Now that we know that Ruth and Randall avoided the Typhoon in Subic Bay, I was wondering where the other ducks are. Jubilee will be arriving in the Southeast pretty soon. John and I and the "Peking" are winterizing in Connecticut. Where are the Nagles and David Fritch? Are you all still in Hong Kong. Is "Ice" in Antaricia? I think that this would be a good forum to check in, meet up and hear about the cruises. John and I are now planning to leave from our dock in Alabama and head to Mexico and afterwards
Rio Dulce, Guatemala. We are doing our research now and it looks like a place we would like to visit for awhile. We have 18 months before we leave but who is counting? The baby graduates from the Coast Guard Academy in May of '09.
Ducks check in.

We are currently in Wrangell, AK having started our trip north a little over three weeks ago. We'll be in Alaska through the end of August and then will start our trip south. We expect to be back in Seattle in middle/end of September.

More details than you may care to read are at our blog Alpenglow blog.

Well ICE is finally on the road but a few yearts sitting on the marina waiting for me to finish other adventures means it is like sea trialing a new boat...anything that could go wrong sort of did and a lot of good brand name gear has failed...opperator error just cooked out 180 hr. Northern light Gen set...we are now in Palau headed to Tonga..you can check out the blog for all the details at www.bluetreasure.me do some special "Duckers blogs" with boat stuff every few weeks...Don

Peking is now in Bonaire N.A . We will be meeting up with Benno and Marlene on Diesel Duck in Curacao soon.
We left Trinidad for Isla Margarita in Venezuela. We were traveling with another boat and traveled with the running lights off due to recent problems from the Venezuelan coast. We had no problems. In Isla Margarita we bought 1100 gallons of diesel fuel at a very reasonable price. We now have over 2000 gallons on board which will give us tremendous range.
We are interested in going to the San Blas islands off the coast of Panama. We will be there in January. After that we will decide whether to go through the canal of head back to the East. Life is good.

Jubilee (382-3) is in Georgetown, South Carolina, at a nice little marina called the Boat Shed. Jubilee arrived in Charleston on November 30th, courtesy of COSCO, the Chinese container ship company. She arrived in great shape except for some very dirty decks from some 25 days at sea with "stack soot" dropping on her. We were "placed" in the water at 9:30 PM on a very dark night, with no opportunity to rig an anchor. We also were not sure of our fuel supply. Seahorse had assured us that we had 20 gallons in the tank but it is a large tank and the gauge was "pegged" on empty. The gantry , as I said dropped us in the water between the bow of the ship and the bulkhead, which was the only place it could reach. We then had to motor out from under the ships bowlines (with the tide runnign against us) Ed Maynard was with me and I was indeed thankful for his help and assistance. We did make it to the marina with no problem. Two days later, after rigging anchors, taking on fuel, etc., we motored about 65 miles north on the ICW to Georgetown.

Georgtown is a small, historic South Carolina city of about 5,000 I believe. It is here that we are having our electronics installed. Our home in Charlotte, NC is only 4 hours away. We will be back and forth for the next few months as we learn the systems, do some sea trial and gradually move aboard. The plan is to start north in March or April, spending the coming summer again cruising the Great Lakes, which I have missed for too long. Then, probably south again to the Bahamas for the winter of 2008/2009. After that??

I have posted several albums of photos on my "Snapfish" site, including photos of the arrival, unloading and trip to Georgtown. If you would care to view these and you are not a member of my "group", just send me an email at deanodeano@earthlink.net and i will send you an invite from the site.

Regards to all.

Good name! We had a boat in the 50's named Umiak. It supposedly means "Family Boat," in Eskimo, in case anybody was wondering! Kayak means one guy boat.

George

quote:

Originally posted by Hugh Palmer:
Umiak is in China! Floating, so I figure this isn't entirely premature. We hope to be floating in the Pacific North West, starting in Olympia with a trip to desolation sound by summer.


Hugh and Elena
SD #1

No...ICE is not in Antarctica yet....still in the water at SeaHorse...Virtually finnished but I have to go to work in Antarctica for Dec/Jan so back in Feb to put the Masts up...then to Hong Kong late Maqrch...then Subic in April sometime....Hopefully! will make some posts when we are on the road ....any new boat will have pleanty to talk about....but so far so good.

Umiak is in China! Floating, so I figure this isn't entirely premature. We hope to be floating in the Pacific North West, starting in Olympia with a trip to desolation sound by summer.


Hugh and Elena
SD #1