More Ocracoke

We had a lovely night at anchor on Silver Lake - great breeze and cool temps.

At 6AM, Jerry and Donna let us know there was a space on the National Park Service dock open - so we quickly hoisted the anchor and moved over to the dock.

 We attended the SCOO (Sailing Club of Oriental) happy hour for drinks, lovely snacks and good conversation.  I forgot my phone, so no photos, but you get the idea.

The plan for the next day was a pot-luck dinner, so I got busy with my offering - sushi! 

The usual process - get everything sliced and diced.  Sticky rice cooled.

Starting the assembly process.

This one is a veggie only roll.  Cream cheese, cucumbers, peppers and carrots.

Starting the roll, getting it as tight as possible.

Finished roll.  Ready to be chilled well and sliced later.

Same process of the raw tuna rolls.

All finished and ready.

The veggie ones -

And the tuna ones (appropriately labeled for those folks that care.

A morning bike ride around the island with the group.  To the lighthouse.

A nature walk to Springers Point.

And more biking out to the beach.

A fun walk on the beach.

And before we knew it, it as getting late.  The weather looked like it might rain, so the plans were changed a bit.  No pot-luck tonight.....and since the sushi wouldn't really stay fresh an extra day, we decided to have "happy hour" on our boat....everything laid out.

Add wonderful folks and you have a party!!

 I'm sure this is the most "weight" we've ever had on the boat....look at how far down in the water we're setting!!

 The next morning, we were all invited over to BlueJacket for breakfast....Donna out-did herself once again.  Look at all that lovely food!  (And lovely lady too!!)

We all left stuffed to the gills and with an extra plate of goodies.

And next on the agenda was clamming!!

Just 5 of us went - Bill and Chris

And myself, Diane and Irene.

We had a blast digging in the sand for the clams.

Here's our haul!  Yum, tonight's pot-luck will include these yummy specimens!   Fun trip so far!

Sail to Ocracoke

Our neighbors that we met in the Bahamas, Jerry and Donna, asked us if we wanted to join a group of other sailboats going to Oriental this morning....since we didn't have anything much planned we said "sure"!! 

We got a late start - several hours after Jerry and Donna left....we had to stop by River Dunes and pump out the sewage and get a bit of fuel. 

That chore taken care of, we headed out into the Pamlico Sound.  Before long I got a radio call from Laura Belle.  We'd met them in the Bahamas also.  They are from NC and keep their boat in Oriental during the summers also.  They were going the opposite direction - but nice to hear from them!! 

Here's the photo I snapped of them as we passed.

 And here's the photo Kay snapped of me at the same time!!

 Great sail for the first few hours - a fishing boat passed us....

The forecast was for winds to increase in the evening...but we thought we'd beat the worst of it.

We were wrong!!  No photos or video because we were too busy!  The winds steadily increased from a nice 15 knots to  30+ with waves from about 90 degrees.  This is terribly uncomfortable because the boat rocks quickly from side-to-side.   We put 1 reef in the main at about 20 knots.  At 30 knots we dropped all the sails. 

We were in the final channel going into Ocracoke when a monster thunderstorm caught up with us.  We only needed 15 minutes to get to safety, but we didn't have it! 

We saw a 46 knot gust and pouring rain in the narrow channel.  But, the boat and sailors did fine - we're safely anchored in Silver Lake at Ocracoke now - no space at the NPS dock like usual.

We will see if someone vacates a spot over on the dock tomorrow and go meet up with the other folks who sailed over.  Hopefully it will be a cool, bug-free night tonight!

A little sail repair

Our jib (the front sail) had a couple of small holes in it when we bought the boat.  Don't know where they came from.  We had put some sail repair tape on both sides before we headed to the Bahamas.  This held well and kept the holes from enlarging, but we wanted a more permanent repair.

 I know, it's all white, but you can see the patch and the holes.

We dropped the sail a bit and I used the sewing machine as best I could to stitch the patch in place.

 But I was not able to sew around the corners because the sail is just so large and stiff. 

So, we got out the awl.

Between the sewing machine and the awl, we got the patch sewn nicely! 

The sail is not terribly pretty but it's in good physical shape.  Should last a few more seasons in the tropics!!!

Oriental

Nothing exciting to report - we're just doing boat chores getting ready to go to Jarrett Bay for our new engines in a couple of weeks.

Pretty sunrise on Brown Creek

Same view, later in the day!

Dinghy life vest organizer

While we have the dinghy home for maintenance, I decided we needed a way to "tidy it up".  We've always just thrown the life preservers in the back - where they take up lots of room.  You can see them in this photo from the Bahamas a couple of months ago.

I had some left over marine mesh material left over from a Island Girl project a few years ago, so I set out to make a "keeper" for the life vests.

Just made a loose bag.

And ironed some Sunbrella material for a finished edge binding.

 Added a few snaps to the bag and the seat support.  Very happy to have the floor space to stash groceries, etc!

Trip to Memphis

A few days ago, we did a quick trip to Memphis to pick up a 500 lb anchor!  Visited with the folks on our way thru, so was a nice trip.

We'll need a "hurricane mooring" at our place in Oriental.  If a hurricane is threatening, we need to be able to take the boat out into the middle of the creek and attach it to a mooring ball.  This way, the boat will just "weathervane" in the high winds and rise/fall with the tides. 

Here's the anchor being loaded onto the back of our pickup.

We'll have to get approval from the folks who are in charge of the waterways, but should not be a problem.   We drove over 1000 miles in one day - a very long day!

Bomar hatch re-bedding

Two of our overhead hatches have leaks....time to fix them.  I'm tired of wiping up the drips!

Hard to see, but the hatch is basically a "sandwich" with a lip outside that is supposed to be 100% sealed and the interior plastic (yucky old yellowed plastic).

With a bit of prying and pushing, it's all apart.   Now the "cleanup" begins.  An amazing amount of caulk had to be removed.

Duane's pretty legs dangling into the salon while he worked on removing all the caulk on the exterior.  It took about 3 hours!

The yucky old caulk fell to the floor below.

Outside part cleaned and ready to reinstall.

Interior plastic painted and ready!

He put down a liberal amount of 3M 4200 marine sealant.

Hatch back in place!  We'll await the next rain to verify, but I think we've got it fixed!

Dinghy chaps repairs

We hauled the dinghy home to the hangar to do some repairs.  It has a very small leak that needs to be addressed - and it can't be done hanging on the back of the boat. 

So, I am taking this opportunity to finally sew on the nice registration placard we bought when we were back in Texas.

This is a photo of the dinghy when we first bought the boat.   It has the previous owner's registration numbers showing thru a cut-out in the dinghy chaps.

And this was my solution to temporarily display our NC registration numbers - done with black electrical tape! Don't look closely - I "free-handed" those characters.... Ugly but legal.

But now that I have the dinghy chaps removed, it is time to fix it properly!

So I just measured the "hole".....

And cut out patches of sunbrella material to cover the holes on each side.

 Top stitched the borders - the placard is a very heavy plastic coated canvas.   My machine sews it easily.

Patches ready - I sewed the placards on with black UV resistant thread so you can't really see that.

And now the "hole" is covered and we're going to be all legal once I attach my NC Wildlife registration sticker.  Note that I did several other repair patches (like the one on the bottom left).  The dinghy gets some serious abuse up against docks!  (That's one of the purposes of the chaps - to protect the dinghy from protruding "stuff" on docks!)

Taking off the ugly netting

The previous owners had a tiny dog on board and had installed an intricate netting all around the lifelines to keep her "safe" when out on the deck.

We kept the netting on for our trip thru the Bahamas.   I was thinking, well, why not?  It's already there and it might "catch" something that had gotten loose on the deck.

But I started to hate it!  It interfered with the cleats and it generally just looked "yucky" and not "ship shape"....

The netting had been on the boat many years - it was a tedious procedure to cut/unwind all the attaching strings. 

All fresh and clean!  And those cleats are accessible like they should be!

"Before" shot.

And the "after" shot.  Much cleaner looking, I think!

Away

Weird to be posting non-sailing days!!!  Check out The World of Karen

We'll be back to the boat soon!

Dinghy Trailer Refurb

Our neighbor had a dinghy/trailer that had suffered thru a brush fire.  It wasn't of any use to her - the wiring was melted, the wood skids were burnt up and the front caster wheel had melted.   But the "bones" were good.

The dinghy was a total loss....so we loaded it up and will take it to the dump for her.   Duane will fix her up and she'll be good as new!

Back "home"....

Arrived back "home" to Pittsboro yesterday.   Over 3000 nautical miles from  Galveston in November.....a neighbor in Oriental had been keeping our little minivan running since Octobor when we left it there.  So, we had transportation once we arrived at our dock.

First time in at the dock at our lot.   I have been handling the controls at the docks since we left Galveston in November.  Duane has been out on deck handling the lines.  So far, we've only pulled up to "face docks" for fuel/water.  I will tell you, even though our slip is 30' wide....it seemed a little "tight" approaching for the first time!  Duane coached me from the deck - "don't worry about starboard.  Just forget starboard.  You've got plenty of room over there.   Just pay attention to the port side and you'll be fine".  Worked out fine, of course.

Spent a couple of days getting the boat settled in it's new "home" and relaxing.  Drove the 3 hours back inland to Pittsboro.

The house handled the 6 months empty well.  Nothing broke, froze or flooded.  A couple of wonderful neighbors took care of watering the inside plants and collecting the mail every day.   Thanks Pat & Diane and Lindy!

The pipes all expelled rusty water for a few minutes and the toilets had evaporated all the water out of the bowls.  Several of our outdoor plants did not survive the "below-freezing-for-10-days-straight" that they suffered this winter. (Not that anything would have changed had we been in residence)

Only one vehicle tag had expired while we were away.  The daffodils and the iris's bloomed without me.....


We've got a list of things we're doing before heading back to the boat in a few days....

One of the most important is flying!!!  Hangar in the backyard.

Pulled the Mooney out and did a good walkaround.  Amazing that the tires stayed pumped up and the battery was still charged after 6 months!

We flew and got our currency back (3 take offs and landings are required every 90 days).   Duane is a pro.....but I will admit that I was very, very rusty at the controls after so long away!  The NC countryside is just lovely from the air, though.

Really, really weird to be back in the house with all the space!   I seem lost in my own kitchen!   The king-size bed seems ridiculous!

Visiting with the neighbors and the kids.  Getting everything ready to head back to the coast in a few days for lots of "boat chores" - bottom paint, new engines, etc.

Seems like we're spread a little thin between all of our various interests.....and the plan is to head out again in the fall for points south!