Freeport Bahamas (2013-12-27)

N26° 29.664', W78° 41.585'

We are now located at the Sunrise marina, in Freeport.  This will be our home for the next two weeks, while we host our daughter and her new husband for a visit next week.

Junkanoo (2013-12-25)

We had a Junkanoo at the marina this evening.

Christmas Conch (2013-12-25)

A bike ride into the village of West End led us to this place;

Where we not only got to experience our first taste of authentic Bahamian conch salad, but even got to see how to get the tasty critter out of their shell.

Merry Christmas! (2013-12-25)

The Cruise Director and the Chief Engineer of M/V September Dream would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

West End Bahamas (2013-12-24)

N26° 42.066', W78° 59.484'

Tonight finds us tied safely to the dock in Old Bahama Bay marina while the winds howl.   Getting to the Bahamas on our own boat: bucket list item, checked off. :-)

Lake Worth Pictures (2013-12-22)

Internet connectivity has been hard to come by since we arrived in Lake Worth.  When we went over to North Palm Beach marina to top up the fuel tanks we took advantage of their Internet access for a few minutes.  Then, the nice guy manning the fuel dock gave us a Beacon wifi card good for 7 days!  Beacon is a 'for pay' wifi Internet access company, and the 7 day card is worth about $35, so we were pretty appreciative of his gift.

Holding Pattern (2013-12-20)

We're still at anchor in Lake Worth, awaiting a weather window in which to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.  The last few days the waves out on the Atlantic have been upwards of 5 feet, and the next few they will still be 4 feet or more.  We have a small possibility that a weather window might shape up for Monday, but if not it might be a few more days as a cold front is forecasted to come through on Tuesday.

Lake Worth FL (2013-12-18)

N26° 50.414', W80° 03.166'

We have reached Lake Worth FL, our final destination on the ICW, and our staging point for the crossing over to the Bahamas.  Another leg in our journey is now complete.

Ft Pierce FL (2013-12-14)

  N27° 27.987', W80° 17.741'

Tonight we are anchored in Faber Cove in Ft Pierce FL.  One more day of travel will bring us to Lake Worth, and the completion of the ICW leg of our journey!

Titusville FL (2013-12-12)

N28° 38.924', W80° 49.032'

Tonight finds us anchored near Titusville FL, just south of the railway bridge causeway, seeking shelter from the strong northerly winds that have plagued us for the last two days.

St Augustine FL (2013-12-10)

N29° 53.373', W81° 19.340'

Tonight we're moored at the Hidden Harbour Marina in St Augustine Florida.  Yes, that's right... Florida! :-)

Hilton Head, SC (2013-12-02)

N32° 10.778', W80° 46.637'

Tonight finds us at anchor on Broad Creek, in Hilton Head Island, just west of the Palmetto Bay Marina.

Myrtle Beach, SC (2013-11-27)

N33° 40.857', W79° 02.453'

Tonight finds us tied up at Osprey Marina, near Myrtle Beach, SC.  It's very cold outside, below freezing, and we're almost literally sitting on top of our heater...

Wrightsville Beach, NC (2013-11-22)

N34° 12.152', W77° 48.261'

Tonight finds us at peacefully at anchor in Wrightsville Beach NC, at mile 285 of the AICW.

Oriental NC (2013-11-20)

N35° 01.497', W76° 41.749'

Our southbound trek on the AICW continues.  Tonight finds us at the town dock in Oriental NC, at mile 182.

Elizabeth City NC (2013-11-15)

N36° 17.993', W76° 12.740'

Tonight finds us tied up at the Pelican Marina in Elizabeth City.

Dismal Swamp Canal (2013-11-14)

N36° 30.408', W76° 21.362'

Tonight we are tied up at the dock at the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center.  Our march down the AICW has begun.

Norfolk VA (2013-11-11)

N36° 50.302', W76° 17.762'

We're finally in Norfolk VA, with the Chesapeake Bay behind us, and
the AICW ahead of us.

Solomons MD (2013-11-06)

N38° 20.259', W76° 27.612'

Tonight we are anchored on Back Creek, in Solomons MD.  The Chesapeake has decided to start acting up again (still? :-)), so we'll be staying here for at least a couple days.

Rock Hall MD (2013-11-02)

N39° 08.094', W76° 14.824'

Tonight we're tied up at the free town dock in Rock Hall.  Our trek down the Chesapeake has begun.

Chesapeake City MD (2013-10-31)

N39° 31.632', W75° 48.671'

Tonight finds us securely tied up at the Chesapeake City town docks.  We'll stay here for a couple days waiting for the weather to settle a bit on the Chesapeake Bay.

Cape May NJ (2013-10-29)

N38° 57.026', W74° 53.028'

Our patience waiting for the weather gods to stop playing their silly games awarded us with a grand passage from Atlantic City to Cape May yesterday.  We popped out into the Atlantic just past 0900 and found an ocean much calmer than it had been when we arrived, and it stayed comfortable for the little over 4 hours it took us to reach the Cape May inlet.

Waiting on the weather (2013-10-27)

What's as important as knots, navigation and basic seamanship for a cruiser to learn?  The answer is patience.

Atlantic City NJ (2013-10-22)

N39° 23.245', W74° 24.538'

Today we're anchored in a small bay near Atlantic City, just off of the Absecon Inlet.  We had a challenging couple days travelling on the outside down the New Jersey Atlantic coast, so between that and the rain forecasted for today we decided to reward ourselves with a down day.

New York City NY (2013-10-20)

N40° 41.745', W74° 03.847'


Tonight finds us at anchor in Liberty Landing Park, behind the Statue of Liberty, New York City.

Haverstraw NY (2013-10-19)

N41° 12.104', W73° 57.682'

Tonight finds us at anchor in Haverstraw Cove NY.  Tomorrow, New York City!

Poughkeepsie NY (2013-10-18)

N41° 42.836', W73° 56.898'

Tonight we are tied to the dock at the Mariner's on the Hudson restaurant.  For the price of a meal we get to stay on the dock for free!  Needless to say, we ate cheap. :-)

Castleton NY (2013-10-17)

N42° 31.752', W73° 45.695'

We had had a good trip back to Ottawa (with great results, as reported in the last blog post :-)), but it was time to get back to the boat and get this wagon rolling again.  The trek south has restarted, and the pursuit of the sun has begun in earnest. 

Those special days in life

The beautiful bride and the dapper groom

Back to Ottawa (2013-10-08)

Well, Dar and I have returned to Ottawa, as planned, for our daughter's wedding this Sunday.  The boat is safely tucked in at the Waterford Visitor Center dock.

Waterford NY (2013-10-05)

N42° 47.284', W73° 40.819'

This evening finds us tied up to the dock at the Waterford Harbour Visitors Center, in Waterford NY.  We'll take a well deserved break for the next few days while we figure out where we'll leave the boat when we travel back to Ottawa for our daughter's wedding.

Little Falls NY (2013-10-03)

N43° 02.043', W74° 51.963'

 Tonight we find ourselves tied up to the wall at the Little Falls Harbour Marina in Little Falls NY.  While we did have access to an open wifi access point at our last stop, it was very spotty, so I wasn't able to make a blog post.

Phoenix New York (2013-09-27)

N 43° 13.647', W 076° 17.926'

 Another day's travel and we find ourselves in Phoenix.  That would be Phoenix New York, not Phoenix Arizona. :-)  Actually I think that this will end up a running gag as there are so many similar names everywhere.  Just a short distance further up the river is a 'Pirates Cove Marina', which is a name very close to that of our home marina in Kemptville.

Oswego New York (2013-09-25)

N 43° 27.333', W 076° 30.475'

Well, our first crossing of Lake Ontario is now in the books.  While the water was a little lumpy, with a bit of an uncomfortable swell swinging through, it was actually pretty benign by Lake Ontario standards.

Murray Canal (2013-09-24)

N 44° 02.245', W 077° 39.527'

Tonight we're poised on the threshold of the next big step in our adventure.

Today makes it twenty-two...

Years married that is.  On top of that it's now two years that we've owned September Dream.  A couple good milestones I think...

Still at Lock 6

For those that might have been wondering where we ended up, we decided to take another day and stay at Lock 6.  The day dawned wet and windy, and didn't start to clear up until early in the afternoon, so that had a part in the decision.  The biggest part in the decision was tonight's overnight low of 3 Celsius.  It's nice having the shore power to run the electric heater in the salon so we don't have to chip ourselves out of bed in the morning. :-)

Back to the boat

We returned to the boat late Friday evening, accompanied by Dar's good friend Monica (actually, Monica drove :-)).  Monica stayed for a two day visit, leaving at lunch time today.  Later this afternoon Dar had a visit from Donna, a friend that she knew from high school.

Composting Toilet Build Project

So, as promised, here's the real dirt :-) on the composting toilet that I built for the boat.  As I explained in the previous post, there were a number of benefits of converting to a composting toilet that we were looking forward to.  Sleeping above a plastic tank of your own waste will probably do that to you.

Frankford and Boat Projects (2013-09-09)

N 44° 11.906' W 077° 35.475'

We arrived at Frankford, Trent-Severn Lock 6, yesterday at about 1600.  We had planned on stopping enroute for another night at anchor, but the winds yesterday on the Bay of Quinte were strong and from the north, limiting the number of anchorages available.  Instead we decided to push through to Trenton, and to Lock 6, where we will be leaving the boat for a few days while we head back to Ottawa.

Hallowell Mills Cove (2013-09-06)

N 44° 02.013', W 077° 08.087'

Friday night swinging gently on anchor in Hallowell Mills Cove.  TGIF...

Back to Beau Rivage Island (2013-09-03)

N 44° 18.266', W 076° 11.230'

Our relaxing time in the Admiralty Islands is coming to a close.  Tomorrow we will begin heading back to Trenton, where we will be leaving the boat next week while we head back to Ottawa for a few days.

McDonald Island (2013-08-25)

N 44° 18.709', W 076° 10.407'

Our daughter Krista and her fiance Mark made it out for their visit.  I picked them up at the Gananoque free dock at around 1300 on Saturday.  One of our dock neighbours graciously loaned me his dinghy to make the trip (thanks Bill!).

McDonald Island (2013-08-23)

N 44° 18.674', W 076° 10.454'

Sorry for not posting for a few days.  We spent the first part of this week on Aubrey Island.  It's a beautiful island, very scenic and peaceful.  Unfortunately it's also in a bit of a cell network black hole.  I was able to get the coordinates and map updated on the blog, but didn't have enough connectivity to make a post.

Gananoque Municipal Marina (2013-08-18)

N 44° 19.300', W 076° 09.887'

Tonight finds us in a slip at the Gananoque Municipal Marina.  We'll be forgoing the budget busting pleasures of staying in marinas as much as possible, but it will be necessary from time to time.  We've budgeted in one to two marina slips per month, to coincide with when we need to reprovision, do laundry, or just take a break and spoil ourselves a bit.  Ironically, we're finding we are really starting to prefer to anchor out more than being tied up at a dock and close to the noise of having a lot of people and boats around.

One Month

We cast off the lines on the 15th of July, one month ago.  Things are going great, and the boat is doing great for us.  So far we've put 71.1 hours on the engine, and 428 statute miles under the keel. 

Beau Rivage Island (2013-08-14)

N 44° 18.266', W 076° 11.229'

The day dawned grey and wet, with rain showers off and on until around 1000.  We had planned to relocate to one of the Parks Canada islands in the Admiralty Islands today, but seeing the weather we briefly thought about staying put for one more day.

A down day in Brakey Bay (2013-08-13)

We decided to take a day off from travelling and just relax here.  I took the time to take care of a few chores.  I ran the genny for a few hours today to try to catch up on the battery charge we used this weekend on Cedar Island (a no generator zone).  Then I tackled the outboard again.

Brakey Bay (2013-08-12)

N 44° 13.661', W 076° 13.703'

 Tonight finds us peacefully anchored in Brakey Bay, near the eastern end of Wolfe Island, and a much more pleasant spot to spend the night than where we were last evening.

Confederation Basin - Day Dock Wall (2013-08-11)

N 44° 13.658', W 076° 28.761'

Yesterday was the day we had visitors; Dar's friend Monica and Monica's sister Theresa.  They were going to go to Confederation Basin and I would dinghy over and pick them up at the day docks.

Cedar Island - West Dock (2013-08-09)

N 44° 13.652', W 076° 27.150'

Well, we made it over to the west dock on Cedar Island as planned.  It almost looked like we weren't going to move.  The day dawned grey and wet.  The forecast had called for a 30% chance of rain, but it rained from about 0700 until about noon.

Cedar Island (2013-08-08)

N 44° 13.725', W 076° 27.039'

The weather forecast for Wednesday was for winds of 30 kph with gusts to 50 kph.  After getting our butts kicked by Lake Ontario on Tuesday we decided to stay put and have a nice down day.

Glen Island (2013-08-06)

N 44° 03.356', W 077° 03.410'

While at Waupoos we had a chance meeting with some friends of ours from CPS, Jim and Cathie on M/V Holidaze, and found out that they were in the middle of a trip to circumnavigate Prince Edward County, and were travelling with three other boats.  Their adventures are being documented by Will and Joy aboard M/V Will N Joy.

Waupoos Marina (2013-08-05)

N 44° 00.058', W 076° 59.447'

Nick and Wendy on M/V Corvette Conversion IV made the 0900 Kingston bridge opening, and we were waiting for them by the buoy at RMC.  As they passed by we fell in behind them and headed west out of Kingston.

Navy Bay (2013-08-04)

N 44° 13.794', W 076° 27.838'

The weather finally settled down enough for us to make a run to Kingston.  The wind was blowing from the northeast, which is a pretty good direction for travelling on the water near Kingston.

Kerr Bay (still) (2013-08-03)

We're still in Kerr Bay.  We had planned to relocate, but Mother Nature had other plans.  Yesterday we headed off to Collins Bay back to Marine Outfitters.  I had a cable waiting for me and also had to get ourselves Transport Canada legal.  I needed to pick up a radar reflector and had to get some up to date flares.

Kerr Bay (2013-07-31)

N 44° 10.057', W 076° 43.375'

 Just a quick post for tonight.  We had a long day's travel getting back to Kingston, and decided to settle into Kerr Bay on Amherst Island for the night.  This has been an anchorage we've wanted to try for a long time, and our first impressions of it are quite positive.

Sandy Cove (2013-07-30)

N 44° 08.522', W 077° 18.457'

Well, we're finally on the move again.  We had a great break, and a very good visit with Dar's father and sister during the week.  On the weekend, our kids and their SO's (significant others) came down to Dar's sister's place to spend a couple days with us.

VHF upgrade project (2013-07-25)

The downtime from travelling while visiting Dar's sister has given me some time to get some work done on a couple projects.

The first project that I worked on was the completion of my VHF radio upgrade.

Trent-Severn Lock 6 - Frankford (2013-07-23)

We had a pretty short day today, moving a whole whopping 4 miles up the Trent River to the upper wall of lock 6.  We had planned on anchoring in front of Dar's sister's house, which is a couple more miles further north on the Trent, but this was such a nice spot that we decided to stop here.

Trent-Severn Lock 2 - Sidney (2013-07-22)

N 44° 07.884', W 077° 35.470' W
 
After a great sleep in Hallowell Mills Cove, we raised the anchor at around 9 and began to make the run the rest of the way to Trenton.  Actually, it took a bit more work to get the anchor up this morning as it was really well set (I'm liking this new anchor), but up it came in the end.

Hallowell Mills Cove Anchorage (2013-07-21)

N 44° 01.992', W 077° 08.145'

The houses along Parrot's Bay were a buzz with activity yesterday, and many people were enjoying a nice summer Saturday evening.  A couple hours after sunset most of the parties finished up, with only a few loud people carrying on for a bit after that.  Once all the revellers had passed out, Parrot's Bay was actually quite peaceful.

Parrot's Bay Anchorage (2013-07-20)

N 44° 12.903', W 076° 41.247'

Today was a long day, but a good day.  We shared the first locking down with another Mainship, a Pilot 34 named MiAmi, out of Manotick.  We cleared the La Salle Causeway Bascule Lift Bridge at the 1300 opening, and headed west across the Kingston waterfront.

A Day Off at Upper Brewers (2013-07-19)

We had a nice day here today.  We puttered about on the boat and read and just generally relaxed.

Upper Brewers (2013-07-18)

Thursday night finds us peacefully tied up to the dock at Upper Brewers lock.  We actually pushed our luck a bit with the weather today.  The same forecast for today as it has been for days now called for hot temps and high humidex with afternoon thunderstorms.

Newboro (2013-07-17)

After a nice night at Poonamalie we had a leisurely morning and continued on our way at 0900.   The channel leaving Poonamalie was very narrow.  I wouldn't want to meet another large boat there.

Poonamalie (2013-07-16)

We decided to push on a little farther than Smiths Falls today, which is where we had planned to spend the night.  The next lock up river from Smiths Fall, Poonamalie, has power, which means we have A/C without running the generator.  Yay! :-)

Merrickville (2013-07-15)

The lines were cast off at 0900 and we were finally on our way.  After more than two years of planning and dreaming, we had to keep asking ourselves if this really was happening.

And, we're off!

It seems like so many people in cruising boats have this Mark Twain quote on their blogs.  This seems like a good time to put it on ours.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Chaos to Order

The last few days have been a blur of provisioning and running back and forth to the boat.  We made the last runs of stuff out to the boat on Saturday.  For the last run we had our son come out with us and then drive our car home.  It felt a little weird watching our car being driven away, and being left without any car at the marina.

Canada Day video

This is my first foray into video production with the new GoPro camera.  I ran it for a few hours on Canada Day, doing 30 second time lapse capture.  I think it turned out kind of neat.  I wanted an iconic Canada Day song to accompany it, and I think Stompin' Tom is about as much a Canadian icon as there is, and his "Canada Day, up Canada Way" song was just the ticket.

A new house bank

I had mentioned in a previous post our 'ailing house bank'.  While it was accepting and holding a charge just fine, its capacity was down substantially. The house bank on a cruising boat is very important, because when you're not hooked up to shore power it's the house bank that powers everything on the boat.

Our fifteen minutes?

On Tuesday morning, shortly after we had moved the boat from the west wall of the Ottawa lock canal over to the east wall, a man with a honking big and expensive looking camera came up to the boat and introduced himself as Bruce Deachman from the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.  He explained that he was doing a series of articles about life in Ottawa during the summer and asked if he could do one about us.  We invited him on board and had a nice chat for about an hour.

Well, it seems that the Citizen has found our story worthy of ink and has published his article about us.  I haven't picked up a paper copy of the newspaper yet, so I'm not sure what page we ended up on, but I did spot the spike in traffic to the blog and followed it back to the online page for the article;

Days of Summer, Day 15: A slow boat to paradise

So there you go, our fifteen minutes of fame, and thankfully, it wasn't in the crime section! :-)

A short pause

Another trip to Ottawa for Canada Day is now in the books.  We're home now for a few days with some boat and house projects to take care of before we head out sometime next week.

A down-day in Ottawa (2013-07-02)

As we did last year, we chose to spend another day in Ottawa on the wall and not deal with the crowd of boats rushing for the locks.

We waited for some of the boats to leave, then we moved over to the east wall where we could tie up to a dock instead of a railing.  We also hooked up to shore power so we could give our ailing house batteries a boost.

We had a nice quiet 'down day'.  We did some sight seeing, a bit of shopping and went out for lunch.  Tomorrow we'll begin the trip back up the river to our marina, but we'll probably make a two day trip out of it, just because we can. :-)

Canada Day in Ottawa (2013-07-01)

Another Canada Day, and another year of patriotic red and white.  Words can't even do justice to the number of people that were downtown this year, so I'll let this picture do the talking;

A panorama of chaos... :-)

M/V September Dream ready for Canada Day

Ah yes.  Once again the calm before the storm.  We had a nice quiet day today.  We had a long walk along the Ottawa River.  Then we puttered about on the boat, doing some cleaning and getting her all decorated for tomorrow.  She's looking mighty spiffy and suitably patriotic for Canada's 146th birthday.

Down the river to Ottawa (2013-06-28)

As we did last year, we decided to spend Canada Day this year tied up to the canal wall above the Ottawa locks.  It's a great location.  You can join right in with all the crazy crowds, but you're close enough to escape to the peace and serenity of the boat when the crowd becomes overwhelming.

A new anchor

I've been making many upgrades and improvements before we embark on our cruising life.  I plan on doing up future blog posts about many of my 'projects'.

One such upgrade that I made was a new anchor.

Rainy day boat guests (2013-06-22)

The plan was to have guests out for the day last Saturday, have a nice run down the river and enjoy some food and friendship.  Mother Nature had another plan for us though...

Pirate Cove Pot Luck (2013-06-21)

The boaters at our marina had a nice get-together last Friday night. 
A pretty good turnout, and lots of good eats. 

First outing of the year (2013-05-18)

We had our first outing of 2013 on 18 May.  It was a very nice day, with just a slight breeze and bright skies.  We headed down-river, north as far as "Millionaire's Row" before turning around to head back to the marina.

Of course, it was time to pay the piper, or in this case the ice cream salesman.  Seriously, we should just invest in his business - it would probably be cheaper... :-)  Our guests were tickled though by the thought of ice cream being sold from a boat, but the Ice Cream Float once again consumed some of our hard earned cash in exchange for his heavenly frozen treats.

2013 Launch Day

Scheduled for splash on 08 May 2013, the days before launch alternated between dragging slower than the proverbial molasses in January, and zooming by faster than they could be acknowledged. 

2012 - A Review in Pictures

Here's a pictorial album of 2012 aboard M/V September Dream. (Warning, a metric buttload of pictures follows...)

Catching Up...

Hmm, 19 months since I last posted anything on this blog.  Would that be considered a bit negligent of my 'blogging duties'? :-)

Not to worry though, as I'm back. Over the next few days I'll post a few 'catch up' posts, and drop some exciting news about our upcoming cruising adventures *cough*great loop*cough*.  Enough hints for now... ;-)