A Reunion

Washington, NC
35 32.44 N 077 03.34 W

Well, we had a great day. In the morning I went to nearby Mimi's lunch counter to have a cup of coffee and to post my blog. Less than 5 minutes after posting I got a message back from Jim R. You remember Jim, he sailed to Charleston with us. Jim said, "If you are in Washington, then you're only feet away from Bill's Hot Dog Stand. Don't miss it." We took Jim's advice and went there for lunch. WOW Those were the best hot dogs I ever tasted. Therefore, I'll pass on the advice. If you are ever in Washington, North Carolina, go to Bill's Hot Dog Stand and order two or three dogs "all the way" They only cost $0.98 each.

Libby and I also took advantage of the free dock to do some maintenance on the dinghy, while it was upside down on deck. It had accumulated some dings and cracks, and she leaks. So we put a coat of epoxy resin over the bottom. Today I'll put a second coat on. Then, I need to find a pint of bottom paint somewhere and we'll paint her. We get lots of use out of that hard dinghy, but she does take a beating in the process.

Later in the day we met with Ian D. Ian and I went to junior high and high school together. We graduated FM'62 (Fayetteville-Manlius NY). Libby was my high school sweetheart, FM'63. Ian's high school sweetheart Lynn, is his wife. She is also an alumni FM'64. None of us have seen each other in 45 years since graduation. We had great fun reminiscing. Hearing mention of certain names and places triggered memories that we didn't even know were buried inside our heads. We talked about classmates, neighbors, teachers and incidents. Ian is also a boater and he keeps his boat near here. So we had fun with that too. Ian treated us to supper; thank you Ian. This morning, Ian and I went out for an early breakfast.

You may wonder how we established contact after 45 years. This blog! How else? Someone on Facebook, (I think it was Chuck G.) found my Facebook page by searching for FM'62 alumni. My Facebook page doesn't have much but it does have a link to this blog. Anyhow, Chuck runs a FM'62 blog. He pointed me to that, and he sent an email to his FM'62 mailing list telling our classmates about Dick and Libby's cruising life style. It's great the way these things work. Of course, we do almost nothing on Facebook compared to young people, yet still it leads to valuable contacts.

Ian says that we should come to the 50th reunion in 2012. Perhaps we will.

No Rest For The Weary

Washington, NC
35.539036 -77.051754

We made it almost all the way from Oriental to Washington yesterday. However around 17:30 we were still 12 miles short so we decided to anchor in the Pamlico River.

The forecast said east winds for the night, 10-15 knots. That's direction 090. We found a little corner on the north side of the river. We had shelter from 360 to 090. Well, we just set the anchor and I sat in the cockpit to unwind. I had less than 5 minutes to relax when a powerful wind came up. It blew 20 knots and from 120, not 090. I hollered down to Libby who had started on supper, "We've got to move."

So up the anchor, raise the sail, and then sail 3 miles to the south side of the river. There we found shelter. Set the anchor again, and settled to relax once again. I had less than 5 minutes to relax when I spotted an orange inflatable boat heading toward us. "Oh no," I thought, "They're going to tell us to not anchor here or something like that." It wasn't so. Two men in the boat approached. The captain said, "Help please, our gas gauge is on empty. There are no gas stations within 10 miles of here and we have to be home before dark. They were very happy when I said, "I can help you." I gave them a gallon of prime Bahamian gasoline. Despite my protests, the man insisted on giving me some money. Off they went. When I looked in my pocket I saw that he gave me $13. It embarrasses me to make such a large profit on a gallon of gas.

This morning we completed our sail to Washington and their free city docks. We just got here. So far, it seems to live up to our favorable opinions about North Carolina hospitality. It is tops.

Carolina In the Morning

The Neuse River, North Carolina
36 01.68 N 076 38.84 W

Neither Libby nor I are vocally talented. Out attempts at singing sound really bad. Therefore, we seldom try it. Nevertheless, every once in a great while I'm inspired to break out in to song spontaneously. The last several times in a row, including this morning, I was inspired to sing "Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the Morning." There is something about early mornings here that is just magnificent. Whoever wrote the lyrics to that song hit the nail on the head. Most often we are inspired by the Posquotank River, or the Pamlico River, or the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. Today it was the Neuse River. Fortunately for you, I'm not into audio blogging, so you don't have to hear my squacks.

When in Oriental, of course we prefer to use the free public dock. What can beat free? Yesterday the public dock was full, so we stayed just 30 feet away at the Oriental Marina. That marina, and its proprietor Tom, and its tom cat Mr. Mayor, are delights. We recommend it do all our cruising friends.

Always previously, the charm of Oriental was enhanced by the huge shrimp boats tied up at the Staron fish processing factory, just behind the public dock. Especially at night, with the shrimpers brilliantly lit, it made the scene extremely picturesque, rivaling Boothbay Harbor Maine. This year, the factory is closed and the shrimp boats are missing. I asked Tom about it. He said that the old man who owned it got too old. He retired, and sold his boats. His sons are not interested in shrimping careers in competition with the Vietnamese. Too bad, it's yet another end of an era.

I'm feeling guilty leaving Oriental and the Neuse so soon. We have friends all around us. Here in Oriental is Tom. 6 miles East on Broad Creek is W43 Consort with Russ and Pat. 8 miles West is Blackbeard Sailing Club with our another half dozen friends. 12 miles West is New Bern. Libby and I can't walk down the streets of Oriental or New Bern without meeting someone we know. This morning I got an invitation to visit with Jeff & Wendy Gower on the W32
Calypso. They are only 4 miles West of Oriental at the Marine Air Station. They even have an air show next weekend. We LOVE air shows. Alas, we're committed to move on to Washington and Elizabeth City.

Why not stay longer? Because we set schedule constraints. We want to be in New York City by June 1 and we delayed leaving the Bahamas 2 weeks to accommodate Nancy's visit. (Imagine describing an additional two weeks in the Bahamas as some kind of hardship. Twitterers would say WTF?) I'm sure I said it before, but I'll say it again. Schedules and cruising make poor fits. Perhaps in the fall, if we have a week or two to kill, we can spend them on the Neuse River vicinity.

Oriental

Oriental, NC
No LL

We're at the Oriental Marina for a day. I had a bunch of stuff I had to do on the Internet. At least that's my excuse.

We also visited The Provision Company (our favorite boating store) and the grocery store, and we got showers and did laundry.

Check us out on the Oriental Web Cam. Actually, Tarwathie is out of sight on the left in this cam's view. Still, you may catch Libby or I walking around.

Good news! My arm has started hurting less.

Bad news! It's cold here. The outside temperature is in the 50s. Our blood is too thin for that stuff nowadays.

In From The Sea

On the ICW, North Carolina
34 50.10 N 076 41.37 W

As of 06:30 this morning we are back on the ICW. We joined on ICW mile 203. That means that the week of sailing At Sea, alloed us to skip 893 miles of ICW south of here. That's a lot. As much as we love the ICW, traveling that distance all on the inside would have taken at least 30 days. We would have had to traverse 180 pages on our ICW chart book, after having annotated each page with the latest in info on where danger spots and shoaling are this season. We sure avoid a lot of time, trouble, fuel, and expense by sailing on the outside.

The main reason more cruisers choose traveling on the inside is because of the the rocking and rolling the boat takes from the ocean waves. We're more tolerant of the rocking than most, but yesterday I learned a lesson about that the hard way. It was afternoon and I was taking my post-lunch nap. I was in deep REM sleep lying on the setee on Tarwathie's port side. Suddenly I woke on the floor with a stabbing pain in my right arm. I fell out of bed, or rather I was propelled out of bed. The cushion I was lying on wound up on the starboard side of the boat. It must have been a rogue wave that rocked the boat and ejected me. I surmise that my arm hurt because it whacked the wooden frame of the bunk on the other side of the boat. Today, I have a big goose egg on my forearm and it is sore and very tender to the touch. Could it be broken or cracked? I don't think so, but it must have been a close call. Breaking one's arm while out at sea would not be cool.

After rounding Frying Pan Shoals Light yesterday we headed for Beaufort. The wind and waves picked up, and soon we were flying at 7.5 knots. The only trouble was that we would arrive at Beaufort just after sunset. Uh Oh. Navigation around Beaufort is tricky. Not something we want to do at night. So, what to do about that? We could go for Masonboro Inlet and take a different route. We could find an anchorage near Beaufort, such as at Cape Lookout. We could heave to and wait, we could anchor off the beach near Beaufort, or we could slow down to time our arrival for dawn. We chose the latter. I never had too much experience trying to sail slowly before.

I took down the main sail and reefed the jib 50%. Our speed was too fast. I reefed the jib to the size of a beach towel. Still too fast. I reefed the jib to the size of a bath towel. Now our speed was just right. I probably could have reefed the jib 100% and sailed with no sails at all, (called sailing on bare poles). I never did that before and I had theorized that I would be unable to steer. Steering worked fine though. We did arrive at the entrance to Beaufort Inlet just after dawn. Perfect timing.

It seems that we jumped in to the middle of the pack of the northward migration flock of cruisers. Usually before, we enjoyed being ahead of the pack or behind the pack. Being in the middle means that every place we go to, like Oriental and Elizabeth City, will be crowded. So be it.

Today, Sunday, we plan to anchor at 10AM and just spend the day napping and enjoying our privacy once again. We had 10 days with Nancy on board, followed by a week with Jim on board. It was great to have them, but it is also great to have just the two of us once again.