Our travels to United Kingdom

We attempted to fly out of Charlotte at 2030 hrs (8:30pm) Monday. Due to normal travel issues, we never took off until 0015 hr (12:15AM) Tuesday. After an exhausting 8 hour flight we landed at Heathrow airport in London at 1245 (12:45pm, 7:45 EST). Once we made our way through the airport and went to find our rental car, which was not there. We then had to take a taxi to the car rental place, since they did not have a car waiting for us. The car rental then chared us for additional insurance and a high rate then originally quoted and they wanted a deposit, for a payment we made in advance. This added an additional $500 to our car rental bill. So we finally got out of London around 1400 and made our way to Evesham, where our daughter Kristina lives. We got settled in our hotel around 1700. Getting us to Kristina’s around 1740, leaving us about 2 hours to meet and play with our grandson Fynn. Fynn is autistic so being introduced to him was a challenge. He reconized me but was afraid of Kevin, which is normal. Once I pulled out two little stuffed dinosaurs, it seem to settle him and he went back to play.

We spent about three hours with family and then went back to our hotel for a good night sleep.

Life changes and Journeys continue

I know it’s been several years since posting. Kevin and I have had many changes since 2019. Due to difficulties I was having with maneuvering on board a sailboat. It was time to say goodbye to Serena Rose. This was one of the hardest decision we have had to make. Serena Rose was our home for almost 17 years. We ventured up the coast of Florida to Jacksonville and spent a year living inland. There were some definite periods of adjusting to land but we have adjusted. Once we heard our daughter was finally pregnant, after sereval tries. Kevin and I felt it was time to be closer to our children and grandchildren. In 2021 we headed for NC and have settled here for the long haul. It was hard moving away from all our friends we have know for almost 40 years, but this was a good move. In the past three years, we have made many new friends and have new stories to tell you all.

Our daughter had a handsome little boy name Fynn. He is a special gift to her, James, Kevin and myself. I was fortunate to be with her in England for his birth. David, our oldest has been busy as usual, but we have enjoyed spending more time getting to know our other two grandsons, Alex and Cole. They have been growing so fast and I feel like they will be gone in a flash

As we all had our own struggles with dealing thru Covid, as did everyone else. Plans for the future have changed, as with others. We are glad to say this year we will hopefully start traveling. Our first trip will be a journey across the pond to see Kristina and her family. Kevin has not meet his new grandson and is very excited about seeing him and Kristina.

I hope you will all be able to follow our adventures as they begin this fall.

Time heals all wounds.

We have been home in Fort Pierce for a little over a week and things are starting to fall into place.  Our friend Tom came down from Cocoa to help Kevin pull out the old and install the new hot water heater on Saturday. Boy do we have hot water now.  The new heater is better than the old one. Maybe it's a good thing that some time bad thing happen. The new Electra San was installed Thursday with a new control panel.  This also works better then the old one. The only thing that had Kevin stumped was the engine problem, but this to has been resolved. He first replaced the Racor filter and that wasn’t it, then he started looking around and noticed a little tiny stream of fuel coming off one of the fuel lines going from the Racor to the secondary fuel filter. Once the line was replaced, the engine started and she is all good.  The exhaust in the engine room was from a crack in the exhaust hose which has also been replaced. You could say that Serena Rose has gotten a makeover. Let’s see have I forgotten anything, oh yes the micro convection oven. It now has a new micro switch for the door. Now that we have had a few days of relaxation, I can say that Serena Rose and her crew are ready for their next adventure.

The End of our Adventure

The Close of another adventure

This was a wonderful season spent in the Bahamas.  As Captain Ron says, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen out there.  Well it has happen out there. We have always thought that Serena Rose as her own spirit, and I think she showed us that on our way home.  

Once Kevin and I decided to return back to the states a little earlier than planned, things started to happen.  Monday, April 8th, we had been watching the weather for several days and decided today would be a great time to start back.  This decision was made over breakfast. About an hour later, I was doing dishes and Kevin was up on deck. I notice the fresh water pump was going off about every three minutes and yelled on deck to see if Kevin was using any water.  He was just far enough away that I didn’t understand what he was saying. He said no to the water usage, so I looked around on the boat to see if maybe a faucet was left on. Nothing was on so I turned off the water pump. Kevin then yelled for me to turn the pump off, I stated it was off and he then yelled at me again to turn it off.  So I thought he was saying to turn it on. I did as I was told and listen to the pump going on and off for about twenty minutes and then thought this is nuts and turned it back off, just as Kevin was coming down stairs. So yes I got yelled at again. He went to look in the engine room and could see we had a crack on the top portion of the hot water heater.  So after fiddling with it for about an hour he finally disconnected the water line to the tank and made a continual loop, so we could use the water and not have it running out of the tank. Later that day we started our journey home and sailed to Crab Cay at Fishers point.

The following morning we had a wonderful sail to Little Sail Cay Rock, by mid afternoon the winds were 25 knots and gusting higher out of the SW, so we anchored at Little Sail Cay.  Once again we checked the weather and decided to head out in the morning for the edge of the bank. It looks like our weather window is shifting and we need to cross on Thursday and not Friday.  So once again Serena Rose protest and our micro convection oven just stopped and about five minutes later the Electra San stopped flushing ( this is the pump that flushes our head). I said to Kevin that Serena Rose is mad we are leaving early and luckily things usually happen in threes, so we should be good the rest of the trip.  Boy was I wrong.

Wednesday morning we head out to White Sand Ridge on the outer bank of the Bahamas.  The winds are 25 knots out of the west and were are motoring straight into it. The weather shows it should settle down this evening to about 7 knots and the seas should also go from 5 foot, down to 1-2 foot.  We will anchor on the bank for the evening and leave early in the morning to cross to Florida. We anchored about 8 mile from the edge of the bank around 5pm and had dinner. The seas and wind never did settle and about 1:30 in the morning after neither of us had been able to sleep, we pulled anchor.

Thursday morning around 5:30 just before sun rise and 48 miles from the coast of Florida, the engine starts losing power and then dies.  I had just come off watch and jumped out of bed and went up to the pilot house. The only sail we had up was the stay sail and the winds were 10 knots out of the west with 4-5 foot seas.  Kevin thought it was maybe the fuel was to low in the tank, so he tried switching tanks and then pulling fuel from one tank to another, that maybe the fuel line was cracked and air was getting in.  Well none of these worked and the best we could do was to get the engine started and at full throttle we were lucky to get 4 kts out of her. We raised all the sails and I was able to hold a course for home, sailing at maybe 3 knots as long as the winds hold.  We would keep starting the engine and it would run for about 10 minutes at a time. Then we started to get a lot of blowback from the exhaust into the pilot house and the main cabin. Once we arrived home, we found it was not blow back, but the exhaust hose had cracked and the exhaust was blowing in the engine room.  It was not safe to be in the cabin so we both stated top side. After many hours of doing this we were finally in range to be heard on the radio calling Tow Boat for assistance. We were heard first by Port St. Lucie and they relayed a message to Ft. Pierce. This was around 12:30 in the afternoon and 25 miles off the coast off Florida.  The Ft. Pierce Tow Boat reached us at 18 miles off shore and started the tow. Once we reached US waters at 12 mile off shore, the Coast Guard decided to board us, while under tow, to do a safety inspection. This I’m sure was bull. They stated that all vessels coming from the Bahamas are being stopped. So once we passed the inspection and they searched the boat, we continued on our way.  We finally made it into our slip at 4:30pm with a little help from our friends and neighbors in the marina. So this ends our adventure for this year. We are now ordering new parts and fixing everything that has broke. The Engine is still an issue, but this will also be resolved. Farewell for now and happy sailing my friends.

Nearing the End

April 6th, 2019 Saturday.

It has been quit awhile since our last update.  A lot has been happening since leaving Donny’s Marina in Black Sound, Green Turtle Cay.  The majority of our time has been right here in our little spot of heaven at Man Jack Cay.  There are several boaters that spend most of the season here. We are also friends with several of the land owners.  The walking art trail has grown so much this year. Anyone who finds dabrae that has washed up on shore or left behind by people that don’t care. They made great pieces of art and then displayed all along the trail.  This trail is at the SE end of the beach where all the little boats and the pizza oven is. Yes our little beach has a pizza oven, complements of Gille and Reggie for building it. The other trail on this island is up the hill to the NE end of the beach and it will lead you out to the beach on the Atlantic side.  We finally tried our luck at snorkeling for lobster (the last day of the season). Kevin found one but the hole was to deep and he was not able to coxs it out. We did have lobster many times this season. We would snorkel with someone who would get a bunch and share, or someone would just hand us a few tails. You never go hungry out here.  Our broker came for a visit at the later part of March, which was nice. We made only one trip through the Whale Cay passage to visit with the broker and spend a few days in Guana. Kevin got nippered and grabbed in one day and didn’t do much the next. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about. Nippers and Grabbers are two bars on Guana Cay.  If you buy one of their tumbles you get their frozen drinks free for the first fill up and then at a discount after that. Well lets just say he visited both places in one day and was feeling no pain, until the next. While at Nippers there were probably 100 young spring breakers and lost of bikinis. More skin then bikini, the Captain made sure none of them got hurt.  He kept a watch full eye on all of them. It was funny, I hadn’t seen him smiling that much in a long time. Our time here is all most done and we will be heading home soon. It’s always hard to make that decision to leave. We have met some many people, made some long lasting friends, and eaten a ton of great island food. It’s heart breaking to leave, but we know we will be back again.  For now fair winds and happy sailing my friends.

Time to move on

Well it’s Almost time to move on. It has been two months here on Green Turtle Cay. Life definitely moves at a different pace here in the Bahamas. With all the holiday festivities going on this past month, we have met a lot of nice people, both locals and cruisers.  The nice thing about this little peace of paradise, is it’s not commercialized and their celebrations are from the heart and not the wallet. We have been to the settlement lighting ceremony, the tree lighting ceremony, a Christmas golf cart parade, Christmas Eve cruisers brunch at the Green Turtle Club, Christmas Day potluck, drum marches through the whole settlement every morning at 5:00 am the week before Christmas, New Year’s Eve pot luck, New Year’s Day Junkanoo parade and street party, with wonderful fireworks in the evening. Then after the New Year’s and holiday celebrations are all over with and this little island goes back to its daily routines. You have a moment to breath the fresh air, look around and see all the beauty the Mother Nature has to offer.  I have not passed by one person, with out them smiling, saying hello and offering help weather it’s for a ride up the hill our holding you painter line while getting in the dinghy to just holding the door open or loading you groceries into you golf cart. You feel welcome here as if you are part of their family. It is alway hard to say good bye to Green Turtle Cay, but we now that we will be passing this way again as we make our way home in a few month from now.

Our next adventure will be hanging out in ManJack and some of the close by island until mid February. At that time we will be renewing our visa for another 90 days and then we will start making our way to the Eleuthera islands.  Until next time, fair wind and safe journeys my friends.

Bahamas Crossing November 2018

11/20/18, Our Crossing was one of the nicest yet. 2-3’ seas and winds NE 10-15  We made it on the bank in 10 hours. Once on the bank for about an hour I notice lightning of in the distance. Kevin stated no worries it just heat lightning, because nothing is showing on the radar. He kept repeating that until one of them let out a big boom about 40 minutes later. Then he check the radar and yup, here comes this massive storm developing and moving rather quickly 10 miles away. I finally got him to at least take down the main, and we continued on. It was all talk at not much action when it passed over us, with lighting and rain, but no change in wind speed.  So once it passed we anchored for the night, around 2230 (1030 pm).
11/21/18 0630, we have pulled anchor and now heading to Crab Cay.  At this speed we will make Green Turtle by Thursday.
11/22/18 We have anchored off the settlement at Green Turtle at noon, then cleared customs and of course went to Ms Emily’s Blue Bee Bar and had a gumbay smash
Friday morning, at 6am,  we rode out a squall with 30+ wind gust.  The anchor held great and no dragging. So at 8am we got a call that our slip is ready so by 1030 we were all tied up at Donny’s Marine for the next two months.  The sun is shining and we are safely in the Bahamas, all is good. Safe journeys and fair winds my friends. Until next time, Serena Rose signing off.