The fact is we seem to have hit a warm spell here in Oriental - Praise be! Unfortunately, last night we also had a Gale Warning and Nelleke rocked and rolled at her dock such as I don't believe that I have ever been aboard at a dock when she has been bucking like she did. We had to go out in the middle of the night in the rain to add more lines to hold her off the dock and we popped another of those rubber line snubbers, but I guess that's my own fault for not getting the biggest ones available.

As I mentioned yesterday, it looks like we'll be here for a couple of days at least so I'll start to work on the list of things that I was also going to be doing at Core Creek.

This morning dawned clear and calm. The Neuse River lay like a mirror with only the ripples of sea birds and passing motor boats to mar the reflection. What a difference! At the head of the dock there is a sunflower in a large pot and it was fascinating to see it open and facing the dawn as I walked Peri this morning. Yesterday afternoon, as I recall, it was sort of hunched down and sad looking, but this morning it was gloriously open and tracking the rising sun.

Barb and I walked into town for coffee and the check things out. I was startled at how many houses are for sale. I guess the recession is still clobbering folks here pretty badly. I was looking for some belt spray that I have mentioned in the last few posts and I am also trying to buy some more 1 lb propane cylinders. I saw some yesterday in the grocery store, the one with the crabby cashier, but they were on for over $6! I am used to paying less than $4. No one had the belt spray, but Knute at the marina was going to order some for me from NAPA Auto Supply. As I said I also need to replace the snubbers that got busted last night and I tried to pop into the consignment store to see if there are any good deals on anything, but they are closed today and tomorrow. I wanted to get a new VHF antenna for the second AIS unit and maybe they'd another snubber too, but that will have to wait.

Downtown was surprisingly empty of boats - two at the free dock and one at the anchorage - the least that we have even seen. The two boats at the dock are from Canada which was kind of neat to see including Gromet who we past saw at Great Bridge. The other boat at the free dock is registered in Halifax but we didn't know it. Turns out that they are actually from somewhere in Ontario and they just chose Halifax as their port of registry, but they are Canadian. It is a three masted lanteen rigged schooner (I think) - short foremast, main, and then a mizzen aft, all un-stayed and all with lanteen sails. It is a really solid looking boat with a large pilot house and stations and lifelines chest high! Wow!

It looks like it might get a bit ugly tomorrow (Did I say a bit? Try 30 kts on the nose trying to squeak down into Moorehead City) so we will probably stay here for a couple of extra days and let that blow over. I should be able to do some more work on the list of boat projects in the meantime.

We got word that the wind generator has arrived at Core Creek and we'll be making a flying stop to pick it up on the way by. Then we'll stop over for a day to get it installed before continuing. It looks like the weather over the next weekend will be good for some offshore jumps so maybe we'll make some time. I am hoping that we'll be able to get to Wrightsville Beach by Sunday or Monday and then we'll head on through the one part of the AICW that I really want to travel along, the part between Southport and Georgetown.