A couple of notable things occurred today. The first was truly a random act of kindness. We had walked into the town of Oriental, grabbed a coffee and a bagel for lunch at "The Bean" and continued on down the main street intent on going to the grocery store about a mile or so down the road. Along the way I spied a hairdressing salon and decided to go in and see if I could get a hair cut. As I went in a lady was also heading in and said a very friendly "Hello". I was able to make an appointment to return in an hour and as I headed out the salon the lady asked me if we were walking to the grocery store. I replied that "Yes, we were" at which point she handed me her car keys and insisted we take her car to drive to the store, then take everything back to the boat and return in an hour by which time she would be done with her manicure and it would be time for my haircut! We were blown away by this friendly gesture. Once we had done shopping and I returned the keys to her at the salon she told me that she and her husband used to cruise and that she knew how tough it was sometimes to get the shopping done without transport. She also commented that she had no qualms lending her car to a cruiser as she knew that there was no way they would run off with her car and leave their beloved sailboat behind - how right she is! It is acts of kindness like this that restore your faith in humanity.

The second notable event was that we received a "senior discount" at the grocery store. What does this mean? We were both flabbergasted when we reviewed the receipt and noted the $2.69 discount. Tom thinks it is because they thought he was shopping with his mother - very rude! Well, whatever the reason, we'll take the discount.

So we have had a happy, easy day here in Oriental, it has been sunny and warm. Tomorrow we are hoping for some action along the depth sounder front. We'll keep you posted.

Comments [4] | | More

After a calm night in the Pungo Creek anchorage we pulled anchor about 8.00am this morning and made full steam ahead for Oriental. We had a good day on the waterway and the miles passed easily enough. The rain held off although we had grey, cloudy skies all day. We made it to Oriental by 3.00pm and negotiated into our assigned slip at Deaton Yacht Services in time for a cup of tea. I have to say that we have been very impressed by the service here. We had been tied up for less than 30 minutes when Peter from Seacoast Electronics was stepping aboard to help sort out the depth sounder issue. I have to thank John Deaton for helping get Peter on the job so quickly. It turns out that this was one of those situations where it paid many times over to bring in the professional. Peter was able to determine that in fact it was not our 30 year old control unit that was bad but rather the 2 year old transducer! Sadly, this means it is not a cheap or easy fix. We will have to be hauled out to replace the transducer and of course we have some odd ball transducer that Peter does not have in stock. Thankfully he has been able to order one which should get here on Thursday. We are also having a new control unit put in as well as we just don't trust the old one any more. So we are on an enforced lay over for a couple of days. I suppose it serves us right because we had been looking at the forecast and planning on leaving Beaufort for an offshore leg on Thursday - obviously that is not going to happen so we will just have to wait and see what comes later in the week.

Comments [5] | | More

We were up early this morning and pulled away from the dock with just a tinge of regret - rain is forecast and it is tempting to stay tied up with access to shore power and hot showers. But off we went, once again surprised at the strength of the wind having been protected in the marina. But once again the wind was behind us so we were able to unfurl the headsail and make good speed South. At one point we were overtaken by a deluge of rain but it didn't last too long and we were left with overcast skies but thankfully not too cold. On previous days we have been amazed at how many boats there are heading South - big, small, sail and power but we saw very little traffic today, presumably because of the weather.

Once again the depth sounder was absolutely useless, so that is it - we are headed to a boat yard tomorrow to replace it. We have gone back and forth and realise that although we have done fine in this stretch of the waterway we would be having severe anxiety attacks if we were in shallower water. And we want to be able to head into some of the more remote anchorages where an accurate depth sounder is vital.

Tonight we anchored in Pungo Creek (our third time here). We have had a lovely supper and are warm and dry, although it is raining outside. Tomorrow we are headed to Deaton's Boat Yard in Oriental.

Comments [1] | | More

We left the Broad Creek anchorage this morning after a good nights sleep, only disturbed once when the wind suddenly started gusting from the North (as opposed to the South). This caused a shift on our anchor and much clanking of chain and creaking of snubber. I jumped up and stood in the cockpit for a while but it was apparent all was well and we were not dragging our anchor, nor were any of our anchorage mates. We had some discussion this morning as to whether it was advisable to leave or not as 20+ knot winds were forecast and we had to face crossing Albemarle Sound with it's reputation as one of the roughest stretches of the ICW. We decided to leave and pulled anchor once it was light enough. Almost immediately the depth sounder started to do it's "thing" and give us totally random readings! A depth sounder is one of those things you think you can manage without.....until you have to manage without! We don't like not having a depth sounder one little bit! Thankfully we were able to follow our "breadcrumbs" out of Broad Creek and once we got back onto the magenta line that is the ICW, navigation was very straight forward. Once we left the anchorage we could appreciate how much protection we had had. Thankfully the winds were behind us and so we were literally surfing across Albemarle Sound. Once we crossed the Sound we had a discussion of our options and decided to call it an early day and head into the Alligator River Marina. What a great choice this turned out to be. We arrived nice and early in the day and were the first ones in. This meant I got first dibs on the washers and driers and managed to get four loads done before other cruisers started appearing. In the meantime Tom gave Osprey a well deserved rinse off. The weather is slowly deteriorating with rain forecast for the next few days. Hopefully we will be able to push on despite this.

Cruiser's Notes: Alligator River Marina, convenient location just before the Alligator River Bridge. Bargain at $1 a foot. Very friendly and helpful. Good showers and laundry and like Pete from Prim said - "don't use the drier on the end"!

Comments [0] | | More