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New York to Maine
We completed another long passage, going from New York to Maine in just over a week. Aside from Janet and I, we had my son, Christoper onboard with us. We put him through a mini-sailing camp complete...
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Back on the boat
We’ve been a bit remiss in documenting our last travel leg from New York to Maine. We intended to post daily logs of each day, but haven’t gotten around to it. It looks like we can post date entries,...
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I spy….
Killams Wharf Yarmouth webcam Eric is on Tortuga heading in to Canadian waters. He, along with another crew, did a 150 mile overnight sail across the Bay of Fundy to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Winds and...
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Rolling Seas
Leaving Maine behind in the setting sun We left Belfast, Maine at about 3:00 pm with the intent of missing some bad weather that was moving out towards the end of the day and into the night. The winds...
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Running for Cover
We set out this morning from Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia headed for the northern part of the province and the Canso Canal. The plan was to do an overnight sail for the 130+ miles. Shortly into the trip...
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A Brief Respite
We set out yesterday in a slowly lifting morning fog. The original plan was to reach for PEI, but because of the fog delay I felt like we were trying to force the miles, which became less-fun. We...
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Southwesterlies
Sunset in Jeddore Harbor We are anchored in Fisherman’s Harbor on the coast of Nova Scotia tonight. It has an abandoned fishing dock in a cove. We did not secure ourselves to the dock, but anchored a...
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Prince Edward Island
View of Tortuga in the distance in Murray Harbor We’re currently in Murray Harbor, PEI on a very quiet and calm Sunday morning. The water is a bit thin getting into the harbor, so we’re waiting a...
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That’s an American Boat!
We’ve heard this a couple of times since we’ve been in Canada while Tortuga’s been tied up in a few of the harbors/marinas. We wondered whether the people were fascinated by the fact that it is a boat...
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Wave washing over the bow. Captured this video while we were sailing the Atlantic from Halifax to Jeddore Harbor, Nova Scotia. http://svtortuga.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Waves-on-the-bow.m4v This...
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Getting ready for a big splash!
Tortuga underwent some significant updates over a long winter in storage. She now looks like new…new lifelines, a new Gori prop, cleaned sails, and a fresh polish of the aluminum hull. We put her in...
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A New Home in Chicago
Well, that took a bit of time. We finally arrived in our new home port of Chicago the other day, after a chilly and breezy passage down from Racine, Wisconsin. Tortuga wintered at the Racine...
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Marina Life
We’re getting settled into marina life. The most notable advantage is that our house is 3-miles from Tortuga’s slip. After spending a year flying back and forth across the country to get aboard, this...
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Out For The Day
Yesterday the plan was to do a bit of boat work now that Janet has returned from her adventures in Haiti. When we left Racine a few weeks ago we hoisted our furled gennaker before we left the dock....
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No Spray Paint in Chicago
Owning a boat is a lot of work. We keep a running “to-do” list on the app, Wunderlist, and slowly chip away at it. It seems that as soon as we remove one item, we’re adding two more. This weekend we...
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Splash
Since our boat is currently in the Great Lakes, we pull her out every autumn and place her into heated storage. The mast comes down, the sails all come off, and we work on the punch-list throughout...
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Where There Is No Doctor
Up the mast Janet is an Emergency Medicine Physician and I’m a Paramedic, so suffice it to say that we pay a lot of attention to our medical kit aboard Tortuga. We keep track of our medical kit...
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Sea Sickness Protocol
Since we have a lot of first-time sailors as guests aboard Tortuga, we’re particularly sensitive to people getting seasick. Nothing can ruin a day faster or potentially turn someone off from sailing...
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Commissioning Week
Starboard clutches It’s Commissioning Week for Tortuga, coming out from a long winter’s nap, dipped gently back into the still chilly waters of Lake Michigan, and painstakingly reassembled. This is...
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Do the Hard Thing
I’m essentially a lazy sailor. Sometimes I’ll just set the mainsail and jib to about the correct point of sail and move on to something else… set it and forget it, time for lunch. The result is that...
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