ABOUT TIME YEAR 2

Here we go, starting out our second winter of retirement on the boat!

After leaving the boat in St.Marys Georgia last April, we spent the summer home in Guelph, enjoying life in our home, and our first summer with our new Granddaughter Ella. I was very lucky and worked all summer for Centennial Optical. Sharon was equally busy organizing things at our home, helping our daughter Dawn and her husband Paul move to a new home.

October 24st we left Guelph to return to the boat. After spending the weekend in Chalotte North Carolina with friends Jenny and Ron Huibers, we arrived at the boat Monday October 27th. Our friends Mary and Christian Verlaque live in St.Marys and let us stay at their home while we got the boat ready.

We didn’t know what to expect after leaving our boat for six months in a really hot climate. We had heard stories of all kinds of problems from others that had left their boats south, Fortunately when we got to the boat and opened it up we pleasantly surprised how good things were. It seemed just like it was when we left it.

We did have a list of things we had to do before launching “About Time” including installing a new auto pilot, cutting down our wind generator a foot so it would be quieter, and adding more batteries so we can store more energy, cleaning then painting the bottom and a few more things. It took 2 weeks to get everything done, working pretty much every day, and on Monday November 10th we launched “ABOUT TIME”. We are so pleased with the St.Marys boat yard where we stored the boat. They are really nice people, and it was fun working on the boat there. We even had a pot luck dinner on the Saturday night before we left with all the other boaters in the boat yard.

On Tuesday morning we left the boat yard and went out to Cumberland Island to relax and check out that everything worked. When we left the boat in April everything worked, so why wouldn’t it all work after having a six month rest? Well… boats seem to break down more regularly than other things, and boaters suspect there are “Gremlins” living on their boats, that are always busy breaking things. We had experienced these “Gremlins” last year when we were on the boat, but thought that when we left the boat for the summer, that the “Gremlins” would leave too. Well…. they didn’t. They were busy on the boat all summer, and while we were out at Cumberland Island we discovered “a few” other things that were fine when we left but were now broken. So more things to fix!

Cumberland Island is one of the gems of the south that unfortunately many people never get the opportunity to see. Cumberland is a coastal island on the Georgia/Florida border, that was once the home of the rich Carnegie family, the Rockefellers, and some other very famous Americans. It is now a National Park, with beautiful trails though rich vegetation and oak trees hanging with Spanish moss, and a great long beach for shelling. Wild horses run along the beach and through the trails, and other animals like armadillos, and turtles are common sightings. We met up with some friends on another boat , a catamaran called “Double Wide” at Cumberland Island and have been travelling with them since.

There has been some strong cold fronts (from Canada) so we decided to not go offshore yet, but we have been going down the more protected Intercoastal waterway. We stopped at St.Augustine, a very pretty town with a Spanish heritage, then Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach and here we are in Vero Beach, finishing off our provisioning before we head for the Bahamas. Vero Beach is a fantastic place, where many boaters meet up before crossing to the Bahamas. This year we were even able to get a good view of the shuttle launch while we were anchored in St. Augustine.

We should be leaving for the Bahamas within the next week or so, and will work our way down through the Exumas , where we will spend Christmas. Our family, including Dawn, Paul, Ella, and Steven are all joining us in the Bahamas for Christmas, so that is something we really look forward to.

We hope everyone is well, and we look forward to keeping you informed on our adventures this winter.

Take Care,


Sharon and Doug
Aboard SV ABOUT TIME

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