Summer Breeze soon to be renamed Lady Darcy!

We have very much enjoyed our time on Summer Breeze. She has challenged us in many ways, we have learned a tremendous amount, have had some amazing experiences and made some wonderful lifelong friends. We traveled to the Chesapeake Bay, to the Abacos, to the Florida Keys and the FL loop twice and crossing Florida via the Okeechobee Lake 3 times.  

Meet Robert (Bobby) Kleiman and Michelle Fair, new owners of Summer Breeze!

Their plans are to be full time liveaboards in Stuart, FL. They will be doing their desired updates while at the marina as they prepare for their own adventures in cruising on "Lady Darcy" named after their beloved King Charles Cavalier 15 1/2 yr old pup who is making the trip home with them along with Finnley.

Darcy discovered that sleeping on the floor in our pantry was her spot!

Finnley found his "happy place" on board.

Video of Bobby and Michelle leaving our dock on Tuesday, July 27.

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They spent several days here with us learning more about their new boat and moving on. 

The dogs were definitely a part of the training sessions.

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The survey/inspection was on July 13-15th.

On July 13, we take her over to the boat yard for the haul out and survey. Inspector #1 does the engine inspection and a sea trial.

The next day we are back there at 8 AM to meet the other surveyor and prepare for the haul out. 

Bella is ready.

She always looks so BIG out of the water! 

Time for another sea trial with surveyor/inspector #2

Bobby takes a turn at the helm with Bruce

On July 15, we take her back to her home dock and we realize that this is our last time to cruise...

 thus our final family photo on Summer Breeze!

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A throwback look when we bought Mar Azul in St Petersburg, FL and renaming her Summer Breeze.

Last visit for Bob and Elaine Ebaugh

2021: Prepping for our spring cruise

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We are preparing for our 2021 trip south. We have received our vaccinations and will stay in Florida again this year hoping to visit with family and friends who will have been vaccinated as well. 

2020! We all say "ugh"! 

Our 2020 trip was cut short and though we had hoped to take several trips around the SC coast in the fall, Summer Breeze left the dock only once. There was plenty to do on her besides whatever Bruce does in the ER (engine room). 

Rosie and fellow artists were busy keeping the gallery open which we are happy to say survived Covid.

Isinglass and bimini top cleaning and repair.

Since we live in a hurricane zone we decided to be proactive and take the bimini and isinglass down before the storm season, cleaning them and putting them away ready to hang again. And of course, no storm in 2020! If that guarantees no major storms we will gladly do that yearly. 

We washed and polished the isinglass hanging them on the dock to dry before storing away.

The bimini always needs repair. It is not that old but the thread that was used is not holding up to the sun. We have spot stitched many places but this time we double stitched ALL the seams. 

Then there is the teak work...again.  Discovering that we did not do it "correctly" before, this time we took it down to bare wood and started anew. It looks beautiful. 

Dinghy repairs

While in FL last spring, we managed to get some tears in the dinghy from barnacles at a dock. Luckily we had some emergency repair material from the previous owner on board which saved us. We got back to Summer Breeze with one side totally deflated! Our patch held during our travel but we were still losing air so last summer we took her in for repair and they found several other small tears that were about to be real trouble. Jasmine is all patched up now and is holding all her air again! 

We had been having trouble with the dinghy motor on every trip even after having the carburetors rebuilt several times so Captain said "enough".  

He traded it in for a brand new Yamaha 15HP 4 Stroke. We took the dink out several times around the Toogoodoo breaking the motor in and checking it out. She is ready now for some coastal exploring! 

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May 22 - 24, Marsh Harbor but not before getting hankled again!

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May 22, Wednesday

We left Man O War Cay for Marsh Harbor, right across the Sea of Abaco. We could see it and Hope Town from our anchorage. But we didn't leave before checking the anchor locker as the windlass has been "struggling" a bit, so we thought, hmmmm. Hankles? Yep, we got hankled again! It took us about 2 hours to break apart 75' of chain from the twists and knots it was all in. We've got to figure out how not to get hankled any more and to set a regular "check for hankles" schedule. No pics of that, should have! 

Rib night at the Jib Room, Marsh Harbor Marina

There are a couple 100 boats in the harbor between the anchorage and several marinas. It took us a bit to figure out where to drop the hook knowing some strong winds were coming. Boats come and go here constantly. The large catamarans definitely outnumber mono hulls and trawlers. There are only 2 trawlers here. We later found out there is a catamaran rendezvous going on this weekend with 100s of them coming from everywhere! We hope to be moving south by then! 

View from the bow of Summer Breeze

Colors of the Sea restaurant in the harbor. The dock in front has not been repaired after some of the storms.

For several days, we've been hearing boaters call the Jib Room and put an order in for ribs. We looked it up and ran into some other cruisers that have been here before and they told us that the Jib Room at the MH marina is famous for the Wednesday ribs. So we called and got on the list! They were yummy and enough to bring home for a 2nd meal. Sorry, no pic of that but I really should've! 

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May 23, Thursday

The winds are blowing with some nice gusts. Our anchor is holding well in this sand and we are staying put here. Winds are between 15-20 and gusts up to 30. We stayed in all day not wanting to mess with the dinghy with those winds and waves. 
I got a little painting done and we both got caught up on some reading. 

Sunset at Great Guana Cay 

from Grabber's Beach Bar and Grill

4 x 12

We love to have our evening meal on the flybridge where we set up a small bistro table. The view is the best there! 

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May 24, Friday

Memorial Day weekend is here and more boats are in. The winds are still high so we stayed put. We did go into town to have a nice pre anniversary lunch at Wally's and then walk over to Maxwell's, the new super market. It is huge and really nice. Has everything we could want. Prices? Some things were normal but other things were definitely about 50% higher. But it is available! 

Wally's restaurant house and gardens

Man O War Cay to Marsh Harbor

5.7 miles

Total 724

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May 8 - 10, Allans Pensacola Cay and Crab Cay

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We left Fox Town, Little Abaco Island at 10 AM and headed for Allans Pensacola Cay which is only about an hour away. By the time we raised the anchor, went around all the rocks and shoals, got on track and entered the anchorage area, it was noon. 

Our anchorage. By late afternoon, there were about 8 other boats settled in.

This used to be 2 separate cays before a hurricane joined them at some time. It is also the site of an abandoned US missile tracking operation. There are also a couple of trails across the cay that lead to the ocean and to the infamous signing tree(s). 

Dinghy ride to the cay and searching for the trails to the ocean side

The entrance to one of the trails

The entrance to the main path.

The paths (through a jungle) are kind of marked with trash items, like a shoe, a container lid, a buoy, a rope, a shirt, or a plastic jug in most places lead you to the ocean side of the island. We still had to squeeze through the jungle but looking ahead you could see the next object and you know to go that direction. Thankfully, we wore our solid beach and rock shoes and long sleeves sun shirts. It was quite buggy going through. 

The signing tree where cruisers have left a momento with the names, vessel name and date. We saw a couple signs from Folly Beach and Bluffton!

We hope to go back tomorrow with our signature piece to add. 

View of the ocean side

We came back and swam for a while and it was time to relax again. We plan on staying another day here while the next rain front blows through and exploring the neighboring cay by dinghy.

We had a generator go down earlier today and after Bruce doing some trouble shooting and reading, decided to call our marine advisor, Captain Bryan. Sure enough, after some discussion, they came up with a troubleshooting plan and it was up and running again. It was not a major problem at all that was worrisome to us. 

Miles today 9.8

Total trip 660.1

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May 9, Thursday

We had painted a bottle for the Signing Tree (we had to!) so off we go again. Also, we had a jug that was trash and we decided to enhance the path by adding it to an area of the path that was barely marked. 

 Bruce tying up our signature bottle to the Signing Tree

 Best Bahamian sunset so far

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May 10, Friday

The winds were a bit calmer this morning but predicted to pick up again this afternoon so we decided to take an early run to the neighboring cay to explore. 

We found some sea biscuits and an area of the beach with many left over conch shells that have been laying around for quite a while. 

We also ran to the further cay across the cut to the ocean and ended up with a rough ride back. Jasmine's motor is acting up a bit so we put a call into our advisor to see if he had any trouble shooting suggestions. And he did. We will try those later. 

We decided to move on to Crab Cay today as it is protected against the SE winds we are having. Crab Cay is at the entrance to the Sea of Abaco just off of Great Abaco Island and Little Abaco Island.  We raised the anchor at 11:45 and were anchoring again by 12:45. 

I think we found paradise!

 We lowered Jasmine to go exploring and noticed the big black cloud heading our way. We knew that it was coming from the south later but this one was coming from the north so we decided to head back and wait for it to pass. 

We finally did get out and run about the beach of the island, picking up a sprouted coconut palm.  

Bryan????

Sunset from Crab Cay just off of Great Abaco Island

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