We had some southern winds after leaving Boston, so we needed to find anchorages that would protect us from the south. We stopped off in Rockport, MA for a few days while the wind blew through. Rockport is a neat little touristy town with a great artist community. We anchored in the middle of the bay with a view of the town and beach - kinda felt like we were on display the whole time... True North anchored in Rockport Bay. The town had a convenient dingy dock for us to ti

Plans are subject to change. That is the lesson for this week. We had a deadline to get to Boston to get Andrew on a plane back home. Knowing that a schedule is the most dangerous thing on a boat, we built in a few extra days to allow some flex. We are subject to what the weather brings, and need to be able to adjust. So, no visit to Block Island, Nantucket or Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod this time - maybe the winds will allow that next time. We did have a great tr

4th of July in the Hamptons - Fancy! We got a mooring ball in Sag Harbor, along with the other giant boats and luxury yachts. We were a little our of our league here, but we had a great place for all the festivities. We spent the day hanging out on the boat and keeping cool in the water. Grilled dinner on the back deck and watched the fireworks from the front trampolines. Pretty nice! The thunderstorms in the distance added a nice sunset and a backdrop to the fireworks s

We've been in New York for weeks, working our way from Staten Island, up through the City, and out to the end of Long Island. There is a lot to see! Arriving at our anchorage location - tough to beat this one! We picked up our son Andrew while we were at the marina at Staten Island. We used this as a home base for a week or so. We were able squeeze in a whirlwind day of seeing the sights. I'm sure we missed a few things, but we did get to see a lot. Trains, Ferries, Subw

Nothing against New Jersey, but there are not a lot of stops along the "Jersey Shore" for a cruising boat. Plenty of beaches, resorts, jet skis, boats, & Ferris wheels (?!). So, we had a 20+ hour trip from Cape May at the southern tip to Sandy Hook at the north tip. We had planned to spend a day or two in Cape May to get the best weather window - but on the way down the Delaware Bay we realized we might just have the best opportunity if we keep going and don't stop there a

Venturing into the Chesapeake made us a bit nervous, but we soon learned that there are thousands of bays, creeks, inlets, etc., to get out of the bay and be in protected anchorages. Sometimes very secluded, sometimes it felt we were anchored in peoples' back yards. One day at a time and we realized we were halfway up the bay. We learned a few things the hard way - for one, don't jump in the water to check the prop until you have checked for jellyfish! Yikes! We had some gr

Just have to follow the dotted line... Week one of our travels north brings us to Portsmouth (or Norfolk - across the river) Virginia. This is the north end of the ICW, the Intracoastal Waterway. We've been traveling on the ICW since we bought True North down in Charleston, SC. The channel is well marked, with lots of guidebooks and charts. They have recent sonar maps that clearly show depths, so you can basically follow the dotted line. From here north we will still hav

As Captain Ron says, "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen out there!". Enough with the many boat projects, today we left the dock and are heading north. Many projects left to do, but we've tackled the major ones that we needed to get done before we left. I'm sure there will be many more that we don't even know of yet. We ended the day in a small river off the main ICW channel. It's supposed to get windy and stormy tonight and tomorrow, so we may just hang out her

Boatyard projects continue... and continue. We're going on a month here at the yard, but tomorrow is supposed to be Splash day! Continuation of the previous project - Escape Hatches! We finally got the old hatches out and everything prepped for the new ones. Lots of time working on the template, carefully marking holes, carefully drilling, redrilling, drilling with bigger bits... eventually we got the new hatches to fit and set them in a lot of new 5200 sealant. If these d

Life at the boatyard... we've been here nearly two weeks, working 7-days a week, 8-10 hours a day. Wait... isn't this supposed to be the relaxing retirement we've been looking forward to? Well, we actually enjoy projects and love being able to check things off the to-do list. We have quite a list - a binder full of sticky notes. Some things we need to get done, some wants, and many that can happen anytime. We would like to get them all done, but aren't willing to postpo

As of March 24th, we are officially retired and off to start a new chapter in our lives. The countdown timer had been going on for a few years, but the last few months were increasingly hectic. The house was getting packed up - all our life's possessions were put into three categories - Keep, Take to the Boat, or Donate. We had a good plan - the house we bought a few years ago had a large shop that we could store anything we needed to keep, while allowing us to rent out th

With the countdown timer running, we used any spare time to get some boat projects done while we had the space and tools that would make the job easier. Woodworking definitely falls into the category of "easier in a shop". We had a couple of projects in mind. The cockpit table being high on the list. It is tough to replace a perfectly good table, but the idea of having a nice wood table was too tempting. Teak seemed the right option, until we saw the price. We opted for

True North - the name has grown on us. We are the 4th owners, and she has always been named True North. We originally thought about renaming her - we're not too concerned with renaming a boat. There are methods/rituals to avoid the bad luck if you are superstitious. But, like I said, True North has grown on us. While her name will stay the same... being architects we can't help but revise the logo to make it feel like ours. We narrowed down the many early morning sketches an

Here's our new boat we bought in Charleston, SC. Look how fancy...