Love Odyssey

It’s 6:00 and Irene has weakened to a category I storm–but don’t get too complacent–that means winds about 90 miles an hour.  So far we have had mainly rain and wind gusts up to 32 mph–not bad, so far!  We had our hurricane response meeting at 5:00 and there are teams of three individuals walking the docks every hour and adjusting lines.  There are about 20 brave souls doing this so they can cover over 200 slips.  All the boats have prepared for the storm and everyone has extra lines to the docks.  Our marina has not lost any boats in the past 20 years.  Let’s hope our luck continues!

Suzy, our little 2 1/2 pound Yorkie, has been very agitated all day.  I think she knows something is up and she is not happy!  Maybe she picks up mom’s anxiety, I don’t know.

I am getting off the boat at 8:00 and going to one of our bathhouses that is built to withstand 125 mph winds.  I will stay there all night until this storm clears out.  They expect the surge to get a couple of feet above the docks–it would not be easy at that point to leave the boat.  I will do everything I can think of to keep the boat safe.  This is our home for 3 days every week.

I plan to take the laptop with me to the bathhouse so I can continue to blog.  When the power goes out (and it will) I will just Tweet.  Hopefully we will have cell phone service.

Helen  at 6:15

It’s 3:30.  I have been trying to nap on the boat but I hear noises above in the cockpit.  We tied everything down this morning and removed anything that could blow away.  So what is making this noise every so often just as I drift off to sleep?

It has been raining on and off for the past two hours, but not hard rain–just the gentle, get your deck wet rain.  It is blowing a bit more too, but gusts are about 20-30 knots–nothing to worry about.  I have been onboard here last summer during a tropical storm and the boat did fine with 60-70 mile an hour gusts.

I see Jim, my neighbor and buddy, on his deck tying more lines on around his main sail.  He did not take it down; just wrapped it with lines.  Can’t ever be too careful with sails–they are what can get a sailboat in trouble if they blow out.

So I am just anxiously waiting for the “bad stuff” to hit.  Hard to relax when you anticipate a big hurricane like Irene.  Go away, Irene–you are not welcome here.

Helen   -8/26/11

It’s eleven thirty.  We have spent all morning tying down boats and dinghys.  We have been trying to make fast anything that could blow and be a missle.  I am tired and anxious.  The sky is gray but no wind or rain yet.  The storm is about 300 miles away and has been downgraded to category two–whopee!  We can expect winds of 100 miles an hour.  That will come after dark.  Later today we will get tropical force winds.

There are a lot of us boaters at the marina now.  It is a hub-bub of activity.  Everyone is helping each other–we are all in this stew together. I have a big pot of chilli going in the crockpot to feed all the “hands” that will be working through the night to adjust lines and keep boats safe.  Some of us will be “sleepding” up in the bath house where we can withstand the hurricane force winds.  I plan to bring pleanty of food to keep everyone’s strength up.

Helen  08/26/11

I have spent most of the day working on the boat to ready her for this hurricane.  I am exhausted and my body hurts.  We took down the two forward sails, the jib and the staysail, and folded them and put them up in the V-berth.  We lashed down the dock boxes so they would not float away in the surge that is predicted to be at least six feet.  We took down the dodger and all the canvas on the exterior of the boat.  I put sponges in our dorades to keep water from being sucked into the interior of the boat.  Tomorrow morning we need to take the dinghy off the davits and put her in the water and tie her securely to pilings.  We are also doing the same things on Jim’s boat next door.

The ribs were not so good–poor quality meat at the little grocery store in town, but the sangria was great!  The shower I just had also felt wonderful–we sweated all day in 95 degree heat and bright sunshine.  I can’t wait to crawl into bed and sleep.  Tomorrow I am going to make a big pot of chilli for the “hurricane response team” at the marina–volunteer fellows of all ages who will roam the docks throughout the storm and help to adjust dock lines and generally keep boats safe from crashing into pilings and finger piers.

This is a scary storm- it is 300 miles wide and the eye is predicted to pass over Oriental.  There will come a time when Jim and I will have to leave our respective boats and take shelter in one of the cinder block bath houses that have been built to sustain 110 mile an hour winds.  I will take little Suzy with me of course.  And we will all say a prayer that this storm moves out quickly and does little damage.

Helen    08/25/11 at 8:45 pm

All the computer models are showing this storm as being a strong category III hurricane.  It is not something that can be ignored.  I came to the coast yesterday afternoon to ready our boat.  On the drive down from Cary I saw a lot of travel trailers and trucks towing boats inland away from the storm.  North Carolina has not had a hurricane for the past several years, but Bryce and I remember the damage that Fran did in 1996 and Bertha in the early 90′s.  Hurricanes are not to be taken lightly.

I am feeling pretty anxious this morning.  Bryce is leaving for California today so I will be facing this hurricane alone.  Bryce gave me a long list of things to do to ready the boat.  This morning I took off all the blue canvas that is covering the brightwork on the outside of the boat.  I needed help to unsnap some of the fasteners, but otherwise I did this by myself.  Most of the other tasks that Bryce left I will need male help to complete–they require strength and agility that I do not have.  Our friend Jim in the boat nextdoor is driving down from Charlotte this morning and he will help with all those other tasks.  In return, I am going to feed him well–I have baby back ribs in the Crockpot simmering and I plan to put together some nice sides for tonight’s dinner along with some delicious sangria to wash it all down.

The question is going to be whether we stay here (on the boat or in town) or leave for safety in-land.  We may need to decide that tomorrow as the storm gets closer.  The problem is that if there is a storm surge and water levels rise drastically, lines on the boats need to be adjusted accordingly.  That is pretty hard to do if you are miles away.  The marina here is a nice hurricane hole and through previous hurricanes boats have fared well.  I just hope that holds for Irene.

to be continued…..

Helen   08/25/11

Although hurricane season officially begins June first we usually don’t have anything to worry about until late August/early September.  Last night a system down in the tropics morphed into hurricane Irene and it seems like she may be heading our direction.  The projected path is through central Florida on Thursday and then up the coast to NC about Saturday or Sunday.  If that is not scary enough, Bryce will be in California from Thursday to Sunday for a conference that he needs to attend to keep his EMDR certification.  So who is going to watch our boat??  You guessed it–moi!  In preparation for Irene Bryce put extra lines on our stern and a line around the base of our mast tied to a piling.  I plan to come back here on Thursday afternoon so I will probably have to take off all our blue canvas covering our teak trim, dodger and hatch covers.  Then it is a case of waiting it out to see if Irene changes her course.  This is nerve-wracking at any time, but doubly so with Bryce gone.  So let’s all think positive thoughts and wish Irene a speedy departure out to sea!

Helen   08/21/11

Living on a sailboat–sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Yes, it is, but… there’s a high price to pay for this privelege. Things break or stop working–much more so than in a house.  I know because we have both a house in Cary and this boat in Oriental. We live on the boat three days a week and in our house the other four days. Granted, things do go wrong in a house, but never at the rate that they do on a boat. Take this weekend.

Yesterday morning we woke up to hear the pressure water pump going when no one was using any water–not a good sign. It meant that we had a leak somewhere in the water system. We carry over two hundred gallons of water between two separate tanks. Somewhere something was leaking enough that the pressure water pump was activated. Now Bryce is not Mr. Tool Time! He would rather have a root canal than try to trace down a leak and fix it. Yes, we have lots of tools on board–but they are like a talisman–there more to keep away the breakdowns than to fix them. Bryce spent over five hours yesterday checking water lines and hose fittings. He was able to get our water system to run properly on one tank, but the second tank eluded him. Of course the boat was built in Europe so all the fittings are European and many do no have American equivalents that can be easily swapped in. Everything is off just by a hair, but enough to cause problems, especially in a water system where the slightest little leak can result in big problems. So now we have to order some European fittings…and the drama will continue next weekend.

As if our water problems were not enough this weekend, our sink drain in the aft head (bathroom) got stopped up and the water would not go down. We figured that it was barnacles growing in the outlet on the hull of the boat. But when Bryce took the dinghy around and snaked a wire up the through-hull opening, he met with no resistance. Alas, the problem must be in the pipe under the sink. Bryce never fixes such problems in our house–he always tells me to call a plumber. So fixing a stopped up sink was not something Bryce had ever tackled.  He tried to get some fittings off with a wrench, but they were rusted.  However, after much grief a stiff wire down the drain pushed the clog through and the sink drained.  Score one for the weekend!  Yes, Bryce payed the piper this weekend…and hopefully he will get our water line straightened out next weekend!

Helen  08/14/11

I often refer to our boat, Dragon Lady” as our “condo in the water”. The majority of weekends we stay at the dock rather than take our boat out for a spin. The boat has pretty much everything that one would find in a traditional condominium. We run air conditioning or heat using a reverse cycle heat pump. We have two bathrooms (called “heads”), one of which has a shower. There are two bedrooms (called “staterooms”), a sitting room/navigation station (called the “pilothouse”), and a kitchen (called “galley”)/salon where we cook and eat most of our meals. In the galley we have a three-burner propane stove with small oven, a microwave, a refrigerator and a separate small chest-type freezer. We also have a television/DVD player andSirius/XM satellite radio. Of course most of this is made possible by the “shore power” which we plug into at the dock. Unlike most other boats, however, we have a large built-in generator which runs off of diesel so that when we do leave our dock we can still enjoy all those amenities that need power.  Yes, I do enjoy living on our “condo in the water”.

Helen       08/07/11

Oriental is a pretty unique town.  Considering there are only 900 full-time residents, this town has lots of festivals and activities.  This weekend was the 2nd annual Dragon Boat races.  Twenty teams compete against each other for the fastest time to race a course on the river.

Now the dragon is the symbol of this town.  The town owns two dragons and they run in various venues throughout the year, especially on New Years Eve.  So it makes sense that any Dragon Boat races should be held here.  The day began with one of the town dragons dancing along the waterfront (see picture below).  This was followed by a parade consisting of the competing teams in their colorful tee-shirts chanting cheers to the delight of the assembled crowd watching.

The dragon boats are long narrow canoes with the head and tail of a dragon.  There is a drummer in the bow who keeps time to help the paddlers stay in unison.  At the stern a team captain steers the vessel with a long rudder.  The races commenced this morning and will continue through late afternoon when the two teams with the best times will face off against each other.  See below for a photo of a dragon boat.

Helen–07/23/11

Small towns often have unique celebrations, and so it is for Oriental. In this town the croaker, a small fish that when caught lets out a croaking sound, is celebrated every July with festivities that resemble a small-town fair. Yesterday over fifty vendors set up shop along the waterfront facing the Neuse River. There were the usual arts and crafts booths selling such sundry items as t-shirts with fish logos, jewelry, handbags, etc. as well as flea market items like fishing poles, rope of various colors and widths, puppets, dog dishes and so on. Then there were the food trucks selling funnel cakes, Polish sausage, sno-cones, french fries, and home-made ice cream. Top that off with a local band playing music from the ’60′s and beyond and someone singing while folks danced, strolled or roller-skated down the street. What a great street party!

This morning we watched the “Christmas in July” parade from the upper porch next to Bryce’s office.  There were cars carrying the Miss Croaker Queen and her court as well as the Little Miss Minnow girls.  Then the Shriners with their minature cars, motorized coolers/scooters, and water and bubble squirting alligators came.  There were antique cars that had been lovingly restored, people on horseback, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, the Y summer campers on their bus, and of course the mayor of Oriental, the firetrucks blowing their sirens, decorated golf carts, and the odd float with Christmas decorations as well as the patriotic red, white and blue.  And of course with a Christmas theme there was Santa Claus decked out in his winter clothes but sitting in front of a fan blowing cool air over some big blocks of ice–which he needed in this ninety degree heat.

Today for lunch we ate barbecued hotdogs out in front of the marina clubhouse as a fitting part of the Forth of July/CroakerFest celebration.  This afternoon we will have a swim at the pool and tonight we will watch fireworks over the waterfront.  Yes, I really do enjoy this nostalgic small town celebration!

Helen   07/02/11