10/2/15
Southport NC
Posted by Bill
With the threat of a hurricane upon us, we have had many calls, emails and text messages asking if we are ok. We really appreciate the concerns and everyone checking in. Along with those, there were several questions about the lack of blog entries in the last couple weeks, which may have prompted the communications. So here is a catch up blog!
The last 10 days have been pretty much uneventful other than the weather and Tricia catching a flounder. We usually have happy hour at the end of D dock next to our friends Matt and Shirley. We watch the dolphins and pelicans feed, the bait fish run through the marina, and boats going up and down the ICW. Sometimes we fish while we sit and drink. A couple of Sundays ago, Tricia throws a line in the water and hauls in a 17.5 inch flounder:
Our friend Greg, a master fisherman, showed us how to filet it, and Tricia cooked it on our grill. Man, was it good!!
A couple of days later we had a visit from our good friend Greg, from Columbus. He and his girlfriend were here vacationing on Oak Island. They came over for cocktails on the boat and then we walked to the waterfront for dinner. Great to see them!!
This last weekend we went to breakfast in Wilmington with some new friends, Jimmy and Beverly. They just bought an Island Packet 38, similar to ours, which is docked in the marina just up the waterway. They are getting ready to cruise south and Tricia connected with Beverly through the “Women Who Sail” group on Facebook. We compared notes and offered to help them get more familiar with Island Packets nuances, as well as cruising in general, if they needed it. Great meeting them. They were nice people.
That is when the weather started to get crappy. Besides being hot as hell, the weather has been phenomenal here since we arrived…very little rain and lots of sun. The last week or so has changed, bringing rain, especially the last couple of days. We watch the weather in the tropics every day while we are in the summer months, and we started to watch several times a day with the formation of Joaquin. I use a whole bunch of weather sources, most from the internet, but my two favorite ones for tropical weather are www.spaghettimodels.com and www.tropicaltidbits.com. You can view the European models in tropicaltidbits.com, which are usually the most accurate. This turned out to be true once again with Joaquin. We didn’t get too excited as we saw things develop, but would have sprung into action if it was looking like big trouble within a three day period. We are in a hurricane rated marina. As of this post, it looks like we are going to get an ass-load of rain until Monday or Tuesday, but only winds gusting to 30 knots. We have dealt with that wind level many times and are ready to go (fully prepped including a case of vodka…lol). This is a shot of some of the rain today from our boat:
This is the ICW in front of our marina today at 20 minutes after high tide:
The water is never this high unless there is a full moon and extreme tide, and it is going to get worse. We took this shot of the Southport pier two hours after high tide and it looks like a normal high tide…going to be interesting as there is a flood warning until Monday:
I can’t believe it is October already. You can tell by the number of transient boats moving through the marina and the size of them. Southbound activity has picked up, and we are seeing boats like this one coming through almost every day:
We are also seeing some of our cruising friends moving south from further up north as we follow their blogs and Facebook posts. The weather has been particular menacing for those in the Chesapeake Bay, and not getting much better any time soon. We wish them all safe passage and hope to meet up again this cruising season. We are almost ready to go. Anticipating a departure in the third week of October.