Oct 20 -23
I'll lump a few days together for lack of much to report. Friday we didn't do too much except that I spent several hours online trying to convince McAfee that they have a bug in their virus scan software. I finally got them to admit they needed a senior support person to look at the problem and was promised a callback but haven't gotten one in four days. Right after giving up with them, a squall came through the area and the power to the area went out. It was out for a couple of hours, but we were able to keep everything except the heat on.
Saturday, Dale & Pat who live here and own a boat like MoonSail picked us up and took us to their home in Washington, DC. We spent the afternoon and evening visiting with them and spent the night. Sunday afternoon Dale brought us back to the boat. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them better and their hospitality.
Monday, I touched base with Catalina. The rudder should ship in a day or two and be here Friday or Monday. I walked up and updated Steve at Alpha Rigging so he can be prepared to install it when it gets here. I also stopped in the office to plant the bug in their ear that we will need the Travelift to pick us up so we can swap the rudders. I'm trying not to be a pain in the ass, but I don't want to waste any time once we have the part.
Tomorrow we are renting a car and driving down to New Bern, NC for the Southbound Cruiser's Rendezvous. Since we would just be sitting here all week waiting, we might as well make the gathering by alternate means.
There is a crazy man on TV (the weatherman) who keeps using the word snow in his forecast. Granted, the alleged snow is in the western part of the state, but I don't like even hearing the word. We have had frost once or twice since we've been here. We need to get moving south.
GPS N 38-46.450 W 076-34.023 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 6651.
Oct 24
We were up early this morning and called Enterprise to pick us up at 08:00. It ended up being 09:00 before they got there. The rental place was about fifteen miles away, so by the time I got back to the boat to pick up Barb, it was 10:30 before we were on the road. New Bern is about 360 miles from Deale, so it should take us about six hours. Only a little over a hundred miles of the trip is on I-95, while the rest is on mostly four-lane state highways that have crossroads and stop lights.
We are actually staying n Havelock, NC, about fifteen miles south of New Bern, because all the hotels in New Bern were booked. We got to the hotel a little after 16:00, checked in and dropped our bags, then immediately went back to New Bern to check in for the rendezvous. The check-in and welcome reception were on the pool deck of the Sheraton, overlooking their marina. Ordinarily, this would have been a wonderful venue, but the cold windy weather that we had in Deale is here too. Everybody was huddled up in their foul weather gear, and as soon as the mayor gave his brief welcome speech, people headed out, either to their boats, inside to the bar, or out to dinner. One of the first people I saw was a face I recognized from Kemah. Ron worked at West Marine in Kemah before we left. He and his wife Debbie left Kemah aboard their boat Drifter this past April and are planning on going to the Bahamas this year. We hooked up with Carl & Debbie from Diva, and met Ron & Judy from Pioneer, who plan to go south with us. The six of us went out to dinner at a local seafood restaurant. After dinner, we headed back to Havelock, about a twenty minute drive from New Bern.
GPS N 38-46.450 W 076-34.023 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 6651.
Oct 25 - 27
I'll lump the three rendezvous days together. Each day started at 09:00 at the Farmer's Market building. The Farmer's Market building is a long brick building with about a dozen garage doors on each side. It is about forty feet wide, and is used as you might guess for a weekly farmer's market, where each vendor gets a door. It was still very cold outside, and this large empty building had two loud gas-fired space heaters in it, but with them running, you couldn't hear the speakers, so once the program started, we shut the heaters off. We all spent three days in sweatshirts, and jackets. Each day had presentations from 09:00 to 11:00, lunch for an hour, presentations from 12:00 to 17:00, then happy hour and dinner.
The presentations were all very interesting. The subjects were things like safety, how to handle medical issues, anchoring, weather, and communications. We met several people who's products or services we have used, like Skipper Bob, who writes guides to anchorages and marinas along the East Coast, Claiborne Young, who writes detailed cruising guides for the south east US coast, and Chris Parker, who is the cruiser's weather guru. As you would expect, some of the speakers were better than others, and their opinions varied on some subjects. But, cruising is different for everybody. So hearing opinions from both ends of the spectrum helps you find what's right for you somewhere in the middle. Interestingly, there were two speakers scheduled who were not cruisers themselves. One was a woman from the local Red Cross chapter, who was supposed to talk to us about handling basic first aid. First, she was fifteen minutes late. Then, she obviously didn't get it that we were not weekend boaters. For every possible condition she spoke of, she told us the basic first thing we should do for the victim while we waited for help to arrive. She didn't get it that help could be days away. Fortunately, we had another session given by a fellow cruiser who was a GP until he went cruising five years ago. He gave us much better info than the Red Cross person. The other local presenter was a man from the local Historical Society. He just didn't show up. It was probably best though, since we used his time slot to let Chris Parker talk to us longer about weather.
Each night we had a BYOB happy hour from five to six. Wednesday night, we had a cruiser's pot luck, where everybody brought a dish to share. Thursday night, a local barbeque place catered dinner. Friday night we left just after 17:00 and drove down to Beaufort, about thirty miles south, to meet Bob & Debbie from Mardi Gras who we spent time with in Marsh Harbor Bahamas last year. We went to their condo for drinks and snacks, met another couple, Ben & Dale, who are going to the Bahamas for the first time this year. We went out to dinner and shared stories about the Bahamas with them.
Overall, the three days were great. I'm glad we drove down to do it. We saw many cruisers we know, met many more whom we had heard on the radio over the past year, and met some new ones who are going south for the first time. It was funny to be asked questions by some of the new folks as if we were seasoned cruisers after a year and a half.
GPS N 38-46.450 W 076-34.023 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 6651.
Oct 28
This morning, we are driving south to Morehead City again. We have heard of a way to address the cost of soda in the islands that we are going to purchase. The issue is that a six pack of Pepsi costs over four dollars in the islands. Rum costs four dollars a bottle. Last year we carried three hundred cans of Pepsi with us and still needed to buy a few cases down there. We had heard about Soda Club last spring from a couple of fellow cruisers, and heard about it again here. Soda Club is basically a machine with which you make your own soda. It includes the CO2 canister, the bottles to hold the soda, and the syrup. It is more economical than buying soda, especially in the islands, and more importantly, the space requirement of carrying hundreds of cans is eliminated. So, we bought the machine, two extra CO2 canisters, and six bottles of syrup. We'll have to do the math and see if we need more syrup before we leave the country to last a year.
We then headed back to New Bern. This weekend is New Bern's Ghost Walk. The Ghost walk is a self-guided tour of fifteen sites where people who are "ghosts" will be in period costumes and will talk about their lives here in 1900. We went to the Historical Society's office and bought tickets for the walk. We then went to the Sheraton marina to walk the docks and see if we can find any of our friends. We walked down A dock and found Ron & Debbie (from Kemah) on Drifter. They invited us aboard to visit and have a beer. We ended up spending several hours there swapping stories and comparing what fellow boaters we knew in common back in Kemah.
About 16:00 we left Drifter and went to get some dinner before the Ghost Walk. We went to Captain Ratty's for an early dinner. After dinner, we started the Ghost Walk. The first stop was the cemetery, where we were spoken to at six different spots by ghosts from the past. Then we went to the Masonic Auditorium for a twenty minute vaudeville show. After that we toured a half dozen homes that have been restored. These are private homes, not museums, but at each one a "ghost" told a story about the house. It was all quite fun.
GPS N 38-46.450 W 076-34.023 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 6651.
Oct 29
Today we drove back to MD. We were on the road about 09:30. We stopped about 11:00 at a Cracker Barrel near the NC/VA line for a late breakfast. While still in NC, we bought five tickets for the Powerball Lottery which is $93mil. We then went just across the VA line and stopped for gas. We didn't do this in NC because the gas is $.15/gal cheaper in VA. While there, I bought five tickets for the Mega Millions Lottery which is worth $36mil. I figure we'll win them both and then won't care about any damn rudder.
Along the way we saw at least a dozen deer along the highway that had been killed by cars. I don't know if there is something seasonal about it, or if they just have so many deer here that it's always a problem.
We got back to the boat a little before 16:00 to find a very vocal cat. He had to tell us everything that had gone on while we were gone. He talked and talked for a couple hours after we were home, and had to be in one of our laps the whole time. Everything on the boat was ok, and it was still plugged in, so the cat had heat while we were gone.
Just before dark, thousands of birds started to light on all the boats. I could literally hear the seeds and bird crap hitting the deck. I went out and chased them from our boat. Of course if I didn't stay on deck, they would come right back. After watching them for about fifteen minutes, they all left on some magic cue. I didn't hear a thing, but suddenly they all shut up and took off. They went over in the woods near the boat storage area, where they seemed to stay for the night. I guess happy hour was over for them.
GPS N 38-46.450 W 076-34.023 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 6651.
Oct 30
Our big event today is to do a grocery run while we still have the rental car. There is a small IGA in Deale, which we went to when we first got here, but it has very limited selections. I got directions from the office to a Safeway about fifteen miles away and we went there. We loaded up on stuff hoping to not have to go to a store again before we leave. We also hit a liquor store and got enough beer and rum to last a week or more.
I touched base with the rigger to tell him the rudder will hopefully be here by Thursday. I hope he can jump right on it when it arrives, but I'm leery of the Travelift schedule. I would really like to be in the water Friday and get headed south. The leaves are falling here. The birds did their happy hour gathering again tonight. Once again, I stood on deck and clapped whenever one landed on us. After a few minute, they seemed to figure out they could sit on any boat but mine and not be hassled, so they quit coming to us. As with last night, they all went back to the woods on some unheard cue.
GPS N 38-46.450 W 076-34.023 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 6651.
Oct 31
The day started with returning the car to Enterprise. The Enterprise place is about fifteen miles from us, so it's a little ride. They gave me a ride back of course. I almost scored a deal when the guy almost forgot to charge me for the optional insurance that I had taken, but he caught his mistake. Darn - I could use a good deal.
Today we did a bunch of boat chores. You would think the boat chores wouldn't be here since we're parked, but things still need attention. I hosed the deck off from all the blue bird crap that it had collected over the past week, filled our water tanks, tried to fix a pesky problem with the dinghy motor where it's hard to tilt and latch in the up position, changed the fuel filter, and touched up the places on the bottom paint where the old paint has been rubbed off by groundings or just flaked off. Once we get to Grenada or Trinidad a new bottom job including removing all the old paint will be in order. Barb did laundry while I was doing my stuff.
GPS N 38-46.450 W 076-34.023 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 6651.