March 10, 2025
Canyon Lake, TX
We finally found a way to view Canyon Lake (several access points were closed).
The water level here is very low, so lots of cool rocks are visible.
We also found a bird skull.
We also found a very short path on the opposite side of the river from our cabin.
Michael and Victoria are the epitome of a loving couple and their wedding was a representation of their joy and love. We were so happy to share in their celebration.
Canyon Lake, TX
March 9, 2025
After a really delicious breakfast, we walked another trail. While yesterday’s trail was mostly flat, this one had more inclines.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be outside.
I know I am lucky that John gets that I need to look at all of the things (because I had to look at rocks and plants on this trail, too).
You can see how he just waits for me to catch up (this is probably the third time in 20 minutes). The rocks were pretty cool here, though.
So were the flowers.
We had some time to kill after the trail and prior to picking up Kevin at the airport. We did a quick walk by the Alamo…
…and stopped at the historic Menger Bar, the place Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders.
We moved into our cabin at the wedding venue (also on the Guadalupe River).
We’re part of a family that’s spread out on both coasts (with some members living in the middle). Like many, we don’t often have the chance to gather, and when we do, it’s usually for somber occasions. This trip, however, feels like a rare and meaningful gift-a chance to come together for a celebration, surrounded by those we love dearly.
March 8, 2025
Canyon Lake, TX
John’s nephew Michael is marrying Victoria on Monday! We’re really looking forward to celebrating with family and friends.
We decided to fly in on Saturday so we could explore a bit of Texas Hill Country. Our flight left at 6:00 am, so we were on the road by 3:30.
We stayed in a small hotel near the wedding venue on Saturday.
Canyon Lake is a dammed reservoir fed, in part, by the Guadalupe River, which bends in a horseshoe shape in this location. The Guadalupe is shallow and very clear; it seems to be well-used by fly fishers and,in the summer, tubers (there are many tube rental places here).
There are some walking trails nearby, too. Our first trail was the Guadalupe Access – a few miles out and back.
John and I have different goals on trails. Below is a photo of how John looks at me every time I stop to look at stuff. He likes to walk at a continuous speed while I like to meander and nerd out.
This trail has cool flowers, lichen, plants, rocks, cacti, bones, and moss. I know this because I stopped to examine all of them. John did not stop.
Also, check out these ants!!
The trail wound along the river.
And also through some tall grass (we call this tickweed because it just seems…tick-ish).
This was a peaceful spot.
John stepped on a giant thorn that pierced the sole of his shoe – fortunately, it did not puncture his foot.
After hiking, dinner, and a nightcap we decided to push our ability to stay awake even more by going to astronomy night at the Comal County Public Library.
This library is amazing! It has a seed library…
…and an observatory with a nice telescope. We were able to see Mars, Jupiter (and its 4 moons), Venus and our moon.
(Also, there were lots of cool birds here)
February 14-22, 2025
Port Royal and Philadelphia
February weather is strange this year – it’s been cold, warm, foggy, and sunny, and sometimes all four in a single day.
Warm afternoons are great in Cypress Wetlands because lots of critters are active.
Our marina dock is a good observation spot, too. Hooded mergansers are really distinctive looking. They tend to stay in groups of at least two and often four or five.
Sometimes at low tide we are lucky enough to observe a stingray looking for a meal.
My school district developed a calendar with a short February break this year. I used this break to head to Philadelphia to do a school visit for International Baccalaureate. I rarely do visits but I jumped at the chance to go back to my hometown.
The best part of this was dinner with my sister and one of my nieces.
The part that wasn’t so great was the polar vortex cold that kept temps below freezing the entire time I was there. The fluffy snow that didn’t accumulate was pretty, though.
Port Royal has a lot of neighborhood celebrations, including a Mardi Gras parade of golf carts. Folks throw beads and candy, and everyone heads to the local brewery where there are food trucks and musical performances, including one from a local high school.
People are serious about their golf cart decorations.
The high school band was great!
Shellring Brewery is right on Battery Creek and at low tide there’s a sliver of a beach. Kids were able to play there: throwing rocks in the water, climbing trees, and running around.
It’s supposed to warm up this week (and hopefully stay warm). Spring really is on its way.
January 23-26, 2025
Port Royal, SC
One of the best things about snow in the Low Country is how rare it is to have any at all. There’s no real removal plan besides letting it melt. There’s no rush to get back to busy, so most folks are staying close to home and enjoying time with their loved ones.
School is closed here because we have run out of state-allocated eLearning days. Since students must get a minimum of 180 days of instruction each year and teachers only get paid for days we work, we will have to make up this lost time in person. We are more likely to miss school due to hurricanes (we lost 4 this year) so most of our calendared makeup days have passed. March 17 is on our calendar as a makeup day – the other day has not yet been decided. I think many people think that bad weather days are “free days” but they always come at a price.
Thursday was mostly overcast with heavy skies and only a few hours of above freezing temperatures; snow and ice just barely melted.
It’s kind of relaxing to chip away at the ice, though.
Thursday was the first day I left Lailia. The ice and snow was textured so walking on it wasn’t too treacherous and John had cleared both a landing space on our finger dock and the ramp to the high dock.
Our heron buddies were active in the evening. There are two great blue herons that hang out here – and no doubt they need all the calories they can get to help them stay warm.
Someone also was busy creating a snow friend. It’s so heavy and icy they must have had a time of it.
The parking lot is still a mess and it’s easy to see why the Sheriff’s office is asking people to stay off the roads.
Sunset brought hope – clearer skies are on the way; the sun will definitely help with melting.
Friday
Overnight temperatures have been below freezing so it takes a few hours each morning until melting begins.
We went out for bagels this morning and took a ride to Cypress Wetlands for the rare opportunity to see how it looks decorated with snow.
I hoped I might see some gators but they were probably tucked under a mudbank brumating. There were bluebirds galore and only a few wading birds. In a month or so, this place will be filled with nesting birds
The shadiest parts of the Wetlands actually had a thin skin of ice on them. The water at the marina moves too quickly and has too much salt to freeze in these temperatures.
Temps will continue to rise this weekend so we should have clear, dry roads by Monday morning and get back to normal.
Saturday brought warmer weather and a little more melting. The snow buddy is a good indicator of what’s happening
We also joined all the folks shaking off cabin fever at Shellring Brewery which has a front seat on the best sunset views in town.
Sunday
The snow is mostly gone from the docks although the hard packed stuff in shady places is still slowly melting.
And, finally, for those who celebrate – Go Birds! We are Super Bowl bound!
January 21-?, 2025
Port Royal, SC (marina)
One of our favorite things about the Low Country is the mild winters. Some years we barely get below freezing – and if we do, it’s generally at night with daytime temps in the 50s.
Every so often (the last big snow was in January of 2018 and the one before that was in 1990 or so) we get a BIG SNOW EVENT. There’s all kinds of predictions for all kinds of weather and it makes everyone amateur meteorologists.
One of our favorite sources of information just told us to be prepared for a mess.
The snow/sleet/freezing rain start times kept moving, too, so we were sent home early on Tuesday. School districts have the unenviable task of balancing student and staff safety with maximizing educational opportunities.
Heavy sleet began at around 7:30pm and continued all night. The wind was moaning and the sleet was clicking Lailia continuously but we were snug and cozy.
Every time I woke up, I took a photo of the sleet accumulation from our window. (I am usually not up so often, but this was EXCITING!)
Five years of living onboard and this is our first snow encounter!
We have multiple heat sources onboard (electric and propane). Because we like to sleep in a cooler room, we turn them down at night. Once we were up and working, we turn up the electric and propane to a cozy temperature.
This is the first time we saw our cockpit enclosure encased in ice.
Our deck was coated with inches of icy sleet, which was pretty solidly frozen. I was disappointed with this texture because I had hoped for light, flaky snow so we could build a snow sailor.
Adventure Man John did some marina sightseeing today while I was in about a million Zoom meetings during our eLearning day. It’s definitely bonkers to see all this precipitation.
John did some informal snow clearance on the docks – he kicked a lot off so it could dry. The marina doesn’t have snow shovels or blowers and hopefully all the dockhands stayed off the roads today.
John also cleared the deck above the propane locker so if we need to change out the propane it will be easy to access. The locker is on the lee side of Lailia, so the 3 inches it accumulated was less than on the windward side.
The ice accumulation on top of the cockpit enclosure was pretty heavy, so John removed that as well.
Emergency Management has asked that folks stay off the roads through tomorrow – anything that melted in the short time temps were above freezing will refreeze. School is closed tomorrow – we will have a makeup day in March. The weather won’t t warm up until the weekend so we may also be out of school on Friday, although that makeup day may cut onto our spring break.
We are both very thankful for all the folks who made sure we would be safe and warm during this weather event. It reminds us of how fortunate we are to have so many caring people in our lives.
Mackay and Cowen Creeks
October 25-27, 2024
Prologue:
Our windlass was old and prone to burning out. It was so old that we couldn’t get parts and had to engineer repairs for several years. Each time it stopped working, John had to haul the anchor and chain by hand – heavy, wet, and often muddy work.
John purchased a new windlass this month and after lots of cursing and contortions, got it installed.
Taking Lailia out and anchoring for the weekend was a perfect test of the new windlass. The weather right now is perfect, too, with cooler nights and warm days so we don’t need to run a generator because we won’t need air conditioning to sleep.
We left the marina around 4:30 on Friday and motored across Port Royal Sound.
This anchorage is in a creek just west of Pinckney Island. Days are a little shorter so we anchored as the sun was setting.
The water here is smooth and it’s fairly quiet. Hilton Head has rules about commercial lighting, so it’s also pretty dark.
There really aren’t words for how peaceful it is watching the stars and listening to dolphins while anchored.
Saturday morning was just as calm and peaceful.
After breakfast we saw something completely unexpected. We watched a deer walk along the shore and then swim across the creek.
On Labor Day weekend we anchored in Cowen Creek but didn’t get to explore it much, so after a leisurely breakfast we headed back across Port Royal Sound.
The sound was calm with very little wind. We took advantage of the calm and headed out into the ocean for just a bit.
John had the headsail up for about 20 minutes; it was slow going at 2.5-3 knots. That speed wasn’t going to give us enough time to explore Cowen Creek and drop our anchor before dark, so we dropped the sail and motored.
We anchored in a remote spot where we saw a pair of eagles who were also enjoying the sunset.
Cowen Creek is a possible spot for Lailia if we have to find a spot in a hurricane. It’s got good holding and won’t get battered with big waves (unlike the river ).
We had a short ride back to the marina this morning. The map shows how far we got into the creek’s twists.
Epilogue:
The new windlass is finicky about letting go of chain – it won’t allow an easy free fall of the anchor (our old one let us just drop it and it would fall until we manually stopped it). John will need to do some research, lots of cursing, more boat yoga, and some repair work. It does work really well getting the anchor up, though, so there’s a partial win.
October 6-19, 2024
Y’all! We had auroras and a comet in the same week! Later that week, we watched a rocket after it launched from Cape Canaveral.
In truth, the auroras were a faint purple glow with a naked eye, but through an iPhone camera they were amazing.
In some ways, this was even cooler because it almost seemed like the phone was cracking some mysterious sky images.
We also saw the 80,000 year comet, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS). These photos are from the first night it was visible.
We tried to view it through the week as it got progressively higher from the horizon and fainter.
Starlink sent a rocket up – we had some excited dock neighbors watching with us
It seemed like the booster/rocket separation happened right in front of us.
September 21-27, 2024
Port Royal, SC
Saturday, September 21-
At least we had a day at the beach – the first sunny weekend day since Labor Day.
We needed that sunshine and sea breeze because we both were recovering from COVID (me) or something like COVID (John). This was my first bout of COVID and I was really lucky that the symptoms were pretty mild.
Monday, September 23
Yay, Mondays with no internet, wi-fi, or…cell service for most of the day. I worked pretty late in a school in Hilton Head and had no way to communicate with John or my work team. We also had no way of knowing what was happening because all of our news is delivered online. I wound up getting my news from a woman in the grocery store.
Thursday, September 26
How the day started (this is a part of my district and it happened while kids were on their way to school):
How the day ended:
John is Captain Badass – he stayed onboard in case urgent actions were required – while I spent the night in a hotel. Forty-two mph winds are no joke and those gusts are awful.
There’s a lesson here, too – really big hurricanes/tropical storms have much wider impacts than the cone of probability for the eye. Since the most commonly shown map was for the eye of the storm, Helene caught a lot of people unaware and unprepared.
John prepped Lailia with extra lines which helped keep Lailia unscathed but there’s a lot of damage in our marina.
The worst is a sailboat sank. It damaged another boat, too.
Another boat slammed the dock so much that both the dock and the boat’s hull are destroyed.
Yet another boat came loose and slammed into its neighbor – it broke a window, took a chunk of the deck and bent the metal rail. The damaged boat also lost its canvas top AND a hatch cover – no hatch means rain poured in.
One of the Freedom Boat Club boats was pretty destroyed, too. It took out chinks from the dock and also managed to knock over the security camera pole.
We also had no power and the marina water was turned off until the plumbing could be inspected. Water was restored by dinner time, so we could refill our tank. The power is out in much of the area, so we’re going to have to wait. We still have the generator we borrowed so we can have air conditioning when we sleep.
Even though many in this area are without power, we know this is minor in comparison to the folks in the Carolina mountains who are dealing with devastating flooding causing the loss of life and livelihood.
August 31 -September 2
Port Royal Safe Harbor to Mackay Creek (anchored) to Cowen Creek (anchored) back to the marina
It’s easy to get caught up in the routine – and we have a great weekend routine of going to the beach – but we haven’t taken Lailia out for over a year.
Our generator, which we need to run our air conditioning at night, wouldn’t start. John has been troubleshooting it without much luck. What was lucky is someone loaned us a generator!
We left the marina a few minutes after 8 AM. I had an awful experience on the Port Royal Sound and even though we’ve crossed it several times since then, I’m always thinking about how rough it can get.
Thankfully, it was really flat on Saturday.
No wind meant we had to motor the entire way but it was an easy, short 15 nautical mile, 3.5 hour ride
One of our favorite things about anchoring is watching the sun set. Once all of the day-boaters left, it was just us, the sky, and peace
Sunday started with a dinghy ride towards the bridge.
The wind in the video makes it sound as if brakes are screeching. Dinghy rides are pretty fun but there’s no brakes!
We dinghied to a water access into Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge. The trails here are only accessible by foot and bicycle; I have wanted to explore this place for a while. It was really, really hot so we decided we’d like it better in the autumn. We will be back.
We decided to check out another anchorage closer to our marina. Staging here on Sunday night meant we wouldn’t need to leave as early Monday morning.
This trip was about 14 miles and took us back across Port Royal Sound.
The wind was perfect for us to turn off Lailia’s engine and sail.
The last time we did this was ages ago. We definitely need to get back out more often.
Once again, we are the only boat in this peaceful anchorage
We’re close enough to Parris Island to hear Taps being played. Even cooler is that after the last note, a bunch of coyotes howled for a good 30 seconds. We weren’t able to capture that on video, but we did capture the peace of this anchorage.
Monday morning was a quick, hour ride back to the marina.
The clouds are building and there’s some drizzle here and there.
Anchoring out is like those good friends that you don’t see enough – the time together is so wonderful and timeless that you wonder what kept you apart for so long. We know we need to prioritize just taking Lailia out (it’s easier than we make it in our heads).
Life on Lailia 