by Judy Handley | May 26, 2011 | Sailing Logs Year 6, The Carolinas, USA |
Day 214, Year 6 Toccoa River and the Town of Blue Ridge
Date: Thursday, May 26, 2011
Weather: Rainy Day with Hail
Location: “Down the Road” Cabin near Blue Ridge, Georgia
Life certainly is different here in the mountains than it is on the ocean, but we are really enjoying our time in the “Down the Road” cabin. We spent last night playing pool, something none of us are particularly good at, but it was fun. I’m hoping I’ll get a little better at this before we leave on Tuesday. Since pool tables don’t fit on boats, we haven’t had a lot of practice in the last few years, but slowly the memories are coming back. This morning it was cloudy with a threat of rain, but we left early to walk to the nearby Toccoa River. It is a shallow river and the popular sport in this area is tubing down the river. But this morning we just sat along its shores watching the water flowing by. We walked to the area where we saw the buffalo yesterday, but there were no horses or buffalos today. So we walked home and got ourselves ready for a drive into the little town of Blue Ridge about 15 miles to the north. The downtown area is very touristy, but there is a Home Depot and a couple of good grocery stores. We did our sightseeing and our shopping and just as we were about to finish up, the rains came down, and down, and down. While we were in Home Depot, the sound of the pounding hail was almost deafening and on the drive home, there were shredded green leaves all over the road from the pounding hail. It is now well into the evening and the rain has stopped for now, but it could start up again at any point as it has all evening. We’re hoping the rain will end by morning or certainly by Saturday when there is a major craft fair in Blue Ridge. But right now, I’d better finish up so the pool games can begin.
by Judy Handley | May 25, 2011 | Sailing Logs Year 6, The Carolinas, USA |
Day 213, Year 6 From the Carolinas to Northwest Georgia
Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day; Upper 80’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina
Windbird is still back in Lightkeepers Marina in South Carolina, but we made our way today to the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest Georgia. The trip was about 425 miles, took us about eight hours, and was totally uneventful as “passages” go. Joe wanted us to drive his van instead of the truck so we would get better gas mileage, and with the van came a GPS. We have never been in a car with a GPS before and the talking lady took us a bit by surprise. As soon as we started out, she told us to turn left. Well, we wanted to go to the right. We did and she immediately said, “Recalculating.” There was a lot of “recalculating” at the beginning of the trip, but once we got out of the home territory, we followed the GPS directions. They were right on and helped us navigate the very complicated and unmapped back roads that took us into the mountains. Mark is absolutely in love and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get him to drive a car without the GPS again.
Lee and Mary Ellen’s cabin is a beautiful three-story cabin hidden in the woods. Each floor has a bedroom with its own bathroom. We are on the top floor with a reading room overlooking the main floor. Mary Ellen and Lee are on the main floor with the open living room/kitchen and the front porch/deck with four wonderful rocking chairs. The bottom floor has the pool table and Mark and Lee are down there right now playing the first game of the evening. Mary Ellen cooked a great dinner and afterwards we had a nice long walk. We walked past a fenced area where Lee and ME said they had seen buffalo. Mark and I were a bit skeptical, but after getting a glimpse of what looked like a small buffalo, we just had to walk the fence line down a hill until we got a better view. Indeed, there are buffalo. There are lots of beautiful places to walk here. There is a river nearby and lots of mountain lakes and ponds, so instead of walks on the beach, we’ll have walks through the mountains for the next few days.
by Judy Handley | May 24, 2011 | Sailing Logs Year 6, The Carolinas, USA |
Day 212, Year 6 Mega Work Day
Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day; 88 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina
This was a mega work day. I worked on photos, made granola, baked bread, and did laundry. Mark uploaded photos, made doctor appointments at Mass General, went to Windbird to check on things and get a few more items for our trip to north Georgia, and went with Joe to pick up the van which had been taken in for an oil change. I then pulled up the pea plants, cultivated the garden, planted beans and kale (probably won’t grow because it will be too hot, but no harm in trying) because my sister read in the Farmer’s Almanac that today was the day for planting here unless we wanted to wait until the middle of June. And then we all ended the day with another fantastic dinner-grilled chicken breast in Italian marinade, grilled zucchini marinated in lime juice and olive oil, fresh corn on the cob, and salad. And of course, we had to end with the last of homemade ice cream over brownies and the last of the strawberries.
We have eaten Patsy and Joe out of house and home, so we will leave in the morning and see what we can do to deplete the food supply at Mark’s sister’s cabin in north Georgia. They have internet there, so I’m hoping to be able to continue to send logs. If there is not a log tomorrow night, however–no panic. There might just be delay in getting things going once we arrive. It is a seven to eight hour drive from here to there and we expect to arrive in late afternoon after our 400 mile “passage.”
by Judy Handley | May 23, 2011 | Sailing Logs Year 6, The Carolinas, USA |
Day 211, Year 6 Move from T Dock to S Dock
Date: Monday, May 23, 2011
Weather: Partly Sunny; 77 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina
Today was a Windbird work day. Mark and I went to the boat early and our friend Lee met us there. Mark and Lee worked on a list of boat maintenance jobs-pickled the watermaker, rewired the boat for 110 instead of 220 volt, bought and installed a new starter battery, measured the height of the mast to verify in case we need to head north through the inland waterway (the bridges are mostly fixed at 64 or 65 feet)-and we moved the boat from the end of the T dock to a slip on S dock. We wanted to make this move before leaving for Georgia on Wednesday so we could feel confident that Windbird is in a secure spot. Being on the end of T dock meant a lot of big boats came barreling by and turned in just behind us, sometimes seeming to be just a little too close. Now that we are in a slip we won’t have to worry about passing boats. I helped with some of the chores and then put my efforts into organizing a presentation about our voyage and getting the things packed that we will need for our trip to north Georgia.
Mark is working on getting an appointment set with a urologist at Mass General for the end of June. Thanks to our friend Dick Wicklund back on Cape Cod, we are making progress. We have the name of a physician and have started the appointment process by first registering with Mass General. We are hoping to have the appointment set by tomorrow. Then on Wednesday morning we will head to northern Georgia to spend a few days with Mark’s sister.
by Judy Handley | May 22, 2011 | Sailing Logs Year 6, The Carolinas, USA |
Day 210, Year 6 Warming Up
Date: Sunday, May 22, 2011
Weather: Beautiful and Sunny; 86 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina
Each day it gets just a little warmer. This week the temps are supposed to get into the 90’s so maybe it’s a perfect time to escape to the mountains to visit with Mark’s sister and brother-in-law. Today we went to Windbird to do a little cleaning. I took my sister’s vacuum cleaner so I could vacuum under the floor boards where there was a year and a half’s worth of dirt that falls through the cracks. Our friend Lee came over to help Mark clean the waterline. We had started the job on Friday using a Star Brite hull cleaning product, but when we arrived today it looked like the product had dulled the AwlGrip paint where we had used it. So Lee suggested we try a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser which is a sponge loaded with cleaner. We had been given one by someone months ago and were told at the time that it does a great job on the waterline. But we had forgotten all about it. I dug out it out and sure enough, it worked just like magic-but with a lot of man power behind it. Lee called Lynda and asked her to go buy some and bring them to the boat. And just after Lynda arrived, friends of Lee and Lynda stopped by to see Windbird. James and Tylynn Farmer live here on the weekends but stay on their boat during the week in Charleston, SC, where Ty works as a nurse anesthetist. They have a 30-foot Catalina and are thinking about moving up to a bigger boat. And Lee and Lynda might consider buying the 30-footer. So it goes with boaters. Everyone is always moving up to something bigger and better. With all the company, I didn’t get a lot of cleaning done, but Lee and Mark did get the waterline done. Hurray!!!
We had another delicious dinner tonight. We have just about exhausted the supply of fresh peas which is a good thing because the warmer weather is drying up the vines. We ate the last of the fried green tomatoes tonight and had the last of the strawberries we picked the other day with homemade ice cream. Yummy.
by Judy Handley | May 22, 2011 | Sailing Logs Year 6, The Carolinas, USA |
Day 209, Year 6 La Belle Amie
Date: Saturday, May 21, 2011
Weather: Beautiful and Sunny; 84 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina
We had a relaxed morning starting with blueberry pancakes made my brother-in-law Joe. Delicious. Afterwards, Joe and I surveyed the garden and did some watering. And Mark really needed a haircut, so that task came next. Then Mark’s sister Mary Ellen called and invited us to come to their cabin in northern Georgia for the Memorial Day Weekend. We did a little researching and found that we could fly to Atlanta for about $210 round trip for the two of us or we could drive for about $150. In the end we decided to drive, mostly because the arrival time at the Atlanta airport didn’t work well for being picked up and driven north to the cabin. So we will leave here this Wednesday and return on Sunday. It will be great to have a few days in the mountains to visit with Mary Ellen and Lee.
In the afternoon we went to La Belle Amie Vineyards with our friend Lee and Lynda Kaufman. This is a small vineyard in North Myrtle Beach that provides free live entertainment on Saturday afternoons. We chose one of the vineyards Twisted Sister wines to enjoy. It was a white wine called “What Was I Thinking?” I chose it just because I loved the name. We then visited Lee and Lynda’s new home that they moved into and out of within a week due to a mold problem. It is really a nice home and almost ready for them to move into again. Then we went to their condo for dinner. Lynda actually left us at the vineyard, drove home to put the barbecued ribs in the oven, and then came back to join us. When we ate the ribs we all appreciated her efforts as they were the tenderest ribs we have ever eaten. It was fun to catch up on what has been happening in our lives over the past two years and to talk about a sailboat that they are thinking of buying. Tomorrow Lee has offered to help Mark with waterline cleaning on Windbird while I do some inside cleaning. Since we will be leaving for a few days on Wednesday, we would like to have all boat cleaning done so we can then spend the rest of our time here just enjoying visiting with family and friends. That’s the goal. We’ll just have to see if we can really get all of the cleaning done by the time we leave here on Wednesday.
