Weekly
Blog Posts

Friday, January 30,2025 to Friday, February 7, 2025 Big Majors Spot to George Town, Bahama, Exumas 63 nautical miles (72 statute miles) Big Major Spot, Staniel Cay and Thunderball Grotto   Pig's checking out our Dinghy We stayed a few days anchored with +50 other boats in the very protected Big Majors Spot anchorage. It’s in close proximity to Staniel Cay (1.5-mile dinghy ride) and the actual “Spot” is known for its “Pig Beach.”  We don’t get too excited for the pigs, but we

Wednesday, January 22 to Thursday, January 30, 2025 Nassau, New Providence Island to anchorage at Big Majors Spot near Staniel Cay 78 nautical miles (90 statue miles)   Our route from Nassau to Big Majors Spot Nassau While in the Nassau  area, we explored the eastern side of the town, and Athol Island , where we had anchored. One day was entirely spent onboard Utopia  due to heavy winds, which resulted in a very rocky, wobbly, lumpy anchorage the following two days. During ou

Wednesday, January 8, 2025 to Wednesday, January 22, 2025 216 nautical miles (249 statute miles)   The Former Cruising Mecca: Fort Lauderdale, FL Wednesday, January 8 to Wednesday, January 15, 2025 After completing the second day of multiple bridge openings, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale and edged our way into a very crowded anchorage in Lake Sylvia. Several boats needed to be fended off with boat hooks when winds and currents caused everyone to swing around in different patt

As of this posting we have officially left the USA and have entered the Bahamas and are presently in Great Harbour Marina in the Berry Islands.  Our next week's post will go over the crossing and a recap of Ft. Lauderdale and our first week in the Bahamas but for now lets go over some issues we have had on Utopia .   Last week’s post was about our trip from Brunswick down to Ft. Lauderdale, and this week’s post is about what broke during the trip and what we did to fix it. 

Friday, December 27, 2024 to Wednesday, January 8, 2025 Brunswick, GA to Fort Lauderdale, FL Departure Preparation Review of Brunswick, GA Leg 1 - Brunswick to Cumberland Leg 2 - Cumberland to Lake Worth Leg 3 - Lake Worth to Boca Raton Leg 4 - Boca Raton to Ft. Lauderdale Sidney Lanier Bridge, Brunswick River, Georgia Preparation for Departure A lot of groceries from Aldi Following the holidays and a flurry of doctors’ appointments it was time to focus on the last of the foo

(i.e., music and video) and internet update Present Update (Saturday, January 4) Well we have left Brunswick Landing Marina and after a two day overnight sail into the Atlantic Ocean we are now anchored in West Palm Beach enjoying sunny South Florida. Our next post will cover that so we had a post in the "can" so to speak since we knew we would be tired. So without further adieu... System Series No. 7 When I first started this series over a year ago, I indicated that I

Our final post on the gear we used on the Appalachian Trail. We are still in Brunswick, GA spending our time getting ready to stay several months in the Bahamas. It is likely that we will leave the marina on New Year’s Eve for the Miami area. Clothing choices are highly dependent on the temperatures that you believe you will come across. We selected clothing that could cover lows around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, to hot days in the 90’s. Honestly, we nearly wore the same clothes

Special trinkets added to backpack Okay, we will get a little bit personal here talking about personal goods we had on the trail. We’ll start with the mundane and work our way up to parts some people will want to skip. Identification, money, keys  – We each kept our own driver’s licenses, some cash, a credit and a debit card. We also had a key to access our boat tucked deep into a safe place in Sondra’s backpack. Contact solution, contacts  – Jimmy brought more than enough sp

Here we attempt to cover a lot of the little things we brought along. It is quite possible we missed a few items. Gear unloaded around the tent Basic Gear Trash compactor bags  – we lined our backpacks with a white scent-free trash compactor bag to protect items from rain, and to aid in finding objects in the bag. We found one bag worked fine for three months. Dry bags / pump sacks  – most items were placed inside of smaller bags to help with organization or to protect items

This week we take a look at how we managed our food and water while on the trail. Food Along most of the Appalachian Trail there are usually towns, hostels or even gas stations available at four day intervals, so we chose to use these for our resupply. Each time we left a town or hostel, we would typically carry enough food for four nights on trail. Dry bag(s)  – We started out placing all our food into dry bags for storage.  These needed to be hung in trees or on bear poles

Equipment used on our 2024 Appalachian Trail Hike Utopia is in the water and mostly ready to take off on an adventure, but we need to take care of some things over the next month and will be staying put in Brunswick. Therefore, over the next several weeks, our blog posts will summarize gear we used on our Appalachian Hike. Regardless of how much research and preparation is made prior to a hike, it is likely that a backpacker will modify gear during a long hike.  Most of the

October 2023 - October 2024 St. Petersburg, FL to Brunswick, GA Recently we provided an overview of our plans for the upcoming year and this week we’re recapping last year's activities. Many cruisers also look at this time of the year as the beginning of the cruising season. In addition, our boat insurance policy insurance limits where the boat can be between June 1 and November 1, another factor for our defining our sailing season to run roughly from October to October. The

Brunswick, GA November 1 - 16, 2024 For the first time in a long time, I do not feel the pinch of a schedule. It has been pleasant to work on projects without having the crunch of a hard deadline. Utopia is cruising ready, yet there are several items to work on now that the boat is back in the water. We have been following a checklist provided by the prior owner that contains some items are related to the haulout while other tasks are part of an annual maintenance schedule. W

November 2024 – November 2025 Season 1 Recap Last year around this time we did a post outlining what the next year holds for Sondra, I and Baxter. It was neat to look at that post and see what we ended up doing in comparison to what we thought we were going to do. It was pretty close but some things that were different were: 1) we didn’t make it to the Dry Tortugas like we thought and 2) our expected dates where we thought we were going to be all over the board.  If you are i

Utopia has returned to her native habitat Brunswick, GA October 27 – November 1, 2024 As we continued to work on some items required to place Utopia back into the water, she got a major detailing.  Last March I twisted my ankle as we prepared the boat for long term storage, and once that happened, we cut out several of our tasks, like cleaning the boat and polishing the stainless. After the boat sat in a dusty yard between a cellulose & pulp mill and a railroad track result

Brunswick, GA October 20-26, 2024 Our checklist for Utopia  to return to the water is getting very small.  For the most part, she is ready for splashing now. The yard has scheduled our launch for Thursday the 31st and we have a slip reserved with the marina starting then. Since the yard is only open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday – Friday and does not allow owners on site during off hours, our project list has sort of become our “job”. Each morning, we get up and head to the b

October 12-October 19 Brunswick, Georgia This week we really got started in earnest on getting the boat back in seaworthy shape. After the initial excitement of getting back to the boat it began to sink in that we had a bunch of work to do on the inside and the outside. Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to focus on what we do during each week to get the boat ready and what snags and/or issues we run into during this process. We promise once we are back in the water

No hiking, no boating, just a lot of in between.

September 29- October 4, 2024 Newport TN, Hayesville NC, and Tallahassee Total Trail Miles Hiked: 1673 Total Uncompleted Trail Miles: 524 (24%) Start date: April 21 End date: September 24 (Day 157)   Sorting by name is recommended.  Well as the title of this week's blog states, we are at the end of our Appalachian Trail hike after 157 days and almost 1700 miles. On Sunday September 30th we successfully obtained a shuttle to get us out of Newport TN. Since I-40 to the east wa

This week involved a lot of sitting around.