2014 | Golden Glow

Turks & Caicos to San Juan

December 23, 2014 // 3 Comments

We’re back in the USA for the holidays and work projects now, and missing Golden Glow and the warm Caribbean water, weather and lifestyle. A good time to remember our cruise from Turks & Caicos to Puerto Rico. South Side Marina Rand & Jack relaxing & catching up on their 40+ year [read more]

Suns of the Sargasso Sea

December 22, 2014 // 2 Comments

Sargassum Seaweed Golden Glow crossed the Sargasso Sea on our way from Charleston, South Carolina to Turqs and Caicos in early December 2014. While crossing, we witnessed a succession of glorious sunsets and sunrises, and we observed the environment as closely as we could. We were pleased to see [read more]

Out with the Old & In with the New – Helm Seat

December 21, 2014 // 2 Comments

Our helm seat is one of the most important places on our boat. It’s where we steer and navigate from, and where we spend much of our time on watches. A helm seat should be functional and comfortable, and ours is. When I’m on watch, I set the seat up with comfy pillows, a soft throw, [read more]

Pest Control

December 20, 2014 // 2 Comments

While we are so lucky to not have pests on the boat, we came back to deer and some ground pest in our rose garden: uh oh. So we are on the attack this week to try to curb the destruction. The gophers are easy; we found these solar sonic devices that have done amazing things in curbing them in [read more]

Horseshoe Buoy Lettering

December 19, 2014 // 0 Comments

It turned out not to be that easy to find lettering that would elegantly fit the unique shape of the large horseshoe buoy we bought at West Marine. Our ARC inspector suggested that we simply use a permanent sharpie to write our boat’s name on the buoy, but with my handwriting, I didn’t [read more]

A Special Sunrise Send-Off for Mr. D

December 18, 2014 // 0 Comments

“Mr. D” is Jack’s dad, who passed away this year. Jack is our very good friend who joined us to sail from the USA to the [read more]

What it Feels Like to Cross Gulf Stream & Sail Far Offshore

December 18, 2014 // 0 Comments

[read more]

Charleston to Turks & Caicos

December 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

We left chilly Charleston, South Carolina last Wednesday morning at slack tide (about 3AM) to sail for the Caribbean. The plan was to sail about 900 miles to Turks & Caicos where I could be connected to Internet by Monday morning to do a day or two of work and where there’s supposed to be [read more]

How Best to Cross the Gulf Stream?

November 30, 2014 // 0 Comments

Navigating the Gulf Stream is a special part of charting our course for the Caribbean. Since we are leaving from Charleston, one of the questions we face is do we head straight out on a southeasterly course, which will take us across the gulf stream where it’s wide, strong, meandering, and [read more]

Using Apps like PredictWind to Plan our Passage

November 22, 2014 // 0 Comments

PredictWind is turning out to be a favorite app for passage planning. It combines many pieces of weather data and presents us with several sail-plan options from our starting place to our end point, taking into account if we want the fastest trip or the most comfortable (there are many settings [read more]