Elizabeth City, North Carolina

So here we are, three shipmates, gadding about in Elizabeth City. Liz city is known throughout the cruising community as "Home of the Rose Buddies". A certain fellow decided to personally greet the passing Snow Bird Fleet with fresh roses for the First mates (The ladies on board) and a wine & cheese reception if five or more boats were tied off on the free docks. This began two decades ago, and is carried on by the fellow's buddies upon his passing. The Rose Buddies. One of the boats that happened to be there was THE official Army Corps of Engineers Canals Division boat, so we got to meet and chat with the Colonel and his crew at the W&C. We thanked them for the work in keeping the Dismal Swamp (what a mis-nomer!) Canal and the entire Intra-Coastal Waterway open.

Now that we are off the Atlantic and into the ICW, we are starting to meet up with a lot more cruisers heading south. Always someone to chat with!

After verifying the Legend of Pilger's Seven Pointed Star, I will share it with you. Pilger's builder, Deiter Hienz, put a gold-leafed heptogram on the tip of the bowsprit to tell the world he was off on a Pilgrimage of the Seven Seas. The next owners, Don & Sue, had..ahem..removed shall we say... the sprit and changed it from wood to aluminum, but kept the star. Is has lost the gold leaf on its face, but still has it on the edges. See the shiny bits? What a touch of class!

So Jim & Michelle will continue the Pilgrimage. So far, it's been just the one sea, but we'll see what we can do about that!

Having Linda on board has certainly made a difference. Besides sharing the work/meals load, its just plain fun having another friend about to chat with, re-tell your old stories to and make games-night a whole lot more fun!

So please meet Linda; a Peace Poet from Worcester, Mass. Cape Cod, Mass. & Boulder, Colorado, plus many more places.  She has got a great website www.earthoceanheavens.com that has some of her photos and literary works.  Linda has thousands of miles under her keel, sailing with Captain Joe around this coast and the Caribbean Sea. She has traversed the Panama Canal, cruised Haiti, the San Blas Islands, Panama and Columbia + the Bahamas including long trips to the Berry Islands when they had a home-base in Miami, FL. After that, she moved to Denver, Co, where she met and married Douglass Graham, (now Graem) curator of the JMW Turner Museum. They had a daughter, Isis,  who now lives and attends grad school at the University in Stockholm, Sweden.
She was in a good position to ponder life and its fluidity when she introduced herself to us on the dock in Provincetown, on Cape Cod that day. Jim was able to tell her that we were in fact looking for others to join us. She knew immediately that she wanted to come, and after tying up what little loose ends she had, she met up with us in New York City, at the 79th Street Boat Basin.
We look forward to our travels together and the opportunities that having a Peace Poet on board will bring!
A note: the images here are taken by Linda Ohlson Graham.