Heading north

So Andy at the Nordhavn office in Stuart, FL told us about a marina there offering an introductory rate. We checked and, yep, it saved us over a thousand bucks a month. Off we went.

Squeezing out of New River is always a trip and this time was no different.. but we made it without incident. Looking over our shoulder at Ft Lauderdale as we headed out through Port Everglades we could see the city being pounded by a storm. We left just in time.
Our luck held out as we made way north to Palm Beach's Lake Worth inlet. We could see heavy rain and severe lighting from a huge storm right in front of us for the whole trip but a bit of rain was all we felt. Then the sun came out as we tied up at Old Port Cove in N. Palm Beach.
All in all it was a pretty good day for us.

There were scuba divers everywhere along the way and because of the storm we couldn't understand why the tourist would subject themselves to such conditions. Later we found out it was a two day Spiney Lobster mini season. That explains it.

Today we head for Stuart via the ICW (Which I hate) and Sunset bay marina. It looks nice on the internet -floating docks- and it's brand new. We shall see.

Adios,


Istaboa

The Great Siberian Sushi Run Update

Just received another update from our intrepid fellow Nordies in the Aleutians.
Seems like they are having a bumpy but beautiful trip.

Downbound finally

Yes... We're heading back to Istaboa for a while. Should be back in Fort Lauderdale this weekend.

And- Istaboa's Waypoints has been honored by being mentioned in
their Blogs We Like section of the latest issue.

Click here to read the article>>>> Blogs we like
That was nice... thanks MotorBoating.

Alas, we will miss our little deer family. We have pics but left the cable on the boat. Will post soon.

Adios,


Istaboa

Still sitting in the green room

We've been doing what we came to Memphis for... family, business, house cleaning... but we're feeling the need to head south and back to Istaboa.

The Albury is almost finished, which we are anxiously looking forward to seeing, and we're missing our South Florida lifestyle and friends.

One of the things we will miss (amongst many) about Rocky Point is the little deer family we have been watching since being back. A doe brings out two little fawns a few times a day for water and corn we have put out for them. I will post pictures later.

I have failed to mention another Nordhavn adventure blog. Ken Williams has put together quite a sojourn. He calls this the "Great Siberian Sushi Run". The image above is his sail plan.
His boat, "Sans Souci" and two other Nordhavns, "Grey Pearl" and "Sea Bird" are leaving the US northwest and heading for Japan... the hard way.

Cut and pasted from his blog.

"Although we're calling this mini rally "The Great Siberian Sushi Run", it has been suggested that we call ourselves "The Wrong Way Gang". The prevailing winds are such that there is a virtually non-stop headwind from the west. We are expecting consistently high winds, and slow going. The "reward" is getting to see a part of the world that few have ever visited, and the ability to cross the Pacific without ever being more than 300 miles from land. Our longest passage will be only 500 miles, and our longest run without fuel will be only about 1,100 miles. "

It's really an interesting read. Click here>>>> GSSR

signing off for now...

Adios,


Istaboa

ps... Radar is doing his throaty little growl that tells us the deer family is here. Will get pics and post later. They really are delightful to see.

Leaf Cay

Some of you will probably remember our post about Leaf Cay.
While surfing around today I came across a YouTube video about the unsuccessful auction. Obviously it didn't sell but in 2007 they were expecting a winning bid of 14 Million.

Check it out,



We are still in Memphis but heading back to Istaboa next week.

Adios,


Istaboa

As we sit high and dry...

There are seven yachts attempting to transit the Northwest Passage this summer.
So while we are attending to land based obligations, we are living vicariously through these folks.
We posted earlier about Bagan's exploits_ it now seems they are almost to Greenland.
But now we have learned of 6 other daring cruisers attempting the same route.

Listed below are their blogs and/or websites:

• Baloum Gwen
• Fiona
• Polar Bound
• Capt. Tommy Cook
• Silent Sound
• Ocean Watch
  

Damn adventurous bunch. We salute them all and kinda wish we were there. Kinda.
(I only like ice in my cocktail)

Also while enjoying a quiet sunday morning here in Memphis I have compiled a slide show of sunsets and sunrises. These are some of our favorite images. The light is always so nice at those times. Think Maxfield Parrish.

Hope you enjoy.

Adios,


Istaboa

An email from Germany

We got an email from Thorsten; our German friend we kept running into all over the Bahamas. He and Dieter were cruising a Nordhavn 40 named Sand Piper 2

We hope he doesn't mind our sharing his very eloquent email but we find him quite interesting. His home and cruising areas are some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Guten Tag Melanie, Bob, and Radar,

It is great fun to read about your Istaboa trip and to look at the photos. It feels like yesterday.
Here in Kiel at the Baltic Sea it is just after midsummer, the sun rises at about 0500 and sunset is at approx 2200.
Long beautiful days.
The famous "Kieler Woche" - an international sail week for about 4700 sailors and 1200 boats, dinghis and yachts just ended in its 125th year.
It is the biggest event with approx 3 million visitors.
Every summer about 125 cruise vessels are calling Kiel to change passengers, who then visit Hamburg or even Berlin.
They continue their trip into the Baltic and to Norway.
I am happy to be at home, to do some work in the garden, to walk our Dachshund together with my wife Henriette, and to meet our friends.

Dieter will coach his grandson, sailing 29er in the European Champion Races on a lake in Italy.

I will sail with two of my oldest friends in an old wooden boat to Sweden for about two weeks.
After that, my wife Henriette, our dog Carlotta and I will travel in our small "Winnebago" to the South of Germany, where the famous wine is growing.

I wish you all the best and I am looking forward to seeing you again on the other side of the ocean next year.
Take care.

Danke und Auf Wiedersehen, alles Gute
 
Henriette, Thorsten und Carlotta

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Kieler Woche sounds like a lot of fun.

Cut and pasted from Wikipedia:

Kiel Week (German: Kieler Woche) is an annual sailing event in Kiel, Germany. It is the largest sailing event in the world, and also one of the largest Volksfeste in Europe.

Click here for more info on Kieler Woche.

Good to hear from Thorsten. He's a funny guy as well as a very nice fellow. It does seem like he is enjoying life.
Danke, Thorsten.

So for now...

Auf Wiedersehen


Istaboa

Update on Bagan's northwest passage

Read the post... If you're a long range cruiser, you will relate.
It is what it is.

Let's go to Memphis in the meantime

So we left on the 4th of July and flew home to Memphis to check on stuff. The house is good and Mike the landscaper has kept the yard up nicely. The Cars....? nnnot so good. One shouldn't leave a car unattended for 8 months. All 3 had dead batteries. So dead in fact we couldn't even jump them off in the normal fashion. But Mini Cooper road side assistance proved to be very useful.
Got the cars going, now we're waiting on AT&T to show up and fix our high speed internet.
It's nice to be home but Mel and I don't know what to do with so much space. Our's is a relatively small home but after 8 months on Istaboa; it feels absolutely cavernous. Radar, on the other hand, loves having all the room to run around in without human supervision.

We forget just how green Rocky Point is. These are pics I took last year. We have a sun room that is better described as a green room; -all glass- it's a great place to take pics of the wildlife without scaring them.

Anyway---- that's what is going on with us for the moment. Our plans are, (and you know how we are with plans), to hang here for a couple of weeks then head back to Istaboa and do a little more cruising if the weather holds out. The hurricane prognosticators are predicting a less severe hurricane season. Hope they are correct.

Here are a few more pics that are reruns of former posts. Hope you all enjoy them as much as we do.



We'll be back when we have something interesting to show or say.
So for now...

Adios,


Istaboa