Love Odyssey

Q: My husband says he will divorce me if I don’t go to his church. All I asked is if we can find “OUR” church. He don’t like mine I don’t like his. What do I do????

A: Candice.  Hold firm to your proposal.  If he divorces you because you insist on your right to choose your church then he doesn’t have enough respect for human differences that will naturally exist in an adult to adult relationship.  You should not submit to threats like that. – Bryce Kaye

This is the last weekend at the coast before we head to Florida to celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary.  We spent most of our time doing maintenance chores such as topping up our water tanks, ordering impellers for our generator, cleaning, taking down Christmas lights and tree, fixing the stove cover, etc. We are leaving the boat very early tomorrow morning to celebrate Christmas with our extended family at home in Cary.  Then Thursday afternoon we will be leaving for the long drive to Key West.  It is hard to believe that a week from today is Christmas Eve!

 Helen  12/17/11

Last night was a special Christmas party on the dock that had magical feeling about it.  We decked the boat with lights as did our friends Jim and Kaye on the boat next to ours.  We put speakers on deck and played classical Christmas Pops with chorus and instrumentals.  Brass lanterns were put aflame on both boats.  A big pot of Chili was slow cooked and numerous dips, cheeses, fondue and other goodies were placed above deck and below.

 The real action occurred on the dock as Bryce burned sugar with brandy into a big pot of steaming Glogg.  Glogg is the Swedish word for “burnt” because the smoky burned flavor gives the hot spicy drink a most wonderful character.

 Of course the best of all was having good friends to share in the good times.  Even Suzy had her good friends Sammy and Sophie come to visit.  They kept each other warm in the little enclosed carriage they shared above deck.  Geoff came with his flask of Aquivit that is just about impossible to obtain in North Carolina.  He “assisted” Bryce with it as Bryce labored over the Glogg.

 All in all this party had a wonderful magical feel to it.  Maybe we should make it a tradition.

 Here’s the recipe for Glogg if anyone out there feels adventurous:

                                                                    Glogg

A:

½ Gal. Vodka

½ Gal. Burgundy

½ Gal. Claret (or Pinot Noir)

One fifth of port wine

One fifth sweet vermouth

B:

Couple large packs raisins

Large bag of slivered almonds

C:

1 orange rind (scrape white material off of rind first)

3 large cinnamon sticks

30 whole cloves

Crushed cardomon seeds (1/4 cup) (slightly less if ground cardomon powder)

D:

4 cups sugar + brandy

Mix wines together and ½ of vodka.  Reserve other half of vodka.  Put in raisins and almonds.  Place cloves, cinnamon, cardomon seed (crushed) and orange rind into cheese cloth bag.  Place in to pot with wines.  Heat until hot but do not boil.

Stew hot for 30 minutes.

Burn sugar ½ cup at a time by pouring brandy on the sugar in a metal sieve.  Sieve the sugar into the mixture after it is singed.  Add rest of vodka.

When serving, put raisins and almonds in bottom of small glass and serve hot!

Today we moved Bryce’s Oriental Counseling Center to New Bern.  For the past six years we have enjoyed the convenience of the office just two minutes from our boat.  Bryce generally saw clients on Sunday afternoons so his work did not interfere with our sailing.  We also spent many nights on the inflatable bed when it was too stormy to get on the boat or a tropical storm was brewing.  We will miss these things, but hopefully Bryce will get a more substantial practice in New Bern.  In all honesty, the majority of his clients came from outside of Oriental and many drove across the bridge from New Bern.  So it should be better for clients now and a bit less convenient for us.  Bryce will  be trying to fill up his Fridays in New Bern and our sailing will have to be on Saturday and Sunday–but I can adapt!

Helen   12/03/11

…Or something like that.  Why else would there be a manatee swimming around our boat in the marina this afternoon?  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  At first I thought it might be a dead leatherback turtle or perhaps something more ominous.  But then the barnacled hump moved and I could see that it was alive and I could make out the unmistakable rounded tail of a manatee.  It was a juvenile and not too well-fed from what we could see.  We called the marine mammal rescue people and they had to hand it off to the federal wildlife department who had jurisdiction.  Helen and I felt a lot of compassion for the animal because it’s ridiculously far North and almost certainly won’t survive the winter unless it gets rescued.  We had to travel back to Cary so we left a local Oriental person as a contact for the wildlife folks.  The farthest North we’ve ever heard of a manatee coming is Georgia.  Here are some of the pictures. – Bryce (10/30/2011)

Mommy and Daddy took me to the mountains this weekend.  I really didn’t know what a mountain was but they said I would have fun.  Thursday afternoon we packed the Suburban just like we usually do when we go to the boat but Mommy said we were driving in the other direction.  I feel asleep in my car seat and all of a sudden we were getting out and my friends Jack and Ginger were greeting me.  We are staying in a “cottage” (house) that has a big front porch where I can run around and chase tennis balls ( one of my favorite activities) and daddy can sleep in the hammock on the front lawn.  A big Golden Retriever named Tarheel came to visit and played ball with me.  He lives down the road. He gave me a rock from the yard-Mommy said that he must really likes me!

This is me before our trip.

Here is the cabin in the woods where we stayed.

Yesterday we went to Blowing Rock and Mommy did some shopping.  I got to ride around in my stroller; Jack and Ginger have strollers too.  Mommy let me try some turtle cheesecake ice cream.  I love ice cream!

Today we went to a festival in Todd on the New River.  There was lots of blue grass music and clogging.  Everyone wanted to talk to me and my friends.  We had lunch at the Grist Mill in Linville and Mommy fed me some of her barbeque.  I like meat! Then we came back to the cottage and my friend Tarheel was waiting for me with two tennis balls.  We got to play ball again for a long time while my parents sat in the sun on the porch.  I really like the mountains!

First we went to a small festival with lots of good smells.

Then we listened to music at the Mast General Store.

Here's Daddy taking his apples in something called Apple Jack.

Suzy–10/08/11

Yesterday mommy had a birthday party for me and invited some of my friends. I really didn’t know what a party was and I got scared. Daddy was blowing up balloons to decorate the boat and one popped right under my nose. That scared me and I wanted to hide, but mommy kept saying I would have fun.

Mommy baked me a yummy birthday cake with shredded carrots and peanutbutter; those are two of my favorite foods.  She also got some strawberry ice cream and berries.  I like those too.

At one o’clock my friends came to our boat.  Jack and Ginger from the boat nextdoor came as well as Sammi and Sophie from down the road.  Mom insisted we all get our pictures taken with party hats on–that part I hated!  I wear clothes every day, but never hats.  I wore my pink party dress and Sophie and Sammi came in their matching valentine heart dresses.

I'm Ready To Party !

My Friends Sophie & Sammi

My Friend Ginger (She's sweet but kinda shy)

I'm Sweet On My Boyfriend Jack

Mommy Baked A Cake Just For Me! We All Had A Piece.

Daddy and Uncle Jim got happy after drinking some red stuff.

After our pictures were taken we sat around the table in the salon and our parents ate chips and dip and drank sangria.  We got to nibble on the chips while I opened my gifts.  I got three toy mice, a bouncy ball and a new pink toy box for my boat toys.  Then mom lit the candles on my birthday cake and all the humans sang to me.  I don’t know how to blow out candles so mommy helped me.  I liked this part of my party the best.  The cake, ice cream and berries were yummy.  Finally my friends had to go home.  Now I can’t wait to go to another birthday party!

SUZY-Q     09/05/11

What a difference a week makes!  When I left our marina last Sunday afternoon the place was trashed.  There were contents of folks’ dock boxes strewn all over the lawn and in the water.  Dock boxes were broken and lying everywhere.  The docks were broken in some parts of the marina, with cleats pulled out of the wood and some of the wooden walkways were missing.  There was no power to the docks or the bath houses and water had been turned off.

We came back on Thursday night and even in the dark we could see that the docks and walkways had been repaired, garbage had been cleaned up, the broken branches and fallen trees had been hauled to the curb, and dock boxes had been replaced on their stands.  Friday morning the power came on and we were able to fill our tanks with water.  I could not wait to walk around the marina and see the damage.  Some docks are only temporarily repaired, just so no one falls in the holes and the boats can be secured.  But the place looked normal again.  Yesterday they hauled out the trash cans that had been stored in the bath houses and they put out the gas barbeques.  The pool still has green algea and I suspect they will just shut it down for the season.

A drive through the town of Oriental shows just how much flooding the buildings took during the first part of the storm.  Almost every house has piles of insulation, ductwork, carpet and wall board at the curb.  Then there are also the piles of downed trees and limbs that some people are burning and others are leaving for the town to collect along with the other hurricane debris.

This weekend shops are slowly opening, one by one.  Many of them have spent the last week cleaning up floors that got covered by mud and water.  The restaurants had to get re-inspected by the health department before they could serve food.  Everyone in town lost power for several days, so restaurants had to throw away all the food that they had in their refrigerators and freezers.  Unfortunately, the Bean, our favorite coffee shop and the heart of the town, will not be able to open for at least a month because they had four feet of water in their building during the height of the storm.  I and many other folks in town are having withdrawal symptoms–I want my favorite “bean freeze”!

Helen   09/03/11

I spent all morning and part of the afternoon putting Dragon Lady back together.  All the blue canvas had to be snapped on over the brightwork on the deck; the dodger had to be put back together; lines had to be coiled and placed back in the dock box and lazarette.  Jim helped me get the dinghy back up on the davits and the gangplank back on the finger pier.  All of this in blazing hot sunshine–needless to say I am sunburned!

The whole marina looks like a diaster area.  There are dock boxes strewn all over the laws; most are broken with their lids detached.  The contents of those dock boxes were also strewn everywhere.  We found oil filters, diesel cans, coolers, oil changers; etc.  Someone could have a great yard sale with all this stuff!  Then there were the pieces of dock and walkways broken.  This is one of the prettiest marinas I have ever seen and today it was trashed.

Owners of boats were all trying to get their vessels back together.  Some were luckier than others.  Many of the boats had the scars on their hulls from bashing against pilings and docks for hours.  Bow sprits were missing and anchors, usually stores at the bow, were bent or broken.  Sails were torn; sail covers were tattered.  I almost felt guilty that my boat had no battle scars.  I think Jim and I were pretty lucky to have made it through this so well.  Of course it was not luck that Jim worked his tail off for hours on end tending our two vessels as well as many others in the marina.  But we were lucky that our boats were situated in a part of the marina at the end of the new basin where we got wind on our sterns for the first part of the storm and wind on our bows for the second part.  Sailboats do okay in those conditions but do not fare as well when the force of this wind is on the port or starboard sides, which is what the majority of the boats in the marina got.  I thank God for his blessings.

We left for home at 2:30 and got to see what happened to the rest of the county of Pamlico.  We had to detour since there were power  lines in the middle of the road on Hwy 55.  Thank God I was following Jim with his GPS or I would never have figured out how to leave the county to get to New Bern.  We saw lots of trees down, many on the roofs of houses; yards that looked like lakes with houses in the middle; boats and boat trailers smashed like toys.  It was very sad because many of these houses were the dwellings of working people who probably did not have insurance.

On the drive home I did see convoys of power trucks heading to the coast, many from other states.  There were also lots of trucks that have cherry pickers to cut down trees and string wires.  There were also Red Cross vehicles and a bus from Samaritan’s Purse.  The people of our coast will need these services.

When I finally arrived home our yard was littered with tree limbs and pine cones.  I guess the Raleigh area got some wind too!  So for the past two hours I have been picking up and blowing the debris on the front yard, driveway and deck.  I am leaving the back yard with the bigger limbs for Bryce when he comes back from California!

Our daughter, Heather, is coming home tonight.  I have not seen her since February.  Needless to say, I am not up for cooking her dinner tonight.  We are going out to a restaurant–I want a glass of wine!

Helen    08/28/11    at 8 pm

It’s the day after the worst hurricane to hit Oriental.  The skies are blue, the sun is shining, and the air is dry and hot.  A perfect end of summer day.  There is destruction everywhere.  The storm did not leave us until mid-night last night.  We had over24 hours of strong winds and blinding rain.  In the marina there are boats with torn headsails and scars on their hulls.  As far as I know there were no sunken boats here, but we did see one in Oriental Harbor Marina.  There are all sorts of floatsom around on the grass here–coolers, bumpers, and lots of trash.  Dock boxes are thrown everywhere like kids blocks.  There are broken tree limbs, downed trees, crab pots, and small boats all along the side of the road and on the grass.  We have no power or cell phone service.  Yesterday I could only send text messages.

Our boat and dock box and slip are fine!  I am okay, just very tired from this ordeal.  I have my neighbor and good friend to thank for our boat’s safety.  Jim,  you are a GOD–I will love you forever!  Without your tending of our lines during the entire storm, we would surely have had damage.  thank you!

I am on generator now and running AC and coffee pot.  It seems like any other Sunday morning until I look outside my window.  I am going to put dinghy back on davits today and do some straightening up.  Then back to Cary if roads out of here are OK.  I will up-date more later.

Helen  08/28/11