In Which Willadine Meets the Dock at Potters and We Go To Town

13 March 2012

Still dark when we wake, wondering if it’s morning.  Cloudy, but warmer at least, a better night’s sleep.  Something was ticking in the stern all night, making me worry about drips or leaks, but all is well.  Eric opens the hatch to peep out and we’re inundated with skeeters.  He closes the hatch and we slap at them for the next hour or two while we prepare for the day.  Breakfast is a minor mishap as I’ve forgotten to pack the salt and oat bran just has no taste whatsoever.  We try without success to doctor it up and just eat it anyway.  Oh well.

The rain stops and I towel off the cockpit.  Eric pulls the anchor while I motor us away.  We go up Bailey Creek, admiring the houses and the nice big sailboats along the way.  We pick out a nice spot for a future anchorage and then head back and go up Ross Creek.  More nice houses, all new-looking.  The weather is solidly cloudy and cool with the wind kicking up out of the south.  I’m thinking we should be out sailing while the wind is good, but since I didn’t bring any foul weather gear and more rain is likely, I accept that going back to Potter’s is the way to go.  We’re running low on water and the porta-pottie is full.  Nasty bit of work, that.  We’re thinking the “double dooty” bags in the bucket are the way to go.  Probably more information than you needed, right?

We head back up North Creek toward Potters but as we round the corner, I sense something is amiss.  I look up and feel like we’re going in the wrong direction.  I look at the GPS and my suspicion is further confirmed.  I ask Eric about it and his head swivels around and he blinks and says I’m right.  I’m surprised, because usually his sense of direction is keen, but I’m glad I spoke up.  With all his kayaking experience, he’s a great navigator.  I have much to learn.

Going up the creek we debate about where to tie up and how to accomplish it.  The wind is less strong up here, but it’s still steady at five knots or so.  Enough.  I pull out the fenders and dock lines and start lashing one of the fenders on as we approach Potter’s.  There are several options and we choose one where we’ll come in from downwind.  Eric’s at the helm and I’m on the bow with the boat hook.  We make a slow approach and the wind catches the bow and we blow off.  Luckily, there is nothing in the way to run into.  Eric swings her back around and I watch on the dock shouting back directions:  Steer to port, give her a forward bump, steer to starboard.  We go in perfectly and I step off onto the dock with the boat hook, but oh shit, where is the dock line?  I grab the boat with the hook and get hold of the bowline, no problem and Eric kindly refrains from giving me any shit about it.

We drag the porta-pottie three quarters of the way to the bathroom before I realize we could have used the dock cart.  It’s super-disgusting and we agree to leave it in the truck and try the bucket and bags, which by the way are supposedly totally legal, go figure.  You do your business in them, tie them up and put them in the dumpster.  Can’t be any worse than that porta-pottie and it only held two days worth of poo.  Not enough to be worth the trouble of flushing it and emptying it, which was all a drag.  I miss Skybird’s flush toilet, but Willadine is the absolute perfect boat for us right now and for this area.  With a minimum draft of eighteen inches, we can go anywhere.  And she’s been sailing like a dream.  Yesterday we make 6.7 knots, past hull speed, as we surfed the following sea in a steady ten-knot wind.  It was awesome.  Eric says it was a rollicking ride.  It was fun, if mildly hair-raising.

Driving into Belhaven, we stop on impulse at a welding shop Slotesbury Welding.  The door to the shop is open and we peer in and call, but get no response.  I walk out the back door and find an enormous V-shaped bulldozer thing with giant teeth.  It’s rusty and fascinating.  Eric calls the phone number and reaches the owner, a man named Tim.  They talk for several minutes about the job of replacing the rusted uprights on the trailer and Eric offers to put a deposit down for the materials.  He asks about coming back later and the guy says, “Where are you?”

“We’re here at the shop.” Eric replies.

“Well, so am I,” Tim says, “I’m just in the bathroom.”

I spot the Dollar General on the way into town and we agree to stop there on the way out for salt.  The Ace Hardware is deserted, but we find a young clerk and ask about Internet.  He laughs and says, “Washington,” about forty-five minutes away.  I ask about the library and he says they don’t have wireless, but happily he’s wrong and I sit in the truck and collect my seventy-six emails and send one or two while Eric walks over to the corner drug and gets us a couple of cold diet cokes.  It’s not even that hot in the truck.

Back at Potter’s Eric cranks up the grill for supper and I load beef, zucchini and garlic on skewers, which was Eric’s excellent idea:

The garlic cloves are small and hard to peel, but they go on the sticks just fine.  On the grill one falls in the drink and I hand Eric the boat hook and he fishes it out.  Extra marinade.  A fish jumps off the stern and Eric says, “Do you know what that fish is saying?”

I say, “He’s saying thanks for the beef trimmings we threw out,” and Eric laughs hard.  I know that fish is just trying to get away from some predator, but still.  I ask about alligators and he says there’s a picture on Potter’s website of a four-foot alligator here.  And to think I considered swimming!  This leads me to wonder if Potter lost his leg to an alligator and I decide I will have to ask him.  I’ll just explain that I’m a writer and my imagination is going crazy with stories and I just need to know the real story so I can quit making them up in my head.

Secure at the dock, we duck inside when the skeeters start to come out.  It’s cozy inside and we experiment with lying with our heads in the bow, which feels much more comfortable to me.  We’ve been sleeping the other way but I feel like my head is lower than my feet, which makes me very uncomfortable.  Eric says he feels too cramped in his shoulders in the bow.  We end up sleeping head to foot, which suits me fine, but Eric doesn’t like it.  He felt cramped for some reason.  So we’ve got some experimenting to do on that.  I still think the aft berth would be the most comfortable, but we haven’t tried it yet.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Willadine meets the ICW and some traffic

Barge in the ICW

12 March 2012

We didn’t move an inch at anchor and the moon was bright in the morning so we got up before dawn, “The rosy fingers of dawn,” Eric called it.  I was glad we hadn’t slept in the cockpit because it was very wet with dew.  We had our tea and coffee and got underway about 9:30, after removing a derelict crab pot we'd snagged with our anchor rode.

Out on the river it’s pretty calm, maybe a five-knot breeze, but freshening as the day goes on.  With the main and full Genoa, we’re making a good three knots.  Not bad.  The water is gray and some of the clouds look like rain, but the water is splashing softly on the hull and the seabirds are lazily crying.  Gulls with black tipped wings are swooping about and the little black ducks (cormorants?) are traveling in pairs.  As far as we can see, we’re the only boat out here.  Off to the east, Pamlico Sound is sparkling in the distance.  The clouds are coming in heavy and we’re adding layers as the wind builds slightly.  Looking forward to lunch.

It clears a little as we’re coming close to the entrance to the Goose Creek portion of the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW).  The sun feels really good and the breeze is freshening nicely.  I’m nervous about traffic on the ICW, but there is not another boat in sight.  At first.  We cut in on marker number one, because we can.  Willadine only draws four and half feet and if we pull up the keel and rudder, it’s eighteen inches; perfect for the Inner Banks of NC.

Eric spots a “motor cruiser” coming up the ICW.  We agree to tack and go aft of them.   This goes well.  They zoom on past.  So noisy.  We’re watching the next markers and trying to decide on a course of action.  We consult the GPS for possible anchorages during a lull in the wind.  A call comes over the radio.  These people talk so fast that for some reason you always miss the first bit.  Like the Coast Guard lady who reports periodically, it took us half the day to finally hear the first two words.  We would hear, “-----  ------- Coast Guard Station, one, two.” and wonder where the heck they were.  Cape Hatteras?  Cape Lookout, Okracoke Station?  I think it turned out to be Hatteras, which is surprisingly far away.  Yay, Eric on the antenna repair!

The voice on the radio, which catches our ear right away as it’s the first man we’ve heard (these Coast Guard folks must be 95% female).  The male voice on the radio is the “northbound tug” calling “southbound sailboat.”  Us.  We look at each other.  What to do?  Eric says, “We should answer them back.”  He’s on the tiller.  He looks at me.  “You call them,” he says.  Ok, I should know how to do this.  Hmm.  Do you say their name first or yours?  The tug said theirs first.  I grab the mike, and have to wrestle it out.  I press the transmit button and say, “northbound tug this is southbound sailboat.”  We listen.  Nothing.  Eric suggests changing channels and when I look I see no number on the display.  “It’s dead,” I tell Eric.  He looks mildly stricken.

The wind has picked up and we’re almost out of the channel.  The two-story football-field-sized barge with tug pushing from behind is at a reasonable, but fairly close distance.  Eric says he thinks the VHF radio blew a fuse.  The fuses are behind the panel, too much to deal with underway.  I grab the handheld and we try it on sixteen.  I call the retreating tug for a radio check and the Coast Guard Lady answers, “Got you loud and clear. Over.”  I hesitate and then offer a timid thanks.  If I’d known the Coast Guard lady would hear, I would have been more professional.  I do have Willadine’s numbers memorized now:  November, Charlie, nin-er, zero, eight, nin-er, Charlie, Charlie.  But she didn’t reprimand me so I guess that went well.

It’s kind of awe-inspiring, slightly creepy and reassuring at the same time to know the Coast Guard is out there listening.  They knew where the tug was and where we were and were monitoring the situation like the control tower at the airport.  “We’re watching you…,” so don’t do anything too stupid, like get in the way of a two-story barge in a narrow channel.

So we pop into the Lower Spring Creek on the west side of Goose Creek and find a lovely quiet anchorage to eat lunch.  We throw out the anchor and Eric suggests I fix lunch.  I quake.  What does he mean “fix” it?  Cook something?  I go below and squeeze myself into the aft bunk where we have the big cooler stowed.  Eric shifts and settles on the starboard side throwing the trim badly off and making my sojourn in the cooler more difficult.  The celery has frozen; the cooler is powerful good.  I pull it out along with some lettuce and a package of guacamole purchased on impulse at Walmart.  Carrots, a bruised apple, a summer sausage and pack of pitas complete the meal.

Eric is ready to head back after lunch.  He agrees that the sail was great, but he’s nervous about being so far from “home” and concerned about getting back before dark.  I suggest we might be ok to stay there overnight and venture further tomorrow, but the weather forecast is for some increased wind (10-15 knots) and possible thundershowers.  Not too fun for sailing.  I agree and we pull the anchor and head back.

I watch anxiously for traffic coming up the ICW, but it’s all clear.  On the way past markers three and four we pass a large sailboat motoring in.  We pass port to port and wave.  We try to hail them on the radio, the SV Encore, but we get no response.  Probably they couldn’t hear the radio anyway with all that engine noise.

Out in the river, the wind is up and Willadine heels over.  Eric and I share a laugh about what he calls the panic-ometer and I call the sphincter-ometer, the inclinometer, which shows us our degree of heel.  He's just getting used to the boat heeling over and it makes him nervous.  I’ve been out to sea on bigger boats a lot more than Eric so it doesn't faze me until it gets up over ten degrees.  He has more close-to-the-water experience on canoes and kayaks than I do.  I think that would be a lot scarier.  I feel very comfortable and secure on Willadine.  Even so, it's a little nerve-wracking in this amount of wind.  A little three-foot sea has built up and we're surfing down the waves and flying along at six knots.  At one point we even exceed hull speed, making slightly more than six knots.  It's a rollicking ride.

We make it back, downwind the whole way, right into our little niche on the East Fork.  I offer to take down the main, for practice, but I think Eric is worn out.  He says it might be better if he doused the main because he wants it to go smoothly.  I agree and it does.

At anchor we admire the incredible sunset and don’t even mind the light film of smoke everywhere.  Somewhere down south of us, across the river is a wildfire.  I’m glad the only fire here is the one in the sky and it’s gradually drifting down into the sea.  Tsssssss, and our day is done.  Sleep will be welcome.

Willadine meets Pamilico River

 

11 March 2012

We spent a restless night and got up at five, except it was six because of the daylight savings time.  We didn’t care because we were so excited to get going.  We threw the last few items in the truck and in the boat and slipped out of the driveway.

Willadine rode just fine behind the truck, although I was very nervous about the route, which contained thirty-five steps according to Google.  Right away I decided we should make a change and then I forgot about the two Hwy 70s and we ended up in downtown Smithfield anyway.  Luckily, it was very quiet at seven on Sunday morning.

We missed one turn in some teeny little place past Selma, but we got back on track just by feeling our way and didn’t have to turn around.  We got gas on the bank of the Little River and went on without incident until we reached Ayden where a sheriff’s deputy followed us out to the county line.  We were totally legal, except that our right trailer light is unreliable.  Still, we had no desire to tangle with the constabulary, as Eric calls it.

In Washington (boy, was I glad to be done with those directions!) we ate a nice big lunch at the Bamboo Garden Chinese, easy in, easy out circular parking lot.  The green beans were good and Eric liked the sauce on the mushrooms.  I splurged and ate some sesame chicken and the teriyaki chicken on a skewer was flavorful, moist and not so sweet like some teriyaki.

The turn off the highway came up quick and we almost went past it and after we turned on Zinkie Lane we momentarily lost our bearings, but eventually recognized the horse at pasture just before we spotted the crazy hundred-foot yacht washed up on the bank behind Potter’s house.

Mr Potter was a surprise, being a man about our age, much younger than I pictured him, soft-spoken and completely missing a leg.  He was friendly and soft-spoken and explained that his name is Matthew Conway Potter and although he goes by Conway, he often uses the Matthew on the phone because people think he’s female.  His wife came out behind him and was younger and more high maintenance than I pictured her.  Of course they had just come from church, so she was dressed up.

We rigged the boat easily with high spirits.  I found it more comfortable being on the boat on the trailer after a few days of getting used to it.  Normally, it makes me very nervous because it’s so high and shaky.  Unfortunately, we broke our Windex on the drive (we knew we should have taken it down) but we readjusted it and left it up anyway, thinking it would be some use.

It was challenging getting her launched because the boat tried to pull the truck down with her.  She was anxious.  Finally got her in the water and Eric hosed off the trailer and parked it.  Getting away from the ramp we ran aground and had to ease around and raise the rudder.   I was out of practice of steering in reverse and we flopped around a bit.  Luckily there was almost no wind.  On the way out, we noticed the boat our neighbor had been working on all day was a Hunter 42, a real beauty.  He said it’s his last boat and it’s for sale.  Interesting.  Would have liked to see the inside, but we were too anxious to get underway.

The sun was shining, it was cold, about sixty degrees, but in the wind we had to bundle up.  Dodging the crab pots, we made our way out the creek to the big river.  Eric was so nervous, but I was just thrilled.  After we got out in the river, I was ready to sail.  The wind was about five knots from the southeast, perfect for a pass across the river.  Eric wanted to motor to the middle and sit there for a bit, getting used to the big water, but I was keen to sail. 

Once we got the main sail up and  we turned the motor off, it was a big sigh of relief.  The conditions were perfect.  A pair of pelicans swooped over the stern, eyeing us for possible fish debris and veered off.  The Pamlico River Welcome Wagon.  Out to the west, all we could see was a big opening at the mouth of the river.  No sign of Okracoke or the Outer Banks, just a whole lotta water.  Nice!

We nearly made it to Indian Island and then decided to head back.  We were both a little nervous about getting anchored before dark on our first day out.  The “Frying Pan” was occupied by two fishing boats, but looked like a nice secure anchorage.  Instead we went farther in and anchored in a deserted little cove on the east fork of North Creek.  It was so easy with not a breath of wind and we ate a nice supper of canned chicken and veggies with hot chocolate for dessert with a square of Hershey’s Special Dark for dipping.

We marveled at Jupiter and Venus (?) so bright and close together and the stars came out fantastically.  We laid head to head in the cockpit wrapped in sleeping bags and Eric showed me the nebula in Orion’s sword and the Andromeda Galaxy and we saw two shooting stars.  The perfect end to the perfect day.

Something Mr. Potter said sticks in my head.  He said he had recently acquired a sailboat, his first, as he was used to working boats, power boats.  This made me wonder about how might have lost that leg, possibly in a boating accident.  Maybe someday I’ll ask him.  He said he liked the sailboat, but found it a bit frustrating compared to powerboats.  “You know,” he said, “with a sailboat, it’s not about getting from point A to point B.  In a sailboat, it’s more about the getting there than the destination.”  Indeed.

Sails

Eric has been going over the boat with a fine-toothed comb and along the way he discovered that the headsail (a 110% Genoa, that we often mistakenly call a jib) had stitching on the cover that was coming out.  It was in no danger of falling off, being stitched in three long seams on two sides, but the stitches were completely gone in foot-long stretches and looked raggedy in others.  Some action seemed necessary.

We settled on a sail maker couple in Oriental, partly because we like the town, which is by all reports the sailing capital of NC and partly because we knew we could receive other services there if we needed them.  It’s also closer to Potter’s Marina near Bath, where we plan to keep the boat this year, than the sail maker in Wilmington.

The weather was outstanding for January, a clear sunny day predicted to top sixty-five degrees, which made us feel kind of twitchy about having left the boat in the driveway instead of putting her in the water.  In New Bern we took a left over the bridge and marveled at the brilliance of all that water, glinting in the sun.  I had to roll the windows down to try to get a whiff of the sea.  We squinted downriver to the right and enjoyed fond memories of sailing Eric’s eleven-foot Phil Bolger car-topper sailboat, Carol and Zack, on the Neuse River last summer.  It had been so hot back in July.

Coming into Oriental, we took a right on Hodges Street, just before the bridge, and found the sail loft a few doors down.  Inside the bright lofty space, we found the very friendly and welcoming couple of Laura Turgeon and Gil Fontes of Hodges Street Sails (http://www.towndock.net/sails/).  Laura threw her long ponytail over her shoulder and greeted us with a big smile and much enthusiasm.  Gil was quieter, but seemed pleased to see us.

Nervous, we laid our folded up sails on the long wide counter for inspection.  At fifty dollars an hour, we hoped there was not more than a few hours work to do on these babies.  We know that boats are holes in the water into which you pour money, but we’re saving our pennies for a GPS.  But we know she don’t go without sails, either.

Both Laura and Gil descended on our main sail, running their fingers over the still-crisp sailcloth and peering closely at seams and edges.  We stood by like anxious parents at the pediatrician.  Would the patient survive?

Turns out our sails are in good shape and we brought the head sail in just in time to re-stitch the cover without a ton of expense.  If the cover had come completely off, it would be a much bigger deal.  Both of our sails needed anti-chafe patches replaced, the Genoa would benefit from reinforcement at the clew and the leech line on the main had been shortened to uselessness and needed lengthening.  We didn’t even know what this was for, but Laura and Gil filled us in.  Apparently in a light wind, the leech line can be cinched in to improve the curve of the sail for better performance.  We made note.

After the sails had been gone over, we stood back to admire the artwork on the walls and to talk sailing.  Gil’s sculptures and paintings were everywhere.  On the wall going up the stairs was a truly marvelous painting of a little boat partly concealed by huge waves curled like shark fins.  It reminded me of my adventure two hundred miles offshore in the North Pacific in a storm.  If I had the money lying around, I’d buy that one.  It’s really something.

Turns out that in addition to painting, Gil also does woodworking.  He disappeared into a back room and emerged with a gorgeous wooden rocking chair he had made while Laura proudly showed off his benches and baskets.  His work can be seen at: http://www.artpickle.com/index.cfm?artpage=artistdetail&artist=GilFontes&id=3658 unless you’re visiting Oriental, in which case you can stop by and see it for real.

Gil was quick to show off Laura’s artwork as well, beautiful pen and ink drawings of Oriental scenery and sights.  Check it out:

http://www.lauraturgeon.com/gallery/

We tried to get them to join us for lunch so we could talk more about sailing and boats, but they demurred, saying they had a deadline on someone else’s sails.  Starved, we headed out to the dock to eat at the Toucan Grill at the Oriental Marina and Inn.  They have a lovely grassy area overlooking the docks and a covered porch dining area.  It was a little bit chilly in the shade, but we bundled up and enjoyed our meal.  Eric got the tuna burger, which was perfectly cooked and huge, with a pile of crispy fries.  I got the award-winning chili, which was delicious with cheese and sour cream balancing the spiciness.  The salad left something to be desired, but the view more than made up for that.  We’re looking forward to sailing in here for a meal one day!

Before we left town we sat in the car for few minutes looking out at the mouth of the river and watching the sailboats with jealousy.  On the way back to New Bern we stopped on the side of the highway at the Old Tater Barn, which had a fascinating variety of items in the yard, including a dog pen, a collection of ancient outboard motors, grubby weedeaters, a tour bus (for sale?) and well-worn stained glass windows.  Inside we found an even more dazzling array of just about everything, including books, chair legs, life jackets and Depression glass.  A hat rack caught my eye, welded metal painted green with river rocks instead of hooks.  Eric admired it and we ended up getting it for five dollars, rather than the marked price of twelve, because, the owner said, we appreciated it.  Can’t wait to hang my hats on it.

We stopped outside of New Bern for a coffee and were rewarded with the last drop of the great red ball of sun, book-ended by the rising near-full moon to the east.  We’ll be back for more of that, I thought.  We’ll be back.

Reconnaissance

 After being invited to a Christmas lunch at my cousin Jane’s, Eric had the brilliant idea to keep going from her house in Goldsboro and make a reconnaissance mission to the coast to see the marina where we hope to keep Willadine next.  He found the place online while “googling about” for marinas near the Pamlico River.  It’s called Potter’s and is a very small place with dock space for eight or ten boats, a boat ramp and dry storage where we can keep the boat with the mast up.  This was a priority because raising and lowering the mast is a time-consuming task (maybe an hour or two with our inexperience) and it would be nice to just arrive and go sailing rather than having to spend time grappling with the mast and rigging.

Attaching the head stay containing the roller furling had turned out to be a real struggle, with Eric rigging up a rope with a loop to put his weight on while trying to attach the shackle to the bow.  The head stay is necessarily tight because it holds the mast up, but we haven’t yet figured out how to get it attached without fighting it.  Plus, Mr. Potter said he had a big truck and would launch the boat for us, which enables us to drive there in our fuel-efficient car, rather than Eric’s truck, which we would need to launch the boat.  Mr. Potter said we could keep the boat there for just $50 a month and launch and retrieve would only be $30.  Such a deal!  He also said we could sleep on the boat on the hard or at the dock if he had space available.  Hello floating condo at the beach!

Hopefully Jane and the rest of my family understood about us darting off as soon as possible after the meal.  We were so excited to be off.  The drive on Christmas day was uneventful, hardly any traffic, only a minor disappointment to find the McDonald’s in Farmville closed when we’d hoped to pick up a coffee.  (Yes, there really is a Farmville!)

Our first stop was in Washington, known to locals as Little Washington to distinguish it from our nation’s capital.  In dire need of a potty break after finding McD’s closed, we headed for the NC Estuarium on Water Street.  Of course, it was closed, but we strolled around a bit and read some of the informative signs on the waterfront until our bladders couldn’t take it anymore.  We drove west a few blocks and found the town docks (boats!) and marina, but the restrooms there were closed too.  Fortunately, behind them was a secluded spot that sufficed.

Around the side of the small restroom building, we noticed a couple in matching bright blue windbreakers poking about in a little pile of debris.  Curious, we approached and they were happy to tell us that they were digging for fossilized shark teeth in a pile of dredged material the city dumps there for this purpose.  The man had gotten a sifter for Christmas and they were happily trying it out.  The woman held up a ziplock bag containing dozens of shiny black shark teeth.

Anxious to reach our destination, we headed out, admiring the quirky crab sculptures on every corner.  One had a cook’s hat and coat and another jeans and a yellow hard hat.  Washington also has a nicely restored train depot that we puzzled over since there didn’t appear to be any train tracks nearby.  Later on, we learned that there was a train bridge across the river and it was historically a major trade route from New England to the South.

About twelve miles away we cruised over the bridge into Bath, the oldest town in North Carolina, incorporated in 1705.  Notably, it housed the first library in the colony, established in 1701.  The town was temporarily home to Blackbeard and provided the inspiration for the novel on which the Broadway musical Show Boat was based.

Just over the bridge into the tiny little town is the marina and we were thrilled to see all the masts.  There were only two powerboats housed there, all the rest were sailboats.  We went up the steps to the front door of the house and went on in, thinking it was the office for the marina and motel, which it was, but it was obviously someone’s home as well.  Inside the door was a small Christmas tree scattered underneath with various shoes, including a pair of ruby slippers that would just fit a five-year-old.  We were kicking ours off when around the corner came a lunatic with a large stuffed red M&M guy, waving it manically and making strange noises.  When he saw us he pulled up short and apologized, saying he had mistaken us for his daughter and we all had a laugh over it.

We told Paul we were looking for a room and he dashed into the office and checked us in.  When he finished running Eric’s credit card, I asked about the possibility of a meal in town and he said no, nothing was open, but he could grab us a couple of Hot Pockets, which we’d never heard of.  He disappeared around the corner and we heard him puttering around while we admired the view.  The house faced out the creek to the river beyond and the view was wonderful.

Finally he came back with an armload of food, enough for a crowd, mozzarella sticks, two oranges and an apple (for dessert, he said), the promised Hot Pockets (ham and cheese, yum!) and a microwavable bag of edamame.  A feast!

Our room was upstairs in the next-door guesthouse and boasted a small, but full kitchen and a large deck with the same view as the house and also overlooking the marina.  It was getting dark so we went straight out to the docks to admire the boats.  There were a surprising number of Catalinas (25s and 30s), a schooner rigged boat that was at least 45 feet and a couple of huge sailing yachts, upwards of fifty feet.  One boat was a Lindenberg 26, a make we’d never heard of.  It seemed to have a ton of extra winches.  Turns out, it’s a racing boat, one of only fifty-one ever made.  How fun!

In the morning we walked into town, admired the still-closed restaurant/pizza joint, library and Swindell’s store (yeah, that’s where I want to shop).  One building has been nicely renovated with retail space below and loft condos above, overlooking the harbor. There is also a nice B&B for sale downtown for a cool half a million.  But we don’t need any of that because we have our own floating condo!

From Bath we headed east, stopping at the edge of town at the Old Town Country Kitchen for eggs, grits and some really fine coffee.  The weather was a little cool, but delightfully sunny.  We drove along the highway and pulled off to explore the little “town” of Bayview before heading over to our main destination, Potter’s Marina.  After all that build-up, it was a bit of an anticlimax when we finally found it, except that on our way in we saw a really dramatic “shipwreck” in the backyard of the house next door.  It was obvious from the entrance, a quarter mile off, that there was something terribly wrong about the angle of the deck of this hundred-foot boat.  It turned my stomach like no wave ever has, to see this huge boat tilted at an awful angle in the backyard of a two-story house!  We’d heard about how bad Hurricane Irene had been on this area, but here was undisputable proof.  Hard to imagine these poor homeowners returning after the storm to find a hundred-foot yacht in the backyard!  And now that it’s high and dry will they ever get rid of it?

Although it was still very sunny and warm in the car, the wind was really blowing and things were quite uncomfortably cold as we explored Potter’s tidy little restroom with shower, the dry storage where three sailboats, including a smaller Hunter, were on their trailers, the boat ramp (with gentle slope) and the docks, which contained several nice sailboats with no one aboard and no one about.  The place looked fine to me and I hurried to get back in the car to warm up.  Eric went back to look for a power outlet at the dry storage area (where Willadine will live) and then we headed back out.

On the highway we saw a sign for yet another unexplored marina and wound our way into the Pungo Creek Marina where we met the local Sea Tow captain, who regaled us with tales of the dire results of Irene, including the destruction of the front wall of their little seafood shack and some of their docks, which had since been nicely rebuilt.  Apparently the wind just blew all this water from the river up into the creeks, causing the worst flooding in living memory. 

Somehow the place lacked the charm of Potter’s, which isn’t saying much since Potter’s is pretty bare bones, but we both felt Mr. Potter was more welcoming, offering to launch and retrieve the boat for us, for a very reasonable fee.  And we liked that Potter’s is more off the beaten path.

We stopped in Belhaven, the next town over, to explore facilities for a visit by water, including the newly rebuilt city docks where two beautiful cruising sailboats were tied up.  We admired the little bakery and the hardware store, both walking distance from the docks and drove by the big mansion-turned-B & B before continuing out Hwy 264 past Swanquarter towards Engelhard.  Eric had found a possible lodging for us there at the Hotel Engelhard, but when I had called, the venerable Ursula had told me they had no vacancy for the day after Christmas.

By this time our stomachs were grumbling and so drove through the teeny town (blink and you miss it!) looking for a place to get a bite to eat.  Eric spotted a marina sign (Big Trout Marina Café) and we veered off the main road only to find the place closed.  They had several picnic tables on the water and the wind was down, so we went back to town to see about some take-out.  We stopped at the hotel to see about a possible pizza.  The nice gentleman there offered to make us a pizza, but their little restaurant was officially closed.  Not wanting to be stuck eating indoors, we demurred and took his advice to head back down the road to Beck’s to get a couple burgers to go.  The place looks like a small convenience store, which it is, but they have a little grill in the back and produced a couple of burgers for us in a jiffy.

We went back to the Big Trout and enjoyed our meal with the pelicans and seagulls.  There was a big sailboat at the dock from Adak, AK, which interested me because I’ve been to Atka Island, not far from there, but no one was around to talk to about Alaskan adventures.

From there we headed up to Manteo, as I had taken a fancy to see the Elizabethan Gardens there, which my grandfather had a hand in building.  We zoomed into the visitor’s center and missed the gardens, which had closed ten minutes before we arrived.  We caught the sunset at the city dock with the boats, of course, and headed into Poor Richard’s for a nip and to defrost.  Had a nice chat with the barkeep before deciding we were still hungry for adventure and a taste of the sea, so we zipped across the bridge and headed north to Nag’s Head.

We drove all the way to Duck, looking for a funky beach motel near enough to walk to a restaurant and ended up at a big box hotel across from one of the few open restaurants along the waterfront.  We enjoyed a hot supper at the Jolly Roger with great beer on tap in a very funky restaurant with a ceiling covered with tinfoil and Christmas ornaments.  Very festive!!

In the morning we greeted the sun on the beach, mostly through the clouds, but with the dolphin to keep us entertained.  It was not as cold, which was nice too.  After breakfast we made a quick visit to the Elizabethan Gardens, having come this far, and enjoyed reading the sign that includes my grandfather’s name as the source of the statuary, which he rescued from an estate and the builder of the extensive brickwork.  On the way out, I picked up a couple of plants including one about which the lady at the counter remarked, “You bought a stick!”  I have wanted an American Beautyberry for my yard for a long time and I’m delighted to have one propagated at the Elizabethan Gardens.  If it lives, it will be my a memorial to my grandfather.

On the way back, we stopped back in at the Big Trout Marina Café and were delighted to find it open.  By this time it was driving cold rain and we found the tiny place jammed with fishermen and families, including a venerable old gal the lady behind the counter referred to as "Grandma." We squeezed in at the counter and watched the proprietor bread and fry fish and hushpuppies and serve up green beans and fried okra while bantering good-naturedly with his wife who was sweating over the register and trying to keep up with orders. The iced tea came in a pitcher and they even had unsweetened ready-made for us Yankees. When the crowd began to thin out, I shared my hushpuppies with the proprietress and got a couple of extras in return.  We love this place and can’t wait to come back in the boat.  Wonder if we’ll find the owner of the Alaskan boat?

As a grand finale to our recon mission, we had a nice long visit with Dave at his farm in Sladesville in the middle of nowhere, but close to Potter’s.  He was still cleaning up after Irene left six inches of mud inside his house, and the place was freezing, but it was dry inside and the company was good.  On the way out, we were rewarded with a fantastic view of the sunset across a vast field.  The light was perfect and the view serene, a nice last look at Willadine’s future neighborhood.  Can’t wait to get back here.

Magic

It was cold and windy enough on Saturday that we waited until afternoon to get out on the boat.  The sky was dotted with clouds, but enough blue showed through to be called mostly sunny.  It was only about fifty-five degrees and the wind was steady at ten knots with gusts to fifteen, right on the edge of where we feel comfortable sailing Willadine.

We bundled up in long johns, hats and windbreakers and made a brilliant getaway from the dock with the newly serviced motor running like a champ.  Hooray for Fred!  The lake was reflecting the sky and ringed with trees in various colors, like autumn confetti.  We certainly felt like celebrating.

Whenever possible we like to sail upwind to start and then have a leisurely sail downwind back, so we headed east toward the dam in the northeasterly wind.  We had reefed the main (reduced the sail area) but we noticed the boat had a significant amount of lee helm.  (For you landlubbers, this means that the wind was pushing the mainsail downwind, causing the helmsman to have to steer hard upwind to compensate.)

Eric had the brilliant idea to let out some jib, and with just a handkerchief of jib, the lee helm disappeared.  We surmised that the jib was improving the performance of the main by directing some of the wind over the lee side of it and also that somehow the jib “balances” the boat and makes her sail more properly.  We were extremely pleased with ourselves.

We neared the dam as the sun was getting low and I noticed the golden light of dusk hitting some red clay on the shore ahead lighting it up against the dark clouds behind.  Looking the other way, that sun came through the trees and they lit up chartreuse and orange, with tinges of scarlet and green against the sparkling water and darkening sky and the moon rising like a fat “D” above it all.

With the sails up, cruising along, it’s very quiet.  You can hear the water lapping on the hull and the occasional tap of a line on the mast.  When a gust of wind comes, it sometimes makes the rigging hum in a pleasured sort of way.  Above the sail, I noticed some white spots wheeling around in a group.  Seagulls.  They soared and dove above us and moved down along the lake and disappeared.  I longed to hear their sound, but they were silent.  Maybe seagulls only cry at sea.  I wonder why they came to the lake.  Do they go inland for a vacation, maybe?  They certainly looked like they were having a frolic, the way they flew so wildly around each other.  I could almost smell the sea.

Whenever a gust would come up, Willadine would catch it and take off.  If I got distracted with the trees or the wildlife and headed up to close to the wind, the jib would luff (flap) and warn me to steer off.  We felt the motion of the water moving the boat and the wind on our cheeks.  The very air all around us would take us where we wanted to go, with little effort on our parts, like magic.

This is the magic of sailing.  It satisfies so many of my longings all at once.  It satisfies my need for water, which I’ve had all my life, and my need for adventure, another lifelong desire, as well as my need for love and intimacy, since Eric is there to share it with me.  I feel very content on the boat, to ride the water and the wind and let it take me both out of and into life itself.

Kids on the Boat

Kids on the Boat

An entire weekend without seeing our dear Willadine was killing Eric, so we conspired to do a quick trip between our massive birthday party and Halloween, which ended up being on my birthday, Sunday October 30.  Eric had made wild suggestions such as we should get up at dawn, pack the kids in the car and take off.

Of course, I overindulged, not in alcohol, but in sugar and woke up at 2am feeling rather ill.  So, dawn didn’t happen, but poor Eric was a like a puppy waiting for a walk, bouncing around, packing the cooler (usually my job) and loading the car with all the necessaries the kids and I dragged to the door.

We managed to get out around ten, which I thought was pretty good and we stopped at McD’s for breakfast for the kids.  By the time they were into the hashbrowns, they were fully awake and raring to go.  We suffered the book-on-tape, while Eric drove and I dozed.  It was pleasant in the sun, with the tree shadows flying by and before we knew it we were there.

Woozy from the drive and the book, the kids looked around John W’s wooded yard.  “Where are we?” They asked.  Eric was out of the car and on his way down to the boat as he called back over his shoulder, “The boat!  We’re here!”  So we all went tearing down to see our baby, patiently waiting by the dock.  I swear I think she trembled a bit to see us coming.  The kids didn’t even recognize her in the water, but they got used to the rocking real fast.

We were unable to get the motor back from Fred at Fred’s Boats, because Fred’s dad is in the hospital and not doing well, so we had planned to just use John’s trolling motor.  It worked fine before.  I cast off and Eric headed her around to back out.  She started to go and then stopped.  There was just enough wind (wind!) to prevent our turn.  It was directly out of the north, the way we needed to go and I know both Eric and I were wondering if we could possibly tack in that narrow cove.  (No, we could not.)

Luckily John came down when he saw us floundering around and suggested we through him a line.  I suggested that I jump in the water and pull her around, but it was fairly cold and I was glad when Eric began tying lines together to reach back to the dock.  His first throw was perfect except the two lines came mysteriously apart.  The next throw was perfect and John pulled us around easily and we headed off.   Apparently the motor can make headway against a three knot wind, but not if it’s blowing on our beam.

We got out and raised the sails and our sweet girl heeled over gently and took off.  I was worried the kids would be uncomfortable with the heeling, but they were delighted and begged to go up on the bow.  The wind was fairly stiff at first, so we suggested they go below.  Next thing we knew they were singing, “Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum!” and taking long draughts on two liter bottles of Pepsi leftover from the party.

Eric looked at me.  I looked at Eric.  The kids were raucous, laughing hysterically and slapping each other on the back.

“Um, does that have caffeine?”  Eric asked me.  “Oh no!  And sugar too!”  Soon my two granola kids were wired out of their minds.  Giggling and swaggering around, George rummaged around and pulled a neon green pistol out of his pillowcase.  Tossing it to Lucy, who was singing, in between pulls on her bottle, he pulled out another pistol and a wicked-looking plastic knife.  Those lake pirates did not stand a chance.

Eric and I managed a tack and the kids lolled over with gales of laughter.  George came up through the hatch and trained his gun on a far-off powerboat.  They were doomed.  More hilarity ensued.  Eric and I just shook our heads, wondering what on earth caused someone to bring Pepsi with sugar and caffeine to a party with kids, and what possessed Eric to pack the accursed stuff to the boat.  But they were kind of hilarious and it was so nice and pleasant in the sun we just smiled at each other and shrugged.

Luckily it wore off pretty fast and they settled into the V-berth to read.  Eric and I relaxed in the cockpit as the wind died and we agreed it was wise to stay close to John’s in case the motor couldn’t make it too far.  We find that as long as we’re on Willadine, we have a good time and that was certainly the case.  It was cool, maybe fifty-five degrees, but the sun was warm and we were dressed for it and the water was beautiful and sparkly reflecting the blue sky.

It was over too soon and we sailed back to the dock and went to have Chinese and birthday cake with Grandma Betsy who was delighted to see us.  There was that little incident with the puppy poo, but never mind that.  We stumbled back to the boat after dark and I managed to get the kids to brush their teeth while Eric pulled out all the bedding.  Lucy had a fit about wanting the green (warmer) sleeping bag and I let her have it.  I knew better, but was too tired to fight with her.  Poor George was up at 4am just freezing.  It was below freezing outside and he’s just skin and bones.  He climbed in with us and was warm and asleep in a jiffy.

In the morning we dropped the kids off and took The Toaster (my car)  to Fred’s to collect the motor.  We found Fred to be a surprisingly warm, friendly kind of guy, who gave us the scoop on the Tohatsu (it’s a good motor, but don’t lay it down on the wrong side again!) and one of his guys had it settled down in The Toaster on protective cardboard before we were done paying the bill.

On the way back we stopped at the Information Grocery to see about a breakfast biscuit, but they were gone already.  Eric said that’s why they call it the Information Grocery, because all the guys were hanging around gossiping in there.  So we stopped at the one other possibility where a middle-aged country woman fixed and heated two biscuits while we looked at the Indian Artifact Museum in the back.  There was an impressive array of spear-tips and stone tools and some very cool pottery pieces, including some doll heads, which I had never seen before.  It always gives me a queer feeling to think about the people that made them, thousands of years ago.

It feels funny to me to think about the discovery of sailing too.  Who dreamed that up?  It sure is awesome though.  I’m still dreaming of the sea, but I’m not pushing that with Eric.  It’s too cold now, anyway.  The lake will do.  It’s pretty sweet.  Definitely my best birthday ever.