Well it has been quite a while since my last update so here goes...

We completed our trip up the waterway without incident and had several 80 mile days on the way to Deltaville. It was good to pull into Deltaville Yacht Yard where we left Camaraderie on the "hard" for a few weeks for routine annual maintenance and cleaning. We spent the month of May in Richmond at Janet's mother's house where I did a few chores and much eating and shopping. I also got a chance to catch up with my old Casa Soccer buddies and some friends at Circuit City. It was good to see everyone again but I'm sure glad I retired when I did! We had several Wednesday night pizza fests with good friends Lu and Joanne and made plans for our summer in Manteo. In Deltaville we enjoyed  great meals with Tom & Trudy and Ray & Betty White and even got to see Mosby West for a bit as he sailed with friends into Fishing Bay. Of course, seeing the kids (except Noelle) again was great. All in all, it was a nice "land break" but by the end of the month  we were really ready to get back on board Camaraderie. 
Complicating matters was the fact that we had purchased a car for our use this summer in Manteo NC, where we planned to spend the summer and enjoy the Outer Banks. Janet had to drive the car to Manteo, and no one else was available, so I decided to single hand the boat down there, which would be a 3 day trip. The first night I planned to be in Norfolk, the second in Coinjock and then on to Manteo. I waited for a good weather forecast and headed out of Deltaville for Norfolk, and tried anchoring out at Hospital Point rather than deal with docking at a marina. This worked out  well as there was a light breeze which helped me set the anchor as I let out the chain and then I backed the engine hard in reverse to set the hook. The next day would involve about 6 bridges with timed openings as well as the Great Bridge Locks so I planned my departure carefully and set up all my lines for the locks and ran them back to the cockpit before pulling up the anchor. All went well and traffic in the lock was light so it was quite easy to motor in and get the lines rigged with the help of the lock keeper. The Midway Marina in Coinjock was equally accommodating and I enjoyed a good NC barbeque with she-crab soup dinner feeling pretty good about the trip! The final day was a piece of cake because I had all the waypoints plugged into the GPS and all I had to do was follow the arrow and avoid the many crab traps before arriving in Manteo 10 minutes after Janet who waved to me from the dock.
We just love Manteo, which has changed little over the last 20 years and all for the better. The first night we were here, we attended a free NC symphony concert under the stars, then Herman's Hermits played during Dare Day (in the junior high school gym since it rained!). Tomorrow we will see Shakespeare under the stars and of course we are enjoying the town and the wonderful beaches as well. The marina here is great and we've been making some friends and enjoying air conditioning! Walt and Honoree on Will o' the Wisp finally caught up to us again a few days ago and we spent a couple of great days with them and they are now on their way to summer in the Chesapeake. Daughter Noelle and boyfriend Johnny came for a visit this week after Noelle completed two weeks of surgical observation in Chapel Hill courtesy of friend Dr. Ray White. She looks great and is enjoying the rest after a long school year and then 2 weeks of "interns" hours. She just loved every minute of the surgical experience and so it looks as though I have a few more years of tuition ahead of me! <grin>

Now for the big news...there's a new boat in our future. As many of our friends know,  we've been looking for a new boat for some time now ... a boat that can take us across oceans. Camaraderie has been a wonderful boat and has taught me many things along the way but she is constructed as a coastal cruiser and is not designed for open ocean storms and seas so we have long known that we would need to replace her if we still planned to cross oceans after our initial year or two of living aboard and cruising. She has also taught us exactly what we wanted in our next boat and since we wouldn't settle for less, it has been a long and frustrating search until now.
Searching the Internet yacht sites a few weeks ago, I came across her... a 52 ft. Tayana ketch sitting on the Hudson River in New York. The boat has never been in salt water and was only used lightly so all the systems should be in good shape. The price was good and the boat seemed to meet all our requirements so we headed north to see her...squeezing in a visit to see brother Gordon as well. Ahhh...there she was in the yard...big and beautiful and though clearly in need of some elbow grease, we both knew this boat could take us anywhere we wanted to go for as long as we wanted! We negotiated a bit and have now had our offer accepted so we are now arranging a complete survey and sea trial before she becomes ours. The plan will be to bring her down to Deltaville to get her fit for cruising while we continue to live aboard Camaraderie, then we will move aboard.