Month: November 2021

The day finally arrived and on Nov. 8th, the US Land borders opened for those of us longing to get back to our boats. We were eager to head south and ended up leaving Kingston 2 hours earlier then planned on Nov. 9. We left at 1pm and arrived at the Thousand Island border crossing in about 30 minutes. We were very worried about the wait time at the border and we were watching it very closely on Nov. 8. Some crossings reported wait times of 3 hours or more so we were ready for anything. Fortunately, we breezed through the border – no one ahead of us in line and after all the questions were answered, we were on our way!! Oh so easy!

The drive down was good – not too much traffic (except around the usual places) and even the Washington bypass went smoothly. Our biggest challenge was driving overnight. We both became super tired around 2 am and then again at about 5 am. But we powered through and made a few more stops to stretch our legs and wake ourselves up.

All was going great until we got to Georgia!!! There was about 2.5 hours left on our drive when the tire pressure warning came on. Sure enough we had a rear tire losing air..fast!! Fortunately we were close to an exit with 3 gas stations. We pulled in and Mark changed the tire. Of course to get at the replacement tire, we had to completely empty the back of the car!!! The tire didn’t take long to change but we needed to fix the old tire (or replace it) because the temporary tire is just that..temporary. Okay, now we’re on the hunt for a place to fix the old tire! Fun!

We ended up at Darien Tire and Lube in Eulonia, Georgia. The tire couldn’t be repaired but they sold us a new one – mounted it, installed and balanced it for a really good price and they did all that in about 1 hour.

We made it to Reynold’s Park by noon and went straight to the boat. Crimson Kathryn looked great but man was she dirty!!! Lots of green mold on deck (from stagnant water) and rotten leaves. It will take a bit of scrubbing to clean her up but we have the time!

We checked into the Airbnb around 3 pm after a very short grocery shopping trip to Publix. We’ve now had dinner and a bit of bubbly to celebrate! We’ll be heading to bed early tonight and starting the cleanup job tomorrow! Yippy!!!

It’s hard to believe that a year and a half has gone by since we last stepped foot aboard Crimson Kathyrn! The boat has been patiently waiting for us to drive back down to Florida, clean her up and splash her back in the water. We sure never dreamed it would take this long to get back out on the water. Who knew?

April 10th 2020 was the final day of preparing C.K. for what we hoped would be our usual 6 months hurricane season rest. We had left the Bahamas early because of covid and headed back to Reynolds Park Marina where we would store the boat. We spent our last few days in Florida removing all food items and making sure the boat was well put away, just in case we were gone for longer than 6 months. As it turns out, it was certainly worth the extra effort.

As the days dragged on and we got closer to the 2022 sailing season, Mark and I began looking at options for getting down to Florida. I had booked an airbnb for the month of November (I did this back in June) to make sure we had a place to stay if we were able to return to Florida. By the end of the summer, it was still unclear if the border would reopen to land travel and whether mixed vaccinated people (that’s me) would be allowed to cross. By the beginning of September, I canceled our Airbnb – things weren’t looking great at that point. Friends of ours had decided to fly down and ship their car. We looked into this but by the time we started this process, lots of car transports were full.

Finally in the middle of October the good news came – border reopening Nov. 8 and mixed vaccinated folks are good to go!!! There was a bit of celebrating in our house that day! I quickly booked another Airbnb for the week of Nov. 10 – 17 and our plan was taking shape!.

So here we are – in one week we’ll be driving down to Florida. Our goal is to leave Kingston around 3pm on Nov. 9 and drive straight down to Green Cove Springs (just south of Jacksonville). It’s about a 19 hour drive – long but doable. We’ll spend that first week getting the boat water ready and launched so we can move aboard by the end of our Airbnb week. This season we’ve decided to stay in Florida for Christmas (just in case Covid rules change again) and the girls are flying down to join us for a week over Christmas. We will definitely miss our family celebrations but are planning some video chats over the holidays! At the start of the new year we’ll be off to the Bahamas!!! Sailing season 2022 will be underway! Yippy!