Marina Life

Long, hot showers. Laundry we can walk to. $5 weekend movies. A car. $2 bowling on Wednesdays. A three-minute drive to the grocery store. Paintball weekends. Old friends. Mail. Local distilleries and wineries. Long walks. A little mom maintenance...

Friends! Land fun!

These are just a few of the things we've been enjoying since we came to our summer home less than two weeks ago. But we've also been catching up on some deferred maintenance on the boat, too! She's been given a good scrub outside, the anchor windlass has been serviced, batteries have been topped off and equalized, the fridge has been defrosted (and boy was THAT overdue!), the water maker has been pickled, a/c filters have been cleaned, rugs have been cleaned, and the bilges have been super-cleaned! And we also did a beach clean-up as a family!

We have plenty of cleaning and projects to keep us busy this summer!

Cleaning a beach as part of "Clean the Bay Day."

And somewhere among all of that work we got the Skipper a whole new wardrobe (not exaggerating), went on a few dates, and started prepping the starboard aft cabin for the return of OUR DAUGHTER! I can't tell you how EXCITED we are for all that June has to offer! The Skipper is on his way to Scotland for another round of hiking and Scotch-tasting this week with his brother-in-law, then next week Trent and I will join Grandma Sue and fly to France! We can't wait to hug on Katreina and meet her French family before taking a week to do a little sightseeing in France. 

We are so thankful for all that our girl has experienced this past year while living in Tours and can't wait to meet the family that has welcomed her so generously. Good things are coming.

~Jo, 1st Mate

A new MWR experience—Norfolk

A few days of smooth seas and peaceful anchorages near Solomon’s Island and Deltaville delivered us to Norfolk and yet another week in a marina. I know, we are really changing it up this year! 

Why Norfolk? It allowed us relatively easy access to public transportation so that we could continue to move our car south and the MWR marina at Naval Station Norfolk had a great reputation and great weekly rate. It was also close to family and friends. Hands down, this is the best MWR marina we’ve been to so far when considering amenities, condition of the docks, and staff. 

We didn’t really explore the sites of Norfolk (unless you count the paintball field and skate park), but we visited with local and NC friends, gave the topsides a coat of wax, and filled the bilge with food and drinks. I’d call that a good week. Oh, then the remnants of TS Eta hit and flooded everything. So much rain!

We would definitely hit this marina up again...maybe in the spring!

Lehe Paine gets interviewed by Poppin' Smoke!

I forget exactly how this came about, but I'm pretty sure Stephanie at Poppin' Smoke posted a question on her Facebook page asking about any regrets RVer's had after downsizing and hitting the road. I chimed in with my take on the shift to a sailboat and that piqued her interest! We did some remote interviews with her and the result was a 2-part interview! Poppin' Smoke is a great resource for military retirees to learn about using their travel benefits. It was fun to add "traveling via boat" to the list of topics. And Stephanie is a way better writer than I am. Check out her interviews with us here!

Part 1--Living on a Sailboat With Kids: This Family Loves Life on the Water

Part 2--This Full-Time Sailing Family is Making the Most of Their Kids' Pre-College Years

The end of our Maine cruising (for this year!)

We awoke to an outside temp of 39F the day we left Casco Bay—let’s get south!

At the start of our trip to Maine I never would have guessed that we’d be working to avoid impacts from a tropical weather system here, but it is 2020 and here we are! With unfavorable winds and big (15-20’) swells from Hurricane Teddy in the forecast, we opted to hang in Kittery for a few days. As a military retiree, we can sometimes tie up at base marinas and we lucked out at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. They have a “COVID Island” dock that lacks power or water, but it’s in a protected cove, it’s out of the strong river current, and at $20 a day it’s a steal. We can also walk to a nice commissary (grocery store) and fill water via jerry cans. And the bonus? Two of my MMA classmates have their boat there and rowed over to say hi within minutes of us tying up! We have quite a few friends in the area, but between COVID, weather, restaurant closures, and the fact that we have to get off base to hang out, we are keeping to ourselves for the most part. Walks around base, school work, and provisioning have kept us plenty busy! 

But alas, it’s time to go and we will head to Gloucester in the morning. We had a great time thanks to many friends who helped us and visited along the way, the friendly cruising families we met, and the awesome hospitality of the people of Maine. We will be back!

Time for a name change?

When I started this blog 11 years ago (to the day!) I’m not so sure I realized I would stick with it so long!  The reason I say this is that the subtitle is, “The story of a Navy family on a non-Navy boat.”  Even back then I knew that I would retire at some point, so why did I do that?  Who knows?!?!  Well, as of today we are no longer an active duty Navy family!  It’s my first official day of retirement (I’ve been on leave for a few months) so are we now an ex-Navy family?  The Captain said that we will always be a Navy family (it IS how we met), but for some reason reaching this milestone has given me pause and made me question it.

I actually realized while writing this that the blog started exactly 11 years ago.  I just think that’s such a coincidence as I never could have predicted my exact retirement date back then.  Anyway, it’s official!

Jacksonville—A working port

Monday got off to a pretty sweet start...entered the St. John’s River from the sea on a flood tide and called ahead to Mulberry Cove Marina on NAS Jacksonville to ensure they had a transient spot for us so we didn’t waste a long slog up the river.  Easy day, right?  Well...long story short, the marina actually didn’t have a spot for us.  They didn’t have a good account of what slips were open, tried to put us in one two feet too shallow for us, blamed everything on the old hurricane damage and being “the end of the road” on base, and basically told us to “too bad, so sad” as they were closing for the day.  We walked by a slip that seemed pretty open and undamaged and somehow managed to talk them into letting us take it.  Ended up being perfect!  This isn’t the first time we have stayed here, and it’s an incredible value for military peeps, but this whole debacle was shocking.  We made our comments and hope it does something to improve the management of the operation.  

Once settled, we got to work!  The real drivers for this stop were new ID cards for everyone, FL residency and a license for the Cap’n, mail pick-up, and provisioning.  We did it all, and gave the boat a good scrub and took advantage of the free laundry.  We also managed to get some birthday and Christmas presents aboard and got new snorkel gear for the kiddos.

We want to hit St. Augustine, but with the holiday next week we could only get 2 nights.  We stayed out in JAX an extra night and now are headed toward St. Aug for a few nights of ICW anchoring before we get on a mooring there.  It’s been a nice, relaxing, southerly journey!

The End

Yesterday I laced up my boots for the last time.  It was only a little emotional!  This has been the plan for so long that it just felt like any other change in job.  And Trent was with me to keep me distracted!

Today I start the next chapter, and so far it’s looking pretty good!