"Egret" N4674 - Scott and Mary Flanders

Ed. note: On February 10, 2011, Scott and Mary Flanders, on board their Nordhavn 46, Egret,arrived in the Canary Islands. In doing so, Egret became the eighth Nordhavn to circumnavigate the globe. It had been four years, five months since the couple departed Gran Canaria, intent on seeing as much of the earth as possible, although not necessarily with an end goal to circle the globe. Voyage of Egret do cuments the Flanders’ entire trip, an endless adventure that has put them intouch with the most fabulous places and interesting people. Much route planning and forecasting was required inorder to get to some of their ports of call. But the days of detailed planning areover…fornow.“Egret” is now back in Fort Lauderdale, the place the couple called home for so many years, and, ironically, the starting point of their world wide cruising escapade that began withthe Nordhavn Atlantic Rally in 2004. They currently travel hither and yon, sometimes by boat,sometimes not.Here, the latestupdate from the Flanders as they keep us continually apprised.

June 2, 2015
Position: On anchor, Tupelo, Mississippi

Hello mis amigos, the family is on their way back to Bangkok. We had a great month together and the three of them saw sights and hiked and climbed and generally did outdoor things they will never forget. We are looking forward to the next time they return to the U.S.

Most days were so full of going here and there we have to look at pictures to remember what we did when. We visited places like Newspaper Rock where for centuries the Native Americans left their messages in stone. We saw red rock landscape that takes your breath away. The little guy had great fun climbing rocks and discovering new critters.

The time flew by quickly and before we knew it they were gone back to school and work. We will miss them.

We returned to Moab to have a few goodies installedon Gracie. The latest additions were a heavy duty drag link and a tie bar (steel rods for the front suspension.) The big time consumer was installing the drivers’ compartment roll bar. This took the mechanic and his helper the better part of 2 days full time. The third day we got Gracie back at 2230 in the evening.

We left the next morning to meet friends near Zion National Park. Well, NEVER – EVER leave on a trip without a sea trial for any changes. It took 3 stops and even then we had to leave off the brake controller to make the trip. If this would have been in a boat it would be a lot more than inconvenient. Anyhow, we made it and Gracie still isn’t right. She will be later but for the time being we have a tire misalignment with serious tow-out. Anyhow, we’ll get it fixed but that isn’t going to slow us down from playing with friends.

Its been raining which the west needs desperately but it makes for soggy play. Zion National Park in the rain on Memorial Day Weekend was a soggy affair with lotsa traffic. We drove thru spectacular Zion and met the boater/photographer friends on the other side of the park. Instead of returning to the madness we headed for nearby Kolb Canyon. We both have lifetime national park passes so we whizzed thru and off to the canyon. It was raining off and on so there were small waterfalls. One appeared to becoming from a small cave high up the hill. So that was interesting and later we made our way back to Kanab (Utah) where Bubba is on anchor.

So today was a lay day. We got a couple coats of wax on Gracie between showers and cleaned the interior. We need the wax because we have a couple trails coming up where we could possibly get Utah pinstripes from brush scratches along the sand trails. Wax helps slide the branches along without scratching the paint. If the paint does get scratched, so what? There is a lesson to learn here. You can play it safe with your mall crawler suv or whatever and at the end of the day, where have you gone? Certainly not many interesting places. Or you could get Out and see what there is to see. Or you could spend your spare time on facebook or tweet someone. How boring is that? Same with boats. You can stay on the dock and buy things and huff and puff or you can get Out and use the boat and change your lives. Most people are content with electronic gizmos that consume their lives but for the fortunate few there is a whole world so see and explore. And it’s safe unless you are deranged and choose to visit Syria just now.

What’s next? Well Bryce Canyon tomorrow then a few more special spots over the next couple days. What will those days bring? Doesn’t matter, it’s all fun.

It won’t be long before we’ll be heading back to Egret. We need to get out of the country for a day to renew our cruising permit so we’ll make a month of it with a visit to the Bahamas before hurricane season. The plan now is to leave early to mid June and cross from Ft Lauderdale to Gun Cay; anchor for the night then off to Morgan’s Bluff, Andros to clear into the Bahamas. After clearing we’ll have to bail bonefish from the nearby Jumentos Islands flats. Oh, ho hum, bail bonefish. Most tourists hope to see a bonefish on their vacation in the Florida Keys and to catch one is a Big Deal. Catching bonefish on nearly every cast is pretty cool. Of course if you don’t have a mothership like Egret and a flats skiff or a long range dinghy you’re boned so to speak.

OK, so we haven’t written for a while. Lets get caught up then move along to what’s coming. We visited Bryce Canyon with friends and took a few snaps. On the way to Bryce we took a small rural road and managed to get lost. However, we came across a field full of yellow dandelions. We hopped the fence to get this snap. Bryce’s Sunset Point has to be the single most breathtaking view of all the U.S. National Parks. We’ve been there a few times before. Here are a couple snaps of this visit. We also visited Zion National Park in the rain.

A few days after we spent a looooong day in a secret place in the wilderness of Northern Arizona. It’s a couple hour 4WD drive after leaving a dirt road that takes another hour of bumpy driving to the off-road trail. The day includes early afternoon scouting for the best locations and waiting for the golden late afternoon light. Of course it was overcast with heavy clouds but every now and again the sun peeked thru and we shot away. These two shots are different from our last visit.

A couple days later we left Utah for Florida with Bubba towing Gracie (the Jeep). Each time we re-cross the country we look for a different route. This time we began on I-70, then dipped down on back roads to pass below Denver, then rejoined I-70 then after nightmare city traffic in some giant chrome and glass berg we headed south-east on back roads. Currently we are in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Riding along well below the speed limit we were daydreaming. Just like the past years boating, you can’t imagine what we have seen and done since mid March. I was trying to compare inland exploring with boating. In some ways it is similar but in many ways there is no comparison. Coastal cruising is much like inland travel. I will say there is more sense of accomplishment coastal cruising whose participants are miniscule compared to inland folks but there is nothing compared to being offshore. You don’t get the same freedom coastal cruising or moving from place to place inland. You may think you are free but in reality there are still rules. Offshore, particularly after a couple days things change. Little things mean a lot. Like a piece of seaweed in a bare ocean. Or a bird. A turtle. Whatever. It makes you happy. Both of you.

What started this train of thought is today a good buddy and his son left Charleston in their N46 for the Chesapeake. They set a waypoint just offshore of Cape Hatteras with a weather bailout of Beaufort, North Carolina. They’ll get a little push from the Gulfstream and perhaps they will catch a couple fish along the way.

The son just graduated from university with a masters in ocean engineering. We have known the son since he was 6 or so and his sister was 4. However time marches on and this may well be the last father only and son’s last voyage. Later there will cruises with wives, children and the rest. It’s the same young man of 17 that joined Mary and I along with my nephew in Tahiti and we dropped them in Pago Pago, American Samoa after a few islands, nautical miles and a lot of adventure. How cool is all this? We’re really happy for them.

In a few days we’ll be back aboard Egret. The plan is to get her spotless once again, provision, fuel then head to the Bahamas for a month or so. After all, we haven’t had a vacation for a while. We’ll have more on that later.

In the meantime Egret is still for sale and the price is right. In fact it’s so right it breaks my heart. She’s worth so much more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAR5wK-sWRs&feature=youtu.be

Ciao.
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Ed. Note - The glossary of Egretism terms will be posted on the Captain's Log home page for easy reference.