Oriental, NC

 A little bit of a busy day....

I took the warm weather opportunity to go on and wash the deck.  I had originally planned to wait until the day before we leave to do this, but I am thinking the weather may turn off colder in the next couple of weeks.  Washing the deck is much more fun at 80 degrees and barefoot vs. 65 degrees and windy like it gets in early fall.  

So, out comes the buckets, brushes and bleach.  I'm a bit ashamed to post the "before" photos.   The north side is much worse than the southern facing side of the boat.

See, I told you it was bad!  Before:

After:

Before:

 

After:

Before:

 

After:

And in the afternoon, another Manta came to visit at our dock!!

It's Dean and Kris on Charm.  They were the previous owners of What If!  They sold the boat to Ed & Cathy many years ago when they finished a Caribbean cruise with their teen-aged son.  But, they are empty-nesters now and bought another Manta to go cruising again!

Fun afternoon chatting and comparing Manta-stories. They'll stay with us for several days before heading south for the winter.

We were treated to a yummy curry by Cathy and had a fairly early night.

Oriental, NC

 Really winding down here - I made another shopping run to get some of the last items on my list.  Things like a pack of staples, a extra ream of printer paper, extra toothpaste, fresh clothespins....lots of little items that will be virtually unavailable when we get to the southern Bahamas.  

My cruising buddies will be impressed with this Walmart clearance find....Luci lights for $3 each!  I bought all 5 on the shelf.

 

For those of you who don't know about these cool little solar powered LED lights - this is what one looks like inflated and turned on.  We use them often both on the boat and ashore after dark.  

 

The final fresh/frozen food run will be done right before our departure, one of the only big items left on my list.

 

 

We ended the day with Silo's buy-one-get-one pizza, shared al-fresco with Ed and Cathy.  A pleasant day!

Oriental, NC

 Another dreary day - What If made it back from their 2 months in the boat yard!

 

Back together again!

They'll go out tomorrow for a sea trial with the electronics installer to check out the new installations and calibrate the autopilot.  After they get their sails back on, their rigger will come to tune the new rigging.  A long process but they have a lot of new "stuff" on their boat now!!

Oriental, NC

Very cloudy and cool here.  "Sunrise" this morning.

 

 

The stainless steel lifelines get a patina of rust over the season.  It's not harmful at this stage as far as I know, but I don't like the look of it.

 

A bit of scrubbing with Barkeeper's Friend powder and it's nice and shiny again.  Rinse and repeat for many more.

Did I tell you that it's been windy here for days on end, from the north which brings lots of water to us from the Neuse River.  There is usually about a foot of air between these deck boards and the water surface.

 

Our neighbor's seawall is not as high as ours and the creek water is encroaching on his yard.

 

See the shimmer of boards below the water?  That's the neighbor's kayak launch dock that is normally well above the water! 

 Ed and Cathy are due to splash today after two long months in the boatyard!  Looking forward to seeing What If back at the dock this afternoon if all goes well.

Oriental, NC

 We went to the Oriental Ol' Front Porch Festival to hear Jim and Bentley play.  They were scheduled to be on a "porch" but the rains forced them inside into a large garage.  All good though.

Fun to hear them!

Oriental, NC

 More items crossed off the list....

Cathy loaned me stencils and some fabric paint - the cover for our new hatch lens needs the warning "NO STEP".  The pink lines are just chalk.

 

All done - hopefully no one will stop on our hatch and break it in the future!  (There are other hatches, but they're not really in a normal traffic area.) 

 

Next I got busy with a couple of huge bags for the bikes.  I know, you're thinking that I just made bike bags.  These bags will only be used to transport the folded bikes in the dinghy - mostly to protect the dinghy from the sharp edges.  (The hanging bags I made recently will remain in place on the lifelines when we take the bikes off).

 

Simple construction from tough Sunbrella material.  Started with the handles.   I didn't even take photos during the assembly of the bags.  Simple boxes with drawstrings.

 

Two bags finished - just like huge shopping bags.

Duane is busy with watermaker plumbing - doing some maintenance and replacing old/worn parts.  

 

And in the evening we rode over to Oriental proper with Ed and Cathy.  This weekend is the "Old Front Porch Festival" in Oriental.  Our friends Jim & Bentley from Salty Paws are here from Florida to play their music on Saturday.  They said they'd be at the brewery in town this evening so we planned to see them there.  Unfortunately, it was a zoo of un-masked people in close quarters and we didn't connect with them nor stay long.  But we'll definitely see them tomorrow when they do their public performance.

Oriental, NC

 One of the items on the to-do list was to repair a rip in the sail bag.  I'd been dreading it since the sailbag is sortof a pain to remove from the boom.

But off it came....the skies were threatening rain, so I wanted to get the repair done quickly to avoid putting the bag back on with wet sails.

The tear was fairly small but needed to be addressed before it turned into something much worse.

 

I made a simple patch from Sunbrella and sewed in place.  The sailbag is quite old - I expect more than 10 years.  It's made from Sunbrella Sapphire blue - the exact same material as the patch.  I guess it will fade in a few years as well.  Re-installed just in time for a light sprinkle.

Oriental, NC

 We used to store our Coast Guard required life vests under the cushion on our sling seat.  But when I made the nice cushions a couple months ago, the life vests lost their storage spot.

We decided that we could make a place to store them in the vacant space under the gas grill.

After much measuring and head scratching we had our design.  A simple box that would have zippers on the end to make it quick and easy to access in case of emergency.  (The tabs will help attach it under the grill support.)

 

Here's the box mostly assembled.  (Made from grey Phifertex mesh and plastic Vislon zippers so no corrosion).

Fitting the box into the space.

 

Stuffed with 6 life vests and one throwable cushion.

Zipped up and completely out of the way but accessible!

 

Pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Oriental, NC

 Finished up the sling seat modification.  Not much to look at but it was a good bit of work sewing the huge material.

It feels much better now - the extra material we removed was a bit uncomfortable under your knee.  

Today we're moving on to a hanging bag under the grill to hold/hide our life jackets.   More later!

Oriental, NC

 This will not be very photogenic - our sling seat has needed some adjustment.  The main cushion is about 4" too long.  We just hadn't gotten around to taking in apart until now.  

The seat cover with the large foam cushion removed.  I have to rip out the seams at end of the "box".

 

Then measured and marked the area to remove.

 

And cut it off with scissors.

Next I'll sew the box back in place, cut the foam to match and reassemble.  More tomorrow.

Oriental, NC

 Glad to be back to this familiar view this morning!

 

Now we'll get busy with the last items on the prep list for our trip south - target departure Nov 1!!

Pittsboro to Oriental, NC

 We spent the day yesterday getting ready to head back to the boat.  All the yard mowed and leaves blown - I pulled up all the tomato/pepper/flowers in our little garden as they were "spent".

I meant to come back and snap a photo of the nicely tidy area all mulched and ready for winter.  But I forgot.  You can imagine it though.....

At some point the "rafter" of tom turkeys cruised by.  It's a long-distance photo because they are rather shy.

This morning we met Robert for a nice brunch in Cary on the way to the boat.  (Forgot to snap a photo of him too - I'm really falling down on the job!)

Packed up with provisions - about 1/2 of what we'll put on the boat for the 6 month winter.

Stopped by the boatyard in Bridgeton to see the progress on What If's repairs.  They're getting closer to splash, maybe by the end of the week.

Back to the boat, many, many wheelbarrow loads of provisions were loaded on the boat.

Canned goods in the hanging locker....this cabinet will be much more full when I get done!

 

And lots of provisions in bins.

I'll be working on this for the next few weeks.  The boat will be sitting lower in the water soon due to all the added weight!