Sun of a Sailor Goes Cruising

I am now officially cruising southbound on the Atlantic Intra Coastal Waterway. The IntraCoastal Waterway is an inland waterway that actually runs from Boston southbound through Florida all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and ends in Brownsville, Texas. I am cruising the portion of the waterway more commonly known as the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway - or the AICW.  This route begins in Norfolk, Virginia, and ends in Key West, Florida.  The origin of the canal stems from the desire to provide a coastal shipping route that avoids some of the treacherous offshore passages such as the route off shore around Cape Hatteras.  You may recall an early post on my blog where I referred to that stretch of offshore waters as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.  Anyway, the ICW is an inland route that offers much more protection and shelter for boaters as they travel north or south along the coast.  Parts of the ICW are natural bodies of protected waters including bays and ...

OK.  I am up and running again after dealing with the repairs of my transmission. It was nice to get going again and I stayed in this beautiful anchorage in Dymer Creek on the Chesapeake Bay... Dealing with the transmission was a challenging issue.  I had trouble at first finding anyone who would commit time to working on the job.  The boat yards in the area are busy with the fall maintenance season for their 'regular' customers and were not going to go out of their way for me - the stranded transient 'cruiser'.  It took me two days, dozens of calls, and hours of internet searching, but I found an excellent mechanic and he had connections with a repair shop that would rebuild the transmission. Brian pulled up in this truck with every tool you could imagine - so I knew I had the right guy.  He also told me that he has been working on engines and transmissions since he was a young kid.  Anyway, it took him about 4 hours to get the transmission ...