E-mails from Floyd and Fran on "Wind Lass"

Hi everyone:

Well we have left the comfort and warmth of our dock at Sombrero Resort in Marathon.

The first day out, Thurs. Mar 1, was very calm & we motor sailed inside the ICW up to Islamorada Key about 35 miles to what turned out to be a wonderful anchorage. The water was flat & the winds were non-existant. We enjoyed our dinner in the cockpit as the sun went down, listening to the laid back music of the keys (Jimmey Buffet etc) floating across the water from the pub on shore called Lori Lieghs. We spent a peaceful night & were up at dawn.

We wanted to put in as many miles as possible before we were hit by the impending "Dreaded Northerly" that was predicted to strike as early as Sat.. The Gods & the winds were with us & we were amazed at our progress throughout the day. The SW wind helped to fill our headsail as we motorsailed some 65 miles & stayed the night in Hurricane Harbor in Biscayne Bay, Miami. The winds had picked up throughtout the day to about 15mph & held through the night, but our anchorage; a small circle surrounded by million dollar homes kept us safe from wind & current & we spent yet another restful night.We were off the hook about 8:30 & on our way Sat. morning. The winds still blew about 15 & we never set a sail all day except once to try to make a bridge opening. Nice fellow on a scheduled opening that closed about 2 min. before we could get through. And, so the day went, it was a weekend in the "Yachting Capital of the the World" Fort Lauderdale & Miami.

We went through 12 bridges that required openings& our little 27 ft C&C was beseiged by a barrage of million-dollar power boats flying by us on either side, up the back & bearing down on us from in front. By the time we had gone 30 miles we were exhausted & not just a little overwhelmed. After all we were still in Marathon Mode! The winds had picked up considerably throughout the day so we thought we might be wise to sit out the storm in a marina. We pulled into the Los Olas Marina about 4:30. The marina was newer and clean (it was the old Lauderdale Mun. Marina) reasonably priced at $1/ft. min. 30 ft.. We decided to go for a walk & found to our surprise, that it was Spring Break & low & behold we were in the Animal Capital of North America only a block away from Fort Lauderdale Beach. Needless to say the kids (thousands of them) were entertaining but just a little tiresome after the 3 days we ended up having to hold up until the storm blew through.

We were also docked under the Los Olas bridge just off the ICW. This bridge opened on demand, noisy; & the wake from all of the power boats made us roll & tug on our dock lines from early morning until well after dusk. Thankfully the high winds 25-30 gusting higher slowed down the boat action. We attempted to leave the docks Tues morning, we were anxious to be on our way. We are scheduled to be in Titusville on the 16th, our kids are flying in to spend time with us. But, it was not to be, the wind & the current would not allow us to leave the dock. We felt trapped. We got up early Wed. morning & safely escaped the dock before dawn & the winds picking up. We motored 50 miles yesterday, the winds blew 15-20 all day with gusts higher on our nose. It was cold as a hell I wore lined wind-pants, fleece jacket, hood up & and mitts & not one bit shy of it. It warmed a bit throughout the day but not much. We pulled into our anchorage at about 4:30 in North Lake Worth.

The winds were dying as predicted & we spent a peaceful evening again eating supper aboard after a couple of stiff cocktails watching the sun go down. It was a calm night & this morning we woke with a smile on our faces. Its good to on the hook.Today we will provision & tomorrow head to Manatee Pocket.

Left Sat morn for Vero Beach and here we are for a couple of days. We will leave probably tomorrow morning. We have one more stop before we reach Titusville where we will be at a marina for the length of Christie & Dave's stay. Anticipate leaving the end of March heading further north. Don't want to get too anxious before it gets warmer up there. Hope everyone is well,

Best to all.

F&F

Hello to all of our Alberta sailing friends.

We are on the move again. We spent 19 days at Kennedy Point Yacht Club in Titusville, arriving on March 13. The facility was very nice with pool, hot tub, racquet & tennis courts, sauna, weight room, pool table & laundry on site. We enjoyed the company of our daughter & her husband for 10 days while there. The pace that we kept while they were with us doing Universal Studios & Disney World was absolutely gruelling in comparison to our laid back lifestyle of the previous two months. After the trip taking them to make their flight home from Tampa (4 of us squished into the truck cab) we stayed an extra day to say goodbye to the dear friends that we made on the waterway our last trip, who now live in Sarasota.

We arrived back at the boat on the 28th only to be stormed in for the next 3 days. Everyday for 3 days the weather radio announced dangerous thunderstorms with hail, damaging winds & heavy rain. We took the days to do some maintenance work the boat. The morning of Apr 1 we decided it was time to cut the dock lines and make a run for it. We travelled 51 miles to Daytona with 20-25mph winds on our nose most of the day. We were able to pop a small amount of head sail for a short distance along one cut while we motorsailed which picked up our speed from about 5.5 knots to 6.5. It was a long day in the sun and cold wind. By the time we reached our anchorage at Daytona we felt beat up and covered in salt spray so opted for a dock and shower. We enjoyed a relaxing Happy Hour and dinner with fellow travelers from our Marathon group and called it an early night. Apr 2 we were off the docks by 6:45 and again experienced on the nose winds of about 15mph most of the day. It was again sunny but cool temps were only low 60s. Nearing the end of our day the winds calmed. We arrived St. Augustine about 3:45, fueled up and set our hook in the anchorage. We dingied ashore to have happy hour again with our friends on the dock then back to Windlass for a quiet light supper. Our night was calm & peaceful, we enjoyed swaying freely on the hook after being on docks much of the last month.

Today we will dingy ashore for a day of touring on our bikes. Great deal here, for $7 we can go to the city dock, tie up for the day and even use their showers & laundy facilities. We do not wish to head too far north yet as temps are about 10 below normal and we are finding it colder than we would like, we hope it will warm up soon and the winds & storms die down. We will stay here in St. Augustine for 1 or 2 days.

We will spend the next 3 or 4 days here. We are only a few blocks away from the downtown historic section so plan to bike about. The food and entertainment is great in some of the funky little eating establishments so will eat out a bit. We of course will tour this beautiful historic city, there is so much to see.

We are going to do another leap with out truck & trailer probably north to Carolina Beach, NC.

Will keep in touch

Happy Easter
Fran & Floyd

By the time they left we were exhausted. For 3 days while we watched incredible thunder storms and experienced about 5 inches of rain we did maintenance projects on Windlass & provisioned for the trip north. April 1 we decided to make a run for it. Leaving at dawn we motored most of the way to Daytona. With the wind on our nose blowing 15-20mph we decided on a dock for the night. We enjoyed dinner ashore with friends from our Marathon days.

We had an early start next morning & again motored most of the way arriving in St Augustine. As the winds calmed we decided to anchor in the harbor. We enjoyed gently rocking on the hook for the next 2 nights spending the days on our bikes touring this beautiful historic city the oldest in North America. Early morning came & when we proceeded to pull up our 2 anchors we found ourselves badly fouled on the bow sprit & boom, including scads of line, of a sunken wreck. Our friends travelling with us came to our assistance. We had freed ourselves from our secondary anchor & were working on the primary. We had become loose & were floating freely in this crowded anchorage. We rafted to our friends & while Jean kept us under control Don came aboard to help us get free of this mess. After an hour of cutting away & carefully untangling we were free.

The remainder of the day went well and with the wind blowing 10-15 from the SW we were able to get our sail up. We travelled 54 miles to a peaceful little anchorage & enjoyed cocktails & dinner with our friends. The next day we crossed Cumberland Sound under 20-25mph winds with gusts 30-35. The open water in the sound presented us with waves 4-6ft that splashed over the side into the cockpit. We arrived on the dock at Jekyll Island feeling beaten up & salt caked. A hot shower was high on our list. We stayed a couple of days to enjoy the peacefulness of this historic island. In the 1800's the wealthy Americans built huge cottages here. They would vacation hunting & fishing. The island was stocked with game for their hunting pleasure.

Early Sat morning 1:30am, we were surprised with a visit from our friends from Sarasota whom we met on the waterway last trip. They had received our e-mail saying that we were at Jekyll & decided to come spend the weekend with us. It was a real treat. We rode our bikes on the beach & through the historic district. We ate Low Country Boil & drank our share of the islands beer supply. We took advantage of the ride offered by Kim & Sue on their trip back & brought our truck & trailer up the coast to Jekyll. We left Mon morning travelling two days in favorable currents (tides here are in excess of 8 ft) calm winds and hot temperatures 90 degrees.

We arrived about 3:00pm yestarday taking an anchorage here in Savannah. The only thing wrong with this whole picture are BUGS. Man can Georgia grow bugs. We have been found by a large population of no-ee-ums, sand gnats & black flies. Today we will take a dock and spend the next 2 days touring Savannah. We hope to take our bikes on the bus downtown. The Riverwalk here is a must with it's interesting assortment of shops & pubs. Of course the squares are a wonderful feature of this city. The plan is to leave here Fri anchoring for 2 days along the way to Charleston where we will stay 2 or 3 days.

Best Wishes to all,
Fran & Floyd aboard "Windlass"

Hi everyone. We left Savannah Friday April 13th. We experienced soft groundings 3 times that morning. We anchored at Beaufort, SC for the night where we experienced a storm which included high winds & lots of thunder & lightening. The next day we travelled to a beautiful anchorage surrounded by trees in a quiet creek & spent a very peaceful evening. Easter Sunday we arrived in Charleston. We pulled into a dock and enjoyed the city. We also waited out a cold front that brought near freezing temps & winds 30-35mph.

We left Thurs April 19 and met up with friends we made while waiting out Hurricane Irene in an anchorage near Georgetown, SC, by coincidence. We enjoyed catching up on the past year & a half with them over cocktails & dinner aboard their boat on anchor. The next day we pulled into the anchorage in Georgetown. We stayed on the anchorage adjacent to the main harbor walk, took our dingy to shore and poked around for a while.

We travelled the next day 47 miles in 7 hours, for our little boat that is fast. We had the current in our favor so we reached Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach, SC in the early afternoon. To all you golfers out there this is probably the golf paradise of North America, there are over 100 golf courses in the area. There are also shops, restaurants, bars, mini-golf, you name it within walking distance of the FREE DOCK. We stayed until Thurs April 26 playing with friends from Marathon and then the last day waiting for the rain to pass.

We left the docks early and froze all day. We had winter coats on in our little open cockpit, while all these big boats whizzed by us with their full enclosures. When we got to the Cape Fear River, a large inlet from the ocean, we were fighting 3.5 knots against us (we only travel 6 knots average speed) and had 15-20mph winds out of the north on our noses. Needless to say it was slow going. We anchored the night and struck out early for an anchorage called Mile Hummock, it is where the military play at war games. We could hear firing in the distance and the huge helicopters flew real low overhead. The marines were active on the shore launching their boats. It was interesting & everything quieted down for the night.

We left next morning and arrived in Beaufort, NC just after noon. We put into a marina, looking forward to real showers not sunshowers in the cockpit, in our bathing suits, in a crowded anchorage, it has been well over a week since we have enjoyed this luxury. Our provisions were in dire need of being restocked and the laundry was taking over the boat. We are travelling with friends made in Marathon, Don & Jean aboard a 34 O'Day, we've had fun happy hours & dinners with them.

A Music Festival was on in Beaufort so we hung out along the waterfront listening to the bands & having a couple of beers. We left at 6 Mon morn and put in 70 miles in 12 hours. We crossed a couple of large rivers & places to overnight are few. Tues we left our anchorage late, taking time to enjoy our breakfast in the morning sun in the cockpit. We only travelled 30 miles to our anchorage where we enjoyed a lazy afternoon in the sun.

Wednesday we cross the Albermarle Sound, once committed to this crossing there is only one way to go and no stopping places. Thurs we anticipate being in Norfolk, VA. We plan to go get the truck & trailer so will stay about a week before moving on. Wish you all well,

Fran & Floyd

Albemare Sound to Norfolk, Virginia

Our Albemare Sound crossing was peaceful we actually could have used a bit more wind to keep our headsail filled as we motorsailed. We stayed at the Coinjock Marina enjoying our last night with travelling mates Don & Jean over cocktails aboard Windlass & dinner at the local restaurant. The next day we made the Currituck Sound crossing before the water started to chop & cleared through the bridges & lock without having to wait more than a few minutes at each place. As we rounded the curve in the ICW bringing us in sight of Norforlk Harbor we were in awe & actually took the time to enjoy the sights of this busy harbor. This was not so on our last trip in 99. This was our starting point & we were scared to death going thru here. We pulled into our dock in Portsmouth, a 4 post tie dock, we still hate them.

That evening we were given a treat of seeing mom & pop & about 12 tiny goslings swimming past the stern of our boat in the evening sunset. They presented themselves as a silohette against the powder blue water in the dying light. 4:30am came early next morning as Floyd headed out to pick up our rental car from Norfolk Airport. The dockmaster at the marina was kind enough to take him to get it. People are so nice out here. We were on the road by 8am, everything went smoothly picking up the truck & trailer (we always worry about what shape we will find it in). We had the car returned to the Jacksonville, Fl airport by 7pm. We had travelled 660miles & decided as we were so close to our friends we made on last years trip who now live in Sarasota, we would pay them a final visit before we really headed north. It was only another 300 miles.

We had a wonderful visit with Kim & Sue, enjoying a Reggea Concert in the Park complete with picnic lunch the Sat eve. The next day we enjoyed a great sail on Sarasota Bay in Kim & Sue's Catalina 30.

We were off early Mon morn & decided to take a couple of days to enjoy the sights along the way. We especially enjoyed a trip to the North Carolina Outer Banks, Naggs Head etc. This started with an early morning 2.5 hr ferry ride and we spent the day visiting lighthouses and touring through sand dunes & sea grass. We visited a Boat Builders Museum in Manteo & stopped at the North Carolina Visitors Center to get a look at the Great Dismal Swamp. It was closed again this year so we again missed out on the opportunity to travel it in Windlass.

We arrived back in Portsmouth thinking that we would spend one day provisioning & be off on our Chesepeake adventure. Not so.

See the next part...

Best Wishes from Fran & Floyd

We were disappointed at not being able to head out as soon as we wanted from Portsmouth. A cold front moved in bringing with it thunderstorms and very high winds. We made use of our time touring Norfolk, the Marine Museum, Naval ship Wisconsin, we even went in search of some hardwoods for Floyd's woodworking projects.

We also got ourselves ready for our next leg of our journey. We were able to leave the docks Mon morning. We headed up the James River to a beautiful little anchorage in Deep Creek. It just felt good to be back on the hook. We left early next morning & were met by the pungent sweet smells of spring blossoms. The Osprey were watchful from their nests atop the channel markers as we passed by. A few miles further on we again passed through the busy harbor of Norfolk. We were amazed by the huge aircraft carriers, submarines, amphibious crafts, navel war ships & of course all of the commercial tugs pushing barges, huge cargo ships, ferries, fishing boats dragging nets between them & others scooping oysters from the bottom of the sea.

We left Norfolk Harbor & we were in Chesepeake Bay. We travelled our 40 miles with wind on our noses causing a bit of splash as we hit the waves. We spent the night again in another peaceful spot, Chisman Creek in the Poquoson River. Wed morn we headed out to what was predicted to be a decent sailing day, NE winds 5-10. As we started out we discussed the merits of running a safety jackline, as we were now in BIG WATER. Floyd did so & within the hour was in his harness tethered to that line when he had to go to the bow to bungy our anchors on. They were threatening to jump off the bow as it buried itself into the 4-5 ft waves. These waves were accompanied by 20-25 knott NE winds, we were travelling north. We had our headsail reefed to 60% & kept the engine on to help power us forward through the waves, many of which kept the deck awash a few even made it into the cockpit. We did this for about 4 hours & were mighty pleased to pull into our channel leading to our chosen anchorage for the night.

As were picked our way through the channel (it was a wierd one) charts had to be closely followed as it sure didn't look right. Coincidentally just after we got settled on the hook we heard on the VHF a sailboat aground in the channel. He had gone just a little too much to the left. After lunch we dingied to shore for a walk, on somewhat shakey legs, into the town of Deltaville. We toured the little creeks with the dingy enjoying looking at all of the boats and beautiful homes. We got an early start Thur morn & made our 17 miles in relative calm.

We anchored off the historic town of Reedville in the Great Wicomico River. This town was known in the early 1900's as one of the wealthiest per capita in the country. This is where they fish & process Menhaden, an oily little fish used in fertilizer & animal feed as well as many other uses. It is a pretty little town with beautiful Vitorian homes telling of the Good Ole Days. We have been held up here the last couple of days because of rain, thunderstorms & fog. We hope to be able to move on tomorrow. Destination: The Solomons.

Best to you all
Floyd & Fran

Hi all
We made it to the Solomon Islands. The winds were kind to us out of the SW and 10-15, gusts a bit more by early afternoon. We were happy to have our GPS on hand as we were unable to see land most of the 8 hours we were travelling. This was due partly to the fact that we were crossing the mighty mouth of the Potomac beyond that it was that it was foggy. When we pulled into the Patuxent River we again followed our charts closely to stay off the hard spots. We pulled into the Town Centre Marina to fuel up and to provision & treat ourselves to real hot showers. The dockmaster was kind enough to drive us to the grocery store. He even waited for us to drive us back which we really appreciated as it was a mile walk in the rain. Yes it was again raining. After listening to the weather radio which predicted rain & thundershowers until next weekend we started to revaluate our options.

After checking with the marina about a haulout and about the availability of a rental car. We decided to spend Mon going to Norfolk to get the truck & trailer (it poured all the way there & back) & Tues, today we have altered our status to RV. We spent the day in hot humid conditions derigging Windlass she was on the trailer about 3:30pm. By about 5pm we had everything pretty much battoned down & it was about then that the storm hit. Thunder, lightening & heavy rain. There is a heavy thunderstorm warning out until 8pm. Soooo yes at this point we are pleased with our decision. We of course know that once we are out of the water the sun will shine. At least we will have some pleasant weather to see the rest of the sights. Doing the Chesepeake under stormy conditions has not be as enjoyable as we had wished.

Wed am - We spent the night in the parking lot at the marina. Part of it in the truck waiting out a tornado warning. The morning was sunny & cloudy we pulled to a campground midway between Annapolis & Washington DC. We pent the day touring some of the towns on the Eastern Shore of the Chesepeake. There are huge numbers of boats in this area. We ended the day by watching the boats off the start line for Wed night racing. 5 classes, lots of boats, it was quite a sight.

We anticipate spending a few days visiting friends we have made in the Annapolis area. We are then planning to sightsee through the Great Lake area. We will be the strange looking RV in the parks as we will now be camping. We just have to be careful about that first step in the morning as it is 12ft down. We are thinking we will be around home the middle of June. Will keep you all posted.

Best to you all
Floyd & Fran

Hi Everyone
After a great lunch overlooking some of the boats in Annapolis, there are many. Annapolis is the sailing capital of North America. We spent Thur afternoon helping our friends Don & Jean relaunch their boat Sea Griffin. Thur evening we got together for mexican food with them Jim & Binnie & Sue & Joe, all cruising companions. Fri we took Sea Griffin with Don & Jean down Ego Alley. This is a passage of water that goes into Annapolis Inner Harbour, people manouver their boats in toward the busy & famous historic section of town to enable the land folk to ew & ah at them. Hence the name Ego Alley. After that we went for a sail up the Severn River looking at the beautiful homes nestled in the tall trees on the shore. We were going to go out into the Chespeake for a sail but decided to respect the black clouds forming in the sky. We had quite a thunderstorm out of it which did a good job of flooding many areas of our campground.

Sat while it poured all day we enjoyed a lovely lunch with Liz & Frank in their home. Liz & Frank are friends also made from Marathon & cruising companions for part of our trip north. Sun we travelled about 2 hours into Pennsylvania to a beautiful little community called Lewisberry. Here we were escorted up to Sue & Jacks home in the mountains. Escorted because the road was very narrow, windy & steep, Floyd was down in bow low getting Windlass up the mountain. They have a gorgeous country home that is as warm and friendly as they are, overlooking 3 mountain ranges. They shared their stories of their cruise to Rio for Mardis Gras and we remenisced about all the good times we had together in Marathon.

After a night in a square bed & a wonderful breakfast we headed north. We started in the sun but by the time we got to the New York state line it was grey & threatening to rain. Temps we also noticably cooler. The trip through the mountains was breathtakingly beautiful but slow pulling our weight & not economical on fuel. We chose Letchworth State Park, New York to spend the night. It is a beautiful park and we were pleased that the rain stopped long enough after supper to allow us to go for a brisk walk.

Mon we enjoyed driving the rest of the park stopping to take a walk along the Middle & Lower Falls in the Genesee River Gorge. The trip to Buffalo was again slow along the windy & narrow senic road we chose to travel. We crossed into Canada about 2pm and drove to a campground about 20 min west of Niagra-On-The-Lake. Tue we walked along the Welland Canal & drove along Lake Erie's north shore. In the late afternoon we visited Fort George. This fort was destroyed by the Americans from across the Niagra River in the war of 1812.

Today we are going to do a walk in Niagra-on-the-Lake to take photos and possibly tour a winery, there are 26 of them in this small area. We have driven by Niagra Falls a few times since we arrived. It has become very touristy & expensive. Parking is $9.75 & we stopped at a TGI Fridays for lunch yestarday & Nauchos were $18.75 Canadian, half the price in US dollars. Needless to say it didn't take long for us to figure out was it not only out of our budget to eat there but it was rediculous.

Tomorrow we plan to leave early & spend a day or so around Toronto. We will be driving to see some of the Trent-Severn Canal that we did not have the opportunity to see by boat on this trip. So far we are not at all sorry we pulled the boat, it has poured every day since we were in Reedville until yestarday. The nights are cold 4 degrees but at least it is no longer raining.

Best to Everyone from Land
Floyd & Fran

Hello from Edmonton. June 1 we drove the short distance to Toronto. We stayed in a Conservation Park in Mississauga and went into Toronto for the day. We visited Fort York & drove around locating some of the historic buildings mixed in with all the modern. Toronto is huge! We saw the CN Tower & lunched at a little BBQ place just off the harbor. It was gray & wet all day so in the evening treated ourselves to a warm, dry theatre & enjoyed our first movie in months, "Pearl Harbor".

June 2 we pushed westward, we had decided 1 day in Toronto was enough for us. We pulled into Orillia around noon & spent the afternoon exploring some of the Trent/Severn Canal & the locks. The waterway is beautiful. We definitely have it on our list of travels as we weren't able to make it this trip. June 3 we hooked up & pulled through to Sudbury touring "The Big Chute" lift lock along the way. This is the lock that lifts the boats up across the road and into the water on the other side. We found Sudbury to be scattered about in the rocks of the Canadian Shield & it had a "previously prosperous" feel to it. We also found that the grocery stores all closed at 5:30pm on Sundays.

June 4 we bumped along the Ontario Rte 17 to Sault Ste Marie. We pulled into a very clean KOA Campground for the night & went exploring. This is a very pretty city, I'm sure it helped that the sun was shining for a change. June 5, Tue we left early as we were planning a 700km trip to Thunder Bay. This was by far the most breathtakingly beautiful part of our trip the mountains & lakes along Hwy 17 on the northern shore of Lake Ontario ( Superior? Ed ) are gorgeous. We could only imagine what it would have been like to see it in the sun & under blue skies.

We found Thunder Bay disappointing. The waterfront was full of grain elevators, pulp mill & other industry with very few boats & very little developed land for pleasure.

Wed we put in another 700km day to Winipeg. The day was again gray & threatening rain so instead of stopping in the Lake of the Woods area we decided to press on. We stayed a day in Winnipeg, this was our first trip into Manitoba. We took a drive up to Grand Beach on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg and spent a couple of hours walking around The Forks in Winnipeg, amid the Children's Festival. The Forks is a beautifully developed park area along the banks of the Assiniboine & Red River it includes parks, restaurants, shops, a marketplace, and theatres. An impressive development.

We left Winnipeg Friday morning & put in a long day driving to Lloydminister. The skies we sunny & clear making our trip over the flat prairies uneventful & easy compared to the mountain routes of Ontario. We arrived in Edmonton Sat around noon and pulled the boat into the driveway at the farm. It as a relief to be home as the driving got to be tiring. It didn't take long for us to realize the vacation was over & we were immediately faced with "Dirt Life Decisions & Situations".

Home Sweet Home???

We anticipate moving back into our home the end of June

Best to you all.
Floyd & Fran

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