I'm in this fully protected anchorage along the inland waterway so it was nearly smooth as glass last night and this morning. When I arrived I spent time on the computer studying boat storage options in the area and finding a rental car. There are basically two places I can store the sailboat without taking down the mast. There is the fancy Harbortown marina and the not so fancy Riverside marina. Harbortown has all sorts of rules and regulations and hoops to jump through before they will store the boat and naturally they are more expensive. Riverside has a do-it-yourself yard for pre-departure boat prep and they offer full service repairs and bottom painting and such as well. I think I'll take the everyman's yard. It turns out that after the fees for hauling, powerwashing, and blocking, their monthly rate is way less expensive than what I was thinking of paying in Daytona Beach when I almost got off the boat after the hurricane and less expensive than what I was paying in Oriental. Rob recommended coming here for storage and he was right about the price. And Ft. Pierce has a class A inlet so it is easy to depart from here to west end, a mere 80some miles. The choices in car rental were similarly limited. All the major car rental companies now have hubs at the New Bern, North Carolina airport but only Hertz was willing to rent a car from here to there. I have it reserved. The largest I could get was a small suv (like a Rav-4 or Tucson). I'm trying to time things out so I can pick-up the car at about noon, pack that afternoon, stay on the boat that night with the dogs, haul the boat first thing in the morning, close it up, and head off for a full day of traveling, stay at a motel (with the dogs), travel another full day to Oriental, stay on the motorhome with the dogs, drive back the next morning to New Bern (with the dogs left on the motorhome), drop off the car, and get a taxi back to Oriental. If I can do the entire operation in three 24 hour days, it saves me like $100 bucks. Not that $100 more matters that much after all it took to get me this far, but I like to create little adventures for myself and... well you know.