Our annual 1,400 nautical mile trip from Deep River, CT to Fort Pierce, FL went fairly smoothly.  One minor, but annoying issue can be, well … other boaters.  Some years we’ve unfortunately been caught in heavy packs of boats (especially at opening bridges with our prior sailing catamaran).  Tempers flare, people are rude on the VHF radio, boats yell at other boats who “cut in line”, give lectures on “proper seamanship”, sailboats yell at powerboats who (in their mind) didn’t give them a “slow pass” & then the Coast Guard yells to those boats that “Channel 16 is the calling & International Distress Frequency – move your idle & passing traffic to another channel as channel 16 is blah, blah, blah”.  Not very relaxing…

This year started with a “oh, here we go again” moment between 2 trawlers while we were anchored at Atlantic Highland, NJ awaiting a window to head offshore down the NJ coast.  While resting up we heard repeated, loud 5 short air horn blasts – the danger signal when collision is imminent or there is a serious concern for another boats intentions.  Needless to say, we bolted up to see what maritime disaster was about to unfold.  Oh, just one of the two trawlers traveling thru the anchorage at idle speed apparently didn’t like that the other was heading towards “his” spot to anchor!

Fortunately, this did not foretell our trip.  In fact, it was the easiest & most peaceful trip south yet!!  Due to us being a little early, we got ahead of the crowds, while bad weather behind us delayed others.  There were many days of only a few passings making a much, much more enjoyable & stress free trip.  Lots of time to enjoy the scenery! 

But you can never relax too much – though I suppose the machine guns on the escort boats would have gotten our attention.  Yes, we were that close as we realized a minute later when the sub’s monster wake reached us & a few things crashed about our cabin.  I considered yelling at them on the VHF radio, as some sailboats do, for not giving us a “slow pass”, but I thought better of it…

To keep life interesting, every year there is a hurricane or tropical storm close enough to get our attention.  This year it was Hurricane Michael passing inshore of our Moorehead City, NC location, so no serious concerns for us, but we did head to a very secure marina, Moorehead City Yacht Basin.  At first I was a little perturbed that the dockmaster put us in an odd, far-in slip against the bulkhead.  In the end, we were thankful, tucked in nice & comfy with the wind right off the bulkhead behind us.  You can’t tell from the photo, but the wind further out in the marina was gusting up to 52 knots with occasional sheets of water flying across.  Just to be on the safe side, we took all normal precautions, doubling up lines, taking down our canvas top, etc.  which ended up being unnecessary, but we didn’t mind!

We arrived at the Fort Pierce City Marina a day early for our 2 month reservation.  Originally we were planning on having new cushions & a full canvas enclosure made for our flybridge.  We “chickened out” on the enclosure, but went ahead with the new cushions which are a huge improvement over our 12-year old original ones.

Hey! Who stuck in this donut picture!

It was great that Benj could fly down for a few days!

It was bad that the Fort Pierce City Marina was performing major dredging during our time there – I’m not sure my hearing will ever be the same (the dredge spent days right next to us).  Not very restful either – the dredging took a break for the holidays, but the construction equipment on the nearby spoil islands worked (& beeped) 7-days-a-week, including Christmas Day!

Lots of various maintenance projects & lots of stocking up for the Bahamas in January!  Can’t wait to get the hell out of there!

How we spent our summer vacation

For 6 weeks, we joined 12 other PDQ catamarans on a flotilla to Maine called the Lobsta Crawl.

Dick, Carol & Beth of Rhumbline Yacht Sales (the original factory dealers & now the used broker for PDQ’s) annually plan & lead a flotilla of PDQ catamarans to a variety of exciting places which have included the Exumas, Georgian Bay in Canada, even to the Baltic (yes, Finland to Sweden – although the PDQ’s were transported across the Atlantic by ship).  This year: The coast of Maine, on the hunt for lobster.

We had already planned to be in Connecticut so we were fairly close, but many of the PDQ’s came north from Florida just to participate.  Most of us were in 34′ PDQ powercats, but also one 41′ PDQ powercat & one 44′ PDQ sailing cat.

The kick-off at Block Island

Not being big follow-the-leader travelers or buddy-boaters, we weren’t sure what to expect, but they were a great bunch of people & we had a fantastic time!  The schedule was loose with only 8 or so organized/scheduled stops/group dinners, leaving lots of days to explore an area longer, go off on our own or to add our own stops.

We even made the local paper in Newburyport, MA

The flotilla gathered at Block Island for the big kickoff, then headed north making about a dozen stops thru Massachusetts, New Hampshire & onward to Maine.  Our original northernmost stop was to be Northeast Harbor, but fellow PDQ owners invited us further north to their private John White Island.  Although only a few of us made the further excursion (the foggiest of the entire trip), we were rewarded by a fantastic time with Jack and Diane, our hosts & builders of this amazing rustic island house mostly built themselves including bringing the building materials in by boat.

Maine is a magical cruising ground with its breathtaking scenery & endless harbors, each with an unique draw.  Nevertheless it can be challenging with fog, up to 10′ tides & several million lobster pots.  In some areas they are so thick you can’t imagine fitting thru, especially when they completely fill up a channel.  To top it off, when in an area of strong current, they get pulled mostly & sometimes completely underwater!

One of our unplanned stops ended up being our favorite.  Benj & Lily decided to visit for a weekend.  Even though Vermont seems like it should be a short drive, it’s not, so we searched Google Maps versus our charts to find them the shortest drive near the area of Maine we would be in.  We checked out a place called Belfast – a nice little town with a town dock…  Not only did they have room for us, they were holding a large Celtic Festival right on the waterfront with a large fireworks display 200 yards off the docks.  In addition to the festival,  they hold the largest indoor farmers market with a enormous variety which impressed even our Vermonters.  Uptown we found the best French bakery ever!

Did we enjoy any lobsters?  You  bet!  Over 14 different ways.  Even found donuts!  For a little slideshow of our trip, click here:  Lobsta Crawl video

Once time to head back south, we all split up, having different plans & destinations.  Ours was back to Deep River, CT for boat work, birthday celebrations & resting up before we head further south of the winter.