From Jon: this is the log as it came in by e-mail, oldest first, so you can follow along from the dock in Michigan to wherever they are now. I've fixed a few typos (Dad) and left the exclamation points (Mom). M is Dad, S is Mom.

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Thursday, October 1, 1998 — Lake St. Clair
Cast off at 7:40 this morning from the marina where this boat has lived since 1987. Jon and the grandkids were on the end of the dock waving, and I had to study the compass very hard for a while. Down the Detroit River past the city and the big bridge, and into Lake Erie by the afternoon. Tied up tonight near the mouth of the river. Sherry made pot roast. We are on our way. — M.

Monday, October 5 — Buffalo, New York
Lake Erie gave us two days of slop and one good one. This morning a yard near Buffalo lifted our mast out with a crane and laid it down on deck on wooden supports I built in the garage last winter, so we can get under the low bridges on the Erie Canal. She looks like a pencil lying on a bathtub. We're a motorboat for the next few hundred miles. — M.

Monday, October 12 — the Erie Canal
A week on the canal and I love it! We go through a lock or two most days. Martin steers and I stand on deck holding a slimy rope against the lock wall while the water goes up or down and the boat goes with it. The leaves are turning, and a lot of the little canal towns let you tie up at the town dock for free, right on Main Street. I've had more homemade pie in one week than in the last five years. — S.

Friday, October 16 — the Hudson River
Came out of the last lock at Waterford this morning into the Hudson. A yard down the river put the mast back up this afternoon, and I spent until dark tuning the rigging. We are a sailboat again. — M.

Wednesday, October 21 — New York Harbor
We left the anchorage at first light and came down the Hudson past Manhattan with the whole city waking up on our left. At quarter past seven we went right past the Statue of Liberty. My grandmother came through this harbor in 1912 on a ship from Poland, and I stood on the bow and thought about her the whole way past. Tonight we go outside, overnight down the Jersey shore to Cape May. Martin says to tell everybody we'll be fine. — S.

Tuesday, October 27 — Annapolis, Maryland
Up the Delaware, through the canal to the Chesapeake, and down to Annapolis, where there are more sailboats in one harbor than in all of Michigan. Did four loads of laundry, ate crab cakes, slept eleven hours. — S.

Wednesday, November 4 — Norfolk, Virginia, Mile Zero
Norfolk is where the Intracoastal Waterway starts, the protected inside route that runs down the coast behind the islands all the way to Miami. Mile Zero. Navy ships here bigger than the town I grew up in. From now on there are markers to follow and bridges to wait for. Some of them open on the hour and some on the half hour, and some when they feel like it. — M.

Thursday, November 12 — Beaufort, North Carolina
Across the big sounds in North Carolina, which were rough and gray and not my favorite. Saw our first dolphins! Four of them swam along the bow for ten minutes and I yelled the whole time. Beaufort is a pretty little town with wild horses grazing on the island right across the water from the docks. I didn't believe it until I saw them. — S.

Thursday, November 26 — Charleston, South Carolina (Thanksgiving)
Thanksgiving potluck in the marina lounge with about thirty other boat people heading south. Somebody cooked a turkey in pieces because a whole one won't fit in a boat oven. I made my mother's sweet potatoes in a pressure cooker. We called Jon from the pay phone and I was fine until the grandkids got on. — S.

Friday, December 4 — Fernandina Beach, Florida
FLORIDA. Sixty-four days and about 1,800 miles from Lake St. Clair. Shorts weather. We celebrated with key lime pie, which I'm told is wrong this far north, and I don't care. — M.

Wednesday, December 9 — No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne
Anchored with a dozen other boats in a little harbor at the bottom of Key Biscayne, all of us waiting for the same thing: a window to cross the Gulf Stream. There's a cold front coming through and a north wind behind it, and you don't cross with a north wind. So we wait. Everybody listens to the weather on the radio at the same time every morning and then rows over to everybody else's boat to talk about it. — M.

Tuesday, December 15 — Bimini!
Six days of waiting and then it was right: light southeast wind and a long, lazy swell. Up anchor at 4 a.m. with the stern light of the boat ahead of us to follow. Aimed well south, because the Stream carries you north the whole way. Ten hours. Somewhere in the middle the water turned a blue I don't have a word for. Came into Bimini at 2 in the afternoon flying the yellow quarantine flag, cleared in with Customs and Immigration, took the yellow flag down and put up the Bahamian courtesy flag. Sherry went swimming before I had the engine cover back on. — M.

Friday, December 18 — on the Great Bahama Bank
Tonight we are anchored in the middle of nowhere. I mean that. Twelve feet of water, clear to the sand, and no land in any direction, because the Bank is a huge flat shallow sea and you can stop anywhere on it. I never saw so many stars. Martin says I should write something poetic. This is it. — S.

Monday, December 21 — Nassau
Chub Cay on Saturday, then across the deep channel to Nassau today. Big harbor, cruise ships the size of office buildings, traffic, noise, and a grocery store where Sherry bought lettuce and nearly wept. We'll stay through Christmas. — M.

Saturday, December 26 — Junkanoo
Junkanoo is the big parade here on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, and again on New Year's morning. It starts in the middle of the night. We got to Bay Street at 2 a.m. and stood there until the sun came up: huge costumes made of thousands of little pieces of colored paper, cowbells, drums, horns, whistles, whole groups dancing past in step. My ears are still ringing. Best Christmas present I ever got. — S.

Sunday, January 3, 1999 — Allen's Cay, the Exumas
Our first stop in the Exumas. There are big iguanas living on these little islands, and when you land the dinghy on the beach they come running right down to see if you've brought them anything. We hadn't. They were very disappointed. So was I, a little, when the big one came at my ankles. — S.

Saturday, January 9 — Warderick Wells
This cay is the headquarters of the land and sea park, where nothing can be taken: no fishing, no shells, nothing. The result is the most fish we've seen anywhere. We picked up a park mooring in a curving channel of blue water so bright it looks lit from underneath. There's a whale skeleton laid out on the beach. Up on the hill, cruisers have been leaving pieces of driftwood with their boat names painted on them for years. We added ours. — M.

Thursday, January 14 — Staniel Cay
Snorkeled Thunderball Grotto, a cave inside a little island where they filmed part of the old James Bond movie. You go in at low tide when the current stops, swim through a short gap, and come up inside a big dome with light pouring down through holes in the roof and fish everywhere. I'm 55 years old and I squealed into my snorkel. — S.

Wednesday, January 20 — Black Point
A fisherman on the government dock watched me try to get a conch out of its shell for about five minutes before he took pity on me. He showed me where to knock the hole and where to cut, and did it in ten seconds flat. I did my next five in about ten minutes each. He laughed every time. We had conch salad for supper: raw conch, lime, onion, tomato and hot pepper. Best thing I've eaten in the Bahamas. — M.

Tuesday, January 26 — George Town, Great Exuma
Here for a while. George Town is where the cruising boats gather for the winter, and Elizabeth Harbour is full of them. I counted 312 this afternoon from the top of the hill and gave up on the far end. Half the boats are from Canada and the other half seem to be from Michigan. We already know three couples from Lake St. Clair. — M.

Wednesday, February 10 — mail boat day
The mail boat came in this morning, so everyone was at the dock: crates of eggs and cabbages, lumber, a washing machine, two goats, and a girl home from school in Nassau whose whole family was waiting with a sign. I got tomatoes, real ones. Tomorrow they'll be gone from the store till next week. — S.

Sunday, February 21 — Stocking Island
Every afternoon there's volleyball on the beach, and every evening somebody has a potluck. I've turned into the harbor nurse. Coral scrapes, a fishhook in a thumb, a sunburn you would not believe on a man from Toronto, and one lady whose blood pressure I check every Tuesday on her boat. I brought my good medical kit and I've used most of it. Martin says I've never been happier, and he's right. — S.

Friday, March 5 — Regatta week
The cruisers' regatta: sailboat races, a volleyball tournament, games on the beach, and a talent show, at which I played "Red River Valley" on the harmonica in front of four hundred people and Sherry hid behind a palm tree. We finished ninth of fourteen in our class in the big race, which Sherry says is the top two-thirds. Met Curtis and Edna Pinkston at the regatta dinner. They've had a house on one of the cays up in the Abacos for years and come down here every winter for the fun. They've made us promise to visit. — M.

Thursday, March 25 — leaving George Town
Hard to leave. We said goodbye to everybody at the beach last night and I cried, of course. Heading north slowly, back up the Exumas, a few miles a day. — S.

Tuesday, April 13 — Nassau again
Writing this in a marina office on their computer while Sherry does laundry. The fresh water pump quit at Highbourne Cay, and I rebuilt it from spares, which is the first time I've been glad I packed half a hardware store. Stocking up for the trip home. — M.

Thursday, April 29 — Bimini
Back where we started, waiting for weather again. Same rule going this way: no north wind. Hurricane season starts June 1, and we want to be tucked in up a Florida river well before that. — M.

Sunday, May 2 — back in the U.S.A.
Crossed back today in a light south wind, eleven hours from Bimini to the inlet at Palm Beach. Checked back in with Customs. The first thing Sherry wanted was a salad with all the lettuce in the world. The first thing I wanted was a hardware store. We both got our wish. — M.

Saturday, May 8 — Stuart, Florida
Our summer home: a slip at a marina up the St. Lucie River, behind a lot of land, with good tall pilings. We signed up through November. There's a laundry, a pool, a library a bike ride away, and a nice couple from Ohio two slips down. I could get used to this. Martin is already making a list of projects. — S.

Sunday, June 20 — Father's Day
Jon flew down for the long weekend. We took him out sailing on the ocean and I let him steer. He held the course better than I do. He has his mother's patience and my nose. — M.

Sunday, July 4
Fireworks over the river from our cockpit, still 86 degrees at 9 p.m. Every afternoon there's a thunderstorm at 3 o'clock, right on time, and then it steams. I miss Michigan summers a little. Only a little. — S.

Saturday, August 14
Hauled out for a week at a boatyard to paint the bottom and check everything below the waterline. Lived on the boat up on stands, which means climbing a twelve-foot ladder to go to bed. Sherry says never again. Back in the water Friday, freshly painted, the varnish done, the project list down to a page and a half. — M.

Sunday, September 12
Watching a hurricane named Floyd out east of the islands. It's a big one, and the forecasts have it heading toward the Bahamas and then who knows. We got out our hurricane plan tonight and read it over at the table. — M.

Monday, September 13
Floyd is a major hurricane now and getting stronger, and it's coming. All day stripping the boat: the mainsail, the jib and the staysail off and stowed below; bimini, dodger and solar panels down; the dinghy out of the water and lashed upside down on the dock; every dock line doubled, chafe gear on every line, extra lines to the far pilings. Everybody on the dock helped everybody. Done at 10 p.m. Very tired. — M.

Tuesday, September 14
The marina asked all the liveaboards to go ashore this morning, so we did, with two bags, the boat papers, the photo albums and my medical kit. We're at a shelter in a school gym inland, on cots. It's crowded and hot and everybody is being very kind to each other. Of course they found out I'm a nurse, so I'm helping the Red Cross nurse with blood pressures and medicines. Jon, we're fine. Tell everybody. — S.
(Mom read this one to me over a pay phone at the shelter, and I typed it up. — Jon)

Thursday, September 16
Floyd crossed the Bahamas and turned north before it got to us, and stayed out at sea. We had wind and rain all Tuesday night, and that was all. They let us go back yesterday afternoon. The boat was fine: one chafed line and a deck full of leaves. This morning Floyd came ashore in North Carolina instead, and we're watching the news and praying for the people there. We were lucky. We know it. — S.

Monday, September 20
Finally got through on the phone to Curtis and Edna in the Abacos. Floyd went right over them. They're safe, thank God. Their dock is gone and so is a good part of their roof, and they've been sleeping at a neighbor's. Curtis says the whole cay is out with hammers and that they'll be fine by Christmas. We told them we're coming to help, and we meant it. — M.

Saturday, September 25
Bent the sails back on today and put the solar panels back up. She looks like a boat again. Our plan for the winter: cross in December as soon as there's a window, go up to the Abacos first and help the Pinkstons, then down to the Exumas and George Town for the regatta. One year down. We'd do every day of it again, even the ladder. — S.

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