Thursday & Friday, October 15 &1 6, 2020
Anchorage Inn Marina Ocracoke - Manteo Waterfront Marina
66 miles

I will tell you that writing a blog at the end of each day is not easy. Often times I end up writing the next morning as we are pretty tired after a passage. When everything is fine during a passage you are still on your toes with excitement and have to be vigilant about the navigation and operation of the boat. The constant motion is also a form of exercise. We are tired, eat dinner and a glass of wine and poof our lights go out.
So, Yes I have missed Thursday and Friday’s blogs and am writing this having a nice cup of coffee Saturday morning. The wind is howling from the passing cold front. I have switched from AC to heat as it is 61º this morning. So I’m catch up now.

THURSDAY - Getting underway with a big yacht behind me and the washing machine water being kicked up by the 7AM ferry could be interesting as I have to kick the stern of Liquid Therapy out and back past the yacht and not hit the T head of the fuel dock. There is enough room and I can control the stern pretty well. The bow could have issues. I want to get out after the 7AM ferry leaves and before the 7:30AM ferry leaves the dock. The dock master is going to help us get off the dock. Our lines are off at 7:10 and the first ferry has gone, but the 2nd ferry is in gear now causing the washing machine to start back up. The dock master says it’s a 5 knot current pushing me sideways. I look at the water flow and that seems a bit exaggerated. At least the current is going to keep me away from the yacht. I back out rather quickly using lots more power in reverse than normal and then spin around to head out of Silver Lake. As I pass behind the 2nd ferry the prop wash is interesting, reminding me of some of the strong inlets along the ICW.

The 66 mile ride up the Pamlico Sound to Old House Chanel to parts of the Oregon Inlet Channel and finally the Roanoke Sound to Manteo was pretty easy. Took us 8 hours and 20 minutes. We averaged 7.95 MPH or 6.9 knots. That is pretty a little above average for Liquid Therapy. The current and winds were helping most of the day. Wind changed from slight NE to a fairly strong SE direction. The wind was a bit stronger while docking as is usually the case. Wind always picks up when you dock. No one knows why. It just does. But, we had a great docking maneuver with lots of onlookers at the Manteo waterfront and a visiting yacht club holding up 10s. Sometimes we look like we know what we are doing.

And, a check of the dripless shaft showed no leaks. So, maybe I fixed that. Wow dinner aboard. I cooked two pounds of Pamlico shrimp, two sheepshead fish filets and two wahoo steaks. Of course we didn’t eat all of that. But I wanted to cook it all while it was fresh. We ate the sheepshead and a couple of those wonderful shrimp. And, then a bit on dock conversation with visitors and the yacht club. It is always fun to meet fellow boaters and hear their stories. Boaters are a very upbeat optimistic bunch.

FRIDAY - It’s hard to say what we did Friday. It seemed like we didn’t do anything. Our Alexa refuses to play any music. OK Alexa is not nautical and sounds ridiculous that we have her on board. But, Alexa is built into a wonderful Sonos speaker and why leave her home for 6 weeks as she doesn’t take up much room and usually plays great music too. I was thinking of having her interface with the autopilot and asking her to drive the boat. But I never solved the “no music” thing yesterday so, I’m certainly not going to ask her to drive the boat. Maybe I can ask SIRI what’s wrong with Alexa. They do know each other.

I did successfully get my MacBookPro charting software to work with the new router that I have. The router was built for motorhomes and has a GPS attached. That GPS over WIFI is now working with position, course and speed on my software. So, that’s one win and one loss for the day of electronic gizmos.

Early afternoon the cold front hit with rain and dropping temperatures. I had filled Liquid Therapy’s water tanks and made the stern sit a bit more lower in the water and thought maybe the dripping window would not leak inside. It leaked. And I’m going to have to do something about that soon as it drips inside across the electrical outlet. At my chart table. The only good thing I can say about that situation is at least it’s not salt water dripping as salt water conducts electricity really well and rain water not so much.

The wind continued to blow hard and stretched my forward spring line causing the fenders to not line up with the dock pilings and we started banging. I adjusted them briefly in the horizontal rain. Finally the rain let up later in the night and I tightened the springs, bow and stern lines to actually pull the boat away from the pilings so the fenders would not have to do any work. The boat is too far away from the dock to get on and off right now, but at least it will not bang against the dock or have the fender rub sounds as we try to sleep.

We are staying in Manteo at least through Saturday and then it’s sort of up in the air about heading home or taking a different direction.

Today’s picture is sunrise over Manteo harbor.