Hello All and Happy New Year!
We hope that everyone is having a wonderful start to the 2015 year! We spent our holiday season this year bringing a wonderful, newly acquired 2001 Catalina 470 on an eight-day trip from Baltimore Marine Center on a very chilly December 8th with the happy new owners, Jeff and Bonnie, headed down to Brunswick, GA. We had a few hiccups starting off with a torn headsail and a malfunctioning regulator that had us stopping in Annapolis for four hours to get some amazingly fast help from Chuck O'Malley at Chesapeake Sails and crew at J.Gordon Marine at Eastport Yachting Center (they did the work while we enjoyed a nice lunch at Boatyard!).
After a very cold and wet overnight trip down the bay (about 22 degrees), we finally reached Norfolk where we stopped to send Dave up the mast to take the 2.5 feet of gear off of the top of the 63ft. mast to make us ICW-ready. We worked our way south on the Elizabeth River and then docked for the night along the public wall between the Great Bridge lock and draw bridge. To maximize our travel time on the ICW, we were up with the sun daily. With northern winds for the entire previous week, the natural bodies of water that make up the ICW had very low water levels (about a 1.5-2 ft. lower than normal). This allowed us to worry less about bridge clearance, but it also meant that we were kissing bottom a little more often!
After five days of ICW travel, we reached Beaufort, North Carolina where we stayed overnight so we could send Dave back up the mast to put our instruments back together for sailing offshore. It was a smooth sail all the way to Brunswick to the boats new temporary home at Brunswick Landing Marina.
We really enjoyed the trip and had a wonderful time with Jeff and Bonnie. The Catalina 470 really impressed us with its blue-water style storage throughout, its easy handling and the smooth ride. We are looking forward to hearing about Jeff and Bonnie's future adventures aboard Light Waves!
Check our trip photos below! Happy trails!
Erin and Dave
