We are now into our second year of living aboard and traveling on "Iona". So far we’ve traveled about 3000 miles up and down the East Coast and Chesapeake Bay. We’ve taken our time settling into this lifestyle, and only made it as far as Charleston, South Carolina where we wintered.

Along the way we spent an extended visit with Frank and Sherry Voorheis on Ball Creek in North Carolina where we left the boat and came home for Christmas. We spent time in Beaufort, North Carolina, a town which we found very hospitable and boater friendly. Winter dockage on a floating dock with power was very reasonable so we stayed for awhile, did some boat projects and continued to settle into living afloat with less storage space than you need for your stuff. Needless to say, we find we make do with less and less as time passes.

From Beaufort we ambled down the ICW to Charleston. We found the Nacamaw River section truly beautiful with its dense cypress woods growing right up to the waters edge.

The old overgrown rice flats around Georgetown, South Carolina are reminiscent of a time past when "Carolina Gold" as the rice grown in these brackish lowlands was called, was the cash crop, creating millionaires. Buy the time of the Civil War one too many hurricanes and more efficient farming had moved rice growing to more suitable growing regions in other states. Where once indigo was the pre-revolution cash crop, then rice; now the area has reverted back to lowland marsh, carefully watched over and maintained by various agencies intent in keeping it wild and a penitentiary for wildlife.

Charleston was an exciting town for us. We were able to connect with friends Walter and Delphine Klein, and spend time with them and their daughter Dara and her husband who live in nearby Summerville.

Charleston also provided hours of exploring. We visited Fort Sumter and explored the markets, bought a sweet-grass basket still make in the same way the slaves made baskets now made by their descendents. The skill is passed from one generation to the next. Only today the basket-weavers have organized themselves into cooperatives and are astute business people. We toured mansions and plantations, aircraft carriers and submarines. We really did Charleston! We enjoyed the old aristocratic southern flavor of the city. Jan, Dave and Helen Gadens also stopped to visit on their way home from a family visit in Savannah.

Of all our travels so far, we have enjoyed the Chesapeake Bay and Annapolis the best.

Our first visit to the Chesapeake wetted our appetite and we returned the summer of 2000 to sit out the hurricane season.

We headquartered in Annapolis and sailed the northern bay. We hauled here in July to do needed boat bottom work and returned hime for August and early September.

Friends, Jan and Dave Gadens arrived in mid-September for a week of bay sailing only to be rained on by the traveling edge of Hurricane Helene. Alas, they will just have to come meet us in the Bahamas.

While in Annapolis, Jack installed a Four-Winds wind generator which we hope will take care of our electrical need along with the solar panel he installed last fall.

The geese are now noisily arriving at their wintering grounds: a reminder to us to begin our southern track. The days grow shorter, the weather cooler, and the Boat Show is over; time to be moving on.