A ship in the harbor is safe – but that is not what a ship was built for….

We are quitting our jobs, saying goodbye to our friends and families, homeschooling our 3rd grader and heading South in the midst of hurricane season in 2.5 weeks.

And people thought we were out of our minds for wanting to winter in Maine on a boat!

What started as a joke, quickly turned into a viable plan to drastically change our lives – again. We decided that the money we would spend to get our boat ready for a Maine winter would be better spent using our boat as its meant to be used.

With little to no knowledge of the Southern coast, we had no exact destination in mind. We researched a few marinas on the coast, and ultimately decided to join some fellow Mainers in Beaufort, SC.

Leah and John have spent multiple winters aboard their Nor’West 33 ‘Brio‘ in Maine. Last year they added a tiny member, Zephyr, to the crew, and decided they were done with Maine winters aboard. I reached out to Leah to ask where they had landed for the winter.

After researching the marina where they had wintered last year, and making sure they had space for us this year, we had our Southern destination set. Lady’s Island Marina in Beaufort, SC will be our winter home.

We are leaving Sunday Sept 29th and plan to take about a month to make our way down the coast to South Carolina. We have the first 1/2 of the trip roughly planned out, with stops at Block Island and New York City as we attempt to make it to the Annapolis Boat Show by October 10th.

After the boat show, and a side trip (by car/train/bus) to DC, we plan to take it easy through the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) watching the weather like a hawk to steer clear of any scary hurricanes that might be headed our way.

We will be having a send-off party of sorts on Saturday Sept. 28th. Not a formal affair – but if you are in Portland (or want to make the trip) we will be at our marina (Fore Points Marina) all day – working on last minute projects and giving tours of our home, and saying “see you later” to friends and family. Please stop by if you can!

Also – we created t-shirt and sweatshirts on customink.com if you want to get in on the first run of Jelanea Crew shirts. BUT YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL FRIDAY to order them! We have to close the order on Friday so we can get them before we go. You can have them shipped to us for free if you plan to stop by the send-off party to pick them up (or if we will see you on our trip South we can bring them to you).

Get them here: https://www.customink.com/g/bbp0-00bz-51c6