After living at sea for a couple of years, around Halloween 2020, I decided to step a bit out of my comfort zone and pursue my US Coast Guard Captain’s license. It strikes me as a bit odd that you can buy a large boat, climb aboard, and go more or less anywhere in the…
Sailing on to Key West (and into Crisis Response Mode)
When last we left you, we were aboard Gratitude in Islamorada in the Florida Keys. Our anchorage in Windley Key had good holding, nice shore access, and the water was clear and beautiful. My friend, Dan, and I got some spectacular fishing on a patch reef while we were there. (Karen: You can hook-n-cook at…
Florida Keys, Here We Come
Happy New Year, my friends! When we last wrote, it was the end of 2020 and the end of our summer/fall along the East Coast of the U.S. Soon Andy and I will celebrate our second anniversary of living like pirates on Gratitude. Here’s a quick update to catch you up on our most recent…
Cruising the Chesapeake, Part 3: Southbound Once More
Moving On – St. Michael’s and Southward A couple days after my friend Christine’s visit, we said a reluctant goodbye to Annapolis and turned Gratitude southeast toward St. Michael’s, MD. We left a day later than we had planned, resigning ourselves to a new route that did not include the Potomac. We’d really wanted to…
Cruising the Chesapeake, Part 2: Annapolis to Norfolk
Before we arrived in the Chesapeake Bay we had done a little research to narrow down the scope of our cruising there. The Chesapeake is HUGE, with more little rivers and creeks and anchorages to explore than one boat could do in just a few weeks. One source we read said that the Chesapeake has…
Cruising The Chesapeake, Part 1
Hello friends! It’s been a minute since we last posted. Part of that is because we’ve been busy sailing, seeing, and doing. Another part of it was a feeling, on our part, like we didn’t have all that much to write about. As I started reviewing photos, however, I realized just how wrong we were!…
Social in the Carolinas (With friends, family, and monkeys!)
Before we got out of chronological order with our Lightning Strike story, we left you off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah, in late June 2020. Time to pick up the story and tell you all about our summer in South and North Carolina. As you know from Andy’s last post, it was eventful! And…
Lightning! Gratitude Fried, Andy Survived
We need to talk about Hurricane Isaias, which blew over Gratitude, as well as a few other topics (it’s been a week.) But before we go there… We are in Charleston, South Carolina, the Holy City, docked at the City Marina. Weeks ago, when we were in Florida, our wind indicator instrument quit working. It…
Breakout! (Escape from Florida Complete!)
Last year we waited out hurricane season at Camp Grenada, but this year we wanted to try something different. So when we renewed our insurance policy in January we declared our intention to head up the East Coast of the U.S. This turned out to be a good decision, when the pandemic made the Caribbean a…
Escape from Florida (If Only!)
Fort Lauderdale, Part 1 (Andy) We limped into Harbour Towne Marina in Dania beach on one engine to have some repairs and upgrades made to Gratitude. There were quite a few small repairs we were having done by the qualified team at Just Catamarans under Laurent’s supervision. We wanted to upgrade our house batteries and…