Slow, Steady & Safe

That's all to report for now.
Weather dipped into the 50's today!
Frost warning tonight then the rest of the week will be great.
Georgia is the goal by weeks end.

Dog Overboard found 4 months later!

SYDNEY (AFP) – A pet dog that fell overboard in rough seas off Australia has been reunited with its owners after surviving alone on an island for four months, reports said.

Sophie Tucker, apparently named after a late US entertainer, fell overboard as Jan Griffith and her family sailed through choppy waters off the northeast Queensland coast in November.

The dog was believed to have drowned and Griffith said the family was devastated.

But out of sight of the family, Sophie Tucker was swimming doggedly and finally made it to St Bees Island, five nautical miles away, and began the sort of life popularised by the TV reality show "Survivor."

She was returned to her family last week when Griffith contacted rangers who had captured a dog that had been living off feral goats on the largely uninhabited island, in the faint hope it might be their long-lost pet.

When the Griffiths met the rangers' boat bringing the dog to the mainland they found that it was indeed Sophie Tucker on board.

"We called the dog and she started whimpering and banging the cage and they let her out and she just about flattened us," Griffith told the national AAP news agency.

"She wriggled around like a mad thing."

Griffith said that when the dog was first spotted on the island she had been in poor condition.

"And then all of a sudden she started to look good and it was when the rangers had found baby goat carcasses so she'd started eating baby goats," she said.

Sophie Tucker, a member of the Australian cattle dog breed, had been quick to readjust to the comforts of home, complete with airconditioning, Griffiths said.

"She surprised us all. She was a house dog and look what she's done, she's swum over five nautical miles, she's managed to live off the land all on her own," Griffiths said.

"We wish she could talk, we truly do."

Red Skies at night...

Sailors' delight or in Italian;
Rosa sta serra, buon tempo despera.

Funny story about how I learned that.
You have time for a story? Always polite to ask.. (line from a movie, lol)
While in the Army, in Italy, I was on patrol with my partner for the night, an Italian cop.
He spoke very little English, and at the time, I spoke very little Italian.
So we passed the evening teaching each other how to say the above sailor's quote :)

OK, down to business.
My current position is:
N 33*51.559'
W078* 38.055'
Today SunRunner did 60 miles and got me into South Carolina!
I was just holding on, she did the hard part ;)
Today was just a gorgeous day on the water!
I saw big casino boats, a dolphin and many awesome houses along the ICW.
SunRunner's anchored in a wide spot with a channel marker to the bow and a dock protecting my "6" (stern).
I threw an anchor off the stern so I wouldn't swing on the hook out into the channel ;)
That 2nd anchor was given to me by a friend of the family, Peter.
So here's a shout out to him!
Thanks Peter! :D

WINDY Friday

Well, we're still in a weather hold near Wrightsville Beach, NC.
It's very windy, 25-35 mph gusts.. but at least it's Sunny!
The wind will be ending tonight so we plan on an instant coffee/early start tomorrow!
It looks to be a beautiful weekend!!
No dolphins today but a wind surfer zoomed by a little while ago, lol.
I'm laying here in the aft/Captain's quarters rolling to the waves, listening to a local rock station swinging on the anchor line. Every once in awhile the boat will swing so my cabin is filled with vitamin D (sunshine) & I love it!
Each night Ty and I swap off cooking. We had sausage filled tortolinis with marinara sauce last night. During dinner we usually watch a couple episodes of the old WWII documentary; "Victory at Sea". I have the sries on DVD & love it.
I remember watching "The World At War" on PBS- as a kid with my Dad :)
Not much more.. Next update tomorrow afternoon.

Well, we're still in a weather hold near wrightsville beach
it's very windy, 25-35 mph gusts..
The wind will be ending tonight so we plan on an instant coffee/early start tomorrow!
It looks to be a beautiful weekend!!

Due to the weather, circumstances, etc..

We've decided to turn around and abandon our FOOLish endeavor...





you know what's next, right??

APRIL FOOLS!!
Onward South, in the rain.
Looking to get South of Wrightsville Beach today :)

Also, today I'd like to make mention of the Boat, "April Fool".

Hugo Vihlen was a $23,000-a-year pilot for Delta Air Lines when he decided a few years ago—for no reason he has adequately explained—to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the smallest boat ever used for such a purpose. His vessel, called April Fool and measuring precisely 5'11?" from stem to stern, was less than half the length of Robert Manry's Tinkerbelle, the previously smallest craft to make the crossing.

The voyage is described by Vihlen in a diary he kept and which is now published as a book, April Fool (Follett, $5.95). The book jacket suggests the reader may appreciate Vihlen's feat the more by imagining sailing the Atlantic in "your bathtub with a mast and a three horsepower outboard motor...." Certainly the photographs that accompany the story are no help; they make April Fool look as though she has been cleaved in half—or thirds, as if perhaps both bow and stern are missing.

Vihlen had not sailed for 18 years when he decided on his trip, and so when the plywood and fiber-glass boat was launched he kept making elementary mistakes—things like getting hit by the boom. When he asked people for advice or help, he was usually advised not to go. His first attempt was aborted when—after getting two months' leave from Delta and crating his vessel off to North Africa—he got hung up in official red tape, design deficiencies and by the African inshore winds. When he gave up, the Delta company magazine commented: "Rub a dub dub, Hugo's tub was a flub."

But Hugo Vihlen is nothing if not determined. He shipped his boat home to Florida, where he made extensive modifications, learned a good deal more about African coastal winds, and re-embarked from Casablanca the following March. This time he cleared the coast, caught the trade winds and—in spite of idiosyncrasies in his vessel like not being able to sail any closer to the wind than 90 degrees—made the 4,480-mile trip to Florida in 85 days.

The trip was predictably wretched. He was forced to sleep on his back with knees bent in his 5-foot cabin, and to set his alarm for two-hour intervals so he could keep adjusting his steering. It was also boring, but his health stayed good, his only complaint being a sore arm from steering.

When he finally reached the waters off Florida and was picked up by the Coast Guard, he was astonished to find himself a hero. The state appointed him a commodore, Astronaut Walt Cunningham sent his congratulations, and so did President Johnson. A whale was named after him.

And Delta Air Lines suspended him for being late getting back from vacation.