Author: Brian

Day Twelve on the Vicious Voyage to Cold Water and Mosquitoes The 48 hours on the Chesapeake between Fleets Bay and Annapolis were the worst of the trip. The powers that be started to stick it to us around 7 pm on Thursday with a storm that dwarfed the blow in Belhaven. And unlike Belhaven, […]

Day 10 on the Odyssey from the Peninsula to the Cape Southern oppulence in all its splendor We embarked from Hampton before 9 a.m. and motored out into the Chesapeake, where we cut the engine and sailed on a few long tacks across the Bay. We fancied ourselves to be making excellent progress, and indeed […]

Day Nine Following the North Star to Massachusetts We reached Belhaven and anchored in a pleasant spot outside of the channel. After taking the dinghy ashore, we walked to the nearest supermarket for lettuce and hamburger meat, a six-mile roundtrip. The town of Belhaven was pleasant, if isolated. People in cars gawked openly at us […]

We weighed anchor in Fort Pierce at noon on Monday, June 7th. Taking a picture in homage to the place that had been our home nearly we a month, we proceeded out of Fort Pierce Inlet and into the open ocean. The offshore passage lasted some 80 hours. We established a round-the-clock system of two […]

Day Two in Fort Pierce With the Parents, aka Mom and Dad Ditching the swamp for the Intercoastal Awakening at 5 a.m. in the dark marsh of the Riverside Marina, it became evident that we would have to postpone our departure until the next high tide in the afternoon. We spent the day: 1) looking […]

A Day in Transit, a Night in Fort Pierce, aka Hell Driving, driving, solving Late last night, Aaron and I were on the highway, sides nearly splitting from the right-wing Christian talk show on the radio. It featured disturbing news stories about homosexuals wanting equal rights, Christians being arrested “merely because they’re Christians” and also […]

Half Day in Fort Pierce, aka Homeless Beach A long day began with changing our splash date (when the boat goes into the water) to today. We laid on the last coat of bottom paint in the morning and were done by 10:30. We went to the beach, where the water was surprisingly cold and […]

Day Thirteen in Fort Pierce, aka the Official Home of Those With Nothing Left to Lose Penultimate paint, AC, logistics, logistics, logistics The boat is beginning to look beautiful. The blisters and our patchings have now fallen under a thick layer of bottom paint, stylish black on the forward two thirds of the hull, and […]

Day Twelve in Fort Pierce, aka Isle of Mange Monotony shattered by visit of friend 10 am – 2 pm: Four layers of barrier coat. At one in the afternoon, long-lost Chris Calvert arrived in the wasteland that is Florida’s central eastern coast. This visit threw a wrench in the machinery of monotony that has […]

Day Eleven in Fort Pierce, aka Skid Rowmanson For want of materials, the day was lost Enough of this. Not enough of that. The need for a few (six) small canisters of brownish powder (barrier coat additive) could not be had at the Fort Pierce or Vero Beach West Marine stores, nor “The Boathouse” store […]