1800 Days – Seg. 8 Ch. 2 Pg. 9-12

    On Monday morning we had to begin the 80-mile return trip to Summit North and, eventually, to our jobs and lives back in Easton. We awoke at 7 a.m. to a cool 50 degrees with the sun just beginning to climb above the trees on the river bank across from Chestertown. There were many boats anchored in front of the town and these were barely visible through the thick mist rising from the warm water in the cool air. Once again we were underway by 8:30 a.m. The water-lift muffler system on the big diesel was so good that we made barely any noise as we slipped through the mist at idle speed past the anchored boats. As we followed the tide down the river that morning there were line after line of geese in the cloudless sky. By late morning we made the big bend around Eastern Neck Island. There was no wind and the water was calm. The day had become warmer yet there was still a fall coolness in the air. When we reached the main shipping channel of the Chesapeake we folded the Bimini top back so that we could feel the warmth of the sun. Nancy took the helm and I lay down on one of the long bridge seats and slowly drifted off to sleep with the warm sunlight on my face. After my short nap, as we continued up the channel, we passed many private pleasure boats, both power and sail craft, that were obviously traveling to the south. These sights engendered an undeniable longing in us. If we were cruising south again on the ICW this would indeed be the time to go, traveling with the geese. Later in the day we decided to retain the exploratory flavor of our cruise and accordingly bypassed our usual anchorage at Worton Creek in favor of the Still Pond anchorage we had passed on Saturday. We worked our way into the bay almost two miles off the main shipping channel, past the entrance of Still Pond Creek, and then down into the tapering cove at the mouth of Churn Creek. We dropped our anchor in nine feet of water. If the wind came up from out of the north this would be an untenable anchorage, but conditions remained calm and by evening the water was like glass. At dusk, as we sat up on the bridge enjoying another cool evening, we were treated to the sight and sound of an osprey diving into the water. This seemed a fitting capstone to a perfect day.

    On Tuesday morning we covered the 25 miles to our slip at Summit North and began the process of returning to our life on land. We did our laundry, emptied our trash, cleaned up the boat and drove back on the interstates to our house in Easton. Though I cannot remember that either of us spoke the thought out loud at this time, I am sure that each of us knew that our true life, the one we most wanted to live, was the life on the boat. I know now that, after this wonderful cruise through the coolness and beauty of fall, after the haunting cacophony of the geese at Comegys Bight, Easton and Lafayette, for all their attractions, never had a chance.

**********

    Just because, in retrospect, it seems that the decision was inevitable, it does not mean it was made easily or quickly. What changed after our fall cruise, and we were hardly aware of it at the time, was our vision of the future: we no longer thought of the possibility of living and cruising on our boat full-time as merely an idle fantasy. Instead, after our cruise to Chestertown, it seemed we came to believe that there was some chance, albeit remote, that this could indeed be our future, if we could only find a way. And as the days passed we became ever more determined to find that way.

    After returning to Easton on Tuesday we came back to Summer School on Friday night just three days later. Even stronger than at any time before, when we entered the boat and saw and smelled the rich teak, looked into the forward cabin with its large V-berth, saw our L-shaped settee with its folding table across from the galley area in the main cabin, where we had consumed so many outstanding meals, when we put our weekend things away in the aft cabin with its cozy double bed, we knew that we had come home once again. In my journal I wrote that night, "I can see the strain drop from Nancy's face as soon as we get on the boat." Despite the lateness of the hour and the long drive down from Easton, Nancy settled down onto the settee and wrote in one of her notebooks, developing some ideas for a creative writing project she had tentatively called "Tirades." This was the first time she had done any creative writing since we moved to Easton.

    Over nightcaps we talked about the Annapolis Power Boat Show that was being held this weekend. Every year in October the city of Annapolis held a Sail Boat Show and a Power Boat Show on successive weekends to coincide with the annual migration of cruising boats through the Chesapeake on their way south for the winter. These were annually among the largest boat shows held on the east coast and they provided the boating enthusiast a great opportunity to inspect a wide variety of new products and tour new boats on display at the adjacent docks. Nancy had done considerable work preparing for our attendance using the website developed for the show. She knew what manufacturers would have booths in the exhibition area, what boats would be available for touring, and where they were located on the docks. Using her notes we discussed what we would particularly like to see and planned our visit.

    On Saturday morning we were away early on the drive to Annapolis across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that we had so recently seen from the water. The city was crowded with people attending the show. We had to park on the outskirts and take a shuttle bus down to the waterfront. With our new conception that we might be able to find a way to make full-time boating our life, we were eager to see everything. We looked at all the products on display in the exhibition area thinking of what we could use to improve our boat and make it more suitable to be our only home. And we toured all the new trawlers that were moored at the docks. Aboard a new 36-foot Monk trawler we had a long and especially beneficial conversation with the company president. He explained how each of their trawlers, including the one we were on, was built in Nova Scotia and then brought down the east coast for sale in the States, and how this practice provided a very worthwhile sea trial for their boats. We talked of what features made their boats more seaworthy and more comfortable for living aboard, and we got some ideas for changes we could make in Summer School. We left the show even more excited by our future prospects than we were when we arrived.

1800 Days – Seg. 7 Ch. 2 Pg. 5 - 9

    Saturday morning dawned warm and still, almost like a summer's morning. We were awake by 7 a.m. and followed our usual cruising routine: I start the generator to allow us to begin charging the batteries and use the toaster. We take our morning's pills and have our juice, toast and coffee at the table next to the settee while listening to the day's marine weather forecast broadcast by the local station of NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration – a division of the National Weather Service, NWS). I drink my coffee quickly while it is still very hot, then wash, brush my teeth, apply sun screen and leave the cabin to ascend to the bridge to begin preparations there while Nancy sips her coffee, cleans up the galley, makes the bed and does her morning personal grooming. On the bridge I wipe all the surfaces if they are covered by dew (usually), uncover the instrument panel, and then, in the large storage area underneath this panel, I turn off the propane tank, retrieve the cushion for the helm seat, and switch the radio antenna from the lower helm station in the cabin to the upper helm station on the bridge. I unfold the round wooden table we use for chart work and put it in its place behind the helm seat. Next I go below to get the navigational instruments (the VHF radio, the GPS receiver, the radar) and mount them in their brackets on the panel. I descend to the cabin one last time and tell Nancy all is ready up above. Then I shut down the generator and start our main engine, the six-cylinder Perkins diesel that has performed so well for us. Nancy takes the charts, the cruising guides and the binoculars, and climbs the steps to the bridge to take the helm. I go to the bow of the boat, unwrap the anchor rode from the samsonpost, and retrieve the anchor while Nancy moves the boat slowly forward. Finally, using the electric windlass, I break the anchor free of the bottom and bring it aboard while washing off mud with the hose connected to our salt water washdown pump. Nancy turns the boat and steers it back to the main channel of the Sassafras while I hose down the deck and make sure all is properly secured for the day's travels. Then I go to the bridge and usually take the helm while Nancy refers to the charts and directs our course. When we are cruising regularly and doing this every day we can usually get underway in an hour, but we were a little out of practice on this morning and it was not until 8:30 before we were once again in the main channel of the river and heading back to the bay.

    After we left the Sassafras we again followed the main shipping channel of the bay southward. In a few miles we came abreast of a small bay opening to the east that was known as Still Pond. This was another possible anchorage that we had never explored, preferring in the past to anchor in the mouth of Worton Creek just a few more miles to the south, which we soon reached. Below Worton Creek the bay opens into a large body of water over eight miles wide. By late morning the temperature had become quite warm, perhaps over 80, but the wind remained calm and the water flat despite the size of the bay. As we continued down the channel we were finally able to distinguish the Chesapeake Bay Bridge miles away through the haze. This high long bridge, which connects Kent Island to the east with the Maryland mainland near Annapolis in the west, was very memorable to us, and we talked of our first cruise south in 1993 when the weather was very much the same and I cooked breakfast while Nancy steered the boat down the shipping channel toward the center span of the bridge. This morning, however, we turned to the east to enter the three-mile wide mouth of the Chester River.

    The Chester enters the bay by making a large J-shaped bend around a long peninsula called Eastern Neck. We stayed in the center of the river and followed it around the bend, a distance of about eight miles, until we were headed north between Eastern Neck Island and Tilghman Neck on the Maryland mainland to the east. All of this was new water to us. As we cruised northward, and then northeast on this big river, we were excited to see so many places inviting exploration, such as Grays Inn Creek and Langford Creek (really a river) on our left, and Reed Creek and the Corsica River on our right. However our excitement was dampened by an infestation of small flies that swarmed all over us in the hot still October afternoon. Beyond the mouth of the Corsica the Chester River became narrower and the flies seemed to be fewer. On the left side of the river there was a significant bay known as Comegys Bight that extends more than a mile from the main river channel. The chart showed the bay to be adequately deep almost to the end where Comegys Creek enters, and we decided to anchor there for the night rather than go on to Chestertown, which was still at least two hours away, against the strong current of the Chester through unfamiliar waters.

    That night's anchorage in Comegys Bight was unforgettable. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in retrospect, it was even a turning point in our lives. We cautiously steered the boat as deep into the bight as we dared and set our anchor in about seven feet of water, a quarter-mile from the marsh where Comegys Creek enters. It was 3 p.m. The remainder of the afternoon we crabbed off the stern, finally using the crab traps we had previously bought. On her first try Nancy caught a large beautiful blue crab and we immediately started to plan a big crab boil for dinner. Incomprehensibly, that was the only crab we caught for the remainder of the afternoon. We returned him to his element and resigned ourselves to our previously planned dinner of ham with artichokes au gratin. By 6 p.m. the wind picked up out of the north, the air became almost immediately somewhat cooler and noticeably drier. At dusk we noticed several flocks of Canada geese flying over the boat and we heard their haunting calls. We knew we were on the Chesapeake and it was fall.

    We awoke at 7:30 in the morning to the loud honking of geese, a brisk north wind and a cool 64 degrees in the cabin. What a glorious, golden, beautiful day it was. We donned our sweat suits to keep warm and took our coffee up to the bridge so that we could feel the full crispness of this fall morning. Geese were everywhere in the sky and in the marshes at the head of the bight. Their honking was constant and unbelievably loud. As we listened and watched, immersed in these sounds and sights, something disturbed the geese in the marshes and they rose in great numbers, filling the sky like a cloud, gabbling and complaining loudly. It was a thrilling experience and we sat entranced.

    We decided that we would delay our departure for Chestertown and "take a Sunday" on this, our first truly fall morning on the water. According to our tradition, then, we made weak Bloody Marys. We took these up to the bridge to drink and talk in the warming sunlight. We did not play our usual music, an opera normally, deciding to replace this with the music of the geese. Later I cooked an open-faced omelet and bacon, which we consumed with a glass of cold white wine. Then we rested for a while, surrounded by the shimmering sunlight and the sounds of the geese.

    A little after noon we started the engine, retrieved our anchor and headed up-river for Chestertown. It was a windy ride, getting cooler as we went, but the river was comparatively sheltered and narrow, though the channel was easily followed and deep (at places the chart showed depths as much as 50 feet). We wore jackets on the bridge and I even wore gloves to warm my hands as I handled the wheel. What a new experience this was! We thought of the many times friends in Cape May would tell us, when we had to put our boat in storage in August so that we could return to our jobs in Colorado, that we were missing the best time for boating when we could not enjoy the fall. We knew now they were right.

    By mid-afternoon we had moored the boat in a shallow narrow slip in Kibler's Marina on the Chestertown waterfront. The main part of the town was in easy walking distance from the marina. The cruising guide referred to Chestertown as "a jewel of a small town" and "one of the most charming towns on the Chesapeake." It was easy to see why. We walked on tree-lined brick sidewalks past restored 18^th century brick buildings, some owned by Washington College. The center of town, several blocks away from the waterfront, surrounded a small park and we were lucky enough to find that we had arrived in Chestertown on one of its "market days." There were numbers of food and craft booths set up around the park, and we walked around town eating a "crab cone" we had purchased from one of the booths. Finally, we had our taste of Chesapeake Bay blue crab. Later in the evening we had a full seafood feast at the excellent restaurant next to the marina. Afterward, we relaxed in the boat, full and happy and satisfied, and we ran our electric heater in the cabin because it was such a cool night.

1800 Days – Seg. 6 Ch. 2 Pg. 1-4

Chapter 2 - The Leap of Faith

 

    I can remember so clearly how Nancy told all my doctors at Sun Coast Hospital in Florida in late 1999, when I was trying to recover from such a long and devastating illness, trying to gain enough strength to walk with my portable bottle of oxygen, how they had to make sure that I was strong enough to make the "Leap of Faith" before I could be discharged, and she would explain that, in order to get home, we had to step from the marina dock onto the deck of our boat, and how this was sometimes a long step, even a jump, when the wind was blowing the boat away from the dock. For some reason the doctors, especially Dr. Namey, were captivated by this term, and soon all the nursing staff and all my visitors were aware of Nancy's "Leap of Faith". But as I look back on everything that has transpired I realize that the true "Leap of Faith," the one that was so huge and irreversible, was made by Nancy and me together in that spring of 1996, when Nancy quit her job, we sold almost all we owned at auction, and we moved irrevocably onto our boat Summer School as our only home, to cruise the east coast and follow the seasons for as long as our meager funds and my failing health would last. We did this on Monday, May 13, 1996, almost exactly one year after the day we had left Marathon in the Florida Keys to bring our boat north as part of our move to Easton.

    Following my night at Youell's Oyster House, we were not able to find the time to return to our boat for more than two weeks. Nancy was kept busy with her classes and responsibilities at the college and I continued to work on my one course and see to the remaining tasks involved with our relocation. During these days the weather turned to early fall with the leaves showing the first hints of color. I was reveling in being in the east again in the fall, among the old established towns dotting the picturesque countryside surrounding Easton. We did find enough time to take some drives along some of the small country roads in the area, including the beautiful road that winds next to the Delaware River, in our continuing efforts to get to know the region, and these brief outings were lovely in the early fall weather. But our delight in exploring the land in the color and coolness of fall was to pale in comparison to our reactions to our first fall cruise.

    It was on Friday night, September 29, when we once again drove the 140 miles through the traffic past Philadelphia to our boat at Summit North. Although the weekend saw wonderful fall weather we did not take the boat out because we were busy getting ready for this cruise we were calling our "Inaugural Fall Cruise." Lafayette had a fall break in classes for one week that was scheduled to begin the following weekend and we were planning to take at least a few days to travel somewhere new in the northern part of the Chesapeake. Never before did we have the opportunity to use our boat in the fall, the favorite season for both of us. We began our boating in Cape May in the summer. Our cruise south on the ICW in 1993 was in the middle of the summer with record-breaking heat in the southeast. And of course once in South Florida, the Bahamas and the Florida Keys, it was always summer as far as the temperatures were concerned. Then there was our trip from Marathon to Summit North, again in the summer and with Heat Wave 95 that followed our arrival. The prospects of cruising with cool air in our faces when we might be wearing jackets and the warmth of the sun would be welcome, of sleeping with the boat open and no generator or air conditioner running to spoil the stillness, of waking in the mornings when a warm sweater and hot coffee would be welcome, all of these we eagerly anticipated.

    We occupied the weekend preparing the boat, checking and readying the various systems (batteries, charger, generator, dinghy and outboard, air conditioner, navigation equipment, etc.), shopping for needed provisions and studying our charts. Although we had traveled through the upper Chesapeake numbers of times we had never explored any of the numerous interesting destinations such as Annapolis or St. Michaels, Maryland, which we had recently visited by land and enjoyed so much. At first we decided we would visit Baltimore's inner harbor and stay there a few days, but as we continued to evaluate the various possibilities we opted once again for a less crowded and more remote destination. We decided we would explore the Chester River on the eastern shore. The Chester is the northernmost of the long deep rivers that flow through the rural eastern shore of the bay. We read that it was rich in history and scenic charm and comparatively free of recreational boat traffic. It was supposed to be easily navigable for 28 miles up-river to the small college town of Chestertown. This was farther from Summit North than Baltimore, but it was still within range for a short cruise, and with our love for college towns, how could we resist? Our plans were set and we prayed for good weather.

**********

    Nancy had no classes on Fridays and she was able to re-arrange her office hours to allow us to leave Easton on Friday morning. We were at the boat by noon, had a quick lunch and left our slip with mounting excitement by 2 p.m. Luckily the tide was almost high and we had no trouble navigating through the shallow marina channel into the C&D Canal. Our luck continued as we found the strong current of the canal running with us, enabling us to make good time despite our late start. I pushed the throttle up to 2000 rpm and the GPS indicated our speed "over the ground" to be 9 knots, which was almost flying for a slow trawler such as Summer School. It was October 6, sunny and quite warm for this early fall day, but with great anticipation we were beginning our "Inaugural Fall Cruise."

    Given our quick pace we reached the western end of the canal where it empties into the Elk River in little more than an hour. Although the Elk River is comparatively narrow the shore afforded more interesting scenery than the dug trench of the canal. We passed Town Point, where the traffic signals for the canal were posted, and then we were opposite the broad mouth of the shallow Bohemia River, a favorite boating destination for dockmaster Doug. We were looking for a place to anchor for the night but decided to continue in the warm late afternoon. In four more miles we passed Turkey Point and entered the Chesapeake Bay proper. The bay is about four miles wide here. We continued to follow the main shipping channel, over 35 feet deep, straight, well-marked by large red and green buoys, and easy. Four more miles brought us opposite Grove Point, which marks the northern mouth of the Sassafras River, here over three miles wide, and we decided to turn into the river. This had been the scene of our very first boating experiences on Summer School when we had stayed upriver on the Sassafras after we purchased the boat in July 1992. Somehow it seemed fitting that we should pick this river for our anchorage on our first exploratory cruise of the Chesapeake more than three years later. We wanted to have adequate shelter in our anchorage in case the winds got up, so we followed the Sassafras upriver for about four more miles until the river narrowed down and we rounded a bend near a narrow spit of beach that projected into the river on the north side. On the opposite side of the river, near the mouth of Turner Creek, the chart showed the water depth to hold to nine feet almost up to the bank, which we could see was relatively high. We crossed the river and cautiously headed toward this high bank until we were well within its shelter and almost a half mile off the main boating channel. Here we dropped our anchor, made sure it was well-set in the soft bottom, and settled in for a quiet dinner and a peaceful night. We had come about 25 miles. It was 5:30 p.m. and a warm 78 degrees, but it promised to be cool enough overnight to allow us to open the boat and sleep without the generator or air conditioner. We were cruising once again.

1800 Days – Seg.5 Ch.1 Pg. 17-23: END OF CHAPTER

    When you have a disease such as leukemia, which, doctors have told you, is incurable, progressively debilitating as it slowly destroys your immune system, and eventually fatal, it is difficult not to make the disease the focus of your life, to worry about it almost to the exclusion of all else. During the years between my initial diagnosis in 1988, and the summer of 1995 when we were at Summit North, I had taken numerous medications to deal with various symptoms. I had undergone two courses of oral chemotherapy and experienced three hospitalizations, the last one of which, in 1993, was long and nearly fatal. But I had learned, through the experience of cruising and living on Summer School with Nancy, especially during our eight month cruise of Florida and the Bahamas in 1994, the importance of looking outside myself and the value of what we came to call a life-centering passion, which, in our case, was living on a small boat. I was now much less preoccupied with my leukemia and I felt healthier and was taking less medication than I had for years. Though I was still taking drugs to control my hypertension, I had even been able to discontinue all medications for my stomach ulcer, something that had been a problem for the previous ten years. I think that perhaps I had become complacent, that I had been feeling so good for more than two years that I did not give my general health the care and attention it needed. Certainly, it seems that with all the boat work I did in the searing heat of that summer, I failed to guard against dehydration.

    Three days after we returned from St. Michaels I awoke at 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning with severe pain in my lower abdomen. By 4 a.m. the pain had spread to my back and had become much worse. I was vomiting and could no longer walk. Nancy telephoned 911 and I could hear her trying to explain how to find the marina and how to find our boat, which was at a considerable distance from the marina entrance and parking lot. Then she called the overnight security guard at the marina on the VHF radio, using the Coast Guard mandated stand-by channels 16 and 9, to alert him to our emergency and the arrival of the ambulance. I can remember the confusion and noise when the two emergency medical technicians entered the boat and tried to get me out onto the dock, and I can remember being pushed up the dock on the gurney calling for Nancy, every bump giving me a spasm of pain. My one memory of the ambulance ride to the hospital, which was about 25 miles away, was of one of the technicians trying to start an IV, unsuccessfully, and me telling him not to try, that an IV was hard to start on me under the best of conditions.

    Sometime later in the morning I became conscious in a hospital room, an IV needle fastened to my arm, and Nancy sitting beside me. When I had a strong pain she could give me relief with a morphine pump that she could use to inject morphine through the IV tube. She told me that I had been diagnosed with kidney stones, that the diagnosis was confirmed by a CT scan given to me earlier in the morning, that I was being given a lot of liquid intravenously and we were waiting to see if I could pass the stone without using any surgical procedures. Later in the day I met Dr. Mahmood Sadeghee into whose care I had been assigned. He confirmed what Nancy had told me and added that my stone was lodged in the ureter of my left kidney and that, if I could not pass it in about a day, it would have to be removed by ureteroscopy. This procedure was done on Friday morning and I was then able to return to our boat, tender and sore but functional.

    I had to enter the hospital again one week later as a surgical outpatient to have the stent that had been left in the ureter removed. When Dr. Sadeghee tried to do this procedure without general anesthetic, the attempt was unsuccessful and caused extreme pain. Finally, anesthetic was administered, Dr. Sadeghee surgically enlarged the entrance to the urethra to permit the insertion of the ureteroscope, and the stent was removed. For days after this procedure it was difficult and painful to walk, and it would be weeks before I felt recovered.

    I found this whole experience not only painful, but sobering, even a little frightening, in the arbitrary suddenness with which my life had been changed. Now, in addition to the problems of trying to control my hypertension, the possibility of recurrent stomach pain due to my ulcer, or back pain due to my herniated disc, and of course the continued threat posed by the leukemia, I had to worry about continued problems with kidney stones, for I was told that it was likely that they would indeed recur, especially if I failed to consume adequate quantities of water. The whole experience had been so painful that I found the prospect of recurrence to be alarming. But the most disturbing consequence of this experience was not to be revealed until many months later when I discovered that Dr. Sadeghee had neglected to inform me of the most serious condition that was revealed by the CT scan, the existence of a prominent abdominal aortic aneurysm, an omission that could have had fatal results.

**********

    While I was on the boat recovering from the kidney stone removal we received our telephone call telling us that our furniture would be delivered to our Easton house on Wednesday morning. We had to drive to Easton on Tuesday, supervise the delivery of our belongings on Wednesday, return to the Delaware hospital on Friday morning for the stent removal, and then go back to Easton on the weekend to begin the process of settling into our new home, new town and new life.

    It is amazing what a long and complicated and difficult process it is to relocate, especially to a different state in a different area of the country. The college had already arranged for our electricity and water, but we had to get telephone service as soon as possible, then contract with an internet service provider and arrange for cable television service. Of course we had to arrange for mail delivery and change addresses on everything. We had to locate the usual conveniences such as a hardware store, a dry cleaners, a source of computer supplies, furniture and appliance stores (we needed a washer, dryer and refrigerator), the major department stores (Sears we found across the river in Phillipsburg, NJ). We had to arrange for lawn care and find a source for firewood. We had to get fuel oil delivered so that we could have heat in our house when needed. We had to find sources for beer, wine and liquor, and determine what rules and hours applied. There were several chores associated with our cars. We had to have them registered in Pennsylvania and get new plates, but this, we found, could be done only after they passed required safety inspections, which necessitated locating a reliable and trustworthy car service shop (the TransAm failed and thus had to be serviced). Of course we had to get new drivers licenses, which meant, in Pennsylvania, that we had to pass written examinations (unbelievably, I failed mine on the first try). We had to identify a new insurance agent and get new car insurance. And of course I felt that it was important for me, as soon as possible, to find a new family doctor, identify a drug store that could provide my medications using my drug insurance company, and find a new hematologist or oncologist who could follow my leukemia. It took weeks to complete this process that we began on Monday, August 21, when we moved off the boat and into our faculty house.

    We were pleased with this house rented to us by Lafayette. It was a large old brick house, sitting up a steep bank above the street level, with a wonderful covered front porch made of stone, with stone columns supporting the roof. It had old-fashioned hot water heat with radiators in every room, a fireplace in the living room, a formal dining room, a small kitchen, two bathrooms and five other rooms from which we could choose our bedroom and home office. There was a full basement surrounded by walls of stone that formed the foundation (and leaked water during every rain, we discovered), and a shed at the rear of the house that we could use to store our firewood. Best of all was the location on Parsons Street immediately adjacent to the Lafayette campus and only a short walk from the engineering building.

    Within two days after we moved into the house, Nancy became immersed in her new job. I too became focused on working for the college because I had agreed to teach a sophomore course in circuit analysis as an adjunct associate professor. Initially we were both excited to be teaching at Lafayette, which was so completely different from the University of Southern Colorado. Lafayette was a much smaller school in terms of student enrollment, which was near 2000. Yet it was much bigger in terms of endowments and resources. The campus was comprised of about 60 buildings spread over 340 beautiful acres with large old trees and quiet walking paths. The college was founded by the citizens of Easton in 1826 and it had established a long and nationally recognized tradition of excellence, being consistently ranked in the top 2% of the country's independent colleges. There were over 180 full-time faculty, about the same as at USC where the student enrollment was more than twice that of Lafayette, and, in sharp contrast to USC, all the regular faculty held their doctorate degrees. Nancy, with her academic qualifications, fit in easily, but I felt somewhat out of place with only a masters degree, though with only one exception, I seemed to be readily accepted by the engineering faculty in my position as an adjunct professor.

    As we continued to work on the various tasks required to complete the relocation process we quickly fell into a comfortable routine. In the mornings Nancy would walk to her office in the engineering building while I would drive to the nearby health and fitness center where I had taken out membership, determined not to lose the good physical conditioning I had acquired during the past year. We would meet at home for lunch after which Nancy would return to the campus. Since my classes were on Monday and Thursday nights I had the afternoons free to work on domestic chores or perhaps grading papers or class preparations. At night, though Nancy often had work she needed to do, we continued our practice of quitting everything around ten o'clock to share our thoughts and ideas and experiences over nightcaps before bedtime. Even through the early days of our residence in Easton, when so much was new, the subject of much of our talk during these quiet times, was our boat and the life aboard Summer School that we had learned to live.

    On Tuesday, September 12, I found myself in Youell's Oyster House, a good small restaurant on Cattrell Street, the main street on College Hill, which was what locals termed the Lafayette campus and surrounding residential area. The restaurant was only a few blocks from our house. It had excellent food and an intimate and casual atmosphere. On this particular night Nancy was required to participate in a dinner meeting with colleagues and students as part of a "team building" exercise. I used the time over a cocktail waiting for dinner, and over a leisurely coffee afterward, to catch up writing in my journal.

    The previous weekend we had stayed on our boat at Summit North, the first time we had been there since moving into our house, and I wrote of our reactions. We both felt such joy and relief to be once again on our boat, going to sleep in our small double bed in the aft cabin. On Saturday we took the boat out for a brief run, the first time we had moved the boat in a month. The feelings of exhilaration continued as we sat up on the bridge, carefully found our way out the shallow entrance channel of the marina and entered the swift current of the canal. We went only as far as Summit Bridge before returning, a round trip distance of only five miles, yet it was enough to bring back a flood of memories of our cruising life. On Sunday we drove the two and a half hours back to our house and jobs in Easton, but our emotional reactions to this weekend were strong and lasting. I wrote that Nancy, especially, was so happy to be once again on the boat, much happier than in her day-to-day life "at home." I wrote that we both felt that our boat was really our true home and that what we needed was to find some way to allow Nancy to retire so that we could live permanently on this wonderful boat of ours. And this was my first hint of the truly fundamental changes that were to come into our lives in the next months.

1800 Days-Seg. 4 Ch1 Pgs. 11-17

    What a strange feeling it was to awake in our aft cabin the morning after we arrived at Summit North and realize that we were no longer cruising, that we did not have to travel on our boat any more, that Summer School was now at a permanent mooring with all that this single fact implied. We awoke early and went about our morning routine as if we were trying to get underway, and then lingered over coffee staring at each other and wondering what we were going to do on this seemingly empty day. We had been traveling since the last day of May, covering almost 1500 miles in 43 days. Since Daytona Beach, Florida, we had cruised every day on our boat except for the break at Beaufort for the July Fourth weekend, cruising with a specific purpose and pushing hard to arrive at this destination. And now what?

    Of course it did not take long for a whole new set of goals to replace our old ones. There was much that needed to be done, and much that we wanted to do before we could occupy our house in Easton in the middle of August. My brother Willie, at whose house we had stored our two cars, lived only about a half hour's drive away, and the day after we arrived he and his wife Marie brought our TransAm to the marina. Now we could do our shopping, get needed provisions and supplies and explore the local area.

    We found that Summit North Marina, with a nominal address in Bear, Delaware, was located in a wooded and rural area. In fact, we discovered that the marina is actually part of the Lums Pond State Park, a large wooded park and recreation area on a hill above the marina and canal, centered around a lake of considerable size. Sharing the marina site was a moderately large boat dealer and marine repair facility. But aside from the marina and boat dealer there was nothing but woods and some rural property within walking or biking distance. Altogether, the marina and surrounding area seemed pastoral and pleasant, but a car was necessary for any shopping.

    A drive of only five miles brought us to Highway 40 in Glasgow, Delaware, where there seemed to be almost unlimited shopping at upscale supermarkets, hardware stores, department stores, even a large boating supply store, which we found to be the very same boating store where we made our first purchases after buying Summer School in the summer of 1992, when we were staying on the Sassafras River in Georgetown, Maryland. Interstate 95 was five miles north of Glasgow. This would be our main route towards Philadelphia and thence to Easton when we finally took up our residence there. Until the development of the interstate system Highway 40 was the main east-west corridor through northern Delaware, and I had a few vague childhood memories of the farmlands and rural countryside along this highway. Now, however, the highway was congested and populated on both sides with various strip malls and shopping centers separated by large suburban housing developments. The whole area, apparently, had become a large bedroom community with the advent of Interstate 95. (We were later to find that to be on the interstate during rush hour was almost suicidal.) However, south of Highway 40 the area quickly reverted to its former rural character complete with roadside vegetable stands, which we were especially delighted to find.

    As we came to know the marina in the days following our arrival our reactions varied between joy and gratitude for our good fortune in finding such a suitable home for our boat, and consternation and dismay at some of the conditions that existed. The marina itself occupies a basin accessed through a comparatively narrow half-mile long channel off the north shore of the canal about midway through its twelve-mile length. There is no current in the basin, which is a relief after coping with the usual 2-3mph currents in the canal proper. Neither is there much wind since the basin is surrounded by hills that are 50-70ft. high. And the inlet to the basin is sufficiently narrow and long so that the docks are little affected by boats transiting the canal, a fortunate condition since the C&D canal is regularly used by large ships such as tankers and container ships. The marina thus gave excellent protection to moored boats and, we learned, it was a well-known "hurricane hole" throughout the surrounding coastal area. Even the tides posed no problems due to the relatively new system of floating docks, which allowed boats to be tied firmly and securely in their slips. (No slack had to be left in the dock lines to accommodate the rising and falling of the boat relative to the docks since the docks and boats floated on the tides together.) We were very pleased at the security afforded by the marina. Not only would this ease our minds while living more than a hundred miles away, but it would allow us to leave the boat unattended for extended periods of time.

    In contrast to the security, the administration and maintenance of the marina caused us concern and even aggravation. Summit North was a large marina with 250 slips that could accommodate boats up to 125 feet long. The dock structure seemed to be fairly new and well designed. Each slip had full-length finger piers and a lighted service pedestal that included water, a telephone jack and 240/120 volt, 50/30 amp. service. Situated as it was between the Delaware River and Bay on one side of the canal, and the Chesapeake Bay watershed on the other side, the marina was in an ideal position to be a popular and heavily used boating facility, and whoever built it had constructed a first-class structure. Yet when we arrived in mid-July most of the slips were empty. In fact, because the marina had not received necessary periodic dredging, many of the slips were totally useless. I have photographs showing whole docks resting on bare exposed mud at low tide; at high tide the water in their slips was only one to three feet deep. And as we had found, the entrance channel to the marina basin had silted over to the extent that it was barely passable even at high tide with our four-foot draft. Deep draft sailboats would not be able to transit this channel at all, which explained the fact that there were very few sailboats moored at the marina. Evidently some inadequate attempts at dredging had been started before we arrived; there was a small dredge on a raft (too small to be called a barge) anchored near the entrance channel, and pipes were haphazardly piled on the dock nearest the entrance, but we never saw any activity with this equipment despite what Doug had told us when we arrived. It seemed to me that the dredging equipment was much too small to be adequate for the amount of material that had to be removed even from the entrance channel, not to mention all the docking areas that had become useless due to accumulated silt. Rick, the marina manager, seemed to be amazingly unconcerned about these problems. He sat in his large private office wearing his gold chains, flowered shirts and yachting shoes, busy at the keyboard of his computer (he considered himself to be something of an expert), and told me the dredge was broken and they were waiting for parts. Then he told me that they were waiting for a larger dredge to be delivered. Finally, after my repeated inquiries, he told me that I was worrying too much, that the bottom was soft mud and it would not hurt my boat if we had to plow our way through it. It quickly became obvious that nothing was going to change. Nancy and I decided that we would try to keep our heads down and our mouths shut, to be thankful for what we had, and transit the marina entrance only at high tide. In all the time we were at Summit North (almost a complete year as it turned out) no dredging was ever done and most of the slips remained empty.

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    It was relatively easy to keep to ourselves at Summit North because there was much boat work that needed to be done, and our time was thus occupied for most of the month between our arrival at the marina and the move into our house in Easton. Of course, everything had to be thoroughly cleaned from the bilge and the engine room, to the anchor tackle, the decks and the bridge. We cleaned, checked and serviced all engines: the six cylinder Perkins diesel that was the main boat engine, the old, loud and troublesome 7.5 Kw. Onan generator ("Tommy") that was such a source of problems and frustration when we were cruising the Florida Keys the previous year, even the 3 hp. outboard motor that we used for our dinghy Recess, though it was relatively new. When all the immediately necessary work had been completed we began the major project of cleaning and waxing the hull. All boats that cruise for extended time on the ICW acquire an unsightly brown stain on the bow and all along the waterline due to the dissolved tannin in the ICW waters. This had to be removed, and then we applied a layer of protective wax to the entire hull, buffing it to a high polish. The full-length finger pier was especially useful during this work. When we were finished Summer School virtually gleamed and drew numbers of appreciative comments from people passing on the dock.

    Ordinarily we enjoyed working together on our boat, but the work we did that summer became somewhat onerous due to what became known as Heat Wave 95. Almost every day, 20 days out of our first 21 days at Summit North, the temperature was well into the nineties and the heat index was above 100. There were many record-breaking temperatures in the area during this time. On July 15, for example, we had a high temperature of 103 with a heat index of 129. Many were dying in the urban areas of the eastern cities. By the end of July, Heat Wave 95 was the lead story on the evening news. The city of Philadelphia was giving away free fans. On August 2 the death toll was reported to be 57.

    On what was to be the last day of the heat wave, we had one notable diversion from our boat work, and that was a visit to St. Michaels, Maryland, during the annual Crabfest celebration. Everyone we met at Summit North, it seemed, asked us if we had been to St. Michaels and recommended that we go there. This small old waterman's town on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, in the middle region of the bay, had become a very popular boating destination. We had read about it in our cruising guides and were attracted by its old maritime history (about 300 years), but we had avoided going there by boat just as we had avoided visiting other popular, and therefore crowded destinations such as Annapolis and the Baltimore inner harbor. But St. Michaels was only about 75 miles by highway from the C&D Canal and we had a pleasant drive through the Delaware and Maryland countryside. Upon arrival we found St. Michaels had a charm that, in our eyes, exceeded its various descriptions. There were old attractive houses lining small streets clustered around a picturesque little harbor complete with swans and a dinghy dock for the convenience of boats anchored nearby. Despite the heat we thoroughly enjoyed walking around the town. Best of all for us was the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum located on Navy Point on the north shore of the harbor. The museum was interesting in its own right, but it was also the center of the Crabfest activities. We enjoyed crab cake sandwiches and crab meat potato skins washed down with cold beer. Inside the museum we found that a well-known Chesapeake Bay author was conducting a book-signing. I talked with Larry Chowning at some length and bought a copy of his book, Barcat Skipper, which is comprised of the tales of a Tangier Island waterman. This was of great interest to me because, in my various readings, I had become fascinated with Tangier Island, a remote island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, accessible only by water, where there was a small population that still derived its livelihood from the bay, where people could trace their residency on the island back for generations, and where, supposedly, people still spoke with the accents and inflections that were prevalent hundreds of years ago. Someday, I hoped, Nancy and I could go there in Summer School.

    After our trip to St. Michaels, which we made on August 5, our attentions became progressively more focused on our new land home in Easton. The person at Lafayette responsible for faculty house rentals had assured us that our house would be ready for occupancy by August 15. Accordingly we had contacted our mover in Colorado to make arrangements for our furniture to be delivered. We had a telephone on our boat (another amenity at Summit North) and the mover agreed to have the van driver call us a day or two before delivery so that we could drive to Easton and be at the house when the moving van arrived. This seemed a simple and straightforward arrangement but it was to become difficult and complicated to a degree that we little imagined.

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Carrot Island in Beaufort, NC. The Beach and the Anchorage (with "Banker Pony")

1800 Days – Seg. 3 Ch. 1 Pg. 8-11

    Beaufort and Morehead City are sister-cities that lie on either side of the approach to Beaufort Inlet, one of only two reliable deep water inlets on the North Carolina Coast. (The other is the mouth of the Cape Fear River.) We had bypassed Beaufort on our way south in 1993 because it would have required a detour off the ICW, which passes instead through Morehead City. But we had read about the charm of Beaufort and its history as an old seaside resort, how its waterfront area had been restored, how it had become a hub for local, coastal and world-class blue-water cruisers, and we eagerly anticipated the opportunity to spend some time there. We were not disappointed. The five days that we stayed at Beaufort were the highlight of the entire cruise north.

    However, since our stay in Beaufort was one of our typical "shore leaves," it was busy with errands and boating chores that become necessary when cruising. Summer School was encrusted with salt and covered with mud left over from our anchoring. One of the first things we did was to thoroughly wash and clean our boat inside and out, including the bilge. It was also time to carefully inspect both the generator and the engine, and to change oils and filters (we were carrying the necessary supplies). We did not need to take on diesel fuel but we did need to fill our 150-gallon water tanks that had become nearly empty. We found that there was a laundry facility just across the street from the marina, which made it especially convenient to wash our clothes, most of which were dirty by this time. To our great delight the marina also provided a courtesy car for boaters to use, which made it easy to do a major reprovisioning of food and other supplies at the various stores and supermarkets located six to ten blocks from the waterfront along Highway 70. It seemed to us that Beaufort Docks made special efforts to provide convenient services for its patrons.

    Interspersed with our necessary boating activities we of course took time to explore the town and become acquainted with its attractions. The Beaufort waterfront, including Beaufort Docks, some restaurants and other marine facilities, lies along the southern side of Front Street and looks out over Taylor Creek where we found many boats to be anchored, both cruising boats and what appeared to be local boats on moorings. The other side of Taylor Creek is bounded by Carrot Island and Town Marsh. These areas are undeveloped and protected. We had read about the herd of wild horses that inhabited Carrot Island and we were thrilled when we awoke on our first morning, looked out over Taylor Creek and saw some of these horses wandering along the beach. We took several extensive walks through the central area of town, known as the downtown historic district. The shady streets were lined with elegant old houses, which reminded us of Cape May, New Jersey where Nancy and I began our boating experiences. We visited the Beaufort Historical Society Museum on Turner Street, and the North Carolina Maritime Museum. On Monday, July 3, we even took our eight foot inflatable dinghy, Recess, across Taylor Creek for a picnic on a beautiful small beach on the inlet side of the island. On our way back to our boat we were lucky enough to have a close view of one of the wild horses on the beach.

    Although we stayed in Beaufort for five days we knew we were only able to obtain a passing acquaintance with some of the highlights of the town. There were many more restaurants to try and many more facilities to explore in depth. But we had to continue our cruise north without lingering too long. We left early on the morning of July 5, never dreaming that in less than a year and half we would return to live on our boat in this interesting and charming town.

    After our Beaufort interlude we again pressed to the northward trying to make as rapid progress as we could. We traveled for eight consecutive days, most of the time anchoring at night, staying in marinas only at Coinjock, North Carolina, where we filled our diesel fuel tanks, and Portsmouth, Virginia, Mile Zero of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. There were no more "shore leaves." We were lucky enough to cover the entire 250 miles from Portsmouth, through the length of Chesapeake Bay and through most of the C&D Canal in four days with no delays due to weather or equipment problems.

    We arrived at Summit North Marina at about 10:30am on Wednesday, July 12, went to the fuel dock to fill our tanks once again, and met Doug, the dockmaster. There seemed to be many empty slips. Everything looked good, we told him, except the entrance channel where we had read a depth of only six feet even though we came in at high tide. He explained that there had been a delay in the dredging operation, but that it was soon to be resumed. We thought it unlikely that we would be taking out the boat in the near future anyway so we agreed to take a slip. I met Rick Keener, the new marina manager, and signed the papers for a year's lease. Doug helped us into our chosen slip where docking was particularly easy due to the floating docks and full-length finger pier, just as advertised. We were immensely pleased and greatly relieved to be there. We had found a new permanent home for Summer School. Or so we thought.

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Summer School at Summit North Marina on the C&D Canal

Up Chesapeake Bay with Nancy at the Helm (Bay Bridge in Background)

1800 Days – Seg. 2 Ch. 1 Pg.3-8

Our cruise north on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) in 1995 had a different quality than the life-changing trip we had made south on the ICW in 1993. Then, everything was new: the experience of traveling day after day in our boat, the peacefulness of anchoring in seemingly secluded locations, the excitement of visiting new places. On our trip north we were essentially retracing our previous route but we felt that now we were experienced boaters. We were more confident in our abilities to cope with the unexpected, less worried about running aground in the sometimes shallow waters of the ICW, more assured in the operation of our equipment and our navigational skills, more confident in our abilities to deal with the potentially hazardous conditions sometimes found on the large bodies of water such as the Georgia and North Carolina sounds and the Chesapeake Bay. And on this cruise north we had a well-defined goal, something we often felt we lacked as we wandered south in 1993. We had to get to our destination soon enough to allow us to find a new marina-home for Summer School, to have our furniture shipped from Colorado, and to get settled in Easton by mid-August when Nancy had to assume her duties at Lafayette. Two and a half months seemed little enough time to accomplish everything that was required including cruising almost 1500 miles of coastal waters at our average trawler speed of about 7 mph.

    We departed Marathon Marina abruptly on the last day of May after receiving our mail that had been forwarded by my daughter Kathleen. We were so glad to be traveling on our boat once again, and the day was so perfect with such clear skies, light winds and warm temperatures, that we were filled almost with a sense of rapture as we cruised along the ocean reef adjacent to the deep waters of the Gulf Stream. At the Channel Five Bridge we crossed over into the shallow waters of Florida Bay to follow the ICW route north and east toward our planned anchorage at Tarpon Basin near the north end of Key Largo. As if by magic, after we crossed into Florida Bay a dolphin appeared beside our boat, cavorting in our wake, and swam with us for some distance. We reached Tarpon Basin later in the afternoon and were delighted to find that we were the only boat there. Although we were not far from Key Largo with its busy Overseas Highway, bustling shops and numerous motels, it was quiet and peaceful as we sat up on the bridge enjoying cold drinks and gazing at the mangrove–lined shores of Tarpon Basin. The enchantment of the day continued through the evening until we went to bed in our aft cabin listening to the lapping of small waves against the hull.

    Our feelings of euphoria came to an end the next morning when we awoke in our boat rocking with the waves kicked up by a brisk east wind of 15 – 20 mph. We wanted to make the city of Miami that night and we knew that the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay would be rough with a strong east wind blowing in off the ocean, but we did not want to remain in the shelter of our anchorage and suffer a weather-delay so early in our trip. So we hauled our anchor and got underway, traveling through the choppy waters of Blackwater Sound, Barnes Sound and Card Sound until we entered the south end of Biscayne Bay. This large body of water, as expected, became progressively rougher as we headed north until we had waves of three feet hitting us on the beam and rocking the boat side to side to an uncomfortable degree. For most of our 25-mile course through the bay we operated the boat from the lower navigational station inside our cabin where the rocking was less pronounced and the footing more secure. Finally, by mid-afternoon, we found our way into the shelter of Dinner Key on the northwest shore of Biscayne Bay, where we took a slip in the Miami Municipal Marina. And there, to our great consternation, we were forced to stay for almost a week, weather-bound by Allison, the first tropical storm and hurricane of the season. We were lucky enough not to suffer a direct hit, but the winds and rains of the associated squalls forced us to stay off the water.

    And of course there are worse places to be stuck than Dinner Key and the neighboring Coconut Grove area. We enjoyed the opportunity to once again visit the shops and restaurants of Coco-walk, and we found the Green Street Café to be as delightful as ever. We spent one squall-free late morning lingering over goat-cheese omelets and Bloody Marys at one of their sidewalk tables. We were also lucky to find the South Florida Boat Show underway at the convention center and the Goombay Festival being celebrated on the downtown streets. The latter was especially enjoyable because it brought back many memories of our boating adventure in the Bahamas, which ended right here in Dinner Key just a little over a year ago.

    We were even able to make some progress in solving one of our relocation problems while at Dinner Key. As I remember it, in a new cruising guide we purchased we noticed a large advertisement for Summit North Marina on the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal. Under new management, it stated, with new floating docks, full length finger piers (the section of pier extending from the dock and bounding the side of the boat slip), a newly dredged entrance channel, laundry facilities, picnic areas, ship's store, club house, boat yard and repair facilities, swimming pool, landscaped grounds and, most important to us, reasonable long-term rates. We had stayed at Summit North two years previously on our first night after we left Cape May, NJ, on our trip south on the ICW. At that time we were singularly unimpressed: the entrance was so shallow that we thought we touched bottom, albeit a soft bottom, trying to find our way into the marina, and the staff seemed inattentive and uncaring, even inept. But if it was now properly managed with all the improvements described it would offer a good possibility for a permanent home for Summer School. It was located not far south of Philadelphia and probably not much more than a hundred miles from Easton, about as close as any marina we were likely to find that we could afford. When I telephoned the marina I was given a reasonable rate for a slip rental if contracted on a one-year lease, and I was assured that they had many available slips and that all the amenities described in the advertisement were in place except for the entrance dredging, which had not yet been completed but should be by the time we arrived. I told the marina that we should be there some time in the middle of July, and if everything were as good as described we would take a one-year lease on a slip. One of our major problems now seemed to be solved and we became very anxious to be on our way.

    However, our whole cruise through the length of Florida was frustrated by unexpected delays. When we were finally able to leave Miami Municipal Marina we were forced to stop at Fort Pierce, after only 130 miles, where we had to spend several days waiting to have our old diesel generator repaired after Nancy discovered that its exhaust elbow was cracked. Then we were driven off the waterway by high winds in the Daytona Beach area and took shelter at the Halifax Harbor Marina for a few days. At the northern end of Florida we had to make an unplanned stop in Fernandina Beach to get a new starting battery for the generator.

    After Fernandina, as we crossed into Georgia waters, it became obvious that we needed to adjust our cruising routines to make better progress up the coast. Since leaving Marathon we had been able to average only about 20 miles per day with the various unexpected delays we encountered. As we could not hope to avoid totally the accidents of weather and equipment failure, the only way to improve our progress was to significantly increase the distance we traveled on the "good" days when nothing interfered with our cruising. There was also the problem of the July Fourth weekend looming in the future. This would be the occasion for another significant delay because we knew from past experience that we did not want to be on the water that entire weekend to avoid the masses of partying pleasure-boaters that were sure to be overcrowding every navigable waterway. (The frightening memory of cruising through an almost impossibly congested Charleston Harbor on July 4, 1993 would be forever fresh in our minds.) On our second night in Georgia, as we talked while we enjoyed an excellent anchorage on the Bear River opposite Kilkenny Creek, we formed a plan. On each day that we could travel we would try to cover 60 to 70 miles rather than our usual 45 to 50 miles. Though this would give us longer, more tiring days, if we could average 60 miles a day we could be in Beaufort, North Carolina in time to stay there safely tucked into a marina for the entire July Fourth weekend. We could take an extended "shore leave," attend to all the duties and chores that would be necessary, and enjoy getting to know what we understood to be a wonderful little seaside resort. It was June 22. We knew that we would need good weather and a lot of luck to succeed with this plan, but we resolved to try.

    For the next seven days we cruised through the marshes and creeks, sounds and rivers of coastal Georgia and South Carolina, past the city of Charleston that we had so much enjoyed in 1993, up the Waccamaw River that we had previously found so beautiful, through the infamous Rock Pile with its dangerous channel among ledges and rock outcrops, up the Cape Fear River and along the barrier islands of coastal North Carolina, until late in the afternoon of Thursday, June 29, we arrived in the town of Beaufort, North Carolina, and took a slip at Beaufort Docks, the town's municipal marina. That we were fortunate in finding an available slip was confirmed on Friday morning when the marina filled up to capacity. We had been traveling for eleven consecutive days since Daytona Beach, Florida, and on the last few of these we had covered as much as 70 miles per day. We were very tired, the boat was dirty, we were short on food, our storage areas were filled with trash that needed disposal, we were almost out of clean clothes and we had very little water left in our fresh water tanks, but we were safely off the waterway before the July Fourth madness could begin and we were now well on our way toward Virginia, the Chesapeake and our final destination. The days since Daytona Beach had not been without incident. Aside from requiring a new generator battery in Fernandina Beach, the main VHF marine radio at the helm station on the bridge had failed in Georgia, and I dropped and broke the hand-held VHF radio that I was using as a replacement as I was trying to dock in Beaufort, South Carolina, which forced me to buy a very expensive replacement. (Beaufort, South Carolina is pronounced "Bewfort," while Beaufort, North Carolina is pronounced "Bowfort.") But altogether we felt that Neptune had smiled on us and we could now safely enjoy this holiday weekend without fighting crowds of pleasure boaters on the waterways.

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1800 Days – Seg. 1 Ch. 1 Pg. 1-2

Chapter 1 – New Beginnings and False Starts

 

    How many times have I asked myself, knowing what came to pass, if we would have done anything, or even everything, differently? Our actions seemed almost straightforward at the time, yet the course of events that was set in motion would completely and unexpectedly overturn our lives within the coming year. When we moved from Colorado we thought that we were beginning a new but not very unconventional phase of our professional and personal lives. I had taken early retirement from my position as professor of electronic engineering technology at the University of Southern Colorado (USC - now part of the Colorado State University system), which I had held for 17 years. We had come to the conclusion that, in my continuing battle with leukemia and other health problems, it was necessary for me to cease regular full-time employment, to avoid its inevitable pressures and demands, to lead a simpler and more focused life as we had learned to do during our long cruise on our boat the previous year. For her part, though she was a widely recognized leader in the USC academic community with a tenured position as associate professor of industrial engineering, Nancy had been at USC for seven years and she felt that she needed new opportunities and fresh challenges. But undoubtedly another significant motivational factor that influenced our decisions stemmed from our feelings for our boat. We had owned Summer School, our 34-foot single engine trawler, for almost three years, and in that brief time we had spent a total of more than a year living on it, cruising the east coast, the Florida Keys and the islands of the Bahamas. We had come to love our lives as they were centered around this boat and we were determined to move somewhere near coastal waters where boating on Summer School could occupy a regular part of our lives and not be merely something we did during our summer vacations.

    So we were delighted when Nancy was offered a position at Lafayette College, a small but prestigious ivy-league college in Easton, Pennsylvania, where we could find a new home for ourselves as well as a permanent mooring for our boat in nearby waters. It was an easy matter for us to decide to give up our joint six-figure income and the security of established positions in order to achieve the goals we had set in our lives. But the actual process of moving was a complicated and costly affair. We had to hire a moving company that would put our furniture in storage in Pueblo until we found a residence in Easton where it could be shipped. We had to get our two cars, sensitive computer equipment and other valuable possessions that we did not want to trust to the moving company, from Colorado to Pennsylvania. And, in the most involved part of this relocation procedure, we had to bring our boat, which we had left nine months previously at a marina in Marathon, which is deep in the Florida Keys only about forty miles from Key West, all the way up the east coast to somewhere on the Delaware River, the Delaware Bay, the Chesapeake Bay or perhaps the New Jersey coastal waters, where we hoped to find a marina that would become its permanent home. Had we known that our stay in Easton would be so short, not even a year, that Nancy would quit this position that she had so gladly found, that we would sell almost all of our possessions and move onboard Summer School as our only home and eventually cruise back south, we may well have done things differently. But I think in retrospect that the stay in Easton was a necessary interlude during which we developed the frame of mind that enabled us to make such drastic changes in our lives. And without a doubt that cruise we made up the coast in the summer of 1995 was pivotal in making those final decisions, because we learned more useful skills and valuable information, and because it greatly deepened our love for living and cruising on our boat.

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Serial Publication

1800 Days - The Legacy of Summer School

Before I begin on any comments or discussion I should probably say a few things about my book, Lessons from Summer School. This book tells of the beginnings. It relates how and why Nancy and I found each other and came to love life on a boat, and how we bought a trawler that we named Summer School. And it tells of our first great adventure on Summer School, taking it down the ICW for the first time all the way to the Florida Keys and out to the Bahamas during a sabattical. It also tells of how and why we found new jobs and relocated to Easton, PA (from Pueblo, CO), and how we then brought Summer School north on the ICW, through Chesapeake Bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal where we planned to rent a permanent slip. More about this book can be found at www.pairohermits.com/lessons.html.

Summer School

This is Summer School, our only home from 1996 to 2001. For two years we traveled up and down the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) between the Chesapeake (in the summers) and Florida (in the winters), but most of the time we were cruising on the waterway. In late 1998 we settled into a marina in Madeira Beach, FL, because we had run our of money and we needed jobs, which we found. In 1999 we got seriously sick: my leukemia came out of remission, I needed chemotherapy, and I was hospitalized with acute pneumonia, while my wife, Nancy, was diagnosed with cancer and had to have surgery and also chemotherapy. We survived. In 2000 we knew we would have to leave the boat. So we took our last cruise, our Millenium Cruise, one more time up the ICW to North Carolina, then on to the Chesapeake and the Potomac in the fall. By winter we were back in NC where we sold Summer School in Jan. 2001 and moved to the mountains and a land home in WV. 1800 Days is the story of this part of our lives.

I have previously published a book, Lessons from Summer School. I am now writing a continuation, in a sense, with a working title, 1800 Days - The Legacy of Summer School. And I am writing this story from our current home on top of Muddy Creek Mountain in West Virginia. But we used to live on Summer School, a boat, our 34 foot trawler that was the center of our lives. So now I look out over our mountains while I read past journals and examine old photos, and try to remember and describe what it was like then.