May 18. Boats in My Life

  No, we haven't gone yet. While we're waiting for the right weather, I'll take advantage of my internet access to give you some background. Here's a quick overview our family boating history.  

1971
We bought a canoe and took our 3-year-old son canoe camping in Algonquin Provincial park in Canada.









1973
We bought a 14-foot day sailor and learned to sail on Lake Champlain in Vermont.









1975
We traded up to a Clipper Marine 21 so we could do overnight trips..  That summer and the next we sailed all up and down Lake Champlain and then took it to Maine on its trailer and spent a week sailing from Camden to the nearby islands.

1977- 1980
We bought a used 31-foot Golden Hind and sold our home in Vermont.  After fixing up the boat in Woods Hole and naming it Horizon, we sailed/motored south to Beaufort.  From there we set out on a circumnavigation of the world that lasted 3 years.  The boat is shown here in Tahiti. In 1980 we returned to Connecticut, sold the boat, and bought a small house in New Hartford.  For a couple of years we tried to amuse ourselves with a windsurfer.

1982 to present
We decided to have a 35-foot steel boat built for us by a yard in Deltaville, Virginia.  The completed hull and deck were delivered to our backyard, and we worked for 3 years to complete the interior and exterior and install all the equipment. This boat, also named Horizon, finally went in the water in the spring of 1987. That fall we sailed to the western Caribbean and then to Bermuda and the Mediterranean.   In 1991 we were in New Bern living aboard at the Sheraton Marina while job-hunting. We worked for 9 years in the Raleigh area and kept the boat at Minnesott Beach Y C. In 2000 we moved to Oriental and later bought a slip a Sea Harbor.  We have made several short cruises to the Bahamas, Maine, and the Chesapeake.