N63Bravo

Sunday morning…   Lady KAE arrives. She is a Nordhavn 62 and is owned and operated by Kal, Anita, and their daughter Eileen Blumberg. James Knight and Jay Flaherty, from Yacht Tech were on board and James hops off Lady KAE and joins us on board Bravo, while Jay stays on Lady KAE. We do a quick check of boat systems, and we take off. Finally… we are underway! "Lady KAE" pulls in to Shelter Cove Marina to join us. "Lady KAE" underway . James Knight onboard. Our first time underway! James checks out everything thoroughly! North to Virginia Originally, we planned to run offshore; Hilton Head Island, SC directly to Newport, RI. However, the weather did not cooperate, so we went to Plan B to be more comfortable. The two boats hopped up the coast in day trips and overnight runs... Rain and fog headed our way. The ever changing views. We do an offshore overnight run from Hilton Head, SC and we then anchor at Lookout Bight,...

Hilton Head Island Monday… At about 7:30 pm we finally land at Hilton Head Island. We have been awake and traveling from Amsterdam to Ireland, then to Washington D.C., and finally to South Carolina, for over 19 hours. Ugh!  We pick up the rental car, stop at the grocery store for a few essential items, find Bravo at the dock, get aboard, make a couple of gin & tonics, we toast to our new adventure, and shortly after go to sleep. Long day tomorrow. We are excited and very glad to be on-board! Tuesday… up early, drive to Parris Island, empty out the U-Haul pod with all our belongings into a moving truck. Drive back to the marina and using two dock carts, ferry our 40+ bins from the parking lot to the dock. It is 85 degrees and about 90% humidity. We rush to load everything that will not fit inside the boat onto the back deck before the torrential afternoon thunderstorms begin. Lots of bins, with lots of stuff to load on board. Wednesday-Saturda...

From Dublin, Ireland we land in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Chet texts us the name of the town where they have the barge docked. We head to the train office and buy the tickets to Steenwijk. Amazingly, the train station is directly below the airport, just an escalator ride down to the platform. In two hours, we are in a beautiful small Dutch town in the northern province of Friesland. Chet and Lynette meet us at the train station, and we walk on cobblestone streets past shops, and lovely brick homes to the canal where the barge is docked.   This is a typical street that one would see in any of the small towns. Vertrouwen is a steel barge Vertrouwen is over 100 years old, and has a lot of character. We drop off our luggage and walk a few blocks back to the grocery store to provision the boat. Loaded up with fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese, cold cuts, croissants, baguettes, and wine, we are ready to shove off. Lynette returning from provisioning. Chet...