I wrote earlier about camping up north with my friends and how I could of stayed, well I can show you just what I mean look at these pics you tell me if its fun? Frank and I were just there last week and he wanted to stay longer not to mention we have no car, just beg borrow and no not steal.

Now we are into Sept. I and frank have spent alot of time with family, something we haven't been able to do in 5yrs of crusing. Winding down from the summer the kids are getting ready for school and we are happy to see them go. Love them truly, we had them on the boat for a night and took some camping just able to spend time is a joy. Frank really enjoys them when they go back to mom and dad. Being able to see them grow is a grandma and papa joy. We are waiting for number eight, they are working it as I write. Not all of them are in the pics. One weekend at the park.

For the holiday weekend we are going out for anchor with all our friends from the marinas. Hope to have pics. Its time I get myself ready so I will be back after the weekend.

here are a few more of our times with the power squadron,the corn roast and cardboard boat race.

summer pics in Mi.

Our commanders ball with a pig roast and a few laughs, with Pam, commander.

Here we are in MI.

hello everyone its been a long hot summer so far. since I last been on the blog, we have been busy taking care of mother which she now is doing; LETS SAY GOOD! and we are happy with that. June went so fast there wasn't much to say then come the July mth and seems it was busy again. I did get to go Noth camping with my girl friends. As always had a great time, & wanted to stay up in the woods longer. I think I could live on the property for a summer with a outhouse, river' & a cook hut, the bonus is camp fire, peace and quiet... what else can a person ask for!!
Had our commanders ball, will show pics. The theme was lu ah with pig roast. earlier in the spring our commander ( Pam ) some of you may of met her while visiting at GTB on the peacekeeper,anyway she assigned Frank as her aide what a job he had! As for that he is a busy aide to one strong commander and still going.. As Aug, come we around we had a corn roast, the squadron puts on and we all build cardboard boats for a race in the water, now thats funny (will show pics) I beat frank and his River Rat. Mine was a Barge as I named it Cindys on the Barge! Its been fun catching up with the friends from the squdron now they want us to get more involved again Like teach class this winter. Will see Frank is the one for that I can grade papers.
Even with the fun we been having still get to babysit the grandkids now and then, which for me is a joy, & to Frank its a job!! they are all growing so fast. will show pics. Even this week we are sitting for the dog, have to stay at the house every night miss our own home (boat). Soon we will be putting the boat up so a house will become more acustom to us as we go into winter. Well I will catch up soon again hope all is good everywhere on the flip side..

Now we have been cruising for mths and the sights you may see can be unbelievable. From KY to Mi. we have been in a marina as little as possible. Like 7mths cruising & 5times in a marina other than our stay at dowry creek. We consider that a stop for work and visiting friends. So the more we have been up and around the east coast there is still things you miss. Seems like we were in New York forever but the erie canel is all worth the cruise at a speed of 10 the max. The little gator friend was happy to eat chips he hung around lk a pet waiting for his treat. the locks are work for some others have a great time with them traversing up and down the canel. Here is a group of people enjoying the day. As we got closer to buffalo the weather was turning more against us as for crossing the lake Erie and that can be a bitch. We watch the weather and moved as far as we could. In Tonawanda NY. we tied to a wall, as we were there we saw a trawler that was on the tenn tom when we were cruising south in Oct. can you beleive that! Oh my after 6mths we see this boat again. They are going the same way as us. We left the wall the next morn. went as far as Fairport OH. 125mi. a long day. anchored there woke up to see thatboat anchored with us they came in late morn. This is were the weather tried our wits the winds were 15-20 gust 25-30 waves 3-5 building to4-6 in the afternoon we had 125 mi to go. should we stay or should we go? So we went took a beating the first 5hrs then it calm down to 2-3 for the later part of the trip it was ok. So good to be put for a time.

We are here and taking a break!! I will keep you posted and keep in touch with you all..

we have been cruising the east coast for 3mths so far and have had a great time in doing so. Many stops to catch up with friends and waiting out for friends to catch up to us. We did get to the chesepeake and hung out there for 3-4 weeks. "love the bay". Before that we had a good visit at dowry creek in NC. That marina is like home to us. After a great time there we made way north as you seen the dismal swamp, through NC to VA. We are happy to be in New York, seeing some of the sights we just adored and seeing new sights. A town called Coxsackie was alot of fun for us this time around. We met people from the yacht club that just took us in like old friends. I even thought I could of stayed and lived there for awhile. We become CYC members as we have been in KY. Never go without a good time on the peacekeeper. So we did have to say good-bye and make way north will see them again, we made way again, up north more we seen our friend (Fred) his boat "North Star" was anchored out too bad he was out for the day see ya next time Fred. Hope he makes it to Mi. Today we are in the western half of the Erie, around Rochester. this half of the Erie has many towns that offer boaters all the amenities we need. As long as you can clear brdgs. at a height of 15.9 the lowest. They don't see many big boats around here. So this is a sight to see us on the river. These brdgs lift to 17ft. so we can get through. cruising under some of these brdgs just takes our breath away.Well we have to move to buffalo in a day or so to make Mi. by Wed. the 9th June. Hope the weather holds out, will let you know how it does. Enjoy the pics.

Here we are in the Chesapeake bay fishing with friends. What a day out and 101 fishing we had. Thanks to our friends Dave and terri from the Solomons. They are such good friends we met a few years ago. Whenever we are in the bay we are in the Solomons to visit. Our big catch of the day, Frank and his crockers. The day ended with champaigne and other drinks of choice. I am thankful we have friends in every state we cruise. We always return when we can.

here is the dismal, so peaceful, beautiful & quiet. the width was only 50ft, like going down a creek.

As of today we are in the chesepeake bay, waiting for our friends to catch up with us. We had a great cruise threw the Dismal Swamp. we tied up at the visitors center and had 2 others rafted on us. As it is the boats are here in Deltaville with us at anchor. We finally got to go into town this trip. The town is pretty spread out but a good two mile walk was great. A local gave us aride, then we walked back. Had a great day!!
I have to go back to yesturday when we decided to cruise up here the winds at 15-20 gust to 25, and we took a beating for 3hrs of the 6. Just before our turn to come into the bay we hit a wave so hard the pins come out of the davet for the dingy. What a wave thank god we were able to get the pins back in and head in at a speed of 6-8mi. I felt like a sail boat riding the waves. they called for 3-4ft all of that plus. Wonder if it will be any better tomorrow as we are heading to Solomons. Rain is forcast for the afternoon will see. I can't wait to see my friend from the post office. She was a savior for finding my mail 3yrs ago, then invited us over for dinner. Such good people. The sky is looking great a red sky is a salors delight, so we are off tomorrow..

Some more pics to see. The light house of boca Chita very nice Island in the keys. then theres us at Ft. Laudrdale looks like one of us is havin fun. I'm still sending pics to my blog so all can enjoy, some are few mths old and I try to get them out. We are in NC at our marina we call home away from home. GTB would be our next home away. Having a great time here catching up and helping clean up. You know Frank & I don't sit around when we can be working on somthing. We had visitors stop by from GTB ( Capt. Bill & Jerry ) they were moving a boat up north. Enjoyed a few drinks, topped off with a steak dinner that I cooked. Will be moving north soon. Catch up with you all soon.

Home away from Home

For those of you who have been following, thanks and its been a learning process as I post.
We are in N.C. & here till May 1st. The Erie locks will open then so hope the debris and floods are clam by the timewe get up there. We had a nice cruise up all but Ga. and its tides, lows are what I am talkin about we hit zero depths at times sucks, but kept on sliding across the mud. It all was okay. Anchoring was at its best. In 83 days we been in a marina 4 times not bad. Plan on doing as much anchoing as we can.
Here at Dowry creek is like home away from home. We consider this as a home port. The staff are good friends, Like family! There are a few boats here one remembers us on the Loop. I am still trying to get pics posted so there may be some that show up here and there, at times.
We will try and be in MI. by June get the boat in amarina then drive back to KY to see friends and Frank can get his bill of health again. So y'all stay with me and I will keep the posting going. Hope there are pics for you to look at.

friends, fun & Ft Lauderdale

pat & patty, pam & Will, friend of Lauderdale. Boca chita light house, all I can say is fun,fun,fun. Can you believe our friends have to let people know they like us! will keep you posted with more as I am still learning the blog... Cindy

Hi things are going great, but the weather. The only thing we want as boaters is nice weather, think that will happen in 2010?? Not a chance this winter... We spent time in Fl. this winter hoping we could cross to the bahamas, that never happened. So for fun, we had friends on board for a few days that seem like months ( haah) good friends are hard to come by and they came by.. we had a blast. We went from Ft. Lauderdale to Key Biscayne, No Name key, then Boca Chita key then back to Ft. Lauderdale. If you know Pat & Patty from pier 6 GTB then you know how much fun it was.

After having them aboard we also had a buddy boat with us friends from Mi. who were going to cross with us. So needless to say we had them to keep us saine. We traveled together north up to cape canaveral (coco beach). They had to leave us there as a grandbaby is due soon, so I called more friends that are in a condo on Coco beach. Lucky they are ready to have fun. We stayed there for a week and had a blast there too!! :) does it ever end? Time passed as if we were standing still. Now we had to leave them with great memories and head north, for what were not sure. The winds and cold are still hanging with us, well someday it will change. As for now we are on our way to Georgia to meet up with our buddy boat and have another week of fun. Only cus we miss them.. Hope the weather will come our way soon as we make it more north.

Travels south 2010

Now that its in the new year its time to catch up. So we are in Florida, Bradenton visiting my family and friends. Arrived here on Jan 17th after crossing the gulf from Carrabelle.

The time at Lulus has been a good one we left behind our friend Bill Berlin, hes a big boy he will be leaving in Feb back to G.T.B.. Then there is the " vicki Lynne" friends (vicki & harry) as they were in g.t.b. also and are from Mi. we will miss all of you !!

The day we left the weather was a high 38 and believe it we broke ice, just a crust but yes it was there. I watched out the stern as frank stered us out of the marina we were turning mud from low tide & off the bow we broke ice ( how funny ).. The weather still days to follow stayed in the low 30s. Had to run the gen., 12hrs for heat the next night. As we headed more east the weather did creep up.

As I said earlier we crossed the gulf and it was a good cross. Hit waves at 2ft-3ft, the way I decribe it like riding a horse that is galloping every 10secs. It took us 12hrs to get to Clearwater and then we drop the anchor and had a cocktail always good to know you made it again. The next morning is when things started to go wrong.

The gen. impeller went out we had to change that, thank god it went then, not in the cold temps. ( it was 50 in the morn.) so we got that behind us then on we went toward Tampa Bay to cross to get on into Bradenton. Soon we were there then as the Skyway bridge in sight and as we were approching the port engine over heated, smoke filled up below and you could smell anti freeze. We shut the eng. down found out a heater hose to our water heater had blown. Frank was able to cut the bad part off and streatch the hose to clamp it back to fit. Good thing we had 2 engines run on one. that episode took us an hr.. So we got into Anna Maria Island in a cove here as we call home for a couple weeks.

Been visiting and just enjoying the sun, warm weather and family. The other day went to put the dingy up and the davet motor went out , the gears in the motor. Now Frank can't get his dingy up!! Not another thing going wrong. So here we sit longer waiting on that part. all is good other than that! Today is Fri. 29th, the part is suppose to be here we are excited haah!! ya think it will be here? We do.. so we are leaveing Feb. 1st on to FT. Myers to see Judy & Joe, Libby & Bill. After our visit with them, we will be on our way to key west to see Deb & Jim. As long as we have no more upsets.

Yesturday the manatee were here swimming they are so cute. thats always a high lite beside the dolphins. We been taking walks,dingy rides, and rides on the free trolly up down the Island. So much to do here.

Well let you know how the rest of our winter is in afew more days to come. (give us your best)