Category: Lifestyle

Small towns…Big hearts

As we enter our eighth month of cruising on the Great Circle Loop, we have now begun our journey on the river system portion of our trip.  We have now cruised the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee Rivers.
We are so impressed and honored to meet the people who live in these small towns along the river system. Some of these towns have a population of 1,000 or less… oftentimes much less.

The women and men in these towns greet you with “darlin, honey, sweetie, ya’ll be safe, God bless you, and come back and see us.”  They say these sayings from the bottoms of their heart and they mean them with all their hearts.
These small river towns fly the American flag with pride and have memorials in the middle of their town squares  with plaques and flags to honor their fallen military.  They send their sons and daughters to join the military and are proud to be able to do so.

These small river towns don’t have big, fancy stores or malls.  Quite the contrary, they are so small, the Dollar General store often serves as a grocery store with everything you need… including fresh produce and dairy.  If the town happens to have a real grocery store, it also has wine and liquor because there is no liquor store within many miles.

These are the towns and people that have made a lasting impression on us  They are kind, sincere, patriotic, friendly, and willing to lend a hand to anyone at anytime.  We feel so blessed and grateful to have made friendships with these people, however fleeting our time with them is.

Every day the words to America the Beautiful (O Beautiful for Spacious Skies) come to mind as we begin our journey through America’s heartland and meet the people who add the heart to our heartland.

God Bless America!🇺🇸🇺🇸

 

 

 

A Day in the Life of the Grahams

We have now lived aboard Hydrotherapy for six months. The only thing exactly the same each day is that they all begin with sunrise and end with sunset.

There are many things and events that are similar in our day to day life aboard, but most days are vastly different from beginning to end.  We have discovered that adhering to somewhat of a schedule, even an ever changing one, helps us to form a routine for our work and chores.

We start each morning by making our bed. It sounds odd to think of this as an important part of starting our day, but in reality, its a reminder that we accomplished at least one task for the day!  We pass through the bedroom many times in a day to reach the engine room, laundry room,  supply closet, and freezer and seeing a made bed is a good thing.

We have designated (loosely) Fridays to be laundry and cleaning days. If we are at anchor on a Friday, we just move these chores to another day when we are in a marina with power hookup and dockside water.

We have learned to never pass on an opportunity to visit a grocery store. We learned the hard way that if we wait for a “better” store at the next town, the store might be 25 miles or more away from the marina.  Buying groceries and supplies is a constant juggling act of not overbuying, with our limited space, but also not leaving ourselves short on needed supplies and food.

How many times have you heard the saying, “A place for everything and everything in it’s place?”  If you ever want to see your screwdriver, sunscreen, or glasses again… put them where they belong. Items go undercover and missing on a boat alarmingly fast.

Taking the kitchen trash out every day is a priority. Yesterday’s trash needs to be out the door so bugs don’t find their way aboard and become your new best (and forever) friends.

We begin each morning sitting outside enjoying  our coffee and end each evening sitting outside and enjoying the view and maybe toasting another glorious day with a glass of wine!

Taking Advantage of the Bad Weather

In our last post we described needing to stay put in Cape May, NJ because of the relentless winds and steep waves (9-13 ft) near shore in the Atlantic.  We ended staying a total of eight nights waiting for the seas to calm down to three to four feet .

Not only did we use these extra seven days in southern NJ to sightsee, walk, shop and experience some great restaurants, we also had necessary maintenance items performed.  These included an oil change, oil filters and fuel filter exchanges to keep our Diesel engines performing reliably.  Thankfully, this was accomplished by a certified marine mechanic at our marina slip.  This will need to be repeated every 250 hours during our journey.

Finally, when the marine weather forecast improved as far as wave height, it was replaced with the prediction of dense fog.  We left Cape May traveling up the Atlantic coast to Atlantic City with virtually no visibility.  Relying strictly on GPS, radar and AIS (automatic information system) being transmitted from approaching boats, we successfully navigated to the marina at the Golden Nugget casino.  We felt we had gambled enough that day getting to our destination.  Pushing our luck at the casino was not even a consideration for us.  The following day’s cruise to Staten Island, NY was calm sea, worse fog and more distance to travel (approx 100 miles).  Even pilots that fly under IFR (instrument  flight rules) can often fly above the poor visibility to get some blue skies.  We never had the opportunity.  However, we remain safe and ever optimistic.

 

Running Offshore in the Atlantic

We enjoyed two days in Savannah where we were able to take the Old Town Trolley tour to remind us, not only of the rich history of the city, but also its contributions to the many cinematic productions filmed both here and in Charleston. In fact, we were able to download and watch the films, Forrest Gump, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Prince of Tides and Conrak which all had ties to the South Carolina low country.

We spent three days at the Charleston City Marina in the heart of downtown Charleston, SC. From there we could walk the riverfront and see the contrast between the historic downtown homes and the modern Medical University of South Carolina. While tied to the floating dock at the marina, we experienced a violent thunderstorm with wind gusts to 60mph. With rain coming at us sideways, it was comforting to see our boat remain watertight and see our dockside fenders protect our hull from crashing into the sides of the dock.

With improvement in the weather forecast for our fourth day, we made the decision to move north to Georgetown, SC utilizing the outside passage in the Atlantic for a change of scenery. Although the wave height was predicted to be 1-2 ft., we found the seas to be rougher than anticipated. We maintained our heading and speed to arrive at the Georgetown marina safely early in the afternoon.

A close friend of ours who has a summer home nearby, met us at the marina and gave us a wonderful tour of her hometown. She even had us as guests overnight in her home. That was the first night we have not slept on our boat since Feb. 22. Now on to North Carolina!

Solitude, Serenity and Silence

Tuesday night we found a secluded spot alongside St Catherines Island on Walburg Creek in Georgia. Having no success with finding dock space anywhere for the night, we decided to anchor out once again. What we are finding is that we are absolutely loving ending our evening with no boats, no docks, no people, no lights, and no city…nothing but stars, solitude, silence, and serenity. It is the most peaceful ending to a busy day of boating and we will be anchoring out now any chance we get. Anchoring out is a reminder to us all to seek our serenity and silence.

We spent two days and nights at Thunderbolt Marina in Savannah, GA. We had never been to Savannah before so we took the hop-on/hop-off trolley for a quick overview of this historical city. We loved the stately live oaks covered with their Spanish moss, the blooming Dogwoods and azaleas and the wonderful old homes, some of which date back to the early 1800’s.

Today we had an easy run from Savannah to Hilton Head and crossed from Georgia into South Carolina. The landscape is unmistakeably low-country now with marsh grass, numerous cuts and inlets, and nine foot tidal changes. Tomorrow we are playing golf at one of the many beautiful golf courses on Hilton Head.

Anchoring Out

It’s hard to believe we have journeyed over 1150 miles since we began our cruise. Yesterday we crossed the FL/GA line. We decided to anchor offshore of the Cumberland Island National Park and planned to dinghy ashore for a day of hiking and picnicking. We hiked 10 miles from the Atlantic side of the island to the bay side yesterday afternoon.

The island was owned by the Carnegie family in the 19th century. They built a 35,000 sq. foot mansion with buildings to house over 200 support staff in the late 1800’s. The 20th century Carnegies donated the island to the National Park Service with the proviso that all the horses left on the island would be allowed to roam freely. Thus, many generations of horses since then have grown to a population of approximately 150 horses. We encountered many groups of feral horses while hiking both the beach side and bay side of the island.

We were glad that our anchor held firm throughout a windy day and night and now we’re ready to anchor out more when the occasion arises. Now we head north toward Jekyll Island and to Savannah.