This part of our cruise starts with a 2 1/2 hour ferry ride from Swan Quarter to Ocracoke to rejoin with Liquid Therapy. My brother , Eddie, Carter, and Susan and I all drove from Mechanicsville to the ferry. Eddie will be taking the car back home while Susan, Carter and I will be bringing Liquid Therapy home. I’ve never ridden that ferry before as we have always driven down the Outer Banks of NC and taken the Hatteras - Ocracoke ferry. Of course our favorite way to visit Ocracoke is via Liquid Therapy. Highway 12 along the OBX washed away on Sunday & Monday, 11-7 & 8 during a vicious storm. You can only get to Ocracoke by ferry or a boat. There are no bridges to Ocracoke and I hope there never are because it would change Ocracoke into another beach resort island.
Anyhow, our friend and long time boater, Carter, has joined us to help bring Liquid Therapy back to her home port marina, Hudgins Horn Harbor Marina in Port Haywood, VA. We were aboard Liquid Therapy about 7:30 and started making preparations of getting underway early Wednesday for Manteo, north 60 miles up the Pamlico and Roanoke sounds. I removed the washing machine as it was just going to be in the way of Carter’s forward cabin and bathroom. We left a little before sunrise and trip and weather were beautiful.

After docking at Manteo Waterfront Marina we spoke with another couple on a boat that had been traveling south and had been delayed at the Great Bridge Lock for 5 hours!. It was a bunch of boats trying to get through that had been delayed 3 days due to a bridge repair in Norfolk. I tried to make reservations with Coinjock marina for Thursday and they were slammed and could only put us on a waiting list. We could anchor out near Coinjock if nothing opened up at the marina. The weather was going to be bad Thursday night with rain squalls and possible thunder storms. So, we stayed at Manteo another day and have “probable” reservations at Coinjock Marina Friday. And, if they are full it will be a nice night to anchor out at least.

The rest of Wednesday we had fun showing Carter around Manteo. The Outer Banks Distillery provided us a nice rum drink and much fun talking with the owner and bar tender. We ate at Poor Richards Restaurant. It was trivia night and the place was packed. Our scores were not good. And, get this you could not use your phone to look up the questions. You had to retrieve the answer from you brain. What a dumb game..

Thursday I repaired the broken hot water line in the forward bathroom and surprised I had bought the correct hose at Lowes back home. Most of the time it’s 2-3 trips to a local hardware store to get adapters when doing anything that resembles plumbing on the boat.

Funny thing happened that a couple that Carter knows had come to their OBX home and met us for dinner. But, even more happenstance was another boating couple was celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary on the OBX and they joined us for another visit to the rum distillery and all of us for dinner. We all enjoyed talking and eating of course.

Today’s picture is the moon and Venus and my brother Eddie on our ferry ride.