Headed North

At 11:00 AM on Saturday May 2, 2015 we left Atlantic Yacht Basin (AYB) in Chesapeake, VA headed north up Chesapeake Bay. AYB had kept INA dry and safe for the winter but now it was time to start moving again. Our general itinerary for 2015 is as follows: We will head up Chesapeake Bay stopping at Delaware City, Cape May, Atlantic City and getting to New York City the last part of May. We are planning to spend two to three weeks in NYC and then maybe a week or more on Long Island Sound before heading up the Hudson River. Towards the end of June we will be up the Hudson and will enter the Erie Canal at Waterford, NY. We will travel the length of the Erie Canal, about 395 miles, to Buffalo, NY. We will leave the boat in Brewerton, NY at the end of September for the winter.

Our first travel day was a short one arriving at Hampton, VA in the afternoon.  We had a quick dinner at the marina restaurant with our friends from R Island who are cruising with us. We got to bed early. The next morning we left just after sunrise for the 51 mile trip to Deltaville. We layed up there a couple of days because of weather. On Wednesday, May 6th we left Deltaville about 6:15AM headed to Solomon's Island, MD and had great dinner at the CD Cafe a restaurant we had eaten at last summer. With the weather looking good the next day we headed out with calm seas to Annapolis, MD. Annapolis is a great little town and we enjoyed a last walk around the downtown streets and a chocolate coconut ice cream cone from the Annapolis Ice Cream Company.  The weather still looking good and a favorable tide we left Annapolis traveling 79 miles up the bay and across the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to Delaware City, DE. 79 miles is a long day for us! We plan to stay here a week going several days to Philadelphia to see the sites. So far we have traveled 276 miles from Atlantic Yacht Basin up Chesapeake Bay across the canal to the Delaware River.

Leaving AYB. Moving again!

Our first night at Hampton. 

 On the bay. 

Dinner with fellow loopers. 

Leaving Annapolis. 

The Bay Bridge.

Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. 

It's back to Inch-n-Along for cruising 2015

After a long cold winter in Memphis, Spring finally came. Bulbs, plants and trees bloomed with beautiful color and then everything was covered with green pollen for two weeks an annual event that we and our allergys hate. Just as the green pollen event ended and the trees filled with leaves we packed up the car and headed back to Inch-n-Along for summer cruising 2015.

We had an uneventful trip back to Virginia. About an hour out of Memphis the Adi cat figured out she wasn't going to the vet and settled in for the ride. The first night we stayed in Asheville with friends Jeff and Grace. It was good to see them again and they are great hosts. We left the next morning headed to Chesapeake, VA and our boat at Atlantic Yacht Basin. It rained all the way there and was pouring when we got to the boat. So, we got a quick dinner and stayed in a hotel for the night which Adi loved. We moved back on to the boat the next day with the sun shinning and green pollen everywhere. Lucky us we got a double dose of pollen this year. We've spent the last week getting the boat ready to leave on May 1. We're hoping the weather agrees with our schedule.

November 14, 2014 We are home in Memphis.

We spent the last of October going through every cabinet and drawer on the boat boxing up stuff we had not used or didn't think we needed on the boat to take home. We rented a car to drive home and when we went to pick it up they didn't have the size that we had reserved so they gave us a mini van. Lucky for us that we got the van, we had a big load of stuff to take home.

So on October 27th we winterized the boat, pumping pink antifreeze through the engine, generator, HVAC, and fresh water system. Inch-n-Along will sleep until April, staying in the water under a roof in a big barn, protected from the weather.

We stayed in a hotel the 27th and 28th as the boat had no heat or toilet because those systems were now shut down for the winter. The Adi cat had been a little uneasy as she didn't know what was going on. The boat had been in an upheaval for a week with the sorting and packing; Adi cat does not like things on the boat to be out of place. However when we took her to the hotel she calmed down and seemed to be thinking she was on a new adventure and was excited to get going. Adi loves hotel rooms provided she has her food and potty box.

We left Chesapeake, VA on the morning of October 29 for a leisurely trip home to Memphis. First stop was Blacksburg, VA. Our daughter Megan's first friend when we moved to Memphis, Natalie, lives in Blacksburg with her husband and new baby, Eva Cathren. Eva is three months old and so .sweet. We had dinner with them and then off to another hotel, to the excitement of the Adi cat.

Next day we headed to Asheville NC to visit Grace and Jeff. The trees were turning and the color was beautiful. We had started our loop adventure with them, leaving from our home port of Grand Harbor in October 2013. Grace and Jeff at that point were half way around their loop. They have a beautiful log home in the country outside of Asheville. Grace fixed a wonderful dinner and we talked about our loop adventures.

Nashville was our next stop. We had an early dinner and got a good nights sleep, Adi included, and got up early for the final leg of our trip home to Memphis. We arrived home in the afternoon greeted by our daughter Megan. Megan prepared a delicious dinner and we settled back in to our house until April. Amazingly the Adi cat traveled home those several days almost a thousand miles perfectly. She is a great all around traveler and boat cat!

We will return to the boat in early April 2015 to continue our adventure. Our plan is to quickly run up Chesapeake Bay to the C&D Canal to Delaware Bay and up the Delaware River to Philadelphia. From there we will head to Cape Fear, NJ and then on the outside to New York Harbor. We'll spend time in NYC and then go up the Hudson River to the Erie Canal where we will spend the summer leaving the boat in Brewerton, NY for the 2015 winter.

Everyone have a great holiday season and we will and we will see you again in April.

October 18 & 19, 2014 Naval Tour and Art Festival

The local TV news gave us two ideas for something to do over the weekend. On Friday morning we got the Enterprise car rental weekend special, $33.63 total returning the car on Monday morning. On Saturday we traveled to Norfolk Naval Station for an event celebrating the 239th anniversary of the U.S. Navy. There were ship tours. We were able to go on board the carrier Theodore Roosevelt the ship that passed us on 10/17 on Chesapeake Bay. There was also aircraft displayed, various navy equipment, an antique car show, and a chili cook off. In the afternoon we attended a Navy Band concert on the Roosvelt. It was a fun day.

On Sunday, we spent the afternoon in downtown Norfolk at the Stockley Gardens Arts Festival. This event was held at the Stockley Gardens park in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood of old restored homes. The art show is an annual event with about 150 artists displaying their work. We enjoyed the afternoon and the artwork.

October 13-17, 2014

We spent the week at Atlantic Yacht Basin, doing maintenance on the boat and planning our trip back to Memphis. While we are away for the winter AYB is going to do some needed work on the boat for us:  New cushions in the salon and pilothouse, a roof vent in the pilothouse (it can get hot in the pilothouse and we can't have the doors open for fear of an escaping Adi cat), wax on the outside of the boat, and in the Spring new bottom paint. All this and the maintenance that I'll do on the engine, generator and other systems will send us off in the Spring ready for another six months of cruising before laying the boat up again for the winter in Brewerton, NY. As we sit at AYB on the outside dock we see every hour, when the Great Bridge Bridge opens, boats of all sizes headed south down the Albermarle and Chesapeake Canal to warmer waters.

Headed to the Bahamas?

Lots of commercial traffic on the canal.

October 13, 2014 Atlantic Yacht Basin

This morning we headed south through Norfolk, the Virginia Cut and Great Bridge Lock into the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. Atlantic Yacht Basin (AYB) is about a mile from the lock on the canal. We'll leave the boat at AYB for the winter at the end of October and Lois, Adi cat and I will drive home to Memphis.

Norfolk Naval Shipyard. 

Great Bridge Lock. 

October 10-12, 2014 Hampton

We arrived at Hampton on Friday at Bluewater Yacht Center about 1:30, pumped the holding tank and got into a nice slip looking out at the harbor. Friends John and Diane drove down from Williamsburg to visit and have dinner with us that evening. The next day we rented a car and took Lois to an urgent care to have her checked out. She has had a cold and cough for a couple of weeks that settled in her chest. The doctor examined her and gave her some meds and she is now much better. We got done at the urgent care at lunch time so I looked at Urbanspoon to see what restaurants were in the area and of course Urbanspoon hit another home run with Los Paisas Mexican Restaurant in Newport News. It was the best! We did some shopping after lunch and went back to the boat. We took the car back to Enterprise Sunday morning and had planned to head to Waterside Marina in downtown Norfolk in the afternoon but the day was cool and the wind was blowing 15-20 so we stayed another night.

View out our window.