The first 3 1/2 months of our cruising season were spent in Charleston, which we thoroughly loved. Most of our days were spent on boat projects, although we did find plenty of time to enjoy the company of good friends and had fun exploring the city. The second part of our year was spent moving up the coast from South Carolina to Cape May, NJ. Except for a side trip to Manteo on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and a few weather delays, it was pretty uneventful.
Our first real adventure of the year came when we decided to take the inside route up the New Jersey coast through the ICW instead of waiting on high winds and rough seas in the Atlantic Ocean. We don't regret making the trip and we got to see a little more of New Jersey, but I'm pretty sure it was a once in a lifetime event. After our long, very slow trip up the coast we spent a wonderful day in New York City. We had a lot of wet cool days this spring, but we got an absolutely amazing day to ride bikes around NYC and Central Park…definitely a highlight of the year.
I felt our real cruising season began when we went up the East River into Long Island Sound and headed towards New England. What a great place to spend the summer and our friends on Amici made it even better. Their gracious hospitality while we were in their homeport of Branford, CT made us feel like we were home and we really enjoyed spending time with them on Block Island and in Martha’s Vineyard. The highlights of our visit to New England were Newport, Mystic, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod and Boston. As wonderful as New England was and despite the wonderful time we were having with our friends, our true destination for the summer was Maine. Luckily by this time the weather was finally giving us a break and we got to spend four wonderful weeks exploring this amazing state. We enjoyed the beautiful coastline, small towns like Camden, hiking on Mount Desert, picking blueberries, seeing the wildlife, eating lobsters and visiting with the local people. Four weeks were definitely not long enough to absorb all that Maine has to offer…we will be back.
As we departed Maine we made our way back down the coast and visited places we missed on our way up. The one true highlight of the summer was having Kyle and Brytanie join us for Labor Day weekend in New York City. We had a great time having them onboard and getting to show them NYC from the deck of The Pearl. An added bonus during their visit was having the Pianas (Bryt’s family) join us for a day of cruising and exploring the city. We truly enjoyed having family onboard and sharing our cruising life with them.
After Labor Day we made our way down the east coast and back to the Chesapeake, where we enjoyed three weeks in Baltimore. It was a great place to transition back into life on land…we had time to relax, do a little work on the boat, explore the city and catch up with friends before we headed back to Texas. It was another wonderful year on the boat and now that we are home we can see how blessed we are to have the opportunity to see so many unbelievable places, meet so many great people and spend so much time on the water. For now we will spend time catching up with family and friends at home…but we look forward to more adventures on The Pearl next spring!
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This is a map of our New England and Maine stops
This map shows the travels of The Pearl since we bought her in March 2010. To see more details of the places we've been click here.
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