Did we really stay for three nights? Yes. Yes we did.

The setting: Joliet, Illinois! The humble burg where ‘Joliet’ Jake Blues was released from prison at the beginning of The Blues Brothers movie. The actual prison where James Belushi’s character played the tin cup was closed years ago, but we couldn’t help enjoying quotes from it during our stay. How did we get there? See? Now there’s a story.

Loyal readers of the Captain’s Log will remember that my most recent entry had us tied up on Sunday, August 31 in St. Joseph, Michigan. This free city bulkhead/dock on the St. Joseph River is a charming place to stop in settled weather, though I imagine that westerlies could bring in a rather nasty, bouncy seiche. This turned out to be a wonderful stop. Once settled in we took position on our aft deck to watch a huge laker, the Manitowoc, turn in the nearby turning basin come through the nearby drawbridge, and pick her way through the ridiculously thick and often dumb holiday weekend boat traffic. I mean we actually witnessed a pontoon boat full of people sitting in the fairway in front of the massive ship taking pictures. They were a single engine failure away from becoming a holiday statistic. I’m sure alcohol was not involved.

After the “show,” we enjoyed dinner at the Silver Harbor Brewing Company, which was quite good, and then kicked about town for a little while. We had been lamenting that we were out of fruit on the boat, and, as if by magic, a beautiful apple tree appeared on the street next to a children’s museum. We may have borrowed a few more than we could eat in the moment. I’m still not sure what variety of apple they were, but they tasted absolutely…umm…free! We made our way back to the boat to enjoy some time taking in the scene and the breezes from Stinkpot’s covered sundeck.

As evening approached, our thoughts turned once again to our stomachs. I had my eye on a soul food restaurant about a mile away. It was chilly and had been spitting rain on and off all afternoon, but we deemed it an acceptable risk and pulled on our walking shoes. Arriving at All That and a Touch of Soul, we were taken in by the smells immediately. Without waxing philosophical about the Philly jerk chicken and cheese sub Stacey ordered or the smothered pork chops I selected with sides of macaroni and cheese and collards, or even the sample of the braised oxtail that the chef dropped by our table for us to sample, let me just say that I have seldom had a dining experience that was such a perfect combination of gritty, local joint and “why don’t you just roll that whole pot over here for a little while.” I will be savoring that meal in my dreams for weeks to come.

Check paid and our trotters back on the ground, we exited the restaurant into unrelenting pouring rain. Stacey’s apparel revealed her forethought of this situation, but mine, alas, did not. Our quayside arrival had her mildly damp and me resembling a drowned rat. I changed into my pajamas, and we entertained ourselves with some of our St. Joseph’s ice cream haul before turning in for the night.

Thursday morning we again rose with the sun. I began considering preparing us to get underway, but I had one issue nagging me. In studying the charts of the Illinois River which lay before us, I realized that Joliet’s free wall was likely to be our last real connection to land for a little while. Despite Tuesday’s showers, moderate localized drought conditions had depths on the river down a foot or two from normal, and a dearth of ports that had sufficient depth for the new Stinkpot’s deeper keel would necessarily keep us from stepping off for some time. It sure would be nice if our dinghy was usable, since I ostensibly had the missing part in hand to make it so. I proclaimed that we should stay another night so I could do exactly that. Not sensing any objection to that plan, that’s exactly what we did. I spent the day tearing down the 15-horsepower Mercury: draining the lower unit, removing the lower unit, replacing the impeller (which I needed to cut off the shaft), reattaching the lower unit, filling the lower unit with new gear oil, and, finally, changing the oil and filter on the engine itself. It was a long day’s work, but it got done, and at the end of the day, I was rewarded by one of our legendary “app walks.”

As long as Stacey and I have been together, we have periodically done these walks. We pick an area with restaurants we want to try and walk to two or three different places to eat only appetizers. You can tell a lot about a joint by its appetizers. This time we enjoyed average bar snacks and an RC Cola at the Chicago Street Pub and stuffed mushrooms and a “Caprese Panini” (chicken, tomato, mozzarella, and pesto) sandwich at the more upscale Juliet’s Tavern. The former had very personable staff and forgettable food while at the latter, the opposite was true. Ultimately satisfied, we trundled back to the boat in the warming sunshine and began making our preparations for a dawn departure.

With the rising sun Friday, September 5, we began singling up our lines and disconnecting from power. At 7:44AM CDT I started the engines, and we were underway. We locked through Brandon Road, Dresden, and Marseilles Locks and ultimately had the anchor down at the Buffalo Rock State Park anchorage last night around 7PM local time—a long day of cruising, rewarded by some home cooking at anchor at the foot of a beautiful, cliff-rimmed oxbow anchorage. We turned in soon after the dishes were done.

Today did not start off well. During my engine room checks, I found fuel pooled under the starboard engine, blessedly retained inside a fiberglass sump. After cleaning it up with sorbents and checking for loose fuel line connections, I set to finding the source. I noticed some fuel in and around the secondary filters, so I changed them (not done during the commissioning). I’m hoping that was all it was. I didn’t have that all done and the fuel systems bled of air until nearly 11AM. In looking at our itinerary, I made the painful decision to remain here another night. We have a long run ahead of us to get to a reasonable anchorage and prefer to not run unfamiliar waters in the dark. This is a beautiful spot. We’ll sit right here and enjoy some leftovers aboard while I get other work done. Tomorrow we’ll weigh anchor with the dawn and make some miles, hopefully without a fuel leak.

We are underway on the western shore of Lake Michigan, and we feel amazing and free. Free of the prison that was the boatyard. Free of the halfway house that was our slip at the yard. We couldn’t wait to go, and go we did. Wednesday morning, August 27 at 8:11AM, I started a new logbook on the new Stinkpot—a DeFever 44 Offshore Cruiser built in 1982. She is hull #8—full of charm, full of quirks, and still needing lots of work to correct years of unqualified repairs and “upgrades,” many of which were clearly undertaken by professionals who should’ve known better.

We honestly had no idea when we were going to be ready to go. We still had our venerable 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Trebek—I never was one to name cars, but Stacey always has, and she insisted I give the car a name after we purchased it eleven years ago. Being a Highlander, my mind drifted to the cast of the movie of the same name. I started thinking about Sean Connery, and my favorite Sean Connery moment—which wasn’t one—was Darrell Hammond’s impersonation of him on SNL’s Celebrity Jeopardy skits. I loved the way he (Hammond) churlishly uttered “Trebek.” I named the car.

A week ago, feeling our departure was imminent, Stacey listed our steed on Marketplace and was so overwhelmed with the response, we were glad when the perfect buyer was among the 15 or so replies that came in during the first 120 seconds the ad was up. The buyers came immediately to look at the car. They loved it and put down $100, agreeing to let us hang onto it until we were ready to cast off, at which point they’d return to collect the car and give us the balance. Tuesday morning, we messaged them, and by nightfall Logan, a brilliant 17-year-old, had his first car to cart him back and forth to school. Wednesday morning, we’d be gone.

Rather than draw this out with an extensive blow-by-blow (that would include a wonderful visit by none other than Sean and Louise that you can read about here), I’ll just make it known here that we sold our Bayliner 3870 in Hopewell, Virginia shortly after the fuel tank replacements were completed. We bought a 1982 DeFever 44 Offshore Cruiser. She needed a lot of deferred maintenance but was in good shape otherwise. The two transactions were completed within a day of each other, meaning we only owned two boats for less than 24 hours.

We rented a U-Haul, added a car trailer to carry our venerable Toyota with us, and on the afternoon of Saturday, June 21, 2025—after a day dockside in Hopewell moving the contents of the boat into the truck in near-three-digit temperatures—we took one last photo with the original Stinkpot.

We’ve now been in Holland, Michigan since Tuesday, June 24. We did make a detour to Georgia to pick up my piano from “the sitter’s house” (our dear friend Mike has been keeping it for me since we sold the house in Maine).

The new Stinkpot required considerable attention before she was fit to launch, but the big splash happened at exactly 1 p.m. on Tuesday, August 5. Before that, we were living in Holland’s Microtel. As soon as she was floating, we moved aboard and began settling in.

It has been a long journey, and there’s still a lot to get done, but we’re on target to hopefully drop lines within a week or two (tops). We are still “fitting” ourselves aboard, modifying the boat to suit our uses, and dealing with some egregious configuration issues—worst of which: the battery banks the previous owners had installed. Eight expensive Trojan T-105 (GC2) batteries were so poorly configured that had we gotten underway we’d have risked fire (at worst) or short battery life (at best). As of this writing, the worst of it is done—fire or shortened battery life will not happen—but we’ll have a much more electrically efficient system once I finish.

After a week aboard, we’re getting comfortable. We brought our toaster/convection oven from the Bayliner and added it to the galley. I’ve swapped out all the galley appliances except the refrigerator: new convection microwave, new induction cooktop, new dishwasher. The (pricy) Force 10 marine range that came with the boat is now for sale (no reasonable offer refused).

I’m updating and wiring the navigation electronics to achieve what I consider the minimum requirements. Soon, we’ll be selling our 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid (no reasonable offer—correction—no offer refused) and dropping lines. Where to? No firm plans. We’re going “out there” somewhere—ultimately heading down the western rivers for the winter.

Tuesday morning, I woke at my normal time and decided to answer nature’s call on land at the marina’s facilities. When I stepped outside, I noticed the engine room door was open and stuck against my toolbox, which was preventing it from closing on its own. I was surprised by this and immediately worried that I had left it that way since it rained so hard overnight. I stepped back inside and ran the bilge pump, and barely a squirt came out.

Still foggy from sleep and needing to finish my trudge to the porcelain palace, I failed to process immediately what I was seeing.

With nature’s call fully answered, I returned to the boat and looked around the cockpit with fresh, now-fully-awakened eyes. That’s when I started seeing the clues. Both of my toolboxes were unlatched, and one of them had an internal tray removed and sitting on the deck. I know that I have a tendency to be a bit absent-minded, so I started second-guessing myself. I looked into the tray that was left out, and it was completely dry inside. It had rained just before we went to bed Monday night. If I had left it like that, the tray would be full of water. Thinking back, I distinctly remembered latching all the toolboxes shut when the storm was bearing down on us. I’m starting to think to myself that someone came aboard while we were asleep.

That’s when Stacey stuck her head out the door as I was opening the engine room door again. I shared with her my hypothesis that I thought we’d had an uninvited guest overnight. No sooner did I have the sentence out of my mouth when I spotted it. Low in the dark engine room, laying on top of the portside transmission, was a baseball cap. It wasn’t mine.

Evidence solidly in hand, I looked at Stacey and said, “I knew I wasn’t crazy.” We stepped back inside and started composing a message to Charles, the city official who oversees the marina. I hadn’t written more than a sentence or two when we spotted him walking across the parking lot. I snatched the classy head covering off the table and trudged over to Charles and told him of our findings. He was immediately alarmed and vowed to call the police and go review the security camera footage, asking me about what time it happened. I told him it had to have been after midnight—the storm was around 11pm, and we were up for about an hour more before we both were out. He asked me if anything was missing, and at that point the answer was, “unconfirmed.”

Charles trundled off toward the marina building to review the footage while I returned to the boat to search for what wasn’t there. A cursory look through my toolboxes revealed that they seemed to contain everything they should—nothing seemed to be missing. I turned my attention to the storage container on the deck where I have been keeping our extra-long wet/dry vacuum cleaner hoses. The only other item that should’ve been there were my bilge shoes. The hoses were there. My shoes were not.

The thief took my bilge shoes. My old, dirty, worn-out bilge shoes. Whenever I get a new pair of kicks, the old pair is relegated to bilge use, and my previous pair of bilge shoes becomes garbage. That is what he stole. OLD shoes!

Around that time, I looked up, and one of our neighbors was noticing that his Jeep (with soft top) had been entered during the evening as well, and little was taken—and again, nothing of value.

Charles was walking toward us across the parking lot. “I saw him on the recording. He was on your boat for about ten minutes. When he came off, he didn’t have anything in his hands.” The spoils of his escapade were on his feet!

“I could see his hat when he went on the boat, but when he came off, he wasn’t wearing it, but he did seem happy.” Around this time, one of Hopewell’s finest rolled up. A nice lady in a spotless police cruiser. We gave her the hat, chatted about the facts of the situation, and then all retired to the marina building to review the video footage together.

This is really the sum total of the story. Nothing monumental happened. We all concluded that the fellow was likely drunk or high, possibly homeless, and almost certainly was walking around with either wet feet or shoeless, given his choices. Nothing of any value was stolen either aboard Stinkpot or from our neighbor’s shiny, red Jeep. We are, however, trying to keep better track of our valuables aboard for the time being and may add some security cameras of our own at some point. Neither of us wants to live with the paranoia that can come with situations like these, but we will take better precautions in the future.

As for the hat? Charles has it. We think he’s going to try to bait a hobo trap with it. If so, we’ll share whatever outcome there is from that effort.

As for me? I’ll be barefoot in the bilges for the foreseeable future. 

Stacey has a neurological disorder called prosopagnosia, commonly known as face blindness. The brain typically maps people’s faces for recognition, but individuals with prosopagnosia lack this ability entirely. It’s not just facial recognition they struggle with; they also experience a form of lifelong topographical disorientation. Stacey suffers from both symptoms, so if she doesn’t recognize you, it’s nothing personal. She literally doesn’t recognize me if I walk away and return wearing a hat. Chances are good she has no idea where she is, either. Sure, she might tell you the name of the town (for the moment), but without extensively studying a map, she couldn’t tell you where in the world it is—and even if she did study the map and find it, she’d likely forget everything about that study five minutes later, making her an unlikely traveler.

Returning to our narrative, Stacey forms memories of places around the food she enjoys there. So when I say to her, “Do you remember when we were here last?” she will ask me what she ate. This, of course, presents a bit of an issue because I remember places, and despite an absolute love of cuisine, I’m less likely to remember what I ate than where I ate it. This turns a “remember that” conversation into a 20-minute exchange of what we ate, what we did, what we saw, and how many crullers were consumed before we can strike upon a sufficient collection of mutually remembered fragments of a visit to enjoy a memory of our travels together. Of course, this blog also helps with all of that, and since I started it three years ago in April 2022, we now refer to it frequently to help us mutually knit together our memories.

Speaking of which, three years ago at this time, as I was scribbling the opening paragraphs of this very blog, we were docked at the Hopewell City Marina in Hopewell, Virginia, awaiting installation of a generator that was gifted to us by our dear friend Robert, who also owns a Bayliner 38 very similar to Stinkpot. As I write these words now, we are in the same marina. We’ve moved, and, for the TL;DR crowd, what follows is what brought us here and why.

Suffice it to say, as we were enjoying our winter stay in Wilmington and traveling the country from there for fun and profit, we also attended to Stinkpot’s maintenance, as we tend to do. As winter progressed toward spring, we had no hard and fast plans. Initially, we thought we might get underway in early February and head south for awhile, but as the winter chill gripped the entire East Coast, severing our connection to shore power and its guarantee of warmth seemed less inviting. So we stayed into March, then extended our stay to April 11 (exactly four months after our arrival), figuring that would allow us to enjoy my birthday in Wilmington before casting off.

Plans were formulated. Early in the week of our departure, I would relocate our car back to our friend Kim’s driveway in Maryland and bum a ride to the airport (BWI), where I would fly cattle class back to ILM (Wilmington). I bought the plane ticket on Avelo for about $39.

I began addressing some maintenance aboard in anticipation of getting underway again. I had noted some decaying hose clamps in the bilges under our forward stateroom, so I ordered a bunch of “fresh” ones to replace them. When they arrived, I set to the task, and when I reached the raw water (sea water) connections for our air conditioning system, I realized the hose was also at the end of its life. No worries—it’s a short hose, and I have many pieces of short hose left over from other projects stored in the lazarette. I popped the aft deck to find a piece, and when I looked at the bilge water in the aft compartment/engine area, my heart sank. It looked like there was far more than water in there. I dunked a finger and sniffed it. Diesel fuel. Not good. Not good at all.

I quickly undertook an inspection of Stinkpot‘s fuel system and determined the only possible cause could be a leaking fuel tank. This is really a worst-case scenario when finding diesel floating free in the bilge, but not at all unexpected. It’s a common problem on this particular Bayliner model, and it is a bullet we were hoping to dodge as we sell her and move onto our next boat. It was not to be. This is our problem to solve.

​

In case you're just joining us, when last I posted here, Stinkpot was waiting out weather in Hertford, NC with M/Y Vector tied up nearby, enjoying some cruiser camaraderie and catching up. At just before 9AM, Sunday, November 24th, Stinkpot cast off from Hertford, NC and stood by while Vector did the same with minor difficulty. Recent winds had reduced the water depth under her, and she was wallowing in mud on the bottom. Some adept helmsmanship saw her off the dock just in time for our scheduled 9AM bridge opening (the bridge hours this time of year begin at 10, but Sean made arrangements the night before to secure us a slightly earlier departure).

Both vessels pushed down the Perquimans River to a reasonably calm Albemarle Sound. Once in the open water of the sound, I pointed Stinkpot to a wide open area so I could recalibrate our heading sensor in the hope of getting our autopilot functioning again. I am pleased to report that, while it took a couple tries, the operation was a success, and for the first time since we have owned the boat, the autopilot is now 100% functional.

While it did “work” before, it never worked correctly. It would not follow a course, it would only hold a heading, and the reported heading was always “off” by a variable and often-considerable margin. I surmised that might be because the heading sensor, which is essentially a magnetic compass, was too near the autopilot's hydraulic pump (and its magnetic field). I put off repairing this situation for years, but I finally repositioned the sensor away from the pump while on the dock in Hertford—and now, post-calibration, it works flawlessly.

With the process complete, we got back on course for the Alligator River, made our way through the opened Alligator River  Swing Bridge and up river, dropping the hook just off Tuckahoe Point by the entrance to the Alligator-Pungo Canal with scarce remaining daylight. Vector anchored nearby soon after, though we all stayed aboard our respective vessels for the evening. Stinkpot's crew bed down early and were up with the dawn and quickly underway to use the engines to warm the boat from the overnight chill.

The anchor was up a bit after 7:30am and we were pointed into the canal with an intended stop in Belhaven. Vector weighed too within the hour and both boats were anchored in Belhaven well before sundown—Stinkpot arriving just after noon, and Vector about an hour later.

​Sean, Louise, and I dinghied ashore for an afternoon walk around town, and, later, we all reassembled in Vector’s tender and cruised ashore for dinner. Sean and Louise treated us to a fine Mexican feast at a restaurant they’ve enjoyed before, El Mariachi, and were sure we’d appreciate—and they were right.

The morning of Tuesday, November 26th we weighed anchor just ahead of Vector and pointed for Bath, NC where we took up residence on the state dock. No sooner had we turned up Bath Creek, it began to rain lightly, and about the time I got the last dock line on Stinkpot, a little after 1pm, the sky opened up. It rained for a couple hours.

Unsure if the dock would support Vector's draft or mass, Sean and Louise opted to anchor nearby. When the weather finally dried up a bit, Sean and Louise made there way to the state dock in their tender, and we all had a walk around town culminating with dinner at the only place that was open—a place called the Quarterdeck. This is not a restaurant. It’s a take-out joint with undercover rooftop seating. Not amazing food, but also not disappointing from a place that is really little more than a convenience store. It was really about exactly what one might expect of such a place. The view of the creek from our perch was nothing short of wonderful, despite the soggy chill in the air, and it was an enjoyable meal with excellent company.

Following our dinner, we continued our trudge around historic Bath (Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard, called Bath his home port) before we retired to Stinkpot and Sean and Louise made their way back to Vector after sounding the depth around the dock for possible future use.

The morning of “Thanksgiving Eve,” we were underway just before 9am with Vector not far behind, and we made way up the Pamlico River to Washington, NC. It’s a lovely small town where we enjoyed our third, wonderful Thanksgiving together in the six years we’ve known Vector’s crew—our first being in 2019 in New Orleans and last year in Sanford, FL was our second. Both Vector and Stinkpot stayed in Washington to endure an extended, unseasonal cold snap, finally getting underway Saturday, December 7, after trying and failing (for nearly 90 minutes) to get a blackwater (waste tank) pump-out from the city marina’s frozen hardware. Vector, too, was hoping to pump out, but, after waiting some time and the marina telling them it probably wouldn’t work, they, too got underway. The entire fleet, separated by about 3 miles, made its way to the docks at R.E. Mayo Seafood for an overnight with very limited dock power. This, being a possible/likely last evening with the band together, we gathered for a short walk and enjoyed an ice cream dessert aboard Vector before turning in. It was another chilly night, dropping in the low-to-mid 20s.

Stinkpot got underway Sunday morning at first light. Slid onto the Bay River with building wind and seas around us, and by the time we made the Neuse River, we were being thrashed by tightly-spaced 2 foot seas with the occasion 3-4 footer. It was "spicy" enough that, when we came around the Neuse River Shoal off Piney Point, I made the decision to put us into Broad Creek to anchor, as our speed and progress was being hampered by the sea state (video below). We conveyed this experience to Vector; they also deigned to get underway in the later morning. When they made the same turn they reported that a sailboat, similar in size to Stinkpot, was nearby taking spray, and sent a video. It looked slightly tamer than what we had been in. A little further on, they reported that it seemed the seas had lightened up. We gave it another few minutes, and then weighed anchor getting once again underway.

We nosed out of the creek to see a nearly flat-calm Neuse River. The delta between what it was when we bailed to roughly two hours later could not have been more stark. We had a perfect crossing to Adams Creek where we were intending to anchor for the night, and then grab fuel and a pump out first thing in the morning at Sea Gate Marina. We often try to space our fuel stops such that we can take advantage of the regional fuel deals that are often a little too far apart, and northern North Carolina has a dearth of them. We were approaching the “running on fumes” status, but no worse than other times. As we were nearing our intended anchorage, I noted that the engines were falling out of sync. I was continually readjusting the sync. Then the port engine quit. It became clear what was going on.

Running low on fuel can mean that the sludge that accumulates in diesel tanks can be pulled into the fuel lines and plug up the fuel filter. This is likely what happened. With Stacey at the helm, I opened the deck plate and switched the port engine to draw off the starboard tank, and it roared to life. Sure of the situation now, I shut the engine back off, and we cruised a little further on, intending to grab the fuel first and then go to anchor, but because we were running against a tidal current, I changed my mind. I figured that, if we anchored now and got fuel in the morning, we’d have a favoring current to take us to the fuel dock, instead of risking our remaining “clean” fuel supply climbing a hill on one engine.

At about 3:30pm I pulled us out of the channel, and we set the anchor, enjoying my version of Arroz con Pollo before turning in for the night. I was awake well before first light, and put the coffee on to wait for the turn of the tide and, ultimately, the current. It was chilly aboard, but not untenable, but warming the boat would have to wait since I didn’t want to risk our diesel supply to crank up the generator. Finally at 8:46am, after we had been waked by two large sportfisher boats on plane, I decided we’d waited long enough. The current was very slowly going our way, and we were cold.

I raised the anchor without starting the engine, and, as soon as it was up I ran to the helm and got us underway with only the starboard engine. Within a matter of minutes we were making 6 knots with the current loaning us over a knot. As we approached the marina, I started the port engine and we docked on the fuel dock with both engines purring. We fueled up, eschewing pump out for want of a reasonable price. We then pulled Stinkpot onto the nearby “transient dock,” as requested by the marina staff, while I changed our fuel filters.

As soon as the filter change was complete, we got underway, running the ICW route from there to Morehead City, through Bogue Sound, and anchored at the Swansboro downtown anchorage “by the bridge,” as there was a large catamaran occupying our usual spot. We enjoyed leftovers aboard and prepared for an early morning run to get through the Onslow Beach Bridge and related construction before work for the day started at 8am.

Tuesday morning, December 10th, we awoke around 5am and weighed anchor at 6am in complete darkness, wearing our foul-weather gear and running in the intermittent rain on the flybridge as using our lower helm in the darkness is fraught—Stinkpot’s previous owner graced her windscreen with a limousine tint, which is great during the day, but very limiting in the darkness. Fortunately, the temperature was agreeable. We arrived at Onslow Beach Bridge at 7:25am and were ushered through immediately with a waiting sailboat, which we then passed after the bridge following a brief radio exchange. About four nautical miles later, we spotted Vector anchored in Mile Hammock Bay and exchanged messages for several minutes about the boats nearby and some clueless maneuvers that had been witnessed.

We were about a mile and a half ahead of them when we noted, first on AIS, then via a terse radio exchange with an almost-certainly clueless sailboater in a narrow, shallow channel, that they, too, had gotten underway. We were all Wrightsville Beach bound, but only one of our boats would end up spending the night.

When I realized that we, completely unimpeded-by-upcoming-drawbridges (Stinkpot doesn’t require either Figure-Eight Island or Wrightsville Beach Bridges to open), were going to make it to Wrightsville Beach just after noon, I started looking ahead. NOAA current and tide data revealed that, should we keep going, we would have a favoring current all the way down the ICW to Snows Cut, through the cut, and up the Cape Fear River to Wilmington (our stopping point for a while), with a likely arrival time before sunset at 5pm. The weather forecast was for BIG winds for days, so a stop in Wrightsville Beach could mean being pinned down between there or Carolina Beach until the winds let up. We discussed this information between ourselves and decided pressing on was what we should do. We messaged Vector that our proposed meetup in Wrightsville Beach would have to wait for another time since we had laid in a course for Wilmington due to the luck of the currents—and while I’m sure they would’ve enjoyed getting together as much as we, they agreed that we should take the weather/tide window while it was still open—so that’s exactly what we did. Wrightsville Beach fell behind us, as did Carolina Beach, Snows Cut, and we made our way up the Cape Fear River to the town and the very marina where we purchased Stinkpot. This “homecoming” marks the first time she’s been back here since that day, December 23, 2018, when we cast off lines the first time as her new crew.

We made contact with the Port City Marina dockmaster, Lanier, and received our slip assignment. Since we did arrive before the close of business, he was able to meet us on the dock upon our arrival, but was waylaid by a fuel dock transaction, so we were already fully tied up and connected to dock power before he met us dockside. Contracts and conveying of filthy lucre, it was agreed, would wait for the next morning, and we settled in. For dinner, we naturally returned to our favorite watering hole, The Copper Penny, and both enjoyed their BBQ cheeseburgers as well as an order of Buffalo shrimp (my new favorite way to eat shrimp). We walked a bit around town to admire how it had changed before returning to the boat, but we ultimately did and enjoyed a pleasant night’s sleep in our new, for now, home.

Wednesday morning came, and brought with it the expected (promised?) weather. Rain, wind, WIND, rain.

Texts we had exchanged with Vector of Dave and Stacey hamming it up in a warm, inviting pub over delectable fare had worked its magic, and suddenly we learned that Vector was Wilmington bound—at least for a little while. Weather that makes little Stinkpot quiver in fear is nearly nothing for the 55-tons of steel vessel that is Vector, so with a south wind blowing steady at 20 MPH and gusting to an excess of 40 MPH, Vector arrived in Wilmington at the height of the storm and was shown to the dock by the wind on her beam. Stacey and I greeted her to grab lines and follow orders, but mother nature did the heavy lifting. The reunited tribe assembled at the nearby and very good Marina Grill to hoist a glass and enjoy epicurean pursuits. Vector will be here for a likely week or so, though her ultimate departure date may well be dictated by weather. Sean and Louise are keen to get further south on an offshore run, but offshore weather windows are currently closed. If, after a week in Wilmington, there is still no window, I’m sure they will cast off and begin an ICW run south from here, but that’s fodder for their blog (which also contains a very detailed recounting of our time in Washington, NC over Thanksgiving).

We did it. I'm sure that single three-word declaration has you now going to the final paragraph of my previous post to figure out exactly what we did. No? I suppose I can remind you. 

We were at anchor in beautiful Oxford, Maryland waiting for the wind to subside and give us a nice run across Chesapeake Bay to Solomons, MD. It did, and we did, and enjoyed a lovely autumnal cruise. We arrived at Southern Maryland Sailing Association's T-head berth right around 3:30pm on Monday, November 11 where we were greeted by club members Robin and Mark (Mark is also the club's dockmaster). We made fast to the dock, while we were receiving a very warm welcome, but shortly our hosts took their leave. We connected to the available 20-amp shore power connection, which is a bare minimum for us to keep warm as the weather is dipping into the 40s at night. 

After the boat was secured and powered, we put feet to the ground and made our way to the Amazon Locker at Safe Harbor Zahnizer's Marina where we had packages waiting, and then on to our dear friend, Cristin's house to enjoy conversation and dinner. Cristin had to leave for Germany on Tuesday, so this was our chance to catch up before we need to continue on our own journey south. 

After somewhere around six weeks of living in our boat on dry land, with almost no fanfare except engines roaring to life, Stinkpot was relaunched on Election Day—November 5—and gracefully made her way into slip 36 at McDaniel Yacht Basin. For the last month or so, we have been scrubbing, painting, scraping, sanding, waxing, varnishing, repairing, maintaining, and attempting to make Stinkpot look like she hasn’t in a long time.

We had intended to do that over the winter in the south, but with my illness speeding our south’ard roll by a month or more, we decided to do it sooner than later, and she looks great. Somewhere in the middle of all the boat work, we were also distracted by the Annapolis Boat Shows as well as boat shopping. I suppose I should fess up that we are looking for the next Stinkpot, and have quietly been doing so for months. I am really hoping to find a boat large enough to have my digital piano aboard. If there is anything I miss from land life, it’s sitting down at the piano. It’s something we have been considering for a couple years, and this period of land time seemed like an opportunity, so we seized upon it. A barrage of emails later had us reunited with our broker, Ryan Miller, and the search has been on.

We actually thought we found a boat. A vessel near Baltimore seemed perfect—a Carver 42, was listed by Jay Porterfield with Knot 10 Brokerage. It appeared very clean, but the mechanical survey and oil samples failed very badly, so we had to pull the plug. I expected the listing to be removed after the broker relayed the findings to his client that the boat needed more work than it was worth, but instead they re-marketed the boat with no disclosure of those findings in the listing, following an all-too-minor price adjustment. This all led me to conclude I will never again look at another Knot 10 listing. Caveat emptor….

​It was a sunny, chilly morning, so we started at the lower helm as we waited for the outside temps to rise a bit with the sun as we made our way down the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay from the North East River, finishing our cruise for the day in Rock Hall on the free bulkhead/dock there. We consumed a late lunch at Harbor Shack. The place was packed, the view was fantastic, and the food was really not good. I had the chicken fajitas while Stacey ordered a seafood-stuffed quesadilla. I’m not sure how you make fajitas taste so “meh,” but they managed to. Stacey’s comment about the quesadilla was something about how, eating out and “leaving it to the professionals,” is supposed to protect one from consuming objectively bad flavor combinations, but “not this time.”

Following our insipid repast, we took to the hoof for a spin through the tiny berg with our eye on the nearby grocery for bananas. Yes, we know there are many who maintain that bananas are bad luck on a boat, but we have been assured by experts in nautical superstition that the bad luck is specific to fishing, not boating. Since we never “wet a line” we see fit to risk it.

After a successful mission, we returned to the boat to find an official-looking gent eyeballing her suspiciously. I cleared my throat and asked if I could help him. He asked when we arrived and how long we were staying, and I told him we’d arrived in the early afternoon and would be leaving out in the morning. He seemed satisfied that we were not intending to overstay our welcome and left us alone after complaining bitterly about the boat, aptly named “Problem Child” tied up just ahead of us that had apparently been there too much, too often to the annoyance of local government officials, of which he was one.

We had a quiet evening aboard, turning in early and getting underway just before dawn. The wind was coming up, so we angled toward the Chester River, down through Kent Narrows, and down the eastern shore and into the western inlet of Knapps Narrows—our immediate objective was to refuel at Fairbank Tackle, where we took on 181.5 gallons of off-road diesel at $2.809 per gallon. From there, we continued through the ditch heading east, hoping that the building wind and waves would permit us to cross to Solomons, but it wasn’t to be. We retreated up the Choptank River, into the Tred Avon and anchored for the night in Oxford, MD, just across the channel from DiMillo’s on the Chesapeake East—owned by the DiMillos in Portland, Maine. We found ourselves wishing they had a restaurant here as well to offer us a taste of home. Oxford seemed very quaint from the water. With the wind and weather, we deigned to keep the dinghy aboard and intend to return another time for a proper exploration of the town. For now, it has been a scenic place to lay our heads for the night, and nothing more. 

As I type this in the late morning, we are still waiting for the winds to lay down as forecast to give us a reasonably (hopefully?) smooth crossing to Solomons. We can see the trailing edge of the front to the west, and when it's overhead shortly, we will be weighing anchor and getting underway. 

With the recent posting of our Lake Champlain adventures, there is a bit of missing cruisology between our stop in Plattsburg, NY and my health concerns that routed us to Florida for a couple weeks. Suffice it to say, there's not much to blog about. We left Plattsburgh on August 14th, went north to Rouses Point, where we fueled at the Safe Harbor Marina there and took a short walk around town to toss a couple last-minute items in the US Mail before crossing an international border, cleared into Canada at the Customs Dock with no issue, and began the north'ard trek up the Richelieu River. We spent one night at anchor in the Fort Lennox Channel where we enjoyed one of the most crazy summer showers that included a real hail storm—a Stinkpot first! It wasn't particularly windy or rough. It's was just a wild, memorable moment. 

The morning of the 15th, we voyaged the rest of the way to St. Jean, Quebec. The river was unspeakably beautiful, and in looking back over our photos from that time, it looks like we were taking it in, not taking pictures of it. We had a wonderful first night in St. Jean, even meeting up for dinner with looper friends, Renée and Pierre, whom we met along our Great Loop trip five years ago. They even drove us for a quick reprovisioning at a local market. 

The dinner was so good that we decided to take another day to eat our way around town. We started with brunch at Restaurant Bonnes Soeurs, which was AMAZING. Later in the day we trundled into a local sandwich joint called PARMA to enjoy a muffuletta, which we split (not New Orleans, but still good), followed later in the early evening by poutine that was delectable at La Plank. 

It was while at La Plank that I started feeling strange. The next morning, still not feeling well, I suggested that we probably should make St. Jean the end of our Canadian trip, turn around, and start making our way toward the US healthcare system. Over the course of the next week or two, we followed a hasty south'ard course that ultimately had us docked in Croton-on-Hudson so we could make our way to Florida. The details of that time are etched in my memory in not-altogether pleasant ways, and I will eschew preserving them here. All I can say is, were it not for dockmaster extraordinaire, Steve, at Half Moon Bay Marina, things would have been a lot more stressful during that time. 

The rest of the story, you know. What you don't know is the excitement that lies ahead for us, and that, dear reader, will be shared in another blog after all the details come together….

While orbiting the popular vacation planet of Risa, I tried to start compiling this blog post. Actually, I started thinking that I should blog about our Lake Champlain cruising about two months ago when it would have been "fresh," but so much has happened, and been happening, I somehow have not found the time until now. I wrote most of this in August, and I'm only now hitting "post." For reasons that we'll eventually share, there will be more updates about our recent adventures, but I have simply not had the bandwidth to record them in prose. I'm editing/posting this in mid-October. All that follows this paragraph was written in late August. Set the Wayback Machine to August 29th, 2024 and entertain yourself with the words of my past self.

We are currently docked at Mooney Bay Marina in Plattsburgh, NY, where we've been for about 24 hours now. It's where we had parked our car before we cast off lines in Maryland, so, now ashore, we have wheels. Of course, tomorrow, we'll be using them to drive to Maine for my brief Vacationland tour. 

Last time I wrote here, we were docked in Fort Edward, NY, enjoying a free wall and shore power, a combination we find attractive. As I suspected, we got underway on the morning of the 18th and made our way to just before Lock 12, the final lock on the Champlain Canal, where we tied up on the town bulkhead in Whitehall, NY, where we also enjoyed shore power. While there we saw the skeletal remains of the USS Ticonderoga, which was a schooner and early steamship that was part of the US Navy and was sunk during the War of 1812's Battle of Plattsburgh—a pivotal British defeat. I'm told, were it not for that decisive victory, we'd all be speaking English. 

We also walked over to the lock to chat with the lockmaster, of whom we asked for a restaurant recommendation. Whitehall is cute, even picturesque, but it has more dusty, forlorn, locked up, and forgotten storefronts than we've seen on a Main Street in quite some time. We told her we were willing to walk a bit, so she suggested a place about a mile away called The Railyard Taproom & Restaurant, which was worth the walk it took to get there. The next morning, we did drop lines and lock down to Lake Champlain-level, where we boated to the end of the Champlain Canal and began our Lake Champlain adventure! 

​Our first stop was for a black-water pump out at Chipman Point Marina, on the Vermont side of the lake, which has two of the oldest buildings you might find anywhere in New England. We did go ashore to take them in, but were underway very soon to ultimately anchor beside Fort Ticonderoga. It was a lovely spot to drink in the views of the historic fort and hear cannon fire. We liked it so well, and the weather was so lovely that we stayed two nights there. On the morning of Saturday, July 20, we dropped our dinghy in the drink and started motoring up the nearby, but well hidden La Chute River to the town of Ticonderoga. 

It was a beautiful upstream passage. La Chute is a river that starts on Lake George and then travels “downhill” to Lake Champlain. The water is very clear. You can see bottom nearly everywhere. We traveled around fallen trees, under “tunnels” formed by overhanging branches, and two bridges. It was an intoxicating ride. When we were nearly there, we spotted a covered bridge, which was to be our cue that we should be looking for a place to tie up. We went under the covered bridge and took a spin in front of the waterfalls, but ultimately backtracked and tied up to a disused bulkhead that probably hadn’t had a barge or other commercial vessel tied up to it in many decades.

Normally, in a situation like this in an unknown area, we would lock the boat to an immoveable object somehow, but there was nothing to run our lock cable through. We were a little concerned that we were leaving our only connection to Stinkpot in a public area, on the fringe of a public park, unlocked and vulnerable. A quick step away from the water’s edge revealed that the boat “disappeared” behind the berm quickly, so a would-be miscreant would have to know there was a boat tied up there, or stumble upon it. We threw caution to the wind, tied the boat bow and stern to hold the bow into the current, and walked away through the park.

Our first stop was at a nearby luncheonette. The real deal—counter service with a smile. The food was, for better and worse, exactly like you would expect. Nothing ostentatious, solid “diner” fare, and service with just enough attitude to make you smile, but not so much that you might gripe about it.

After lunch, we walked the sun-beaten streets a bit, but the allure of the air conditioned museum nearby was quickly more than we could bear, and so we entered the Star Trek Original Series Museum and Set Tour. This is an exact replica of the sets used to film the original series, built from the original blue prints that were willed to the museum’s founder, and recreated with exacting detail, including enduring modifications made for specific episodes. There are many collected artifacts that were used in the filming as well. For fans of the series, like us, it’s a feast for the eyes, and nearly nothing more. They have a strict, “look but don’t touch” policy in every space except Enterprise’s bridge where everyone in the tour is invited to sit in Kirk’s famous chair to strike a captainly pose. Interestingly, William Shatner comes to the museum a few times every year for events and has been photographed in the same chair many times. Word is, he claims it feels very familiar.

We finished the tour, and, on our way back to Li’l Stinker, stopped at a very small museum exhibit in a former mill building, dedicated to the industrial past of Ticonderoga—to wit, paper and pulp production and, naturally, graphite products, including the eponymous pencil. Before long, we were once again in the dinghy and underway back to Stinkpot with a sizable following current for most of the voyage. After a peaceful night aboard, we continued north up the lake.

Our next stop was in Arnold Bay, named for the traitor himself. We spent one beautiful night here, took our first swim in the lake. I rowed the dinghy ashore for a sunset stroll and to read the historic marker (pictured) that detailed the story of how Ferris Bay became known as Arnold Bay.

Monday, July 22, we weighed anchor and made our way up Otter Creek to the town of Vergennes, VT. Otter Creek was a very cool little diversion. Like Ticonderoga, it’s a town built around a scenic waterfall with a connected industrial past. Again, we were pleased to tie up to a free dock with shore power. The park where the dock was located was a War of 1812 shipyard that, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough, built the US Navy fleet that won the battle of Plattsburgh in 1814—a fleet that included the USS Ticonderoga, to bring our “Champlain as battlefield” historic education full circle.

While in Vergennes, we did walk about a bit. Enjoyed more than our share of local ice cream, dined at the nearby pizza joint (which was the only restaurant in town that was open while we were there), and took in the local wind band which played a concert on the town green one of our two evenings there.

While we were out on one of our walks on Monday afternoon, something happened aboard with electricity, and when we returned to the boat an alarm was going off and every warning light on our AC breaker panel was angrily greeting us—not to mention, the voltage gauge that should read 110-120 volts was pegged at 150 volts, and the acrid smell of electronics death was wafting through the air. Not good. I shut off the main breakers and disconnected us from shore power. I tested the voltage on the shore power with my multi-meter, and it was normal. I started the generator and started turning on breakers one at a time until the culprit, which once again spiked the gauge to 150 volts, was found. Our main battery charger had failed, and because the voltage spiked the breaker didn’t kick (I’ll not wax philosophical here about Ohm’s Law). Fortunately, it seems the battery charger was the only casualty. Everything else seems functional. Parts are ordered and will greet us in Maine next week. My spare “automotive” battery charger has been temporarily installed to keep things working, though at 15 amps, it’s a slow charge for a big bank of batteries.

On Tuesday morning, my dear friend and former colleague, Johanna, joined us for breakfast aboard Stinkpot. She came toting a bakery bag of muffins, a croissant, and a scone, which was dispatched with caffeinated beverages in short order. Like all such visits, this one happened fast and ended too soon, but it was great to see her.

After Johanna’s departure, we, once again, took to hoofing it around the town. We walked to the “other” waterfront park, across the creek from Stinkpot to grab a couple “baby photos” and then back to town for a "maple creemee" (Creemee is apparently what they call soft serve in Vermont). It was decadent. On our way back to the boat, we realized some of the other dock space in the park was suddenly occupied by a fleet of small, recreational steamboats—the real deal. The air was thick with woodsmoke, which I have to admit smells better than diesel exhaust. They didn’t stay long, but they were quite a sight to behold, and one or two of them gave us a hearty “toot” on their steam whistles on the way by.

After one more peaceful night within earshot of the white noise of the falls, we spun Stinkpot on her heel and back out the creek to Lake Champlain. We ran up as far as Converse Bay where we anchored on the leeward side of Cedar Island for a peaceful night. Following a morning swim, we got underway Thursday for Willsboro Bay, which we were told was a “must see” place on the New York side of the lake. It didn’t disappoint, with mountains and foothills rimming the bay, it reminded us a bit of the fjords of Norway.

We anchored at the southern end of the bay where we would be protected from most of the wave action from the evening’s predicted winds. With really no place to go ashore other than a nearby marina and no real reason to go ashore, we settled in, took in the sunset and had a peaceful night aboard—until our anchor alarm went off around 5AM, just before dawn. (…continued below gallery)

We began the scramble to assess the situation. We were dragging, it was slow, but not slow enough to ignore. The wind was blowing, and not in the predicted direction and at a far greater strength. I surmised that the mountains and hills probably funnel the wind in odd ways, making it difficult to predict. We threw on some clothes, raised and cleaned the anchor, which came up loaded with plant life and clay (which is why we dragged when the wind came up). With the engines making slow turns, we watched the sunrise as we made our way out of the bay. Once on the lake proper, the winds came around to the forecasted direction and settled down to the expected, gentle breeze.

At about 7:30AM, our voyage for the day was over, and we anchored behind Rock Point in a clearly enviable spot about a mile north of Burlington. We napped a bit. Shrugged off our morning, and then dropped the dinghy and ran the mile or so to the town dinghy dock by the Burlington Community Boathouse Marina. From there we hoofed around town, had lunch at Church Street Tavern, and then meandered over to the local, impressive food co-op to pick up some fresh produce before finding our way back to the dinghy. As cool as Burlington is, and it is, we just couldn’t manufacture a reason to remain. It’s the sort of place that has so much going on that, if you don’t intend to spend a week ducking in and out of cool watering holes, museums, and historical spots, it’s hardly worth the trouble. We trudged back to the dinghy with our booty, and made way back to Stinkpot.

Saturday, after a leisurely morning, we weighed anchor around noon and made for Malletts Bay, which we semi-circumnavigated, cruising the northern shore along Niquette Bay State Park, down the eastern shore, and across the southern shore nearly to Moorings Marina, where we ultimately had the hook down a bit after 4PM. We did row ashore to the Bayside Park dinghy dock for a short walk before sunset, but the mosquitoes aggressively drove us back to the safety of our screened vessel within about a half hour. It’s a pretty area, but there is no real commerce—not even an ice cream stand within walking distance.

Sunday morning, we again took our time, ultimately getting underway around noon, and made way to Pelots Bay, anchoring in the northwestern part of the bay. We did dinghy ashore for dinner at Drifter’s Boathouse at the nearby marina. The place was packed; the food was OK. The service was decent. The management was non-existent. Our server made a $4 mistake and had no way to void the error because the manager was “off.” We asked him to just give us $4 in cash, and he said he couldn’t do that, and implied we should just pay the $4. Ultimately, another server who had been there longer “helped” and we walked out with $4 cash in our pocket. I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but if you own or manage a restaurant, never leave it without at least one employee who can void transactions in your absence.

We returned to Stinkpot for the balmy evening which gave way to cool, comfortable sleeping weather. Monday, we weighed anchor and “completed” a circumnavigation of North Hero Island which had us within about 5 miles of the Canadian border before turning south again, ultimately anchoring in Middle Bay in Pointe Au Roche State Park in Plattsburgh, NY. We did dinghy ashore for a very pleasant walk in the park and had a refreshing swim off the boat, as the weather was quite warm. I tied up the dinghy “on the hip” since I expected we’d probably stroll again in the morning.

The NOAA wind forecast was for gentle westerlies, so it should’ve been a very pleasant night. It wasn’t. At about 11PM, the breeze started coming in, which was refreshing at first, and then it got stronger…and stronger. We ended up taking a thrashing from the south with 2-3 foot waves. I got up around midnight and re-stowed the dinghy (not easy since both Stinkpot and her tender were pitching on the waves, and then put out storm scope on our anchor rode. Returning to bed, neither of us expected to sleep well, but my eyes did close around 1AM, and the next thing I knew it was light out. The wind had let up a bit, but we were still in an uncomfortable place. I suggested we get underway and cruise south to the leeward side of Treadwell Bay, which we did. After we had the anchor down, a sailboat that was in a better place vacated, and we re-anchored in his spot. The wind was still going, but we were out of the waves, and that was all that mattered.

I then set about to doing laundry so we would have less to worry about it came time to pack for our trip to Maine. We needed to charge our batteries anyway. I started the generator and got to work. After an hour or two, I realized the generator exhaust sounded louder than it should. I know that sound. It happens when the seawater flow that cools the engine isn’t “flowing.” I immediately checked the generator’s temperature, and it was clearly overheating. I shut it down immediately.

Stressed by the morning, the lack of sleep, and now the generator, I suggested to Stacey that we should just give up and go into Mooney Bay Marina a day early, if they’d have us. She agreed, I made the call, and they agreed. We got underway, and were tied up in a slip at the marina around 2PM yesterday (Tuesday).

Once we were settled in, I continued working on our laundry, and being in a marina meant we could use the dryer in the bath house instead of line-drying everything. While I was out there working the washing machine, a large, late-model, Quebec-registered Sea-Ray backed into a slip near us. No sooner had they made their lines fast to the dock, I heard a man start yelling hysterically in French on the next dock over. His words were too fast and too emotional for my high school French to kick in, but our new neighbors understood and ran while I was still twisting foreign words in my head, and I saw people from all over the marina start running as well. I thought perhaps someone fell in, and decided with the rush of people who ran over, I would be nothing but in the way. Our neighbors’ teen-age daughter came off the boat and, in perfect English, filled in any blanks we still had. A man had just been found floating and unconscious in the water on the next dock. They were just dragging him onto the dock and beginning CPR and kept it up until the EMS showed up. From our vantage point, we saw the defibrillator get used to no good effect. Then the crowd broke up as people began dejectedly walking away from the scene as the heavens opened up and a deluge poured down for about 20 minutes, the likes of which I have rarely seen. When we emerged from the boat after the shower, the body was still on the dock, covered with a towel, awaiting the coroner.

Exhausted by our own ordeal of the last 24 hours and emotionally drained and a bit shellshocked from what we’d just witnessed, we walked up the dock to the restaurant very near its end. It was good. The bartender, Kim, was very nice, and clearly sensed we’d benefit from some friendly chatting. We had a good time and a good meal. We returned to Stinkpot and slept.

And so, here we still are, at the marina, and preparing to leave in our own car to Maine for my gigs early tomorrow. We’re still working out our return path, and that will be part of another blog.

​I’m still a bit at a loss for words over what we saw yesterday. I don’t know if I will ever find them. Life’s short. Hold your loved ones close.