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2005 Captain's Logs
2004 Captain's Logs
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Factory Creek, Lady’s Island Marina, Beaufort, South Carolina
 
Home.  Home are the sailors, home from the land.   So much has changed and most of it daily in the last few weeks.  We never knew from one day to the next where we will be or where we might be going.
 
We brought a little of it with us.  After having written contracts on two properties earlier, one has fallen out.  Thursday Lynn & I agreed when we got back to the boat in Beaufort we would only make an offer on more real estate if it was of exceptional price and of good value.    Yesterday we wrote another offer. 
 
If you remember last time we chatted like this our plans included being in Englewood, and likely the Keys for the winter and then on to the Panhandle, Mobile and up the Tombigbee to Tennessee River and over to Kentucky Lake where we would indulge in playing with grandchildren and learn about Memphis, Nashville and parts of Mississippi and visit friends in Chattanooga and Knoxville.
 
As I said, things change.
 
Close cruising friends of ours in Virginia and Florida have been leaning and enticing us to go up the Hudson, right on the Erie Canal to the Oswego Canal into lake Ontario, Kingston, up the St. Lawrence to the canal that leads to Ottawa, down the Ottawa river up the St. Lawrence to (Montreal?), Lake Champlain to the New York Canal system and back to the Hudson.
 
Now don’t jump on me if I got some of that wrong.  We haven’t even looked at charts yet, so it is all from trying to remember someone else’s itinerary.  Guess that means we don’t swim again this summer, huh?  I live on a boat for crying out loud, you think I would be able to get in the water at least more than twice a year, wouldn’t you?
 
We think it will be quite fun to be cruising with Mark & Joyce on Winnie the Pooh and Dee & Read on Adrianna during the course of the summer and who ever else we pick up along the way.
 
Cruising with friends isn’t like going to dinner with them.  If the dinner analogy is to hold for cruising it might be like meeting your friends at a Restaurant and sitting together for drinks, sitting with someone else for main course and back to the original couple for desert.  It might mean each going to different restaurants and while there calling your friends at the other restaurant and telling them how good the food is and how much you enjoy their company.  Cruising with friends can be very tight, very loose or anywhere in between.  It may be an absurdity on land but it makes perfect sense to cruisers.  I suspect it has to do with being able to do what ever the heck you want to do and when you want to do it.  Cruisers are cruising for many reasons and often one of them is to divest themselves of many social obligations that mount up over a lifetime of living ashore.  Like Christmas parties.  Those ashore feel obligated to attend certain Christmas parties or events in support of others.  Cruisers simply say, hey, we love you, but we are going to be here doing what we want at this moment, not there because we don’t want to hurt your feelings.  It’s the rule of cruising.  Each boat does what they want to do.  Go, stay, forward, backward.  This independence is paramount to cruising.  Each Captain of a cruising vessel is not just Captain but Supreme Ruler of his own little world.  As Captains of Skinwalker, Lynn & I know all, decide all and are the Intelligence Designer of our future—well maybe intelligent is a little over the top, but certainly designers of our future in terms of which way to turn the darn boat!
 
Never the less we look forward to our loose confederation with Mark & Joyce as we head north and we are excited about meeting up with and sharing once again anchorages with Dee & Reed as we make our loop through parts of NY and Canada.  Being with, easing in and out of proximity seems to form the most wonderful relationships.  I can’t wait for these two couples to meet.
 
It is odd, now that I think about it.  I wonder if we would ever find common ground ashore with the people we meet on the water or if cruising is the only common bond.  I suspect cruising simply allows us to meld easier with others, despite differences that would not attract as strongly ashore.  Gawd, I love this lifestyle! Regardless, we are foregoing spending time in Tennessee, a place we love, to be with other couples cruising a lot nearer the North Pole than I would really care to be.
 
This coming spring and summer could be very exciting.  We hope all of you will join our adventures.  Once again from the pilothouse,

Capt'n Lynnie and Skinwalker