At Long Long Last

Looking Pretty Dockside in Gibraltar 2012

At long last, "Windjammer: Previous Passages" has settled into Blogger as its new home.  This blog chronicles our sailing trip through the Caribbean to East Coast USA via the Bahamas from 2008 to 2010. 

Nearly all transfer chores have been done and the Typepad account no longer exists.  Sadly any comments left on either Vox or Typepad have long since disappeared so we  were unable to have them transfered too.  If you can remember what messages you left, please resend them.  Although we can't always reply, we do look forward to various pithy comments sent to cheer us on our way!

Cap'n & Crew, Antigua  2008

We've also added a Ready Reference to direct you to posts that cover our various destinations.  We've updated all photos, added a few extras, including some maps to make it a bit more interesting.

Windjammer's adventures continue (in the Med!!!) on our current blog.  Link on the right as always.  So too is our Map & Tracker, an ingenious "where's windjammer now" which allows you a birds eye view of all our stops along the way.  (As long as I've got the chart readings right that is!).  Our photo albums live on WJ3's newer blog too, so if it's photo overload you're seeking on a dull TV day, then this is just the ticket. 

GS.  Always feeding somebody.  Bahamas 2009

We continue to be inspired by people we meet along the way and it always surprises us to see so many Aussies; some doing very game and adventurous things, others like us just enjoying the day cruise with a few overnight hops here & there! 

Finally, thank you all for your encouraging comments. We hope you will continue to join us on the high (and low) seas as we potter about in a boat.  There's still a few more years (sailing seasons) left in us yet and who knows where we will be by then. 

Maine 2010

So enjoy reminiscing with us

Gibraltar 2012

Birthday Boy

Portimao, Portugal 2012

Progress continues on updating WJ3's 2008-2010 blog; only photos need to be replaced now (so they don't disappear into the ether when we shut down Typepad!) but that could be a job for Big Dell at home.  In the meantime, we've had fun reminiscing...

Those google eyes in my dinner are following me!

You may well be aware that the Cap’n celebrated a birthday recently.  We made for floating restaurant, the Rivole and ordered a local lunch fit for an old salt.  Run by a husband and wife team, we were made to feel welcome and encouraged to take lunch in typical Portuguese fashion.  After a refreshing Sagres beer, we munched our way through large, grilled prawns, lightly seasoned to take advantage of their freshness.  Our congenial host recommended monkfish to follow; a thick rice and fish casserole with lashings of olive oil, fresh coriander and garlic.  We washed it down with local wine, a crisp, dry white and reflected on our good fortune to have celebrated his last 5 birthdays in such exotic locations. 

Just so that you can be envious too, remember these….

                        

2008: Anything goes in Phillipsburg, Sint Maartin (Caribbean) with BW (& Sweet Michael on the Segway’s).
 

2009: Vero Beach (Florida) with champers on board, then catching up with Jim and Tammy later.  More officially (for the big 60 & with BW) further up the ICW at Spouters Inn, Beaufort NC.
 

                       

2010: A night out whilst “on tour” at the Kings Arms in Colonial Williamsburg, (Virginia).  Followed by some Alaskan crab legs on WJ3 back in Deltaville. 

Apres Tiki Bar at the hospitable Richmond County Yacht Club

2011: Dinner at the Tiki Bar, a local hotspot, in Great Kills Harbour (New York) with BW.  Earlier we’d had Brimmers and friends aboard.  Max, who had been travelling through Canada and the US, finally caught up with us too!

Boys at large in NYC

2102: On the Rivole, floating on the Arade in Portimao (Portugal) followed by champers on board Emma Laura (Roger, Sue and Tony). 

Now that is spoilt!  GS though, feels a white Christmas must be coming up for her one year very soon.

Starting Over & Over

Digital Revolution 2012

A new day and a new start for an old blog.   WJ3: 2008-2010 will be "under construction" for a little while as we massage all the old posts from Typepad into this bloggersphere. 

You'll notice that I have ended up with 2 of each post, some published and some not!  That was after weeks of trying to import the old files and getting nothing.  If you want to have a bash at importing, then try this advice from Classical Bookworm.  Even us non-geeks are left with some hope! 

This (rather valiant effort) should make life a little easier for all of us, particularly the Galley Slave (aka Web Controller).   Meanwhile, enjoy our photo of the Azores on a rainy day!

Angra do Heroismo: A World Heritage Site since 1983 (Azores)
& yes, that's WJ3 in the Marina, fenders dangling as a precaution!

Spring Cleaning (in Autumn)

Pitons, St Lucia in the Caribbean

Hope you all like the new look design for WJ3's old (2008 to 2010) posts.  We had to change so that you could have access to these all important archives, which will save a lot of time when navigating around the blog. (Hopefully all fixed for the better. Ed) 

This blog covers our Caribbean & USA voyages as follows:

2008:  Caribbean - British Virgins, Leeward then Windward Islands down to Trinidad

2009:  Caribbean to USA- Trinidad, Windwards, Leewards,  Turks Caicos, Bahamas then up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) to Chesapeake Bay

2010:  East Coast USA - Chesapeake Bay, Lower Bay (New York) to Long Island Sound, Buzzards Bay & Cape Cod, Maine & New England coasts,  Landlubbers in New York & Washington, then back to Chesapeake Bay.

Also try our Tracker (an interactive map) to zoom in & out with amazing clarity on all of our anchorages etc.  Of course if you're really "interested" our grid references/place names are also included.   Don't forget WJ3's latest site for adventures getting to and about in Europe - starting from 2011.

Safe Harbour

WJ3 is moving again, but only over the airwaves.  This site will remain, with some photos added (soon, soon I promise) as a record of our voyages 2008 to 2010.  Otherwise, join us on our continuing adventures here.  We should be afloat again when the snow & ice subsides in Deltaville....  Meanwhile we'll try not to moan too much about the heat and humidity downunder.  Luckily, we've had no flooding here and Jus Enuff, our mooring minder is happy playing second fiddle to her big sister.  

(And just in case you were wondering...  NO, that is NOT our backyard.  The Cap'n would have walked the plank long ago if it was...)

Jus Enuff - mooring minder with potential

Sharin' with Barefoot & Fatty Knees

A most kissable nose

Deltaville, on the Hard: 22 October 2010

Well, the Motleys are in the Deltaville Boat Yard.  Windjammer is all hauled out and propped up near some big, sheltering pine trees.  Our Cap'n is busy winterising and GS is cleaning & oiling timber - none of it fun!  We are scheduled to fly out in a few days, so this is most definitely the last post of the season.

A real windjammer on (a grey day) Chesapeake

We'll add some photos to the posts when we get home and have a chance to play with this new blog site.  Our tracking site however is still operating here so you can see how many pins we've put into America's East Coast and zoom up close into our anchorages - or perhaps even wave to us in the boat yard. 

Deltaville Boatyard.  WJ3 & our flash bikes

Fair winds & following seas

Patuxent River Piranha

Solomons Maritme Museum Lighthouse

What did we do in the Solomons? Sheltered from the storm, froze to death, cooked baked dinners so the oven would heat the cabin at night, found a supermarket so we wouldn’t starve and finally visited their very interesting maritime museum. Now every town on the Chesapeake has a maritime history and most sport a museum, but this one is exceptional.

We strolled through local maritime and area history; many of the exhibits have been donated by local watermen and their families. The exhibition hall has a huge variety of displays including very old outboard engines, models of character craft that plied the waterways, such as a 250 seat theatre, and today’s feature exhibit, a tank of live rays and skates. Docents, all volunteers, knew their stuff and actually made it interesting. They also get to supervise a discovery room where children can hoist sails in a skiff, climb a lighthouse model (& turn the lamp on) or explore a touchtank full of squishy fishies. We looked for crabs in the marsh, watched two fat & happy otters perform like spoilt kids, and gazed at estuariums full of local marine life. We climbed the Drum Point Lighthouse (1883) to the lantern room and were surprised at how much “living” space the lighthouse had. (GS took measurements for a Dangar prototype.) Most fascinating were the (20 million year old) fossils taken from nearby Calvert Cliffs. Coming eye to mouth with 37½ feet of megalodon, a shark ancestor & one of only two in the world, made our white pointers look somewhat docile.

37 feet of teeth

The fun was nearly over - time to make our way to Jackson Creek and WJ3’s winter home. We set sail early leaving with a crowd of migrating locals. Like their namesakes (snow geese) they honked and fussed all day; the VHF rarely silent. All the way back down the Bay Cap’n & GS wished they could remember the words to that truckin’ song “Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a connnn vvvvoy…”. (Apologies to CW Mcall) 

Unbelievable but true for an early start! It’s still quite dark at 7am. (No wonder we’ve been sleeping so late!)

From: Solomons Island, MD Lat/Long: 38 19N 76 27W  Date/Time: 19/10/10: 0715

To: Deltaville, VA  Lat/Long: 37 32N  76 19W  Date/Time: 19/10/10: 1605
Time Taken: 60nm (9.5hrs)  Distance (this year): 1736nm (303hrs)
Distance Total (since 2008): 5376nm (1002hrs)   Fastest Speed: 7.6kts
Weather: Winds E starting 25kts down to 3kts; Seas 1-2ft;

In case you missed the above figures, we’ve done an astonishing 1736nm (303 hrs) again this year!