boats

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Trick or Treat

Treats for all!  No tricks, not after Ms Sandy; that was enough. We treated ourselves to a two-night marina stay at Morehead City Yacht Basin after moving from our hurricane hole.

Wednesday was a day of boats on the move; the radio was alive with passing arrangements and comments about swift currents. We kept the VHF on to listen for any problem areas, Coast Guard announcements and get a beat on the whereabouts of boats we knew.

Halloween night was our second night and not only did we treat ourselves to dinner at Floyd’s 1921, but we had trick- or-treaters come to the boat!  Of course I was not prepared, this being a new possibility in the lives of a boat seldom at a dock. We quickly put some of my (confession time) peanut M&Ms in three snack baggies and handed those out. M/V Makara, a captained ninety footer with one woman crew member, was docked behind us and they were prepared with a basket of goodies. The woman confessed that her mom had sent the candy to be sure they had some. Next year I’ll be sure to buy a bag of M&Ms snack size- just in case. 🙂

M/V Makara is way more prepared with treats!

Even cruising kids want to Trick or Treat

Thursday we headed out, hoping that the 65’ highrise bridges would not have too much water under them.  Storm surge and the recent full moon made for very funky tide ranges and currents; no one could accurately plan ahead. Lady Luck was your best bet. Usually, we prefer to make a coastal trip between Beaufort and Wrightsville Beach. Two good inlets and doable in 10 hours- roughly.  Jumping out here avoids having to time the scheduled opening bridges. Unless you want to get going at  o’dark thirty, the average sailing vessel won ‘t make it to Wrightsville anchorage via the ICW in daylight. Conditions weren’t right for a jump outside and we’d been hanging out in NC long enough; so ICW it was.  Using ActiveCaptain, we located a place with good depth (for us that would be between 5 and 10 ft), room for several boats and an easy approach; Sloop Creek.

A few hours into our trip, just north of Swansboro, NC, a monohull (Pearson I guessed) just ahead hailed us. A few seconds before I’d had the binocs on them to see the boat name in case we needed to call them about passing. I put them down quickly when I saw theirs were trained on us. Umm, odd.

The radio comes to life with, “This is the sailing vessel Lutra calling the catamaran behind us.” Did they want us to pass, or not to pass, or maybe they wanted to know what make of cat we were? “Can we switch to 17?” asks a pleasant-sounding female voice. Now comes the classic land neighbor question; you know, the one about borrowing a cup of sugar.  My face must have registered surprise, delight and confusion all in a 30 second time span. The woman on Lutra wanted to know if we could spare two eggs as this was her uncle’s birthday and she wanted to make cookies but realized had no eggs.  Luckily I had plenty, even though Russ had used three to bake Challah bread. How to make a safe transfer? I wrapped the eggs in paper towels and placed them in a plastic (non-zip style) bag leaving a bit of air and secured with a twist tie. Russ didn’t want to snug up too close, therefore an egg toss was out of the question. The boat hook was called into use and we wrapped blue tape around the neck of the bag and I went to the bow for the hook, wrapping the remaining length of tape just before the actual hook.

Eggs, set, go! I am so nervous at this point.

I even did a quick weight test to be sure the tape would hold the bag. The wind had other ideas and when I extended the precious cargo toward Lutra, halfway across the bag was torn off and into the water it went! OMG!   But the bag was floating and Lutra turned around to execute a masterful retrieval.  As this scene is playing out, a small sportfish behind us is being entertained.

Lutra (Sea Otter) goes back for the floating egg bag

A few hours later as we waited for a scheduled opening bridge (the great equalizers) Lutra caught up and passed a bag of chocolate chip cookies to us via boat hook. Lucky for us they approached our stern fairly close and the bag was hooked on to the hook part. Cookies for lunch dessert!

An ICW cookie exchange. Successful pass by Lutra!

Later on we passed along info on our anchorage for the night. A convoy of four boats entered together but all had plenty of room along with a lovely marsh grass view.

You may recall our friends on MoonTide, a beautiful Shannon 53 with a too tall mast. They need 64′ and inches which can be problematic in normal conditions with certain bridges, but post-Sandy was extra ugly.  We came upon them anchored before a highrise bridge that looked to be only 63ft- at low tide. We took it slow, MoonTide watched and reported we cleared with room to spare. That tells us we may only need 62 1/2 ft. Note to selves: next time Benj goes up the mast, have him measure the instruments on top.

After dinner we officially met Patti (Captain of Lutra) and her uncle, Don. Patti is a single-hander who occasionally has company and help along the way from family members or friends. Don’s leg will end in St. Augustine.  Overall, this was a memorable day and a much-needed reminder of why the cruising life is so special.

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Neighborhood Tour

Our land neighborhood is much like an RV park, especially now that a large houseboat sits in front of us- Bridget’s boat. Hauled for a quick bottom painting, she’ll likely be out several weeks. The bottom needs more than a quick scrape and paint. The thought is that the bottom is constructed from the wrong type/grade of aluminum and will need more than a lick and promise to get it ship-shape.

Houseboat “Carpe Diem” is moved to our front yard

Three boats down off our port side, sits Cambia, a 40’ Dean catamaran with major delaminations; but that boat is at least 18 years old. Her owners have been living aboard on the hard for a month and hope to go back in- “soon”. On the plus side the work being done is top quality. Jan and Dick have cruised and lived aboard for 16 years and once this work is complete they will be selling Cambia (loosely, Spanish for “change”) and re-inventing themselves as dirt dwellers once again. So many years, so much knowledge gained and they’ve been extremely helpful to us since we got plopped on land.

“Cambia” getting all spiffed up

A week ago we met Mark- a soon-to-be cruiser. He will be retiring from the fire dept and by the time s/v Gypsy is ready to go he hopes to have convinced his girlfriend that a great cruising experience can be had in a 28’ monohull. Absolutely… and she’s a beautiful Westsail double-ender with enough wood trim to keep someone busy enough so that they are glad the boat isn’t bigger. The other night we met Susan who wanted to ask some questions. While our situations and boats are quite different, when you hear the call of the wild (whether it be wind, water or whatever) and answer it; you are changed. No longer can you say, “I wish I’d done that”, because you did do it.

S/V “Gypsy” – freshly painted and ready to splash Friday

S/V Zanabe caught our attention- seized by a U.S. Marshall and locked up behind a fence. – oooh that could have been poor Ortolan’s fate. The 80’ ketch was built and launched in Argentina in 1977. Back then she was smaller; two subsequent overhauls have lengthened her and made her super spiffy, complete with state-of-the-art electronics and lord knows what else. She’s being foreclosed on a 1st preferred ship’s mortgage in a Providence, RI court. You can have her for yourself; she’s offered for sale by Ocean Super Yachts- can you guess? Only $2.8mil- fence not included.

S/V “Zanabe” all fenced in- so sad

S/V “Zanabe”: under arrest

Windermere is a Cape Horn 65 (only one guess as to her length). She spent the winter in the Bahamas, making many of the same stops we did; only she had her share of engine troubles. A tow up the Cape Fear River to Wilmington, SC must have been pricey, not to mention long. We both gave Bahamian shells to Rose at the marina store here, for her granddaughters.

M/V “Windermere” sits in the spot we occupied last year

Papa II appears to be sans owners at the moment and the marina crew worked on her briefly. We heard a boat with that same name during our time in the Exumas; could be the same one. How many Papa II monohulls exist?
And then we have Ortolan. She’s looking better once Russ decided to work on her a bit after all. His audition for The Blue Man Group was not successful so he’s resigned himself to Lead Project Worker Bee while I accepted the role of Queen Bee. One of the yard workers offered this description: “you must be a nurse; following him around, handing him things.”  I was thrilled when Russ caved in and agreed to have the yard sand Ortolan and he’d paint. We paid for two hours and supplies because all that could be done was to tape and sand one section of the stbd bow. The power sander takes off too much paint though.

Russ takes a break from his Blue Man Group audition