Posts In The “North America East Coast” Category

Miami Cruise Terminal

Miami Cruise Terminal

The Miami Cruise Terminal is the busiest passenger port in the world, handling 6.8 million travelers in 2019. The facility has room for ten large cruise ships and has recently seen a number of upgrades and new construction projects to support the burgeoning industry. In 2018, Royal Caribbean opened the 170,000 sq ft (15,000 sq…

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Changing Plans, Again

Changing Plans, Again

Our plans are always fairly fluid, but the past couple of years have seen even more changes than normal. In 2020, we made three major itinerary adjustments: skipping the Mediterranean and instead heading to Scotland; crossing the North Sea to Norway while en-route to cruising the Scottish Orkney and Shetland island groups; and choosing to…

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Charleston

Charleston

We really enjoyed our first week back in the US at Charleston City Marina after our month-long passage from Dublin via Horta. It was hard to believe that a few months earlier we were in Farsund, Norway and frozen in with ice so thick we could walk on it and now we were in Charleston,…

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Charleston Arrival

Charleston Arrival

We completed the final leg of our passage from Horta to Charleston in the same conditions as we started, with light winds, calm seas and great speed. In the middle, we had two weather systems to contend with, including the first named storm of the year, tropical storm Ana. Photo courtesy Pierce and Janet Guyer…

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Newport Yachting Center

Newport Yachting Center

Newport Yachting Center was a wonderful place to live for a few weeks as we staged for our Atlantic crossing. The marina had just put its docks back in the water the week prior to our arrival, but we didn’t realize just how early we were in their season until we’d been there a month…

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Passage Preparation

Passage Preparation

We generally keep Dirona ready to go to sea at a moment’s notice, and securing the cockpit furniture is typically all we need to do as we get underway. For multi-day passages, we do some additional preparation ranging from provisioning, to heavy weather preparation, to paperwork necessary to bring Spitfire into a new country. Highlights…

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Fort Adams

Fort Adams

Fort Adams guards the harbor entrance to Newport and is the largest coastal fortification in the US. The parade area is 800ft across and covers 6.5 acres. We can see the fort from our berth at Newport Yachting Center and on a warm, sunny day finally got over for a tour. On the way we…

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Thunderbolt to Newport

Thunderbolt to Newport

With a big push from the Gulf Stream and an evolving good weather forecast, an overnight run from Thunderbolt, Georgia turned into a three-night run to Cape May, New Jersey and eventually a four-night run directly to Newport, RI. Trip highlights from March 25th through 29th, 2017 follow. Click any image for a larger view,…

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Flying over Newport

Flying over Newport

In January of this year, while walking in St. Marys, Georgia, we heard a drone and went to check it out. What really caught our interest here was that the person with the controls wasn’t even looking at the drone. It was a DJI Mavic Pro that had some really impressive features, including the ability…

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Thunderbolt Marine

Thunderbolt Marine

We’d never heard of Thunderbolt, Georgia, nor the superyacht yard there, until we were referred to Ian Anderson, an electronics installer at local Mackay Communications. Following an overnight run from Halifax Harbor, we spent three busy but enjoyable days at Thunderbolt Marine while we upgraded our KVH V7 mini-VSAT satellite data system to the latest…

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Halifax Harbor Marina

Halifax Harbor Marina

Halifax Harbor Marina is among the closest marinas to Daytona International Speedway, which is the main reason we picked it. But we were so happy with our berth there that we extended our four-week stay to six weeks almost immediately upon arrival. It was an excellent base to attend the racing at Volusia and Daytona,…

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Bike Week

Bike Week

Barely have the Daytona 500 crowds dissipated when Daytona Beach hosts the 76th annual Bike Week. The 10-day motorcycle event originated in 1937 and draws an estimated 500,000 people. From the marina we’d been hearing motorcycles pass all week, and after a morning of running errands with a rental car, we spent the rest of…

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Daytona 500

Daytona 500

We bought a four-day package for the Daytona 500 that included the Can-Am Duel on Thursday night, the NASCAR truck race on Friday night, the Xfinity Series race on Saturday and of course, the Daytona 500 on Sunday. We had great time watching the races, and being at the Daytona 500 was super-exciting. But a…

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The Greatest Show on Dirt

The Greatest Show on Dirt

We’d come to Daytona primarily to attend the Daytona 500, but that’s not the only major racing event in the area in February. Nearby Volusia Motor Speedway was hosting the season opener for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car racing, “The Greatest Show on Dirt!”. The last dirt track racing we saw was in August…

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Miami Boat Shows

Miami Boat Shows

From Daytona Beach we made a road trip south to Miami for a couple of days to check out the Miami boat shows. While there we spent some time at sea on FBP 781 Cochise, toured the new Ranger Tug R-29 CB, and also checked out Nordhavn 92 Rest Assured. Trip highlights from Feb 15th…

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ICW Miles 778 to 830: St. Augustine to Daytona Beach

ICW Miles 778 to 830: St. Augustine to Daytona Beach

We initially were planning to run offshore from St. Augustine to Daytona Beach, but decided to take the ICW for a couple of reasons. The nearest inlet to Daytona Beach is about 14 miles south of the city at Ponce de Leon Inlet and it looked like it might be a challenging entry. The breakwater…

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St. Augustine, FL

St. Augustine, FL

“The first this, the oldest that” begins Lonely Planet’s description of St. Augustine. The town the Spanish founded in 1565 retains dozens of historical buildings ranging as far back as the Spanish era and now is a popular tourist destination. We spent two night anchored off town, enjoying the sights from the water and ashore….

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Cumberland Island, Georgia

Cumberland Island, Georgia

Cumberland Island is Georgia’s southernmost barrier island and is a popular destination full of hiking trails and dramatic scenery. In the 1880s, Thomas M. Carnegie, the brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and his wife Lucy built Dungeness, a 59-room Scottish castle on the island’s southern tip. Fire later destroyed the mansion, and the Dungeness…

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