The trip from Bellhaven to Oriental was long, but uneventful. We weren’t even sure we were going to make it in one day, but with some favorable winds and a bit of motor sailing we were making good time. As we transited the Pamlico river, we passed a bustling seafood dock. According to activecaptain, boatsRead more…
Yesterday was one month since we cast off our lines. One thing that has surprised me about this whole “cruising” thing is how little downtime there is (hence the irregular blog-post schedule). We are inevitably either on the move (in which case one of us is steering and one of us is on lookout sinceRead more…
So of course about a week before departure, our depth sounder decided to cough a few times and die. More specifically the transducer is either fouled or dead (it conked out once before, but came back to life once all the growth was scraped off). Not having time to do a haulout just to cleanRead more…
The past few weeks have been crazy. We originally planned to leave September 15, but hit one delay after another. First it was finishing some critical projects (inststalling the new head, adding a temporary dept sounder etc…), then the pope visit, then Joaquin… finally we finished up and were ready to head out. Coincidentally, itRead more…
Finally the big day came. Even after purging/tossing/donating/gifting an *incredible* amount of stuff, we still had what seemed like an astonishing amount of boxes/stuff to put into storage. Views 2967Likes 0
Our departure date is just under 2 weeks away now, and we are officially in Crunch Time… Fortunately the last “big” boat project to do is installing the composting head. Most of the time now is devoted to throwing out stuff & packing the rest for storage. It’s amazing how you can fill giant trashRead more…
The countdown is on, now we are down to weeks! Can’t believe the time is flying by so fast… We’ve been great at getting lots of things done to get ready, but there is of course still more to do. Here is our list of remaining boat and non-boat projects. Views 4356Likes 0
This past weekend, the Tall Ship Festival came to our home port of Philadelphia – the ships were lined up right outside our marina! While we (sadly) still do not have sails on, we did motor out to see the ships from the water (a good choice, since the riverfront itself was absolutely packed!). Views 3744Likes 0
When we bought Elara, we had no intentions of doing any kind of long term cruising on her… the plan was to use her for daysailing and trips down the Chesapeake, while saving up for a bigger boat to cruise on. But you know what they say about sailors plans and all – written in the sandRead more…
Elara is a very “wired” boat. Being that I’ll be working aboard, I need power for my laptop/ phone/tablet/chargers etc… Since all these devices are ultimately DC powered, it didn’t make sense to install an inverter (DC->AC) just to be able to plug in an adaptor (AC->DC) to charge my electronics. Instead, I figured theRead more…