Well overdue- It is time to resurrect our blog entries. It has been well over a year since our last post. Linda & I celebrated our 1st year of marriage in May with fond memories of our trip up the intercoastal waterway. Our first year with The Last Mango in New England was a great one. We spent every weekend on her with trips to Montauk, Block Island, Napa Tree, Sag Harbor, Coecles Harbor, and our two big trips last year were New York City via Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay. Both of these trips offered new places for us to explore. Linda fell in love with the Thimble Islands and we were able to visit Miss Liberty in New York Harbor- up close and personal. Our trip in Narragansett bay included a visit to the Herreshoff museum, and a pub crawl in Jametown. We also took Mckenzie (our granddaughter) for an overnight trip to Fishers Island. Then winter came and Mango went into hibernation. We visited her often, made a few improvements and had a few cocktails to keep us warm. Georgia and Ryan both graduated from Sam Houston University in December and Juan’s niece’s daughter, Tess got married in San Antonio. We were able to make both celebrations and spend Christmas with our family in Texas. Georgia & Ryan have since gotten engaged.
We are in full swing for 2011. We started our season with a camping trip to New Hampshire then rushed home to meet Georgia and Ryan who had flown up to attend Nick’s graduation from UMass Dartmouth. Mango was in the water for Memorial Day and we were able to do a three leg trip to Montauk, Block, and back home. Mckenzie’s seaman skills are building as she is now able to drive our dinghy which she named Coconut. Soon we hope to make her our back up auto-pilot. Last week we staged Mango on a mooring owned by Phil’s brother, Tim. It is located across from Dutch Island at the foot of the Jamestown Bridge. This saved us a vacation day for our current adventure. We are now on our July trip exploring new waters. It started yesterday at 630 AM with a marathon run from Tim’s mooring through the Cape Cod Canal and on to Scituate, Massachusetts at 10 PM. No major issues, but our autopilot seems to have stripped some gears. This morning we left Scituate and are heading for Portland, Maine to meet up with Jan and Lou- They travel by Land Yacht! Our ETA is 630 PM. Phil and Kimberly will be sailing their Saga sailboat Lucky Dog from Tim’s house also and will be meeting us in Portland possibly Sunday night. Paul Rezendes has been our scout. He started his trip to Maine last weekend and is now somewhere in Penobscot bay.

The Last Mango brings us home... at last.

It has been an incredible 2 ½ days. It will be hard to capture it all, but here goes… We headed out of Norfolk around 1530 Wednesday with clear sky, big rollers, and once again dolphins escorting us out. There were a few ships at anchor in Norfolk waiting their turn to go in and unload their Chinese junk. Linda took the first turn at the helm and while I cooked us up a great meal of fajitas and a beer that Skipper from Watch Hill had given us (He departed four hours earlier) Phil then came on watch followed be me at midnight. Thursday morning found us with conditions still good, but that didn’t last. By noon the sea state was progressively worsening and wind gusts were peaking at 25. By 5 the weather was the worse I had seen. The waves were mountains and the wind was upward of 30 on the nose so we opted to keep a furled jib out and in order to keep moving (in the wrong direction.)Then we tacked back towards Delaware knowing that we wouldn’t be able to head directly northeast. Phil and I stood 2 hour watches sleeping in the cockpit. The fajitas didn’t taste as good the second time. We continued to fight these same conditions through the night and as if things couldn’t get worse we could see a squall approaching from the west. I understand that somewhere in all the excitement we must have accidentally cut out our tracking SPOT and caused a little anxiety at home ( the coast guard got called), but we had no time to be listening to the radio as the squall delivered driving rain with even higher winds. Just like out of a movie- the engine died. I woke up Phil who tried his best to keep the boat pointed in a direction that would allow me to unclog the last remaining gunk out of the fuel line and then restarted the engine. As soon as the squall passed, conditions started getting better. The next day was certainly a better day as we entered the New York harbor approaches. Our prayers had been answered. We had survived the perfect storm. We had a nice sail all day Friday and a beautiful moon lit our way to Montauk. Sunrise at Montauk was quite something. We saw literally thousands of baby sharks 2-3 feet long, in small schools. We rounded Montauk Point around 730 and are now in home territory. We know we are in New England as we scooted across a sail regatta from Block Island and a observed a submarine heading out to sea. The Last Mango has been a sea worthy ship and has given Linda and me an experience of a lifetime and we were lucky to have Phil spend his birthday with us and help us for the last 325 of the 800 miles we have logged. We will soon be picking up a mooring at our old marina in Groton and closing this chapter. Thank you guys for following us and for your concerns and comments. We will continue to use this blog for future travels, but of course our posts will not come as often.

Goodbye Norfolk, Next stop Montaulk

Sorry for not posting yesterday. It has been a busy 2 days. Phil arrived early this morning and we finished up the last of our chores early this afternoon. We departed Norfolk at 1530 this afternoon. Phil estimates approx 62 hours of travel. Currently motoring as there is no wind. May not be able to post for a while due to lack of service, but please continue to checkour spot. It will continue to be on for the rest of the trip. See you guys early Saturday if all goes well Say a prayer for us. Linda, Juan, & Phil

Goodbye Ditch; Now we're up the Creek

Hey guys'

First, Linda and I would like to say thank you to everyone who sent us congratulations. We will certainly have to celebrate when we return. Linda also wanted to thank Den for the Coinjock prime rib recommendation. It was fantastic.

We left Coinjock early this morning and left North Carolina behind shortly there after. We barely squeezed by a barge going the other way, but our timing was good for all bridge openings and we entered the Great Bridge Lock at noon. We believe Divine intervention was again to be given credit for allowing us to be the last boat to pass through the N&S RR bridge before it had to remain closed for hours to perform some unscheduled maintenance. We hit Mile 0 of the ICW at 3 PM. Norfolk by water is not what we imagined. There are so many Navy and commercial yards. Armed patrol boats encouraged us to maintain our distance frorm any of the military ships, but Linda still managed to snap a few pictures. Anyone recognize the Simon Lake? After the ICW we went another 4 1/2 hours before arriving at our marina in Little Creek. We had to take a long way around to avoid a shoal and although the wind was only 10-15 the confused sea state made for a bouncy ride. We will stay here until Phil's arrival, after which we will make a decision on departure for our open sea leg of the trip.

The Last Mango Sails at Last!

I awoke this morning at dusk to a view of our beautiful anchorage with mist in the air and a still sea without even a ripple. Paul you would love to shoot this area. (http://www.paulrezendes.com/) It ended up being a slow moving morning, with some maintenance chores to finish and my wife made us breakfast before we weighed anchor(how funny does that sound). We made it past our last opening bridge in North Carolina escorted again by Linda's dolphin friends. This time she was able to catch a quick photo. Once out of the Alligator River we were able to put both our sails up and give the motor a rest for a while as we made our way across Albemarle Sound. This only lasted a short time, long enough for us to determine that The Last Mango sails well, as some ominous looking clouds started moving in from the north. Thanks to Phil for pointing these out to us. The storms never caught up to us until we were safely tied up for our stay at Coinjock Marina. They have a restaurant that is known for their prime rib and offer a 32 oz Captain's cut- we chose the boatswain's mate 14 oz instead! An excellent choice. Fueled up again, a whole 10 gallons for the last two days travel. Tomorrow we plan to leave NC in our wake tackle the many bridges on Virginia's portion of the ICW.

Alligator Pungo Mango

First, today- Our day started as an old married couple with one night under our belt. We snuck out of our slip at 630 this morning with only our new friends Jim and Su to help cast us off. Our destination today was to be Belhaven, but our time was so good that we arrived early afternoon and decided to tackle the Alligator River- Pungo River canal. That was originally going to be a full day by itself. It is by far the most desolate area we have gone through on this trip. There were also no other boats traveling with us and we were concerned we would not get to the end by nightfall. As it turns out we were able to find an anchorage across the ICW at the north end of the canal by around 800 pm. We were pleasantly visited by several dolphins (porpoises) that continued to hang around our boat until we were done anchoring. We have revised our schedule tomorrow based on today’s success and are taking aim at Coinjock.
Alright- Going back to yesterday. The day started pretty much like any other day in Oriental with coffee shortly followed by a breakfast cocktail. At which point Linda & I started discussing our loosely laid plans to move forward with a wedding. At noon we decided to see if we could pull it off, so Linda called the County clerk & then the magistrate’s office in Bayboro which is about 12 miles from Oriental. We had till 4 pm to get to the court to get our license and with only one taxi (literally one car) who would not return a call we chose to start walking. Linda (being braver and better looking) stuck out her thumb while I walked next to her. There were several cars that passed us by before our luck changed and a wonderful woman (Linda) driving a car with NY plates pulled over and gave us a ride. After explaining our story to her, not only did she take us to the courthouse, but she waited for us to get our license and then brought us back to the marina after first allowing us to stop at the grocery store to get some additional supplies which we had not been able to get the day before. While riding to Bayboro, we were able to arrange for Pam the magistrate to perform the ceremony at 6:30; all we needed were witnesses. This was easy. We had befriended a couple from the neighboring boat and when I asked Jim & Su they were delighted at the idea of standing up for us. It all came together. Pat our real estate lady from our visit last year came to help us celebrate as well as our friend Vince who became the “official” photographer. Mellissa, a waitress for the restaurant next door came running out with a rose for Linda and the entire happy hour crowd at the Tiki bar witnessed our vows. And so there you have it. Who needs wedding planners? I guess it takes a village…

It takes two to Mango

Who would have guessed that the last day in Oriental would give the Last Mango his Last Mate. It was destined to happen. Thank you for sharing our special day= Jim & Su, Pat, Vince, Pam, Melissa, Linda, and the entire Tiki crowd. Just pictures today, stories tomorrow.