Season 2 Recap, Post 25-47
- sondrawinter
- Nov 23
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 29
During our second season of full-time cruising Utopia was re-launched in Brunswick, GA, headed down to Fort Lauderdale before crossing over to the Bahamas. After our allotted time we returned to the states and worked our way northbound up the eastern seaboard, making it as far up as Martha’s Vineyard. From here we headed back down the coast to a marina in Daytona Beach.
November 2024 – November 2025
Brunswick, GA – Daytona Beach, FL (by the way of the Bahamas and Marthas Vineyard)
4,135 NM | 4,757 miles
Covered in this post:
Fun Facts
Since we did not do statistics for our first season, they are being included here so we have it handy.
Season 2: November 2024 (Brunswick, GA) – October 2025 (Daytona Beach, FL) | Season 1: October 2023 (St. Petersburg, FL) – October 2024 (Brunswick, GA) | |
Total Days Underway | 111 | 45 |
Total Nautical Miles | 4,138 | 950 |
Total Statue Miles | 4,757 | 1,092 |
Avg NM per day underway | 37 | 21 |
Avg miles per day underway | 43 | 24 |
Engine Hours | 676 | 185 |
Longest trip (NM) | 338 | 96 |
Longest day trip (NM) | 68 | 43 |
Number multiday trips | 8 | 2 |
Season 1 Multi-day Trips
Marco Island to Key West, 96 NM, one night
Maimi to West Palm Beach, 88 NM, one night
Season 2 Multi-day Trips
Cumberland Island to West Palm Beach, 266 NM, two nights
Fort Lauderdale to Great Harbour Cay, 129 NM, one night
Great Sale Cay to Brunswick, 338 NM, two nights
Brunswick to Beaufort, SC, 107, one night
Charleston to Wrightsville Beach, 157 NM, one night
Chesapeake City to Block Island, 285 NM, two nights
Sandy Hook to Cape May, 117 NM, one night
Wrightsville Beach to Cumberland Island, 302 NM, two nights
This season defiantly covers a lot more sailing miles than our first season where we put Utopia on the hard and hiked 1,700 miles of the Appalachian Trail.
Relaunching Utopia and Heading South
Dates Halloween 2024 – January 15, 2025
338 NM | 388 Miles
Utopia was placed back into water on Halloween 2024 after sitting in the Brunswick Landing Marina Boatyard for seven months (Post 24-44). We moved back onboard and remained at the marina until we departed (Post 25-2) the morning of New Years Eve and rang in the new year at an anchorage next to Cumberland Island, GA.
On New Years Day we began our trek down to Fort Lauderdale starting with a multi night offshore passage to West Palm Beach, FL that also served as a shakedown cruise as we found a few weak links in our set up. January 8, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale to wait for a weather window for crossing over to the Bahamas.
The Commonwealth of The Bahamas
January 16 – April 12
872 NM including crossing to the Bahamas
A good weather window opened for us to depart Fort Lauderdale the morning of January 16. Our first crossing of the Gulf Stream was not bad and completed before sunset. The night was spent traversing the Great Bahama Bank on the way to the Berry Islands. By noon on January 17, we were at a marina and fully checked into the Bahamas and allowed to stay for 90 days.
Our visit to the Bahamas can be compared to a flight of drinks where you get a small sample of a variety of flavors as we made a counterclockwise loop of most of the country. Starting from the Berry Islands, we headed to New Providence, and the extremely beautiful Exuma chain of islands to George Town where we stayed for about two weeks awaiting some bad weather to pass by. From there we visited Long Island and rented a car to see more of this elongated island. Then we stopped at the very remote Conception Island which is entirely within a national park. The north bound trek took us up Cat Island which perhaps has the friendliest locals we had met. Next stop was Little San Salvador Island as a mid-point landing spot on the way to Eleuthera. (Links open up related blog posts).
The first stop in Eleuthera was at a marina to hide out from some weather. Plus, it was Jimmy’s birthday, so we were able to walk to a restaurant for a dinner. By now we had started to meet other cruisers and found ourselves lightly buddy boating with Alboe and Allegra while in Eleuthera. It was nice having them nearby when part way up Eleuthera Island Jimmy needed a trip to a health clinic.
In late March we sailed north from Egg Island in Eleuthera to Abaco. From here we hopped around the islands of Abaco working our way north, then west. We continued to meet other cruisers and even had an impromptu Caliber meet up at Green Turtle Cay. April 12 was our last night in the Bahamas where we anchored off Great Sale Cay with about 20 other boats staging for their jumps back to the States.
Meeting cruisers and locals were delightful highlights of visiting this most incredibly beautiful country. We made some great friends throughout our tour of the country, still keeping in touch and meeting up in person when possible.
Northbound to the Chesapeake
April 13 – June 29
1078 NM
Our return to the States (Post 25-16) started off with a three-day/two-night trip, crossing the Gulf Stream again. The sail up to Brunswick, GA was done with some fast speeds since we were going with the flow of the Gulf Stream. Checking into the USA was easy, and all done using an app.
After a short rest in Brunswick, we began our trip up the Eastern seaboard. It started with an outside overnight passage up to Beaufort, SC. While here we had lunch with the former owners of Utopia. We arrived in Charleston via two-day trip up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Here Utopia sat while we had new autopilot, air conditioner and instrumentation installed (Post 25-22). During this pause, Sondra hiked the Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail (Post 25-21).
At the completion of this work, Utopia exited the Charleston area and made an overnight trip up to Wrightsville Beach, NC. From here she stayed in the ICW until reaching the Chesapeake. Along the way we stopped at:
Beaufort, NC (Post 25-24)
Belhaven, NC
Coinjock Marina, NC
Great Bridge Dock in Chesapeake, VA
Norfolk, VA (Post 25-25)
In Mid-June we entered the Chesapeake for our first time. It was nice to have open waters once again. However, a massive heat dome descended upon us shortly after reaching the Bay. With Baxter on board, we needed to take the heat index seriously and escaped to marinas a few nights so we could plug into shore power and turn on the air conditioning. We visited these towns on our trip north up the Chesapeake:
Phoebus, VA (outside of Hampton Roads)
Deltaville, VA (Post 25-26)
Reedville, VA
St. Marys City, MD
Point Lookout Marina, Ridge, MD
Buddy Boating to New England and Back
June 30 – October 31
1444 NM
When Jimmy and I joined ABYC we met and became friends with Cam and Denise Whitlock. Years later it was coincidental that they implemented a plan to take off cruising that would align with our schedule. And so, at the end of June in 2025, they arrived in Solomons Island, MD aboard their beautiful boat Quest II while Utopia was anchored there (Post 25-27). Over the next four months we generally cruised together with a few times where one of the boats would remain behind to wait for packages and such.
Together we sailed up to Annapolis for the Independence Day celebrations, and over to St. Michaels, MD. After returning to Annapolis for a few days, Utopia moved on up to Chesapeake City, MD, then completed a two-night passage to Block Island, RI a few days ahead of Quest II. (Post 25-29)
The next couple of weeks Utopia and Quest II bounced back and forth between Newport, RI and Block Island. While in Newport, both boats had family members come visit our boats, we also had some sailing friends come visit us (Sans Souci). In between our family visitors we cruised together to Cuttyhunk, MA and Martha’s Vineyard, MA (Post 25-32) and back to Newport & Block Island.
While the crew of Quest II was saying goodbye to their family visitors, and having boat work done, Utopia took off for Montauk, NY. Our separation from Quest II was prolonged by Hurricane Erin where both boats needed to find safe spots to hunker down. We ended up in New London, CT where we visited a hiking/sailing friend, Zeke, who lived nearby (Post 25-35).
From New London we stopped by Fishers Island, NY and Port Jefferson, NY where Quest II joined us. Next, we headed to Port Washington, where we took a train to Manhattan. It was fun to see the city a couple of days before we cruised through the area. Quest II took a fantastic photo of Utopia next to the Statue of Liberty (Post 25-37). Following that epic visit to New York, we went to Sandy Hook, NJ to prepare for an overnight passage to Cape May, NJ.
Our next stops were Chesapeake City, Rock Hall, and St. Michaels (Post 25-38) before returning to Annapolis. While there we reunited with Alboe and left our boats behind to attend a Seven Seas Cruising Association Gam (Post 25-39), took classes with Cruisers University and attended both the powerboat and sailboat shows. Once the boat shows wrapped up and the weather cooperated, we headed south (Post 25-42), visiting Solomons and Portsmouth, across the river from Newport.
Mile Post 0.0 of the ICW is on the Elizabeth River between the towns of Newport and Portsmouth, and thus far, Quest II had not experienced much of the ICW, so we took off south together down the ICW passing through the Great Bridge Lock together (Post 25-43) and visiting the following locations:
Belhaven
Oriental (Post 25-44)
Beaufort
Wrightsville Beach (Post 25-45)
It was an incredible opportunity to spend four months with our longtime friends. We are so glad that things lined up for cruising paths to overlap before we head off in different directions.
The Race to Daytona Beach
November 1 – November 12
407 NM
After spending nearly every day for four months talking to or hanging out with Quest II, it was surreal to part from them as our plans began to diverge. It had been really cool having our longtime friends with us as we cruised the eastern seaboard. As the weeks went by, we really began to lean on each other a bit, and it felt like we formed a little family. The morning of our departure from Wrightsville Beach, we had the usual nervous energy of a multi-day offshore passage, and sort of looking forward to settling down in Daytona. So, with an odd mix of emotions, we said our goodbyes to Quest II, weighed anchor and took off on a two-night passage down to Cumberland Island. There, we went on a couple of long hikes, then worked our way down the ICW into Florida stopping at Fernandina Beach, and St. Augustine before arriving at our final destination of the year, a marina in Daytona Beach. We will remain here for several weeks taking care of boat projects, going to medical appointments and visiting family and friends, including the crew of Quest II, throughout the holiday season.
Post 25-47
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