and rocked us both, K and I made the call. We tacked once more and headed for the shoals.

K was frantically reading everything she could find online about this inlet we had never entered before. It boded well, but we’d need to go in carefully. Our five-and-a-half-foot draft came in handy in these shallow waters. The swells lifted us up over the shallower bits and into a deep channel.

By 0800 we were in the placid water of the North Edisto River, the flooding tide helping us in. Inland the wind died to 10 or 11 knots, a gentle cool breeze over the beautiful South Carolina countryside. Birds sang. Pelicans crossed the water.

By 0945 we anchored in a delightful creek just off the ICW. Dolphins greeted us, fishing around Angelfish 🐠, and great blue herons stalked the shoreline. The air was fresh, with a faint hint of the marsh grass around us. Kenz, who had slept through the whole thing, was up. He’d had vivid and disturbing dreams of his own.

K and I went below to sleep at last. A big windstorm was coming down the east coast. We’d be on the ICW for a while, and we’d sort the new plan out over dinner.

We had three weather models and all three were wrong. Our run to Georgetown never happened. That is the lesson the sea keeps teaching. You can read every forecast, plot every waypoint, leave on the perfect window, and the ocean will still do as it pleases. The plan gets you off the dock. After that you are just a small boat on a big sea, taking what comes.

There’s a second lesson under that one, and it’s the one I keep relearning. The most dangerous thing in the cruising life is a schedule. We’d been racing north to get Kenzie to a flight home, over a week behind already, pushing our luck against the calendar. Without that clock running, I doubt we’d have left Beaufort when we did. The sea doesn’t care what day your son flies out.

But that is cruising. You learn these things or you don’t last. We are still here, swinging at anchor in a creek we hadn’t planned on, and loving every minute.

Passage planning always includes a day of chores. Two Instacart provision deliveries, then a third for the stuff I forgot to order the first two times. Next was stowing all the gear that comes out during a marina stay. K was busy with laundry while I ran system tests. I started up the Dragon 🐉, tested the transmission, fired up the Genie 🧞 and put her under load. Checked all lines and rigging, and the helm. The chores felt never-ending. By cocktail hour at the Port Canaveral Yacht Club, I was already tired. The heat of the last three days, since we flew back from Puerto Rico 🇵🇷, had taken its toll. I was ready to sail north to escape it.

At the regular Wednesday night dinner, K and I stood at the Yacht Club bar, soda water in hand, and said our goodbyes. It was poignant. This club has become our southern home. Friends asked us to stay for the meal, but there was still too much to do before our early morning departure.

The weather had been beautifully stable for weeks while we were in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 visiting our grandson and his wonderful family, but now the weather cycles were fickle, and good windows to sail north had become very narrow. Tomorrow, however, was a perfect weather window. A solid 24 to 30 hour period of calm seas and favorable winds. We could go far on this jump. Cumberland Island in Georgia for sure, maybe further.

Several people at the bar mentioned rain in the forecast for our Thursday departure, and on through the weekend 🌧️. It did look like it might rain all day, but the percentages were low in any one place, and our full enclosure would handle whatever fell on us. We were going north.

It was a good crowd that night for Wednesday dinner at this community yacht club. Yet only two member boats were leaving in the morning. A transient couple at the docks made three.

Marina life lures the cruiser’s spirit in. It works on us too. Hot showers, laundry down the dock, packages waiting at the office, trash you can carry off any time you like, electricity to run the air conditioning. It is easy to get comfortable, and comfort is what keeps a boat tied to the dock. The wonders are all out past the channel markers. But you have to cast off the easy life to go and see them. I was excited that we were about to.

We left before dinner started and headed back to Angelfish 🐠. The final provisions were aboard and the water tanks were full. The bikes 🚴 were folded and stowed on the foredeck in their waterproof cases. Normally they live deep in the double bed of the aft cabin, but not this trip. This passage we have an extra crew member.

Our son Kenzie is with us. We had planned for our older son to join us, but his plans changed, so we asked our second son to fly down from Boston. He knows nothing of our cruising life except a few day sails in Narragansett Bay. One offshore night should be quite an adventure for him.

At 2030 the Dock Master, the Vice Commodore, and the Commodore held a little departing ceremony for the boats leaving Thursday. Five couples squeezed into the main salon of a big catamaran. We were each handed a bottle of wine 🍇, and then the rum shots 🥃 were poured.

“To good ships, to wood ships, and ships that sail the sea. 
But the best ships are friendships, and may they always be.”

The Commodore and her husband had already decided too much rain was forecast for their June run to the Abacos, Bahamas, so they were staying. The Dock Master and his wife, the VC, had no plans to leave at all. That left us and the Brunswick couple. We moved off to our bunks. It would be an early start.

I went to bed still unsure of our destination. The MV Laura Jayne was heading for Georgia. Friends from the adjacent marina were bound for Cumberland Island, just north of Fernandina Florida. I wanted to maximize our passage and reach cooler air, so I went to bed willing one weather model to be right and the other two wrong. If the GFS model held, we could be in Georgetown Inlet, north of Charleston, in two days.

I went to sleep ever hopeful.

The Bolder Course.

Up before dawn, making coffee and checking the weather. More rain was predicted, but the 30-hour window was still open. We were a go. The European model had won the day, so we weren’t heading for the middle of South Carolina after all, but we might make it north of Georgia to Port Royal Sound at Hilton Head.

Waking in the night, I’d thought about the Gulf Stream. It had opened a second path north for us this morning.

The first was simple. Follow the Florida coastline up to Fernandina, a 24-hour run. Arrive at St. Mary’s Inlet at dawn and see what the last six hours of fair weather might buy us beyond that. Maybe Brunswick, Georgia. A safe choice, with ports in easy reach if the weather turned, and close to shore if the projected thunderstorms came rolling across central Florida. No one wants to be near a 64.5-foot aluminum mast, the tallest object for miles, when lightning is looking for a place to land.

The second was bolder. Head offshore and ride the edge of the Gulf Stream north to the Carolinas.

The Gulf Stream is a powerful river within the ocean. Warm water born in the Gulf of Mexico, squeezed through the Florida Straits and flung north up the eastern seaboard toward the Carolinas, before it bends out across the Atlantic toward Great Britain.

The Stream, as it’s called, runs deep blue and warm, often warmer than the water on either side, and it moves fast. In its core it can flow at three or four knots, sometimes more. A sailboat that catches its edge gets all that speed for free, riding the current north like a moving sidewalk, its push letting us lower the Dragon’s 🐉 RPMs to stretch our fuel and our miles.

If we got lucky, the Stream might carry us all the way to the Georgetown Inlet in two days. Close to half the distance to the Chesapeake Bay.

But the Stream has a temper. If the wind shifts and blows against the flow, it stacks the seas up tall, steep, and close together. A fair passage turns ugly fast, tossing Angelfish 🐠 like a cork in a maelstrom. Add a thunderstorm dropping cold air onto that warm water, and the whole sea comes alive with Poseidon’s wrath, far from any safe harbor. Hemingway called the great ocean currents the last wild country left. Wild is the word. Wild does not mean tame, nor does it mean safe.

But it might be a handy way to make the most of this weather window. Big storm systems were predicted in the days ahead, and we might get stuck somewhere until they blew through.

I’d wait until we were past the last of the channel markers, turn north, and decide then.

By 0700 we were ready to go. Shore power stowed, extra dock lines cleared away. Dragon 🐉 warmed up and ready to pull. Not even a whisper of breeze. Having Kenzie aboard made exiting the slip easy. K took the port bow line we’d looped around the cleat. Kenz took the stern. I gave the Dragon 🐉 the nod, and we inched out. I’m still so impressed with the thrust of this big four-bladed prop. Soon we were free of the slip and turning to starboard for the channel. We were the first to leave. The transient boat followed close behind. The other two would leave later.

Ninety minutes later it was decision time. Tack hard to port and follow the coast, or fall off to port and head for the Stream.

Never say no to adventure.

The Longest Car Ride Ever

Rounding the last red buoy at the shoals, we set course north toward South Carolina. The sea state started lumpy. Big four-foot swells rolling in every six seconds. The first two or three hours were not as comfortable as I like, but it soon settled. There was no wind to speak of, so the Dragon 🐉 ran at full cruising speed, 2600 RPMs, pushing Angelfish 🐠 close to 7 knots.

Around 1040 a big pod of dolphins joined us. They rode the pressure wave at our bow, having a grand old time. There were even babies, more rambunctious than the rest. The calm seas and light winds let us see their antics far better than on the two other visits we’d get on this passage.

We hit the edge of the Stream earlier than expected, just off New Smyrna Beach, around 1330. We were only about 25 nautical miles offshore, in international waters. The current was a game-changer. We were barely skirting the edge and already touching 8 knots. I eased the Dragon 🐉 back to 2450 RPMs to conserve fuel. I’d planned to average 6.5 knots for the passage. Seven knots with the Stream’s help was plenty for now.

Now it was a waiting game. The autopilot 🧑‍✈️ had the helm, the Dragon 🐉 the thrust. We had only to nap in shifts and ready ourselves for the overnight run into Friday.

The wind picked up before dusk. I already had the mainsail out to steady Angelfish 🐠 in the three-foot swell, so when the breeze filled in from the southeast we set sail on a broad reach and pushed further into the Stream. We were pointing at North Carolina now. I wasn’t sure we’d make it inside our weather window, but we were doing close to 10 knots. Again I dropped the Dragon’s 🐉 RPMs, down to 2250, and we cruised at 8.

Far off the coast of Florida, well over the horizon, a solid bank of thunderclouds was building. We wondered what kind of squall-dodging lay ahead. But we were far enough out that the storms blew themselves to nothing long before reaching us.

The clouds stayed, though, hiding the stars, the moon, the sunset. I’d wanted Kenzie to see all of that at sea. Maybe next time.

We were too far out to see it, but that was the evening the New Glenn rocket 🚀 blew up on the pad at Cape Canaveral. A static fire test gone wrong. Our friends on SV Rhoo watched the whole eastern sky go orange, a fireball where a sunset should have been. Angelfish 🐠, way offshore, saw nothing but clouds and dark waters wiht distant flashes of lightening in the upper layers.

By midnight we were off Jacksonville, Florida. Genoa stowed, mainsail still full. We normally furl the main partway at night, but there was no weather coming that gave me pause about leaving it out. Kenzie said, “I somehow thought you guys camped out here. I didn’t realize you just kept going.”

Back to two-hour watches. I took the first, and we traded off, each grabbing what rest we could. Angelfish 🐠 rode the Stream all night, the Dragon 🐉 helping her stretch every mile.

One thing happened on my watch worth telling. An unintentional jibe. They are dangerous events, and this was only the second in five years aboard Angelfish 🐠. The wind shifted without warning, starboard to port. The boom was way out on the broad reach. The sail gave a hard crack as the wind backfilled the main. Had we not rigged our preventer to hold the boom, it would have slammed across the deck at tremendous speed, with damage to match. A broken boom. Maybe the mast. Instead, I eased tension on the preventer, controlled the swing, and walked the boom slowly across to port, where I locked the port preventer in.

By dawn we were off Brunswick, Georgia, and out of the Stream as it began its turn toward Europe. We were well over 50 nautical miles offshore now. I’d switched on the ocean plan for our Starlink 🛰️ at the start of the trip but forgot to warn the crew off streaming video. At two dollars a gig, I’m in for a painful bill this month.

At 0700 I had a crazy idea. Run straight for the top of South Carolina and the Georgetown Inlet. I held that course a while, until I ran the timing again with a little more sleep in me and saw it would put us hard into headwinds. So I came back to our course for Port Royal Sound, near Hilton Head.

By 1300 we were closing the shore again, off Savannah. The wind, as predicted, swung to the northeast, and we settled onto a close-hauled tack at 40 degrees over flat seas. A gentleman never sails to windward 🎩. But this was as gentle as windward gets, and I had the Dragon 🐉 assisting. I wanted to make shore on the flooding tide and still in daylight.

Which we did. It’s a two-hour run from the outer markers to the first safe anchorage, but we dropped the hook at 1730 in the Fort Fremont Reach of Port Royal Sound.

K made dinner. I asked Kenz what he made of the 35-hour passage. He said he’d had no idea what we meant by an overnight passage. Now he knew. “It was the longest car ride ever.”

I was in bed before dinner was even finished. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Off watch or on, as Captain I’m tuned to every sound, every motion, every shift of sea and wind. I can hold that for the length of a passage. But the moment the anchor ⚓ bites and we’re safe, I crash.

We could have stayed at the dock. Hot showers, cold air, packages at the office. Two days of comfort instead of one hard night at sea. But we’d have missed the dolphins and their babies at the bow. We’d have missed riding the wild country north at ten knots under full sail. We’d have missed Kenzie learning what an ocean asks of you.

What makes cruising life so precious is that the wonders are all out past safe harbors and channel markers. I am forever grateful I have had the chance to embrace this life. And so the crew of SV Angelfish 🐠 will sleep well tonight, rocking gently at anchor, a long way from where we started.

Once I started last fall, it consumed me. K became a author’s widow as I worked eight to twelve hours a day, written mostly the same way this blog is, on my iPhone with one thumb. Left thumb twisting and turning the phone while my right hammers a keypad too thick for absolute accuracy. Eventually both thumbs swelled and the joints inflamed. I had to move to an iPad with an external keyboard because I could no longer sleep with my hands. Writing, it turns out, is only the first step in a process that makes the lottery look like a sure thing. I'm a long way from a published book. That said, I’m glad to be back writing about sailing.

When we left off, Angelfish 🐠 was cruising the Abacos, and there was much drama about a lost woman and her husband who survived. It’s still in the news. All I’ll say is this: don’t believe everything you read.

We stuck around through all the media frenzy. And explored when we could. We twice went to the local market for provisions when the wind died down long enough for us to launch the Coconut 🥥.

K and I are no longer in the Bahamas. We’re spending three weeks in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷. We didn’t sail here. (Maybe next fall.) Our oldest son and his wife asked if we could help watch our grandson. We jumped at the chance.

I’ve been making Godzilla videos since we arrived, to much excitement.

K painted a mural in his room of his favorite version of the beast.

We have Pizza 🍕 parties every chance we can, and of course, there’s always room for ice cream🍨 at the end.

We got the call from our Puerto Rico family while riding out a season of spring windstorms. Twice we returned to the crowded anchorage of Marsh Harbor for protection from gale force winds, swinging at anchor for four or five days before venturing back out to explore the archipelago.

We love the northern Bahamas. It doesn’t matter how windy. We set ⚓ Annie 🦑 hard when we drop, and we can ride out anything. The sea and air are fresh and clean. The nights are free of light pollution, and the Milky Way blazes overhead in a frozen aurora of stars. Sure, we’d be more protected in a Florida marina. But the ambiance is better here, with its Bombay gin seas and azure skies.

After the storms, we anchored out and took Coconut 🥥 to visit Hope Town and Man-O-War Cay before drifting north. We spent the night off Guana Beach before rounding Whale Cay, and sailing past Green Turtle Cay🐢.

One of Angelfish’s 🐠 signature moves these days is sailing off anchor ⚓. Dragon 🐉 runs as backup, but as K pulls Annie 🦑 free, I’m already pulling out the main. When she gives me the thumbs up, I fall off, fill the sail, and kill the Dragon 🐉. It is elegant. Angelfish 🐠 cuts around her neighbors with no more than a how-do-you-do.

Drifting north, we watched for a weather window to cross back to Florida. Normally we’d take a three-day passage to Fernandina, just south of the Georgia border, and head north from there. But Orlando airport is 45 minutes from our Florida yacht club, so we planned on Port Canaveral instead.

We staged at Allan Cay. Turns out we weren’t alone in thinking it was time to head back across the Gulf Stream. The anchorage was packed. We all rode out another three-day blow of 40 knots, watching the isobars march across this part of the planet.

When the wind finally calmed, we scattered. Boats headed in different directions across the northern Bahamas bank. Many to Fort Pierce or points south, others north. Only Angelfish 🐠 and one other boat were bound for Canaveral.

It turned out to be one of the best Gulf Stream crossings we’ve ever made. The forecast 13-knot southerly never materialized, but the current was calm and kind. Twenty-four hours later we were at the fuel dock, topping off all tanks. We fill the diesel to the brim in Florida. The gap between fuel and the top of the tank traps humidity, and in that climate, gunk grows like weeds. Full tanks limit the damage.

I backed into our slip at Port Canaveral Yacht Club without calamity. Stern-in docking remains the most stressful part of cruising for me. The Dockmaster at PCYC is a kind and capable captain, and he talked me in. Club members took our lines. Before long, we were back in our Florida home. Just on time for a Rocket 🚀 launch that night.

We flew to Puerto Rico the next day and have been having a blast ever since.

We plan to fly back around the 20th of May and make for the Chesapeake Bay. Our oldest may join us for the passage. He has some time off. So expect more adventures soon. Until then thank you all for subscribing and posting comments. I really enjoyed your input.

My reply was brief: “No comment, I don’t know them.”

That was the truth. I didn’t know Brian and Lynette Hooker. I didn’t know their boat, Soulmate, but this is a story that has seized public attention with unusual speed.

What I’ve since learned is that we had anchored in the same spots three times during our Abacos passage without ever crossing paths. That particular kind of ghost-ship proximity happens in the cruising world, where you share the same water with people whose names you’ll only learn later, under terrible circumstances. Soulmate is now moored a stone’s throw from Angelfish 🐠 in Marsh Harbour, empty since Brian’s arrest.

I replied to Tim the same way I’m going to begin this piece: Because right now, nobody who wasn’t on that 8-foot dinghy knows exactly what happened on the night of April 4th. But in the absence of knowing, the internet has filled the void with certainty.

Source: Facebook

What We Know

The facts, as reported and confirmed by the Royal Bahamas Police Force, are these: Brian and Lynette Hooker, both from Michigan, departed the Abaco Inn at White Sound on Elbow Cay by dinghy at approximately 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 4th. They were headed to their anchored sailboat, Soulmate, near Aunt Pat’s Bay along Elbow Cay’s western shore. The sun had set four minutes earlier. It should have been a 1.8 mile slow run with their electric outboard motor. They never got there.

Brian told police that Lynette fell overboard in rough conditions. She was wearing the engine’s safety lanyard, the kill switch. When she went in, the lanyard cut power to the motor the moment she left the boat. He told authorities the currents carried her away quickly, that he last saw her swimming toward the sailboat, and that he tried to paddle to shore after an oar broke. He arrived at Marsh Harbour Boat Yard in the early hours of Sunday morning, where he alerted someone who called the police. A search lasting days, involving the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, Hope Town Volunteer Fire and Rescue, and the U.S. Coast Guard, has found no trace of Lynette Hooker. The search has been reclassified as a recovery operation.

Brian Hooker was arrested for questioning in connection with his wife’s disappearance. He has not been charged. His attorney states he categorically denies any wrongdoing. In his own words, recorded in an audio message later made public: “What followed was a cascade of failures, and it’s something I’m never going to forgive myself for.”

That phrase, cascade of failures, is the most nautically honest thing anyone has said about that night. As a sailor, cruising full-time for five years, I know the dangers of that phrase. It is the biggest fear of anyone who spends a fair amount of time at sea. One bad decision doesn’t kill you. It’s the second one, and the third, each closing off another exit, until the sea has you forever.

Source: www.ventusky.com

The Sea State, April 4th

K and I were anchored that night among 20 to 30 boats in the waters north of where Soulmate was moored, we being closer to Hope Town. The wind was up. The sea was very choppy. These are not unusual conditions for the Abacos in early April. Trade winds build in the afternoons and don’t always settle by evening. We have been experiencing a spate of these mistral winds of late, usually lasting for days. What I can tell you, as someone who was riding at anchor that night in those same waters: it was not a calm night. It was the kind of night that makes you glad to be safely on a 45-foot boat and not in a tender.

What I can also tell you is that we had our VHF radio on that night. We usually do when anchored in foul weather conditions. Boats can drag, emergencies can happen. All cruisers listen, ready to offer assistance as needed. That said, no cruiser, including Angelfish 🐠, heard a radio call from local authorities coordinating a search.

For comparison, in United States waters the U.S. Coast Guard’s standard procedure upon receiving a report of a person overboard is to issue an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast (UMIB) or Pan-Pan on VHF Channel 16, alerting all vessels in the area to maintain a lookout. In Bahamian waters, however, the U.S. Coast Guard has no primary jurisdiction. Initial radio alerts are the responsibility of local authorities. No such broadcast was reported or heard by cruisers monitoring VHF that night, any one of which might have launched a dinghy to help.

I don’t know whether that reflects a gap in the response or simply the limits of what was knowable in those first desperate hours.

Credit: sv Angelfish 🐠, the ocean side of Elbow Cay April 4th 2026

The Cascade

Brian Hooker called it a cascade of failures. Every sailor who has read the accounts of that night knows exactly what he means, because we have done the mental inventory ourselves.

No personal flotation devices. The Hookers were not wearing life jackets for a dinghy ride at night in building wind and chop. That morning, the Abaco Cruising Net on VHF channel 68 had broadcast that the Bahamian weather service had issued a small craft advisory for the area. I won’t pretend this is unusual. We are all guilty of a tender run without suiting up, especially at the end of a long day. But the math of survival changes the moment someone goes over the side after dark. A PFD doesn’t guarantee you live. The absence of one narrows the odds considerably.

No handheld VHF radio. There is no mention in any account of a handheld radio aboard the dinghy. Every cruising boat carries at least one, as does Angelfish 🐠. A handheld VHF on that dinghy could have reached every vessel in that anchorage within seconds of Lynette going overboard. It could have reached local authorities directly. It weighs less than a pound. The Soulmate tender was on a 1.8-mile run that night back to the boat. Two miles in rough seas is a treacherous passage. On Angelfish 🐠, any trip longer than a half mile, the portable should be aboard. Having said that, there are countless times we have not done that.

No spare engine key. When Lynette went in with the safety lanyard, the engine died. That is the lanyard’s entire purpose. If the driver leaves the helm, the boat stops. It is a feature designed to save lives. But when the person in the water is holding the lanyard, the boat becomes a paddle craft. Most cruisers don’t carry a spare key for the dinghy engine. We do, because years ago, in the tumultuous waters off New York City, I nearly went over the side myself. After that, I hid a spare key on Coconut 🥥, and it has stayed there ever since. Not every sailor learns that lesson before they need it.

I should mention here that these rigid inflatable boats, called RIBs, are easy to fall out of, especially in rough seas. In fact, when Brian was arrested, it was rough here, even in Marsh Harbour, and his lawyer reports Brian fell overboard, in handcuffs, while in custody.

No functional oars. Reports indicate the dinghy had oar sockets, but Brian describes a pin breaking, leaving him effectively without propulsion. In the waters between Elbow Cay and Marsh Harbour, the current alone might not have been enough to move an 8-foot RIB four to six miles overnight. This part of the Abacos is not known for powerful currents. But wind is another matter entirely. At 18 to 24 knots, a small rigid inflatable dinghy becomes less of a boat and more of a sail. With no engine, no functional oars, and a hull with enough freeboard to catch every gust, that dinghy was going where the wind sent it. That night, the wind sent it west toward Marsh Harbour, and away from Lynette.

And then there is the question of alcohol. This is not speculation inserted to smear anyone. Richard Cook, leader of the Hope Town Volunteer Fire & Rescue team and among the first on scene, told People magazine he believed alcohol was a factor. His words were simply “a lot of bad decisions.” Lynette’s daughter has spoken publicly about drinking in the marriage. The couple’s own YouTube and Instagram document what any honest sailor would recognize: the island cruising life includes sundowners, rum drinks at beach bars, and wine in the cockpit. I also have been known to imbibe in this culture. People who live in glass houses and all.

Photo credit: sv Angelfish 🐠, Tahiti Beach, Elbow Cay. Somewhere nearby, SV Soulmate rides at anchor.

It is a culture, not a character flaw. A dinner at the Abaco Inn, a couple of cocktails, and a dark tender ride in building chop can cloud judgment without requiring a criminal motive. The sea does not need you to be a murderer. It only needs you to be impaired enough to make one bad decision that leads to another.

Put it all together: no PFDs, no radio, no spare key, compromised oars, darkness, wind, chop. What you have is what the sea does to people who give Poseidon an opening.

The picture conjured of Brian Hooker, leaning over the bow of a powerless dinghy, paddling with his hands into a dark and choppy night trying to find his bride, is the image of a man who understood, probably right at that moment, the full weight of what had just gone wrong.

The Court of Facebook

I have spent a significant part of my professional life as a documentary editor, and have worked on films of wrongful conviction. I have sat (in the edit room) with men who lost years, sometimes decades, in prisons they should never have entered, convicted not by evidence but by a narrative—by a story that felt true, long before any courtroom opened its doors.

I know what public conviction looks like. I’m watching it happen in real time.

What has happened to Brian Hooker on Facebook in the past week is a version of that. The comment sections are filled with “Dateline episode analysis,” an “always the husband” narrative, with detailed theories about motive constructed entirely from the statements of people who were not on that boat.

The daughter’s account of a troubled relationship, which may be completely true and which investigators should absolutely pursue, has been fed into the machine and emerged as verdict.

Brian Hooker may be guilty of something. He may be guilty of terrible judgment and nothing else. He may be guilty of a crime. I don’t know. The Royal Bahamas Police Force, who have questioned him and not yet charged him, are still working to find out. My understanding is he will be released soon if her body is not found.

What I do know is this: the sea is a dangerous force that requires respect. It doesn’t care about motives or marriages or Dateline narratives. It cares about wind speed, sea conditions, and current. It has taken lives in these waters long before Brian and Lynette Hooker arrived, and it will take lives here long after this story fades from the news cycle.

Photo credit: sv Angelfish 🐠: Saturday April 4th, storm clouds and unsettled seas outside Hope Town, Elbow Cay.

What Lynette Deserves

Lynette Hooker was 55 years old. She was a sailor, a traveler, a mother. She and Brian documented their life aboard Soulmate under the name The Sailing Hookers, a community not unlike the one K and I have built here. She sent a photograph from White Sound just before they got in that dinghy, the last image anyone has of her in the world she loved.

She deserves a real investigation. She deserves the kind of methodical, evidence-based process that either confirms an accident or surfaces the truth of something worse. She does not deserve to have her death, and her husband’s culpability or innocence, adjudicated in Facebook comment sections by people who have never been on the water at night in 20-plus-knot winds in a broken tender.

The sea took Lynette Hooker. What exactly put her in the sea’s path is still being determined by people with actual jurisdiction and actual evidence. Let them work.

K and I will pause tonight and think of Lynette, her family in grief, and the boat Soulmate that sits quietly nearby. Godspeed.

— Steve, SV Angelfish 🐠, Marsh Harbour, Abaco

This piece reflects the public record as of April 11, 2026. If new information emerges, it will be noted here. The search for Lynette Hooker continues.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Saturday morning, we woke well after dawn in Bullocks Bay and started the day by topping off our battery bank with a couple of hours of the Genie 🧞 making electricity. While the juice was flowing, I also made water — filling our tanks by converting seawater to freshwater through reverse osmosis (RO).

Eventually I radioed the local marina and requested a slip for two nights plus an appointment to check into the Bahamas.

The Narrow Cut Drama

From Bullocks Bay to the marina on Great Harbor Cay (pronounced “Key”) you must first pass the VERY narrow cut into Five Pirate Bay. It’s a steep ravine carved from the rock.

Even though I radioed “sécurité, sécurité, SV Angelfish 🐠 is passing through the cut to Great Harbor Marina, all vessels be advised. Standing by on 16,” no one else was on the radio.

As I approached, two vessels (one with no AIS) exited without any call. I made Angelfish hover in place as they left. We entered the cut keeping to the deep water in the center, when a local sports fishing boat roared out, making the gap even narrower. Needless to say we didn’t film any of this — we were a bit busy.

Marina Check-In & Politics

We brought Angelfish 🐠 past the fuel dock and into the marina slip easily. The Dockmaster “Mr T” helping out. I then wired her for shore power. This area is so protected from the wind that the sun really heats up the cabin below, so I expected we’d need AC. The marina also sells fresh water at 50 cents a gallon, but their RO system was down — so I was glad I filled up earlier.

By noon we had checked in and our passports stamped. We were good for 90 days. What cost $300 last year was now $700. We asked the customs officers if they’d seen a decline since the price jump.

“Oh yeah. Everywhere’s empty,” one said. I asked how much of the $700 stayed on the local islands. They laughed. “It all stays in Nassau.” The other added, “The Abacos wanted to secede and make their own money, but Nassau said no, no, no.” Politics everywhere, feeding politicians.

Marina adventures

K spent the day washing the salt off Angelfish 🐠 (using our own water) and polishing stainless steel. I took out trash, hoisted a sunshade over the foredeck, and planned our next passages, I try to always keep one eye on the local weather.

That evening the no-see-ums were out in force, so we closed up the boat and ran the AC. Next morning we woke to a puddle on the floor. Our AC unit was leaking. K, our resident plumber, grabbed the screwdriver, pulled the big mirror off that covered the compressor coil, and cleared the clogged condensation tray and drain line together. Fixed in minutes. She’s a very handy First Mate that one.

It’s important to remember that your boat is always about to break somewhere — you just don’t know where yet.

After the AC fix, K spent the rest of Sunday morning doing our laundry, and I wrote Substack posts and assembled our two JackRabbit bikes. With chores all done, we rode our electric scooters to Sand Dollar Beach, about 2 miles away on mostly flat roads. There we relaxed on white sand that felt like talc, walked in the turquoise waters and found one broken sand dollar. We hated to leave, but we would be leaving in the morning, so returned and packed everything away for the next leg.

Fuel Dock Fiasco

By 7:30 am on Monday we paid the bill and moved to the fuel dock. The finger pier here was ridiculously short. K heroically got lines around the pilings while the attendant just stood there watching. Completely unhelpful!

He handed me the diesel hose and walked off. I filled the tanks, he came back for my card, pointed to the trash, then watched us, as we backed out. Never have I seen a more unhelpful dockhand. I was warned this was the worst fuel stop in the Bahamas… but I hate traveling with our tanks not topped off.

Angelfish 🐠 headed back out through Five Pirate Bay, through the cut with no drama. Once out into Bulluck’s Bay we pulled out the Genoa and two-thirds of the main for a wonderful broad-reach run north.

The winds built favorably as we quietly sailed up around the Berry Islands, and passed the giant cruise ship terminals that make a destination stop here. But our final leg around back south was straight into the wind, so the Dragon 🐉 took us the last hour pounding into 2.5 foot swells. The sea spray had just re-coated Angelfish 🐠 with salt. Eventually we made it into the protected anchorage at Sand Dollar Cove. Gloriously, overnight it rained and washed the boat clean.

Out running the Storm

Tuesday morning we were off again before dawn on a 9-hour run to Spanish Wells, the northern island of the Eleuthera chain. We were taking advantage of a short weather window that would allow traverse the North Providence Channel and anchor safely during an expected 5-day northerly blow that was coming on fast. We needed solid holding for the Rocna anchor to keep us in place against winds peaking at 38 knots.

The wind started off great from the west and grew stronger. We flew full main and Genoa on a broad reach, then jibed (not easy in 20+ knots) to go wing-on-wing as the wind shifted northwest. Friends from the Great Harbor Marina snapped a picture of us screaming along before the jibe.

Midday the wind died — Dragon 🐉 to the rescue. The seas weren’t calm at first and we rolled around not feeling that well. Then the wind unexpectedly shifted east and we pushed harder into it.

Eventually, we reached the Egg Island Cut, and after passing this very narrow pass, we headed toward Royal Island. I had read from previous sailors that the holding here was exceptional. Five boats were already in the spots I’d planned on. So we punted and tucked in as best we could, buried the Rocna deep with 10:1 scope of 3/8″ chain, added a long 12-foot snubber. There was a more protected Cove further up on Royal Island, but I feared it would be crowded and wouldn’t allow us to put out so much chain.

I backed down on the anchor with the full force of the Dragon 🐉 to ensure a deep hold from the Rocna and we settled down to wait for the storm.

Next up, five days blowing hard.

Last night was the annual (and very popular) Port Canaveral Yacht Club Variety Talent Show! Somehow, I let myself get talked into one of the acts. The schtick: I played host (think Johnny Carson) and interviewed the world’s shortest and saltiest sailor, Morton Stubby. It was the classic Vaudeville “Russian Midget” routine. Morton was created from the dockmaster’s arms acting as legs (tiny sneakers over his hands), while his wife hid behind him and acted flamboyantly with her arms. (Search “Little People Skit” on YouTube, and you’ll see exactly what we were going for.)

Our act ran a full 23 minutes, and the audience was howling. K and I slipped out soon after to finish cooking passage food and get to bed early.

Now it was morning. I brewed coffee and checked the weather—we were still a go. Yesterday I’d already packed the two Jackrabbit bikes into their waterproof covers and buried them deep in the aft cabin. Today I topped off the water tanks (last time we’ll take on dock water for a while), stowed the hose, hoisted the tender Coconut 🥥 onto the davits, and ratcheted straps under the hull to lock the RIB in place while at sea.

K was below finishing meals and securing everything that likes to migrate out during marina stays.

I ran one final check on the Dragon 🐉 and Genie 🧞. I checked oil, fluids, steering cables, throttle cables, and everything I could think of.

07:30: the dockmaster Shane and his wife, the Vice Commodore Tanya, arrived to help cast us off, joined by our neighbors for the last month. The four of them made quick work of disconnecting shore power (hopefully for a long time). I coiled the big, thick copper line and stowed it for the next marina.

07:45: after a final rig inspection, all that remained was to cast off and head to the fuel dock to top the tanks before the 32-hour run south. Teary hugs, shouts of “See you next December,” and we were gone. Because we were early, Shane rode with us to the fuel dock and helped tie up before the attendant even arrived.

08:22: SV Angelfish 🐠 was topped off with diesel, the dockmaster caught a ride back with the attendant, and suddenly it was just us—time to head back out into the Atlantic and see what Poseidon had on the menu.

Departing is always emotionally hard. There’s a powerful momentum of convenience that keeps you in port: easy deliveries, endless food, and that special bond you only get with other yachties who are also fixing boats in close quarters. At PCYC, especially, it feels like family. When Angelfish 🐠 is in port, we know our home is safe; out to sea 🌊, one can only hope. Nevertheless, adventure awaits, and we embrace the unknown with gusto.

Alone on this Saturday morning, we motored past the giant dozing cruise ships and motionless SpaceX cranes with their towers dark. The busy port felt oddly quiet. We rounded Green buoy 13 and turned south toward our first waypoint, Jupiter Beach. A 77 nautical mile passage down the coast, the winds were fair from the West but very light, so we motor-sailed, making good time. It was great to be back on the water. Not a boat in sight, with only sea turtles popping up to wave before diving again. Nearby, several pods of dolphins were feeding. I have to say we were a bit disappointed that not one stopped by to race in front of Angelfish 🐠, but they were hungry, I guess.

We motor-sailed on, doing about 7 knots. Night fell, and we were ahead of schedule by quite a bit until 22:05 when we hit the raging current of the Gulf Stream just south of Jupiter Beach. We chose to go close to shore in hopes of lessening the stream’s impact on our progress. No luck this time. Even just two nautical miles offshore, we were bracing against almost two knots of current. The Dragon 🐉 at 2600 RPMs was barely making five knots of headway.

The evening also brought severe thunderstorms directly in our path. With these storms comes rain and lightening but also wind. I had the radar on tracking their progress in front of us.

Now for the miracle of Angelfish 🐠, and we've seen this many many times. As we get close the storms will part and let Angelfish 🐠 pass through untouched.

00:00: By Sunday morning, we were crawling toward Palm Beach. Even less than a mile offshore, the current had us in its grip and wasn’t letting go. The Dragon 🐉 performed beautifully at 2700 RPMs and got us moving at 5.5 knots against a 2 knot current. I’ve heard sailors say one needs to be 200 feet off the shore to avoid the current, but even with almost a full moon out, I didn’t want to be that close to shore at night.

03:11: Just past Boca Raton, the current started releasing Angelfish 🐠, and we started getting back to cruising speed.

The winds had been very light and variable all night, so even the mainsail was stowed as the Dragon 🐉 motored us south.

06:00: By dawn, we were passing our busiest port on the trip. Fort Lauderdale competes with Port Canaveral for cruise ships and other commercial traffic. The early light helped us navigate around the incoming ships, but what surprised us more were the small sport fishing vessels randomly anchored a mile out from shore. These non-professional fishing boats were too small for a reliable radar signature. Most had lights on, but not all. Amazingly, maintaining course and speed, we ran the gauntlet, but some boats were close enough to talk to. This would have been way more dangerous at night, even with the full moon we had during our passage. With the major current now offshore, we flew again down the coast.

09:00: We passed the busy port of Miami, the Dragon 🐉 pushing us onward. Occasional fishing boats dotting the sea to either side of us. Normally, on ocean passages, we find ourselves miles from any vessel, but this close to shore, we had to be vigilant.

Just before we were to make our turn up into The Florida Cut toward Key Biscayne, we approached another small sport fishing vessel, the first we would have to navigate around. “Do we go outside or inside?” K asked me. Outside means further out to sea, inside closer to shore. We chose inside as it was closer to our turning point. Doing about 6.5 knots, we approached the vessel, not as close as other vessels, but close, when we heard the yelling.

The fishing vessel was actually a diving vessel. The captain was yelling from the water, warning us and lambasting us for coming so close. “Can’t you see the dive flag?” he yelled. In truth, we couldn’t. The slight wind was pushing his boat bow on to us, and his dive flag was also straight on to us. I bellowed “We’re in neutral” as we crossed some invisible line of where he had divers out. After a bit, we brought Angelfish 🐠 in gear and proceeded on. Hearts pounding.

Thinking of it afterward, why didn’t the guy in the cockpit radio us? It’s not like we are hard to see. Why were there no diving flags on buoys strung out for us to navigate around? We felt very bad about it, but there was no way we could have known. These small boats also don’t broadcast an AIS signal identifying them, so we again assumed they were fishing vessels. Next time, we might try hailing them first, but I wouldn’t expect them to have their radio even on.

10:10: We rounded the marker into Key Biscayne Bay and ran against a pretty impressive 2 knots of ebbing tidal current.

10:37: We were anchor down in the beautiful blue-green waters of the Keys. We were settled in with about 20 other boats anchored just outside a hurricane hole called No Name Harbor. We even got a welcome rainbow!

The last time we were here, there were about 100 boats, so it feels empty and secluded with 20. The Bahamian Government recently raised the price of cruising from 300 to 700 dollars. Maybe that's why this popular staging area is so sparse, I'm not sure.

Anyway, we will stay here waiting for a Gulf Stream crossing to the Berry Islands, Bahamas 🇧🇸.

More on that next time.

I got up, but I was already pretty sure our plans for the day were foiled. The strong winds singing through the rigging gave me a hint. The expected 12-14 knots of southern winds were 16-19 from the ESE. Angelfish 🐠 was already rocking at anchor from the fetch coming across Biscayne Bay. It had to be much worse in the Gulf Stream.

We planned to leave the anchorage outside No Name Harbor with the tide early this morning and motor south toward Fowey Rock Light (about an hour away) to give us a better angle to cross the Gulf Stream.

Even with a south wind, we would be crabbing 🦀 across the Stream at a 24º angle toward the East, sailing off course so that Angelfish 🐠 would drift on the 2.4 knot northern current. In combination, it would put us directly over Bimini Island. Where we could jump out of the stream and anchor on the back side.

The sail plan for such a trip would put us on a beam reach across the stream, but with the 24º crabbing 🦀 shift that would bring the wind forward of the mast to a close reach—a comfortable sail, riding up the side of the swell and down the other.

However, with the wind to the East South East, we would be crabbing even more into the wind and slamming into the swell in a close-hauled sail—a very uncomfortable ride, bouncing against the swell every few seconds.

Also, the hour-long motor to Fowey Rock would be right into the headwind and waves, so by 7:30 am, I bailed on leaving today. The prediction for tomorrow was zero wind, so we could just let the Dragon 🐉 take us across at 24° 🦀.

The decision made, I sat and drank coffee as Angelfish 🐠 bounced on the fetch.

Yesterday, I had been texting with a young cruiser who was also trying to figure out a crossing plan. I told him we were staying put. I felt bad for him and his crew. I’m retired, so what’s in a lost day? It’s very different if you’re on a vacation timetable. He told me he had radioed a passing Catamaran in the stream, who said it was pretty rough out there.

I was planning contingency passages and reading recipes for homemade Port Wine, and Cheddar Blue Cheese spreads (ever the foodie). I really want to get a good sundowner cheese spread for when we are at anchor. I was in the middle of this when, at about 10:30 am, the wind died to 12 knots and shifted south! I texted my young cruiser, and he said he was going for it. I said, “Heck, we are too!”

K and I were almost ready anyway, so by 11:17, we were anchor up and motoring toward the first waypoint of Fowey Rock Light. The wind was slightly east of south, but close enough. The swells, however, were still 2-2.5 feet right on the nose. It was a long hour motoring to the light.

But when we passed over the drop (where depths go from 40 to 2000 feet), the swells dropped too! This made me very happy. Even if I we were forced into a close-hauled tack across the Gulf Stream, I could easily sail over this swell. Then, as we were turning into the stream, around noon, the winds shifted further south. We had perfect conditions!

And off we went. The downside to leaving 4 hours later than we planned is that we only had 7.5 hours of daylight left. Meaning we would be rounding the somewhat treacherous North Rock light and anchoring in darkness.

Call in the Dragon 🐉. With full sails—main, staysail, and full 120% Yankee Genoa—we were pulling 6 knots of speed. Add the Dragon at 2700 RPMs, and we were doing hull speed of 8 knots crabbing 🦀 our way across the stream on a close-reach.

It was glorious. The wind was blowing 16-20 knots. Angelfish 🐠 was heeled over more than 20°, cheekily showing her windward bottom to the world, her gunwale buried in the blue-green waters racing by in foam and spray. Soon it was obvious we were going to make North Rock light before dark, yet we stampeded on full throttle.

K was a bit nervous with the boat heeled over so dramatically. I asked her if she was managing ok? She replied, “I trust Angelfish 🐠,” and held on.

K also kept track of the MANY big commercial vessels passing all around us in the stream, including a close-range crossing of a massive cruise ship.

The sun was out, the sky was clear, and the water swells in the stream were 1-2.5 feet. Angelfish 🐠 and the Dragon rose and fell every 4 seconds or so — easily managed.

I even took a nap, lulled by the sound of gurgling water racing down the lee hull. K sat for a while out front on the bow watching tiny flying fish leap from the water to get out of Angelfish’s 🐠 way, their tiny wings bringing them aloft in the wind and skipping off waves before plunging safely back into the water.

By 18:00, we were approaching North Rock, and I decided to cut the lighted Rock between it and the shore. Kind of a gutsy move, but the charts did say our 5.5 draft should be able to pass with 2 feet of water under the keel. It was a foolish idea, but it did save us about 20 minutes. I held my breath the whole way across.

We then turned south around the island of Bimini and anchored for the night just as the sun was setting.

It took us two tries to get the Rocna Anchor deep in the grassy bottom of the seabed, but once we got her dug in, we would sleep better.

About 90 minutes later, our young friends joined us in the anchorage. We all slept very well that night; it had been a very long day. As I went to sleep, planning tomorrow’s passage and I realized, yup, we’d be up before dawn again in the morning.

Next up, the passage to Great Harbour Cay.

The next day we helped (barely) K’s brother and wife cook a fabulous meal of two Beef Wellingtons with all the trimmings. Crazy good time!

The next morning we arrived home on Angelfish 🐠. The heaters had kept the pipes above freezing, but the 20° weather ❄️ was in full force. Although Angelfish 🐠 was sitting in water, about 6 inches out from the hull, ice reached across the creek and grew thicker by the day. She was also barely sitting in water.

The tides on the Chesapeake Bay are wind-driven. A north wind blows the water out, a south wind blows the water in. I hoped the tide would be up enough for us to leave.

In the meantime, we busied ourselves provisioning for a long cruise in case a weather window opened for Bermuda, and we checked over all of Angelfish’s 🐠 systems.

Finally on the morning of January 4, 2026, we prepared for departure. It was a cold, cold morning. Clear crystalline skies and no wind to speak of, 23 degrees out. I let the Dragon 🐉 warm up early as I made coffee.

As I was prepping to leave and stowing the electrical line for shore power, an open-cockpit fishing vessel left its slip across the creek from us. The noise they made wasn’t just their outboard engines. I realized it was their bow breaking up and crunching through ice about 1/8 inch thick. It was a loud, destructive sound. Fortunately they acted as an “Ice Breaker” and left a path for us to follow out. I hurried with the rest of my chores to break out of our slip. Overnight the ice had grown thick and was now skirting our hull tightly.

With K at the bow, our headsets on, we pushed Angelfish 🐠 forward. The large flat surface area of frozen water held her in place for a moment before releasing us. Then came the sound of crunching ice on our bow. It sounded like marbles rolling in a glass jar.

You can just see our path in this picture we received after we left. We pushed out into the path of the broken ice that the boat ahead of us had made. Still, the sound of rolling marbles continued like nails on a chalkboard until we reached the wider Chesapeake.

After four months in Deale, we were nomadic again. We had broken free of the magnetic forces that tie boats to their docks. There was no wind to speak of, so we motored south with our propane heater going full blast inside the plastic (and leaky) cockpit enclosure.

We should have been happier; we should have been rejoicing. We weren’t. The long refit was hard on us financially and emotionally. We knew this was going to be a big refit, but it's exploding scale was beyond our imaginations. Also, in our hearts we were timid because, this was actually our second attempt to leave Deale.

Back in December, Angelfish 🐠 was put into the water for the final time, ready to start our southern pilgrimage.

On December 11, we pulled out of our slip after the survey was complete. There was a wonderful light westward wind blowing and we motorsailed the first leg of our planned three-day passage to Norfolk, Virginia.

The problems had started right away. The prop shaft was still wobbling, fuel was leaking at the engine near the Racor filters, and most troubling, our engine coolant was leaking.

We knew the prop was still shaking the drivetrain, but it felt worse than before (it wasn’t). I tightened two hose clamps to stop the fuel from seeping out, but the coolant leak, although slight, was relentless.

Then our fuel gauge on the main tank said we were empty. (We weren’t.) Before we left, the mechanic and I had tried to spend a quick moment figuring out the fuel transfer system under the galley sink. That had been a disaster — fuel spewing out the vents on Angelfish’s 🐠 transom and about two gallons spilling into our bilge. (As I write this in March, there’s still a small amount of fuel in the bilge.) We shut everything down, cleaned the bilge as best we could, and set off the next day. Well, with a 0% fuel reading in our Dragon 🐉 fuel tank, we wondered what else we had done.

We made it to our first anchorage just after the sun had set, and the beautiful Rocna anchor ⚓ caught on the first pull. Exhausted from the stress, we went to bed early. I started the generator and it anemically throbbed, never getting up enough RPMs to produce electricity. It was going down to the teens that night. My watermaker would probably freeze. To keep us safe, K pulled out the extra down blankets we keep for guests and put them on our bed. I kept fiddling with the generator. By ten pm I got the airlock free and the generator ran all night, heating our cabins (and watermaker).

In the morning we re-evaluated everything. The fuel tank gauge had reset itself overnight and looked full. But the combination of the coolant leak, the generator potentially getting another airlock, and an intermittent fuel gauge made us choose to sail back to Deale and get it all sorted out. It was a beautiful sail, very relaxing, but that was the day we chose to fly to Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 and spend a few days with family.

Now we were retracing our steps in even colder weather. We arrived at our first anchorage with all in order. Three days later we were approaching Norfolk. Normally we wait and fuel up along the ICW at a fanciful place called Coinjock, but our fuel gauge was acting up again.

These fuel gauges are notoriously inaccurate, but usually they give a range of readings that more or less coincide with what fuel we think we’ve used via a more reliable method of counting engine hours. Angelfish’s 🐠 Dragon 🐉 uses about 1.6 to 1.8 gallons an hour (depending on RPMs).

That morning we honestly (with all the crazy fuel transferring) had no idea what tank had what fuel. The gauge for the generator (Genie 🧞) said almost full. The gauge for the main Dragon 🐉 tank said almost empty. None of it made any sense. That’s when I had a crazy idea that almost led to disaster.

With K at the helm watching the gauges, I went below and tried to fire up the fuel transfer pump to put just a bit more fuel from the Genie 🧞 tank into the Dragon 🐉 tank. It all seemed to be working well when K yelled, “What are you doing? Stop now, stop!” I did. But now the Dragon 🐉 tank had even less fuel in it.

We decided to pull in early to top off all tanks and start fresh by counting hours.

That didn’t help much because for some reason (which still baffles us today) the Genie 🧞 tank took 40 gallons of fuel and the main Dragon 🐉 tank less than 30. It seems (though I’ve been told it’s impossible) that the two gauges on our display were labeled temporarily backwards. (Network issue?)

Whatever the case, from then on we have counted hours to determine fuel consumption. The Genie 🧞, god bless him, only uses exactly 0.25 gallons per hour constantly.

Leaving Norfolk the next day we had a beautiful five-day passage down the Virginia Cut portion of the ICW. The weather was warm like an Indian summer, the sun bright.

The day we passed Coinjock, this always-packed, very busy fuel stop was empty like a ghost town. We had never seen that before.

We made Beaufort, NC, feeling ourselves again. The cruising had been almost completely stress-free, the tides were so low that even those normally tricky ICW bridges had plenty of room for our mast. All the anchorages we had to ourselves, and the tidal currents always seemed in our favor. We waited for a weather window to take us to Wrightsville Beach outside of the ICW.

We made the passage on January 12th, arriving unfortunately at night. We knew the inlet well and were pretty comfortable anchoring, though K’s night vision isn’t that good. There we waited for another window to head south.

The Arctic cold weather came back with a vengeance. We were warm enough below decks, but I was failing on my promise to K that “we’d always be sailing in 75° weather.”

I was considering taking the next stretch of the ICW, but with the daylight window so short in winter, we couldn’t get far enough down the ICW to ensure we’d reach safe anchorages. So we waited very coldly for the weather gods to open a passage.

And eventually we got one.. On January 19th. It wasn’t a great window, but if the winds shifted to the north as predicted, we could get a jump and catch an even better window that was only good if we started further south. Honestly, in retrospect I was so ready for warm weather I may have lost my mind a bit on what’s a good window.

We left early. The WSW winds across Frying Pan Shoals made it seem I was a genius. Soon these winds would shift to the NW and we would fly all the way to Florida.

Well the winds didn’t shift. We rounded Frying Pan Shoals with the wind right on our nose, plowing into 4-5 foot waves. The Dragon 🐉 engaged as the force of slamming into the sea every four seconds or so brought boat speed to zero. We battled it for a while then decided to tack to shore hoping the swells would lessen. They didn’t.

K and I both got seasick. Poor K wretched and wretched. Surprisingly Angelfish 🐠 was having the time of her life — literally leaping out of the waves and shaking her tail as she dove back into the swell. “More, more,” she seemed to be saying. We were the weak links on this passage. One wave hit us so hard it threw me across the cockpit from one side to the other. We held on with two hands.

Still on a close-hauled tack, we raced (Dragon 🐉 too) toward shore. By nightfall (4pm!) we had to make a choice: tack back out toward the ocean, or find an inlet we could go into that was good enough for us to hide until morning.

As it turned out, the Little River Inlet was almost on our current course. We decided to go for it. I called TowBoatUS on the phone (bless you, Starlink) and asked about any local knowledge regarding this very sketchy inlet. “Sketchy it is, Captain,” the man said, “but they keep moving the markers to follow the shifting shoals pretty regular there. Just go in slow and stay close to Red.” I thanked him and we pushed on.

By 7pm it was completely dark with no moon. I had been aiming high so as not to miss the inlet and now I turned in, sails furled. K went on the foredeck with our spotlight and we put our spreader lights on as well. One of our upgrades in our refit was a forward-facing floodlight for just such purposes. In the light, my eyes no longer could see forward, but K led Angelfish 🐠 in. The markers did not match either of the two charts I had, and they were plastic with no radar reflection. So K had to talk us in. She was magnificent. I did manage to bring Angelfish on the wrong side of one red marker, but I was close enough to it that it didn’t matter. We anchored next to Bird Island safe and secure.

On January 20th we raced out with the morning tide and managed to catch that excellent southern weather window to Fernandina, Florida in a two-day passage. We arrived at 8pm, again in the dark, and anchored in familiar waters.

Eventually we moved to a mooring ball which gave us access to marina services and we did laundry and stocked up on food. There we waited for another window south to our Florida port of call, the Port Canaveral Yacht Club (PCYC). But again we were thwarted by Mother Nature.

On January 23, we decided to rise before dawn and make the very long jump down the ICW to St. Augustine. We’ve done this patch of ICW twice in our years of cruising. So even though it was familiar, I was super vigilant.

Again, the ideal currents and low tides were with us. And we grabbed a mooring ball before dark.

The next morning we passed under the Bridge of Lions at 8:39 and took the ICW all the way down to the Ponce Inlet. We even sailed a bit of the passage.

Then on Sunday January 25, we were fogged in bad! We decided to stay put until it was safe to travel. (Here I have to apologise for the sparse photos during this section. K mistakenly left her phone/camera charging in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 and she is my usual source for the color in this blog and my life.)

By 9:30 am we felt that we could see far enough to start our passage. This was a crazy day.

I swear Sunday drivers have NOTHING on Sunday boaters. These people have NO situational or proximity awareness. Paddle boards, kayaks, skiffs, small day boats, none of them with their radios on (if they had them) cutting back and forth in front of us like they were the only ones on the water!

The situation did allow me to use another upgrade from our fall refit: our mast hailer. Basically it connects my cockpit radio microphone to a waterproof speaker halfway up my mast! I bellowed in earnest “passing on your port” or “clear the shipping channel” or whatnot to get their attention.

There was one timed bridge that we had to wait for. As we hovered in place a second sailboat barreled down on us so close and parked himself right next to us in a very tight channel with shoals to both sides. I drifted back and gave him first position, passing him as he dawdled where he had wanted to go after the bridge.

And then there were the boats in a big hurry, flying past us in both directions, oh so close, waking Angelfish 🐠 like she was back on the high, easy.

After a long day, we anchored in quiet waters. Tomorrow we would head to PCYC through the spaceport canal.

We arrived at Port Canaveral Yacht Club on January 26th. As is the custom there, anyone on the dock attends the mooring-up, offering encouragement and helping hands. It was and is so very heartwarming. For K and me, after spending 22 days alone together, it felt like a very special homecoming.

We would stay in this yachty community until February 28th. We had a few small things to fix on Angelfish 🐠, and as members, we needed to complete our annual 20 hours of volunteer work. K and I did a few chores around the club. I bartended, and on one very long day. I also smoked my first batch of ribs in the club smoker to serve at the tiki bar. They came out ok — it was my first time with the smoker. Next year I will do better. I used the 3-2-1 method, but the bottom Rach was too close to the heat source. They were tender, but a bit dry.

While at PCYC, our dear friend Shane did some miraculous repair work on our canvas enclosure, and we spent many nights with him and Tanya (the vice commodore), and again with other friends, way past our bedtimes. Laughing and sharing adventures.

But K & I were anxious to get back to sea. The vistas of open water, the secluded anchorages all to ourselves, the morning light appearing over the horizon reflecting first on the sails after a night passage, the trials and tribulations of ocean voyages, forever challenging us, were now calling us on.

So when the a weather window opened up late in February that could take us to the sea and down to Key Biscayne. We decided it was time for adventure again.

More about that in the next post.

Apologies for not keeping you all up to date, but my writing has taken a turn toward fiction, which has kept me entangled.

However, I have been keeping up with my logs, and I thought, while I sit here waiting on the weather, I would compile them into three posts. Here is the first. I hope you enjoy.

It was early September. We had just arrived from our most spectacular cruise of Nova Scotia and New England. Heading back south, we’d traversed the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and were settled into the top of the Chesapeake Bay in the Sassafras River. The crew of Angelfish 🐠 was filled with pride over our accomplishments and still buzzing with wonder at the many adventures we’d had.

As Bald Eagles soared over us and crackled protectively in their nearby nests, K and I sat in the cockpit drinking coffee, planning our fall cruising. The plan was a few days centered out of Annapolis, the sailing capital of the mid-Atlantic. Fall is technically the off-season, and sailing is often better in autumn than in summer. After that, we’d head to our Chesapeake base at Shipwrights Harbor in Deale, Maryland, for our biannual refit.

Angelfish 🐠 had held up well during our long summer voyages, but several things needed attention — and quite a few that really needed to be addressed now!

We sailed down to Annapolis and picked up a mooring ball for a week. The sailing energy in this town is absolutely magnetic. Majestic schooners headed out for short cruises, racing regattas battled it out in the bay, and squadrons of little “Opti” dinghies filled with kids learning to sail dotted the harbor. We dropped Coconut 🥥 in the water, headed to the dinghy dock, and wandered the historic streets with their narrow sidewalks and charming shops.

One of the things we loved most about being in Annapolis was hearing the Naval Academy’s bugle calls drift across the water twice a day. Every morning at 0800, Reveille rings out to start the day and raise the flag, followed by the National Anthem. Then at dusk, Retreat signals evening colors as the ensign comes down. It’s a timeless reminder that you’re anchored right next to one of America’s most storied military institutions.

It was all a beautiful continuation of our magical summer cruise. But now it was time to get serious. We decided to end our cruising there and headed to Deale for what would become our biggest refit yet.

This was the one refit where we finally tackled all the big projects we’d been putting off since buying the boat in 2021. Our plans demanded that SV Angelfish 🐠 be in top condition. Our dream was to sail her later that fall to Bermuda 🇧🇲 (a 5-6-day deep-ocean passage), then onto the American Virgin Islands 🇻🇮 (a 7-10-day mid-ocean passage). These routes would take us far from any help if something went wrong.

First on the list was pulling the mast. The mast “partner” — a cast aluminum collar around the mast where it meets the coach roof — had been oxidizing from salt water for thirty years. The blocks attached to it were one hard pull away from ripping the whole thing apart, making the mainsail unable to go in or out and seriously affecting the mast’s integrity—time to replace the mast partner.

But once we decided to pull the mast, the project snowballed — exactly the way all boat projects do. Now the perfect time to inspect the chainplates, check the mast step on the keel, rewire the mast while it was out on sawhorses, add new deck lights, nighttime mast illumination, and install a track for a used carbon fiber whisker pole we’d found. Fixing one broken part had suddenly turned into a gigantic job! And this was only the beginning. But the new “Partner” looks really good! Thanks Steve, Amber and the gang.

We also knew we needed to replace most of our brass through-hulls (seacocks). These are the valves between the boat and the sea — if they fail, the boat can sink fast. We have three bilge pumps, but 700 miles offshore is no place to test their resilience against a flood of incoming water. So we ordered 13 new brass fittings.

That project grew too: the aft head needed completely new hoses, plus an extra through-hull.

More plumbing gremlins kept popping up. At least we got to remove and plug three old seacocks we no longer needed — a small victory. (image: plug before finishing)

Then there was the third project, the “emergency” diesel tank — a 45-gallon keel tank with a fuel transfer system we’d never used. If we could get it and the fuel transfer system recommissioned, we could store emergency fuel down low as ballast instead of carrying jerry cans on deck as most cruisers do on long passages. This project also grew increasingly complex, so we eventually shelved it when something more urgent came up.

That urgent issue started back in July when we ran over a crab pot heading north. It freed itself, but a small wobble developed in the prop shaft. By the time we returned from Nova Scotia and motored into Deale, the wobble had gotten much worse. This had to be fixed before any ocean passage.

Arriving mid-September, we were aiming for a mid-November departure. After we secured the boat in her slip, things progressed well. I was managing four crews at one point, and we had five people working on Angelfish 🐠 simultaneously. K started making blueberry muffins for the guys (and gal) who showed up, in thanks.

Then our three-year-old Starlink died. An easy enough thing to reorder, but the generation three “Dishy” wasn’t plug and play. It required several days of reinstallation to connect it to our house bank. Plus, Adam, our spark wizard in Deale, needed to get back to the mast to rewire.

K and I tried to stay out of everyone’s way. I was fortunate enough to have a pretty big freelance video editing job, but without Starlink, it was slightly delayed. K and I kept busy. I was writing, and K was recovering the old cockpit seat cushions. Our mast was mostly done with upgrades and a new mast step was made, as the old one was snapted into five pieces by the stresses of 30 years.

In mid-October, we hauled Angelfish out. Over the next two weeks, a ton more work got done: the through-hulls and plumbing was finished, the prop shaft was pulled (perfectly straight), and the cutlass bearing was replaced. The crab pot line had apparently wrapped around the shaft, melted, and fused inside the bearing. We were all pretty happy at that point.

K and I took a break and drove (in a car we borrowed from K’s brother, who lives in DC) up to Boston to see our son, Kenzie, and his girlfriend, Chantelle. We even had a great sleepover in Newport with our oldest friends — Kenzie and Chantelle joined us too.

It was the perfect escape from managing crews working on the boat, but that’s when things really started going sideways.

The boat was ready to be returned to the water to test the new cutlass bearing and 13 seacocks. But fall was in full swing, and the launching cranes were slammed. All those beautiful boats sitting in the water wanted to be hauled out and winterized. Our needs conflicted with achieving that objective. So we had to wait an extra week. Not terrible — but a warning of things to come.

The sea trial showed the wobble was still there. That’s when we discovered just how lucky we had been.

This gets a bit complicated, so bear with me.

Between the engine and the prop shaft, two thick steel rods rotate. The first runs from the engine to a bushing, the second runs from the bushing to the prop shaft (via a junction called an AquaDrive). The bushing-to-AquaDrive section adjusts the angle between the engine and the prop shaft. The AquaDrive manages any minor vibrations that might arise over time due to that angle not being 100% accurate (like stupid tiny numbers).

Between the two shafts, the bushing manages the stress and strain of converting engine rotation to thrust at the prop. The bushing sits on a metal plate fastened to a bulkhead directly under the companionway stairs. Well, that bulkhead was rotten. Made of marine plywood (no paint, no fiberglass), it was 30 years old, and the vibrations, wear, and moisture had rotted it out; it was like several sheets of cardboard holding the bushing in place. There was NO structural integrity left. Plus the bracket was undersized. (Angelfish 🐠 was repowered in 2013 with a much bigger engine.) both pieces had to be rebuilt custom. You can see the before and after below.

Replacing it was a huge but necessary job. The crews would literally have to hang themselves upside down from either side to install it all.

Well, before they could start that, we needed to pull it all apart. That meant we were going back on the hard — but the schedule was now three weeks out. We waited impatiently, but spent a wonderful Sunday at the Glenstone museum outside DC.

Delays started multiplying. Turns out the mainsail furler inside the mast, a piece of kit that we use every day, should not have been working at all. All the metal bearings that rotate as the sail moves in and out were gone. The rigger was shocked that it even worked. New parts were ordered, but they never arrived (shipping was delayed in the Pacific). Fortunately, the local dealer had the demo parts they used at the boat show in October, so we got those installed.

Another small victory: our chainplates turned out to be in very good shape, and the rig was still in fine shape, so big savings there.

However, many of the bolts that held everything in place were cracked and on the verge of failure. So while new bolts were ordered, we waited.

Finally, we got back on the crane for a quick lunchtime haulout to pull the rods and center the prop shaft perfectly. It was the day before Thanksgiving. Everyone works quickly and Angelfish 🐠 goes back to her slip for the rest of the bulkhead work. But that wasn't to be.

Back in September, we asked our insurance company for a rider to cover the trip to the Caribbean via Bermuda, they balked. They said we were full-time cruisers and they don’t insure full-time cruisers. We needed new insurance, so we needed a new “on the hard” survey.

Fortunately, through my cruising network, (Thank you Dale) we found a surveyor who would show up on the Wednesday before the holiday — cash only, landline comms, and an old AOL email. He was a bit of a curmudgeon, but I figured we’d be fine.

He was tapping away and measuring water density on my hull, tsk-tsking and harrumphing with every step. I walked over. “Not sure about the hull moisture,” he said. And that should have been my clue, but I was in a kindly mood. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and he had come out to do the survey. I mentioned that Angelfish 🐠 had just been pulled out of the water, so I’m not sure how accurate his surface meter was going to be. “Right, right, well, I’m going to sign off on that, but come here with me.” And we walked around the boat to the front port bow. “Listen to this,” he said. And started tapping the hull with a tiny rubber hammer. I didn’t respond. “Now listen to this?” And he tapped about midships. It sounded VERY different. Back at the first location, he started tapping a 6-by-4-foot oval. “This whole area is delaminated and needs to be replaced.” I was in shock. It did sound totally different. “I can’t sign off on a survey until this whole area is repaired,” he said, spreading his arms wide. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to do. This was catastrophic.

Angelfish 🐠 was going to stay on the hard until this was resolved. I arranged for a spot near my favorite old salt, Buster, who’s been working on boats for four decades. He and his son-in-law, Fred, could work on the new bulkhead near the shop rather than in the water at our slip. But K and I were going to be living in the frigid cold up on sticks for quite some time.

I found my fiberglass guy, Eduardo, in the yard and walked him over to inspect the problem and give me an idea of what was needed. He said he could do it in ten days (after the holiday), starting with building a heated tent around the area so the new epoxy and fiberglass could cure. The price was going to be astronomical. But I needed insurance. I needed it done fast. I needed to get Angelfish back in the water so we could have heat.

Just then, the old salt, Buster, walked over from his shop. “You know,” he said, “I don’t believe it.” And he started hammering the hull with his rock-hard, gnarled knuckle. “Cabo Ricos don’t delaminate,” he looked to Eduardo, “you got a 3/4-inch hole bit? Before we tear all this out, drill a core sample.”

Thank God for Buster.

By this time, Buster’s son-in-law, Fred, walked up, and he and Buster looked for signs of some impact that could have caused the delaminating. “Nothing,” Fred said. Eduardo was back with the drill. A core was drilled into Angelfish’s 🐠 hull.

The plug was so firmly adhered to the hull that they had to pry it out. There was ZERO delamination. Fred then said, “You know what? On the other side of this hull is the forward head. Where the shower is.” I didn’t understand what that meant. “It’s the only place on this big ole girl where there aren’t storage cabinets, or 3/4-inch thick teak planks.” Then it hit me. On the other side of this section of the hull was just a thin fiberglass panel that funneled water from the shower head to the drain. Of course, it sounded different.

I called the surveyor to request an inspection on Friday. He was busy until Wednesday next. One week before, he could sign off, and then I could have the plug epoxied back in. December was just around the corner.

Things continued to be delayed. Once I got the surveyor to sign off and the plug filled, K and I had to live in the cold December winter and wait three weeks to get back in the water. I couldn’t leave the boat because I didn’t want to pay to have it winterized, only to have it unwinterized three weeks later. I pleaded with the scheduler, and none of my charms moved her an inch.

I continued to edit my freelance project in the captain's lounge during the day.

At night we had space heaters running that kept the boat above freezing, but in the middle of the night, security would unplug us, and I would wake up freezing at 20°, climb out, down the ladder, and plug us back in. I was mostly worried about our watermaker, but other pipes could have frozen as well.

One December afternoon, I was warming up in the lounge by the boat cranes when I met a man from Ontario and his wife, who had been refitting their 56-foot sailboat on the hard for the past 6 years. Three months at a time was all their visas allowed. They were living on her now as well. I saw myself in his tired eyes. “This will not be me,” I said.

Eventually, we were back in our slip, with our mast restepped and chainplates secure. Before the mast went back in, I placed a 1996 silver dollar under it, the very year Angelfish was built, just for luck.

Work continued. Unexpectedly, we needed three new inspection ports made, and their locations required opening up the floor to accommodate them.

New teak-and-holly sole went down to cover the visible spots. Money was pouring out of us. At this point, we stopped trying to recommission the third fuel tank. We also abandoned our plans for a Bermuda/Caribbean run this season. We did fine with the new insurance and managed to get better coverage at a lower price — another small victory. One thing we commissioned was a step to hang off Angelfish 🐠 to aid with floating docks and tenders. And BOY did Fred do a great job!

We also got the used (but in great shape) Carbon Fiber whisker pole. It needed a paint job, but with the new mast-track, it was going to work out great!

It was almost Christmas, and we decided to spend it with our son Gerald’s family in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 while work continued on the bulkhead.

On short notice (and at great expense), we flew from DC to Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 to spend a wonderful 10 days. Refreshed, we came back to the cold, ready to have a sea trial and be off to Florida.

Well, let’s say we were not quite done with delays.

See you in Part Two.

I’ve been keeping daily logs on Angelfish 🐠 adventures, but compiling them took a backseat. Today, anchored with the Sassafras River near the top of the Chesapeake Bay, with rain, drumming on our cockpit enclosure and a cozy coffee in hand, it’s time to catch up.

August

For ten days, we explored the Bras d’Or Lakes’ deep, cold waters and rolling green hills under perfect sunshine and gentle winds. It’s one of the most magical places I’ve sailed. We were often the only boat on the horizon, though one evening we stumbled into a 60-boat regatta during Baddeck’s Race Week, the yacht club’s party echoing till 1:30 a.m. under starry skies.

A highlight was a trip to the Hertford Island chain, north of the lakes, we were searching for puffins at Bird Island. I nosed Angelfish 🐠 close to the rocky outcrop, where waters drop deep to the shore, K had her binoculars trained shoreward. The first island had only cormorants and seagulls; Bird Island was the same. We feared all the puffins had already migrated after their mid-May to mid-August breeding season, when they nest on 20-meter cliffs, perform “billing” (beak-rubbing courtship), and raise pufflings in burrows. By late August, they’re usually at sea.

Then at last near Ciboux Island, after dodging a nasty shoal, we spotted a swarm of young puffins swimming, flying, and diving off our port beam. K watched for ten minutes as their tiny wings beat like hummingbirds before flitting back to the cliffs. They are so small, we’d likely have missed them earlier. What a treat to see them dive and swim.

Another high point was sailing to Karen’s birthplace, Sydney, Nova Scotia. Leaving the Puffins behind, we turned west across the North Atlantic, Angelfish 🐠 flew with all sails out excited to get there, until the wind died out, and Dragon 🐉 motored us into Sydney Harbor. On that Saturday morning, we were the only boat moving in this once-bustling port. It was a poignant moment, there's so much history here.

Founded in 1785 for Loyalists escaping the American Revolution, it was named after Baron Sydney and became the capital of the new Cape Breton colony in 1784 under Governor DesBarres. Reunited with Nova Scotia in 1820, it lost its capital status.

In the 19th century, coal mining boosted its economy, and the 1899 Dominion Iron and Steel Company mill truly transformed it, using local resources and attracting migrants. Incorporated as a city in 1904, Sydney boomed with industry, culture, and labor activism.

Post-WWII decline hit the area hard. Karen’s parents left the city to move to the States in the 1960s. The steel mill closed in 2000 and the population continued to drop. Today, it mixes heritage with tourism, featuring a waterfront, university, and Celtic culture. Cruise ships still stop here on their way to Newfoundland and Prince Edward's Island.

Angelfish 🐠 pulled up to the Dobson Yacht Club, where K’s great-grandfather and grandfather were the first two commodores. We stayed for three days and met many of her relatives, sharing lively dinners, stories, and laughing late into the night. We left with a deep connection we’ll never forget.

After heartfelt goodbyes, we sailed back into the Bras d’Or Lakes and south to Whycocomagh, our last planned stop, where K’s father’s ashes were spread. Sailing in light airs we ghosted southeast. Generally speaking we are the only boat on the water, and I have to say my attention wavered to rubbernecking all around marveling at the sun casting cloud shadows on the mountains and the verdant colors of the undulating forest canopy.

I looked up to make sure we were clear of a green marker that we would skirt by, when my vision was filled with the white sails of an oncoming sailboat going upwind! He was also on a starboard tack giving him the right of way! I jumped up, and threw the wheel over and we passed with six feet between us. He was telling at me, and I took the abuse apologetically. We were the only two boats on this massive part of the lake and we ended up nose to nose. Feeling sheepish, I tried to pay more attention, but we were the only boat now going south or north toward Little Narrows.

“Little Narris” as the locals say, is in fact narrow! There's a cable-pulling ferry that crosses it. The width of the passage is only three ferry lengths wide, so a short car trip. As we approached we radioed the ferry to let him know we were coming through, he signaled the all clear and in ten seconds we where through. At Whycocomagh, we anchored but stayed aboard, the winds were strong, the anchorage exposed. We said our prayers for K’s father, Gillis, in this remote paradise.

Angelfish 🐠 then made the long journey back up and around to the tiny locks feeding this majestic cruising ground and caught a weather window to sail 29 hours west to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

On this passage we experienced a spectacular natural wonder. The seas were calm the 3/4 moon wasn't set to rise till closer to dawn, so K and I were treated to a horizon-to-horizon painting of stars. The light pollution was so very low that we could actually see the Milky Way in all its splendor. A cloud twisting across the sky made all up of faint and bright stars. It was jaw-droppingly

In Lunenberg, we planned to staged for our return to the States in two days. As we entered the harbor we saw two boats in the anchorage we knew!

Now, you have to understand that the cruising community is tiny, only a fraction of marina boats roam oceans like us, and in Lunenburg, we saw SV Nara (we met in the Bahamas) and SV Heavy Metal, a 63-foot aluminum explorer (we met in Deale MD). We waved Nara off, as she was underway, and swapped lake tips with Heavy Metal’s crew over drinks that night. Later I texted another boat we knew, SV Tippy no Flippy, a half-day behind us, who was also heading stateside. Amazingly, all three boats, Angelfish 🐠, Heavy Metal, and Tippy, had been on the hard in Deale, Maryland, last June, now here we all were in Nova Scotia. Its a tiny globe indeed.

The day to depart finally came and we sailed west, Angelfish 🐠 passed Shelburne and entered the vast Gulf of Maine, the Dragon 🐉 pushing us as the wind died. A calm before the storm of hurricane Erin. I ignored advice to give the Bay of Fundy a wide berth, and landed in unsettled tidal currents that slowed us to 4 knots. I was glad the wind was also not adding to the turbulence.

At 6 a.m., the next morning, we navigated the Penobscot Bay’s lobster 🦞 pot minefield. Thousands and thousands of brightly colored dots speckled like tossed candy, each threatening to entangle our prop. For three hours, we zig-zagged into Vinalhaven’s Seal 🦭 Bay, a stunning anchorage with seals, eagles, and an absolutely stunning landscape.

There we met a couple in their 80s sailing a wooden boat he built 27 years ago. We played cards, shared stories, and marveled at the beautiful assortment of classic sailing yachts that came and went. I guess this is a prime spot for local cruisers.

Angelfish 🐠 stayed five days, waiting for Hurricane Erin to pass. The storm’s path took her way offshore, but in her wake created treacherous 9-foot waves. Thankfully our protected cove stayed calm and serene.

A weather window finally opened, and we jumped to Rockland Maine for fuel, then dodging more lobster pots for three hours, we reached the clear Atlantic waters. After a two day passage, we anchored at Hadley Harbor in the Elizabeth Islands, then sailed Buzzards Bay to the Rhode Island Sound and into Narragansett Bay, Angelfish 🐠 flew wing-on-wing past the Inn at Castle Hill waving crowds, into Newport Harbor.

The sailing capital bustle was in full chaos. Schooners, daysailors, massive crusing motor yachts and three classic 12-meter racing yachts surrounded us as we crossed the harbor. Together we passed under the Pell Bridge, Angelfish 🐠 left the racing boats to anchor.

We would spend a week north in Bristol to visit with family and friends.

Soon it was time to head south again, we staged in Newport, and almost canceled our trip as we couldn't get consistent good weather reports.

We were up before the sun on August 15, again checking weather models. I made coffee and K prepped Angelfish 🐠 for a 245-nautical-mile passage to Lewes, Delaware. Two models predicted light winds and rain, fading to calm seas, with Dragon 🐉 pushing us into Monday. Then a north wind would carry us into Lewes. A 36.5-hour passage. We would arrive just as the tides turned, perfect for the Delaware River to the Chesapeake Bay canal if we weren’t too fatigued. The European model warned of a northeast shift with stronger winds (mid-20s), promising massive swells.

We dropped our Narragansett Bay mooring ball at dawn’s whisper and set out. Rain joined us, but we stayed warm in our cockpit enclosure. Favorable winds carried us along Long Island’s coast, but we turned toward Delaware. We ate breakfast and texted our oldest son a happy birthday, thanks to Starlink’s ocean service.

Offshore, the wind died, and we eased into the night with two-hour watches. My watches were uneventful, but K’s manifested two major cargo ship lanes in and out of NYC. Angelfish 🐠 was well-lit, with our steaming light on Big Bertha 💨 and AIS broadcasting. Still, K called me to double-check, and we radioed container ships. “Maintain course and speed,” they replied as they crossed our bow.

Around midnight, the wind built. We furled Big Bertha 💨, too powerful above 14 knots, and deployed the staysail. With winds north, I turned to Delaware Bay around 2 a.m.

Things started getting tricky by 3-4 a.m., as the winds swung northeast, and jumped to 24-26 knots. The European models were right. We raced under full main, seas building to five feet every four seconds. Angelfish 🐠 was on a broad reach (sails angled for wind from behind), waves hit our beam, lifting us five feet, then sliding us sideways. We moved with two hands holding on.

By dawn, we surfed 7-foot waves, hitting 12 knots on one drop. The autopilot struggled, pushing us 90° off course. I hand-steered but couldn’t manage 12 hours. I called K, and we turned into the swell to reef the main two-thirds. With less sail, we slowed, and I fired up Dragon 🐉 to hit 6-7 knots—not pure sailing, but cruisers use all tools.

By afternoon, we sang our son’s unbirthday song, a family tradition. The sun warmed the cockpit, but we kept the vinyl curtains up as Angelfish 🐠 was pooped three times, where waves breaking over the sides, sloshing water across both gunwales.

Finally Atlantic City’s towers appeared, but was only an illusion of proximity. We sailed on, swells continuing to build. Its so unnerving to look aft and have to look up to see the top of an oncoming wave.

Near shore, the swell dropped to five feet. Rounding Cape May toward Lewes, we hit a 2.5-knot ebbing tide in the Delaware River. For an hour, our time to anchorage stalled as Dragon 🐉 pushed hard.

We got to Cape Henlopen, settling into our anchorage after a 245-nautical-mile run in 35 hours, averaging 7 knots. Exhausted, we napped. K made lasagna, and I mixed a strong cocktail, toasting Poseidon’s gauntlet, grateful for Angelfish 🐠’s seaworthiness. We would make the trip up the Delaware River toward the Chesapeake Bay in the morning.

I really wanted to get this post published so the stories are a bit rushed. Today, we find ourselves in Deale Maryland, about to start another mid-season refit before heading south; details to follow.

Logbook: July 31, 2025

Great visit with K’s family in Halifax. They are all wonderful people, and we love them dearly, but it was time to move on. Adventure was calling.

So far, we’ve had the best of times here. The only weird thing about our visit so far to Canada 🇨🇦 is that we've now been boarded twice by the federal police. We have our registration number clearly visible in our dodger window, yet the Royal Canadian Mounted Police brought their black tender up alongside and we had to produce papers and answer all the questions again (for the third time). Then they took their heavily armed, black-clad flak jackets off Angelfish 🐠 to bother no one else. Seems like the Canadian Government needs to improve their computer systems so the PoPo can check our status online. Or it could be they feel like giving the Yanks a bit of a nose twist. Talking to other cruisers, its seems we were the only ones to be approached. Sitting in the cockpit, I realised the “Betsy-Ross” we fly above Angelfish 🐠 is more prominent up there on the back stay than other boats. Maybe its makes it easy to know where we are from.

We didn't get the earliest of starts this morning. Our dinner the night before went late with K’s cousin, and we didn't get to bed till almost midnight.

The plan was to fill with fuel and get out into the ocean to start our long four- or five-day hop to the Bras d’Or Lakes.

Well, by the time we let go of the lines to our mooring ball, the wind had picked up a bit, 6 knots, maybe less, but any wind was going to make the trip to the fuel dock an adventure.

As we arrived, there was a mega motor yacht taking up half the fuel dock. I tucked myself in next to him, and we tied off like pros.

That's when the fueling problem we had in Shelburne returned. We couldn't get fuel down the tube to the tank. The dockmaster suggested we blow some air down the fill hose and see if we can blow out whatever is blocking the vent. As I continued to struggle, he brought over a high-powered cylinder of compressed air. I put it down the hole amidships and let her rip. I could hear the pressure build below, then pop free! K yelled from the transom, the absorbent rag held against the vent filled with the fuel. It was embarrassing to watch a small slick of diesel fuel spread across the water, refracting rainbows. Not very neighborly to create an oil spill.

Thinking that was the trick, I started putting more fuel down the hose. Again, K yelled, fuel was still exiting the vent in the transom (absorbed by a pad) like the tank was full! The tank I knew wasn't full.

We used a ton of diesel to get from Provincetown to Shelburne, and we never replaced that fuel, nor the fuel we've used since! I figured we were about 100+ gallons down, and we've only added about 40 back between Shelbourne and here. At some point, I need to fill the tank before we head back to the States, and fuel docks are not that common in Nova Scotia. I needed to fix this problem.

Deciding we weren't getting any closer today, I paid for the 30 gallons I did get into Angelfish 🐠, and we prepared to leave the fuel dock. Boy, was that a circus. The wind had picked up to 8 knots and was on my bow. There wasn't enough room to go forward, so I pushed off the stern, thinking I could just back out the way I came in, pivot in the fairway, and start our passage. But the bow had a mind of its own, and I didn't get the angle I wanted to back up on. I squeezed within inches of the big motor yacht. Then, as I made headway, I did get Angelfish 🐠 to turn, but now I was backing up into a 50-foot sailboat with davits off the end that was sitting in a 30-foot slip. I stopped, let my bow swing around more.

Now I was between the motor yacht and the 50-foot sailboat. I edged forward, turning the bow in so my stern might get an angle free of the davits aft. K was helping at the bow with a boat hook, ready to fend off. I had forgotten to put on my headset so I couldn't hear her (exceptionally bad form on my part). As soon as I was able, I backed up hard, and again with mere inches slipped by the sailboat, touching nothing. I backed out further, pivoted, and we were off.

Not having a bow thruster on Angelfish 🐠 is challenging at the docks, but much less drag at sea, so I don't regret not having it, but times like this, I think about how handy they are.

We had winds on and off all day and motored more than I wanted to. I was also getting tired. I tried to nap, but the fuel problem worried me. We decided to pull off and anchor in a bay that was closer than our original intended spot.

It was much more exposed to the ocean, and rollers came through, gently rocking us. We slept like babies.

In the morning, we would consider moving—the northeast wind making this not a travel day.

Unrestful Anchorage

Logbook: August 1, 2025

We decided not to move Angelfish 🐠 today. The wind would be on the nose. We had hoped the wind would move the swells around as well, but no. The swells stayed from the SE and rolled into our bay undiminished: 2-3 foot rolling swells rocked Angelfish 🐠 all day and night. As the wind shifted east, the swell started to rock Angelfish 🐠 from side to side, making the stay very uncomfortable.

We were rocked all night in our bunk like we were at sea.

First leg toward Cape Breton Island

Logbook: August 2, 2025

After a very rolly night with the sea swell coming in basically unhindered, we woke up early and set off. Yesterday’s early stop meant today's trip was going to be a full day. It was cold out this morning—in the 50s. I gave Genie 🧞 the task of running the heat pumps to get the chill out of the air.

I topped off the oil in the Dragon 🐉, who likes to sip a half quart over a month or so. I checked all systems, and we were off.

The swells rolling in were bigger than predicted, and the wind was from the east—and would be right on the nose—so we let the Dragon 🐉 carry the load forward. As we rounded the rocky entrance to the inlet, we turned, and the swell now hit Angelfish 🐠 on the beam, rolling her side to side in threes before a break of about four seconds left us calm. It wasn't comfortable, but it was a beautiful day: clear blue skies, and although the breeze was almost cold, the sun was warming.

Then it became less and less fun. Clearly, we were going to motor all day, using up more of our precious fuel. So we kept the Dragon 🐉 reined in to conserve consumption, meaning more time rocking side to side over our passage.

I then decided to pull out the main to slow the sideways rocking as an air break. Yesterday, I noticed a wrinkle in the main, so I tightened the halyard tighter to straighten the sail. That turned out to be a bad idea. As I pulled the outhaul and the sail’s clew moved down the boom, the whole roll of furled sail squeezed out the thin gap it was supposed to unroll out of! I now had a jammed bit of rolled-up sail like a long six-foot blister on my mast.

I went forward to try a quick fix, but by now the rolling swells were up to 3-4 feet, and the pitch of the deck made fixing this unsafe. My inspection did reveal we were truly (please excuse the expression) fucked. That blister of sail was not going back in voluntarily. Even if we wanted too, there would be no sailing till that was fixed.

Then, as I was fiddling around focusing on the sail and securing the boom, I was neglecting our navigation. Over the course of 20 minutes of my distracted attention, the Atlantic swells had a mind to push us up against one of the many rock outposts that pepper the coastline here. When I finally noticed, we were ten feet from being dashed upon a particular rocky devil. Fortunately, the depths here are very deep right up to shore—I still had 50 feet of water under me. I gave the Dragon 🐉 more fuel, and we steamed away.

I had had enough. We motored on for another 90 minutes and pulled into the inlet I intended for yesterday, anchoring in the aptly named “Sheltered Cove.”

After anchoring in what must be one of the most beautiful spots in the world, we set about fixing the main and getting the sail back inside the mast.

In-mast furling on sailboats is where the mainsail is rolled up and stored vertically in a hollow mast around a rotating foil or mandrel, to which the sail's luff (leading edge) is attached. To furl (roll in) the sail, an inhaul line is pulled to rotate the foil, wrapping the sail inside the mast. To unfurl (deploy) it, the outhaul line pulls the sail's clew (trailing corner) outward down the boom while the inhaul is eased, allowing the sail to unroll. This setup enables easy reefing and sail management without leaving the cockpit, though proper technique and maintenance are key to prevent jams.

To fix the jam, I had to stand on the boom and, and with a rubber hammer, start, without too much force, hammer in the top and bottom of the jammed sail blister in while K kept the pressure on to retract the sail inside the mast. I've only seen this done once, so I was winging it a bit, and I was glad this cove was so very calm. The fix came surprisingly fast. I could see that the sail wanted to slip in, and with one last bang on the hammer, joined with a winch tug, the sail returned home. We then went over the whole system very slowly to ensure we could get reliable furling. The fault was (as usual) operator error. I had seen a disturbing wrinkle in the main and hauled up the halyard to tighten the sail within the mast. I over-tightened it, causing the mandrels to be too stiff to spin. Once I adjusted that, we were golden—almost.

That's when I noticed that the in-furling line was not transiting smoothly. I put some WD-40 on the lower foil, but it did not help much. I followed the line and discovered we had blown a block! It was in very rough shape.

Fortunately, all cruising sailboats have stowed away all sorts of spare parts. K and I went below to dig into the very darkest recesses of our nooks and crannies to find the bag of spare blocks. Turns out we had two spares.

With the in-mast furling and block fixed, we turned to our blocked vent. Yesterday, we tried to blow air down into the fuel tank from the deck fitting. That worked pretty well—we got about 2 more cups of fuel out of the line—but K didn't hear the usual hiss of air from the vent she expected. So today, I removed the main salon bench off to the side to expose the fuel tank. I unscrewed the clamp that attaches to the vent hose and blew air in there toward K at the transom. This worked much better, and we dislodged about another cup, which we added back to the tank as before. I was never able to get the hiss she was expecting, but our little air pump did a bang-up job. I then put the pump into the tank end of the vent to ensure it wasn't blocked. I really hope this solves the problem the next time we find a fuel dock.

With that, we took an afternoon nap. When we woke, we had a new neighbor: Oriole, a beautiful 50-foot ketch aptly painted and with black sails, joined us in this small cove. When we left Provincetown to sail here, the only other boat heading that way was Oriole—only she was out of Nantucket. They went straight to Halifax, and we went to Shelburne. It was great to connect finally. I'm sure we'll cross paths again.

Tomorrow we start up again toward the lakes.

Second leg toward Cape Breton Island

Logbook: August 3, 2025

We loved Sheltered Cove. We left at 9 a.m. and had the most perfect sail. We were in partial misty haze, but the wind was steady and strong. We hadn't slept well in the rolling anchorage last night, so while sailing we both took long naps to catch up.

We made great time on a broad reach, and by 4 p.m. put the anchor down in a well-protected cove on Liscomb Bay. The wind continued to build, with gusts of 24 knots.

K made us an amazing meal from the scallops we got from Lunenburg.

SV Vaquita joined us late, I'm not sure where they came from, but she quickly put her anchor down, and we rode out the winds together. Vaquita was the third and last boat that crossed to Nova Scotia with us that night from the States, only she left from Maine. We would see them many times in the coming days.

The Third leg toward Cape Breton Island

Logbook: August 4, 2025

We planned to leave early, as today would be a very long run. We've loved our short hops down the coast, there are so many wonderful anchorages, but tomorrow the wind is shifting north and would be on the nose for motoring. Today is our last good day sailing toward Cape Breton.

Turns out we are not very good at leaving early. Our neighbors Vaquita had already pulled anchor and left. But by 9:30 a.m., we managed to get Angelfish 🐠 going.

We motored out the inlet at some speed to make up a little time. As we set sails wing-on-wing for the long downwind passage, the winds were in the low teens, the swells just off the transom to starboard.

The winds were just off where I needed to aim Angelfish 🐠, so I changed course out to sea and set sails for a broad reach. We spent most of the day on this tack.

Eventually we tacked over and pointed to the last point of land before Cape Breton, again on a broad reach. The wind by this time filled in, and we were flying with a slightly reefed main and full genoa. At 17 knots, we were reaching the end of Big Bertha’s 💨 wind range (as she is a light-wind sail). But as we were moving so fast, the apparent wind felt just like 10 knots to her.

Up ahead on the horizon, I could see the only two other boats (of all the summer cruising boats on the East Coast) that made the jump to Nova Scotia when we did: Oriole from Nantucket and Vaquita from Portland, Maine. All three are about the same size, and we chased them all day.

Rounding Andrew Island, we headed north toward the fishing town of Canso. Before making the turn, we stowed Big Bertha 💨, as she was too much sail for the beam reach then close reach into the town. I left the main partially furled and brought the Dragon 🐉 to assist. The wind started to howl—22 knots—heeling us over, under-canvassed. We plowed on.

Before reaching the breakwater of the harbor, we stowed the main. We motored around a bit looking for a place to anchor in this very deep harbor. Eventually I picked a place between Oriole and Vaquita. We dropped anchor in 44 feet of water. To get the proper scope, we put out 190 feet of chain.

This isn't my favorite anchorage. I followed Oriole’s lead—who's been here before—but I won't be back. The deep water makes for big swings in our location, and I worry we won't hold when pushed by the wind into deeper water. Also, the locals were not pleased to have three American boats ⚓ anchored in their harbor. A fishing boat named Basin Bandit came in as the sun set and waked all three of us, weaving between our boats—very close and much too fast. We were all anchored well off the channel. But he made his disdain clear.

The Final passage to Cape Breton Island

Logbook: August 5, 2025

Canso is a beautiful village to look at, but it left a bad taste in our mouth. In the morning, the chain came up clean, but the spade held a huge mound of sticky mud and gravel.

By 9:30 a.m., we were off and on our way north to our ultimate destination: Cape Breton Island.

We tucked around and went out through the northern channel into Chedabucto Bay. There was not a drop of wind, so we motored across toward the locks that lead into the Bras d’Or Lakes. About 20 minutes out, we radioed the locks, and they said they would be ready.

St. Peter’s has a very tiny lock (holding maybe three boats max) and a very narrow canal (maybe twice the beam of Angelfish 🐠) between the bay and the lake.

After the lock, there is a swing bridge that also must pivot to let boats through. When the lock cycles, we waited. The operator then took a golf cart to the swing bridge and opened that, then called us on the radio saying we were clear to pass. On average, only 17 boats pass a day. The whole process took about 24 minutes.

Finally we had made it into the Bras d’Or Lakes. Once passed the canal, we took a hard left and headed to one of the more famous attractions: St. Peter’s Lions Club Marina. Gerry the manager has a reputation for hospitality that stretches all the way to Florida. He did not disappoint. We tied up to the fuel dock and finally filled our tanks. We still have diesel fuel in the vent line, but we were able to top off the tanks. Gerry said to get settled: “Pay me when you're able.”

We took a ball and napped. Later, we took out the trash, paid our bill, and asked about groceries. Gerry was upset that he couldn't lend us his car—he had given it to another cruiser who was in Sydney getting her hand operated on after an accident. Gerry is a shirt-off-his-back kind of guy.

Back on the boat, we popped the bubbly and toasted our amazing journey from Deale, Maryland, to the Bras d’Or Lakes—a dream of ours since we bought the boat five years ago. We toasted Dream Walker for motivating us not to put off our dreams. We then made a big dinner: steak, sautéed onions, leftover baked potato cubes fried in the fond of the steak juices. It was a lot to take in—920 nautical miles and many more to go as we explore these lakes.

Logbook: July 26, 2025

After a wonderful two days in Shelburne, we were ready to leave and explore more. We were treated that morning by local Bald Eagles

We waited till 9:20 for the Yacht Club to open so we could get fuel. That turned out to be a bit of a chore. The wind was perfect—on the nose from the north—to help us dock, but the fuel wasn't going down into the tank very well. It kept bubbling up, and K said she couldn't hear the vent releasing air. Anyway, we stopped before filling; it was making too much of a mess, and we only got 107 liters (29 gallons) in the tank. We expected to need 60-100 gallons. We'll try again, but I may have to blow air through the vent line.

While at the dock, the wind picked up considerably, and by the time we cast off, it pushed us off the docks all on its own. At 10:30, we had the Dragon 🐉 push us around toward the south and begin our next passage up the coast. We pulled Big Bertha 💨 out (our big light-wind genoa) and let her pull us down the inlet to the ocean.

K went below to finish storing stuff when the winds really picked up. Gusts in the mid-20s—too much for the big sail—and she started to rock us gunwale to gunwale as we screamed down the waterway. “Too much sail!” I bellowed, and K came back up. We furled Big Bertha 💨 away. The winds continued to howl, funneled into the channel. We got the staysail out and the main at two reefs, and we were still moving at 6 knots, the tidal current assisting.

We headed out, turning to put the wind on the beam, jibing the main using the preventers to control the boom across. We flew! But as predicted, around 1 p.m. the wind diminished, and over the rest of the day it died out completely.

Around 1:30 p.m., we saw a small black fishing boat returning. As they passed our stern, they put on their blue flashing lights, and we (now motor-sailing) killed the engine as they came alongside. It was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)! As the black rigid inflatable pulled alongside, two helmeted and armed officers came aboard to ask questions and look around. It was a standard random customs clearing check, but as Angelfish 🐠 was the only vessel for miles around, we were picked.

They were exceptionally nice, asked about drugs and pets, wanted to know that life jackets and flares were handy, reviewed our “papers,” and told us to display our customs clearance number on the dodger so passing officers could read it and wouldn't have to board. Thirty minutes later, they were off, and the wind was zero.

We let the Dragon 🐉 take us into Port Mouton, and we anchored at Carter's Beach around 5 p.m. The water was so clear we could see 20 feet down. A seal greeted our arrival, and kids played on the white-sand beach.

The weather was cool enough for jeans and long-sleeved shirts. We sat at the bow until the sun set close to 7 p.m., then went below for a quick burger, a couple of episodes of Clarkson’s Farm, and bed.

Sunday Run to Lunenburg

Logbook: July 27, 2025

The morning began with glass-like water around the anchorage. Seals were arguing the day's politics off on the rocks, and ospreys heralded a new day. Lord, it is beautiful up here. We drank coffee in the cool 59° morning behind the isinglass enclosure, the bright sun warming the interior and burning off the morning mist.

Eventually the wind picked up enough to warrant our departure. The Rocna ⚓ came up thick with sandy mud and seaweed. K took her time with the saltwater hose, getting it all off as it dragged partially submerged. I slowly let the Dragon 🐉 take us back out to sea.

We were bound for Lunenburg, the first big stop of our trip to meet K’s local relatives Down East. It would be an eastward downwind sail the entire trip. SW winds building toward the end of the day, but this morning's calm meant Dragon 🐉 would start the seven-hour passage.

Winds did pick up, but at first not as much as predicted. We had Big Bertha 💨 out, catching in 6-10 knot winds. She and the main took over late morning and pulled us between 5-6 knots. I love my Dragon 🐉, but it is so majestically quiet with just sea, sails, and wind.

After 1 p.m., the wind really started to increase. We were now practically running directly downwind. We pulled in the big genoa and replaced it with the staysail. As the wind built to 19 knots, so did the seas behind us. We were lifted up 3-4 foot waves every 4 seconds. Angelfish 🐠 slid down the waves, making a new sound under her hull as the bubbles of her wake ran along the clean new bottom paint. It was like a deep-rolling burp, a gentle roar. “Excuse you!” I told her.

By the time we got to the inlet that leads to Lunenburg, we had a good blow going, 22-24 knots. We jibed the main from port to starboard as we turned up the channel and ran on a beam reach toward the harbor.

Then the winds 💨 came in full, much more than expected. As 30 knots hit, I furled the staysail and further reefed the main; we cracked on. As sustained winds hit 35 knots, I brought the Dragon 🐉 to bear, pushing us hard toward safe harbor. Before entering the main channel into the mooring field, I stowed the main and let Dragon 🐉 bring us into port.

The wind was still wickedly strong, but a large bluff to the south blocked the ferocious seas. We called ahead to secure a mooring ball, and K masterfully secured the lines in the gale. Nothing stops that girl when she's set her mind to it. As our friend Angie—an old salt and wonderful person—says in her deep southern drawl, “She’s got game!”

We secured the anchor around 5 p.m., took a quick nap, showered, and made dinner. As I said above, Shelburne was our goal for landfall, but Lunenburg is the first stop we planned to meet family and spend time visiting. We celebrated with a bottle of wine and went to bed.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

A Visit with Uncle Jim & Aunt Cathy

Logbook: July 28, 2025

Another spectacular day! Blue skys cool temps, and warm sun.

K was abuzz all morning, getting various plans ready depending on what J & C wanted to do. She even made bread! With the boat clean to an inch of its life, we headed over to town; K wanted to get some pastries. The bakery was closed on Mondays, so she spotted a nearby coffee shop. It was packed; I tagged on, so nothing special, and we headed back out. K was ahead of me (looking around, distracted) and took the last step down, landing badly on her ankle. She collapsed gracefully to the step, sitting on it. I knew she was hurt but processing. I came around to see how bad her sprain was. As I was doing so, she said, “You aren't going to ask if I'm OK?” I knew she was not OK. Another gentleman came over and asked if she was OK. This got me a look of darting brown eyes, and she said, “I'm fine.”

I helped her back across the street and to an Adirondack chair. Two minutes later, Jim & Cathy arrived. We chatted a bit, then we took them to visit Angelfish 🐠. I was happy to see the near-80-year-olds make it up our boarding ladder and get into the cockpit. We sat chatting for a bit, K’s foot up. I took them on a tour of the boat; Cathy commented on all K’s little touches.

We all then went back to shore, and they took us in their car for a ride around the area of Lunenburg. The community is gorgeous: tiny cottages brightly colored, with views to deep-water small bays right at their back doors. The architecture is a mixture of Victorian and Gothic.

We ended the tour back in town at a beautiful Gothic church that was fully restored after a devastating fire. It was magnificent.

We then had lunch together and a couple of local beers that the Canadians are very proud of. And another tour of local landscapes and scenic overlooks. We peeked at K’s cousin’s rental cottage—a perfect vacation spot—and ended up at a grocery store, where I picked up more fruit, coffee, and milk. I also bought some wine for K and a 12-pack of a local brew for me. Then it was back to the docks to say our goodbyes. K was melancholy as we left, she is very close to all her aunts and uncles and doesn'tsee them enough.

We sat in the cockpit as the sun lingered in twilight. We were in bed by 9:30 and slept very well in the cool night air.

A Fogbound Passage to Halifax

Logbook: July 29 - 30 2025

We woke to pea-soup fog. I couldn't even see the boats moored around us.

We delayed our leaving till the fog lifted somewhat. By 9:30 a.m., we could see about 20 yards, so we set off—radar on, K blowing the copper antique fog horn. The Dragon 🐉 leading the way.

We moved slowly out of the Lunenburg inlet toward the Atlantic. Almost out, the wind gently kicked in, the fog thinned, and we put up sails to assist. We could see about 50 yards. Once out, the wind built, and under full sail we were traveling 6 knots. The Dragon 🐉 back to sleep. The 11-13 knot wind filled the main and Big Bertha 💨, but the sea remained calm.

For the rest of the day, we sailed in the very quiet fog. The only sound came from the disturbed congregation of floating birds we passed through.

Even though it was foggy and very cool (K had a coat and sweater on), we both so enjoyed the 9-hour sail: relaxing, napping (on shifts), and reading. With no radar reflections of other boats or obstacles, and good charts to guide us, it was exceptionally pleasant.

Eventually we turned toward the Halifax inlet. The wind freshened, and Big Bertha 💨 had to be stowed. The staysail took its place.

I was a bit concerned about traveling up the busy seaway to Halifax in the fog. I chose to hug one edge of the channel in case we were met with big container ships.

Then, out of the blue—sunshine, total clarity—we emerged from the fog bank into a pristine afternoon day. No sooner had we cleared the fog than two big ships stormed out of Halifax. The first one, a container ship, steamed so fast that it created five-foot waves. As they approached, I turned into them and took their force on Angelfish’s 🐠 bow. We soared up the waves 🌊 and crashed into the next four times, stopping all momentum. Had the dense fog we had all day still been present, those silent marching forces hitting us on the beam would have been catastrophic. We would have survived, but stuff would have been tossed everywhere and stressed to the limit, and may have broken. We were VERY lucky.

When the second boat passed, it wasn't going as fast, and the cruise ship's wake wasn't a concern.

We arrived at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron Marina at 6:30 and took the mooring ball we reserved.

We sat in the cockpit, loving the sail and this beautiful country. We will stay here for two days, visiting family and preparing for the journey to the Bras d’Or Lakes.

Next up, the passage North continues.

Logbook: July 16-21, 2025

We spent a wonderful five days in the scenic hurricane hole of Hadley Harbor.

It's a beautiful sheltered anchorage on the eastern end of Naushon Island in Gosnold, Massachusetts, a part of the Elizabeth Islands explored by Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602. The harbor likely takes its name from John Hadley, the 1730 inventor of the octant for navigation (an early precursor to the sextant).

The island, originally called Kataymuck by the Wampanoag, passed through ownership by the Winthrop family (1682–1730), then the Bowdoins (1730–1843). Since 1843, it's been held by the Forbes family, who maintain it as a private retreat with no vehicles and strict no-trespassing policies.

Notable events include Henry David Thoreau’s 1856 visit, where he praised the island’s “noble and primitive wood,” and it has had visits by presidents like Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton.

Today, the deep, storm-protected harbor remains a favored spot for boaters, with free moorings on a first-come basis and public access to the smaller Bull Island in its midst.

We love it here. It can get a bit crowded on weekends, but everyone seems to feel the need to maintain the natural quiet of the surroundings. The island hosts 3-4 small Herreshoff sloops with traditional “tanbark” gaff-rigged sails tacking between boats, their reddish-brown sails catching the eye. Each has a different color pendant at the masthead. Originally called the Buzzards Bay Boy’s Boat when Herreshoff created the design in 1914 as a safe, stable trainer for young sailors.

As a treat, we got a ride to Falmouth to visit friends, riding there and back on a beautiful 28-foot Regulator center console. It was so thrilling sitting out in the front—the world flew by. She was fast (27 mph), and at times we jolted about as we crossed the sea chop between Falmouth and Woods Hole. The captain told us he wasn't even at full throttle! A trip that would take half a day in Angelfish 🐠 took 20 minutes with two 300 hp gas engines! It was just so fun, and a wonderful visit with old friends.

On the mooring ball, we mostly just enjoyed the pastoral landscapes and nature of this anchorage. On hot days, I would jump off and get cool in the 75-degree water.

Other boats came and went; we remained, in no hurry. The weather was mostly cool and the breeze calm. One day I ran the Genie 🧞, made hot water for showers, and filled our water tanks with our reverse osmosis watermaker. We were getting low on water, so she ran for three hours. I need to make water more often so I don't have to disturb the quiet with Genie 🧞 magic. It runs in a sound-isolated box, but it's not 100% quiet.

Cape Cod Canal

Logbook: July 23, 2025

The day before our departure, we decided it was time to make our way up to Boston, the North Shore, and maybe even to Maine. The first step of that was crossing another piece of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) called the Cape Cod Canal.

The concept of a canal across Cape Cod’s narrow isthmus dates back to 1623, when Pilgrim leaders proposed it for a safer trade route, bypassing the outer Cape’s treacherous waters and dangerous shoals.

Construction began in 1909 by a private company, but the U.S. government seized it in 1918 during World War I and bought it outright in 1928 for $11.4 million, placing it under the Army Corps of Engineers along with the rest of the ICW. Expansions in the 1930s widened it to 480 feet, deepened it to 32 feet by 1940, and added the Bourne, Sagamore, and railroad bridges. Tolls ended by the 1940s; today, it handles over 20,000 vessels yearly as a key commercial and recreational route.

The trick to transiting the canal is to ride the tidal currents. Tide tables indicated a slack tide starting at 1405 (2:05 p.m.) at the railroad bridge on Tuesday. So we spent the day prepping meals for passage north.

A Spontaneous Atlantic Passage

Logbook: July 22-24, 2025

By 10:30 a.m. we were ready to drop the ball, leave this bit of New England paradise, and head toward the Cape Cod Canal. Never having crossed this canal before, we wanted to arrive an hour early to be close when the tide turned.

It was a beautiful day for a sail, just not if you wanted to head toward the canal. So Dragon 🐉 took us all the way, wind directly on the nose. We were just puttering along at 4.5 knots, getting ourselves in range for the 2:05 p.m. tidal change, sipping fuel at a very efficient rate.

It had been cloudy yesterday, and the battery bank needed topping off. The new ⚡Zeus⚡ alternator is amazing at doing that even at these low RPMs; the ⚡Zeus⚡ has an internal 6:1 ratio boosting the RPMs up, making a ridiculous amount of energy to feed the insatiable lithium chemistry. We were at 100% in no time.

We arrived about 30 minutes before slack tide but decided to press on against the 3/4-knot of opposing current; the Dragon 🐉 laughs at such things. Behind us, a train of AIS-equipped pleasure boats all doing the same (peppered with a few more without the Automatic Identification System).

The trip was short as the current turns strong. There's a speed limit on this part of the ICW of 8 knots, so even Angelfish 🐠 had to slow down. Sails are not permitted within the canal.

Once out into Cape Cod Bay, we pointed into the wind on a close reach, hoisted all sails, and headed for our first stop of Provincetown, right at the end of the cape.

Our plan was to spend the night there, then head toward Boston and the North Shore of Massachusetts. However, along the way, plans changed.

A beautiful calm three-day weather window opened up beyond P-Town into the North Atlantic toward the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Not much wind, but exceptionally calm seas and favorable currents. About halfway across the bay, we decided to extend our voyage and head toward Nova Scotia.

We felt bad as we had already made plans to visit friends and family along the coast of Massachusetts and Maine, but this window was too good to pass up. The Gulf of Maine can be a treacherous passage when the Bay of Fundy dumps billions of tons of water in and pushes up against strong southern winds and weather. We might get stuck in fog, but we’d be checking off a big item on our bucket list: sailing the coast of Nova Scotia and into the Bras d’Or Lakes of Cape Breton Island. We were beyond excited.

Rounding Race Point Light at 6:39 p.m. on Tuesday, we would be out of sight of land till Thursday morning. The whale watch boats passed in front of us returning from their cruising grounds, and as we passed through the protected right whale habitat, we wondered if we would see any.

Interestingly, these big mammals get their name because this family of baleen whales (genus Eubalaena) originates from whalers who deemed them the “right” whales to hunt, as they swam slowly near shore. We didn't see any, or have dolphin visits either.

As we put Race Point behind us, Dragon 🐉 kicked in and we started our 250-nautical-mile passage, deep in the North Atlantic.

The first night we kept our now familiar two-hour watches starting at 6 p.m. The Block Island passage a distant experience, but the habits formed reinforced our rhythms. We both did much better sleeping off watch than we usually experience on the first night of watchkeeping. Could have been the absolutely flat seas.

In the middle of K’s last watch, she called me on deck. I was sleeping in the aft cabin, noisier than our forward cabin; I like to be close when and if she calls. We have a standing rule that if there ever is something, anything, in question, we call the other person up to confer. So I was up in a flash, ready for anything.

She pointed forward, wondering what kind of navigation light was coming toward us. Ships have an assortment of signal lights used at night that we can identify, but this bright orange-red signal light wasn't one of them. It was so bright that unlike the bright stars on this clear night, it alone cast waves of ripples on the water. At first, my foggy head tried to rationalize what I was seeing, but as I woke more, I realized it was a planet reflecting the sun's light back to earth, probably Mars. The light pollution out here is so nonexistent on this motionless night that it looked like a very tall lighted beacon. It was beautiful, and I went to bed looking forward to tracking it across the sky on my watch. That night a few fishing vessels worked around us but never close enough for us to change course.

By Wednesday morning, we were becalmed on shiny glass seas making 6.5-7 knots, the Dragon 🐉 purring happily. I could have steamed harder, but at 2,100 RPMs the Dragon 🐉 sips fuel more efficiently (though the turbo hates not being engaged); we had double the fuel needed for the passage, but we were in no hurry and wanted to arrive at the coast of Nova Scotia by dawn on Thursday.

Even with bright warm sun, the air and sea started to cool dramatically, and K and I were soon in jeans and sweaters. We played loud music, surfed the net for anchorages (Starlink enabled over the ocean), and napped on and off, ready for our second overnight passage, all to the gentle vibrations of the engine and prop. The further out to sea, the colder it got. On my middle watch I saw a water temp of 45 degrees—a stark contrast to our harbor swims back in Hadley.

Wednesday night a thin fog and some clouds came in so the stars were not a complete blanket horizon to horizon as they were last night, still gloriously bright above. More fishing boats, and off watch I missed a conversation K had with a captain trolling the banks to avoid crossing his nets that altered course.

There are a lot of currents in this part of the ocean, spin-offs from the Gulf Stream. One minute we are going six knots, then the next almost 8. The current speed affects our course direction so we have to keep a close eye to make sure the boat's momentum is moving toward NS, even if the bow isn't exactly pointed that way. Our chart plotter follows the angle of the boat’s bow; my phone follows the overall GPS direction. We were changing course once or twice a watch to maintain heading.

During the night our ⚡Zeus⚡ regulator malfunctioned and the alarm started going off again, and no matter what I did, I couldn't stop it from sounding off. Eventually we just shut off the engine control panel and with that the incessant loud beeping and our tach and temp gauges went dark. Once an hour or so to check engine temp. I can always tell the tach RPMs by the Dragon 🐉 purr.

Thursday morning brought the coastline of NS. We saw the shoreline lights before the sun, but nothing compares to seeing “Land Ho!”

We aimed for the deeper waters off Seal Island, as the Bay of Fundy sucks and dumps a colossal amount of water twice a day, and out in deeper water, the effects to the sea state are reduced. There was no need; Fundy, when we arrived, was dumping water, tons and tons of it. We were pushed up over 8 knots with the current, the gentle wind behind us adding to our progression.

We rounded the McNutt Island Lighthouse around 7:30 a.m. and promptly the Starlink went out—and stayed out. Fortunately, we were close enough for cell coverage, so I called Shelburne Yacht Club and reserved a mooring ball.

By 9:30 a.m. we were tied up and ready to check into Canada 🇨🇦. Our Starlink still down.

Landing in Shelburne

Logbook:July 24, 2025

After we secured the boat, we lowered the Coconut 🥥 and headed in to clear customs. Turns out that was a mistake—one of a few we made before everything was settled.

First, apparently one clears in before coming to shore. I was sitting on the steps near the dinghy dock on the phone with customs. They were VERY nice and helpful, and allowed my three cigars and half bottles of booze (we are currently out of wine). They pretended not to hear me about my eggs and vegetables “for personal consumption.” However, the fine man had no idea what a mooring ball was, so we agreed that I was at anchor, and he cleared us in. Then in closing said, “Call back when you are ashore and call in to register your shore visit; remember only the Captain can come ashore, all crew must remain on the boat till you're cleared.”

I agreed exuberantly, and looked at K sitting in the tender at the dinghy dock as I sat on the steps of the ramp to shore. I decided to check in at the yacht club and pay for my rented mooring. After that I called back customs and spoke with another absolutely charming person, who took all my information a second time and cleared us to land the crew. Interesting system they have here, but one of many.

While I was on the phone reading out passport numbers, expiration dates, boat registration numbers, and slowly spelling out that our last port of call was “Hadley (no S) Harbor, Gosnold (after the explorer) Massachusetts (yes, two ‘s’s, two ‘t’s’),” K was disposing of our trash. In Canada, recycling feels more like a game of Tetris. There were five small bins the size of your average bathroom trash can. Each was labeled for the kind of refuse accepted. From compost to plastic. Paper, glass, and non-compostable garbage also featured. It was quite the show. Overall, Nova Scotia remains a Canadian leader in waste minimization. We were inspired, and are moving our two bag trash system aboard Angelfish 🐠 to three. Good on you Canada.

We then walked around the town—wow! The old town is like Sturbridge Village or Williamsburg without the costumes. Beautiful. Apparently it was originally called Port Roseway and used by Mi'kmaq locals and later French Acadians. It was renamed and settled in 1783 by thousands of United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, honoring British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne. The town boomed to over 10,000 residents with shipyards and wharves but saw racial tensions, including the 1784 riots against Black Loyalists. Incorporated in 1907, it later played a role in WWII with a U-boat surrender and now has a population of about 1,725, preserving its historic waterfront.

We strolled down to a local brewpub to celebrate our passage called Boxing Rock Brewing Co. According to local legend in Shelburne Harbour, there's a tidal rock known as Boxing Rock that emerges at low tide. In the era of tall ships, captains would reportedly drop off quarrelsome sailors on this exposed shoal to settle their disputes through fisticuffs before the rising tide submerged it again, forcing reconciliation or a swim back to shore. This tale has inspired the local Boxing Rock Brewing Co., which incorporates the story into its branding.

Fine brew they make too. We had lunch and walked back to the Coconut 🥥 and returned to Angelfish 🐠 for a nap and a quiet evening. We were back in bed at 8:30 p.m. and slept through the night.

In the morning I was pleased to see that Starlink had reconnected to the network.

Over coffee, K & I reflected on first ever Down East passage. During the age of sail, ships traveling from major ports like Boston northward to Maine & the Maritime Provinces would sail “downwind” (with prevailing southwesterly winds at their backs) and eastward along the coast, hence “down east” as a directional phrase rather than a literal geographic “down” on a map.

Next up: coastal cruising along the Nova Scotia shore.

Logbook: July 4, 2025

After a night of glorious fireworks, we woke to another beautiful day, the forecast called for excessive heat, so it was time to start our pilgrimage north to the cooler waters of New England. After a cup or two of Joe, we set about getting ready to leave.

Yesterday for the holiday, I had put up the signal flags that spell out Angelfish 🐠 (top of the picture in photo above) and noticed the A was tangled. I tugged and pulled and twisted trying to get it free. Then the line broke in two. The A and N rising up toward the top of the mast, the “gelfish” tossed into the bay. We weren't going anywhere with those two letters stuck at the top of the mast. Fortunately, we were anchored next to our rigger Steve’s boat to watch fireworks!

I explained the problem and Amber (his partner) zipped up the mast like lightning ⚡️ and rescued our two letters. We were ready to go.

Anchor up, we motored, and motored. There was NO wind on the bay. (Welcome to summers on the Chesapeake.) So under Dragon 🐉 power we traversed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and over to Magothy Creek for the day.

At one point we had some wind so I deployed the big 150% genoa. It is huge! I still need to work on the trimming, but MAN is this a heck of a sail. Can't wait to see what Angelfish 🐠 can do with that much power.

Back into the Ditch

Logbook: July 5, 2025

Last night was incredible. We were anchored in a bay that had over 90 minutes of great professional and amateur fireworks in 360 degrees of panorama. K counted 12 towns all celebrating and we could see them all. Even Annapolis. We cheered and clapped and ducked as some of the fireworks came from just behind us on shore.

It was still very hot and humid here and we didn't sleep that well. To use the air conditioning we need shore power. After motoring in the unrelenting sun all day yesterday, I did run the Genie 🧞 a bit after we anchored ⚓ to cool off the cabin, but generally, I like the quiet over the cool on the hook.

I got up early to write. The air this morning was foggy and cooler. We managed to leave around 8 a.m. Another day of zero wind.

We motored across the Chesapeake to the main channel that leads north toward the Sassafras River. I chose to stay in the channel as much as I could as I was done with crab pots getting stuck in our prop.

Angelfish 🐠 rode well. Slight shimmer every now and again in the rudder which I will keep an eye on. If we were close to Deale, I would have it checked out, but today we need to get moving north. The heat is going to be oppressive again; I want out of here.

We were viciously attacked by an assortment of flies, 🪰 gnats, and no-see-ums. Some bit, others just flew into your eyes. There were black ones, green ones, yellow ones, and red ones. Fortunately, the wind at one point picked up and at four knots blew them mostly away.

In the light wind I tried the new 150% genoa again to see how she flew, and although she remained full even that wasn't enough to help us move faster. So we put her away.

Along the passage all the holiday motorboats came out to play. Boys in shorts and t-shirts, girls in significantly less, which always cracks me up. We bounced around in their wake and looked at weather windows north on our phones. I'm glad we did. The weather was in flux, but a short window was opening. We decided that if we kept going today, we could be in Lewes, Delaware, late Saturday or even Sunday we might be able to catch the short window north to Block Island.

This appealed to us especially in this heat. So at 1 p.m., we flew past the Sassafras River and caught a fair current into the canal to the Delaware River. Three hours later we were spit out into an ebbing river tide. We tried to make a go for Lewes but the Delaware River is a devil when the southern wind blows and the tide is going out. We were getting banged up pretty bad. The choppy 4-foot seas rocking Angelfish 🐠 up and down. We bailed and headed to a semi-protected anchorage called Reedy Island. We would try for Lewes in the morning.

Down the Delaware

Logbook: July 6, 2025

My plan was to get up early and take advantage of the early morning light winds and take Angelfish 🐠 as far down the Delaware River as we could before the tide actually changed and the wind picked up and we again found ourselves in the same choppy seas as we did yesterday.

Originally I planned on a 7-8 a.m. start, but by 6:30 a.m. we were off. We would be traveling against a pretty stiff 1.4-knot current, but the seas would be calm. The Dragon 🐉 roared on and made a respectable 6 knots most of the way. Eventually the wind did fill in and we had all sails up and the Dragon 🐉 was just aiding a bit.

About halfway to Lewes, the channel shifted and put the ever-increasing (expected) wind on the nose, so we furled in all three sails and let the Dragon do her work. Soon after, the tide shifted from flood to ebb and we started to bounce. It started gentle, but by 12:30 p.m. we had two-foot swells to traverse. Fortunately, we were able to tack off the channel and towards the entrance of the breakwater. once again, I set the main and staysail out in the 12-14 knots of wind. Together, they drove us into the very narrow opening. I love sailing into tight spaces with Angelfish 🐠, keeps my sailor skills polished. Just through, a beautiful classic motor yacht about 26 feet long zipped by us, then turned and circled Angelfish 🐠 under full sail! They gave us a thumbs up and were off.

Once behind the breakwater, we continued to sail for another 45 minutes before we took the sails in and navigated the curved but very deep channel to the anchorage. There were lots of Sunday motorboats out near the beach. But they were close to shore and we motored through to the anchorage.

We had just set the anchor when six boats in a sailboat race flew by on a downwind leg, spinnakers out in bright colors just feet from Angelfish 🐠. (Sorry, no picture.)

Big Jump to Block Iskand

Logbook: July 8 - 9, 2025

We spent July 7th resting at anchor behind the breakwater in Lewes, prepping meals, and making water—recharging ourselves and batteries, before the big push north. It was still hot—not Florida-hot, but 85 degrees during the day and not much cooler at night. We were ready for the cooler Atlantic Ocean temperatures.

This morning, I was up with the sun, and at 5:30 a.m., we were ready to make the 332 nautical mile passage to Block Island. But we waited, drinking coffee on this beautiful morning. Our plan was to buddy boat up the coast with another Cabo Rico, SV Coralia, but their departure time was 7:30 a.m. Fine with us, as we sat reading weather charts and sipping brew.

Eventually, we headed out the Delaware Bay inlet into the Atlantic. There wasn’t a drop of wind 💨. Dragon 🐉 did all the work for most of the morning.

Occasionally, we set sails, but it was more wishful thinking.

The seas were calm except for this slightly annoying swell that rolled in and kicked Angelfish 🐠 over a bit.

Spirits were high. The temperature was only in the low 70s, and we were on the move. For entertainment, we swatted black flies that seemed to come from the sea and listened to music over the thrum of a purring Dragon 🐉.

By 1 p.m., the wind finally filled in, and we were cruising. Dragon 🐉 off, we weren’t going very fast, but we were learning about this new (to us) big light-wind genoa. She fills with just a cough of air 💨 and pulls hard.

With the increased wind came bigger seas, including that slightly offset roller that liked to slap the starboard (right) rear quarter and make Angelfish 🐠 swing around a bit before the autopilot set her straight.

We sailed most of the day, winds fickle in direction and speed. As evening fell, we grew concerned about our slow progress. By nightfall, we had planned to be north of the thunderstorms brewing in a long chain from Delaware to New York City. Now it looked like we’d sail right into the worst of it.

I was glad I’d enabled Starlink for ocean use before leaving—this was a fast-evolving front ramping up in intensity.

Both Coralia and Angelfish 🐠 turned hard east, deeper into the Atlantic, to put distance between us and the storm clouds. The further offshore, the bigger the seas got. That annoying swell, now hitting us abeam, rolled us over on our side. It was exceptionally uncomfortable, but as the horizon flared with distant lightning, we persevered.

SV Coralia is known for handling big seas and rough passages; that’s partly why I wanted to buddy up (besides my adoring affection for the crew). K and I aim to push our comfort levels at sea—we have plans to venture beyond U.S. coastal waters, which means gaining experience in more tumultuous conditions. This weather window, though imperfect, was the best we’d get for a while.

We pressed on. By 10 p.m., about 50 nautical miles offshore, the storm passed overhead as just light rain. All its fire and fury spent before reaching us. We turned Angelfish 🐠 back toward Block Island.

The detour added hours, so we brainstormed alternatives to Block Island. Options were limited: Montauk Lake at Long Island’s tip would mean arriving in the dark, uncharted for us—not ideal. Same for Block Island. Cuttyhunk? We’d get there at 1 a.m., exhausted.

A better bet: just beyond the Pell Bridge, across from Newport, RI—past Block Island. We’d arrive by midnight, and we’ve anchored there often, even tired and at night. That became our target. Coralia opted for Montauk; I learned that via morning texts once they fired up Starlink. Our bigger fuel tanks let us motor more, putting us out of radio range.

At 3 a.m., we were motor-sailing again. The new ⚡ Zeus ⚡ alternator pumped juice into our batteries, keeping Angelfish 🐠 powered up. Then an alarm blared on the engine panel: battery light flashing, beeping nonstop. Batteries were fine, but the ⚡ Zeus ⚡ had failed!

No fun midway in our passage out in the North Atlantic at 3:30 a.m. I tinkered; it helped briefly. Then I set the ⚡ Zeus ⚡ to standby and killed the cockpit panel. Silence at last. Our mechanical diesel runs without electricity once started (gotta love it), but we lost temp and RPM monitoring—a fair trade for now.

We traded two-hour watches through the night. The swell tossed Angelfish 🐠 every 7-9 seconds, 4-8 feet high. No sleep for anyone—on or off watch.

I took dawn watch and greeted the day. By 7 a.m., I was troubleshooting the ⚡ Zeus ⚡ with Adam, our tech in Deale, Maryland. No remote fix, but we muted the beeps—or thought we did. By 10 a.m., alarms again. A software update awaits. Fingers crossed.

Wind picked up; we motor-sailed briskly. I’m just so impressed with the new genoa—it grabs every gust and hauls with gusto. We reclaimed lost time. Pushing hard, we might hit Block Island by sunset. I cranked to 2700 RPM, burning 2 plus gallons an hour fuel freely.

Coralia was hours behind but scored a sweet spot in Shinnecock Bay down Long Island’s coast, better than Montauk. We forged ahead. By 7 p.m., so close, I gunned to 2800 RPM to beat dusk. (top RPMs on the Dragon 🐲 is 3200) We entered Great Salt Pond at 7:20 p.m.

The anchorage was jammed, even midweek in July. We nosed to the side, found a spit of space, and dropped anchor as the sun sank. Our 34-hour hop stretched to 37, but we were safe and stoked.

However, we didn’t love the ride up, out deeper in the Atlantic, I could’ve angled Angelfish 🐠 better against the swell. Having to hold course to Block wasn’t fun. Makes me wonder about tackling a North Atlantic chunk en route to Nova Scotia.

Anyway. More of our New England adventure in the next post. Please comment and like; I do so enjoy knowing you're reading.

Shipwrights Marina

Logbook: June 4 - July 3, 2025

Soon after arriving at the marina, the spring refit began on Angelfish 🐠. The riggers arrived first, and now we sport a beautiful light-air 150% genoa. Our old 110% heavy-wind genoa is stored below for next fall's stronger winds. We bought the big sail two years ago, unsure if it would fit, but it's perfect—a high-quality piece crafted by a renowned Newport sailmaker famous for America's Cup yachts. I’m honored to have it aboard, and can't wait to try it out.

Our “to-do” lists were short this summer, with the boat faring well (and us sailors not breaking much). Still, a few major items needed attention: 1) Repair Genie 🧞, the generator that failed in the Bahamas; 2) Fix our troublesome watermaker with new parts; 3) Install a powerful ARCO ⚡ Zeus ⚡ 275-amp alternator and regulator, replacing the old 80-amp stock unit. The upgrade will optimize our new lithium batteries—a shiny new toy for the Dragon 🐉; and 4) Install a new secondary bilge pump. The existing one broke due to yours truly leaving it on, and running it dry.

Most of these tasks, along with a rig inspection, wrapped up in the first ten days. The ⚡Zeus⚡ still in progress, installing all the new heavy gage DC wire required. Still, I hoped to finish in two weeks, and cruise the bay before the heat intensified and we leave for New England's cooler waters. We even got the very talented Fred aboard, who valiantly jumped into the tight spaces necessary to replace our bilge pump.

But our cruising plans fizzled while we waited for a short haulout. I scheduled one upon arrival, but the busy yard delayed us. The goal: power wash the bottom, inspect/replace zinc anodes, and grease the MaxProp blades.

As Angelfish 🐠 was lifted from the water, thick marine growth signaled trouble for the bottom paint. I knew it was bad, but hoped it would hold until fall, when I'd sand it off and switch from soft to hard ablative paint. No such luck—post-wash, 40-45% of the gray epoxy barrier coat showed through. Angelfish 🐠 desperately needed repainting, so we relocated her to the yard and set her on stands. We’d be there for ten days, baking in the summer sun.

While in the sling, we also discovered a line fused around the prop shaft from one of two crab pot encounters on the way north. I thought they were misses, but one apparently wasn't. No damage, thankfully.

We lived aboard through the weekend, awaiting Monday's action. With an extreme heat wave looming, I ordered a portable air conditioner from Amazon, but it struggled against the sun-baked deck. We endured a brutal week, escaping to the captain's lounge where the frigid air conditioning there made returning to the boat even worse. We donated the unit to a worker for future stranded souls.

While on the hard, we swapped out our secondary anchor. Ours was rusting through.

A fellow boater was getting rid of one, and it was the perfect size for Angelfish’s 🐠 second anchor, but it needed to be modified to fit our rig first. Amber, Steve, and Andrew from East Coast Marine Riggers to the rescue.

Now we have a new anchor ready to be deployed in an emergency.

Eventually, our hull and MaxProp were freshly painted, with new zincs attached.

During the haulout, we tackled an issue we've dealt with since owning the boat: the forward black water tank's odor. Originally only noticeable when near full, but lately, it's worsened, especially in rough seas where sloshing amplifies the stench.

Blueprints showed two inspection ports, but only one was accessible. We called in Buster to investigate a possible crack or leak.

Filling the tank with water revealed a major leak. Exploratory holes suggested the hidden second port was leaking. Eduardo meticulously removed teak and holly flooring (priceless as diamonds), revealing the 29-year-old aluminum cover crumbling to dust.

They cleaned, sealed the unneeded port permanently, and then matched the wood floor perfectly.

Karen will varnish and stain in New England.

Eventually, we got the rest of the service people back on board. I had kicked them all off as K and I came down with some COVID variant.

By Thursday July 3, about midday, mechanic Luke installed final generator parts, completing the list. We again tested the repaired watermaker, it ran flawlessly. Luke had previously also serviced both engines and the main transmission, completing his list.

The fuel polisher came to clean our diesel tanks of Florida growth.

Finally, at 4 p.m. on July 3, 2025, the electrician Adam came by to retrieve a tool and photographed a future project area for planning. By 4:30, he shoved us off. We were free of the dock at last!.

We anchored with local friends, enjoying sunset and the first of two stunning fireworks displays. A wonderful evening.

We had a wonderful night of fireworks. K made a fabulous salad, and had Prosecco, and I, spindrift soda. We sat on the foredeck and cheered, whooped, and clapped at the fireworks. The night was warm and still, with clear skies dotted with stars. It was warm, but not oppressive. That night we slept well. We loved being back at anchor, and with each other. Tomorrow, our northward journey begins.

As I'm publishing this piece, my thoughts are with my son André, who left us five years ago today. I no longer find myself uncontrollably weeping, crumbled mid-task, but thinking of his beautiful spirit always floods the corners of my eyes with tears of loss. He was a very special person, adored by all who knew him, but ravaged by the voices in his head. He is forever free of the docks now.

His departure prompted this whole SV Angelfish 🐠 adventure. As many of you know, the boat’s name is in homage to him. K and I sorely miss him, but we are also immensely grateful for the gift he gave us. Bless you, André. I hope your adventures are as wonderful as the ones you gave us. Love you, all is well.

Logbook: May 25-30, 2025

For the next five days, we worked our way up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) from Beaufort, NC, to Chesapeake City and the Great Bridge locks (just over the border in Virginia). I’ve written about this passage before, so I won’t overshare, but for all the purists out there, the ditch can be a beautiful place to travel and sail.

We discovered that our trip, banging into the waves from Wrightsville Beach to Beaufort, damaged our anchor roller. Just one more thing to add to the “fix-list.” It appears the rusted bolts gave way under the pounding. One thing that's always true about a boat is, it's broken, you just don't know yet.

We sailed mostly, which is always an unexpected treat. I even helmed Angelfish🐠 through the tight space of a swing bridge under sails alone. Impressing nearby boats and the Bridge Operator, both calling out the feat as “Well done, Captain.”

At anchor, we rode out a couple of storms and washed a ton of sticky mud off the anchor chain.

In Coinjock, we found a stowaway friend, likely from Florida or the Bahamas.

At Great Bridge locks, we ordered provisions and prepared for a leisurely sail into Norfolk and the Chesapeake Bay.

Happy 39th Wedding Anniversary

Karen and I have known each other since 1979—that’s 46 years. Her nickname has always been Sailor, as she loved that I knew how to sail. She dreamed of one day to live on a sailboat and travel. We got married in 1986 and circumnavigated the British and American Virgin Islands on our honeymoon—Karen’s first sail. Sailor has loved it ever since.

And boy, did we have a hell of an anniversary sail. We planned to spend the day at the Chesapeake City Great Bridge docks because the weather was supposed to be god-awful, but when we got up at 7 a.m., it was a glorious day. High winds were expected late afternoon, but the day was full of promise.

We took the 8 a.m. lock opening north on the ICW to Norfolk, VA, and out into the Chesapeake Bay. It was a fast passage. We followed the beautiful sloop Magic, a Seguin 44 built by Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding Co. in 1983. We were both racing at 7 knots for the 9:30 a.m. opening of the busy Gilmerton Highway bridge. When we arrived, the bridge operator said it was on demand on weekends! (wish they published that.) We didn’t even slow down; she had it open as we arrived, and steamed under. These bridge operators have it down!

After we passed through, I slowed to 6 knots cruising speed to conserve fuel and traveled the rest of the way through Norfolk. We were about halfway through the maze of rivers and giant naval vessels. When the wind picked up and we gave the Dragon 🐉 a rest.

North up the Bay

Logbook: May 31 - June 4, 2025

We entered the Chesapeake with 16-24 knot winds. 💨 For comfort, we started off with a reefed main and just our small staysail. Soon the wind shifted west to a beam reach, Angelfish🐠’s fastest point of sail. I decided to put out a bit of the Genoa as well to speed us along up the western shore of the bay.

We flew! I mean we Flew up the bay! Over the course of the day, I kept pulling out more genoa sail. We went from 6.5 to 7, to 7.5, to 8, to 8.5 knots. With every additional foot of sail, we gained a half-knot of speed. To say Angelfish🐠 was racing across calm waters barely describes her frothing, violent, ferocious momentum. I got cocky and put the rest of the big sail out, and Karen recorded 10 knots. Spray flew six feet from the bow! The boat rode almost flat with the wind because it was on the beam, 90 degrees to Angelfish’s direction. I’d guess were not heeled over more than 15 degrees, our three sails trimmed to maximize thrust. The strong winds hugged our sails like wings, giving us tremendous lift forward. Angelfish🐠 was the sole Albatros riding the winds with purpose that day. The winds high enough to keep all but the most seasoned sailors in port.

We were going along like this for hours, passing our original turning-off point of Deltaville, VA, and heading for an anchorage twice as far. We were even pondering crossing the Potomac River into Maryland when calamity struck in a violent instant.

A microburst hit Angelfish🐠 hard and fast. We had clear skies, but the winds went from 24 knots (gusts of 27) to gale-force winds of 34-37 knots in an instant! Angelfish reacted to the force, turning 90 degrees herself. Holding course, the mast parallel to the water! We were on our side, still racing down the bay. The force-over was so violent that everything considered stowed below flew across the cabin. The cockpit was awash with items normally stowed in their cubbies; the full genoa sail was skimming the top of the water!

I sat at the helm and watched in awe. Angelfish didn’t care that she was sailing in a gale; to her, it was fun. The gunwale wasn’t even submerged; the 38,000-pound vessel skipped over the small waves as if playing hopscotch. Karen and I were not nearly as calm. The microburst gale lasted over three minutes. With seat cushions and loose lines all over the cabin, we decided to trim the sails to match the wind and get Angelfish back upright with the mast overhead.

Two choices: turn upwind or down. With no sea to speak of, I turned into the wind to depower the big sail. We furled it in as Karen released the sheet, the 37-knot winds whipping the clew like a boxer’s rapid punches. Once secured, we fell off, suitably trimmed. The microburst ended soon after, but we’d had enough excitement for the day and kept the genoa furled. Order restored, we exhaled, shaken a bit but grateful to see how well Angelfish 🐠 reacted to the calamity. We pulled into one of our favorite Chesapeake anchorages, Sandy Point on the Great Wicomico River, where the evening’s calm felt like a gift. Several boats joined us, their mast lights like stars around us.

After our near-knockdown on May 31st, we sailed leisurely north, as our slip in Deale Maryland wouldn’t be ready until June 4. From Sandy Point we sailed to Solomons Island, then on to Oxford. Along the way we kept hearing Moneypenny’s unmistakable sweet southern drawl on the radio. We’d met the crew in St. Augustine a while back, and they too seemed Oxford-bound.

We arrived first and went in to top off on fuel. Last year, we went to the marina before topping off and found ourselves on fumes as we pulled into New Jersey. You make that mistake once. The marina was crowded, but we managed to get in and out without issue. I’m glad to find that the more I maneuver Angelfish in tight quarters, the better I get, my stress level dropping as my confidence grows.

We left the fuel dock to anchor out and, behold, we met up with another boat known from Florida and Bristol, RI, Dream Walker! He radioed us and led the way to one of his favorite nearby anchorages. After we were both settled, we drove the Coconut 🥥 over for a visit.

The Dream Walker crew are our age, but only the husband was aboard. Like us, they’ve been cruising their beautiful Gozzard sailboat for four years. After sharing a few sea stories and catching up on where we’ve been cruising, we asked about his wife.

The Captain got quiet. Apparently, she’s been having health issues that have kept her off the boat most of the year. As a result, he’s been sailing solo, but this was to be his last cruise. They are selling the boat so he can better care for her.

This hit us hard. Most people we’ve met cruising go for one or two years, then move on to other activities. Few cruisers are like us, sailing into the sunset as long as possible. Hearing that these full-time cruisers were now throwing in the towel early made us reflect on our goals. It takes four or five years just to get good at cruising a sailboat. We’re almost there, and to have that adventure cut short by a health issue is heartbreaking and sobering.

We left Dream Walker saddened yet resolved—not only to maintain our health but to seize the adventures we’d dreamed of. A somber lesson, but it filled us with purpose.

We motored our tender into Oxford harbor to meet Moneypenny’s crew, they were cruising as part of the Deltaville Yacht Club. When we arrived, they asked about our adventures, and we shared stories that also reaffirmed our passion. Many here longed for broader horizons but stayed in the Chesapeake’s embrace, a sea well known. This is not a judgment; the Chesapeake is a beautiful sailing ground. We just felt lucky to explore more.

We left Oxford with a renewed mindset, determined to chase bigger horizons. En route to Shipwrights for our summer refit, we planned for more big adventures.

Next up: sailing to New England! I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed this passage. I am busy writing more, even now!

Sorry for the silence, friends. *Angelfish* 🐠 is currently in the Chesapeake Bay preparing for a Trip North. Storms, ponies, and Gulf Stream battles lie ahead. Thank you for your patience.

Parrot Cay 🦜

Log Entry: April 21, 2025

165 Nautical Miles from Florida**

As mentioned in our last post, we woke from a nap and checked the weather. As nomadic cruisers, we live by weather reports, anchoring or moving based on their flawed predictions. That evening, the wind was predicted to shift south, so we decided to sail with favorable east winds.

Up went Annie 🦑, our Rocna anchor ⚓️, and with sails set, we were off. The wind, still forward of the beam and in the mid-teens, let us trim the full main and staysail tight for a comfortable six-knot cruise.

We chose Parrot Cay for its deeper water to drop Annie 🦑. This part of the Abacos is very shallow, and with expected wind shifts, I wanted swing room in eight feet of water. Our goal was Hope Town anchorage once winds settled. We spent a pleasant night alone, well protected by the island. Behind us, the horizon glowed red with orange fire—regrettably, I took no footage. I assumed it was Great Abaco’s dump burning trash, but later learned it was an uncontrolled brush and forest fire 🔥 burning since early May, fanned by trade winds with no way to extinguish it fully.

We lingered at Parrot Cay 🦜 part of the next day, then at high tide meandered around the islands’ southern edge to Hope Town’s anchorage. Karen and I poured over charts, mapping areas with enough water at low tide. *Angelfish* 🐠’s keel needs five and a half feet to avoid grounding. Most of the anchorage reported low-tide depths of five feet! Then we found a spot with six feet at mean low tide, but it was near a submerged power line. Social media warned of snagged cables, so we had to be careful where we dropped Annie 🦑. Our first spot was taken, but we found another. Before dropping, Karen checked for surface cables—none visible, though most would be buried. We set anchor, pulling back to test.

Hope Town

**Log Entry: April 22–24, 2025**

**167 Nautical Miles from Florida**

We spent three days in this vibrant spot. Hope Town, a wealthy Loyalist settlement, stands out among Abacos islands. Its inner harbor, a hurricane hole, hosts a crowded mooring field—first come, first served. This late in the season, there were several moorings we could have snagged, but since Great Turtle Cay 🐢, we’ve discovered we prefer to be anchored, spread out from our neighbors.

Hope Town shows none of the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, a 2019 Category 5 that struck September 1 with 185-mph winds, 20–25-foot surges, and 30 inches of rain. Dorian stalled for two days, devastating the Abacos, but new docks and restored buildings, painted in vibrant colors, mark its recovery.

Hope Town’s centerpiece is the beautiful 1863 Elbow Reef Lighthouse, an 89-foot brick tower painted with red-and-white candy stripes for visibility. A French Fresnel lens beams 15–20 nautical miles. Local “wreckers,” thriving on reef salvage, tried to sabotage its construction, showing even Loyalists had tension with the British crown.

Today, “keepers” hand-crank the lens every two hours, one of three such lights worldwide, a Loyalist legacy and cruiser focal point. Karen and I visited the tower, and while I explored below, Karen took the 101 spiral steps to the top.

Trouble in Paradise

**Logbook: April 25, 2025**

**167 Nautical Miles from Florida**

We loved this Nantucket of the Abacos and could have stayed forever. One day, we took our friends from SV Starfish (a 1979, 33-foot Morgan) for a leisurely sail; they had never been in such a big sailing boat before. (Angelfish🐠 is over 50 feet.) It was a beautiful day with light winds and crystal-clear waters. Angelfish🐠 even touched bottom twice in the soft sand shoals before sailing off unharmed.

It was idyllic place to stay, and we almost didn’t have a care in the world. Monarch butterflies would visit each day, and we encouraged them northward, telling them we’d join them soon. Then one morning, I started the generator to top off our lithium batteries while brewing coffee, and I sat down to log the previous day’s events. Suddenly, Genie 🧞 stopped. A sensor shut it down, and it would not restart. Starfish’s seasoned crew suspected overheating. An hour later, it ran briefly but quit after 30 minutes. Temperature gauges showed no overheating, but something triggered the shutdown. Trouble loomed; time to head north with the monarchs.

Angelfish’s 🐠 solar array can’t sustain full battery charge without brilliant sun charging a full day. We just use too much power, with Starlink and fridges our main draw. Our engine’s alternator doesn’t yet charge the house bank (next upgrade), so we cut power at night, letting the batteries drop from 90% to 80%. Solar keeps up daily, but multi-day passages to the States for generator repairs worried us.

Back to the USA

As it happens, right when we were considering our options, a multi-day weather window was opening along the southern U.S. coast, urging us to cross back to the States. Anchor up, we backtracked, sailing down the Abacos chain, out and around Whale Cay, past Green Turtle Cay 🐢 toward Great Sale Cay, aiming for the Gulf Stream via Middle Shoal.

High winds and stormy clouds stalled us at Crab Cay off Angel Fish Point 🐠 for a day. We would depart across the Gulf Stream from here. Along the way, I kept testing the generator, and it seemed no matter what I did to vent the engine, it always stopped itself after about 30 minutes. It didn’t appear that I was hurting the engine, so I figured we could use it in 30-minute cycles every few hours as needed.

Crab Cay

Our adventure back to the U.S. started at 6 a.m. We set sails, expecting a beam reach across the sound to Middle Shoal. Instead, so much for weather models, winds forced us into a close-hauled trim for the 14-hour passage, sails tight against the shrouds. Abaco Island kept the seas flat. We reached the Gulf Stream by sunset. It propelled us north at a fantastic 11 knots, but the promised southerly winds never came. “A gentleman never sails to windward,” sailors say, but Karen and I, now committed, pressed on.

Crossing the Stream

With nightfall, I went below to shut off everything I could. The autopilot, instruments, and running lights were all an added drain on our battery bank. This would be our first nighttime passage with the radar dome turned off; it just draws so much power. We would rely on the full moon, as mariners have done for centuries, and use AIS signals from commercial ships to avoid colliding with other vessels. But that was just the start: off went the two freezers and refrigerator, off went the inverter that charges tools, headsets, flashlights, and iPad, off went the Starlink and local network. We would have to rely on the very unreliable weather reports we downloaded as we left the Bahamas.

As we sailed on, with the Dragon 🐉 assisting, the crew of Angelfish 🐠 still hadn’t decided where we would make landfall. Plan A was to head back to Port Canaveral Yacht Club and get our generator fixed before taking the 720-nautical-mile trip north to the Chesapeake Bay. Both Karen and I love PCYC, and we have a great mechanic there, but we had (we thought) a fantastic 2–3-day weather window to motor sail north that called us on. Plan B was to grab the Gulf Stream up to Fernandina, Florida. This two-day and two-night nonstop passage would set us on course for our northern goals, and we love the little historic seaside town. As a bonus, nearby is Cumberland Island, one of the most wonderful attractions for nature lovers along the National Seashore Parks system. If there is any chance for Karen to see dolphins or wild ponies, she’s all in. Plan C was to ride the Stream for three days and nights all the way up to Beaufort, North Carolina, maybe stopping at Cape Lookout Bight and Shackleford Banks to see more wild ponies. A very tempting plan, as 5–7 days later we could be in the Chesapeake Bay having our generator fixed. But without weather updates really only good for two days, we would be doing that third day with whatever Poseidon decided to send at us.

Our Starlink’s a lifeline at sea, but their constant software and plan updates can be a nuisance. In the Bahamas, I tried to upgrade for ocean connectivity, as I’ve done many times before, but when I looked for the option, I thought it was gone. I could upgrade, but it wouldn’t start until the next billing cycle, over two weeks away! I needed it tonight! Well, tough luck. (Later, a fellow cruiser shared a clever workaround for next time—operator error on my part.)

So, without weather updates, we decided to head to Fernandina. We were pretty sure the weather would hold that far, so we pressed into the night. Our short ride in the Gulf Stream was thrilling, Angelfish🐠 traveling at up to 11 knots, bolting along across the waves unhindered. Time flew. We took our, by now standard, watches of two hours on, two off, and by noon the second day, we turned out of the Stream toward the Florida coast. Our battery management was successful, and twice we ran the generator (for 30 minutes) to help keep the charge above 80%. I should mention here that we were operating in a “Old Battery Mindset.” Before we replaced our AGM batteries with Lithium, we never let the battery bank get below 70% as the quality of their charge was so diminished. These new Lithium batteries could have gone down as low as 25% and would be fine. However the length of time to bring that bank up to 100% would be a while, and that is what I wasn’t sure the solar could handle on its own.

Fernandina, Florida

We entered St. Mary’s Inlet early on the third morning and had to slow way down to arrive when the Fernandina fuel dock opened to top off. When on passage to someplace, we tend to motor sail, using the Dragon 🐉 to assist our longer jumps unless the wind is ideal. Neither passage over across the Gulf Stream was ideal, so we needed more Dragon 🐉 fuel to continue north. After fueling, we decided to spend two days on the docks. There, we rested from our passage, did laundry, provisioned, and charged the batteries via shore power. Plus, Fernandina is the cutest town to stroll and people-watch.

Cumberland Island

We checked weather, and we could probably make a jump from here to Beaufort, North Carolina, directly if we left early in the morning. However, one of the three weather models we’d looked at had a terrific microcell of 50-mph-plus winds with accompanying thunder and lightning. It would hit us at midnight if we left at dawn. Running at night without the radar tracking the storm would mean it would descend on us almost without warning. We decided to wait and spend an extra day locally with the ponies of Cumberland Island.

After the Revolutionary War, Georgia gifted the island to Nathanael Greene in 1783 for his heroics. His widow, Catherine, built the first Dungeness in 1803, a mansion run by a huge enslaved workforce—hundreds toiling in the fields. It was a self-sustaining farm and hunting island. In 1884, Thomas and Lucy Carnegie bought most of the island, erecting a new 59-room Dungeness with Italian villa flair—turrets, arches, and pure opulence of the Gilded Age. It burned in 1959 under mysterious circumstances, leaving rubble that haunts the dunes to this day. In 1972, President Nixon made it Cumberland Island National Seashore, saving its 36,000 acres for all. Some 150–200 wild horses roam, joined by loggerhead turtles, white-tailed deer, alligators, and armadillos. Stroll the ocean side at low tide, and shark teeth glint among shells and sea glass.

Cruisers love this stop; there is a wide bay with plenty of room to swing with the 7-foot tides. Karen and I took Coconut 🥥 off her davits and motored over to spend about half a day before the heat of the day brought us back out to *Angelfish* 🐠. It is hard to describe the emotional feeling of walking off the dock onto a well-manicured lawn and being greeted by a band of wild horses 🐎 of different colorings, including white, just grazing while you watch. Throughout the day, we saw so many of them, two dusting themselves in the dust bowl they’d made in the grassy lawn of the Dungeness ruin. The ruin itself is monolithic and blocked off from visitors getting inside, but one can imagine the echoes of the parties held there and the goings-on of that forgotten time. Beside the ruins, we saw all kinds of animals, including monarch butterflies that traveled north with us.

Walking back to the dinghy dock, we stopped and watched a colt walk ever so close to us. We were inspired and will definitely come back to this place to commune with nature again.

Next post, we are bound for the Chesapeake Bay. See you then!