On the hard in Portsmouth, RI. Splashing May 10th or thereabouts and moving to New England Boatworks - where we plan to move aboard for good around May 15th!

Hope to see you out there!


Bill Balme
s/v Toodle-oo!
Outbound 44

Bill Balme

Move aboard for good! Now that sounds an excellent plan.

So moving aboard in May didn 't work - the house sale fell through. HOWEVER... now that it 's nice and chilly up here in New England and we finally HAVE managed to sell the house, we 'll be moving aboard in November in Portsmouth, RI.

Next year 's plan is to sail to the Azores in June and cruise there for a few weeks and then move on to Ireland for a few weeks.

Bill Balme

Toodle-oo! is in Whitehaven, UK. Tucked up for the winter in her berth having sailed 4500 miles in 2013 - Boston-Azores-Ireland-England. Excellent trip with fortunately few stories to tell!

2014 will see her head up to Scotland in early May then across to join the OCC 's Baltic cruise, then down the north coast of Europe and probably wintering over in France...

Bill Balme

Bill,
Are you living aboard in Whitehaven or retreating to a better climate for the winter?
Simon

Already retreated! Back in the USA - it 's a gorgeous, sunny, crisp fall day today! The boat is in the water in Whitehaven. We 'll return at the end of April, haul her for a clean up of the bottom and then head up to Scotland as fast as we can.

Bill Balme

Nice to hear from you. It looks that you had a good passage up to the UK. Vivaldi is now at Lanzarotte, Canary Islands waiting to cross to the Caribbean end of December. Wish you and Laurie a nice thanksgiving.

Toodle-oo! is in Kastelhom on the Island of Aland - Finland. Any other OCC boats nearby??

Bill Balme

I wish we were up there with you. Looks like your summer is turning out fine after all!

Fine indeed! Had some great sailing and lovely locations - Gdansk was a highlight. Weather has been great too - we had our first rain yesterday since leaving Ardfern!

Finding the Alands challenging - in terms of pilotage - and we certainly don 't have adequate guides - so taking it easy and conservatively to prevent another Lagavulin!!!

Hope your summer is going well too!

Cheers!

Bill Balme