Pictures

Gloves would not fit over my cast so I used my camera lens bag 

t

o keep my hand warm

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We are enjoying our time here in Beaufort. Making new sailing friends. Went to a place called the filling station Friday night and had a delicious gigantic ribeye and a baked potato for 10 bucks each. It is a popular cruisers spot here. Spent Christmas with Tim,Morgan and Zelda. Ate too much food received. Some wonderful gifts and just had great family time. Sunday before Christmas the 4 of us ventured to the mall and downtown Savannah. What an amazing downtown Savannah has. We have been doing some boat projects this week. Put new windows in the boat we had custom ordered before we left Carlyle. That was easy they slipped right in we dry fit them then we caulked and screwed them in. Next day we decided to install a new running light on the bow sprit this was very involved because we were drilling holes in the stainless steel and running new wire through the pipe. So Joe took th bow sprit off then we decided we had everything torn apart so we would also put the new cleats on too they were in a box on the boat when we bought it. But there was wood underneath the cleats, we sanded and stained the wood plugged the old cleat holes and old running light holes. Took off the bow sprit stanchions to put tape under them to seal them good. That was the first day. Day 2 of the project. Joe had to few challenges getting the wiring through the bow sprit. Several tries were made and a few choice words were spouted. Boat neighbor came by with some better string. Joe use the vacuum to suck the string through and then he could pull the wiring. We esventually got the bow sprit back on and the cleats not without some hassle and a few more choice words and a beer break because of the frustrations. Always gotta have your priorities in orderyou know how it is. Joe wired the new light on today. One more project done. Tim came to visit us today with Zelda. What a stinker that puppy is but very cute.. Having visitors from St Louis this week. Can't wait yo see our friends. Happiest of New Year yo you all.ttfn.

we have arrived in Lady's Island South Carolina near Beaufort (pronounced buuu fort). we will stay here for a month or so doing some work on the boat,  visiting with Tim and Morgan, touring local historical places and i need to get my arm all healed up so we can take off for warmer waters. my arm is making progress but still has a long way to go.  i can still only type with my right hand and am limited at many other things it is very frustrating. 
we left at dawn this morning on high tide so that we could get through some stretches of the waterway that were to shallow or shoaling for the draft of our boat.  it was a spectacular sunrise. a dense fog was hanging over the marsh but not over the water, colors of orange and purple were coming up under the clouds and they were glowing.  the water was calm and the reflection from the clouds was perfect.  only the ripples from the trail of our wake disturbed the water.  i will post those pictures on Sunday. we had 36 miles to go so we made it all without any trouble until we got within sight of marina cut the green marker too close and got stuck in the mud for about 5 minutes.  earlier in our trip i did the same thing one morning i tried to cut across to a marker and ran aground and we were stuck there for about 20 minutes so we have both had our turns at that, me more than Joe though. lol.   Joe was driving at the time but he also got us free we took a different approach between marker and bridge and took it very slow into the channel as the tide low. everything goes by tide here not wind because we are so close to the ocean. local knowledge of the daily tide flow has helped us tremendously. 
when we got to our dock there were 4 guys waiting to catch our lines only one worked here.  it was a very warm welcome. the lady in next slip gave me some carnations as she had extra.  while i was talking to her joe already had another guy, tom, on the boat looking at a place to install a windlass.   as the afternoon went on we had people coming over to the boat to introduce themselves and we got a tour of the facilities here.  our new sailing friend rick from spin drift is also here, i told you about him in an earlier blog post.
safe and sound here. will post again soon
maybe i will tell you the story about camp lejune.  hmmmmm!

next few days after oriental were pretty routine. get up put things away.  motor all day anchor at night.  very cold mornings with no heat.  pulled into a great marina called spooners in moorehead, found it in a book, was a narrow channel to get into but tide was high so we had no problem.  stayed there one night so we could use wifi get some heat and much needed hot showers.  this was part of a condo complex that took a couple of transient boats a night.  we have been very fortunate to find so many great places to stay.  we usually find a marina to go into every 3 days or so rest of time we anchor, it is quieter and free.

saw our first pod of dolphins.  we are close to ocean just over sand dunes.

3 days later we pull into southport marina.  dock guys helped us tie up.  great place.  we ran out of propane the day before so now we have no heat and no way to warm anything up so we went to southport, wonderful facilities.  we call the local hardware store to see if the fill tanks and yes they do. we get boat settled start the laundry and begin our 2 mile walk one way to get propane.  we get half way there and joe asks me what is on the shopping list.  i said propane  SHIT  !!!!!! we forgot the propane tank.  so we walk all the way back to boat.  it is dark now.  joe gets the tank and we start walking again.  i see a truck pulling out from zimmermans  marine right next to the marina.  i tell joe to stay on street instead of sidewalk maybe this person in truck will offer us a ride.  AND  HE DID!!!   LOL!!  he took us to store and back,  thanks steve,  he was manager of marine shop and a fellow sailor.  he knew how far we were gonna have to walk.  next day we had his guys come to boat and make adjustments to the stuffing box.  it will get us by until we get it repacked.  we stayed 2 days in southport. Joe had to get work done and we needed internet to do that, cleaned boat, washed all salt off.  met some great people. hank a fellow sailor has a chart briefing at 6 every night and gave joe some extremely valuable shoaling information that we used the last 3 days.  hank also has a shuttle service to stores and back. i hired him so i could provision.  did some Christmas shopping, finally. 

by they way Merry Christmas to all of you.   

i skipped a part in my last blog.
on our way down the pungo river we were passed by an ip38, spin drift,  skipper is rick.  we talked with him over radio and he gave us some good advice.  we followed him most of day once we got out to the sound he put his jib up and took off. we were rounding the bend off the red marker, to the sound and i was at helm, always stay to middle of channel,  hit something hard and came to a complete stop.  my first grounding as skipper, and it was not the last ( but that will come later). spent a few hours on the sound heading toward Belhaven NC and our engine starts to smoke.  our stuffing box was not dripping water onto the drive shaft.  joe poured water on it about every 15 minutes and cooled it down.  we were still on sound and our jib was out so we were still moving.  we were headed for an anchorage but we called the Belhaven marina to dock up because of the engine thing.  rick is way ahead of us we see his sails are down and he is anchored.  we hailed him and asked if he needed assistance.  he said his starter battery was dead and his battery pack was not charged.  we fortunately had a brand new set of jumper cables so we drove by him handed him the cables and rick said it was just like tagging the committee boat.  went into marina rick came in too.  we met the most wonderful dock master and her husband.  this place was well kept and the bathrooms were just like going home.  would stay there again if given the opportunity.  had dinner at the tavern with rick found out his wife had passed away a month earlier but he knew she would not want him to delay his sailing trip so he is out here. what a great guy he is.  we have talked to him a few times since then.  we are meeting up with him in beaufort.

My last post was quite a while ago. internet has been hard to come by lots has happened.  we moored out at Broadhead creek on Saturday after thanksgiving in a beautiful spot we were surrounded by marshland.  no noise but a few birds around.  It was just us and the bald eagle.  We did have another boat we could see the Walter J. woke up next morning expecting to leave and we were fogged in.  I am not talking a thin fog we are talking pea soup type fog.  we checked the weather forecast and it said fog was going to lift by 10:00  so we waited.  At 10 still no lifting. Forecast was going to be bad for 3 to 4 days and we did not want to sit for that long.  Walter J pulled anchor and drove by he was going.  We talked about it decided we would go too we hauled anchor and left out of our lovely mooring spot via GPS exactly how we came in.  We were going to turn back if the fog did not lift. We were headed across the Abermarle Sound which is about as deep as Lake Carlyle but very wide so when the wind kicks up there are big waves.  We had 5 mph winds but thick fog.   For 4 hours we navigated through the fog.  Turned the boat around at one point to go back then Joe turned back and kept going Saw a black glove floating in water with fingers up that was creepy me out,  found out 2 days later there was a kayaker missing on the sound.  We knew we were coming to a point were the markers were confusing and it was going to shallow up. When all of a sudden we emerged from the fog and it was blue sky and flat water.  We had made it to the Alligator River.  Drove a few more hours and anchored out for the night.  About30 minutes after we anchored we heard Navy jets and they were flying low.  Come to find out we were right in the path of their practice bombing range.  For an hour or more we had jets flying low to the boat, we did not mind,  it was quite impressive.  next day we headed up the Pungo river  and onto the Neuse River to Oriental north carolina. free docks there no power or water but free.  on our starboard we had huge shrimping boats getting ready for fishing and on our port the town of oriental.  we were picking up our mail here.  i have to say we felt very welcomed here someone even drove us to the post office. stayed in oriental for 2 1/2 days bad weather we were expecting, gale force winds we stayed put.  sat in a coffee shop, the bean, and received tons of advise and local knowledge from men and women that have been cruising for years.  what a great experience, it was warm in there too, no heat on boat, so we stayed a long time.  left oriental during very windy conditions and headed back across the neuse river.  it was only 4 miles but 20 to 25 mph winds were coming from the northeast and we had 4 and 5 foot rolling waves, about 3 seconds apart, hitting us on port.  it is an adventure!