We got back to Jarrett Bay and finalized things at the yard and put Seismic Wave back in the water where she belongs.
We decided to hit the seas and head up to New York. We had 3 days at sea and this was our view coming into New York and up the Hudson River to our marina.
Coney Island
Verrazano-Narrows bridge
New Jersey Left & Manhattan Right
Manhattan
Ellis Island
Hudson River
Midtown
Lincoln Harbor Marina – our home in NYC
Jen & Richard were moored in Boston Harbor and invited us to join them for a weekend. They had the best views and so close to the wharfs. We were delivered by water taxi from the airport ferry dock to Our Rose and returned back to the airport the same way. Very cool.
All parents would love their child to go to Harvard University and so we did. A very large university with well maintained buildings. Love the colorful chairs set up in the park for the students to sit and chat.
We also wandered around town going to Boston Common park, the famous Cheers TV series bar, the Italian district for dinner etc. Great city to wander around and take in the hype.
Great weekend and good catch up yet again with Jen & Richard.
Whenever we are away from the boat we watch the weather near the boat. Of course, Hurricane Arthur decided to develop and cause havoc on the East Coast of the US. Our first hurricane near the boat. We had mixed feelings. We are safe but then our home is not. This was the first sight of knowing bad weather was approaching our boat. Seismic Wave is near the black circles just north of the storm. Not a good feeling I’ll tell you.
Of course, we continued to watch the weather and did not see it turning East. Our boat is up on land within the red shading so was not looking good and there was nothing we could do. This picture is taken at 10pm.
The eye of the hurricane touched land as a category 2 storm just west of Beaufort, NC at 11:15pm with winds of 100mph and gusts of 115mph. That’s crazy. 200,000+ people were evacuated and 22,000+ homes lost power, which included power at the boatyard.
Of course it was July 4th long weekend so it took us a while to get notice that our home was not damaged, Thank goodness.
Well we decided to brave the crowds and be kids again while in Orlando at Disney World. You definitely need to keep your patience levels in tow when going to the parks as the line ups can be silly. They have a great feature called fast pass which we quickly learned about, to help you get through the lines ups faster. Yes we like rides. Fun times….
Off to practice Spanish in Panama ready for Spanish speaking countries.
Our 3-4 day/night trip to Beaufort, NC had some squalls with winds clocking 30-35 knots and rather large waves. Unfortunately the wind and wave direction did not improve so we decided to divert to Port Royal Inlet near Hilton Head, South Carolina, but not to golf. Entering this channel had its own challenges as the waves were breaking over the shallows near the entrance. We hit our boat’s fastest speed surfing down waves at 15.6 knots.
We found ourselves a great anchorage just past the inlet and got some sleep while we waited out the weather. There were dolphins passing through, egrets feeding on the bank and pelicans diving for food. Bizzar so different from where we have been over the past few months.
Once the weather settled we continued our trip arriving into the Beaufort NC inlet at dawn two days later. We were really impressed with the marine life along the way. Saw our first hammerhead shark in the surf 90 degrees to the boat. Surfing into the Beaufort inlet we saw 19.6 knots on the GPS.
Beaufort, NC has an attractive waterfront with plenty of action all about. The town dates back to the early 1700’s with beautifully restored old homes, an esplanade to walk along and lots of boats about with people out cruising and enjoying the waters.
The old burying ground was interesting with old oak trees and tales of the people buried in the cemetery in the 1700’s. One of the most touching was of a little girl who was buried in a barrel of rum. Her father had taken her to London, England to see her homeland promising his wife he would return the girl safely. On the return trip she died so the father bought a barrel of rum from the captain and placed the girl in the barrel for burial in Beaufort. The grave has lots of toys on it.
Morehead City is just down the road with lots of box stores once we are ready to restock the boat. We enjoyed a meal out at the Ruddy Duck which is a seafood restaurant right on the waterfront and busy. The outdoor bar was a great place to take it all in and wind down.
Beaufort/ Morehead City is a big sports fishing area with lots of sports fishing boats about. The Big Rock sports fishing tournament had just started for the week. We wandered along the waterfront when the 120 teams were coming back in from fishing on day 1 and spotted a HUGE blue marlin on the weigh scale; 754.3 pounds, which took 4.5 hours to reel in. Wow!
A huge travel lift to get her up out of the water
Boat work needed to be done and so we organized the work at Jarrett Bay Boatworks on the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway near Beaufort. Very impressive place with such nice people.
We hired a car and took a road trip into North Carolina. We headed to Raleigh, the capital of the state. The downtown area is condense so great to walk around, with lots of old historic buildings.
We decided to go on a Segway tour to see the Oakwood historic district with its 19th century period homes, the Oakwood cemetery founded in 1869 and the Governors mansion. Great way to experience the city and fun. We’ll be doing this again somewhere.
Continuing our trip through North Carolina we went to Pinehurst to see golf at the Mens US Open. Great atmosphere and amazing watching the players up close. It was hot and there were lots and lots of people about.
We enjoyed the drive through North Carolina. Arriving in to Charlotte it was a lot bigger than we both expected with a downtown core and highways going in all directions. Here we boarded a plane to Orlando.
We had a great sail over to the USA spotting the apartment towers of Palm Beach from a long way off shore.
Once inside the Palm Beach Inlet we made our way through our first bridge of many to come on the US Intercoastal waterway, to a great anchorage and use of free docks at the City of West Palm Beach. We stayed a few nights on the dock and then moved just off the dock to anchor, but still take advantage of the cities facilities.
Daryl & Annie who we met in Grenada are anchored in the same area with us. Nice going out for dinner again and having a great choice of restaurants to go to.
The Palm Beach area is a happening place with lots of things going on; including free concerts in the park opposite the boat, an outdoor fresh produce market, miles of beach, great selection of shops and a good pathway system to go for walks and ride the bikes for exercise. Brett and I were busy going to his favorite stores; Best buy, West Marine and yes Home Depot.
Palm Beach itself is a classy area with streets lined with palm trees, beautiful homes and expensive shops along Worth Avenue. The floral wall mural was even impressive.
For a bit of culture we went to the Flagler Museum, the winter retreat of Henry Flagler a leading person of America’s Gilded Age. He was a founding partner in Standard Oil and also developed the Florida East Coast Railway and huge luxury hotels on the Florida coast, in the early 1900’s. The 75 room home included technologies developed during the gilded age. Not really our taste in decor though.
We spent just over a week in West Palm but it as time to head North so we are legal for insurance purposes given hurricane season is fast approaching. We are heading towards Beaufort, North Carolina first.
We arrived into LAX, got a car and decided to cruise south down the Pacific Coast. The weather was awesome and the coast line a lot more built up than we remembered with lots of really nice beaches. We had come to the land of beautiful bodies hanging out, fast expensive cars passing you at ridiculous speeds on some pretty crowded highways. Ok its not like that everywhere but sure felt like it driving the coast.
We made our way to San Diego or Coronado which seemed to be a place where lots of people came over to enjoy the beaches and eat at the many restaurants in town.
One day we caught the ferry over to town where it was so nice to see the sailboats in the bay with the city in the background. We wandered around the Gaslamp area, which really was just a city area, probably better at night given the number of bars and restaurants about. We ate at the restaurant where Top Gun filmed the scene where Maverick sings to Charlie in the diner with all the navy boys at the bar.
I was lucky enough to score free seats at a Padres baseball game, which ended up being just off the third base. Brett couldn’t believe I got the tickets for free and then was impressed at how good the seats were. The Padres won 4 to 3 against the NY Mets after a home run was hit.
We finished our trip to California by heading inland to Temecular to visit Bretts family; Laird, Kathi, Justin, Elizabeth, Morgan and Ryan. The highways are incredible in the US, so easy to get around thanks to our trusty GPS.
Off to Calgary.
We left the comforts of our boat to the comforts of hotels with pools, air conditioning and long showers. Bliss! Funny the things you miss and you landlubbers take for granted.
Miami – South Beach
Well we stopped in South Beach for a few nights. Always an interesting place with lots going on.
Sorry can’t buy any of these shoes, the styles just won’t work on the boat.
Hired bikes from Bike & Roll for one day and went from South Beach over MacArthur Causeway through the downtown to Biscane Key through to Vizcaya a beautiful Italian villa built in 1916 and owned and built by John Deering. The bike ride through town was fun given the high rise buildings all around us. 
Vizcaya Museum was huge. John Deering, an American multi millionaire in his time appeared to live the high life.The gardens have 10 acres of incredibly maintained gardens along the shoreline of Biscane Bay. Very ostentatious.
There were all these young 16 year old Cuban girls wandering around getting their photos taken in the gardens,which we found out was a popular thing to do for their coming of age photos. It was hot so we were impressed with the huge dresses they wore in the heat yet they still looked amazing.
Our day from cycling ended at Monties on the boardwalk near South Point where we sat and watched life go by in Miami; a busy place.
Enjoyed Miami and just hanging out watching people, eating some good food and sleeping with air-conditioning.
Off to Panama.
