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Published: September 27th 2009
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San Francisco Cruising
Mana in the City with Samantha. Even though we weren’t on a ship this summer we were on boats and planes. Our 96 days at home flew by as we packed as much as possible into our time ashore. We took two trips to San Luis Obispo to continue the parade of sisters. We spent time with Judy playing cards and hot tubbing and catching up. We took a trip to the Monterey Peninsula to visit our Victorian cottage on the hill and enjoyed visits with John and Jeannie and AJ and family.
We spent lots of time boating on San Francisco Bay and soaking up the sights of the city including a Giant’s baseball game. We buddy-boated with Mark, Barbara and Andrew to the city and biked all around the beautiful waterfront and out to Fort Point which is a Civil War era fort built to protect San Francisco from any marauding Confederates. There were many dinner parties aboard our boat, Mana, with friends and family. We had visits from Teresa and Matt and Roberta and Bruce. Jacques brought his Swedish friends for a short stay and they were immediately enamored with the living aboard lifestyle.
There were lots of appointments with doctors, dentists, accountants along
The Carlisles @ Golden Gate
A band of fog blanketed the bridge. with taking care of all the day to day minutia of modern life. But we found time to take our usual morning row on Richardson Bay and to patronize the local farmers markets and to do our daily swim. We took our boat out often and would drop anchor in some remote spot to spend the night gently floating in the breeze.
World cruisers Mike and Sherry and John joined us at the St Francis Yacht Club for lunch and guess what the topic of conversation was for all of us incurable world drifters? We got together with Mark Conroy, president of Regent Cruises and Greg Nacco, vice president of Cruise Specialists, to get the latest scoop on future cruises.
Our big adventure of the summer was a three day sail from San Francisco to Monterey with our friends Mark, Barbara and Andrew on their 38’ sailboat, Samantha. We sailed out under the Golden Gate Bridge on a cool and windy afternoon accompanied by a pod of porpoises, sea lions and curious sea birds and one large container ship. We spent our first night docked in Half Moon Bay along with the fishing fleet. We shoved off early the next
Mark Conroy
Regent Cruises CEO paid a visit to Cruise Specialists. morning in the fog and finally found sunshine as we were rounding the point into Santa Cruz where we spent our second night. We all went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for some thrills on the largest wooden rollercoaster in America and other carnival rides. The Giant Dipper can still take your breath away. We had smooth sailing across Monterey Bay and we were even able to play a game of Hand and Foot while out in the middle of the bay. Samantha is equipped with all the fancy gizmos to make for easy cruising such as GPS, auto pilot, furling sails, VHF radio and radar. The Carlisles plan to take the boat to Mexico and on to the Panama Canal and through the Caribbean ending up on the East Coast of the United States over the next several years. We were honored to be on the first leg of their journey.
We flew back East for Kevin’s high school reunion. After arriving in Pittsburgh, we rented a car and drove up to Grand Island where we went to classmate, Johnny Benn’s son’s wedding. The cold and rain didn’t even bother anyone as there was enough protection from the
World Cruisers
Mike, Sherry and John at St Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco elements in the lovely state park setting. The next morning we drove up to Niagara Falls and got a good look at this storied tourist attraction. We wanted to drive over to the Canadian side of the Falls but we heard there were 2-3 hour waits on the Rainbow bridge each way in order to clear immigration formalities. So instead we drove around the countryside and visited Kevin’s childhood home in Lockport and drove along the canal. It is called Lockport because it is on the western end of the Erie Barge Canal and the tallest locks are in his home town. Fortunately our sister-in-law, Susan was also having a reunion so we were able to meet up with her and brother, Michael at Wagner’s Restaurant for the local favorite of Buffalo wings and beef on weck.
Saturday night was the big reunion get together at the country club. This was the first reunion Kevin had been to in 25 years so he had a great time reminiscing with his old friends. He brought the house down when he and classmate Gail sang the DeSales school song. The next day there was a joint reunion of the public and parochial
Teresa and Matt
Hawkeyes visit the West Coast. schools at the Olcott Yacht Club on the banks of Lake Ontario. After a whirlwind weekend we drove back to Pittsburgh and flew home. We just had a week to pack up and get ready for our next adventure.
We are going on the Regent Mariner sailing out of Vancouver for 102 days on the Grand Asia Pacific cruise which follows the ring of fire route from Alaska to Russia to Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia and ending up in Los Angeles on December 20. We’ll be traveling from summer to autumn to spring to summer and finally back to winter in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ll experience all these season in the space of three months. We took this cruise three years ago and thoroughly enjoyed the routing, the ship and the passengers and crew. So we look forward to visiting this half of the world and seeing what new escapades await us.
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jjones444
non-member comment
It sounds like you had a relaxing and enjoyable summer! I would love to take a cross-country, or even a statewide trip with my wife for a few weeks. I'm an accountant so my schedule is pretty tight most months, but I want to make time to do this. Spending time together is important, as is visiting family and friends along the way. What an adventure!