Saturday, July 28, 2012

Miles Going Nowhere + Jackets Reunion

Days on cruise:  126

Distance traveled:  2.5 miles

Travel time: 33 minutes

Total trip odometer:  2,683

We feel like a ping pong ball, moving from place to place but making no forward progress.  We slept so well  Thursday night we’ve no idea whether the forecasted high winds materialized, but we woke Friday to find the stern of our boat 20 feet from the sheer rock shoreline wall, so weren’t comfortable staying another night unless we could figure out what sorts of adjustments to make. Additionally we spent most of two days anchored at the Benjamin Islands, but didn’t get to explore much there because of the rain. So we moved back to the Benjamins.

After setting anchor, we called the marina where we plan to stay Saturday night to confirm their channel depth and make a reservation. Guess what? Their depth is only 3 feet!  Since we plan to meet friends there, we had to develop a Plan B and communicate it to them quickly.

Our friends are coming by car, and the next marina location is 50 miles away. Because the afternoon conditions at the moment were calm, we decided to make some headway toward the newly identified Saturday marina destination. We scrambled to pull our anchor and at the same time sent a text message to Looper friends on Jackets II who we knew were in nearby Little Current and with whom we’d been hoping to connect. They responded immediately:  “Will you wave as you go by?  We’ll arrive in the Benjamins in 30 minutes!”

Plan C: We would stay here with Jackets tonight and leave  early in the morning to meet our friends in Blind River.  The Best Of Both Worlds: Jackets II, PLUS Gene and Joyce!

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Jackets II is a 49’ Krogen Express, and Stephen and Charlotte are the first Loopers we met last January back in Fort Pierce, Florida while still doing boat prep. They started their Loop from Jacksonville three weeks later than we did, and we’ve only seen them in Norfolk, and then Solomons on the Chesapeake. We’ve missed them!

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We all dropped our dinghies and went for a hike up the so-called Ski Slope to see the view.

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Later Stephen and Charlotte came to our boat, bringing their planned dinner food and cocktail hour beverages.

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Aren’t they cute?

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It was great to have a reunion with Jackets II and we hope to catch up with each other again before crossing into the U.S. soon.

1 comment:

Ozel and Maryann Cox said...

I am embarrassed that it has taken so long to respond to your message. We were also surprised that our children worked together. Thank you for contacting us. I'm sure that we will want to get some good advice from you in the future.
We are in Angel Fire, New Mexico with our younger son and his family. It is cool up here- 70's in daytime and low 50's at night.
I think that my surgery can be called a success since I'm walking 3-4 miles per day pain free! A miracle.
We plan head to Oregon the 2nd week of August in our RV - and then to see Sean, our oldest son, and his family in Bellevue at the end of August. We have been invited to join Ozel's brother and his friend on an RV tour in Canada in September (Vancouver, Banff, Jasper, and Victoria Island . I think that we will most likely do it!

We also plan to drive to Jacksonville, FL in November, to check on our boat and tp explore the St. John River for a week or so. We will spend the ski season in Angel Fire and then continue our voyage on the "Loop" next April. At least we won't have to redo the Gulf!

Please let me know when you receive my note...email - mmcox@sbcglobal.net --cell 361/727-7699 or via the blog.

I am setting up a blog for our RV and will post to it as we progress on our land voyage - rvnissa.blogspot.com

Yours,
Maryann and Ozel Cox

PS I posted on our site as a reply but not sure how it works so am posting to your blog as well