Mills River, NC

 Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

Duane's mom wanted to go to Strawberry Hill in Chesnee, SC so we loaded up and drove about 45 minutes to the family attraction.  Had a nice diner meal before meandering thru the country-store fresh market. 

 

It was not terribly crowded....

 

Lots of beautiful strawberries!

 

And other assorted goodies.

Shopping done and full bellies....driving back to Hendersonville some distant mountain views.

 When I got back to my mom's house, I found her busy in the yard pullling weeds.

 And then later cleaning the pool....glad she's setting  a good example for me!

 

Mills River, NC

 Visiting our Moms for Mother's Day!  

I enjoyed dinner out with my mom....she's doing great. 

 Beautiful day....view from Mom's house.

  

We'll have a nice visit with Duane's mom today as well.   

Pittsboro, NC

 We've been having fun catching up with folks...Jerry and Donna were passing thru the state and they stopped in for a visit!  

Fun chatting and had dinner together before they headed back to Oriental.  Good times!

 

 

Pittsboro, NC

 We went out to eat with Robert last night.  Was fun catching up with him!  Duane said something silly so we were laughing when he snapped the photo. 

 We'll be off to the mountains for Mother's day....

Pittsboro, NC

 We spent the last few days getting the boat cleaned up - and ready for a yacht broker to come aboard....we have decided it's time to sell Sojourn and do a lot of travel by other methods!!  

It's amazing how much "stuff" is on a boat....so I won't bore you with photos of boxes and crates of stuff.   We're sorting thru it all and trying to figure out what to do with all of it.  (Some stuff is left in the trailer  at the boat in case we need to make repairs or anything while it's for sale.)   I don't expect it to be a quick process as I'm not really sure how the boat market is right now.   Right now, we've got a couple of trips planned in May to the mountains.  Then the entire month of June into July will be in the Pacific NW touring there.  I'll keep you posted!

Oriental, NC

We're just hanging at the boat....organizing and cleaning.  Duane was out mowing and had a pully on the mower fail....we couldn't find the part locally but there was an outdoor equipment dealer about 45 minutes away in Newport that had one in stock.  So we took a little road trip.

Good fun because it involves a ferry ride!  And bonus points because we arrived about 3 minutes before the ferry was scheduled to depart and drove straight on....

 

 Always fun to see the other ferry cross paths in the opposite direction.  Kinda hard to see but the river was bouncy with some pretty gusty winds.

  

We stopped for a quick restroom break at the ferry terminal.  We noticed a drink machine selling this can called "Liquid Death" - upon closer inspection it is simply canned water.   Weird choice for a brand name!!

 

 Uneventful and successful pickup of the lawnmower part.....

Back to the ferry dock - lucky timing again!  We drove right onto the ferry for the return trip.  

More cleaning and mowing in store.  We really know how to have fun!
 

Oriental, NC

 Back at the boat....

Duane replaced the broken hardware for the mainsail.

 

We raised the main to check to make sure all was well after the replacement part.  Was nice to shake out the reef lines that we had in from our sail from the Bahamas.

 

 

Beautiful sunrise this morning!!  Lots of organizing and grass mowing in the future.

 

Pittsboro, NC

 Getting things ready to go back to the boat...Duane's been servicing equipment and remembered that the sun cover for the lawn mower was sun-damaged  last fall.  Time for a new one.

Here is what the cover I made from a tarp looked like a couple of years ago.

 

 

I brought it in the basement and used a seam ripper to take it apart.  (It was literally falling apart in places due to sun damage...)

 

Then out to the hangar to whip up a new one!  Just laid out the old one on the top of a new tarp.  Used a Sharpie to outline the pattern. 

 

I took some "notes" on where to sew in the seams.

 

 All ready for sewing. Pretty simple really, just bulky.  Precision is not really required. 

All done, ready for the hot summer sun!

 

There are webbing straps underneath that holds the cover in place that aren't visible. 

 

 

Pittsboro,NC

 I know, I’ve been lazy with the blog. Not a lot happening….just getting back into “land life”.   

We were out and about on the golf cart in the neighborhood. Stopped by our neighbors construction site. The dome house is getting nearer completion.  Pretty cool and larger than it looks in the photo.

 

We have gone out to eat, most notably a new Indian restaurant in Pittsboro. Completely forgot to take photos but it was a treat.

We finally got a little bit of rain, not enough to resolve the drought, but at least the dust will be settled for a while.

Pittsboro, NC

Now my posts may not be so thrilling or imformative.....the most exciting thing yesterday was a $300 grocery delivery to restock my pantry and fridge....fun having all that stuff at my fingertips and reasonably priced as well!

 

Pittsboro, NC

 After a good bit of organizing on the boat, we packed up and headed to Pittsboro.  

All was well at the house.  The neighbors do a fabulous job of looking out for us....plants watered and a pile of mail on the kitchen table.

The yard, of course needs attention.  It has not rained in a long time here - there is a massive drought in the news.  So that did keep the lawn from being knee high.  I apparently missed all the daffodils....but other plants have some pretty color.   We'll be doing some projects around the house for a while so stay tuned.

 

Oriental, NC

 Nothing very photo-worthy happening.....just slowly getting the boat back in order......the cold front came thru and it's 49° F outside!!!  Crazy temperature swing.  Sojourn looks a little lonely out there!

 

We will likely go to Pittsboro today or tomorrow and see how the house fared!
 

Oriental, NC!!

 Catching up on the past 3+ days at sea!

Staging at Great Sale, one of the northernmost islands in the Abacos.  Since this is the first opportunity for sailing across to the U.S. in the past while, there are lots of boats staging there as well.  I counted 27 boats in total!

 

We lifted anchor at about 7AM and had the sails up right away.

Leaving the beautiful shallow water as we aim west....

 

We got in the groove for the next few days.  Three days of mainly reading books on our Kindles.  We had the Starlink running in "offshore mode".  We didn't do a lot of "surfing" on the internet since we have to pay for each extra GB we use.  Was nice to have access to real-time weather though!

Not a lot of boat traffic - almost no other cruising boats visible.  We did see a few cargo ships and several got fairly close to us. 

And of course, beautiful sunrises and sunsets!

 

The conditions were - pretty breezy and pretty "lumpy"....big ocean swells and some wind-driven waves/chop.  Not easy, fun sailing, but we sure had a fast ride.

 

This is a snapshot showing us going 12.5 knots - surfing down a wave.  I actually saw 13.5 knots one time but wasn't able to get a photo....that's roaring fast for our boat!

 

 Just a little video to show a bit of the conditions that we had for 2 days....I know, the camera flattens it out a bit but it was bouncy enough that we had to be very careful to hang on to something as we walked around on the boat.

 We ate well though and had a nice visit from a pod of dolphins!

 Arrival to the Beaufort Inlet was good timing as we had the tide running with us.   We heard from Bluejacket and Three Score - both of them traveled over the same timing are staying the night in Beaufort We'll see them soon.

 

 

Always fun to see what ships are over at the terminal in Beaufort.  Side view.

 

And view of the bow as they are loading cargo.

 

As we are avoiding a cold front that sweeps by tonight, we kept on moving up the ICW....passed a few fishing boats.

 

And the usual small craft out fishing in the marsh.

 

Lots of scenery as we travel the last few miles.

Great trip - since Wednesday morning - we traveled 583 nm over 78 hours for an average of about 7.5 knots!  That was pretty cool.  Glad to be tied up at our dock in Oriental.  Time for a much needed nap and showers!!!