Wednesday, May 6, 2009

After coffee and a much-desired shower, we caught up on email correspondence and Internet stuff then headed for the courtesy van. We just missed it but were told that it was full anyhow and he'd take us into town when he got back.

We went to CVS (for scripts), the got some pizza at the Mellow Mushroom (a throwback to the 60's and Plum Street) that was tasty, then headed for the Market where vendors set up baskets, and other items to sell. When I asked for directions to the Old City Market from our waiter, he assured me we were heading in the right direction but that locals just referred to it as "the Market". I thanked him for that tidbit. I don't know if I mentioned it when we were on our way down before but "the Market" is a collection of sheds and such that was an outdoor fish and produce market. It was turned into a collection of craft stalls, shops and restaurants (we replaced our flag here at a Civil War Store - the old one looked like it survived a battlefield). Sweet grass baskets are sold all over the Market and you can watch the locals (descendents of slaves) sitting and making them in their stalls and sheds. The baskets are beautiful and range in price from $50 - $500, depending on the intricacies. They're also called Fanner baskets and slaves cultivated rice on the old plantations by tossing the grains into the air so the wind blew the chaff from the rice using this type of basket.

All this walking and doing nothing is hot work so when Wayne spotted an ice-cream place, we got some ice cream even though we were both still full of pizza. From there we went to the grocery store (Harris Teeters) and called the courtesy van to bring us back to the marina. Harris Teeters is really something else. Very upscale, large, with just about everything you could ask for in a grocery store - from gourmet, to inexpensive, fresh seafood or frozen meals. We re-supplied our wine and pop (soda). The pop was a surprise though. A sign said buy two get three free. We hemmmed and hawed over what this meant then decided it wasn't like buy one get one free or buy two get one free but actually buy two 12 packs and get three 12 packs for free. This was the actuality so we bought our pop for $.10/can. Such a deal.

Tomorrow we're supposed to head back out after we get Otto's belts. From here we're supposed to go to Beaufort N.C. but the weather is really looking like it's falling apart off shore with showers & thunderstorms and 4-7 ft waves growing to 12 ft predicted along our path. The other boats are talking about holding off for a couple days but then another front is supposed to be coming through on Sunday or Monday. We went over our options and decided we could jump outside for 24 hours and go to Cape Fear instead of Beaufort/Moorehead City and after going over all the weather patterns and scenerios, we decided that we'd just stay inside on the ICW again. We could wait a week and sit here, or take the slower route and sleep at night and still come out about the same place around the same time. Soooo we'll look again in the morning at the weather and see if anything changed.