Fuel on Thanksgiving???

After a windy night we picked up a very muddy anchor and headed down Adam's Creek. We are now tied up to the dock in Morehead City waiting for fuel. We are lucky to find someone working today. Weather and wind over the next few days favor an outside passage so, after fueling, we will head out Beaufort Inlet and shoot straight to Florida.

We Are Off the Grid

Bill just started the engines and we have disconnected the shore power. Looks serious now. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!

Any Day Now--Could Be Tomorrow

After sitting around waiting for so long we find ourselves rushing around making last minute arrangements and provisioning. At least we have been blessed with beautiful warm weather. The enclosure is done and I have added pictures of it to the "Enclosing the Stern" slide show. The kayaks are packed up. We found a nearby marina that provides car storage. We've been trying to get in touch with this diver who said he would clean the boat bottom.

So the plan is to leave tomorrow and travel to Morehead City where there is good access to the ocean through Beaufort Inlet. Tomorrow's weather probably will not be great but we will be going down the canal so it will not be a problem----and we will be dry and warm!! By Thursday the front should pass through and we should have a NE wind that will be perfect for sailing south.

Bill activated the SPOT yesterday and I have replaced the Where Are We? maps with a link to the SPOT page. SPOT is a satellite tracking device that we can use to post our position periodically and/or send it via email to friends and family. Our position is shown on Google Maps and we can associate a message with it and also can use it to call for help if necessary.

Critter Catchin'

A few days of south winds have lowered the water in the creek. The weather was cloudy but warm and the water is not really cold yet. There is marsh and some rocks by the seawall so I took my net to see what I could find around and under the rocks. The slideshow has some pictures.

This afternoon we started stocking up on supplies. We also bought the Explorer Chart Books for the Bahamas. Tonight will be stormy and the warm weather will end. Time to head south!

Sunrise at the End of the Tunnel

It appears that we will be leaving next week sometime. The enclosure installation is scheduled for next Monday. This is the last thing we have to wait for. At least we are having some nice weather and I have been fishing and kayaking. Bill and I have caught some undersize trout and redfish—we can’t keep them but they are fun to catch. I fear if we have to depend on fishing for food we will be very hungry. This weekend there were quite a few of the “weekenders” at the marina but my how quiet it gets after they leave on Sunday. Samantha has figured out how to get on and off the boat (onto the real dock instead of the reflection) but sometimes gets confused about which boat is hers (there is another catamaran next to ours). I am not happy about her wandering, I’m lucky she is not particularly comfortable with it.

Sunrises and Sunsets are some of the prettiest I’ve seen. Thank goodness for digital photography.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay

Life has become very slow and I am still adjusting. We are now waiting for our stern enclosure to be made which should be done in the next 2 weeks. Today bluebirds are sitting on the wind vane dropping seeds on the roof. Yesterday the big excitement was that Samantha decided that she was ready to explore territory beyond the boat. She had been peering down into that stuff below the boat for days but it was too far down for her to test it with a paw. I watched her as she braced herself for the leap then aborted a couple of times. I yelled out to her “don’t do it” but could tell she had made up her mind. I kept back, knowing that she can swim (she fell off once before) and her curiosity must be satisfied sooner or later—let’s just get this one over with. All of us have had a case of cabin fever--first mosquitoes and flies, then cold front passage has made waiting for our back enclosure a bit tedious. So she finally made a flying leap—splash! She popped up with that “OH $@*% look and kittypaddled to the stern stairs where I had a towel waiting. She’s fine and I hope she has learned something about boats.

Fantasy and Reality

How easy it is to say “When I retire on August 1, I will get on my boat and sail into the sunrise.” Certainly, that’s pretty much how we took off to the Bahamas in 2007-2008-we just got on the boat when we planned and left. Of course, this was a vacation and we intended to come back. We could resume taking care of the house and stuff and business. This time was different—the dream to cast off from “the grid”, we found, has many strings attached. So August and September passed, as we examined every scrap of paper, every piece of memorabilia, 1000s of magazines and books, the accumulation of 60 years of living, 22 in the same house. We had to make a decision about each item—store, take with, toss. It was amazing how much JUNK and trash there was. There must be a special Plaia section in the landfill. However, Mrs. Raley, I want you to know, that I DID NOT throw away my 10^th grade world lit notebook (I still believe that you would haunt us if we did, as you threatened; and you possibly could be at a point in your existence now where haunting is possible). Then there was the house—Over 22 years we had maintained it but there were also many things that were out of sight-out of mind or just not a priority. Around the first of October we were finally ready to move onto the boat but--- one more thing—A water pump for the boat was being delivered and it took nearly another week for that to happen. So finally, October 5, I said good-by to an empty house, devoid of our life in it, packed the cat in my Mustang and made the move. –to utter chaos. The normal chaos of moving plus the sails were still inside-we had taken them in before Irene hit. There was nowhere to sit or put anything. I was exhausted and grumpy but glad to have crossed that threshold. Every morning I wake up to sunrise over the water. There are also some spectacular sunsets here.