Nov 16 - 23
Hello everyone!

First off, I think the salty air has affected my keyboard. The delete, apostrophe and quotation mark keys don’t work. Sometimes it autocorrects but when it doesn’t my grammar looks very bad. Just saying because its one of my pet peeves.

Well Gypseas air tag on her collar works.Woke up one morning and the tracker said she was 1/3 mile away in a condo  complex. She was out all night and didn’t show up for breakfast which is NOT like her. We followed the target on our phone, but it showed she was within the walls of one of the buildings. So at 7:30 in the morning Derek starts knocking on doors…Do you have my cat? After waking up these poor retirees, we had a search party going. Then she pops out of a bush and innocently looks up at me and meows. Stupid cat. Crisis averted…for now.

Today I have a nautical lesson for you. When boating in the Carolinas, a strange phenomena occurs that we had forgotten about. When all is quiet, and especially down in the engine room below the water line, it sounds like rice krispies in a bowl of milk. Our neighbor at the marina, an electrician by trade, was convinced there was static electricity coursing through the hull of his boat. What is it, you ask???  Pistol shrimp! https://www.frvta.org/pistol-shrimp/ They cock their claws and fire air bubbles that are hotter than the sun and louder than a jackhammer (218 decibels) to stun their prey! Luckily these monsters are only 1-2 inches long, but we hear them in the water under the boat through the hull all the time. Weirdly, you can’t hear them when you’re off the boat. This message brought to you by perplexed cruisers everywhere who have torn their boats apart looking for the source of the sound! Some seasoned boaters will tell a novice …Oh no! Your boat has plastic laminitis! Your fiberglass on the hull is  separating and thats what you hear!!!! …. mean joke, like sending a kid into the auto store for blinker fluid, but then the real reason is revealed and the novice will play this joke on some other new boater. Now you know the pistol shrimp legacy.

And speaking of electricity, we had a scare yesterday. While Derek and a hired mechanic were working on our recurrent steering problems, our ground wire alarm went off. This means that electricity was leaking into the water around us and could electrocute a person if they got in the water! IMMEDIATELY we had to disconnect from our shore power to stop the flow of electricity from our power post to our boat. After testing many things, the problem was not identified and kept happening. Well Derek threw his arms in the air and swore he was gonna sell this boat rather than deal with yet ANOTHER major repair. After many minutes of several men scratching their heads, Derek realized it happened at the same time a boat came in and docked next to us. There was our culprit! Apparently the boat had a lot of electrical issues (30+ yrs old, in bad shape and owned  by kids in their 20s). Once the other boater disconnected his power cord and ran off his batteries, there was no more alarm. Every day has a new mystery to  solve.

We stayed in Myrtle Beach at a marina called Wacca Wache for the past several days. We caught up with our German friends, Holger and Erika, who we met in Virginia. They stay there during the  winter months. They were kind enough to drive us around town to do laundry, grocery shopping and 2 fabulous trips to the beach. I got my shelling addiction satisfied! They also treated us to the BEST pasta carbonara on their boat. If you’re reading this Erika and Holger, we love you!

We are now in Georgetown, SC. More weather is coming through and we will stay for several days. Just met our next-boat-over neighbors and they seem like lots of fun. Lots of great restaurants around, so it’s a good place to be stuck.

Gypsea and Tater are doing well. Tater remains a celebrity everywhere we go. At two separate marinas, dock hands will come to say hi to him ON THEIR DAY OFF!!!! Gypsea still jumps off the boat as soon as we dock to explore new territory. Derek has lost 15-20 pounds and my hair has gotten out of control without a cut! Boat life.

Enjoy the pics.
L & D

Nov 9 - Nov 15

Heading south at 10mph!

Hello friends and fam.

At a turtles pace, we continue to move south along the ICW. Trawlers are known for their roomy interiors and fuel efficiency, but NOT their speed. It gives us time to take in the scenery and wildlife around us. A good day is about 70 miles, 7-8 hours.

We left Beaufort and new friends on Nov 13. While there we hung out with a couple, Doug and Lori, and found out we had lots in common. Their first grandson was born the same day as our grandson! We played dice and partied while Tater and their dog, Bear, displayed their love interest with each other!

I forgot to  tell you about the singing whales in Beaufort. There are dozens of sailboats docked in that marina that have the 65-ft masts that are secured with many lines (ropes). When the high winds would blow, the lines would vibrate and would make a sound like a pod of whales were moaning around us. Like when you blow over the opening of a bottle. Just magnify that about a thousand times! Very spooky at night when the gale winds came through. Of course there were no actual whales….I think.

At a Farmers Market near the dock, Derek bought a dozen raw oysters and shucked them himself (1st time) for our dinner. When a few hours had passed after eating them, and no sign of stomach cramps or vomiting, we figured we were safe and the oysters were fresh. Good thing since diarrhea doesn’t mix with 7 hours of cruising the following day.

First stop out of Beaufort was at Harbour Village Marina in Surf City, NC. Gusting winds made docking difficult again, and Derek curses the micro commander gear shifter/throttle apparatus continuously. Its VERY touchy and my wonderful husband has many fine qualities, but a soft touch is not one of them! Move the shifter just an inch forward and the boat takes off like a racehorse out of the gate. Derek's big hands don’t do half-inches! And there is a full 2-second delay whenever forward or reverse is put into gear. So he has to guess when he wants to change direction a few seconds BEFORE he actually wants to do it. With high winds and coming in and maneuvering into a narrow slip backing up and having to deal with the delay makes for one very agitated husband. But the docking assistants were awesome and we really enjoyed the one-night stay.

Yesterday we headed to Southport, NC and traveled through the outermost eastern point of NC called Cape Fear….for a reason! This is a famous area for shipwrecks due to currents and winds and shoaling. Lots of famous pirates ended their careers here. We stayed on the Cape Fear River instead of going out in the ocean to avoid disaster ourselves.  We had to wait a half hour each for openings at 2 bridges, but God gave us a great pushing current to make up for the time lost. By the way, while waiting for bridges to open (usually every half hour), the boats in either side of the bridge will line up and maintain their position in line and wait out the time till the  next opening. This is where we become spectators of boating idiots!!!! A lot can happen when 6 large boats are trying to hold position and 1 or 2 can’t grasp the idea and start doing figure 8s around everyone and not maintaining a safe distance between vessels.

And speaking of idiots. We have come to loath 50-60ft Sportfish yachts. The ones with the tall tower that have a lookout seat 3 stories up. We figured that the sport part of sport fisher boats is passing slower boats (like us) at 30 knots (fast) within 50 feet and throwing a HUGE wake to toss the slower boat around like an empty milk jug on the water in a hurricane. Its just plain mean. Everything not nailed down on our boat goes flying. All other types of boats will slow way down while passing to diminish the wake, as we do for slower boats than us. I hope there is a special place in hell where sports fisher owners will all be in a canoe with huge boats throwing their wake at them 24/7 for all eternity. And thats all I have to say about that.

Great wildlife in this area. A huge flock of seagulls followed closely behind us to look for food in our wake. Pelicans floating in our path would wait till the very last second to fly off out of our way. I think it must be their only form of entertainment…like crazy people who stand on the train tracks in front of an oncoming train and see how close they can come to being splattered!

Then my favorite thing of all…seeing dolphins swimming next to our boat while underway. The best part is they will actually roll on their sides while they are cruising under water to look up at who is on the boat. If you make noise or wave your hands, they will respond by leaping or hanging around longer. We don’t show them to Tater because he might jump in after them to play.

Well this blog has gone on long enough and your eyes are prolly glazing over!

We would appreciate all your prayers for continued safety. All 4 of us are still doing well.

Big hugs and salty kisses.

Taters friend Bear.

A Sport fisher boat...ughhhhh!

We left Virginia on the 3rd, a few days later than we expected. After over 5 weeks there, it was actually hard to say goodbye to some of the Atlantic Yacht Basin crew, especially Kevin the dock master and our engine mechanic Matt.  I have added a couple pics of the laundry facility and public bathroom (our home away from home while our heads didn’t work on the boat) at the marina. I also wanted to share  a picture showing the walk on the road to Krogers we took 2 or 3 times a week! These places will be etched in our memory as much as anything else that happened in Chesapeake. See….it’s not all fun and games :)

We pulled out of our slip without fanfare on November 3rd, happy to be finally underway.   We decided to make it a short run and 4 hours (38 miles) later we arrived at our first stop, Coinjock, NC. Yes, I spelled that correctly.

We’ve been to Coinjock https://www.coinjockmarina.com/ when we did the Great Loop in 2017 and I remember calling it Jockstrap, which pretty much describes the marina. Coinjock is a bit of an institution and  straddles the Intracoastal Waterway at Mile Marker (MM) 50.  Coinjock is a popular stop because there are no other marinas for many miles. Donna Mae ran great and we were able to secure a last minute slip.  However, we had to dock without assistance along the marina wall across the river from the actual Marina. Imagine my surprise after pulling in to discover that the pilings on the dock were 6 feet tall!   As Derek worked to keep the boat steady against the dock, I was trying to throw a loop over my head to secure the boat.  After a couple of misses, iI finally hit the mark and we tied up.  

Coinjock marina is known for it’s 32-oz prime rib, but we saved about $90 and had ‘Lori’s awesome pork chops’ instead. Derek says they were some of the best ever made… After a great dinner, and just as the sun was setting, we heard a knock on our boat. It was the couple from the sailboat docked behind us with a bottle of wine to share. Boaters don’t wait for invitations and that’s why we love ‘em. Another nurse and her husband. We had a great time.

The next morning Derek was up early and we were off by 7:45. The next stop was Alligator River Marina  on, surprise, the Alligator River. Alligator River is located on what is called the ‘Outer Banks’ of N Carolina. No we didn’t see any alligators. In fact, all we saw at this stop was a  gas station that  also served as a small marina, convenience store and a greasy-spoon restaurant!!! Nothing else but a highway bridge next to the docks https://marinas.com/view/marina/z4cnmq_Alligator_River_Marina_Columbia_NC_United_States . Of note: the boater that docked next to us was from Toronto. And the boat itself used to be owned by the BEST NHL hockey goalie EVER when he lived in Toronto…Eddy Belfour. You might be saying, ‘who????’ Well he played for the Dallas Stars when they won the Stanley Cup in 1999 (while we were living in Dallas). I had lost my voice and my composure for that man through that whole season! So I touched his boat and thought of the many hockey-player parties that the boat would tell if it could talk.

The next morning we charted a path to Belhaven, NC. The weather apps (all 5 that we look at) promised calm seas and a nice 6-mph wind. And for most of the trip, it was. Then about 15 miles from the marina, God decided He didn’t like the apps’ predictions. We came into Dowry Creek marina www.dowrycreekmarina.com with the winds at 28 knots to our port aft with whitecaps and 3-4 foot rollers slamming into the docks. It was absolute docking hell. Back up, try again…twice. Third time was a charm, but very ugly. Three men were pulling on our lines to try to guide us in. Derek really thought he lost his ability to drive the boat until we watched the other boats trying to dock that came in after us. They were struggling just as much. Derek is still shaking his head though that he didn’t do better.   We were definitely rocked to sleep that night as the swim platform and transom went up and then slammed down with a boom until the next wave hit.

All was calm the next morning, so without assistance we threw the lines and were off to Beaufort, NC https://www.beaufort.com/. We were excited as Beaufort brought good memories of friends from the loop in 2017.  The weather held, but the seals in the hydraulic steering ram  were leaking hydraulic steering fluid.  The auto pilot kept trying to turn us to port all the time  and the steering became less and less responsive.  I took the helm while Derek dug out his steering fluid and special funnel just in case.   Luckily, it was still  somewhat functional and not gone altogether when we arrived in Beaufort so we didn’t have to strap Tater into his life vest to dog paddle us to shore. Beaufort welcomed us with our first dolphin sightings. They jumped in our wake and I clapped my hands and squealed like a little girl.

We docked without incident at Beaufort Docks Marina and Derek scheduled a mechanic to fix the steering. This is our home for the next 6 days due to high winds and some storms. The marina is right in front of the ‘boardwalk’ and awesome local restaurants and shops are steps away. Good for me, but not Derek’s wallet. Got some Christmas shopping done.

Behind the marina is the Rachel Carson Reserve https://www.beaufort-nc.com/rachel-carson-reserve.html . A cluster of small islands that are home to wild horses (no people). We took the dinghy there and actually saw 4 of them. Tater ran as fast as he could along the shore while I did some shelling. I found the biggest whelk I ever came across (almost half the size of Tater), but it was still alive. ARGHHHHH! It would have been the masterpiece of my collection, but I let him live and walked on. At least I have a picture.

Gypsea has been true to her name. Each time we dock she jumps off the boat and goes on adventures. Just when we think we might have lost her, she shows up again. We often spot her on terraces of shops or on other docked boats. I’ve trained her to come get treats when I click a dog training clicker. So far so good.

Oh yeah, I had mentioned “Duck Beaks” a few posts ago.  Well, Derek informed me they are called Duck Bills as he had two in his hands to go into the engine room and replace the ones on the holding tank.   He was grunting and sweating and cussing so much it reminded me of the scene from movie “Shawshank Redemption”…  “Derek had crawled through 50 inches of the most foul stuff imaginable”… One Tank done, one to go…

We miss everyone and are getting excited to be home for Christmas. Derek promised to get us home in time to put up our Christmas Tree.  We plan on pulling out of here Saturday to a residential style marina to hole up for a couple days as we work towards Charleston.

Much love….