Summer 2012

Meet our newest crew member, Morgan, she came aboard the beginning of June. Mitzi was not overjoyed at first but is now accepting the fact that Morgan is here to stay. For multiple reasons Cats Cradle has remained docked in Isle-of-Palms,SC, with the exception of a weekend to Georgetown. We have not been able to head north this year, which may be good since it has remained a bit more temperate here this summer. We are hopeful that "Hurricane" Morgan will be the only one we see this year (she is a typical kitten and either on or off are her only two speeds). Bernie has continued working part time in the local West Marine, and Carol has completed a few sewing projects. We now have new salon cushions, as does Arlene's boat. Hard to believe but Cats Cradle is now 12 years old, with age things go bad and we are currently waiting for a new heat exchanger installation (radiator for our non-boating friends). After that is in we may take off for a short cruise toward North Carolina, just to stay in practice.

Still in South Carolina

No, Cats Cradle is not broke down. We are. We both have been putting off chronic health issues (nothing serious) for too long. Our primary health provider (military) is here and since we have a new set of wheels we've decided to get us repaired, so we are staying put for the winter and into spring. Getting older is not for the weak. We have good friends here who are willing to put up with us and provide a good place to park our car and an affordable slip for our boat with everything we need. This is as far south as we plan to go until next winter. We'll head north from here when the weather gets too warm.

Mitzi is doing well and is enjoying her dock walks. She also likes the idea of staying put. A sailor cat she is not.

Hope you all had great holidays, we sure did.

Thanksgiving in South Carolina

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We are in sunny Isle of Palms, enjoying Thanksgiving with friends here. As you can see from the picture, we also broke down and acquired a new car, a Hyundai Elantra. Since we will be spending a lot of time here over the next year, we decided to do it. Long term rentals are expensive. We will store the car when we travel as many military bases have storage areas for RVs, boats and such.

Mitzi is doing fine and enjoying her many dock walks. She is also happy we are not traveling. She will be unhappy next week though, annual vet visit.

No other big news. Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving.

All Cleaned Up and Headed South

After 5 weeks in the boat yard, we are once again underway. Our bottom and hull are clean and slick so we are moving right along. While at Yankee Point Bernie had a chance to visit With J.D. "Rimfaxe" at his marina, Rick and Chris "One With The Wind" came cruising in and of course several evenings were spent in the company of Patti and Alan "Fairways". This was Mitzi's first experience with being on the hard, her antics did not disappoint, after a jump from our bow sprit to a trawler she found a swim platform close to the ground and later thought she could get to the ground again by going onto our swim platform. Both times scaring herself to the point of having to be rescued.
Now on our way we stopped in Hampton for 2 nights, then on to Portsmouth for a 3 hour stay in North Landing to take care of a Verizon issue. Through the last Deep Creek lock opening on tuesday, we rafted up at Elizabeth's Dock to sit out what was supposed to be an all day rain and cold front coming in, not much rain and still wearing shorts this afternoon. Should be able to move on down the canal tomorrow and will be looking for some good weather to cross the Abermarle Sound. Tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of our incident with the Alligator Bridge (still in litigation) at least we won't be there until friday at the earliest. The migration of boats has begun and the waterway is busy, many boats we recognize, others we are meeting for the first time, as always it is interesting. It is nice to be underway again.

Post Irene/Pre Katia

Finally we are underway again, having left Aberdeen Proving Grounds 22 Aug. We arrived at Patuxent Naval Air Station just after the Virginia earthquake, wondering what that funny wave slap on the hull was as we entered the basin, timing was right it must have been the earthquake. Of course then our next concern was Hurricane Irene. We found a good, protected anchorage on up river in St Leonard's Creek and rode out the storm. 24 plus hours of torrential rain and almost as many hours with unrelenting winds, Cats Cradle held anchor and no damage. Mitzi was not pleased with any of it, and she let us know it by sitting on one of our laps throughout. Spent Sunday drying out and unwrapping sails, etc. moving back to NAS on Monday, where they only lost one boat to the storm.
Surprisingly, very little debris in the water as we pressed on to the Corrotoman river where we will do a routine haul-out, it has been 2 years since we gave the boat a good cleaning and bottom job, she really needs the attention.
The yard at Yankee Point is crammed with boats hauled for Irene and now unsure if they want to put them back in the water until Katia decides where she is going, so we will sit at anchor for the weekend just off Hills Creek where Alan & Patti have their cabin. They were lucky to have come through without damage to cabin, Whaler and truck, just a lot of tree limbs in the yard. Of course they had no power for several days so most of the refrigerator/freezer contents will have to be dumped, they are planning to be up here this weekend so we'll help them out cleaning up. Word is that Alan's Mini-Cooper (less than a year old) flooded up to the windows while sitting in Hampton, but everything else was good for them.
Once we get hauled out, expectations are that we will be 3-4 weeks in the yard, then head south before any snow flurries, who knows the way mother nature has been behaving lately.
Hope all stayed safe.

We're Still Alive!

I know many of you think we have fallen off the face of the earth, but rest assured (or disappointed) we haven't. Since our last update, which seems like eons ago, we have worked our way slowly north.

We spent part of April and May visiting Arlene and Sue in Isle of Palms and Daniel Island. We helped Arlene out with some projects to both the house and her boat (Serendipidy) and since her and Sue were working the Family Circle women's professional tennis tournament, they got us some passes to see some great tennis.

We stopped in Deep Creek (Chesapeake, VA) and visited with some of Bernie's old firefighter bro's. Every year the ones he knows keeps getting fewer as more are retired. We also spent a few days in Portsmouth and visited Patti & Alan. We then stopped in Hills Creek and sent a couple of weeks while visiting Patti & Alan at their cabin and helped Alan celebrate his Old Fart birthday (60) and enjoyed a Memorial Day cookout with their family, friends and neighbors. In June we hooked up with Patti & Alan (again) while they were on vacation with their boat. We rafted up with them in Onancock, VA for 2 nights. We then traveled together to Chrisfield, MD and then onto Solomens Island, MD. While there, we were dissapointed to find out that Woodburns ( a GREAT grocery & deli) has gone out of business. We also traveled together to St. Michaels and then to Cambridge, MD. We had a great time together and they had family and friends who met up at a Chrisfield and Cambridge. We split up after that stop as we were heading north and them south (back to work.) Mitzi had a great time whenever we rafted up exploring Patti & Alan's boat. This was a new experience for her and she made herself right at home on "Fairways."

We are now in our military seasonal slip at Aberdeen Proving Grounds (Army) in Edgewood, MD on the Bush River. We've been here since latter June and will leave sometime later this month. I'm glad we have been in a slip with easy access to air conditioning since the weather has been brutally hot. Maryland had its hottest July on record. While here we're visiting family in PA and Carol and her sister (Pam) went to NY for a few days to visit family up there. Mom's house sold the end of June so that is the conclusion of her affairs, Friday will be one year since she past away. She would be pleased to know that her baby (Mitzi) is doing very well. Mitzi has become a well traveled cat in the past year.

Our next planned stop over will be at Yankee Point on the Corrotoman River for haul-out before continuing south. We hope to pick up Pat Brumley, one of Bernie's old firefighter Bro's (also retired) at Patuxant Naval Air Station for a ride with us to Yankee Point.

We hope this catches you up (if you're interested) with our adventures. If We forgot anything, it's because our minds are old.

March 2011 ???

Time does fly !

Having spent the Holiday Season with friends Arlene and Sue the weather was not improving in South Carolina so it was time to move on. Carol's sister and brother-in-law joined us for Christmas this year, we hope to be able to meet up with them more often when they begin to do land yacht travel in the near future.

We arrived in Miami Beach 31 Jan and finally found nice weather, the days have been warm and nights cool. Bernie began working at his home West Marine soon after arriving then went right into the Boat Show activities. He has since been doing some projects in the store and will continue through next week.

The plan (always subject to change) is to begin slowly making our way north around mid-month. There are people and places we want to see along the way.