Heading south...

all ready for winter

Blue getting ready for Halloween

We have closed our summer home up and now are slowly heading south visiting friends and family. We stayed in Tully at our good friends Vic and Diane's for a few nights then off to Connecticut to see our youngest daughter Jill and other relatives.

tour of CIA

On the way down we had a text from Garrett which is Jon's nephew, he asked if we wanted to stop at CIA (Culinary Institute of America)to visit him at collage so we said sure we're in no hurry. Very awesome place and the view of the Hudson was really amazing with all the fall colors.

Picture perfect hike

While in Connecticut we are doing some hiking,visiting and helping out with Mom and Dads house for a week or two, Jon has his 40th reunion Nov. 2nd so we will be attending that.

Jill and Ed

Breathtaking view

Hiking up to Heublein tower

We are going so slow we may even go backwards to make one last stop in the Tully area before our next stop in DC to visit our oldest daughter.
Our plan is to be in the marina to start work on Kasidah Nov.12th

Our summer comes to an end....

We have had a very successful summer here in New York, but Kasidah is waiting for our return.

The business has been nothing but amazing and our time here very pleasant. Seeing all our friends and family also has been just wonderful, but our minds are now fixed on Kasidah, what we need to work on next, where we will go, explore,who we will meet and all that stuff us cruisers think about when we are not on the boat.

We will be leaving at the end of this week and slowly heading south over the next month to visit with family before getting on Kasidah and sailing off for six more months of pure enjoyment.

We figured we would put a few photos of some projects we took on this summer.

Blue looking over Skaneateles Lake

Installing pump-up station on Lake

New panel and meter for old funeral home remodel 

Nice garage sale find....

Two room addition on Tully Lake

Total redo of bathroom   
This is what the customer wrote to us
 "Your work here is done and what good work it was!  Bye Jon, Bye Arline, Bye Blue....Bessie will miss you.........maybe.  Have a great winter!"

Time to go to the scrape dealer...

repairing damaged underground cable

Everyday the phone rings with one more project and Jon has finally started turning them away or scheduling for the spring and most of his customers are fine with that, it going to make coming back a lot easier.

We are very lucky people and we know it.............................VERY LUCK!
 To all of our customers, friends and family we would like to say Thank you.

Enjoying our summer home.

Pratt falls, great place to hike and picnic, and only about 40 minutes from us.

bike ride to Ithaca with kristy and Shane   

Taughannock Falls is located in Ulysses, NY, part of the popular Finger Lakes Region of central New York. The falls is part of Taughannock State Park located between the Village of Trumansburg and the city of Ithaca. The falls cataract has an incredible drop of 215 feet (66 meters), and is one of the highest east of the Rocky Mountains.

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The beautiful falls in Ithaca NY (about 25 minutes from us)

Blueberry picking with Diane

yum-yum

Jon and his work truck(Thanks Rob)

One of the many floods in the Central NY area this summer(Jon giving a helping hand)

Our good friends have finally cut the lines(we will be traveling with them this season).

once again "New York State Fair"

looks good!!!!!!!!!!

We met Hugo Acosta (Acostorica) and girlfriend at the fair. We've known Hugo since the kids were really kids.

 

Jill's Birthday cupcakes

Tinker Falls is about 20 minutes from us.The falls is simple but quite pleasant. The water free-falls 20 feet over an overhanging ledge to the rocks below, before continuing its journey into Labrador Hollow. The nature of the falls allows one to get behind the waterfall, although this must be done with caution.

We not only hiked to the falls but enjoyed a mile climb to the top of the mountain  to see a beautiful site of the valleys below.

Jon visiting a very good friend of ours "Buke"

Enjoying a late dinner

and a nice fire....

LIFE IS GOOD............................

 We were having a typical conversation the other night and somehow "thanking God" was brought up, I said everyday I thank God for what we have. We really do think this and always look at it in a way that some people miss theses days.

All of us are too busy to do the church thing or stop and look at what we have. We really do need to look around and see how lucky we all are.

 We are back in the Tully area for the summer and have reopened  Jae Bee Electric but just seasonal now. We have had such a response that it just made us smile and say "Life is good" we love our customers no matter where or what we are doing because they become our friends and that is one thing you can't take from us. We love them all because they become part of us, we become part of them. Thank You for letting us be part of your life.

We have had a great time so far this summer, very busy with work but have also had time to hang out with friends in the Tully area,Thousand Islands,Connecticut and Washington DC.

I won't bore anyone but just wanted to let you know we are doing fine and will start the blog back up when we leave for the real adventure this fall unless something else comes up.       

Back in the States.

Waiting for the big one

Well we are back in the states and moving north. The crossing to the States was done on April 25^th. The prediction was to have the right tide to get out of the channel which we can only do at ½ tide or more, north east winds of 10-15 knts, waves 3-5 ft with 8 seconds between peaks, and the west edge of the Gulf Stream to be only 2 or 3 miles off the shore of Florida at Lake Worth. We had Kasidah all packed for the worst, as always, the dinghy put away and tied tight, fuel polished, we were up before dawn to walk Blue and check all systems. We waited till the dark had just started to lift and cast off.

  A little shut eye before the big seas come

Enjoying some music and quiet seas

Kasidah backed out at about 6:20 am to the port and turned around and headed for the channel. As we cleared the shallow spot in the channel we had about 1 foot of clearance under the keel so we started our turn west to Florida. We had two other boats with the same float plan and destination, a Hunter 44 center cockpit and a big Kadye Krygen trawler. It started as a nice flat ride, good wind right on our beam, lots of sun and warm. It was only 70 something miles so we hoped we could do it all in day light. We were getting a good push from the tide leaving the Bahamas, our SOG was near 7 knts, then about 10 am it switched and by noon our SOG was down to about 5 knts, making the inlet by dusk was looking like it wasn’t going to happen. About 3 pm we got into the Gulf Stream giving us a little push. A wind with any north in it makes the waves build as it pushes across the north flowing Gulf Stream. This is what all boaters try to avoid, but with 8 seconds between them we had nice 8 foot rollers on our aft quarter. Luckily the wind picked up a bit too and you all know what Kasidah does when the wind is on her beam. Like a line backer she puts her shoulder into it and RUNS LIKE HELL. Our speed picked up and now we would make the inlet one hour before sunset, amazing what a difference 2 knots makes. The swells and wind held up to just outside of the inlet but getting into the inlet was not as easy as we’ve done before. Usually we do an over night trip from further away and arrive at Lake Worth in the morning with the sun behind us. This time it was dead in front of us and burning holes in our eyes, luckily there was a large ship that had just passed us and I knew from my instruments and his heading he was going for the same inlet. So all I really had to do was keep him in front of us. Once in the inlet we had about one hour to get to the anchorage for the evening. Lake Worth does have some big boats that come and go and we heard an announcement over the radio warning of a large ship that would be leaving it's berth and turning in the basin where we needed to get through. Now we see the big cargo ship leaving and we need to get out of the way. The current was coming into the inlet so we moved over at a point where it was too shallow for the big ship but out of his way. With Kasidah’s nose pointed into the current and a little RPM we were able to stay motionless while the big ship turned and passed.

routine maintenance before closing her up 

Now in the anchorage we dropped and set just at sunset for a great day.

The move to Stuart the next day was uneventful and not too busy for a Saturday. We arrived at Sunset Bay mid afternoon to find it quite empty. Stuart is really a great town, Lots of places to walk to for meals and shopping. This is also Blue’s favorite shop for chasing squirrels at the park.

Blue and Sarah won a Sunset Bay "Doggy Dinghy"contest while we were away

into the lock

more holes in Kasidah

Jessee and Alex at Indiantown

We only stayed in Stuart for a few weeks and then moved to Indiantown to take the Kasidah out of the water. We had thought of many different things and ways to get to the next step of our lives. We’ve had many offers and conversations with people about too many things. We know that it will include being on Kasidah for parts of the year as it has, for the past 4 years, been a great part of our lives. Even for the size of Kasidah we love being on her. Just sitting and living in the cabin is enjoyable, sitting in the cockpit for the evening or during a storm is satisfying, using her and the systems is rewarding because we rebuilt her our way for us and it works to most people envy, sailing and moving her is exhilarating.  We may not get line honors at a race or be in the running on any leg,…but when it comes to cruising, yeah we got the right boat and crew.

Time for lunch in Washington DC

Our visit with Amy and Jeremy at their new home in Maryland has been fun. It’s great to see how well they are doing in life. Jeremy’s work on paper design, manufacturing, and sales has brought them far. Amy has a new plane and has been flying a lot to get her up to Aircraft Commander in this new plane. She took us to base and gave us a tour of the airplane. Wow it’s a small one, but still a jet and it will most always have its missions here in the States, with short flights so it’s has almost become an 8 to 4 job for her.

They are very close to Washington DC, on Friday we went to a Metro station and then went to DC. Saw the Air and Space museum, the Capital has a new visitor’s center and went to the White house (wanted to sit with Obama but when he found out we were tax payers he declined) so we ate lunch out of a van on the street and an early dinner at Union Station. With a lot of walking around it was a Great day and worth it. Visiting DC always makes me proud to be an American!