Final Thoughts

Well folks,

After 5528 nautical miles, we've made it back home. With a forecast promising good winds, we ran from Onset, MA through the Cape Cod canal and up to Boston Harbor--flying the spinnaker again to make the most of a down-wind run. It was great to scud into local water doing eight knots, finishing the trip with a great sailing day.

After a couple nights on the hook among the harbor islands, we made our way to the dock at Cottage Park Yacht Club and began the shift back to land life. Over dinner for those last nights on the boat, we were able to reflect on a year's worth of adventures. While there are far too many to be captures in any one concluding blog entry, the kids each worked on some poems to encapsulate certain memories they hope to keep with them.

We certainly have enjoyed putting together this blog. It has helped us chronicle the year and kept us in contact with so many of you. Thank you for taking the time to follow our journey and share your comments as you saw fit. (Matthew in particular deserves a gold star for his efforts!)
Thank you also for your support as we navigated the waters of losing a parent. We all appreciate the attention you gave us as we dealt with Grappy's illness and death.

Hopefully we have provided a little inspiration for each of you to step away from the ordinary. Perhaps you will volunteer abroad, or visit someplace off the beaten path. Or you may think about getting by with less, and paying close attention to how you use water, power, and food. Maybe you will step away from the media, the rat race, and American consumer distraction and find time to connect with those special to you ... or perhaps ... you will do all of these and head of on a cruising adventure of your own!

( Oh, and by the way, if you are looking for a boat, we have a great one available!)

Hope you enjoy what the kids have created.
Peter.

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Ohana
by Xavier

Overnight passages were cool.
Hiking to beautiful views in Maine, Puerto Rico, and St John.
Awesome natural water slides and jumps.
New foods from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
Amazing white sand beaches of the Bahamas.

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The Trip
by Jeremiah
(to the tune of Phineas & Ferb theme)

We had 365 days on our sailing ship
heading south to sunnier weather.
So the ultimate goal of our family trip
was to create memories that will last forever.

Things like...

Spearing a grouper,
Diving for conch,
or seeing wacky flying dinghies.

Spearing a grunt on my birthday,
or kayaking to an island of monkeys.

Body surfing waves,
seeing rocket ships,
or racing on Bahamian boats.

Lassoing lizards,
Catching a mahi,
or eating mufungo and goats.

As you can see there is so much to tell,
I'm sure friends will have lots of questions,
when I get back to school this fall.

But no matter how hard I try,
There is no way to cover it all.

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An Amazing Adventure
by Catherine

There were islands and islands galore,
Mainland was a word rarely spoken
In the Virgin Islands, DR, Bahamas and more,
We all hoped the spell would never be broken.

We made friends with other boats with kids,
All of them cruising just like us,
We taught them card games where you make bids,
We took what came and made no fuss.

We watched amazing dolphin shows,
Displayed at sea for us alone,
And sharks so majestic and without foes,
They eat a fish whole, the scales, meat, and bone.

There were wonders every way I turned
And there are so many things that I have learned.

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Oh The Places We Went
by Josie

(with inspiration from Theodor Geisel)

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.

It’s opener there
in the wide open air...



...We are finished, yes finished.
Today is our last day.
We have been to great places,
Far off and away.

We have brains in our head
And a sail on our boat.
We could steer ourselves
In any direction we vote.

We were on our own. And we knew what we knew.
And we were the ones who decided what to do.

We looked around anchorages for things we might fear.
About some we did say, “We do not choose to stay here.”
With our brains in our head and our feet on our yacht,
We were too smart for a not-so-good spot.

We did not always find a place we wanted to be.
And in that case, of course, we headed straight out to sea.
It is opener out there in the wide open sea.

Alas we've moved home
No more nights on the foam,
But dreaming of times when we might again roam.

The CheeseBlock 360

After having the chance to catch up with Nica, Jeremy, Julian, and Maddie (of Calypso) in Deltaville, we departed the Chesapeake and gladly headed for the more mild temperatures of New England. We had to motor south to make our way to the mouth of the bay, but once we passed over the bridge/tunnel, we raised the sails and started making our way towards Block Island.

The forecasts had promised 15 to 20 knot winds from the southwest, but at first we were met with lighter winds from the south east. Thankfully everyone felt comfortable with foredeck work, so sometime after eleven the first night (Sunday), we set up the whisker pole for the genoa and rigged a preventer on the main and began our downwind run towards home.

Monday dawned early with drier air and cooler temperatures than we had on the bay. With the sun up we were ready to try trolling for fish. Since we were running wing and wing, it was going to be hard to slow the boat when or if we got a strike. Therefore, instead of using the trolling rod and real, we let out the hand line (nice 100lb monofilament) with simple cedar plug. Within an hour or so, the bungee cord it was hooked to went taught and we knew something was on the line. Still moving at over six and a half knots, we tugged in our catch little by little. And as it got closer to the boat, we could tell we had another mahi-mahi. Not something we were expecting this far north. This one, however, wasn’t as big as our previous (26” vs. 50”), and we decided to throw it back. What we really wanted was a tuna. The cedar plug went back out and somehow we forgot about it for a while. Finally the kids noticed that the bungee was taught and we started hauling in the line to see what we had caught. Low and behold it was a tuna! It must have been on the line for a while, because by the time we got it on board it hadn’t much fight left. The amount of meat on the fish was amazing. We all had seared tuna for dinner that night and still we had at least eight pounds of filets left. It was nice to know Chasseur was going to be in Block Island and we would have someone to share it all with.



Later that day the sea treated with another gift, an amazing dolphin show that took place all around Ohana. In addition to having them scoot along in our bow-wave, this time we were treated to jumps and flips and tail slapping. Hopefully the attached video works and you can get a little sense of what we experienced.

The wind kept up for much of the next evening, but eventually died on us, leaving us to motor sail the last day and a half. But we arrived in Block Island with Chasseur helping to guide us in at night. Josie had made a estimate that our arrival time would be eleven o'clock (arrival time being when we passed the first buoy marking the channel). The blinking light came in to sight and the buoy was abeam of us at 10:59 exactly, Josie had guessed correctly. The night time temps were now in the low 60s, so we fished out fleece blankets that we hadn’t seen in months and all settled in for a great night's sleep.

Having stayed in Block Island for the 4th of July weekend, we are now slowly making our way towards Boston -- exploring the Elizabeth Islands and trying to remain in cruising mode and ignoring the siren calls of land based life.

-- Peter

Wandering in the Chesapeake

After our adventurous stay at Onancock with Matthew and Clara, the six of us made the long haul (55 miles with no wind) up to the Potomac. We were able to dock at Camp Fleury and enjoy a few days ashore, crabbing, swimming, and meeting people. The boys managed to catch over thirty crabs in the crab traps, and George showed us how to steam them and then crack and eat them.





Then our wandering cruise started when we left Breton Bay with two other sailboats – Eagle’s Wings and Bravura. Our first stop was St. Mary’s, where Hart-a-Lee also joined for the night. Many of us went ashore that evening for the concert given on the lawn at St. Mary’s College.

From St. Mary’s we had to motor south past Point Lookout, but were then able to raise the spinnaker and sail up to the Patuxent River and Solomons Island. Unlike in the fall when it was rainy and 40 degrees, this time it was hot and humid, so we rigged our boom overboard and people came over and jumped off with us. We hosted cocktail time this night. (I refrain from calling it cocktail hour because it tended to last much longer than that.) We stayed at Solomons the next day, went to church in the morning, and then paid a visit to the Calvert Marine Museum.



After our second night in Solomons we ventured up to the Choptank River where we found a little cove off of Broad Creek. (Our charts showed its name as Baby Owl Cove, but Builder Fleury seemed to have another name for it.) As Ohana pulled into the cove and set anchor, there was one other boat who had up until that point the peaceful cove all to themselves. We had just finished setting up our sun shade when Bravura arrived and rafted up with us. Eagle’s Wings pulled in and secured to the other side of us, and finally Reel Sweet (Builder Fleury’s motor boat) tied on to Eagle’s Wings. The kids managed a dinner of pasta as the adult cocktail hour stretched from 6 until midnight.



The next day we hopped over to San Domingo Creek and dinghied into St. Michaels through the “back door.” There we explored the shops, had a great lunch, and cooled off with ice cream treats. That evening, back aboard the boats, we were treated to an amazing lightning show.

To escape the heat Ohana chose to indulge in some dock time when we got to Oxford. After plugging in and getting the AC running, we were picked up by Reel Sweet and enjoyed an afternoon exploration of the upper reaches of the Tred Avon. That night we all slept comfortably having freshly showered and settled down without sticking to the sheets.

From the Choptank we headed back to Solomons and the next day said our goodbyes before making our way south towards Deltaville. Joining the Wanderers with all their joy and humor made this tour quite the experience and furthered our understanding of all the treasures to be found here.