Days 4, 5, 6 Fall Cruise - Saturday thru Monday, October 23 thru 25, 2021

Todays forecast “A mix of clouds and sun with gusty winds. High around 70F. Winds WNW at 20 to 30 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.”

The wind is whistling outside as I type this before dawn, Tuesday. The boat is bouncing around in the slip at the Anchorage Marina, Ocracoke.

Saturday was an easy day of 41 miles from Coinjock to Manteo. We lucked into a T-Dock for the night which is much easier than the close quarter maneuvering of Manteo Waterfront Marina. We met up with Steve and Cindy Ann that were anchored on their boat, Red Ranger, in Manteo Harbor. We had not seen each other in years. Steve and Cindy Ann had bought their boat about the same time we bought Liquid Therapy. All of us worked on the boats at Deltaville marina. We had missed seeing them as we saw so much of each other every weekend in those days in 2010 while we fixed things on our boats and exchanged boat stories. We hugged until it got awkward, which is a Covid thing with me. As I’ve said before, I loved hugging on Susan for a whole Covid year without hugging anyone else. But, human contact was a missing thing with Covid. So now I hug until it gets awkward. We all talked and gave them a tour of Manteo had a nice dinner and talked and talked. Sunday was going to be a long day for us so we shut down early with our friends and went to bed.

Sunday - It’s a 60 mile run from Manteo to Ocracoke. If things went well we’d make it in about 9 hours. We got underway just before sunrise We had a wonderful ride down the Pamlico Sound, about 48 miles of the passage. There is only 1 slight course change in the Pamlico to bring us to the entrance of Big Foot Slough channel, that brings us into Ocracoke’s Silver Lake. We got underway just before sunrise. We had a good tidal push most of the way and docked about 4:50 PM at Anchorage Marina. The marina assigned us a slip next to the two charter boats. Stern in was quite a feat for me as I had to back and turn the stern of the boat to line it up with the most inner slip. We had a quite an audience at Smacnally’s bar and restaurant watching the docking. I wished I had a video as all of my adjustments in docking worked perfectly. I got a few compliments. YEA for that docking. It doesn’t always work out so well.
We had a nice dinner at Smacnally. We sat at the bar chatting with a few people. Cobia was on the menu. All the Ocracoke Restaurants have really cool catches of the day on their menu. On the way back to the boat we went down a couple steps to the stern of Liquid Therapy and then realized we needed to go back up to dock level. Susan tried to step all the way up to the dock without the stairs. And, she didn’t make it - falling backwards and catching herself with her right arm breaking her wrist. No ER on Ocracoke.

So, Monday morning we went to the clinic. The clinic does not have an X-ray machine and the nice doctor put a splint on Susan and told her she needs to see an orthopedic doctor and suggested we go back to Richmond for proper treatment. The doctor suggested we do this before Friday as the wrist will start healing on its own and may not be aligned properly.
It’s a 4 day trip by our boat with all perfect days. The weather is going to be so bad that the ferry may not run the next few days. So, using Liquid Therapy to go anywhere is not an option. There are no rental cars on Ocracoke if the ferry does run. If the ferries run highway 12 may close due coastal flooding. We are kind of stuck. Kind of a bad movie.
My brother is going to try to drive down Wednesday and get us. I certainly hope highway 12 stays open and the Hatteras ferry can get him here and us off Ocracoke.

Today’s picture is sunrise at Manteo.