2 weeks away

10/18/15
Southport, NC
Posted by Bill

It has been about 10 days since our last post. We have been enjoying a period of beautiful weather until today. Today it is going to be a high of only 62 and will get down to 42 tonight…brrrrr. After Monday it is supposed to get back to normal, highs in the mid 70s and lows in the upper 50s. At least the sun is out and we are not supposed to have rain for another week.

We have been taking advantage of the nice weather and have our teak stripped, sanded, and ready to clean and stain. There is a lot of teak on this boat and it has been a big project. We are 2 weeks away from our intended departure date, and we have also been getting the boat ready for passage. Tricia has been spending time cleaning out lockers and storage spaces, and re-inventorying all of the stuff we have stored. We ordered and received all of the spare boat parts we needed to get, and we have also received cloths and misc. items that we wanted to get before we leave. There are only a couple more small boat projects and we are ready to go!

Another thing we did was get all of our fishing gear so we could catch some more flounder. We have been borrowing gear from our friends, but finally got it all for ourselves, and my buddy Matt taught me how to throw a cast net. He also taught us how to make a Carolina rig…which is used to fish for flounder. We will become fishermen if it kills us!! Problem has been that since the major rain event, all of the fish have flown the coop. The rain changed the water salinity, chasing away all of the fish, including bait fish. They are finally starting to appear again, so I’ll try to catch some bait and some shrimp.

I have also spent a few days helping Matt with their house. If you don’t remember or don’t know, our good friends Matt and Shirley from Sofia Jeanne have been building a house all summer. They have been doing most of the work themselves, but sometimes Matt needs a hand with unloading wood, working on walls and ceilings with long boards (all of the walls, floors and ceilings are wood – no dry wall), or like yesterday…getting landscaping plants. I have learned quite a bit in the process and I really enjoy working with them. It seems like we always have fun with them no matter what we do, and yesterday was no different. We took three trucks to the nicest nursery I have ever been to. It was huge, and the plants were top quality plants. We got to buzz around in golf carts and pick out what they wanted:





We loaded up the plants:


After dropping them off at the house, they planted and we headed back for more teak work.

Last weekend we also had a mega party on D dock. It was supposed to be a progressive appetizer and drink party, where people migrated from boat to boat to experience what the boat owners concocted, but it poured rain. We executed plan B and moved the party to a couple of picnic tables on the covered porch of the marina office. Everyone enjoyed the food, drink and company, and also got pretty lit up! It was a good enough party to get complaints from other people in the marina!

We decided to stay here until after Halloween. There is an event that weekend called the Stead-Bonnet race. It is a sailing regatta (race) and everyone dresses up like pirates. We were here in Southport eight years ago and stumbled upon it, and it was great fun to watch. This year our friend Ben asked us to crew his boat for the race. It is the same boat we won 2nd place in for the Lone Palm Regatta in the spring. Looking forward to it. Also looking forward to seeing our friends Kurt and Sharon on Byrd Ketcher. They are arriving this Wednesday to prepare their boat to head south. Hopefully we will get to travel together again. This recent blast of cold air has me wanting to get going south again. Bad thing is…we have made many good friends here that we are really going to miss, especially Matt, Shirley and Grady.

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