Horizons is home!

Horizons is home, secure in Slip 19 at the Mariners Point docks.
The original plan was for that to happen three years ago, but
we did run into a snag or two along the way. Right now we think
that we have finished with extended cruising in foreign waters,
and a summing-up would be timely, since we won't be able to report
on our cruises if we aren't cruising, so we are coming to the
end of this series.

Today's installment gets us from Luperon, Dominican Republic,
on December 11 of last year, to our arrival in Hartfield on May
15, concentrating on the last 250 miles, from Beaufort NC. We
expect there will be another one, all because a friend, several
years ago, on the topic of our cruising experiences, asked us,
"What have you learned?" Of course we were stuck for an answer
then but the question deserves a thoughtful answer.

We have learned, for starters, that moving northward in the stinko
weather of 2013 was less pleasant than just about any similar
length of time on the water. (One telling statistic: Jack wore
out a brand-new sweater in two months' time, because he was always
wearing it.) Also, we suspect that we just might not be getting
any younger. But onward to the recapitulation!

For six weeks in the DR we were busy every day making sure that
we would be ready to go on short notice whenever a) the boatyard
finally figured out how to launch us and b) we finally got a
weather window enabling us to get to the Bahamas. In the meantime
we settled into the Luperon ex-pat community and enjoyed life
in the tropics.

When the window opened we got to the southern end of the Bahamas
and made our northward progress when we could, getting weathered
in at Rum Cay, Georgetown in the Exumas, Nassau and Lucaya.
That was five weeks, from February 6 to March 17, the day we
arrived in Ft Pierce FL—where we were weathered in for a week.
The weather made it impossible for the Bahamas to show itself
to its best advantage, and the same goes for Florida, Georgia
and both Carolinas.

But we made it a sentimental journey. (A sedimental journey
is one interrupted by occasional groundings in soft mud.) We
visited Harbortown in Ft Pierce, where we first saw Horizons
in February 1999, and nearby Vero Beach, where most of the houses
are still house-sized. Fernandina Beach in Florida and Jekyll
Island in Georgia were two more places we enjoyed seeing again.
And so on to Thunderbolt, Beaufort (SC), Charleston, Georgetown
(SC), and Morehead City. We plied every inch of the ICW, fondly
remembering the Sea Islands, the Ogeechee and Moon Rivers south
of Savannah and the Waccamaw River. (To name but a few.)

>From Beaufort NC at Statute Mile 200 of the ICW to Norfolk at
Mile 0, is (you guessed it!) a journey of about 172 nautical
miles, and home is just a long day's sail or motor from Norfolk.
Here's how it went.

We left Beaufort after a lay day. The weather called for it
and so did our weary bodies. Fortunately, there was a wooden
boat festival for entertainment, and onshore at least the wind
and rain were not particularly fierce. We were able to see cruising
friends, now land-based there and watched a fleet of wooden boats
being built under a tent and raced (?!?) in the harbor in the
afternoon.

But pleasant as Beaufort always is, we were eager to get home.
Our daughter was babysitting our grandkids in DC during the
Mother's Day weekend while their parents, John and Cheri, were
visiting friends in California. So if we got home we could leave
the boat, drive to DC and have a nice visit.

With that objective in mind we headed north. First stop was
Whittaker Creek Marina, where the dockmaster describes himself
as retired CIA. (Classic misdirection: he's got NSA written
all over him.) Of course we can't repeat a syllable of what
he said, but he said a lot. Next came Belhaven and Dowry Creek
Marina, which we have enjoyed and recommend.

Most of the ICW has green markers on the right side as you go
north, and reds on the left. There are exceptions, like the
Cape Fear River and the Pungo River, where the red-right-return
rule prevails. Jack was briefly confused about this in the Pungo,
but he corrected himself in time to stay out of the Muddo. And
so on to the Alligator River Bridge and to Midway Marina in Coinjock,
where the next day required crossing The Dreaded Currituck Sound.

Memory is the source of the dread: that body of water is as shallow
as some politicians we won't bother to name, and the only way
across is through a narrow dredged channel—which Laurie deviated
from on the way south in November 2000 and so ran hard aground,
losing the dinghy in the process. She had no intention of spending
any time at the helm in the Currituck this trip.

We got off to a bit of a late start on this year's trip from
Coinjock to Great Bridge VA, just as the day shift was forming
up at the Coinjock Coast Guard station. Fair warning—and in
fact we were boarded within the hour. Ever so much of our time
in Trinidad had been spent on preparing the boat to pass just
such an inspection, so we were prepared, sort-of.

The two youthful officers boarded us from a RIB with a crew of
six or seven that snuck up behind us, hailed us and asked when
was the last time we had been boarded by the CG. Never was the
answer, and on they came. They introduced themselves and started
asking Jack for things. Laurie explained that as Jack had to
be at the helm since she had once run seriously aground in the
Currituck, she would produce everything and be their guide.


The senior Youthful Officer remained in the cockpit with Jack
to ask him questions and Laurie took the junior Y.O., a trainee,
below.

First an explanation to the officer. The aft head is dominated
by a 40-gallon fiberglass fuel tank, which is the only source
of fuel to the engine. (The main tank had sprung a leak in the
Dominican Republic and was sealed off awaiting repair in the
US.) His superior accepted our statement that the infrastructure
for the required repair is a bit scanty in the DR. The junior
checked the bilge for evidence of diesel. None found, whew!

On to the head and plumbing, always a topic of interest to cruisers
and the authorities. After a fairly lengthy discussion—where
Laurie helped the Coastie trace the lines and explained that
the line that appeared to dangle over nowhere was from plumbing
installed in Turkey to comply with needs even more irrational
than in the US (she didn't say it that way) and that all that
plumbing had been replaced in Trinidad to comply with the US
requirements—that part of the inspection was passed. The Coasties
and Laurie agreed that they had spent enough time talking about
poo.

All was going swimmingly until he asked Laurie to produce the
horn. All vessels must have a noisemaking device. Of course
Horizons has a horn, several whistles and a ship's bell, but
at that moment Laurie could find none of them. They had all
disappeared somehow from the places they had been stowed or were
handily available from for the last 13 years. Obviously, they
would all appear when we got to the condo and took the boat apart
to clean it, piece by piece, but that was not helping us now,
in the drizzly rain on Currituck Sound, minutes away from not
passing inspection. The junior searched around in the pockets
of his boarding bag and the senior handed us two whistles and
said we were in compliance. He wrote us our "good-as-gold sheet"
and said the next time we were asked if we had been boarded we
should produce it; it might save everyone some time. (After
they left, we immediately found a bright orange whistle, tied
to a life jacket thrown in the aft cabin where everything else
is jumbled.)

The Coasties were at all times pleasant, cheerful and young.
We were glad we had been boarded and inspection passed by them
in the Currituck rather than by the Coast Guard destroyer that
snuck up on us between Haiti and Cuba at 0600 one morning in
2004.

We had already figured out that we weren't going to make it home
in time to drive to DC. So we left the boat in Norfolk at a very
pleasant marina we had last stayed at in 2000, rented a car,
drove to DC, had a lovely visit with the munchkins and Anne,
spent six hours at the zoo (our aching bones are just starting
to recover) and a Mother's Day brunch with Laurie's cousin en
famille. Drove back to the boat, discovered that the gas stove
had finally died (Laurie had hoped it would hold out till the
end of the trip, but, whatever) and went to bed.

Our last day on the water was not a sucker sail. It was a sucker
motor. We left the marina under very light south winds and motored
through the Norfolk's naval facility.
Years have passed since 2001 and now the Navy has its ships under
repair carefully but not obtrusively guarded. When we went through
in 2000 there was little security and we went close to the ships
to gawk and viewed the gaping hole in the side of the USS Cole
up close. In 2004, RIBS with machine guns were everywhere and
passing traffic stayed strictly on the center line of the channel.
Now the RIBS are there, lurking near a cluster of ships and
passing traffic is carefully warned of ships' movements and what
they should be to avoid getting too close. This time people
were sailing in the Elizabeth River, not encouraged in 2004.

The wind started light but it was honking and from the west by
the time we were half way up the bay. Ordinarily we would have
sailed but we were eager to get home; setting sail would be a
complication, the first time we have viewed it as such. We knew
that when we turned the corner into the Piankatank it would once
more be right on our nose, where it has been almost all of this
trip and for five years in the Med.

We turned the corner into Wilton Creek. The wind dropped to
nothing. It is the best hurricane hole in the Chesapeake. A
neighbor helped us tie up. We went upstairs, pulled together
a meal, drank some champagne, and went to bed.

These emails have been fun for us to write and enough of you
have said that they have been fun to read, so that we have enjoyed
doing them. You will get two more, one from each of us, because
there is the saying: One boat, two voyages. It all goes back
to the friend's question from the opening paragraph: What have
we learned? What, indeed! We would each like to take our time
answering the question later, once we are a little better organized.


Right now, we are clearing the boat, Jack is printing off the
tax return, we are assessing our repair needs and making to-do
lists—and preparing to enter your real world.