Month: May 2021

Decisions made and we’re moving out to execute.  The boat will be sold from Beaufort, NC.  We just have to pick a broker.  It was fun being on the water coming up here, but coming on the new Apolonia, well — she’s not the boat for us.  Too small inside and unsafe to work the bow for line handling.  No problem, decision made.  The weather also gave us a concern, with the Neuse River being an ugly passage for the last 3 days and possibly 2 more, so to make the visits we’ve planned for May we decided to drive to Colonial Beach and Annapolis in a rental car.  Got us a solid black Dodge Charger — I feel like a teenager!

This morning I called Enterprise to verify the rental car had a full fuel tank.  Well, not so fast.  We had to take the car with its 1/4 tank, not enough to make Colonial Beach and the service stations were out of gas in Beaufort.  A call to the Dock Master at our marina confirmed they had fuel, but they could only fill boats and jerry cans.  Off to your friendly ACE hardware and I had a 5 gallon jerry can.  Five trips from the marina pumps to the car and we’re full with a 490 mile range that will easily take us to Colonial Beach, 325 miles away.

This is getting to be fun.

Since we are stopping the boat trip and shifting to a car we’ll stop the daily blog update.  We only update this blog occasionally outside of boating, usually monthly.  Hope those that followed us enjoyed the musings.  Hope to see you all soon. And, sadly, Peggy and Diane, the bar chairs are staying stacked on the boat.  They made it to Beaufort, but we can’t tote them in a car.  We’ll get them to Peggy’s Pier on the next trip.  Determined to make our contribution.  Will call when we get there and settled.  Anxious to see you guys.  And, the Blunts, too.

Still a northeast wind on the Neuse.  No one who has been on the Neuse would go out there with a strong NE wind.  We’re effectively stuck in Beaufort on a heavily rainy day and taking it easy, monitoring the fuel situation.  We’ll leave here Friday morning in a rental car, driving to Colonial Beach, leaving with enough gas to make it the entire way.  We’ll visit friends and  really enjoy our former hometown, then drive to Olverson’s Marina in Lottsburg to see our dear friend Kathy Dow on the 17th.  She’s still living aboard Pilgrim …. more than 34 years!  Oh, the cruising stories she has! On the 18th we’re off for Annapolis and the grandkids for 4 or 5 days.

So, tomorrow we pick up the rental car and get stuff off the boat for the trip.  After a couple weeks in Virginia and Maryland, we’ll come back here, unload everything off the boat and turn it over to a broker to sell.  Brokers we’re talking to say they have waiting lists for  boats of our type.  Then we’ll rent another car and head off to Florida.  A much shorter trip and itinerary than planned, but we’ll make up for it later in the year.

Tonight we went to Clawson’s Restaurant, walking in the rain and wind that never relented all day, and had a great meal, as you see below.

 

A small craft advisory is still posted for the Neuse River that we’ll have to pass through on the next leg of the journey.  Further, it appears we need to have a propeller repaired or replaced due to the grounding.  We’ll discuss schedules with the boatyard tomorrow morning and decide what we are going to do.  Part of the reason for this trip was to determine if this boat is the right one for our boating.  We have decided it is too small for what we enjoy doing on the water.  Carey can’t stand up to walk around the bed to make it up in the morning, not to mention the real problem… the absence of safely negotiable decking for her to reach the bow and handle lines.   She really doesn’t like that.  So the boat is history some time in the near future.  How soon, we’ll decide.  The ability to go faster does not make up for the room we are are used to having. And, the engine noise prevents reasonable conversation.  Another near term consideration is the pipeline ransomware attack that closed down the NE fuel pipeline.  The Governors of NC and VA have declared states of emergency due to dry pumps!  Steve, owner of Town Creek Marina, said he is getting one fuel fill-up tomorrow and his supplier says no more for a while.  He is worried about hoarding of fuel and deciding who will get the fuel he will have.  We are seeing long lines at the gas pumps here.  Hope it is not happening where you are.

We’ll decide how to proceed after talking to the boatyard tomorrow morning, then move ahead.

High Wind Blowing — over 25 knots today.  Glad we’re tied to a pier.  The Neuse River wouldn’t be the place to be with this blow!  So, it’s a weather day, for sure.  The boat yard doesn’t work Monday so with our weather day we also had a second Sunday.  Tomorrow morning we hope the yard can confirm all is ok with the boat and the wind decreases enough to make passage up the Neuse, that’s very wide and really rough in high winds.

We did make a good day of it.  Carey used the courtesy car to do some shopping and then cleaning.  I did a bit of work.  Then we relaxed as the rain started and the wind still howled.  In the evening, Carey cooked a great flank steak and with salad and bread — a great meal.

We always knew that in boating you could say we’ll meet you some place or on a certain date, but you never put a place and time together because that’s often leads to unsafe boating.  We’re coming to Virginia and Maryland.  We’ll get there and we’ll let you know when we do!   On this blog, we keep everyone informed.  So far we are still on for this coming weekend in Colonial Beach.  We’ll see if something changes the schedule tomorrow.  Luckily, our folks definitely understand and wish us a safe trip.  So looking forward to seeing everybody!

Here is Apolonia at the windy slip and a quick picture of the Town Creek Marina where we are moored.

Another good performance by the boat.  It was performing great as we approached mile 100 of the 110 miles to our today’s destination, Beaufort, NC.  Then Phil makes a mistake.  High winds and crowded conditions and I moved slightly left of channel on Bogue Sound at low tide.  Yes, you guessed it.  We ran aground.  Tow Boat was quickly on the scene and we are now safely at Town Center Marina, in Beaufort, which is also a boat yard.  So, we’ll have them check out the boat in the morning.  Wish us well.  I don’t think there’s any major damage, but we’ll have the professionals tell us so.  Then we’ll rework our schedule if needed.  Getting to be a habit on this trip!

Maddie and I planned a little Mother’s Day celebration for Carey this morning and I intended to take her out to dinner.  The grounding stopped that plan.  I’ll make it up soon.  In the meantime, wine, cheese, crackers and shrimp cocktail was tonight’s dinner fare.  Not so bad.

Hope all had a Happy Mother’s Day!  BTW, Beaufort, NC is a lovely small town….as is Beaufort, SC.  Both are always on our itineraries.