Life On Orion

 And just like that our boating adventure of the past 2 years is over. We got up early to strip the bed and pack the last few items and made one last trip to the storage unit. We did one last inspection of all the nooks and crannies (with a flashlight) and actually found a small bag of acrylic glassware that had fallen down into a lower shelf unit, so we rescued that.  After loading the car to the gills, we took a couple of last pictures and walked away. I am sad on one hand because I loved our looping adventure on Orion, but by the time we left the boat it didn’t feel like “home” any more. We did something few people ever accomplish and I’m proud of that, and we always said we would know when it was time to move on, and it was. We drove to Baltimore with a stop at the Quantico Marine Museum that Tom has always wanted to see. Wow, what a great place! Reminded me of a Smithsonian. We spent over 2 hours there, ate lunch in their pub and drove the last 2 hours to Baltimore. Nothing beats

 Another, and last, day of moving off the boat. 4 trips to the storage unit and one last one in the morning with bedding and we’re done. In addition to packing bins we cleaned up the bow pulpit where some adhesive was oozing out around the stainless plate, pumped up the dinghy, secured all fenders to the rails and hosed the boat off. Our boat neighbor, Richard, became the recipient of liquor, refrigerator items, cleaning supplies and some engine oil. He has started calling Tom Santa Claus.  LOL! Funny story for the last day on Orion…. When we moved onto the boat almost 2 years ago we discovered a new cubby filled with treasures weekly. The prior owners had just walked off the boat leaving expensive appliances, cutlery, knives etc behind. Everything they had was top of the line so I am leaving with wonderful treasures. About a year in, we discovered a cubby under the dinette seat containing a $900 Bluetooth printer! We were chuckling about finding those treasures when Tom pointed to a c

 It was day one of moving off the boat and we loaded so many bins! It’s not just packing, because as with all of our “moves” not everything goes to one destination. We like to keep it complicated! LOL! We have used color coded tape to mark which boxes are boat only, RV if that is what we do next, needs to end up in Hudson, but not this trip, and finally - things that must go with us now to Baltimore and ultimately Hudson. Sigh… We accessed our storage unit early this morning and made 4 trips with a fully loaded vehicle each time. Lots of empty drawers and closets now so we made really good progress today. Tomorrow Tom has a couple of boat tweaks to do while I finish packing and we should be completely done by tomorrow night. We will sleep one last night and pack up the last bedding and towels before leaving on Monday. We haven’t stopped meeting new boater friends - met the guy on the boat behind ours and found out he just bought the boat. He is an older guy alone, sold his house and is

 We arrived in Baltimore last Sunday afternoon in time to stay with Charlotte and Claire while Dan and Andrea flew to Indiana for her grandfather’s funeral. They got back on Tuesday and the rest of the week we watched the girls during the day while they worked. It was a week filled with lots of Lego building, reading books, board games, movie and popcorn nights and swimming at the neighborhood pool. Needless to say, we are pooped! God gives children to the young for a reason… LOL! We love spending time in Baltimore and having one on one time with the girls is a blessing for sure. But today we drove back down to the boat in VA and have started packing it up to move off. We can access our storage unit tomorrow to begin to load in the bins. It was almost 2 years ago to the day that we moved onto the boat so it is bittersweet for sure… We hope to be moved off the boat and have completed a couple of minor projects by Sunday so the broker can begin showing it and hopefully a sale will happen

 What a luxury to sleep in! After a nice breakfast and hot showers, Steve and Kathy arrived to shuttle us back to New Bern to collect our car. We had a nice lunch here in Chesapeake at Lockside and then stepped into one of the boat sheds to see a historic river boat that has been restored. The owners happened to be aboard and invited us on to look around. What a treat! It has been restored to period but with modern materials and it is elegant! Our 3 hour trip to New Bern was uneventful as was our 3 hour return trip to the boat. Lots of packing and organizing had to happen, because we leave for Baltimore in the morning.

 What an emotional but wonderful day on the water… We pulled away from the dock at Coinjock around 7 am and after taking lines and fenders away for the last time I watched the marina disappear from view through tears. 😢 We spent much of the 5 hour trip remembering events from our one and a half years of travel and thinking out loud about what comes next. There was a lot more boat traffic today since we are so close to Norfolk so we got passed several times. (We are always the slowest boat). Also 3 bridges to go thru, two of which had to open for us. So it ends where it began in October 2021 here at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake VA. We met with the boat broker we are listing the boat with from  Virginia Yacht Brokers and we like him a lot. I feel good about listing our boat with them and we hope for a timely sale. His wife stages the boat after we move off and makes a video, so I will post the link to that when it’s ready. Tomorrow around noon Steve and Kathy are driving up from N

 What a difference a day makes! Yesterday we had to turn back and today the water is flat as a pancake. We had a very long 10 hour day of cruising, but it was stress free and we arrived in Coinjock in one piece. The only bit of excitement we had was some very early morning fog/mist on the canal right out of the marina. We left at first light and it was cool, so there was a bit of fog till it burned off with the rising sun. Minor inconvenience! We did decide to treat ourselves and eat an early dinner at the restaurant here at the marina and I even had a steak! Early to bed tonight in preparation for our last voyage tomorrow…

Well, today did not go as planned. Lots of activity - no results. We left the marina at 7 am intending to travel for 6 hours to our next stop and the first 3 1/2 hours were in a very weather protected canal. The weather deteriorated while we were in there so by the time we hit open water the winds were terrible and the waves 3 to 4 feet! We turned back and we are at the same marina in the same slip, but unscathed… We have traveled too long and too far to make a foolish decision and have a bad result. It sucks being an adult but we are going to try again tomorrow as the weather is forecast to be so much better. We ran into a diver at the marina here and paid him a small sum to clean some barnacles off the bottom of our boat and check the thrusters.He did that and cleaned out some of our intakes and cut some fishing line off our prop shaft.We borrowed the courtesy car and drove into Belhaven proper to look around and had a nice pork chop dinner on the boat. We won’t be up very late since

 After several weeks of driving all over the eastern half of the country visiting kids, we are finally on the move to get the boat up to Chesapeake VA where we will list it with a boat broker to sell. While we were galavanting across the country, our boat bow pulpit was being repaired and the new steel plate installed.  We spent a week in Kenosha with Kate and family and got to spend lots of time with Ian. What a sweet boy!And he can say Mimi and Bapa like nobody’s business. LOL! We attended Taste of Kenosha, the farmers market, free concert in the park and shopped and ate out at some great restaurants. Tom helped Kate finish some door projects with new hinges, handles and some sanding down to close better. The next week was spent on Nashville with Johanna and the focus of the trip was to help them take the main bathroom in Ben’s house down to the studs and get them started on the remodel. Everything went - even the old bathtub! While we were there to help they replaced part of the sub