Life On Orion

 What a difference a day makes! Yesterday we had to turn back and today the water is flat as a pancake. We had a very long 10 hour day of cruising, but it was stress free and we arrived in Coinjock in one piece. The only bit of excitement we had was some very early morning fog/mist on the canal right out of the marina. We left at first light and it was cool, so there was a bit of fog till it burned off with the rising sun. Minor inconvenience! We did decide to treat ourselves and eat an early dinner at the restaurant here at the marina and I even had a steak! Early to bed tonight in preparation for our last voyage tomorrow…

Well, today did not go as planned. Lots of activity - no results. We left the marina at 7 am intending to travel for 6 hours to our next stop and the first 3 1/2 hours were in a very weather protected canal. The weather deteriorated while we were in there so by the time we hit open water the winds were terrible and the waves 3 to 4 feet! We turned back and we are at the same marina in the same slip, but unscathed… We have traveled too long and too far to make a foolish decision and have a bad result. It sucks being an adult but we are going to try again tomorrow as the weather is forecast to be so much better. We ran into a diver at the marina here and paid him a small sum to clean some barnacles off the bottom of our boat and check the thrusters.He did that and cleaned out some of our intakes and cut some fishing line off our prop shaft.We borrowed the courtesy car and drove into Belhaven proper to look around and had a nice pork chop dinner on the boat. We won’t be up very late since...

 After several weeks of driving all over the eastern half of the country visiting kids, we are finally on the move to get the boat up to Chesapeake VA where we will list it with a boat broker to sell. While we were galavanting across the country, our boat bow pulpit was being repaired and the new steel plate installed.  We spent a week in Kenosha with Kate and family and got to spend lots of time with Ian. What a sweet boy!And he can say Mimi and Bapa like nobody’s business. LOL! We attended Taste of Kenosha, the farmers market, free concert in the park and shopped and ate out at some great restaurants. Tom helped Kate finish some door projects with new hinges, handles and some sanding down to close better. The next week was spent on Nashville with Johanna and the focus of the trip was to help them take the main bathroom in Ben’s house down to the studs and get them started on the remodel. Everything went - even the old bathtub! While we were there to help they replaced part o...

 After spending Sunday organizing and packing, today we are in Nashville. We left yesterday morning after spending an HOUR turning the boat around in the slip so Dave could work on the bow pulpit from the dock. The boat slips in this marina do not have a full length side dock so you have to position your boat so you can climb out onto that narrow 10 ft long piece of dock and for us that means backing into the slip. The front of the boat is then secured by lassoing tall wood pilings on either side of the bow with a loop of line around a boat hook. It requires a lot of agility and praying! In addition, since we are off the boat during hurricane season, we are required to double up on our lines. For Orion, that means a total of 10 lines! We knew Madison and I could not crawl over the bow railing and lower ourselves down to that ridiculous piece of side dock, so we loaded the car, secured the animals on the dock and got me off the boat. Tom had to undo all the lines, turn the boat arou...

 It’s been a long time since I have been in such huge rainstorms, but we have been having a doozy. We woke up yesterday to loud thunder, torrential rains and a lot of wind. Madison was freaking out and was basically trying to burrow into the wall of the boat in our cabin… Dewey was even a little scared and I’ve never seen that. The worst part of the day was that the winds picked up and the water began flowing out of the creek the marina is on. The water level went down about 2 feet and that resulted in us being unable to get off the boat onto the narrow little piece of dock for the whole day. Madison luckily knows how to potty on the boat, but it was a weird feeling being trapped on your own boat. The dock was so far above us I could look underneath and see the bottom of the boats in the next row! Today the wind has shifted and by daylight the water level was such that we as well as the dog could once again get off the boat. I did a couple of loads of laundry in the marina laundry ...

 Well, we have been busy doing some land travel now that we have a car and the boat is parked at the marina here in New Bern waiting for repairs. After the 4th of July holiday we loaded up the animals and drove the 10 hours to Orlando (Apopka) to stay at Mark and Kerry’s house while they went on a Mediterranean cruise. We watched their 3 dogs and took care of the house and pool, which was not tough duty for sure.  We got to stay in a beautiful house, have a pool in the backyard, enjoy our kitty as well as a total of 4 dogs and cook in a real kitchen and watch Netflix till we couldn’t see straight! All of the dogs were so good and they all got along with Madison, so that was a nice benefit. It is ungodly hot and humid in Florida this time of year, so the only time we poked our noses out of the house was to get in the pool - which we did every day! It also rains every afternoon this time of year, so we timed our pool time accordingly. Mark and Kerry got home last Sunday evening ...

 It was sort of a strange 4th of July weekend, but a good one none the less. Sunday we decided to go exploring the area since we have wheels now… Drove to Moorhead City, which is a coastal town that we did not stop at on the water and it was a nice place. After awhile all the beach towns start to look the same to me and this one was no different. The beach was packed since it was a holiday weekend, so we didn’t stop - parking also a nightmare. I wouldn’t mind going back there on a weekday for sure. It has been so stinking hot and humid, we Arizonans can’t even breathe! We stayed inside the air conditioning for the rest of that day and watched a movie via DVD. Monday we were in the car by 8 am on the way to downtown New Bern for a 4th of July celebration at Tryon Palace. It is a huge mansion that was built in the 1700’s and was home to the first governor of NC when New Bern was the capital. It was designed in the Georgian style and has beautiful symmetrical gardens and grounds. Guid...