Mills River, NC

 We went to my mom’s family reunion on the other side of Asheville. Always a nice time visiting and eating way too much!

Mom enjoying the day.  She is the organizer and keeps up with the family tree.

And we did an awesome photo of our family!

Mills River, NC

 In the mountains for a family reunion and various visits. Walking towards my mom’s house….this deer was not very afraid of me!

The temperature is still warm but about 10 degrees cooler so enjoying it!!

Pittsboro,NC

 Amazingly, we are at home at least temporarily. We will travel and  spend the weekend in the mountains, visiting folks and relaxing a bit, no boat work!

Oriental, NC

 We continue to work on the boats....in the dreadful hot weather!  Luckily, we have a large beach umbrella that we set up to shade ourselves - a real comfort!  But still - it's over 90 degrees F and breezeless.  

Hard to believe, but we spent almost the entire day yesterday installing 4 cleats to Oasis.  The boat didn't have cleats at the bow and stern to allow for proper storm tie-up.  Sounds easy, but we had to cut out and fit "backer boards" made of G-10 fiberglass board. 

That's pretty much it for the day - 4 cleats installed - oh, yeah,  we did drag the trailer full of garbage to the dump out in the country.  It was nice riding in the A/C, haha!

Oriental, NC

 Hello, my people!  I have an announcement.....for many different reasons we are doing something you may find odd.  

We're keeping Sojourn and we'll sell Oasis....

We just didn't fall in love with Oasis - for lots of reasons we've decided that we're much happier on our little vessel that we've taken so much care to alter to our needs.  We did do one thing that I really wanted - we moved the louvers over to Sojourn.  

We do have a bit more to do on Oasis to get her ready to sell - just a few items that we knew would have to be addressed.

We're relieved to have made the decision and will move along accordingly!

So you'll see the new view - pretty spiffy:

Oriental, NC

 We’re still here!!  Just busy, busy and extra warm!  

Oriental, NC

 Taking advantage of the calm air to do some final adjustments on the sails on Sojourn....always needs tweaking when the sails are completely removed/reinstalled.

Nice shiny new stainless rigging!!!

Otherwise, it's become a daily grind now to clean up both boats, decide what to keep on the boat and move "stuff".....

There is an amazing amount of excess stuff on Oasis including cabling left over from the original owner for what appeared to be an audio-visual system.....completely outdated and unused.

And Duane has been working in this spot for the past two days....there is a complex bilge pump system that we knew had problems and would require attention.  But it seems that there are multiple problems including two sump pumps and various wiring that is corroded and intermittent.  Fun stuff!!

Oriental, NC

 Another very busy day...

 Both boats are a disaster inside.  Slowly moving everything over to Oasis.  There is an amazing amount of "stuff" on boat boats...

 

Since I'm going to make a new main sail bag for Oasis, I took the opportunity to measure Sojourn's sail bag before we re-install it.  The rigs are identical so the measurements should make it easy to recreate the bag without all the fitting/measuring I did before.

There were a few chafing issues I needed to address before reinstallation.

Just made a nice thick patch.  Should last a while.

I know it doesn't seem like much progress....hard working in the hot sun!  Boom hoisted and back in place. 

Got the main sail ready - flaked and battens reinstalled.

Once the winds calmed just at sunset, we used the halyard to hoist the main back onto the mast and got all of the running rigging reinstalled.

Oriental, NC

 Another very long busy day…

At Duck Creek Marina, Tyler from Marverick Marine and his helpers were waiting as we arrived.  They made quick work of getting the mast up and reinstalled with shiny new stainless rigging.

Just like the removal a few weeks ago, The reinstallation took less than an hour! We were on our way back to Oriental

The winds had picked up and it was slow going but pleasant temp. 

Back in the slip before dark. It was two for Tuesday Pizza night  at the Silos, so we welcomed the break.

Oriental, NC

A very tiring day yesterday, cleaning out walkers (corrected lockers) and trying to keep things organized between the two boats. Up early this morning for the five hour motor up to Duck Creek to get the mask (corrected mast) put back on Sojourn with new rigging!  (composed at the noisy helm via voice)

Weird to see this view off the bow!

Cool birds on a marker. I believe they are young ospreys. 

Beautiful sunrise, will be a very long day, five hours up the river, and then five hours back after the mast and rigging is reinstalled. 

 

Oriental, NC!

First I want to say that we are watching the tropical weather and hoping for the best for all the sailors out there....especially Charm and Meshugga!!

We were up early again and set out on the last leg towards home.

Familiar grounds up the ICW from Swansboro to Beaufort/Morehead City.

 

We always feel close to home when we are in sight of the port.  Still several hours from Oriental.

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As we were near the Neuse side of Adams Creek we were approaching a low visibility rainstorm.  We slowed down,  turned the radar on and had our nav lights on as well.  Out of the gloom this sport fisher boat was full throttle cruising in the opposite direction and this photo was after he had come out of a thicker rain shower.....Not safe!

 

 

But soon we were past the rain and it was a lovely but hot day!

Stopped at River Dunes for a fuel top off. 

Finally back at the home dock!!

 

 Now the work really begins....

 

 

And the final word today is that we will be renaming the boat Oasis.....a nice simple and easy to say name!

Swansboro,NC

 Getting pretty close to home now!  Yesterday we thought we would continue the outside run to Beaufort, about  70 miles. So at dawn we went out the inlet. And quickly decided that the seas were just going to be uncomfortable with strong winds on our nose. Didn’t sound like any fun so we decided to regroup and motor the intercoastal Waterway instead.

Pleasant cruising but slow!!!  The current was against us almost all  day....

As we got close to Camp Lejeune near Jacksonville, NC - we started seeing these training "things".  I'm sure they practice war with these.

Near Topsail or Onslow beach....not sure because our navigational maps don't really have a lot of land based detail.

 

It was clear that school's out and families are enjoying themselves at the beach! Calm little cove on the ICW just a few hundred feet from the ocean side.

 

Lots of secluded waters too.  Pretty light traffic for a summer day.

We had to pay close attention to the time as we had a couple of bridges that only open on the top of the hour....missing one of them would mean having to hover for a very long time!  Fortunately, we  timed them perfectly.

After a long day with slow speeds, we made it to familiar ground at Swansboro. 

Beautiful sunset...will be home soon!!  Now the work will really begin!