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Saturday, March 25, 2017

Over to Oriental for some work.

On Thursday morning we awoke early to cruise the boat over to Oriental for some rigging work that needed to be done on the new boat.  Yes we knew about this when we made the purchase.  So we were up before the sun came up and headed over to the marina.  It was a beautiful morning hardly a cloud in the sky, the temperature though was at that time only 34 degrees.  We had never cruised in such low temps before, but we are always up for a new adventure.  The cruising time we figured would be about 4 hours, not bad for our first time out.  There was a thin coating of frost on the dock and the boat so needless to day walking around was a bit tricky, but since neither of us fell in the water we consider it a success.

The light that morning was spectacular so I was shooting off photos like mad.  Oddly enough at this early hour we were not the first boat out.


In places that morning there was a low lying fog on the water.  It gave the place an etherial look.


After a few preparations we were on our way to Oriental.



The view of the canal that morning was spectacular.  We passed by some new friends house and I grabbed this shot of their boat (on the left).  George designed and built this boat himself, it's quite amazing.



The first part of our journey was quite peaceful.  We came across a whole flock of birds that were not to happy they had to share the waters with us.  


The sun was out in all it's glory and helped a little to warm things up a bit, remember by this time the temperature was only about 36 degrees.





We rounded Minnesot Beach area and that's when things turned, well how shall we say it, another direction.  The wind had picked up, along with the waves and we knew at that point we were in for a bit of a bumpy ride.



So we bundled up and held on and were pleasantly surprised at how well the boat handled itself in these conditions.  Also how well my stomach handled these conditions as some may remember I don't always do so well in rocky waters.  But being down lower and in the middle of the boat really seemed to help a great deal. 



Mike skillfully worked the boat through a landmine of crab pots and markers that well were not real clear.  We gently met the bottom at one point but Mike was quick to get us out of that situation.  Four hours later we made it to the SailCraft marina.



After a chilly 4 hour ride we rewarded ourselves by a warm lunch at the Silos in Oriental.  Our first trip was now under our belt and we were looking forward to the many more ahead of us.










Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Sock Burning?

This past weekend we participated in a Sock Burning event.  Sock Burning event you ask, well I too had never heard of such a thing.  I guess it is a long standing tradition where boats at the beginning of Spring (boating season) bring a pair of nasty old socks they have been wearing all winter and burn them in a fire.  Thus celebrating the beginning of boating season, since we all know (at least I do now) that boaters don't wear socks during boating season.  Either way you want to look at it we had a great time and got to know some of the folks in the Yacht Club that we will be joining.




















Sunday, March 19, 2017

Almost 4 months...

Seriously I can not believe it has been almost 4 months since I last posted something on this blog site.  Life has been busy and we have been doing things and going places, but I kept feeling like there was really nothing to post about.  Or maybe I was just preoccupied with other things, lazy, who knows what.  But I figure it is time to get back at it since I really enjoyed making these entries.  So let's start off with St. Patricks Day and our excursion to the beach.  We had a few errands to run in the morning and needed to take Millie to the vet for her rabbies shot.  So we put her in the kennel in truck and off we went.

First stop the vet.  That was an incredibly fast visit, in and out within minutes.  Second stop was not planned, but I saw this "swamp" area and had Mike pull over so I could take a few photos.  (See Below) Yes I know strange things attract my attention.





Third stop to get the license for the boat.  Which boat you ask, well two weeks ago we sold the Catalina 25 and this past week finalized the purchase of our newest edition an O'Day 34 Sailboat.




Yes you read that correctly yet another sailboat, but this time a bit bigger and made for cruising.  And before you get all crazy no we are not moving back on board a boat full time.  In the past 10 months Mike and I have come to realize a couple of things.  First we enjoy living in our home here in New Bern.  Second, we also enjoy sailing and being able to cruise (for more than just a days run).  So after spending many a wonderful day sailing on our Catalina we realized that it just was not going to be big enough for the two of us to cruise on for any length of time.  Basically anything over a couple of hours and it became a bit to "close" shall we say.  So Mike put the boat up for sale and we had a buyer for it within a week.  Too bad we can't get the camper sold as quickly.  We too have had that on the market now for 2 months and no takers, but that is a whole other story.

So yes now we will have more stories to tell about the boat, but I need to finish our St. Patricks Day excursion.  Where was I, oh that's right getting the license, well that took close to 45 minutes to accomplish.  I stayed in the truck with Millie while Mike dealt with the folks about the license.  Once this was completed we headed down to Morehead City and stopped at El's Drive In.


El's as you can see from the picture above is a small little place that has been in business for quite some time.  It's literally this small little building and a HUGE parking lot.  You pull into the lot, oh and beware there are no marked parking places, folks just pull in wherever.  You roll down your window and one of the girls from inside comes out to get your order.  No they aren't on roller skates, but they are pretty quick.  The food is prepared per order so nothing is sitting around.  They bring it to your car in a white paper bag and all I can say is YUM!  Thanks to my friend Mary for taking me here the first time.  Their Shrimp burgers are great!

Ok so after lunch we headed down to the beach.  We opted not to go to Ft Macon State Park beach where we usually go.  This time I wanted to find the pier that I always see from so far away when we are at the park.  Found it.





The restaurant that runs the pier was closed for the season so we couldn't go on it, but it was beautiful just walking beside and under it.  We took a long walk down the beach and picked up a few shells along the way.






What you don't see in this photo is this guy was feeding the birds while a young woman was attempting to take his photo.


Needless to say there were very few people on the beach.  After a long walk on the beach we headed down the road towards the Knoll Pines area.  Checked out the beach there and also the bogue side.


We then headed back to New Bern, Mike was anxious, as was I to get into our boat.


We headed downtown as the boat is docked near the Double Tree Hotel.  This was the first time we had been on it as the full and complete owners.  Our plans are to bring it back down to Fairfield Harbor on Monday to our own dock and then get busy cleaning it out and loading it up with our own supplies.  Our first trip, if that's what you want to call it will be taking it over to Oriental to have some rigging work done.  Once that is completed we will then be on our way to new and wonderful adventures.