My son Jason has been looking for a trailerable sailboat for years. He has not been very aggressive. I like to surf the Internet looking for and at boats and when I find one that looks promising I send him an email. A week or so ago I found one near Oriental (no big surprise there) that was about the right size and at least close to his price range. Since we were planning a weekend trip I called the sailboat's owner and arranged a time to come and take a look.

Friday August 2, 2013
We left home at the usual time for a weekend trip. We had dinner at the American Roadhouse in Asheboro where the food is usually good. This time it was not. I ordered fish and it was not good at all. I am not sure if it was way it was prepared, or the fish itself. Oh well I will give them one. The rest of the trip was uneventful but hot. When we arrived it had cooled off some and with the wind right on the bow of the boat in her slip, the heat was tolerable. We did not deploy the portable air conditioner. Portable in this case means it has handles, luggable might be a better choice of terms. In any case it has to be very hot for us to lug the AC up on the coach roof at 10pm.

Saturday August 3, 2013
My appointment to see the boat was at 8am. That suited me just fine and the owner had a sailboat race later in the morning. I arrived promptly at 8am. I had seen pictures of the boat so there were no big surprises. The sticking point may be the fact that the boat trailer is not titled, or the title was lost several owners ago. I am not sure how someone expects to sell something they cannot prove they own. The jury is still out. If a valid title can be produced, we will make an offer if not I don't need the hassle. The boat is not that great.

I was back at our dock by mid morning. We had no real plan for the day so we just relaxed. It was already hot. By 11am we decided that the diesel needed to be exercised. I looked at the radar on the Internet and it looked clear. We left the dock and headed for the lower Neuse River. When we reached the end of Broad Creek where we could actually see the river we saw a little black summer squall drifting slowing down the river. Not good. We turned around and dropped the anchor out of the channel near marker 3 thinking we could wait for a bit and see which way it was headed. Judy made some lunch in the galley and I called Jason to fill him in on the boat I had looked at. Judy had just finished making sandwiches when the little black beauty (my name for them) started the thunder and lightning thing. That pretty much made the decision for me. Anyone is welcome to call me a fair weather sailor or even a wimp, but I am not going to steer my vessel into a thunderstorm if I know it is there. We upped the anchor and headed for the dock.

After we tied the boat back up we didn't have much direction. We talked about driving over to New Bern for Judy to look at antiques and having dinner later. We were still thinking about when Richard and Frances came down the dock. They stopped for a visit and we decided to go for a late lunch / early dinner in Oriental. We ate at the M&M. The food and service was good. We came back to the boat and before we knew it, the sun was dropping and the day was ending. Our last several trips to the boat have been less than stellar. Hopefully the weather will improve and we can get some quality sailing time in before winter sets in.

Sunday August 4. 2013
We left fairly early on Sunday. We had made arrangements with Matthew and Amber to meet for lunch. I had not seen Jonas since mid June. That is too long between visits. We had a nice lunch and went back to their house for a visit. We left for home when it was time for Jonas' nap.