The celebrated British poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer has been called “the father of English literature,” and as such, his long list of books and poems have had lasting influence. Perhaps the best known of all Chaucer’s quotes remains profound and truthful to this very day: “Time and tide wait for no man.” (Nor, we shall see, does it wait for any woman.) Which is why, when Jason and Nancy Sullivan chose the name for their Summit 54 performance cruiser, they came up with a perfect one: Time & Tide. After all, the time passed eventfully on their thirteen-and-a-half month, 7,557-mile spin around the “Great Loop” that concluded last July. And tides, shallows, locks, and other obstacles regularly presented themselves along the way. Add in the relentless northers and related challenges that unfolded on a side cruise to the Bahamas last winter, and it’s clear the Sullivan’s chose an ideal handle for their well-traveled 54-foot yacht.
At this writing, Time & Tide is enjoying a deserved break at the couple’s dock off the Chesapeake Bay’s South River alongside their home in Annapolis, Maryland. A lifelong boater, Nancy’s first command came on the Severn River at the tender age of 9: a tidy inflatable with a 2-hp outboard. Jason’s nautical experiences started as a teenager on sailboats at summer camp. But it was after their marriage, seven years ago, that they truly ramped up their waterborne pursuits together. They started out with a Grady-White 23; moved up to a Sealine C330; and swapped that for a Prestige 460. Over time, both the size of their boats and their cruising ambitions expanded, and when the shared goal was the Great Loop and other oceanic adventures, they knew it would require a more robust ride. “We always loved the looks of the Summits, that kind of Down East appearance,” said Jason. “And we’re not trawler people, per se. I’m not sure the 7- to 9-knot lifestyle is for us.”
“We live on the Chesapeake, so we needed shallow draft, nothing more than four feet,” added Nancy. “The flybridge was also important. And we do a lot of entertaining on the boat, so I wanted the galley up and an open floor plan. A lot of trawlers break that (central) space into three different living areas. I wanted to have even flow from the captain’s wheel all the way to the back of the boat.”
“Go with the flow” might’ve also been a good motto for Time & Tide’s Bahamian adventures. Weather-wise, it was a bumpy season with plenty of cold fronts that put a premium on finding protected anchorages. Plus, the couple’s “sweet, gentle” Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Radar, required three shoreside visits a day to attend to essential business. It all kept the entire crew on their toes.
After spending Christmas on the West Coast of Florida, the couple “hopscotched” their way down to the Keys, skipped across the Gulf Stream to Bimini, and then cruised north to the Berry Islands. They paid a visit to the famous “Blue Hole” on Hoffman’s Cay, but a lasting impression came as they made their way onward to Nassau.
“As boaters from the Chesapeake, it’s rather surreal when looking at your depth finder off Chub Cay, and you go from 20 feet of water, to 60 feet, to 1,800 feet. Holy smokes!” said Jason. “There were two things we never really got used to: the amazing color of the water, and the dolphins, which were always following us around. The ‘ooh-ah’ factor was very cool.” From Nassau, they continued on to Eleuthera and took a pilot aboard for the run through the reef-strewn snorkeler’s paradise known as the Devil’s Backbone. Another highlight was the Glass Window Bridge, the natural bridge off the island’s north coast that’s renowned for its sensational views of the contrasting seas. “There’s the deep blue of the Atlantic on one side and the turquoise waters off the reef on the other,” said Nancy.
However, what they’ll remember the most from their voyage to the islands was the remarkable Exuma Cays Land and Sea National Park, which was established in 1958 as the first marine reserve in the Bahamas and the wider Caribbean. “It was amazing,” said Nancy. “Our favorite spot there, by far, was Warderick Wells Cay, and the little hike up to Boo Boo Hill, where you bring up a piece of driftwood with your boat’s name on it as an offering to Poseidon,” she continued. “The beaches there just stretch forever. There are these perfect little coves with crystal-blue water that are beautiful to swim in. Then you hike up the hill and get the view of it all from the top. It was just really spectacular.”
Now back on their home waters, they’re enjoying the rich variety of the Chesapeake Bay. “We like getting on our boat around here and just gunkholing and exploring all the different local rivers,” said Jason. But he does have a greater adventure in mind, one inspired by their Great Loop trip. “I’m trying to talk Nancy into doing a Down East voyage, going up around Maine and Nova Scotia and on to the St. Lawrence River,” he said. “It’s really neat to see America and Canada from your boat. It’s such a beautiful area, with all these castles built on the stone islands, what the Canadians call ‘cottages,’ which really vary in size, quality, you name it. It’s just gorgeous boating.” Whatever the future holds, the Sullivan’s know that, with Time & Tide, they have an ideal platform to take it all in. “It’s so different exploring by boat than it is flying in and being based on land,” said Nancy. “It’s such a very different feeling. The deep exploration, stepping into the unknown, the adventure of it all… It’s just really neat.”