The Rest of the Story

"A Tale of Two Tims and Four Cats"

So let's get right into the juicy details. We are so excited to announce that we have TWO new crew members joining us on the trip!

Many of you have already heard that my sister, Kristin, will be joining us for a segment of the trip beginning in Buffalo, NY. (Hopefully you caught our update video on the indiegogo page or the goofy outtake posted on Facebook!) We're thrilled because this means that the family will all be together to retrace our wake from the original trip through the canal! It's sure to bring back a lot of memories!

Speaking of memories, apparently mine is faulty. Somehow I mis-remembered that we travel through the St. Lawrence Seaway. We don't. Not even close. Instead, we will be going through the New York Barge Canal (sometimes commonly referred to as the Erie Canal). My parents pointed this out to me after I'd already told the world we were going through the St. Lawrence. Oops! Haha! Aren't you so glad you signed up for these exclusive updates??!! You're the very first to know about my goof!

Ok, so I did say two new crew members. It is with so much pleasure that I announce our new full-time, not getting off the boat until Jacksonville or we drive him bonkers, crew member Tim Holzer! Not only did Tim work with my dad at Rosemount/Emerson Electric for many years, but he and his dear late wife Barb were close friends with both my parents and often spent fun weekends together. This will be Tim's first ever sail and we've warned him that it's going to be a doozy! But he assures us that he is ready for "the adventure of a lifetime!" We'll check back in with him after a few weeks of putting up with us to see how he feels then ;)

For those of you paying attention, it has occurred to us that my dad's name is also Tim, my mom's name is Catherine, my full name is Catherine, and we have two cats. In other words the crew of Heart's Desire is made up of two Tims and four Cats. That's gotta be a good sign, right? In order to keep the two Tim's straight, we've been trying out nicknames for Tim Holzer, everything from "Holzer" to "Tim2" to "Tiny Tim." We're open to suggestions!

We're setting sail from Ashland, Wisconsin today and we're so excited! It's been a lot of work getting ready for the trip.

Tim Fog, our fearless leader, has been handling all the major jobs, including fixing things around the boat, teaching Tim2 the basics of sailing, and making sure everything is ready for the big trip!

Because Catherine is having issues with her arms and can't help much with the more physical aspects of the journey, her main jobs on board will be to prepare the meals and bottle washing. She is on top of it! We're definitely not going to starve. Holzer said his biggest fear about the trip is that he's going to gain 20 pounds. I told him not to worry, I'll be teaching aerobics on the deck every morning and Zumba in the afternoons.

Speaking of me, I have been relentless in my pursuit of capturing these reserved Midwesterners on film. They are tolerating it, and have been very accommodating, but I don't think they quite like it yet. Just wait, in a few weeks they'll all be primadonnas, demanding their own trailer and harassing me for more lines.

Unlike Holzer, who has been nothing but super helpful as we prepare for our journey, the cats have been obnoxious loafs. They only get up to beg for food, while the rest of us do all the work. The one brightspot is that Scarlett and Neko, who have yet to get along after four years of living together, have somehow managed to relax their ten foot rule and will sleep near each other on my parents' bed when they think no one is looking. I think this trip is going to bring us all closer together!

As I mentioned, we set sail today. Our plan as of now is to basically sail straight through the Great Lakes (all except Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario) as long as we can, breaking up into different watch shifts. But of course it will all depend on the weather. Holzer experienced his first squall yesterday and was surprised by how quickly a storm can roll in. Within minutes, the beautiful sunny day clouded over and winds gusted, bringing rain and rough seas. Luckily, we were still tied up at the marina and enjoyed a beautiful rainbow at the end. We're taking it as sign of smooth sailing ahead!

“A lock named Sault” or “Riders on the Storm” (depending on your musical preference)

Hello friends!

I’m writing to you from Harbor Beach, MI, about 450 miles from our starting point of Ashland, WI.

It’s been an eventful first 10 days! If I was ever worried that this was going to be a boring trip, I can’t seem to remember now.

We left Ashland, WI in the midafternoon, full of high hopes for our first overnight sail. The sun was shining and a lovely tailwind pushed us along. About two hours after a dramatic red sunset we were hit by a sudden squall. It lasted only a half hour, but left the seas churned up and confused hours afterward. The disorganized waves tossed us around pretty severely in the pitch black night. This was Tim2’s introduction to sailing. At one point, he asked me if it was hailing because the sound of the deck getting pounded by the lines in the wind sounded like ice pellets hitting the boat. Dishes crashed to the floor (plastic, don’t worry!), boxes slid off of shelves, and our small fridge bounced out of its cubby, opened its door, and dumped the majority of its contents on the floor.

Heart’s Desire looked like someone had picked it up and shaken it thoroughly (incidentally only a slight exaggeration.) After the long night, the entire crew was exhausted, especially Captain Tim who stayed awake almost the entire 24 hours until we found a place to tie up for the night in the Keweenaw Bay. It was an intense beginning to our long journey.

We decided to stay another day in Keweenaw to avoid more reports of bad weather. Captain Tim spent most of his time dealing with a broken bilge pump, which he managed to build a new gasket for and get running again, while the rest of us relaxed.

The next leg of our trip was beautiful and we were able to show Tim2 how magical sailing can be. I got a little fancy and mounted one of the GoPros on a long pole in order to catch some nice sailing shots. That night we passed Whitefish Bay, near where the Edmund Fitzgerald lies and admired the beautiful, starry sky. It was a lovely way to say farewell to Lake Superior, which has been our sailing home for almost thirty years and is the backdrop to some of my favorite childhood memories.

The first lock of the trip was located in Sault Sainte Marie. It’s pronounced (soo), which I knew, but not spelled "Sioux", which I did not know. (Guys, I'm learning so much!) There are two sides to the canal, Canadian and American. Usually, non-commercial boats are sent to the Canadian side, which we attempted to access. After searching for the entrance while navigating the confusing channel, another boat told us the Canadian lock was closed for repairs and we would have to use the American side. So we made our way all the way back to the American side and into the 1,000+ foot long lock. It was exciting and a little stressful having not navigated the intricacies of a lock in 22 years (it was Tim2’s very first time!), but we made it without damaging the boat or throwing each other overboard!

We spent the night at the lovely George Kemp Marina and took full advantage of the wifi and hot showers. The next morning Capt. Tim and I biked four miles UPHILL (emphasis mine) to Walmart to pick up groceries and other supplies needed for the trip, including extra hard drives to store all the beautiful photos and film footage. Before this experience I had never even heard of a terabyte. Now, I have about 12 terabytes of storage tucked away in my bunk. We’ll see if that proves to be enough.

That day we shared the narrow St. Mary’s River with a dozen or so Lakers (1,000 foot ships made for transporting cargo around the Great Lakes. The ships are so long we even spied one guy riding a bicycle on deck to get from end to end. It’s a pretty awe-inspiring feeling to travel alongside such massive boats.  Technically, we have right of way, but didn’t rely too heavily on that fact and made sure to give them a wide berth.

Unfortunately, we were not able to travel as far as we’d hoped. More severe weather reports convinced us to play it safe and spend the night tied up at Lime Island, part of Michigan’s state park system. Some friendly rangers came to greet us, along with about a hundred seagulls and Canada Geese. I snapped some nice photos of the island’s “buoy graveyard” (the coast guard’s unused giant navigational buoys) while trying to avoid all the bird poop on the ground.

We left at dawn the next morning, sailing out of the St. Mary’s River and into Lake Huron. A gale warning was issued for the following day by the national weather service so we pulled into Presque Isle, MI (pressk—eel) and anchored. We enjoyed a lovely dinner in the cockpit and a beautiful view of the full moon.

The next day was rainy and cold, so we made the most of it indoors, playing games and catching up on chores. Around 11pm the gusting winds hit us. At 11:30 Captain Tim got up to check the anchor and discovered that we had dragged nearly 500 feet in the mucky bottom and were about five feet from hitting an unoccupied, moored sailboat. I took the helm and Captain hauled up the anchor, the commotion finally bringing T2 and Catherine into the cockpit. We tried unsuccessfully for about an hour and a half to hook up to one of the empty moorings in the harbor, knowing that re-anchoring would be useless. But the gusting 40 knot winds made it impossible to hook a mooring, and our only option was to motor in circles around the anchorage until the winds died or it became light enough for us to navigate our way into the marina. Unfortunately, the winds only grew stronger and Captain and Catherine spent seven hours in the cockpit in 40 degree weather, retracing their path around the anchorage.

Finally, it grew light enough to see the unlit buoys in front of the narrow marina entrance and we made it safely to the fuel dock. Later, Catherine and I spoke to another boater about the experience. He told us we were smart to wait until light to make the entrance. He had attempted to find his way in without the buoys once, after having been to the marina several times, and ended up running aground, causing $1000 worth of damage to his boat.

After the long, cold night, we were thankful to find another hot shower. The next morning we set out bright and early for Port Huron, our next planned stop, just outside of Lake Huron in the St. Clair River.

The weather was cold (we all wore two pairs of pants and several layers of shirts and jackets), but not too windy or rough and we traveled at a comfortable 8 knots. Encouraged by the uneventful weather report, we hoped to reach Port Huron, late the next afternoon. Unfortunately, the weather report was bunk. The winds shifted and gusted so we decided to stop about 10 hours early to spend the night in Harbor Beach (1am). The harbor, not-so-coincidentally called Refuge Bay, wasn’t ideal. The bottom was mucky, full of weeds and the shallow water and rolly seas made it difficult to find a comfortable spot. We finally anchored “good enough”. Not wanting a repeat of Presque Isle, Catherine and I stayed up on anchor watch while the two Tims got some needed sleep. At about 5:30a.m. we had to wake Capt. T up to tell him we were dragging, albeit slowly. We decided to hold off moving until daylight and he took over watch so Catherine and I could get some rest and snuggle with the cats.

Three hours later the Coast Guard stopped by to let us know we were dragging (thanks) and we decided to move to the nearby marina we’d avoided. The small Coast Guard boat kept an eye on us as we fought the 40 knot gusts, rain, and rough seas (waves crashing over the dodger) to get to the marina entrance. Once inside we promptly ran aground in the shallow entrance, the main reason we’d avoided the marina in the first place. We gunned the engine and levied the gusting wind to help us off the low spot and finally crashed into arrived at the fuel dock. Another boater told us that the marina had a problem with sailboats running aground in front of them and had dredged earlier in the year. We’d just missed the dredged spot by a few feet.

So it’s another unscheduled stop, for us, which is frustrating, but not all bad. We’re plugged into electricity which means I currently have a space heater aimed right at me, and we all got another round of hot showers.

Unfortunately, due to all the bad weather we’ve had we are approximately six days behind schedule, making it uncertain if Kristin will be able to meet up with us in Buffalo after all. It’s a fact of sailing life: everything depends on the weather.

Tomorrow looks good (for now) so we plan to leave early and make it to Port Huron before dark. We’ll spend the night there, and go through the St. Clair River, the busiest shipping waterway in the world, during daylight. Unless we’re pummeled by bad weather again, it will probably take another three days to get across Lake Erie and to Buffalo, NY. For now we remain hopeful that we’ll still be able to manage our family reunion!

Despite the tumultuous seas, only one of the crew had a bout of seasickness; Neko cat threw up the first (very rough) night. I found her in the aft berth, cleaned her up, and cuddled with her until she seemed less scared and woozy. Since then, I’m happy to report that Neko is working toward becoming a real boat cat and loves riding up in the cockpit with the rest of the crew. The elusive Miss Scarlett still prefers to hide in shadowy corners and cupboards below.

Tim2 has thankfully experienced no wooziness, and continues to prove his seaworthiness, learning new skills every day, including tying off cleats.

"The Week Late Edition"

Hey there friends!

It’s been two weeks since my last update because frankly I lost track of time. I thought tomorrow was yesterday and today was last week. That’s a side-effect of living on a boat. The days blend together. Another side-effect is that Jimmy Buffet has been drilling a hole in my head for almost two weeks. Seriously, send help. I can’t find my lost shaker of salt…ugh.

Anyway, we’ve been busy! I have so much to tell you!

It is day 24 of the voyage. Of the 2500 (nautical) miles, we have traveled 1175. We are a little behind schedule because we lost about four days in the Great Lakes due to bad weather. It’s unlikely that we will be able to make up the time, but hopefully the bad weather is behind us.

When last I wrote, we were headed to Port Huron, MI. Believe me, no one shed a single tear as we crossed out of Lake Huron, the Great Lake that had treated us the most cruelly. We crossed into the St. Clair River with a cheer.

Despite its reputation as the busiest shipping area in the world it didn’t seem that much busier than the St. Mary’s river. Maybe we just caught it on a slow day. The St. Clair River blends into the Detroit River and we cruised right under the bridge that separates Detroit and Windsor, Canada and past a lot of alien space farms a.k.a. taconite plants. They look crazy, unless you’ve seen them before, then they probably look normal. I’ll show you the pictures later.

With the help of a very strong (luckily in our favor) current, we hit our highest speed of the trip so far at 9.5 knots as we zipped out of the Detroit River and into Lake Erie. We planned to stay for the night to avoid a coming storm. Seemed simple enough.

Despite how it might appear 99.9% of the time we do plan ahead. We made reservations (via phone) at the Humbug Marina because what’s in a name anyway? Also, it was the only option available for miles and miles. When we came into range we attempted to hail them on the radio to find their exact location. We were promptly informed by an eavesdropping tugboat that Humbug doesn’t monitor the radio. Silly us! Then the tug tried to give us directions into the marina, which turned out to be as helpful as a broom in the desert. As we motored up and down the channel, searching for the alleged buoy 45 that the tug claimed would lead us to Humbug (buoy 45 doesn’t exist) the Border Patrol appeared. They’d heard our exchange with the tug on the radio and decided to come to our rescue. Using forward sonar they painstakingly guided us through the shallows for two hours to the marina. (Lucky for us it was a slow day patrolling the US/Canadian border.) We thanked them profusely. Without their help we wouldn’t have made it before dark, if at all.

They politely shrugged it off, gave us further instructions to avoid some rocks, and sped away. Was it my imagination or did I detect a hint of concern on their faces as they left us moments before sundown in front of Humbug Marina? I’ll never know. What I do know is that “Humbug” couldn’t have been a more accurate name for that marina. To be honest, it looked more like a boat junkyard or the setting of a horror movie than a marina.

Not only does Humbug Marina not monitor the maritime radio like all other marinas on planet Earth, or give a heads up to boaters making reservations that they rival Brigadoon in their hard-to-find-ness, but they also don’t tell you that it is very, VERY shallow in and around their marina. Our keel draws a modest 5’6” and it was so shallow that we could not get to the fuel dock where the marina rep told us to go. We couldn’t even get close. It was also too shallow to make it into a slip, despite what a very friendly, but life-ravaged woman yelled to us from her dilapidated sailboat. Her keel was clearly resting on the bottom. Later she mentioned that she hadn’t left the dock in six years and was probably aground. (No kidding.)

That left us no choice but to tie up at the end of the dock next to what appeared to be a mobile home with faux log exterior atop a barge replete with Direct-TV dish and a menacing sign that read “Keep out!” The whiskey-voiced woman (never caught her name) hobbled over to help us with lines, yelling, “Todd! Are you home?” Immediately, Todd emerged from his floating palace to insist that we move. We mustered all of our Midwestern passive aggression and ignored him while we tied up. He demanded to know how long we were staying. Just the night, thanks!

We ate spaghetti for supper while Capt. Tim searched for a path through the shallows that we could take the next morning. He didn’t find a clear cut solution.

The marina was already closed by the time we got there, and still closed by the time we left at sunrise, which was fine with us. We never heard another peep from Todd. Without the aid of forward sonar, we cautiously wove our way out of the marina, through the hidden rocks, toward the buoy-lined channel. I spotted a couple abandoned boats half sunken in the shallows behind us. Not an encouraging sign.

There was a strong current behind us and the fear was that if we picked up too much speed and hit a shallow spot our keel would sink in and we’d be stuck. And the border patrol was probably busy that day.

Captain Tim directed us slowly, white-knuckling his way back to the open lake. We hit bottom no fewer than four times, but wiggled our way off each time. Clearly that part of Michigan hadn’t seen a boat like Heart’s Desire in a long time. We cheered and slapped C.T. on the back when we made it out of the shallow channel.

The next 39 hours crossing Lake Erie to Buffalo, N.Y. were relatively peaceful, though we picked up a few hitchhikers; a cloud of weird little flies and a small bird desperately trying to eat all the weird little flies.

We spent a couple days in Buffalo picking up supplies, taking down the mast, and picking up Kristin. The guys at the marina who took down our mast were hilarious characters. They let me film the whole thing and assured me they had Hollywood experience, having been in several commercials and a movie. Unstepping the mast was fascinating. Captain Tim’s preparation combined with the marina guys’ experience made it fast and reasonably painless. But of course, a couple things got broken :(

Kristin found the rest of us exhausted from the trip through the Great Lakes and immediately took up the slack, helping out through the locks and even cooking us gourmet meals! Seriously. The first morning for breakfast she made a frittata with a balsamic reduction.

We made it through the Erie Canal in 6.5 days, much faster than we’d anticipated! We met many friendly people along the way, including an adorable British/Canadian couple. They followed us for several miles until we were about to enter lock 22. I commented to Captain Tim that they’d stopped moving, a minute later the gentleman hailed us on the radio. Luckily, we were able to decipher his thick British accent to understand that they’d run aground and needed our help. 

We turned directly around, despite not having a plan for how to assist.

Kristin and Tim2 stood at the ready on deck, while Catherine and Capt. T co-manned the helm. We didn’t want to get sucked into the shoals with them, but we had to get close enough to catch a line. Once we had hold of them the goal was to pull them off the shoal without slamming them into our stern all while navigating the narrow, shallow canal. Needless to say it was a tense situation. As for how it all turned out, you’re just going to have to watch the film. But I will say that the Canadian couple has excellent taste in wine and we waved goodbye to them this morning as they headed to the Hudson River.

Speaking of the Hudson River, that’s where we are! Catherine says there are a lot of “yohos” speeding by us as we head to Castleton to step the mast. It’s a do-it-yourself job and I’ve already called dibs on operating the crane. Should be interesting.

So ends another part of our journey. Not to overstate it, but I think we’re a different crew coming out of the Erie Canal than the one that went in. You’ll see it in the film. The first few locks were a mess of nervous confusion, while the last few were calm routine. Now we’re headed toward a new challenge. Kristin leaves us in NYC and we venture back into the ocean after 22 years away. It’ll be a couple days’ sail to Norfolk, then we’ll enter the intracoastal waterway and our last leg to Jacksonville.

The “Co-written By Capt. Tim and Cate” Edition

October 7, 2014

Hi All,

The last you heard from us we were in the Hudson, dodging “yohos,” a.k.a. discourteous boaters who kick up wake despite a bajillion clearly posted NO WAKE signs. It’s a dangerous problem when there are two very heavy, metal poles balancing precariously overhead in a wooden cradle. Too much wake could dislodge one or both. The best case scenario is that the masts fall into the water and we’d have to buy new ones. Worst case would be that they crushed and injured one of the crew. My parents assure me that I’m “irreplaceable.”

Several yohos sped by us, one dangerously so, causing our mast cradle to wobble and shake violently as if we’d been hit by 5.0 earthquake. Kristin, at the helm, quickly turned the boat into the yoho’s wake, trying  to minimize roll while Captain T and Tim2 tried to steady the masts. I struggled to hold the main cradle support in place below deck until things finally calmed down. But we were not happy, especially Captain who angrily got on the radio and said, “Thanks for the wake!” Although he may not swear like a sailor, Captain Tim absolutely does not take kindly to any threats to his crew or ship.

After a few tense miles we finally arrived at the Castleton Boat Club in NY where we used their self-service crane to step the masts. Yep, that’s right, self-service. As in we picked up the two masts (56 and 40 ft respectively) with a crane and put the boat back together by ourselves. I find assembling IKEA furniture challenging enough. Did I mention that we were on the water and there was a lot of wake?

Stepping a mast in rolling waves is kind of like threading a needle on a tilt-a-whirl, except the mast weighs hundreds of pounds and the narrow hole you’re aiming for is on a boat that costs a lot of money. It was a teensy bit nerve-wracking. But we did it! And in a swift 7 hours. Seriously, though, you should be impressed. I still am.

Successfully putting the boat back together was a great exercise in teamwork, though honestly Captain T, Tim2, and Kristin did most of the heavy lifting. Catherine and I took turns filming and operating the crane, which was decidedly less exciting than I’d anticipated. There was no cool orange hard hat, no driver’s cage. Just a big turn crank and a button for UP and a button for DOWN. Yawn. I should have called dibs on getting hoisted to the top of the mast! Instead, Captain Tim took that job in order to reattch the radar thingy that I can never remember the name of. It starts with a "t".

Anyway, after we put Humpty Dumpty Heart’s Desire back together again, we continued down the Hudson, navigating through dense fog a few mornings until the rising sun burned it off. The Hudson is beautiful this time of year, the leaves fiery shades of orange and red. We cruised past several mansions, including the Vanderbilt estate, FDR’s home, and Sing Sing.

Twenty-two years ago Heart’s Desire sailed into the majestic NY Harbor greeted by fireworks (it was Earth Day, not necessarily a holiday one associates with colorful, smokey explosions, but we still enjoyed it). This time our “Welcome to NYC” was a tug boat radio call to the Coast Guard that a body was floating near the Manhattan Cruise Terminal. Yikes!

Nevertheless, we enjoyed our time in NYC. We anchored just off Liberty Park with breathtaking views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline punctuated by the Freedom Tower, a reminder of how much time has passed since last we visited.

Kristin, who was a tremendous help in getting us through the Erie Canal and putting HD back together, flew home to Chicago. After coming up with what some might call a brilliant idea to have groceries delivered to the parking lot next to our anchorage (instead of biking miles and hauling them back ourselves), I took a day off and headed to Brooklyn to see friends and use coffeshop WiFi to attend my online screenwriting class. I don’t know what Tim, Tim2, and Catherine did on HD that day, but I spent time with an adorable toddler, used flush toilets, and ate a homemade pop tart. It was amazing.

Bad weather forced us-yet again-to stay another day anchored in the harbor twiddling our thumbs.

Excited to get HD back in the Atlantic after 22 years away, we finally departed NYC with high hopes of making it to Norfolk in three days of continuous sailing. Five Days later, we’re only as far as Cape May, NJ (120 miles north of Norfolk) doing our favorite thing – waiting out bad weather. (The wind howls as I type this.)

Unfortunately our bad luck with weather has followed us into the ocean. We were forced to make unscheduled stops in Barnegat Light and Atlantic City.

In Barnegat the wind gusted all night, causing the boat to creak and groan so loudly we had to sleep with earplugs, which only helped marginally. It literally sounded like a sea monster emerging from its crypt as long as you think “literally” means “figuratively”. I recorded the sounds in case any of you plan to make a scary radio play one day.

Atlantic City, a.k.a. the Monopoly City, was a much more pleasant experience. We slept peacefully, restocked our stores, washed our stinky laundry, and took the most glorious and desperately needed showers of all time. I mean, there was water pressure like you wouldn’t believe! And free shampoo, conditioner, and even mountain spring scented body gel!! (It had been a very, very long time since last we’d bathed.)

Tim2 treated us to a lovely dinner ashore. Atlantic City is an interesting mix of the haves and the have nots side by side. But everyone we met was exceptionally friendly, including the guys who took care of us at Kammerman’s Marina. Not only did they give Cap’n and Catherine a ride to the grocery store, but they gave me an amazing bulk rate on postcards. So I’m shouting their praise from the mountain top!

We bypassed the casinos, instead deciding to try our luck with the weather. We didn’t hit the jackpot. Yesterday’s trip from Atlantic City to Cape May was only 40 miles, but took 11 hours. I think that might be the actual speed of frustration. We literally could have walked here faster. And that is the proper use of the word literally. Unfortunately, we were headed SW, which was the exact direction the wind was coming from. The 15 knot wind gusted to 20 with a 4ft sea and regular 8ft breakers. In other words, we got severely pummeled. In fact you could call us Rocky Balboa and the Atlantic Ocean Apollo Creed (from the first ROCKY movie).

Tim-2 got his first taste of hard ocean sailing yesterday when a wave broke over the boat and doused him with salt water. He has proven to be a real sailor with an iron stomach. Neko and Scarlett had a tough day. At various times both stumbled out to their water dish but it was so rough they couldn’t stand up long enough to get a drink and scuttled back to their beds in the aft cabin. They were very happy kitties when we finally reached the smooth water inside the harbor.

I have to say that even though it was exhausting and a little scary, I couldn’t help but think of all the money I was saving on amusement park rides.

Fortunately, the crew and boat came through in great shape and we live to fight another day (just like Rocky). But not today. Today we sat in the Cape May anchorage surrounded by so many Canadian boats we thought we might have taken a wrong turn somewhere. But it did inspire us to dig out our spare American flag. (Remember how we lost our first one back in Presque Isle, MI the night we motored around the anchorage for 7 hours in a storm? Oh, the good ol’ days!)

So far on this trip, we’ve spent 10 days waiting for weather conditions to improve. Despite our frustration, we’ve had many reminders that we are very fortunate to be safe and very wise to be cautious. We passed a beached sailboat on Sandy Hook Island helplessly waiting rescue, and have heard several radio calls from stranded, sinking, and capsized boats. We’ll take sitting in the anchorage over those options any day.

Despite the wind and rain tonight, it looks like we may get a good weather window starting tomorrow that will allow us to make an overnight trip directly to Norfolk. It will be great to finally start the last leg of our journey – the Intracoastal Waterway from Norfolk to Jacksonville. The mid-Atlantic will not be missed!

Since leaving Ashland, WI we have traveled 1440 nautical miles. Our latest and more accurate estimate of the trip gives us about 800 left to go. Hopefully, the best is yet to come!

"The Final Countdown" Edition

October 21, 2014

Hello friends!

Heart’s Desire is only a few hours from finishing its epic journey to Florida! We’re currently motoring through the Jekyll Sound near the Georgia/Florida border. Luckily, no one’s turned into Mr. Hyde, yet.

Ok, I’ll hold off on the bad jokes.

So last time I wrote we were preparing to leave Cape May, NJ for an overnight ocean passage to Norfolk, VA. For once we had lovely weather! Even seas, comfortable temperatures, and a gorgeous full moon that rose out of the unblemished horizon. It couldn’t have been a nicer trip.

Here’s a fun tip if you ever feel like things are going too well: Tell everyone you turned the running lights on (the red and green lights that illuminate the boat in the dark), but instead don’t turn them on. Then go to sleep, leaving someone else to take watch not knowing that we’re invisible in the dark. Hijinks ensue.

Around 4:30 a.m. I jumped out of bed because I heard the engine slow dramatically. This is not a normal thing to happen and when it does it’s usually a sign that something is wrong. (I hadn’t heard Catherine’s frantic screams moments before which are another way to tell something is wrong.) I rushed to the cockpit to see a large fishing trawler bearing down on us. They pulled out a giant spotlight and inexplicably berated us with it for a few moments before finally trudging away.

We didn’t understand what had happened until Captain Tim discovered that the running lights were off. Boy, did we have a good laugh then! Nothing funnier than playing chicken with a much larger boat in the dark! We’re all still laughing about it…ahem.

Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes big ones, and this was mine. The switch for the running lights is next to the switch for the strobe light, which I’d accidentally turned on instead. I would have noticed immediately except that unbeknownst to me the strobe light is broken so there wasn’t the telltale flashing. The running lights, located at the bow of the boat, are very difficult to see from the cockpit which we generally don’t leave at night unless absolutely necessary (it’s such a bother to have to go back for someone who’s fallen overboard).

Incidentally, no one else onboard noticed the lights weren’t on either. Needless to say, we’ve since started double checking.

As far as the trawler goes, it never tried to hail us on the radio or even yell at us when we were only twenty-feet away. So either it saw us on radar and came over to check out the “ghost boat”, or it wasn’t paying attention to its radar and in that case also learned a very valuable lesson: always use radar at night because someone who easily confuses left and right might have thought she turned the running lights on but didn’t. Anyway…

Aside from that snafu, we arrived in Norfolk without any problems. We saw so many ships it felt like the old days back in the St. Mary’s and St. Clair rivers, except in addition to cargo ships Norfolk is home to many naval vessels, including warships. One even called us to tell us we were in their way. Sorry!

We arrived in Norfolk early so we decided to keep on truckin’ boatin’ all the way into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), saying “smell ya later” to the Atlantic. Hopefully, the next time Heart’s Desire ventures into the ocean it’ll treat us a little better than it did the majority of our trip.

At sunset we found an idyllic, secluded spot to anchor in lovely VA. It’s only drawback the constant overhead traffic of fighter jets. I recorded it for my collection of anti-sleep sounds. So far I’ve got the creepy creaking anchor, the booming fighter jets, and the Tims’ dueling snores.

The next day we continued merrily, merrily down the stream. Life is but a dream. Or something like that.

The Intracoastal Waterway is a series of rivers, sounds, man-made canals, etc. that form a water highway on the inside lip of the eastern coast of the United States, much of it too narrow for us to sail so we just chug along as fast as we can, sometimes fighting wind and current, with our 62hp engine (re: slowly).

So far the strict schedule of the various bridges, swing and bascule mostly, (swing bridges move like turnstyles and bascule bridges open vertically to make movie car chases more exciting) has been more an impediment to our progress than the weather. “Be advised: if you are even one minute late you will have to wait another hour for the bridge to open” is a phrase we’ve heard more than once. Who says things move more slowly in the South?

Besides Southern landmarks like Fort Sumter and Bonaventure Cemetery, we’ve mosied through the Pungo River, the Ashepoo Coosaw Cutoff, the Socastee River, Buttermilk Sound etc. (I know these sound made up, but they’re not. Do I dare tell you that we spent the night in Thunderbolt, GA?)

Despite the whimsical names the waterway is a little boring. Aside from a couple exceptions, our schedule has been to pick up anchor at first light, motor as far as we can, then drop anchor sometime before dark. We haven’t seen any water moccasins or alligators (not even in the deceptively named Alligator River). And maybe I’m the only one disappointed by this, but we didn’t encounter any homicidal maniacs in the Cape Fear River either. (I mean, there are two movies about it!)

We’ve done our best to keep entertained with Sudoku puzzles, trashy novels, and dolphin spotting. (I don’t care how cynical you are, dolphins are magical creatures! Demonstrated by their tendency to disappear as soon as I pull out my camera.) But sometimes the monotony gets to be a little much.

Don’t get me wrong, after all the rough weather and the work of getting through the Erie Canal, taking the boat apart and putting it back together the calm ICW has been a welcome respite. But two weeks of cruising by marsh fields has tested my mental endurance. It’s like ending an exciting road trip driving through the endless cornfields of Iowa. No offense, Iowa.

The ICW isn’t completely barren. Much of it is expensive real estate. Mansions, ornate doll houses on stilts, sit back on firmer ground. Their quarter-mile-long docks like tentacles reaching lazily into the waterway.

The “exciting” parts of the trip are more tedious than dangerous. We’ve run aground at least half a dozen times, which in the Great Lakes would’ve been a major problem. Running aground in the ICW is pretty common because it opens to the ocean in many areas. Therefore the changing tides and currents cause silt to pile up in the channel, unseen and often uncharted. Though I’d like to point out that we’ve only run aground while Captain Tim or Catherine have been at the helm. Maybe it’s because Timbuk2 (Tim 2’s evolving nickname) and I have a preternatural sense of where the hidden shoals lie. Or maybe, as some have suggested, it’s because Cap’n and Catherine sit at the helm most often. We’ll never know. The point is, it’s not a big deal as long as it happens at low tide. If we can’t unwedge ourselves from the mud with our motor we just drop an anchor, make dinner, and wait for the water to rise so we can float on.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to make up any of the time we lost previously. Today is the 49^th day of what we thought would be a 35-day-42-at-the-most long trip. Appointments and trips had to be canceled or postponed. Though it’s been hard not to feel a little disappointed and frustrated at times we take solace in the fact that we’ve had an epic journey! As of tonight we will have made it to Tiger Point, FL!

Wait, what?

Yeah, I know we’ve been saying Jacksonville this whole time, and Heart’s Desire will eventually reside in Jacksonville, FL which is only about 30 miles away. However, Captain Tim and Catherine have to return to MN for a few months to take care of some final details (like selling their house) before they move permanently. Until then Heart’s Desire needs some work and Tiger Point Marina is the best place for everything to get done, mostly because it was the first place to return our phone call.

The next few days are going to be a rush of activity for crew and ship. Tonight we pull into the marina. Tomorrow we rent a car and begin the list of chores and errands that need to be completed before we all depart to our respective homes. Sunday Catherine, Captain Tim, and the cats fly back to MN and I back to Los Angeles. We decided to thank Tim2 for all his hard work and loyal service by releasing him from duty early on Thursday.

After such a long trip we are all very excited to return to our friends, comfy beds, and regular routines. But not without a pause to appreciate how far we’ve come.

A brief recap of our trip:

We’ve traveled through 14 states; MN, WI, MI, OH, PA, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL. (We count all the states we passed through regardless of if it was land or water. Minnesota counts because even though the boat left WI, Minnesota is where we left as a crew.)

Heart’s Desire has logged about 2585 statute miles! Now, I know what you’re thinking; last time I said we had gone 1440 miles with 800 left. But that was 2240 nautical miles. If you divide 2585 by 1.151 (the number of statute miles in a nautical mile) you get roughly 2246 nautical miles. That’s the same ratio to convert miles per hour to knots per hour. So that explains that. But why is it “knots” and not “nauts”? And why are we switching between statute miles and nautical miles anyway? I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. All I know is that we’ve come a heck of a long way!

We are so very grateful that the entire crew, including the cats, and the boat made the journey safely. In fact, the only casualty was the lens cap to my camera, which bounced overboard somewhere back in North Carolina. I wasn’t thrilled about the loss, but if that’s the cost of having an epic adventure I’ll gladly pay it!

Anyway, I’m sorry to end this update because there’s so much more to say, but you’ll have to stay tuned for the next installment. There’s still a little bit left of our trip and I’m going above to enjoy it! We’re passing an island with wild horses!