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