Blog post #29 – October, 2025:
Sailing The English Channel / La Manche
At anchor in The Helford River, Cornwall
After some fast-paced Scandinavian sailing in early summer, we decided to relax the pace for the second half of the season. French food, sun, and beaches lured us south to Brittany where we fell into a leisurely gear.
Detail on the August/September 2025 portion of our track thru the Channel Islands, Brittany, Cornwall, and Devon.
The French refer to the waters between England and France as La Manche, which translates to The Sleeve. The English call these same waters The English Channel. When sailing there, it often felt like 1066 was just last week. Castles and forts are everywhere and there’s no shortage of old cannons still pointed at the other side. Maybe over on Omaha Beach in Normandy the WWII history would be more front and center, but in the towns we visited in Brittany, the banter on the docks was about William the Conquerer and Harold-with-an-eye-full-of-arrow-on-his-horse-with-his-hawk-in-his-hand.
Blog post #28 – August, 2025:
Sailing Thru A Scandinavian Summer
Tranquil bliss on the Göta Kanal in Sweden.
An abundance of islands, anchorages, and boats.
The voyage from the south coast of England up to Sweden and back is a long one, 2511.2 nautical miles as it worked out. Our strict visa limitations and the short Scandinavian summer demanded that we cover those miles quickly. The idea of rushing was off-putting, but everything else about this trip appealed, and we were willing to push the pace a bit to pull it off. The idyllic scenery, the rich nautical heritage, the Northern European canals, and the great cities of Amsterdam, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Copenhagen all called to us and we went.
Our summer 2025 track. The white dots are places where we stopped for a night or sometimes longer.
Blog post #27 – June, 2025:
Year Three: A Review
Mid-Atlantic and moving east into the rising sun.
The third year of our voyage is complete!
June 2, 2024: Location at start of year #3: Bermuda.
Summer ’24: West to east across the Atlantic Ocean from Bermuda to the South of England via The Azores.
Fall and Winter ’24/’25: Travel off the boat–primarily in Sri Lanka.
Spring ’25: Re-launched the boat in Lymington, England. Sailed off north and east towards a Scandinavian Summer.
June 2, 2025: Location at end of year #3 of our voyage: Giselau, Kiel Canal, Germany.
The white dots are the breadcrumbs from our total voyage. The stretch from The Bahamas to Germany was the year-3 portion.
Blog post #26 – August, 2024:
Our West to East Atlantic Ocean Crossing
Sailing into the sunrise
Atlantic Crossing Totals:
Man-O-War Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
To
Scilly Islands, UK
With extended stops in Bermuda and The Azores.
Departure: May 26, 2024
Arrival: August 9, 2024
Miles logged: 3747
Hours underway: 658.5 (27.4 days)
Sailing: 95.2%
Motoring or motor sailing: 4.8%
Best noon to noon 24-hour run: 168.6NM (7.0 knots average speed)
Slowest noon to noon 24-hour run: 56.5NM (2.4 knots average speed)
(Above statistics do not include 295.6 nautical miles of inter-island sailing in the Azores that cumulatively brought us 99 nautical miles closer to England.)
Leg 1:
Man-O-War, Abacos, Bahamas
to
St. George’s, Bermuda
May 26, 2024 – May 31, 2024
(Route above is for illustrative purposes. Weather data is out of date.)
Abacos to Bermuda stats:
Mileage logged: 758 NM
Engine hours: 0.8 hours
Sailing hours: 123 hours (5.1 days)
Average speed: 6.1 knots
Blog post #25 – June 2024:
Year Two: A Review
Sundance in Newfoundland
The Sophomore year of our voyage is complete!
June 2, 2023, start of year #2: Portland, ME.
Summer ’23: Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, St. Pierre & Miquelon (France), Magdelen Islands, Quebec.
Fall ’23: South via Boston, NYC, The Chesapeake Bay, and the ICW to Florida.
Winter ’23/’24: Cruising the Bahamas for a second season. (With a side trip to Cuba.)
Spring ’24: Sail to Bermuda to start our Atlantic crossing to Europe.
June 2, 2024, end of year #2 of our voyage: Bermuda.
Headlines:
We lost a crew member this year. Bill The Dog. March 17, 2011 – June 18, 2023. He will be missed. Rest in peace. Chris wrote a eulogy for Bill in Points East Magazine. Read it here: A Eulogy for Bill
Bill RIP
Blog post #24 – May 2024:
Preparing to Cross the Atlantic Ocean under sail
After two years sailing the East Coast of North America, we’re heading across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe this summer. Our route will take us from The Bahamas to the south of England via Bermuda and The Azores. We sail off this Sunday the 26th.
Q & A
Q: How many sailors are aboard for this trip?
A: Two, Chris & Alex.
Q: How long will this trip take you?
A: Let’s look at the three legs independently:
Leg #1: Bahamas to Bermuda: About 750NM, about 8 days sailing give or take a lot.
Leg #2: Bermuda to Flores, The Azores: About 1700NM, about 17 days give or take a lot.
Leg # 3: Horta, The Azores to Falmouth, England: About 1200NM, about 12 days give or take.
(Starting to see how the math works here? 4 knots of average speed = 96 miles in 24 hours. Sailing across the ocean at walking speed – yup.)
In total, about 30 – 40 days of sailing. Plus we plan to stay in both Bermuda and The Azores for a while to rest, re-provision, make any needed repairs, be tourists, and wait for a good weather window for the next leg. While in The Azores, we hope to visit several islands and fill in the break in the above schedule between Flores and Horta. Two months total for the crossing sounds about right.
Q: Will we be able to keep track of your progress from shore?
A: Yes. We will post log updates on our online boat tracker page every 12 hours at 00:00 and 12:00 UTC. That page will also show where we are geographically in real time and show the weather conditions we’re experiencing.
https://eaglesevensailing.com/where-in-the-world-is-sundance/
Our track will probably not be a straight line from where we start and where we’re headed. Instead, we are likely to zig and zag this way and that in an effort to find the most favorable wind (and favorable wind angles) for sailing. It’s also entirely possible that we will stop altogether out there because we have too much wind, or not enough wind, or we need to fix something, or we’ve decided to pause and let weather ahead of us move thru. Bottom line: If our tracker shows an odd course or no movement at all, this should not be cause for alarm.
Q: Will you be able to get weather forecasts while out in the ocean
A: Yes. We will be able to look at weather reports using both the Starlink and the Iridium Go! satellite systems. We are also working with a human weather router onshore who will email us updated forecasts and routing suggestions on a regular schedule. If both satellite systems remain in good working order we will occasionally be able to check other email and have a cursory look at other corners of the internet as needed–like Red Sox scores–but our data allotment is limited out there at sea and weather details will be our priority.
Blog post #23 – April 2024:
A Second Winter In THE BAHAMAS
Drinking with law enforcement and other adventures
We were so blown away by our time in the Bahamas last year, we had to sail back for a second season. Much to our surprise, we returned to an entirely different place. The reason? El Niño.
2022 – 2023 La Niña Winter in the Bahamas = Hot, gentle breezes, dry, buggy at night.
2023 – 2024 El Niño Winter in the Bahamas = Cool, windy, wet, and no bugs.
We’ve never seen a place so dramatically affected by this cyclical weather event. The wind has been good for sailing this year, and it’s nice to live virtually bug-free, but sometimes we miss the heat! It hasn’t been cold of course, more like 70’s by day on average instead of 80’s with cooler seawater temps to match. Not a disaster by any stretch but it sure has been a notable change. Even the first half of April down here has been noticeably cooler than any month from last winter.
As always, it’s warmer in the south. The 3000+ Bahamian islands, cays, and islets stretch out over nearly 400 miles of ocean south and east of Florida. This is similar to the distance from Montreal to Washington DC. In both places the temps warm dramatically when you move from the northern end to the southern end of the span.
Blog post #22 – December 2023:
Night On Our 36′ Sailboat
People often ask us about sleep. When do we sleep? Where do we sleep? And even: Do we sleep on the boat? The answer is yes we do. And have done for the past 19 months. It’s the best of times and it’s the worst of times. One thing is constant: nighttime’s approach usually delivers a magnificant vista.
When we sail the boat thru the night, our sleep pattern takes on a whole new rhythm.
If we’re underway for more than 24 hours we take turns sleeping. Chris prefers a two hours on, two hours off schedule. Alex prefers a three hours on, three hours off watch rotation. It’s something we’re working on in the marriage, among other things.
Depending on the sea state, there is usually one optimum bunk to sleep in when we’re sailing at night. Most often, that bunk is amidships on the leeward side of the boat. Since one of us is always awake, we only need one good spot and we rotate there in a manner referred to as “hot-bunking.” The comfort and rest we get in that one optimum bunk all depends on the weather and the sea conditions. Sometimes it’s hard to sleep, but eventually we get caught up on our rest.
Blog post #21 – October 2023:
Sailing Newfoundland and the Magdalen Islands
When we last posted, we were enjoying the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland. Since then, the season has turned to fall and we have sailed the boat south retracing much of our northbound course.
First stop was a return to Newfoundland for a second pass along the south coast of this stunning island. (Which, incedentally, is the largest island in all of North America.)
By happy coincidence, we happened to return to Newfoundland during peak bakeapple berry season. This unique and prized berry can only be found on Newfoundland and Iceland. It’s a close cousin to the cloudberry and is excellent for jamming. So excellent, a cup of the prized berries commands an extraordinarily high price. Berry picking this time of year is so profitable that the local fisherman stop fishing and instead tie their boats to shoreside bushes and scamper up the hillsides hunting berries. That’s something you don’t often see in New Bedford!
The strangest part about this phenomena has to do with the spruce trees that occasionally dot the otherwise treeless hills. They look like regular sized trees and from afar you would think they might be 20 or 30 feet tall like a normal spruce. But instead, the Southern Newfoundland spruce trees are dwarfs standing only 4 feet tall. The illusion of scale doesn’t matter much until a human berry picker walks amongst the dwarf trees and appears to be a giant. That’s what we’ll remember about bakeapple berries, giant fisherman scouring the hillsides on the hunt for prized little berries.
We love Newfoundland. (Pronounced: New-Fund-LAND. Remember it this way: UnderSTAND NewfoundLAND.)
From the rolling spongy, surprisingly dry and easy to walk on tundra:
Blog post #20 – August 2023:
Sailing St. Pierre & Miquelon – Vive la France!
The sail from Francois, Newfoundland to France was about 55 nautical miles. Actually, there are places on the Newfoundland coast that are even closer to France, say about 35 nautical miles.
Yes, you read that right.
Saint Pierre & Miquelon is a small French territory of 6,000 people located off the Canadian coast. After a spring and early summer of fog, damp, cold, loss, and sickness, we learned that sailing to France was the cure for what ailed us. Vive la France indeed!
The cruising guides told us that entry into the territory would be easy, warm and welcoming. They also suggested we make a dinner reservation?! Thanks to the Starlink, Alex was able to get on the phone and stumble through her high school French to get us set for dinner at Le Select. A few hours, many whales, dolphins and puffins later, we pulled into St. Pierre. The sun was out, the winds were fair and the crews from the handful of boats tied to the public wharf stood by to catch our lines. Once tied up it was only fifteen minutes or so before a pair of Customs agents walked down the dock to board Sundance. Filling out paperwork while learning about the best bakeries (Boulangerie des Graves) and restaurants (Les P’tits Graviers) was a definite change of pace. We alternated between bad French (Alex) and better English (the guards). We had changed time zones yet again and were now 2 hours ahead of New York. By the time the Customs agents had left and the Immigration officer had come to stamp our passports we felt fully changed, as though we had stepped out of time and place into something utterly new. …
Blog post #19 – July 2023:
Sailing Nova Scotia
The 45th parallel of latitude runs thru Nova Scotia just north of Halifax. That fact hit us as strange. Most people, ourselves included, think of Canada as resting pretty high on the globe. A northern place, home to lots of polar things like icebergs, poutine, ice fishing, down coats, polar bears, ice hockey, snowmobiles, Northern Territories, winter, and Santa. But the truth is Nova Scotia sits on the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole and is just as close to the palm trees of the south as it is to the ice of the north.
You wouldn’t have know it this past June tho, it felt like the North Pole when we arrived, and it stayed that way for weeks. Texas was hogging all the heat in June and Nova Scotia was an icebox. A persistent SE wind blew in cold and fog off the Grand Banks and Sundance felt over-air conditioned by the effect. People warned us to wait for August, or at least July, before going to Atlantic Canada, but we didn’t listen. Our ultimate destination was Newfoundland, and we figured to get there and back without feeling rushed, and before the snow fell in autumn, it would be smart to get an early start. In the end, that may have been a good call, but we paid for the early start with an abundance of cold, damp weather at the starting gate.
After a year of full-time cruising that was close to pure bliss, Nova Scotia is where we hit our first significant bump in the road. We left Maine in the aftermath of a death in the family and with a sick dog. Then in Lunenburg we had to put our beloved four-legged crew member, Bill, to sleep. That was a hard blow and one we still haven’t fully recovered from. My eulogy for Bill was published in Points East Magazine.
Read it here: A Eulogy for Bill the Dog
Then the blows kept coming. First a young friend died, then another young family member died, then Alex got sick. The dark weather matched our mood and sadly Nova Scotia for us will forever be associated with all this loss.
We mostly kept the camera turned off during the bleak weather and don’t have much evidence that it even occurred–you’ll just need to trust us on that. But the sunny photos that we did take remind us that it wasn’t all clouds, and we did indeed have joyous moments as we worked our way east along this coast.
Blog post #18 – June 2023:
Year One: A Review
The first year of our voyage is in the books!
Start: June 2, 2022: Boston, MA
Summer ’22: Revisiting our favorite New England anchorages from ME to RI
Fall ’22: South via NYC, The Chesapeake Bay, and the ICW to Florida
Winter ’22/’23: Three months of cruising the Bahamas
Spring ’23: A month of boat work in Brunswick, GA then back north to New England
End: June 2, 2023: Portland, ME
A few statistics from the past 12 months:
- Total Mileage: 5,901 NM
- Miles under sail: 1,671 (28% of total miles)
- Miles motoring(or motor-sailing): 4,230 (72% of total miles)
- Diesel fuel purchase: 606.7 gallons. (Similar to what a 25MPG car will burn in a typical 15,000 mile year.)
- Engine hours: 845.9. (Similar hours on a car would produce approximately 42,000 miles)
- Gal/hr. diesel burn rate when motoring: .72
- Total nights spent on anchor: 222
- Total nights spent at the dock or on a mooring: 143
- Days underway: 195 out of 365
- Average mileage on days underway: 30.3 NM
- Longest day’s run: April 10, Deltaville to Annapolis, 93.5 NM
- Countries: 2 (Bahamas & USA)
- US states: 14 (ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL)
- Laundromat / marina laundry room visits: 21 (Most expensive: Oak Bluffs, MA. Most fun: Jekyll Island, where the laundry was conveniently located next to the bar.)
- Side trips via rental car: 6 (Portsmouth NH, Solomons MD, Ft. Lauderdale FL, George Town, Exuma, Long Island (Bahamas), Morehead City, NC)
- Plane trips: 0
Cuba (almost) to Canada (almost) at walking speed
Blog Post #17: March, 2023:
The Bahamas, A Review
Our time in the Bahamas has come to an end. It was one hell of a cruise. Tears flowed when we headed west into the Gulf Stream towards Florida leaving the beautiful waters, islands, and people of The Bahamas in our wake.
Our route took us from Key Biscayne, FL to Bimini, to Chub Cay in the Berry Islands, to Rose Island off of Nassau, down to the Exumas with a stop in George Town for a full month. Then on to Long Island, The Jumento Cays and Ragged Islands, back to Long Island, up to Cat Island, up further to Eleuthera, west to The Berry Islands again, further west to Grand Bahama, and the ultimately back across to the Lake Worth Inlet in Palm Beach, Florida.
A few facts from the log book:
- Days underway: 37
- Days in country: 92
- Distance logged: 1084.7 NM (Plus day sails around George Town.)
- Nights at the dock: 7
- Nights at anchor: 85
- Top three Anchorages: ….
Blog post #16 – March 2023:
A Month of Boat Work in Georgia
After an epic winter sailing season in The Bahamas, we crossed back to Florida and made our way up the Intra Coastal Waterway to Brunswick, GA for a month of boat work.
Why Brunswick, Georgia? Well, we’d be lying if we told you it didn’t have anything to do with the free beer at Brunswick Landing Marina. (Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings only, which is probably for the best.) A grocery store, a West Marine store, a hardware store, a liquor store, and an abundance of restaurants are all within easy walking or biking distance. The marina offers free laundry. And perhaps most importantly, Brunswick promises good working weather in March–not too hot, not too cold.
Sundance has held up well and no major boat repairs needed our attention. But after 9 months of sailing, we came to realize some additional boat gear would make our lives better. In recent weeks, that gear has been moved off our wish list and onto the back of the boat.
Blog post #15 – February 2023:
Long Island, Cat Islands & The Raggeds
To understand The Bahamas you need to appreciate how big a country it is geographically, 3,100 islands and cays spread out over a 760 mile long archipelago. You also need to grasp how small the country it is in terms of population, only 408,000 residents. That, dear reader, is only about twice the summer population of Martha’s Vineyard.
The Nation of The Bahamas is divided up into 32 Government districts which are a form of local government that function in a similar way as States do in the USA. 70% of Bahamians live in the capitol city, Nassau. The rest of the country is sparsely populated or uninhabited. The 365 islands that make up the Exumas District have a population of 7,000. The 57 mile long Long Island District has a population of 3,000. Neighboring Cat Island District has a population of 1,500. The Jumentos Cays and Ragged Islands District has a population of 72 (Yup, 72! And you thought Wyoming was sparsely populated!) These islands are empty. We read in a cruising guide that the Ragged Islands have no human history. Where else on earth can you say that about?
With George Town in our wake, we headed for the Ragged Islands. Good downwind sailing was in the forecast and we were all rigged up to catch it, but the breeze never filled in out on the swimming pool that day. Fun to watch the bottom go by in 20-40 feet of water.
Our anchorage in Hog Cay would be the southern most point in our winter cruise of The Bahamas. Down there, we were only about 60 miles from Cuba. Wendy said she could see the glow from the lights of Cuba when she last dropped anchor there. We didn’t see any glow over in that direction, maybe the Cubans are using lower wattage lightbulbs these days, but we were able to pick up a staticky spanish-speaking radio station on AM710 that must have been from Cuba.
Long Island for us was both beautiful and hauntingly stark. Living here isn’t easy. The dentist comes once a week, same for the doctor. To get here by plane, you first have to change in either George Town or Nassau. Not many tourists make the trip. The island is a bit off the map. Who’s ever heard of Long Island in The Bahamas? Not many have.
But the people there welcomed us warmly and we sensed a real pride in place and tightness to the community. The expats from America, Canada, South America, and England that we met were colorful and strange. Chris thinks that with a bit more exposure this could become his favorite spot in The Bahamas. We’ll be back.
Blog post #14 – January 2023:
A Month In George Town
We arrived in George Town on Dec. 12 and departed from George Town on Jan. 13. A Full Month! After moving the boat more days than not since June 2, it was a welcome break to stop and put down roots for a while.
We did zip around the harbor a fair bit during the month. Some little trips for touring and others for errands like food shopping and laundry. None of it felt worthy of an official log entry, but it did produce quite a messy collection of lines on our GPS tracking chart.
We liked the Moriahs: Moriah Point on the southern tip of Stocking Island, Moriah Harbor Cay in Moriah Park, and Pigeon Cay also in Moriah park. The long beach on the NE side of Stocking Island also produced in some lasting memories. Walking the length of it, swimming in the sea off of it, daily exercise rituals on it, and just staring at it from Mike’s bench.
Blog post #13 – January 2023:
A Day in The Life – George Town
George Town is the largest town in The Exumas. It is also the only town that has an international airport with direct service to the USA. We’ll be here for a few weeks as various family members and friends use that airport to come pay us a visit. It’s a sweet little town centered around a beautiful church high up on a hill.
Many sailors see George Town as their final destination for the season and stay all winter. The cruising boats in the harbor are counted weekly. When we arrived in early December there were 60 boats here. In February, peak season, that number will grow too over 300. The water is gorgeous, the weather is near perfect, shelter from wind and waves is good, idyllic beaches are plentiful, and most necessities can be found here. There are two grocery stores, a farmer’s market, free drinkable water (uncommon in The Bahamas), gas/diesel/propane, two laundromats, a hardware store, several liquor stores and a few restaurants.
A Day in The life – George Town:
00:00 – 04:00: Wake with mild panic every hour or so to make sure the anchor isn’t dragging. We have multiple anchor alarms set and have had zero anchor problems in the nine years we’ve owned the boat, but we still can’t escape some mild anchoring anxiety. Free anchoring has its cost.
Mooring anxiety is worse. Who knows if that white ball is attached well to anything of substance? And tying up at the dock can be the pits. You never get any breeze thru the boat there. No privacy either, and there can be a great deal of clanking and jerking of the dock lines. Hanging on our own anchor remains our preferred way to spend a night. Fortunately for us here in Georgetown, the anchorages are excellent.
05:00 : The alarm goes off and Chris starts the coffee and works on some writing projects.
07:00-ish: Alex wakes and puts together some breakfast foods to compliment the coffee.
07:58: A second alarm goes off reminding us to turn on the VHF so we can listen to The Net.
08:00: The Cruisers Net begins on VHF 72. During our time here, Michelle on Rascal has been the volunteer net coordinator. Journalism at its finest. It’s a 7-day-a week job that puts her in a very public spotlight. She’s gracefully managed many sensitive things including a death in our community. After an intro, the agenda runs something like this: …
Blog post #12 – November 2022:
Arriving into The Bahamas
Crossing into The Bahamas on a sailboat takes a bit of coordination. First you need to fill your propane and diesel tanks and load 5 months worth of food onboard in South Florida. Then you need to make your way to a good jumping off spot like Key Biscayne. Then you need to wait for a good weather window. Once that comes into focus and a departure date is planned, you need to apply for your Bahamian Cruising Permit online. Then, no more than 48 hours prior to your departure, you need to get a vet to certify that your dog is free of disease and in good health. This last part can be the trickiest, because your dog is not in exceptionally good health and also not afraid to bite a vet that is trying to look in his ear. And because no South Florida Uber driver is at all interested in driving you and your smelly dog to and from the vet’s office. So you carry all 44 lbs of him for miles in the hot Florida sun with fingers crossed that he passes his tests.
A 40 mile wide, 3,000 foot deep, fire hose of 86F water known as the Gulf Stream is constantly hustling north between Florida and The Bahamas with great haste. If the wind is blowing against this current, huge seas build up between the two countries and sailing across can be extremely uncomfortable. For this reason, most sailors, ourselves included, are inclined to wait for a southerly wind, or no wind, to make the crossing. We ended up making the 52.7NM trip from Key Biscayne to Bimini with no wind.
The waters of Florida and The Bahamas come in so many shades of blue. The deep water in the gulf stream is a shade unlike any other. A pure dark blue without any trace of grey or green. Because we crossed with zero wind, the surface was glassy and the sun beams sent shafts of light deep down into the water. The effect was like a gentle, below-seas lightning storm. Exceptional.
Blog post #11 – November 2022:
A Day in The Life on The ICW
00:00 – 04:00: Wake with mild panic every hour or so to make sure the anchor isn’t dragging. Despite the fact that we routinely set two anchor alarms and the fact that we haven’t dragged anchor anywhere in years, we still can’t escape some mild anchoring anxiety. Probably better than becoming complacent. The prospect of us dragging up onto a beach, or our neighbors dragging into us sends a chill down the spine. Every switch of the current, or change in wind direction, warrants some observation.
05:00 – 07:00: The alarm goes off and Chris gets up to start the pre-prepared coffee without turning on a light. Alex and Bill continue to sleep while Chris works on various writing projects sitting up in his bunk with laptop on lap and coffee at his side.
07:00 – 07:30: Sunrise comes late on the ICW in the fall. This route takes us quite far west in the Eastern Time Zone. The days are getting shorter and the clocks don’t turn back until you’re nearly in Miami. (The flip side of course is that sunsets are later too.) Chris drags Bill out of bed in the dark (he loves to sleep in) and rows him ashore for his morning walk as the sun rises. While that’s happening, Alex wakes and prepares the boat to get under way. We sleep on the settees in the salon and every morning Alex puts our bedding away and converts the space back into a sitting area.
Blog post #10 – October 2022:
The Chesapeake
Neither of us has spent much time in The Chesapeake Bay. Learning this place was a priority when planning our fall sailing schedule. After a memorable stop in Annapolis (covered in the last blog post) we headed to the Eastern Shore to explore.
We nosed our way up the Chester River and made our first stop in Langford Creek, where we found agriculture. Soybeans? We think? The farms were plentiful in number and beautiful to anchor next to and walk past on shore. In the photo below, the river is at the end of the road where there’s a boat ramp. Boat ramps have proven to be good landing spots for us, as was the case here. What a great place to walk a dog and go for a run! (Except for the many snakes.)
Blog post #9 – September 2022:
New York, New York, Big City of Dreams
The highlight of September had us sailing through Hell’s Gate, down the East River, and straight into the heart of New York City. With family aboard, we had a two day adventure, first spending the night in Brooklyn then moving on for a brief visit to Jersey City before tackling the rest of the coast of New Jersey on our way south.
But. About New York. We started in City Island, where we spent the night, provisioned and picked up crew (family). If you’ve never been to this little gem of a place, we can’t recommend it enough! Once you hit street level, you’re unmistakably in NYC, yet…you might also think you were on the Cape from time to time. Our mooring at the City Island Yacht Club had spectacular views of the New York skyline, and the friendliest and most welcoming people we’ve met in a long while. It’s a place for people who love their boats and the water and they’re so happy if you feel the same way.
Once the crew was aboard, we headed out on a hot, hot afternoon and slowly made our way past power plants and playing fields, LaGuardia Airport, the hulking horror that is Riker’s Island and into the heart of the city. Seeing it all from the deck of our floating home, surrounded by our loved ones, was next level awesome.
Into Brooklyn we went …
Blog post #8 – August 2022:
August Visitations
August was a social month full of visits with family and friends. Sundance and her crew enjoyed a lively New England farewell tour.
June, July and August were the prologue. We slowly visited familiar spots in Southern New England, leaving a track behind us that looks like a rat’s nest. This place and these people are the foundation for the new places and people that will come next. It was important to stop and see as many of them as we could before pointing the bow toward new waters. ….
Blog post #7 – July 2022:
July in Maine
Maine is home to many spectacular harbors. Our plan this month was to return to our favorites.
For us, the middle of the coastline including Muscongus Bay, Penobscot Bay, Jericho Bay and MDI are the best of the best. (We also have a few favorite spots along the Bold Coast down by Canada, but in an effort to keep our schedule leisurely, we did not go east of MDI this year.)
Blog post #6 – June 2022:
The Islands of Southern New England June Cruise
After a hectic May spent closing up our land based life and moving aboard the boat, we needed a slower pace in June. The Islands of Southern New England provided the perfect setting for adjusting to boat life.
Our plan was to revisit some of our favorite spots. Instead of rushing from one to the next, we only moved the boat when the wind was good for sailing. Naushon has always been at the top of our list and we started there.
Blog post #5 – June 2022:
And We’re Off!
The Countdown is Over.
We have cast off…or been cast off?? It’s true, it’s real, the house is sold, the cars are gone, the furniture is stored, goodbyes have been said. We now live aboard S/V Sundance, full time, all the time, on the water. Holy crap.
Blog post #4 – May 2022:
Cooking With Gas
We consume one propane bottle (6 lb) about every three weeks when cruising full-time. After six weeks, we’re down to our last bottle and looking for propane. We recently did a few things to extend our range:
1. Two more bottles.
Now we can go 12 weeks before we’re down to our last bottle. I built the racks out of Starboard. Using a router table, I cut bowling alley gutters so the boards nestle into the pushpin for snug lashing. David at Fabric Works in Waltham, MA did a great job of sewing Sunbrella covers for them.
Blog post #3 – April 2022:
Spring Commissioning
The cover is off and spring commissioning has begun.
After all the winter projects and other preparations for extended liveaboard sailing, the standard spring commissioning work list felt like a comforting old habit. Almost quaint, just the same stuff I always do in the spring to get this, or any other boat, ready for the water. That list includes:
- Removing the winter cover
- Clean and wax topsides from the waterline to the rail (Awlcare)
- Sand the bottom, prep and apply 2 coats of Interlux Micron CSC bottom paint
- Clean and grease the Max Prop
- Change the prop zinc and the hull zincs
- Rearranging from winter to summer solar
- Service the seacocks
- Swap out the winter halyards for the service halyards
- Steering system service
- Fill propane bottles
- Fill scuba tanks
- Winch service
- Set out dock lines and fenders for launch day
Blog post #2 – April 2022:
Sundance gets a new engine
The old engine was running, but it was 30 years old and burning a bit of oil. With extended sailing in the future for us, we decided to pull the trigger on a new engine.
Blog post #1 – April 2022:
Counting Down to Casting Off
Brookline is awash in the colors of spring. Purple and pink and highlighter green. There’s a yellow magnolia on Toxteth Street where, several times now, I’ve seen a cardinal perched in the branches. It’s almost as if he knows that this tree will cause his red to pop more than any other tree. It’s my favorite palette. I’m paying close attention because it will be my last spring here for awhile, if not forever.
Who quits their corporate job at 53, two years shy of full vesting, and decides to sell (most) everything and go sailing? Me, that’s who. And Chris too, minus the corporate job part. He sold his business to a trusted employee, and everything about that statement makes me proud of him. Sometime mid-pandemic we made the decision to leave everything behind and try a new way of living for a bit. It’s something we had been talking about for a long while and after two years of isolation, and more than a little sadness at the state of things, we couldn’t find any good answer to the question “Why haven’t we gone yet?”
Writing this blog post has been on my to-do list since January, which is when the Captain put together our Countdown to Casting off task list. For some reason, it’s been easier to sell a car, hire movers, find an apartment for the soon-to-be college graduate in the family, write a will, give away half our stuff, find a storage unit for the rest of our things, sell the house (June 1st closing!), have a colonoscopy, get my teeth cleaned and generally take care of the 80+ other items on that list, than it has been to write this post.
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Eagle Seven Sailing
We are Chris and Alex sailing full time aboard our 36′ Morris Justine, Sundance.
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