Blow don't she Blow and Thank God we're holding
05 November 2007 | Beaufort
As I write this I am sitting in a coffee shop in Beaufort, NC drinking a chai. O is on board the boat with the two boys while I take a much needed break. Tropical Storm Noel is hammering us with high winds that have hit 40/45/50kts. Several of the boats around us have dragged but thankfully we have not. We knew these winds were coming so O battened us down. We picked up a mooring and put the anchor out. Yesterday I thought he was being overzealous but I am sooo glad he did it today. Initially, we tried to get on the dock to weather out the storm but only one marina could take us and they couldn't do it until today(Friday), which meant we would have had to put Indy on the dock in 45kt winds.........hmmmm......no.
The catamaran moored in front of us was a little caught off guard by Noel. We talked to them yesterday and they looked at us like we like we were ill informed when we mentioned the high winds that were forecasted to blow. To top it off, they thought we were out of our minds when they watched me lowered our anchor into the dinghy so O could set it. However, we awoke this morning to them dragging. They then tried to put the anchor out which wrapped around the mooring ball, resulting in one of the guys having to dive on it, in a steady 35/40 wind. Lesson: it plays to follow the weather.
Catch up: We stayed in Norfolk until Monday, then decided to make a run for Beaufort, NC. We wanted to be here in time for the kids to trick or treat so we had to beat feet. The ICW is interesting. First I want to begin by slagging off the majority of Sea Ray (not exclusively), go fast owners. They were constantly overtaking us in narrow channels at incredible speeds, leaving HUGE wakes with no heads up!!!! It was awful. Not to mention they have the crudest boat names, which never cease to horrify and disgust me. At one point one of the guys was reprimanded by the bridge operator THREE times because of his speed and because there were divers in the water. Just FULL throttle around. One of them, (toward the end of the day) made such a wake that it swamped my galley!!! It was then that O got on the radio and made a rather off color comment regarding guys that drive go fast boats. We realize it takes very little skill to drive these boats however, if they tried to learn a few of the basic rules of the road it would be helpful! I obviously am excluding anyone that owns one of those boats that is reading this blog.....you obviously have refined taste and bear no resemblance to the others.
We anchored that evening around dusk in a rather unremarkable anchorage. However, it was nice and calm. O got up at 6:00 the next morning, pulled anchor and led us back to the ICW. Again, rather uneventful but we managed to make better time than expected. Wed., hellbent on getting to Beaufort, we hit the road early again. Although this time it was busy and people were being very cordial. Calling to ask if they could pass and vice versa...the way it should be. A few boats pulled the large wake BS only to be berated by everyone on the radio.
We made it to town creek in Beaufort around 4:00 dropped anchor, got the kids dressed and hit Beaufort. I had anticipated it to be a bigger town. It has a large historic area and a few little shops but other than that, a rather sleepy fishing village.
Now, let me walk you through trick or treating Beaufort style:
Almost all of the homes are civil war era or earlier with large ornate porches, wide plank floors, big windows, some with widows walks but all very regal the ones that Sam ran inside of while trick or treating were decorated with beautiful period piece antiques. Most homes were in full Halloween spirit. People were sitting out on their candle covered porches with friends, enjoying cocktail hour, distributing candy,GREAT CANDY at that. (Strawberry whoopee pies, candy bars, fruit roll ups etc.). It was all very genteel and civilized. The real kicker for us was when a pick up truck pulling a trailer pulled up. The trailer was decked out with hay bales, dry ice and coolers anchoring either end it was packed with kids and adults. The adults we having a civilized cocktail party while the kids hopped off and hit the homes. O and I were impressed and concurred that if this is trick or treating southern style we like it. I commented to O that if we were up North the pick up would have been pulled over before even leaving their driveway! (open container, no seat belts, car seats etc). We decided that things are a little different here and right up our alley!
We will be here until Friday when our auto pilot is suppose to be here....