I decided to head back to Maryland with Mike. I would stay with friends while I looked into having my medical implant removed. It hooks up to my spine and I can adjust the amount of current going down my legs for pain control. I wish I had never let any of my back surgeries be done ever. I think I would have recovered better without help. But here I am. In the meantime I practice my culinary skills.

I make a pretty good lemon meringue pie. I will brag about this. I modified a recipe to make it taste the way I wanted. It met rave reviews. I made an apple cinnamon pull apart bread but forgot pictures.

I also make cinnamin rolls like mom used to make. I know I need to practice some to get them to turn out like moms but my bread is already good. All that needs modified is the things that turn bread into cinnamon rolls.

If you are making bread you must have dinner rolls.

Try taking your own picture while baking.

Was easier to have someone else take the picture.

Christmas came and I put up lights. I couldn't get all of them in one picture but I put up about 5,500 lights. I made the trees out of chicken wire. There were lights around the side of the house and out back. As you drove by you could see most of them at one time. I enjoyed this. I had not been able to put up lights since I got hurt in 2006.

These people really need a bigger porch. The picture really does not do this justice.

Let's not forget Bella. She is a beagle/pointer(of some kind) mix. Their son had rescued her from a drug house and given her to his mom. She was extremely underfed and had absolutely no training. Well she knew how to lick' pee in the house and generally had to be watched closely when not in her crate. I decided she was to good of a dog so I trained her. She has gained weight and is starting to look pretty good here.

Beagles are hard to train anyways and she was getting to an age that made it more difficult. She was smart and would learn things the first time. Good or bad. So mostly the training was to get her to stop the bad habits. I was really bothered by having to train a dog this way. If a dog is trained right out of the litter it is so much nicer.

In the end. No more crate. Still a puppy, but she really is a smart dog and will make them a wonderful pet.

I gained 30 pounds on all the rich food I was fed(ok.. I made some of it).I spent 5 years in a hospital bed when not in a recliner.  Funny how I never had a weight problem before I got hurt. I realise now that it must be a life decision to eat properly. That is ok. I have spent the last couple years researching nutrition and for the first time in my life I am starting to eat correctly. I have learned about sprouting and am going to start fermenting foods to go along with eating how I know I should be and the weight will go away. I should never weigh over 200 pounds. I know I don't look it but as I write this I am 245. I weighed 205 when I got hurt.

So I have caught up my blog. Will be getting a few things fixed on Mary Lee and looking forward to a summer of sailing and enjoying the sun. Who knows, I might even get lucky and find that gal who belongs in my life. The search goes on.

Day 7. Mike and I leave Portside marina early. We are headed to Oriental City. Will meet up with Steve and Linda (Yesterdays Dream) and stay the night there.

Mostly a lot of this is what was happening on trip. Unless something broke we traveled from the crack of dawn until the last possible minutes to be anchored or tied up someplace. I will be the first to admit. I do not care for traveling this way but Mike was helping me with navigation and he had limited time to help. He was only a couple days from heading home at this point.

In the future I am going to just travel from One place to the next. It will be a much more relaxed pace and there will be much more to see and do. For me, owning the boat and living on it is about seeing and doing new things not "just" going. I realise I am going to need more creature comforts on Mary Lee but really, I think of it more as my mode of transportation and place to stay while I am out doing things.

So we made it to Oriental, NC. It is on the Neuse river. I am surprised I didn't take more pictures than I did. I am going to have to be more thoughtful about doing that. We pull up to the only marina we saw. Tied up and went to find the harbor master. Couldn't find him but one of the patrons there who knew him well said he would call him for us. We took care of things and got our showers, then followed up with an all you can eat prime rib dinner. Very good. I slept very well that night. My back is feeling much better.

The picture is the dingy tied up at the public dock and Mary Lee is back beyond it. You can't see the bridge from here. it is to the right. We talked to Steve and Linda (who were staying at their daughter and son-in-laws home) and decided on a plan to see them. through a mis-understanding on our part we headed under the bridge to go to the public dock to meet them for breakfast. Not realising that we were looking at it right in front of us. We saw smaller sailboats on the other side of the bridge but you couldn't see much.

This is the fun part.I had measured my masts last year while still taking fairly strong pain pills. I remembered 40 feet. Well the mizzen mast is 40 feet above water. the bridge was 43. we crawled up to it and at the last second realised the bridge was just a little short. After a pretty loud clang, I lost the wind speed indicator off the top of the main mast. That was heart stopping but still had to back out of it. We were pretty sure we woke up the rest of the community. We went back and anchored before going below and laughing until tears ran down our faces.

Mast looked ok. I really don't need the wind speed indicater. Lesson learned. Do not trust any of last years measurements. We inflated the dingy and went looking for where we were supposed to meet Steve and Linda. We rowed to the dock and went walking. we didn't get far when a car pulled up and Linda asked if we needed a ride. It was good to see them. Steve and Linda are the salt of the earth. I always enjoy their company. We had a good breakfast and then they took us to a small market nearby to get a few things. It would have been nice to have stayed longer but we were running out of time before Mike had to get home.

So we made a little distance. about half a days journey until we made it to green 57. I would have to look but I think we were at stump creek. It felt like we hit something. We were in the middle of the channel. I mean we really felt like we ran aground. After a fight with the wheel we were still moving but the vibrating was insane. It felt like we had a major problem. Not good. We drifted with the current to far and hit bottom on the other side. It took a little doing but we got up main sail to pull us out into the channel again and we dropped anchor. It actually felt like something wrapped around prop.

Guess who is going to go look? The water looked nasty and cold. Well, no time like the present. I got ready and in I went. It was cold. I adjusted to it the best I could and went under. It took 4 tries to find what was happening. One of the blades is gone on a 2 blade prop. Looks like we are getting a tow again.

We got on the radio and called out Boat US. They answered right up. We told them where we were and this time we were further away but only about 45 minutes. I doubt if I would ever boat without their tow insurance. How can you beat an investment like that for a little over $100??? I had already talked to Steve and Linda earlier and Linda had found a marina where Mike would be getting off boat and heading home. I think she had also found us the nearest hardware store before the last tow. What good friends. Well in retrospect I probably should have just been towed there but we just went to the nearest marina. Harbor marina in Hampstead, NC. It has been a trying day to say the least. Well the last 3 days have been along with 2 tows in 3 days how can you beat that?

So we got Mary Lee tied up. Showered and ordered a pizza.

Day 6 started off quite well. Back is still bothering me but it has improved enough that I am able to move around again without to much discomfort. I am planning to see Steve and Linda Franko (Yesterdays Dream) today. It has been about a year since they pulled out of the marina where we met. I plan to call them before we make Morehead city, NC.

Well we made Morehead city. Suddenly we had thick black smoke billowing out of the engine room. A moment of shock and then of course kill the engine and investigate. Preparing to grab a fire extinguisher (which of course is right there). It turns out that the exhaust piece I had built for the water injection had broke. What??? Well first things first. We dropped anchor and considered our options.

 Cannot sail down the Intra Coastal Waterway even if we had enough experience to do that. Marinas don't want people sailing in. To much risk of hitting other boats. We are not really sure where the nearest marina is.
 USBoat tow. We got on the radio and they answered up immediately. I don't think we waited more than 5 minutes before they were there hooking us up. Turns out they came out of a marina that was very close. They had been listening when we had been on the radio a little earlier trying to figure out where things were.

They brought us to Portside Marina. I was not only impressed with Boat US but I really liked the people running this marina. Talk about bend over backwords to help. They told me to help myself to the use of a vise and whatever tools I needed. I had my own tools so I pulled out the broken piece. Mike and I caught a cab to the local lowes to find a suitable replacement.

There it is. A 14 inch piece of 1 1/4 inch pipe. Not sure at this point why it broke. I forgot to take a picture during the whole process. The only thing difficult was getting the small piece of threads that broke off inside the other fitting out. In all,from start to finish I guess it took about an hour to fix if you don,t count the trip to Lows. I do not know why it broke. It shouldn't have. Unfortunately I was to find out soon. All in all. I am glad I had Boat US. Hard to beat that. Money very well spent. I am still enjoying boating and we will see Steve and Linda tomorrow.

Day 5 finds us moving through the Dismal swamp. Now of course we have a fleet of boats spread out ahead and behind us.

And we just kept going.

and going

We go through another lock that I forgot to take pictures of and eventually we are out of the Dismal swamp. So the lock master with the conch shells had told everyone that albamarle sound was going to be rough today. We didn't see that so out we went.

Well here was picture of the second lock.

And down we go, albeit slowly.

So the sound is going well. Almost through. We don't have a lot of the day left at this point but enough to get through this next part.

This was from day 4.  Wait until you see the end of day 5.

At this point we are still heading into the little cove we will be anchoring in.

We still have not anchored but the sky is starting to get better looking all the time.

Still getting better.

Anchor is set and not any sooner than being at the last few minutes of daylight.

At this point taking any more pictures isn't going to change much as far as what we are seeing. Far enough away from the neighbors that it is a very peaceful night. We lost phone service just about the time we got anchored so no texting or phone calls. Just quiet. I love boating

So this rounds up day 5 of the trip south. So far everything but the windlass has worked well. Back is still hurting but it is starting to ease up a little. Good thing I still had a few pain pills. I have got to learn to think before moving. But that is a big part of why I am out here. I am using my dream (the biggest thing on my bucket list) to regain my life. It is working. I am in quite a lot better shape than I was in when I bought Mary Lee. I don't believe anyone thought I would get this far when I first told everyone I was going to do this.

Tomorrows post is when the troubles begin. I eventually discover the reason for a few of the things I have had to fix on Mary Lee. But that is for tomorrow.

I forgot to add that I left Baltimore on October 1st. 2012. I had about 3 hours of run time on engine at the time. On last post I mentioned hurting my back weighing anchor on day two. I did a good job of it. I have got to be more careful. I have got away with doing quite a bit but most of it causes a lot of discomfort and just doing the wrong thing without thinking first will pretty much lay me out for several days. The next few days were going to be pretty painful but I won't elaborate. Just thought i would mention it.

This picture was from day 1. We actually had quite a bit of ship traffic the first day.

lighthouse on day 3.

This was actual picture of Mary Lee pulling out on Oct.1. The picture I had posted was the test run the previous friday. As I go through pictures I am finding the ones I want.

We made it into Deltaville, Va. The end of day 3.

Of course I must not have taken any pictures of fueling or anchoring in channel across from fuel dock. I did however get a picture of Mary Lee after we pumped our waste.

Still uneventful. Hang on it is coming. We did encounter a few difficulties but not yet. Had a good nights sleep and pulled out next morning.

We finally make Norfolk, Va. on day 4.

So we chose to have a look at the Dismal swamp.

The first lock was uneventful. The lock master showed off his skill blowing through a conch shell while we all waited for it to fill. I thought I had a picture of all the conch shells boaters have given him for his collection but I guess not.

So through the dismal swamp we go.

Mike had brought along his leather reclining office chairs. I would not have made it past Solomons island for many days without these. My back was really hurting. I most likely belonged in bed. Those chairs were the object of many discussions. people staired as they went by and every place we tied up people would stop and mention them. Wasn't much different than riding in a car if you think about it. We didn't see any other sailboats with this kind of setup.

Don't you just love digital cameras? By the time I could see leaving Virginia, I took the picture and with the little delay I got the leaving north carolina side. Oh well.

So here we were at the welcome center. We were a little surprised to see it was the wecome center for the interstate. Actually we laughed when we realized that the Dismal swamp we had heard so much about was just a ditch full of stagnant water running along the freeway. I think there were 6 of us tied up for the night. Mary Lee in on the outside of the catamaran. I am having trouble staying connected so will post again tomorrow. I have some great sunset pictures coming and we end up getting towed twice.
  I find out why I had a broken exhaust and motor mount when I boughtMary Lee. However... everything I fixed is doing beautifully. I am very pleased with the engine and everything else I fixed. Next post or two should get everything up to speed. I am learning it is important to keep up as you go. Looking through pictures months later trying to catch up is not very handy to say the least

Hi. I bet you thought you had lost the author :-)  Sorry about that. I will get to that later. First I need to do a little catching up. I left on the trip south as planned. this first picture is about how far I made it last year before I had the show stopping engine trouble.

All is well. I finally get to cross under the bridge I have stared at for two summers. I knew I would eventually get to it. However, as I have learned. You can plan all you want with boating but it better be a loose plan. Maybe that is just how I have to do it but either way. I am now boating, not working on one hoping to go boating.

My first sunrise underway on Mary Lee. I thought this looked nice.

Then it turned into this. I had forgot that outdoor shots did this. Especially sunrises and sunsets. All you can do is take a bunch of pictures and keep the best. At this point I am pleased the engine is doing so well but still not sold on the rebuild I did. I know it would not be running this long if I had screwed up but I have done this worry thing on every engine I have ever worked on. It just takes time.

Pretty soon get to go under the next bridge. Starting to relax with the engine build. It is fine.

We are not alone out here.

Except for a few ships and other smaller boats. there is not a lot to see out here. We are shooting for Solomons island. Seems as good a place as any to wrap up the first day.

We anchored out the first night. We were pushing it and not sure where we would find a slip before dark we opted for the first protected spot. Like we did for the trip, we weighed anchor at the earliest possible minute and anchored just about dark. The only exceptions being when we "had" to tie up earlier.  I need to look at the camera to see if I have a picture of first nights anchorage. The next morning when we weighed anchor , I hurt my back lifting anchor.  We got out of protected waters and found after  two hours of fighting rough water that we had made almost no ground at all. Back to port. That was ok, I was really hurting. This time we opted to stay dockside. I need to download pictures from camera before I continue. See you soon.