We left New Mexico heading for Bullhead City, Arizona and friends Gail and Dick. They are heading South to find a place to park their motor home and head back to Guatemala and Kimtah their beautiful trawler. The four of us did some sightseeing and visited Oatman, an old gold mining town, turned tourist attraction due to the wild donkeys wandering the streets.

We next traveled to Lake Havasu to see the totally rebuilt London Bridge. It seems that a wealthy resident purchased the bridge from the City of London, England, had it dissembled shipped across the ocean and reassembled here in southern Arizona. The bridge has done wonders for the tourism here.

We have traveled to Las Vegas to meet friends and spend a wonderful weekend enjoying each others company.

Then we visited the Grand Canyon, complete with snow! I guess it is time to travel further South!

We met up with friends Gene and Brenda from the sailboat Queen Mary in Utah. They were on their way from Alberta, Canada, to Florida. We traveled together and picked up Anastasie beans in Dove Creek, Colorado. These are ancient beans they found around the cliff dwellings and are very nutritious and delicious. Then on to the Arches National Park.

Our goal was the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. It was stunning.

My favorite balloon was the Darth Vader. It was huge!!!

Then we spent time driving to the highest point in Albuquerque where there were spectacular views.

We also explored the beautiful Sante Fee area. It was so nice to spend this time with Gene and Brenda and it was very hard to hug and say goodbye.

We explored Yellowstone National Park in our cruise across America. Here are some photos from our visit.

While we are sailing along, it is no longer on water. We have traveled from Beaufort, North Carolina to Torch Lake in Michigan, enjoying a very relaxing 10 days with Bob, Karen, and Koalya, then to Huntsville and a wonderful visit with Jeff and Andrea. We then traveled to Branson, MO. After leaving Branson, we headed North and West through Arkansas, Nebraska, and into Wyoming. We spent a great weekend with friends in Casper, Wyoming, thanks for the catching-up Chris and Mary Ann.
Now we are exploring the Parks out here before turning toward warmer weather. The motor home is a great venue to travel the States with and we are really settling into a routine.

For inquiring minds….
Footloose was hauled late in July and securely left on the hard in the capable hands of Kenny Bock at Bock Marine in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Her crew moved into their 1997 Safari Continental motor home and left North Carolina to visit family and friends starting in Michigan and now Huntsville Alabama where we are safely watching the storm coverage with our son Jeff Nurenberg and his fiance Andrea Adams.

We will post an update on Footloose when we have more information. But, we are definitely heading back to Beaufort early this week, as soon as it is safe, to assess the damage, assist friends in the clean-up, and clean up Footloose.

Our prayers go out to those caught in the storm.

A Big Change In My Life

On June 14th my Mom threw in the towel and bowed out gracefully. She had been hospitalized for an infection, was on the road to recovery, making plans to return home, but one morning she just peacefully faded away.

What an amazing woman she was! She was born in the early 1900’s and would have celebrated her 93rd birthday this summer. As a grade school student, her parents pulled her from school for a year and took a road trip from Michigan to California. What an adventure that must have been in the early 1900’s. No wonder I have the travel “bug”! She was a teenager during the Great Depression and one of the first women to serve in the military during World War II. She joined the Navy after her boss put her in charge of a division at Jury Rose Furniture, but refused to pay her a comparable wage.

She was married to my father for 52 years and continued the traveling my entire lifetime. Up until this year, she had spent the previous 34 winters as a snow bird, “migrating” to Texas each fall. She was an accomplished golfer and loved boating.

I miss her very much. She was an inspiration to me and not a day goes by when I don’t think, “I’ll have to tell Mom about this or that, when I call her, today.” And, even though there will be no more phone calls, I know she will continue to follow my adventures. Rest peacefully, Mom

We are currently located in Beaufort, North Carolina, in our “home slip” where our journey began and will be a turnover point for our adventure. We arrived here on May 31st, sea weary and at loss of what was next in our cruising career.

We got into Key West early Monday morning May 9th. We cleared in, bought a cell phone and wireless modem, entertained our friends Tashmo that night and then headed out toward Ft. Lauderdale, where we met friends on May 14th and spent a couple of days catching us and enjoying their company. Then we worked our way to Lake Worth Inlet, staging for the offshore passage to North Carolina.

Leaving Lake Worth Inlet, we had a wonderful current with us and a nice breeze. The first 24 hours was just as wonderful as those so recently behind us. But, by the end of the first day, we lost the wind and the current. So, in addition to not moving very fast, the waves starting coming at us from three different directions, abeam, from the stern and from the stern quarter. It was such an uncomfortable motion, that it was almost impossible to sleep or just to stay comfortably in one place for any length of time. This went on for the next three days and we finally decided to head toward shore and spend the night at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

As we made our way up to Beaufort, we did some soul searching and decided that we had had so much fun with Footloose in the last three years, that we did not see how we could top it. In addition, the awkward motion was grueling on Tom’s bad knee. It kept slipping out of joint and he was very uncomfortable. Therefore, we made the decision to contact our friend, John Warrington, at Beaufort Yacht Sales, and put Footloose on the market. She is a fantastic cruising sailboat. We never once regretted our decision in purchasing her. We have spent three wonderful, very comfortable years aboard. But, she is not a dock boat, she needs to be at sea. So, we will find her and new captain and crew to love her.

The decision to stop cruising was actually pretty easy, because a couple of our friend had talked about purchasing motor homes and doing some land cruising. We both are not ready to return to the workforce. So, we made the decision to purchase a motor home.

Just as when we found Footloose, we started traveling and looking at motor homes, asking a lot of questions, and doing a lot of research on the internet. We came to the conclusion that a diesel engine was the way to go and so that gave us a starting point.

Believe it or not, we have purchased a 37 foot, 1997, Safari Continental Class A diesel-pusher motor home, with an Onan diesel generator. We bought it sight-unseen on an E-bay auction. We had to drive to Philadelphia to pick her up. Of course, she lost a belt half way back and we had to spend a night in a hotel and get it repaired the next morning. But, all in all, we think this will make us a good home, while we figure out what our next adventure will be.

Journal 33rd Month

Well as I write this we are sailing between the Lake Worth Inlet in Florida to Beaufort North Carolina. As I don’t have access to the internet being over 100 miles off shore, I am going to try to remember where I posted last. I think I had posted for March and the first part of April. So that would leave me with the balance of April and all of May.

Ok, so that is where I will start. The first photo is of my first ever Sunbow. I have heard of them before, but never experienced it. This one appeared one beautiful morning while we were anchored out at the Hobbies (Cayos Cajones) of the North East Coast of Honduras. This lasted almost an hour and I have yet to research the atmospheric reasons for the anomaly, but it sure was COOL!

We left West End Roatan on our way to Panama via the Viverillos Islands, the Hobbie Islands, then on to Provedencia, Columbia, San Andreas, Columbia and then the San Blas Island where we were planning on spending the Summer.

We traveled out with the Sailboats Interlude with Cheryl and Karen aboard and Hooligan, with Tim, Paula, and Nigel aboard.

The trip out was promised as the “best opportunity to go East this season” by many weather services, but it turned out to be one of our most uncomfortable trips. Fortunately, it only lasted about 38 hours. We were not intending a stop in the Viverillos, but I am so glad we were tired and dropped the anchor there. It was a beautiful, quiet, and bountiful place to spend a few days. All of the reasons we are cruising were in both the Viverllios and the Hobbies. Fantastic snorkeling, good hunting, good fishing, and wonderful cruiser friends to share it with.

All told we spent 3 days in the Viverillos and almost 3 weeks in the Hobbies. Karen, Cheryl, Tim and Paula, along with my chef husband provided us with delectable dinners almost every night. I learned to play bocce ball on the small beach at the Hobbies and actually learned how to use my new pneumatic spear gun.

I love the bounties that the sea can provide and we ate very well while we were enjoying the solitude of a tropical island get away.

While in the Hobbies, Tom and I decided, for many reasons, not the least of which is my Mom’s health, to change plans for the Summer and gunk hole along the US East Coast as opposed to spending the time in Panama.

So on the last day of April, we left our island retreat in company with Interlude and sailed back to the Bay Islands of Honduras. What a different trip. With the wind behind us, we made it in about 24 hours and would have easily anchored in Guanaha mid morning on the second day, if Interlude had not radioed us that their engine quit around 5 a.m. Unfortunately, they were unable to get it to run, so with very light winds, both boats headed for Lime Key in the Port Royal harbor. We stayed with Interlude until we were sure they would have no problems getting to the harbor entrance and then we moved on ahead and got moored, dropped our dingy, and towed/pushed them through the reef and into the harbor along with the help of Terry from Mango Creek resort.

We left West End Roatan for Isla Mujeres on May 6th. Again, we had almost perfect sailing conditions and were anchor down at Punta Allen in the Bahia Aschecion, Mexico around 4 p.m. on the second day out. Lots of current and favorable winds. We moved up to Hut Point the next day, slowing down so that we would not have to check into Mexico on a weekend.

We arrived at the Marina Pariso and it almost felt like home, with its honor bar and great location. We met a lot of new friends and caught up with some old friends while we prepared Footloose for the Gulf Stream Crossing.

We left Isla Mujeres on May 14th and had a fantastic Gulf Stream Crossing, most of the time we had a 3 plus knot current with us. We made the 336 mile run to Key West in just over 36 hours. We are getting very spoiled with the wind behind us and the current with us.

We are leaving in the morning at O Dark Hundred, or first light, for the Hobbies Islands. After a stop there, we will move onto the Island of Provendencia, Columbia. After that we will continue to make our way to the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama.

I will update as I have internet availability.

Leaving February and the cold behind we cleared into Utila, Honduras with ease. We are so impressed with the Honduran officials in this small island town. I was even able to find my all time favorite hot sauce at Bush’s market. I am telling you, it sure felt like coming home.

Due to our delayed arrival in Utila, we decided to relax and spend the night before crossing over to West End on the island of Roatan, Honduras. It was a peaceful evening,

We were up with the sun the next day and sailing our way to West End. We came up on the single sideband radio to check in and shortly after the net was over, we began to get calls on the VHF radio from friends we hadn’t seen since we left Guatemala for Michigan. It was unbelievable and so heartwarming to be received with such a great welcome back. We truly felt like we had come home.

As soon as we could gain access to telephone and internet service, (On Roatan, Tigo has a great deal for both) we started the process of finding and ordering a replacement for our broken staysail, stay, turnbuckle. Finding it was easy, we ordered it from Defender at a reasonable price and because we had a failure, we ordered two, so that we would have a backup on the outside chance it happened again. But, getting the part delivered to us in Honduras became an ordeal. (Or adventure, depending on how you looked at it). Last year, we had some parts shipped by Roatan Air Service and we expected to use them again, but found out that other cruisers thought they were no longer in business. We tried to contact them with the phone numbers from last season, only to get a “that number is not in service” message. So, we hunted up Hyber shipping, which ships via container ship, advising us that if the part arrived at their Florida docks by this Friday, it would arrive via their ship, in Roatan, the following Friday. So, for $85.00 (US) just for shipping on a less than a pound part, we placed the order and followed their directions. Unfortunately, after waiting the week and a half for delivery, they couldn’t not find the shipment. The UPS tracking agreed that it was delivered to the Hyber Florida dock, but they could not locate it. It took them another week to find and acknowledge to us they had our shipment and another week for it to get on a ship. So, while we were waiting for Hyber to find our lost package, we did more research, discovered that Roatan Air Service was indeed still in business and would have the part to us approximately three days from delivery to their warehouse in Florida. So, we placed another order with Defender for yet a third replacement turnbuckle. Hoping we could get one of the two shipments.

Unfortunately, a week ago, we still had not received any acknowledgement from either company that our part had arrived in Roatan and we missed the only weather window we had gotten to head East. But, as of four days ago, we now have the parts we needed rom both sources and have installed our staysail at a final cost of over $250 for a $30 part! We are now still waiting for a weather window to head East, but we can now go. As I said, an adventure.

We spent the entire month of March waiting on parts, stocking up on supplies, and enjoying the camaraderie of our fellow cruisers. We have done multiple dives, this being about the best place on the planet for a cruiser to get scuba tanks filled and gear rinsed with fresh water. The diving here is spectacular. Every dive has provided us with a different adventure. I would highly recommend this spot to all cruisers.

We have also entertained and been entertained almost every night. Gourmet meals, lot of laughs, and some great sunsets. I have played taps more here than anywhere else we have traveled. I will be sad to see this season end and our friends move onto to other cruising areas. But, I know that the cruising life brings new friendships along the way.

We are now awaiting a weather window to head East, to the Hobbies (Cayos Cajones), on to Colombia’s Provendecia and San Andreas Islands and then onto the San Blas Islands of Panama for the summer. A new adventure is about to begin.