Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Voyage from NH to St.Augustine

Thanks to a great send off from friends Robin, David, Sheyne, Shannon, Steve and Gail with a toast of chanpagne , we managed to finally shove off in November. It was a great journey getting to St.Augustine where we now sit aboard waiting to finally leave for Ft. Lauderdale next week, and than to cross over to the Turks/Caicos.

In the meantime, a few highlights from our trip south from NH. We visited Mystic Connecticut with it's Historic "seaport". It reminded me so much of Portsmouth- a seafaring town, summer tourists driving the economy, and lots of nautical history. We headed off-shore to continue south to Norfolk to meet up with family for Thanksgiving- a much needed land based get together- it was grand.

Heading off-shore once again , we headed south to meet up with Steve and Peggy ( Marc's HS friends) in Charleston, SC. We dinghied to Ft. Sumntner and crashed a tour to get the real scoop, ran into Bill Clinton stumping for his girl. Bad weather aside, we enjoy the frolicking dolphins, purchasing fresh seafood from local fisherman and taking salt-water baths aboard. We decided to take the ICW from Charleston to avoid gale weather. Had never done the southern leg and, though slow, we met some wonderful people, enjoyed beautiful and private anchorages as well as dockages. A unique place was St. Catherines Island, a research, archaeological and rare bird breeding island supplying the zoos.

Made it to St. Augustine with 3 days to spare before we flew back to NH for the holidays. It was great to meet my newest grandson, Ben and to spend time with Peter, Daneka and Ari, Julia and Virginia. The kids are all doing well. If you get a chance check out Ari's new venture. He became VP of Marketing for DiningFever.com We also enjoyed the snow knowing we would be leaving it.

Nikki, Marc's duaghter, continues to teach at the Dover Middle School and did a major fundraising effort with her students.

We look forward to your comments and hearing about your life stories and adventures.