We didn’t do a Christmas card or post last year so we’ll start with a quick summary of 2022.
- Laura spent most of the year working in Michigan
- Southwest Airlines decided we wanted to spend a weekend in Nashville, instead of Pensacola.
- We Bought a truck.
- We bought a boat. (a couple days after getting a truck that could tow it.)
- Sailed 8 hours across Lake Erie for our Anniversary.
- Trevor dug a hole and waterproofed the basement.
- Trevor started a new job as an insurance adjuster.
- Laura moved back to NC just in time for Christmas.
Now on to 2023…
After spending the weekends of 2022 sailing our 1980’s 22′ McGregor Venture sailboat on Lake Erie we spent a Saturday morning in March looking for a slip on Lake Norman so we wouldn’t need to mess with the boat ramp. We were successful in finding a slip. However, the slip came with a nearly free boat. The next weekend, we had increased our sailboat fleet from 1 to 2 boats.
Most of our weekends in the spring were spent on our new boat, a 1975 C&C 24. As far as we can tell, it’s been in Lake Norman for at least the past 20 years. Her name is Sua Sponte, or Sponte’ for short. She needed a fair bit of work and we ended up stripping most of the running riggings (ropes and hardware) off of the McGregor to get Sponte’ sailing.
The first sail we took her out was a great downwind sail. Someone at our dock helped us reef the sail (tie up the bottom of the sail to make it smaller) and rig up some blocks (pulleys) since we didn’t have all the hardware we needed and it was a little too breezy for using the full sail. One other piece of hardware we didn’t have yet was a motor.
We left the dock with sail power only and when we got to the other end of the lake and turned around, the wind had picked up substantially. After turning around we were heeled over enough that the rails were in the water.
We’re still working our way up to being comfortable sailing in those kinds of conditions but we do enjoy taking Sponte’ out on a nice windy day.
Even though Laura was back in NC, she was still out of town frequently for work. A few times, we took advantage of this and spent some time camping and hiking near one of her job sites. In May we took Roscoe hiking in the New River Gorge in West Virginia.
Over memorial day weekend, we spent time with Greg before he moved to Japan and celebrated Trevor’s Mom’s retirement.
As the weather started getting warmer into the summer, it kept getting warmer and warmer and the wind kept getting slower and slower. We went out a few times, but mostly just drifted in the hot sun. and got bounced around by power boats. As the summer came to an end, the wind started picking up and we were able to have some great sailing with friends.
We spent a quick weekend in Myrtle Beach for our anniversary so Trevor could get all you can eat crab legs.
In September, we stayed in a cottage on the Tuckaseegee River and caught up with some friends at Tyler and Stephanie’s wedding.
In December, we got Sponte’ decorated and participated in the Lake Norman Yacht Club’s boat parade. We had some engine issues the put us further and further back in the line up of boats since we couldn’t get it to go any faster than 2-3 MPH.
The following weekend we took off for the Odyssey Sailing Festival in the British Virgin Islands where we met some incredible people and spent a week sailing on Good Vibrations, a 50′ Fontaine Pajot sailing catamaran. (This trip deserves its own post. Sign up for our very infrequent newsletter to get future posts in your inbox). We ended our Caribbean adventure in Puerto Rico at Laura’s coworkers wedding.
We’re looking forward to 2024 and the adventures it has in store for us.
Laura and Trevor 
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