We arrived on Wednesday night to find the dock strewn with former flotsam. According to Nick, the water had come up as high as one foot over the dock. The noreaster which came through the area the previous day had caused a tide surge comparable to a tropical storm. Fortunately, Nick and Jeannette had tended to several boats (including ours) which did not have enough slack in the docklines to accomodate this surge. Unfortunately, they had to go out in a dinghy during a downpour to board boats from the stern, because the boats were too high to board and the lines could not be adjusted from the dock.
Thanksgiving Day was a cold and cloudy affair. We started the day by transferring 324 pounds of chain rode from the car to the anchor locker on the boat. After working up an appetite, we cleaned up and headed up to Nick and Jeannette's for a thanksgiving feast with a contingent of Whortonsville Yacht and Tractor Club (WYTC) members. Both the food and the company were unparalleled, and we retired to the v-berth, sated and sleepy.
Friday brought beautiful weather on the heels of the storm. We did some 'Black Friday' shopping in the booming metropolis of Bayboro. Thrift shoppes, hardware stores, and the used book store were our hunting grounds, and we came away well supplied on all fronts. Upon returning to the boat, we installed the new pressure tank for our Force 10 heater and fired it up. Success!! Well, sort of. Over time the diesel fuel we were burning developed a much too yellow flame and burned much too sooty. Looks like we are going to have to switch to kerosene.
For the present, though, we put any further boat chores on hold, because a contingent of WYTC members were planning to make an early evening run to Paradise Cove, by dinghy. Since we are currently sans dinghy, we hitched a ride with Joey. We enjoyed a few drinks and some fresh oysters Wesley had collected and thrown on the grill. By the time we took the water route back to Ensign Harbor, everyone was hungry and an impromptu pitch-in took place in the WYTC cockpit (our screened-in room off of the bathhouse). As you may imagine, much of the food offerings were thanksgiving leftovers. A good time was had by all, and the only factor which drove us back to our boats was the encroaching cold.
Saturday brought another beautiful weather day, and Sheryl took advantage of the warm sunshine to start removing the name
Queste from both sides of the boat's stern. Meanwhile, I took out the pressure tank, removed the diesel and replaced it with kerosene. It burned much cleaner. Finally, we can consider that project complete (just in time for the colder months ahead). We ended the day with a de-naming ceremony, designed to appease the gods of the sea and ward off the bad luck associated with changing a boat's name. This worked well when we performed the same ceremony with our previous boat (
click here to read the details of the ceremony), and we are hoping for similar results this time around. We closed out the evening with another gathering in the WYTC cockpit: good food, good friends, and good conversation.
Sunday brought another remarkable weather day, and I donned shorts before starting my boat chore for the day. Since Sheryl had spent hours in a borrowed dinghy yesterday, peeling off the old name. I decided that I would be the designated dinghy-boy today and would work on trying to polish the hull so that the image of the old name would not stand out against the oxidation around it. I washed each side of the stern, applied a polish/cleaner, then washed again and completed the task with a light coat of wax. It turned out looking great. So great, that I felt I had to continue to treat the rest of the hull in a similar manner. I managed to complete the starboard side and get a decent start on the port side before the sun dropped low in the sky and the mosquitoes encouraged me to seek shelter. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of pasta on the boat before tying off the docklines and making the long drive back home to Cary.
Four days at the coast were an ideal mix of social interaction and productivity. We are both sad that it had to come to an end. Thus begins the count-down to Friday when we will be back aboard the boat with no name. Stay tuned as the new boat name will soon be revealed.