Life Aboard: Winter 2013 thru Spring 2014

Cold Weather 2013-2014

It's been a long time since I made a post. And it's COLD here!

We have met a lot of friends, both old and new. As I mentioned before, George and Pam came down for a short visit. We always enjoy being with them.

George checking out the daybeds!

Our friends from Sea Hunt IV stopped by the marina and stayed a few days on their trip south. We met them in Marathon in spring 2013. They have had so many new adventures and we enjoyed hearing about them. Shay helped Andre with a few projects and Lisa prepared us another great meal! We all went to Cox, so they could get a sample of "southern home cooking". We went on Friday, so we could enjoy the fried chicken. Yum! We hope to see them again in our travels.

We went back to Mount Airy for Thanksgiving and had a great visit. I spent most of it with daddy and of course, that was great. We had our Thanksgiving meal on Wednesday and had a feast. Chicken, my delicious homemade dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, green peas, mac and cheese and lots of great desserts. We were all stuffed!

We had ate another big meal with Shay's family the next day! Again, another feast of turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, chicken ring, and again lots of great desserts. Again, we were stuffed! We decided, visiting Mount Airy was "fattening us up"!

Back to the boat to get things ready for cold weather. Can you say "winterize"? It's a whole different way for us to think. The past 2 years, we went south for the cold weather. Not this year, which brings us a different "to-do list". We have to do things to keep stuff from freezing, like water pipes and us! Shay has drained some of the outside lines that we won't be using, like the outside shower!

Shay researched dehumidifiers. We need to keep things dry inside the boat. We ordered one and it does the job. No more water dripping off the windows.

We had a great time back in Mount Airy for Christmas. I spent several days with daddy and had a good time. We always enjoy being together. We had our family Christmas with everybody at Daddy's on Christmas Eve. We had a feast! A delicious honey ham, peas, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and German chocolate cake-one of daddy's favorites. We had a great time visiting, eating and exchanging presents.

Daddy and us!

Pappa and all his grandkids!

Shay's family all got together on Christmas Day. It's been a long time since we've all been together for Christmas, since Zac lived in Florida and didn't get to come back for Christmas. We had a good time being together. Shay's mother, Jean, surprised all the grandkids with a great big present. She gave them a big check. We'll keep the amount a secret, but it brought big smiles to the grandkids!

Lauren adding her ornament to the tree.

Lauren made our Christmas breakfast. Yummy!

Lauren and her gifts. She was a very smart shopper this year and found lots of things on clearance!

This big smile was for the GENEROUS gift from mamaw.

"The kids"

I enjoyed being with Lauren during the holiday. We went shopping, that's always fun.

Shay and I came back to the boat to get ready for our big trip to the Virgin Islands! We are flying down to visit Margaret and Ken on Rocking B. W had a great time in a beautiful place. We had been to the Virgin Islands years ago, but things are different when you are traveling by boat. We visited both the BVI and US VI. We went snorkeling and had a great time. We spent a little over a week there and wished we stayed longer. Margaret and Ken treated us like royalty--showing us beautiful beaches, taking us to expensive resorts, and feeding us great food!

View from one of the resorts we visited. We ate lunch here.

Margaret and Ken, our wonderful hosts!

This is the produce in an upscale grocery in BVI. They don't usually have this much!

Chess on the beach

The view from our chairs.

Captain Ken and his trusty first mate, Biscuit.

When we went to St John years ago, we stayed in a cabin like this. In fact, this may be the cabin we stayed in.

Beautiful view from the restaurant

Back home to the real world- cold, ice, and snow. Have I mentioned we don't like the cold weather? We had 3" of sleet covered with snow. This was the coldest winter on the east coast in a long time. Of course, we picked this winter to stay in NC on the boat. Shay says he won't spend another winter in NC on the boat.

Icicles hanging on my boat!

Later, after the ice melted, we took the boat out to the inlet just to run the engines. The water was so calm. I asked Shay why can't it always be this calm?

We took a trip to Florida to visit friends and go to a DeFever rendezvous. We spent several days with Richard and Connie younger at there home in Vero Beach. We had a great time catching up with them and really appreciate their hospitality. They have a beautiful home and made us feel very welcome.

We also got to see David and Emma from Five Flip Flops or FFF again. They are the couple we traveled with on our trip to the Bahamas last spring. We really missed seeing them and had a great time catching up on their adventures. Since we left them last May they have been to Thailand, mountain climbing in India, sledding near the North Pole, and seeing monkeys in the jungle! Wow! they make me tired just listening to their plans! They will be leaving soon for the Bahamas again. Have Fun!

The rendezvous was on Captiva Island on the west coast of Florida. We had a great time there. It is a beautiful area. We stayed with Don and Barbara on Carava. They spent a year working on their boat in a boatyard and it looks great. They have done a fantastic job and they should be very proud of the results! Thanks so much for allowing us to stay with you and making us feel so welcome.

We met lots of new friends at the rendezvous. Shay met a lot of people that he had talked to on phone, or emailed or read their posts on boating forums. It was great to see them in person. Of course, it didn't take long for most of the guys to realize they wanted to talk to Shay to hear all his great ideas. They wanted to talk solar and batteries and alternators, and other boating things. I realized again how fortunate I am that he is as smart as he is. If he couldn't do all he does, we could not do the boating thing. We could not afford to pay someone for his knowledge and expertize.

We have continued to have more cold, icy, sleety, crappy weather here. It's the end of March now and we are all hoping the bad weather is behind us.

We've had several trips back to visit family and friends. We have visited Lauren several times. We took her out for her birthday earlier this month. She is finishing up her student teaching and leaving for a trip to Belize. She will be doing more student teaching here for 6 weeks then back here to graduate. Yeah!

Lauren is having a great time in Belize! She has been scuba diving several times. Saw lots of fish, sharks, and rays! She has been exploring caves--underwater and on dry land! She has explored by boat, golf cart, bus and on foot. I will be glad when she gets back to the USA, not sure if she will be glad or sad!

...sitting on the dock in the bay...

I had surgery on my knee so we spent 2 weeks in Mount Airy. We enjoyed having lots of time to visit with family and friends. we spent time with daddy and Jean and of course ate at our favorite place with some of our favorite people!

I talked Shay into staying thru Easter and we enjoyed the beautiful sunrise service. We helped Jean with Easter lunch and got to see lots of family. Zac, Sabrina, Ary, Phil, Diana and Jason were there and we enjoyed seeing them again.

Back to the boat to work on projects. Shay has been helping a friend with an upcoming solar panel installation and he has been busy online researching for that. We have stuff we need to work on and lots going on with Lauren when she gets back on May 4th. She will graduate the next week and has several things for us to attend. She has to move out of her apartment the next day, so she has lots going on too.

I'm sitting on the boat listening to the trains coming into the port. That means its getting warm enough for us to open the windows! That means maybe spring is finally here and we won't have anymore cold weather! Yeah! We are ready for spring! But I'm sure it won't be long till we are complaining about the hot weather. We're never satisfied for long!

We had a very busy weekend with Lauren! We went down Thursday afternoon to help her start packing and then we went to a presentation about her Belize trip. We had a great time eating tropical food, Lauren made coconut rice. All the kids and professors brought food. Then we saw videos the students had made about their trip. Some were about students they had and others we about people they met on their travels.

Lauren's was about the differences in she was in teaching in the US and Belize. Her students in Belize were not used to being called on by the teacher, they just started talking. She said sometimes 10 students were calling "Miss Lauren" at the same time and she had no idea which one to call on first.
We enjoyed learning more about her experiences.

The next morning we had 2 celebration ceremonies. Lauren graduated with degrees in several departments and each had a ceremony. We had a good time meeting other students she had been with for the past years. We packed up more boxes and moved things to Lauren's temporary residence.

Travis and Sarah came down Friday night and we all went out to eat. We had a great time at Dockside, one of our favorite restaurants in Wilmington.

Saturday morning, Lauren and I went to the beach for some sunrise pictures in her cap and gown. Then the big ceremony. GRADUATION! It was a very emotional time and I'm proud of myself. I did not cry. I may have been too tired from all the packing, carrying and moving we had done!

We did lots of pictures on the campus then back to the dorm to finish moving. Shay said we couldn't eat dinner that night until we had everything moved! We may never eat again! The three of us changed clothes and got to work.

It is amazing how much stuff a college student accumulates in 5 years. We tried to be organized, but at the end we were just grabbing stuff and cramming it in bags and boxes. Travis and Sarah came to help us and with 5 workers we really got things moving. Lauren and I did a happy dance when we got everything out of her bedroom except the bedding that she was going to use that night. She was going to spend one last night on campus.

We had reservations at Romano's Macaroni Grill for 8 pm and we just barely made it. The 5 of us met Kenzie, John, and Maggie. We had a good time-- eating too much, laughing about stuff, and reminiscing.

The next morning we went back to the dorm to move the last of the stuff out. We thought we just had to get stuff out of the room but found out it had to be out of the building so we hurried to get the last of the stuff to the car. Lucky for us, I remembered the refrigerator just in time and found enough bags to cram it in. They inspected her room and everything looked ok so no fines and we were out of there! We loaded up Lauren's car and took her out to breakfast. We volunteered to help her unload the car one last time but she said she was going to take a nap and then finish. So we said good-bye and headed back to Morehead.

Lauren had to add her own special touch to her cap!

Our two graduates!

Bird poses with the bird.

Doesn't she look happy!

Back to the boat for more maintenance. Shay and another guy worked on our teak. Shay says next time we will do it ourselves. He says there's no magic. Just take care of it before it gets too bad. It looks lots better.