Category: Uncategorized

Monday, February 10

This time we cruised about 25 miles to this wonderful spot at Carolina Beach. It was a pretty but uneventful trip. Lots of beautiful homes, birds and low country marshlands to see. There seems to be a lot of dredging operations going on here. Not sure if this is a continuous battle, especially at the inlets, or if it’s left over issues from hurricane Florence.

We did have a bit of an issue fighting the current when passing by the Carolina Beach inlet and turning into Snow’s Cut. Could have used a bit more horse power. After Snows Cut, the Cape Fear River becomes part of the ICW until you get to Southport. With the extremely high tide, extra water from rain and current, we were only moving at about 4 knots!

The dotted line on the right side of the land on chart is the ICW. You cross Snow‘s cut to get to the Cape Fear River. The campground is where the blue dots are at the end of the cut.

This marina, on the edge of the State Park, is a gem. There are about 55 slips on floating docks with a view of the river. Nice Park building with a store, bathrooms, showers and laundry. We are sitting on the veranda of that building this morning having our coffee. It’s cloudy but there’s a tropical scent and feel in the air. We are watching birds land just outside the cut and then float by the opening to the marina. You can hear their wings flap. Funny, the pelicans are floating by really fast.

The marina is also a huge bargain at $25, per night, including electricity. This may be an off-season price.

A few minutes later, this giant container ship came south on the Cape Fear River (ICW). These pictures show Pursuit at the dock in the background.

These photos show the great drop in the water from high tide at 10:30 to low tide at 4:00. The white markers on the posts were close to going under at high tide.

This State Park is amazing. Not only are there miles of hiking trails, fishing, camping and a marina, the park contains the Venus Flytrap, one of the worlds most unique carnivorous plants. I was so excited for the hunt and hike. Off we went to Flytrap trail. The flytrap was short trail, a spur off a larger one. It was a nice, wide, sandy trail. It looked like there had been an intentional burn lately; we saw a lot of new growth.

I walked with my head down, scanning the ground. The Venus Flytraps were suppose to be right on the edge of the Pocosin… ok….wait, what the heck is a Pocosin? Siri to the rescue, even in a State Park. Well, it’s “a type of palustrine wetland with deep, acidic, sandy, peat soils. Groundwater saturates the soil….. Pocosin soils are nutrient deficient.”  Yes, I had to look up palustrine too! I just wanted a walk-in the woods to see man-eating plants, not a botany test.  Palustrine wetlands “include any inland wetland that contain ocean-derived salts ….. “. ok, couldn’t be expected to know that, living in the Midwest. These plants trap prey to supplement the lack of nutrients. They are suppose to emerge from a dormant period in the Spring. I guess it’s not Spring. We walked and walked, and didn’t see anything except this sign.

Well, that’s ok, tomorrow we will hike to the Ranger Station and get the scoop.

Ha, no scoop. Ranger Station closed! After talking to a few people in our marina, we found out that the Ranger was there in the morning so we missed her. Also, the locations of the Venus flytraps are now kind of a secret. Too many people “poaching” them. They made it a felony to take them and have set up cameras. An undertaking is underway to restore them. We did see a small green house in back of the ranger station with baby plants. Obviously, I don’t know the proper terminology for baby plants [seedlings?] and I’m sick of Siri–she doesn’t like me.

So, we did learn that the “Pocosin” wetlands supports rare carnivorous plant species. The plants found in this area include Venus fly traps, pitcher plants, butterworts and bladderworts.. The closest we got was talking to someone who saw a pitcher plant. Here’s a few pics poached from the internet.

The allusive Venus Flytrap

Pitcher plant

We did get two days of great hikes and found out that South Carolina has free admission to State Parks.

I saw a small green lizard, an illiterate deer and got a lesson in botany. So did you 😉

Once again, we have huge wind. Do not know what tomorrow will bring–possibly rain. Maybe the Ranger will be around tomorrow 😉

Saturday, February 8

Another chilly morning but sunny. With two heaters on and a one dog night, we are snug in our tug.

Yesterday, we passed a Canadian sailboat heading North! Odd. It was the only cruising boat we saw. Out here this time of year, there are predominantly fishing boats and tug boats related to the dredging. I looked up the Canadian boat’s name and found they had a blog. We were interested in why the early passage north. The blog was interesting in that they have come through the places we are heading but negative in its tone. The negativity was related to 1) the weather 2) head colds and 3) they are selling the boat.

We are always curious as to other people’s experiences. In this case, cold weather in a sailboat without a cockpit enclosure has made their travels wet and cold. They are on a schedule to get to Deltaville, MD, to pull the boat and fly home. They have, after 20 years of cruising, decided to sell their boat. The woman on board is tired of it. He places a lot of blame on climate change! He also makes some very humorous (negative) observations about our current President that I don’t want to type for fear CIA will show up on our dock. We did get a few hints from their posts about location access and marinas. Good luck to them is all I can say.

Here at the Bridge Tender marina, we are side tied to a dock right on the ICW. This would not be ideal in high season, due to boat wakes. There are restaurants, bars and yacht brokers on both sides of the waterway. There are many larger boats, some transients like us, many boats with the yacht brokers and others stopping for fuel or a meal. This place must rock in high season... It’s like ego alley in Annapolis but this time it’s young people in center console boats grandstanding. Really fun to watch the boats go by. Many had their four legged friends along for the ride!

The bridge open and at sunrise

Pursuit on the long dock – note full moon

Bridge Tender Marina and Restaurant

One thing cool to watch and learn about is the tides on the ICW. There are a lot of inlets here in Wrightsville from the Ocean. Right now the tide is going out – going to low tide the water is heading South. It’s rushing by fast. It’s good for you if your heading south, not so much if your heading North. Lots of water rushing in the rivers from the recent rain makes it even more spectacular. Later, at low tide, the water starts to head North. In between, it seems sort of stagnant. There is an area of rushes (in picture above) on the other side of our dock. It went from high tide with only the top foot of those rushes showing to all 3 feet of them along with a foot of muddy island at low tide. We believe the full moon may have a bit to do with these variances.

This guy was really fighting the high tide’s current

We finally got the dinghy (“Sand Box”) pumped up and put on the boat. We got the prototype on for the outboard motor so it is riding on the back now.

Sort of hard to visualize the motor is clamped to the part we had added to the davits and moved on and off with the small pipe crane on top of the davit arm.

We didn’t get to do much exploring here but had a few nice walks, spent a bit of cockpit time watching the boats parade by and a lovely outside meal at Fish House Grill.

Tomorrow we move a wee bit further South to Carolina Beach.

In case you miss seagulls

Friday, February 7

Thanks for all of your concerns about our safety with the huge storm on the East Coast Thursday night. There were tornado warnings but we only got torrential rain. However, today we woke up to big winds; it’s sunny though! We did drive to both the north and south ends of Topsail Island today to watch the huge waves and spray. Pictures just don’t capture it.

We then grabbed a beer and app at Daddy Mac’s beach grill, by the pier, to see more. There were a couple surfers out there trying to ride. The waves crashing and running down the tall pier posts were fabulous…. much better than the calamari appetizer.

We are going to move the boat a bit further South tomorrow, to Wrightsville Beach, 22 miles. Baby steps 🙂. Last fall we drove there but the weather was so bad we didn’t get to explore much. We are going to stay at Bridge Tenders Marina, right at the bridge that crosses over to the island for a night or two then move on to Carolina Beach. The wind is suppose to die down later this evening. Hope so! We won’t be moving if it doesn’t. The weekend is forecast to be cold but 70’s next week.

Our route south along the ICW will take us past a number of hazards, including shoaling caused by recent storms and a dredging operation. One way  we find out about these hazards is a service called Waterway Guide. This is a subscription service that compiles info about marinas, facilities, waterway news and Nav Alerts. We view all this at: https://www.waterwayguide.com. We also do our navigating with a couple of computer programs called Aqua Map Marine and Open CPN. These programs offer many tools for planning and actual real time navigation.

After we review the lists, we plan a route that will keep us clear of problem areas. This is not like cruising in our home waters in the Apostle Islands where we can go on the other side of an island to avoid something. Here we move over by a number of feet to avoid hazards and shallow water. This is where having an accurate GPS position is critical. Most days we have our plotted track plugged in to the IPad and watch as the boat ICON moves along the waterway. Another interesting tool is the depth surveys done and compiled by the USACE, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. These show up on our Aqua Map screen in color and help us seek out the deeper water. You can see the results of this planning here:

The Red route is our planned track avoiding the red and orange shallow water in Snow’s Cut and then turning to Port into Carolina Beach State Park Marina. We will report back to see if this actually worked. 😉

In addition to the above apps, we use a Garmin 720s, which also has radar.

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Saturday

We woke Saturday to beautiful sunshine and 35 degrees outside. Hmmm, we put our heavier coats in the car already. We’re thinking we’ll leave them there and just wear layers. Thankfully, with the sunshine, our bridge will stay warm as once we unplug from the dock, we no longer have heat. Good thing we’re hearty Northerners and can take it….

After discussing with Dee that we can leave our truck at the marina for awhile, a last walk on this beautiful beach and chocolate chip coconut scones with our coffee, we are ready to cast off. Did we ever mention there’s a spot called Xanadu next door? Excellent bakery, specialty groceries, a bar and dining–yes, we’ll miss it but we must start our southward journey.

Our beach walk was outstanding even wearing lots of clothes. We first ran into a youngish woman surfer who asked Mona for assistance getting her wetsuit zipped and velcroed closed. Apparently, if not done right your hair gets caught in the Velcro. Yikes! Once on the beach we were rewarded with a group of 16 surfers, all riding out near the pier. Great sight. No dolphins with them this time.

A little further down, a disheveled young man in pajama pants, still carrying his White Claw… breakfast or still partying from last night?

A perfect shell. Yes!

A few surfer pics

Coconut wearing her jacket at beach ☺️

We said so long to Surf a city about 11:00.

Last views of Surf city from ICW

In Bayfield, seagulls follow fishing boats…. here, pelicans

We had kind of forgotten how many beautiful homes there are along the waterway. Always something to see. Because we are in low country, the ICW is very wide in places unlike the narrow ditches up North.

We easily passed under the two bridges along the way.

The second picture is at our destination: Bridge Tender Marina, Wrightsville Beach. Pursuit is in the middle of the picture on the dock behind the big Sport Fisher.

Forgot to post a picture of our beautiful new refrigerator/freezer. The shelves along the side are the extra space we found with this new, smaller, more efficient model. Of course Joe designed and built them. We are deciding whether to put in drawers or make a door over the face of the shelves.

We bought ice cream to celebrate 😁

We’ve also included a pic of Pursuit’s battery banks in case you were wondering how this would all be powered. Imagine plugging it all back together the first time after the yard disconnected them all for the season.

We are enjoying our time here immensely–so dog friendly! It is such a great community. While we put the boat back together and provision, we continue to explore. We hope to move the boat to Wilmington or Carolina Beach State Park on Saturday. Looks like we have two days of rain coming in so we can plan some routes and relax a bit. Kind of bummed the Missiles and More Museum we wanted to tour is closed until April. It looks compelling with exhibits on Operation Bumblebee, the female WASPs, pirates and the Osprey helicopter, it would have been a good way to spend a rainy afternoon. We are trying to avoid all the political haranguing on the internet, but it’s pretty hard to do!

You can see what the museum is all about here: http://missilesandmoremuseum.org/

The view from our cockpit. The start of our tour of low country. “Low country has a culture, geography, architecture, economy and even a cuisine of its own.”

All that water you see out there is very shallow and contains natural oyster and clam beds. Every once in a while we will see local fisherman in waders out there harvesting seafood. The AICW, Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, is out beyond the grassy areas by the white posts you can see in the background. That’s where the deep channel that we came in on lies. The buildings on the left are waterside business including a wholesale seafood plant where you can buy fresh or frozen seafood. Yum….

This entry was published over the weekend but then disappeared. Glitches and snafus….

I think we downsized again. Now, we are living in a one room place with 1/2 a refrigerator and a microwave. Thank goodness there seems to be room in that tiny refrigerator for my food. I think they named this house Airbnb. I as just getting used to living in Wisconsin at Bear Haven.

I believe we left home a week ago. I was made to go to the spa before paw. Ha, that’s what they call it, a doggie spa. It’s a place where I get a bath, my nails clipped and all my beautiful curls cut off. That woman, even has the nerve to cut the fur on my tail. Doesn’t she know it’s my crowning glory. Then there’s some funny business around my butt–let’s not talk about it. Everyone says I look cute and smell great but do not smell like a dog.

So, we drive for two and a half days, stopping at night in hotels. I like these places, I jump from bed to bed. During the day, I sleep in the back seat, which, at times, seems to have stuff encroaching on my space. Anyway we stop, I get out and walk around, do my business and get back into the car. I am “such a good girl”. I get a treat.

We spent a lot of time looking at boats sitting on stands. Our boat is sitting on stands. Seems silly to me, put it in the water. Today, I got a bit fed up with it all and ate 1/2 a breakfast sandwich Joe was foolish enough to leave in the car. Really, what did he expect? It was really good, until it made my tummy rumble…. oooops, good thing mom took me for a walk.

Finally, today, we left our new, very small house for good and they put the boat in the water. We took a very short ride and ended up at the same place we left last Fall–Surf City. What’s up with that? They tell everyone they are cruising down the ICW. What they don’t say is they don’t get anywhere.

.

I‘m the co-pilot

Well anyway, this is good, close to the beach. I got to see Dee, the marina lady who loves me. Apparently, she tells funny stories. Mom laughs a lot.

My boat between a very large SeaRay and the Tiki Queen excursion boat. Dee’s boat in the background

This is more like it. I had to show mom and dad the way to the beach but I finally got them there.

I really like the beach because you never know where you will end up. Sometimes we just walk back and forth and mom and dad jibber jabber about which beach house they will buy next. I know they won’t but they like to talk big.

Sometimes we end up at a beach bar where I find French fries on the floor. BONUS!!!

Anyway, it’s good to be back on the boat and back in Surf City. 

We checked out a few of the local taverns on Super Bowl Sunday. The first, and most interesting, was “The trailer Bar.” Yes, it is an old mobile home sitting on a main road a few blocks off the beach. We are really surprised to see how many trailer home parks still exist here! You’d think between storm surges and hurricanes, they’d all be long gone. Some of them look very old like 1950’s models. But, a coat of bright, tropical colored painted and giant flip flop shutters and you have yourself a vacation home!

The Trailer Bar — there is a large home behind it but if you look closely, you can see it’s a trailer with a huge deck.

Anyway, we found that the Trailer Bar is members only. Seriously 🤩 Well, good news, for $2.00, each, we can become members. The young bouncer took his job very seriously–no sense of humor. So, we whip out our IDs, and fork over the $4. Our memberships will last a year whether we go back is another question….

Kind of disappointing inside. Nothing really left of the old home’s decor. Bench seating around the edges and a bar stuck in the middle with barely room to walk around. Female bartender indicated she was hungover. Joe heard the patron before him order a ‘trailer trash cocktail’ so he had to have one too. I felt safe with a beer. We looked around and didn’t really see any place inviting looking to sit. The few locals at the bar were having secret talks with the bartender so we went outside to the deck, which was as long as the trailer. Friendlier people and live music. Two women who were surprisingly good with great song choices. A guitarist and vocalist. We enjoyed ourselves and the cute puppy showing herself to everyone. Some of the boys from the local military base were talking smart and having a good time. As the sun began to go down, we got chilly so … next.

We hit the Peak Tap House we enjoyed last fall; they had figure skating on! Last stop Gilligans, the tavern by our room. Three people at the bar. Super Bowl is not big in this area. We watched it at our room.

The boat was scheduled to go in on Monday so we got an early start. We needed to haul everything up onto the boat. Always, too much stuff.

Off we go in the hoist into the well. Rusty, the yard manager was so helpful. It’s nice when someone tells you exactly what they are going to do so once you are in the water so you are not left floundering. We were in a very low tide and the current can be tricky here so extra precaution was necessary. Rusty wanted to check the stuffing box as we had some work done on the prop shaft. As requested last fall, the yard checked the shaft and propellor and both were found to be out of whack! As you can imagine, this was a few more boat bucks as both parts needed to go to Wilmington (next town south) to the specialists. The prop shop confirmed what Rusty and I saw last fall (and Mona first diagnosed) the prop, which is almost 2 feet in diameter, had one noticibly bent blade. A computer micrometer was used and the prop guy proceeded to put the blade back in sync with the other two. He then put it back on the meter and created a printout showing that all three blades are pitched as per design.

Next, he put the 10 foot long shaft on his lathe and using a digital indicator, found a number of areas that weren’t straight. A large hydraulic press took care of the heavy work and now the shaft is perfectly straight.  Rusty also installed a new cutlass bearing for us. No more vibration. We have no idea how this could have all happened. We know we didn’t do it!

Everything went great, the engine fired right up and we cruised North a few miles back to Surf City and the Topsail Marina. The marina manager Dee, met us at the dock and we spent some time catching up with her. She has great stories. Instead of buying a motor home, she ended up buying a pocket boat. A project boat. It is quite unique and will be pretty cool when she’s done. I think the marina business gets a bit slow this time of year so she has a bit of time.

It is a Seaforth sailboat, 24′. Less than 100 of these boats were made. She will strip off the black and red house paint and repaint her with the proper product in white and a blue grey. She also has a beautiful, vintage dog house that will replace the white box on top. She hauled this 6,000 lb boat from Asheville, through the mountains with a Ford F-150. She is quite the woman. We know she is a retired engineer and spent some time as a lineman! She’s a tiny little woman but with big soul. Her husband has a lot of patience.

One interesting point made by Dee is the number of people who buy a boat and cruise based on You Tube. Not a good plan. We had asked her about the hapless couple we saw last fall who left here and promptly ran their boat aground because they went under the bridge the wrong way. They also had no electronics except for an iPad with no internet hookup. The last we heard of them, they had decided to do their passage out in the Ocean. 😯 Anyway, Dee said their had been too many others with similar stories so she couldn’t give us an update on that specific couple. Too many people buy an old boat, real cheap, don’t do any work on it and think they can live on it. They have no real boat experience either maintenance or navigating. Disasters waiting to happen. But they saw a You Tube of how glorious cruising is…..how hard can it be? I think some of you have an idea….

So, once snug in our slip, we allowed Coconut to take us to the beach. She literally pulled us the two blocks –that girl knew the way.

They are still working on beach restoration or maybe it’s a continuous battle, but the large tire tracks are from huge dump trucks being filled with sand hauled in on other dump trucks.

Here’s one way to save on those pesky hotel costs!

After a wonderful nights sleep, we woke to the boat looking like an episode of hoarders. Yikes what a mess. One good thing about a small space, it won’t take long to make her ship shape.

Looks like a few rainy days coming. We will stay put for a few more days. 😃

We arrived here around 10:30 Thursday morning.  We had two mizzly days on the road.  Dreary, no sun and barren landscape so we kept pushing on.  This made our last day very short.  It got up to 52 here today which is a little cooler than usual but sounds like it’s cold in a lot of places. It was sunny though which seems great.  Joe said, as long as I’m not stepping over piles of snow, it’s good.

First stop was to the steel fabricator.  The owner of the company is from Minnesota so he incorporated Minnesota and No. Carolina into the name of the company:  MNC Fabricators.  They re-engineered our davit system to also hold the outboard and a small crane to lift the motor onto the dinghy.  Translation:  Davits are stainless steel arms off the back of the boat that hold our small Zodiac inflatable boat up and out of the water.  The outboard is for the inflatable.  At 70 lbs, that 6 hp motor is a bit much to lift up and out of the cockpit, onto the swim platform and to then onto a bouncing inflatable in the water.  So, it will be stored on the davit system and then lowered down with a crane.  I know, a picture is worth a thousand words.  We won’t have one until we get the boat into the water but here is a picture of the not inflated inflatable, with the outboard on it, hanging on the davits. Cold weather last fall made her lose some air!

The fabrication company was very interesting.  Their specialty is the spiral staircases that every beach house needs.  The price charged to us was reasonable, especially for custom work.

They had also just made this Spine sign for the local Chiropractor.  Cheryl, you need one of these!

Next stop, the boat yard where Pursuit is stored out of the water on jack stands, which are also called poppets. I think we said this before, but boatyards can be kind of melancholy when you see the sad, deserted boats in the back rows.  Some of these are going into the ocean for an artificial reef but the rest will be chopped up and put into a landfill.

When they’ve sat long enough, nature starts to take them back.

We find them so intriguing. Each one would have a story to tell.

We got the boat uncovered and were pleased that the cover held on while we were gone. Our little adjustments to this cover from our SeaRay worked.  The boat was clean and dry. Next, the marina guys hauled our new refrigerator up a ladder and into the cabin.  Thank goodness, it fit through the door. They saved us a $240 crane lift by manhandling it.  A generous tip is coming their way!  Joe got the newly redone front hatch in place so that won’t leak.  Enough for one day.

We got to our AirBnB room.  Sweet.  It’s the bottom of a stilt home, which are very common in hurricane country.  It’s perfect; a little efficiency apartment close to everything. We have already extended our stay by one day. We can see we will have a weather delay.

The next day, the rain held off for most of the day. Joe got the wiring done for the fridge. Here is a photo of the big hole and the back side of the NorKool unit.

Our boat was either customized at one point or built a bit differently than other Transpacific Eagles. Most of them have settees (couch) on both sides of the salon. One side has an L shaped settee with the table. The other side is just a straight settee and the table can pull out to this area. Our boat only has the L shaped one. The other side has a long countertop, desk area and the fridge/freezer underneath the countertop. The old design had a very small refrigerator in a cabinet in the galley. This is now storage. The retrofit is a much better layout for us.

Here is the floor plan of a 32 Transpac Eagle.

This is what ours looks like inside. The table has been refinished. This is the old refrigerator.

Joe will build some type of bracing system from wood for the fridge and possibly a shelf unit in the extra space. However, this cannot be done when it’s raining!

In the meantime, we are visiting some of the many restaurants we missed last time. Yesterday, for lunch, I had a shrimp and grits dish that was outstanding. Shrimp, 2 kinds of sausage a lovely sauce served over fried polenta. Yummy but very rich, especially for lunch so I took half home. Joe had scallops (one of the seafoods he can eat). We had great service and the beer selection was outstanding. We will be going back for happy hour. When the rain started, it didn’t want to quit. Thank goodness for rain boots! We decided to get a pizza to bring back to our room for dinner. We ordered a small pizza–hmmm, it was so big, the box with the leftovers wouldn’t fit in our fridge. I guess we know what we’re having for lunch tomorrow 😉

This post was written prior to our leaving home on Tuesday the 28th. However, some technical difficulties with a new iPad prohibited us from using the WordPress App until our technician (Joe) had time to investigate. We also were not able to post any pics. We will resume our regular broadcasts very soon. Thanks for checking in!

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We did not think we would be hauling a U-Haul – yet again! However, in order for us to actually bring the things we might need (tools) along with the new freezer/fridge, it is necessary. God knows we can’t pack too much in the back seat or we get the sad face from Miss Coconut. She is such an excellent traveler that we allow her lots of stretching out room. I swear she can be yard long if she wants to be. Love is blind.

A few weeks back, we drove to Red Wing, MN to pick up the new NovaKool side-by-side freezer refrigerator unit. It has a smaller freezer than the current Sub Zero on the boat and has the ability to run on shore power or batteries, giving us the ability to anchor along the way. Yes, shocking, but the last freezer was just too big.

The old fridge was original equipment, rusting a bit and we were afraid it would die at an inopportune moment. We are pleased with this purchase, even though it took a lot of planning. Hey, thats what this boating life involves. Planning and planning to not have a plan.

We are bringing the NovaKool unit with us rather than having it shipped to avoid the chance of it not getting to us in time. We want to arrive at the yard where our boat is stored, have the marina lift it onboard and get it hooked up. They have already removed the old one. The other issue is the MN dealer gave us a fabulous “tax free” price (only 2 boat bucks) as we are from out of State and he was so knowledgable about it that any issues that arise, he will help us out. Renting the UHaul is actually cheaper than shipping fees, plus the truck isn’t as crowded.

We are allowing three days to get the new fridge in and then we will splash the boat. We may stay in Surf City a few more days as being 2 blocks from the Ocean is very desirable. Seems like we have seen a few too many below zero wind chills this winter and a chance to walk this beach again cannot be passed up. While the work is being done on Pursuit, we have an AirBnb to stay which is also close to the beach. We are certainly hoping the weather is better than when we left Surf City last fall but rain is in the forecast for the first two days. 😕

Our very loose plan is to visit Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Hilton Head and Savannah, to start. Also, many smaller lessor known spots. We really want to see the wild ponies.

We were married in Charleston–25 years ago! Hah, they said it wouldn’t last. We are hoping to visit Battery Park, where we married, the lovely Elliott Inn where we stayed and had a memorable dinner and again find the Irish Pub Joe’s mom insisted we find 25 years ago.

We will not be there on April 19 our actual anniversary, but I think we just may celebrate early. So many wonderful memories with all of our parents who are all gone now and Joe’s brother Bob, wife Donna and their two girls. Going through some old pics a few days ago, I found some pics of this young military family–they were so young and had done so much. So special now that they were there with us!

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We get a lot of questions about living on a small boat for extended periods of time. Well, even though we are trying to go without a plan, it takes a lot of planning.

We already own the boat but didn’t pay the sales tax to the State of Maryland where she was purchased as we were leaving there within 90 days. We now needed to license the boat which opened a huge can of worms on registration, paying the sales tax and different legalities in coastal states. It took awhile to get this all figured out in a manner most advantageous to us. As they say, you cannot avoid death or taxes.

Then there is planning routes, with tides, currents, water depth, bridge openings and locks. You need to know how far you can go on your fuel, where to buy fuel and where the best marinas are in the towns you want to visit. There is general maintenance, which also includes trying to wash down the boat at each stop to keep the salt from destroying it. You need to provision and know where shopping can occur. You are hopeful the marina has a nice laundry facility available or off you go to a laundrymat!!

Then there is “The Weather” which really put an end to our Fall season. You have to trust the information out there and go with the flow if the wonderful marina, restaurant or town is not your cup of tea!

Many people think once you buy the boat, you have a “cheap” place to stay. It is nice to travel with all your stuff and in your own bed but it certainly isn’t free. There is the off-season storage, regular maintenance, insurance and fuel fees. Marinas average about $70 per night (for a 32′ boat) if you don’t get a weekly rate. We do hope to be “on the hook” more now with the recent upgrades to the boat. We liken it to traveling in a motorhome or camping trailer.

Then there is leaving town for over 8 weeks. You need someone to check on your house, water your plants and remove the snow. Paying bills for the next 3 months takes a bit of time too. The truck needed new tires and maintenance as well. More planning.

Another saying boaters know all too well is B-O-A-T or “Break out another Thousand”. That’s right, we pay in “boat units” every unit representing $1,000 and we always want something! Ouch is all I can say about that….

Whew….. its a lot and reading back what I just wrote doesn’t sound too appealing! But then we are out there exploring new places and seeing new things by land and water. Spying dolphins, the palm trees and abundance of flowers, very blue skies overhead and water beneath, a gorgeous beach, relaxing in the cockpit with a cocktail, having a fabulous dinner on board or at a wonderful waterside restaurant and watching the sun set are all so magnificent. Then there are the wonderful people we have met and friends we have made even in the short time we have been out and we think this is why we do this–let’s keep going while we can … One perfect moment is worth all the planning.

November 19

We traveled South on the ICW about 5 miles to Anchors Aweigh, the boat yard where Pursuit will sit “on the hard” or out of the water until we come back early February. The weather is suppose to be in the 50’s and 60’s, in February. We hope so, the unexpected cold here with the wind was not so nice [understatement].

Of course today was a beautiful day — we were pulling the boat!  Along the way, we did see some oyster fisherman out behind our marina in Surf City and along the ICW.   It looks so odd because they are way out from land but standing in the water next to their boats.  The oysters live in the brackish water and are easiest to harvest during low tide.  They must be pried loose with a tool.  You take the singles and leave the rest of the cluster to keep growing and provide habitat for the other oysters.  This is called “culling in place”.    You must have a license and there are limits on how much you can take and when you can harvest.  It would have been nice to get up closer but we were heading out — and it was low tide!!

Getting the boat hauled was uneventful, the guys got the boat in the travel lift and moved to a bit higher ground where they thought it might be a bit warmer and calmer to cover the boat.

The people at the yard could not have been nicer. they arranged for a fabricator to come out and help design a crane and storage system for the outboard motor, looked at are old refrigerator/freezer to determine how to get it out and decided a Lamp with a light in the engine compartment would be enough heat for any cold weather so no winterization is necessary.

Amazingly, the custom cover we had made for our 30′ SeaRay fit pretty darn good on our 32 Eagle Trawler. We spent some time making it fit around the radar tower and did a bit of “imagineering” and got her covered. Dee at the marina was right; we are the only covered boat at the yard!

Undercover

So, unbelievably, the above stuff took us two days. We had a lot of lists…. oh, and the weather has been glorious now that we’re leaving! It is now Thursday morning. We made one last stop at the beach and saw the operations are already underway to repair the beach damage.

The other thing of note is the the most beautiful decorations around the town for the holidays. The light poles had huge, lit designs including Santa, Rudolph and snow flakes but also there were pirates, shells, seahorses, lighthouses, sailboats, starfish, boats, a crab, sand dollars–we loved them. The boardwalk was covered in greenery and lights. Big budget. There is a lighting ceremony this weekend that we are very sorry to miss.

Our goal was to get the boat further South. We are happy that we are far enough to be able to come back in February but of course, this is weather dependent. We had hoped to make Charleston but mother nature did not cooperate. However, we were not on a schedule.

We traveled 470 miles from Rock Hall, Maryland, to Surf City, North Carolina. If you look at the coastline and its ins and outs, we did pretty well. We had hoped to clear all three major capes but will settle for two: Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout. We are saving Cape Fear for our next trip.

Here’s to life, liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. Thanks for joining us.

November 23

We made it home today at about 6:00 p.m.  We took a wonderful route through the mountains and even visited Mt. Airy, the home of Andy Griffith and model for Mayberry.  Great town.   Kitschy stuff!

We came across this view unexpectedly.  It’s called Pilot Mountain and it rises more than 2,000 feet.  It was named by Native Americans as it was a pilot or guide.  At the placard that described the view, people had written their names on the decorative rock.  We added ours …. of course!

Unfortunately, it rained most of the trip through the mountains so our hopes of seeing the Big Walker Mountain Tower and vistas were in the clouds–literally!   Still, a gorgeous drive through North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

One last favorite photo.  Working Boatyards are interesting places.  There are new boats, old boats, big and small boats.  Many are left for years while waiting for repairs.  All have a story and most all were someone’s dream at some point.