Moved back to USA

This is just a place holder, to let people know that we have not fallen off the end of the earth.  Rather, we stopped boat blogging for a while, so that we could focus on moving house from France back to the USA.

We shipped the boat from La Rochelle to Ft. Lauderdale in the fall of 2013, at about the same time that we signed a contract to sell our house in France.  We closed on that house in December 2013, and transported ourselves to Stuart, FL, where we had purchased a house in a gated community.  Life in Stuart was easier, in some ways, than France, but in other ways is was also a bit stressful.  Four years later, we found our dream house, only about 7 miles away.  It has one big advantage that the old one did not have - we can keep the boat at the dock in the back yard!!

So now we live in Palm City, FL.  The boat has been up and down the ICW several times in the intervening years.  It spent over a year on the hard in Deale, Md, when rxc's mother needed to move down to Florida, and we spent most of that time taking care of her.

This past summer we sailed/motored up to Baltimore, took a long bicycle trip to Pittsburgh,  sailed from Baltimore up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie, and back to Deale, where the boat is currently on the hard.  It will head back south in November, once we clear the hurricane season.

Maybe it will be time to restart the boat blog...

The Return Trip

We’re Back!

Sorry for the delay in posting this – we were without internet connectivity for 5 days, and then so busy unloading the boat and doing house maintenance that I was not able to put it all together.

We are now back home, and Petillant is back in her berth in Port Medoc, after a great sail down from Milford Haven.  After 4 months of heavy seas, adverse winds, and rain, we got a great weather window and rode it south.

La Rentree

We left Milford Haven at 0600 on August 31, with the sun coming up brightly, and the tide behind us.   The conditions were quite good, with the wind from the WNW at about 12 kts.  Once we turned the corner in MH to the south, we hoisted the sails, and off we went. 

Lion Sighting in Milford Haven

We stayed in Kilmore Quay for 4 days, waiting for bad weather to blow thru.  It blew and it rained, and there was one sunny day, and one cloudy day.  We took a day trip up to Wexford and walked around a very nice town that seems to have retained its down-town shopping area quite well.  It would certainly be a destination for sailors if the entrance had not silted up, and made it extremely difficult to enter. The bus service was decent, and there was a Dunne’s in town that we used for a moderate shopping trip.

Heading South

Howth

We left Ardglass on the 14^th, heading south.  It was clear that Tuesday would be the only day that would be even possibly passable to head to Dublin, so we went for it.  The boat that we had been rafted to,in Ardglass, was supposed to leave at 3AM, to make a tide window into Peel on the Isle of Man, but they decided to stay in port, so we left first.  The trip was not too bad – Force 4-5, occasionally 6, with the seas starting out light, but eventually turning moderate.  The wind was on the nose, so we motored the whole way, but did some motor-sailing at times to take advantage of some slight variations in wind direction.

Strangford Lough and Ardglass

We are now in Ardglass, Northern Ireland.  We spent Friday sailing placidly out of Bangor, down the coast of NI, and up into Strangford Lough, where we stopped at the Killyleagh Yacht Club. 

The trip started quite well, with the installation of the autopilot and the seatrial tests and adjustments.  Raymarine and DHL came thru with a delivery of the unit as expected. They found the burnt resistor and repaired it, at the nominal cost of only about €500(!), but when you have had to hand steer for long periods of time, cost is (essentially) no object.

Bangor

We left Troon on Aug 6, at 6AM, to try to catch the tide out the Firth of Clyde and then south to Bangor.  This was generally pretty successful, although the weather threatened all the way across the North Channel.  We managed to sail for about 8 hours out of the 10 hour crossing, on a close reach all the way, at 6.5-8 kts.  The current in the North Channel was as predicted, and we saw LOTS of ferries.

We will be here for at least three nights.  Phil and Joan are already in Dublin, and are having fund down there before they come up on Wednesday.  Also, the autopilot has been fixed, and should be shipped tommorrow.  If they did as we asked, it should be here on Wed, as well.  No more hand-steering!  Yeahhh!

Kitties are having fun exploring the pier - we are at the furthermost point in the Marina, but there are a fair number of power-boats here with stern platforms that can be sniffed.  And LOTS of very interesting gull droppings...

Troon

We left Oban on August 27 and headed up to Dunstaffnage, where we participated in the Jeanneau Scotland Rendevous.  This was a gathering of Jeanneau boats, and it was quite well attended, considering the location.  We had a great time talking to other Jeanneau owners,  dealers, and factory reps about our boats.  The food at the Wide-Mouthed Frog restaurant was quite good, as well.  We also won a  step-bumper during the quiz-night!