Morning skies over Dowrey Creek 
 (shot taken Nov/2010)


Today's destination.

Weather appears to have moved offshore and we're ready to be places we haven't been.
Realizing we'd best get moving, we cast off and now making way to Belhaven, NC.

Da Boyz

 

Little Mud has adapted well to the boat life. 

Radar, as always, loves the docks,the folks, and life on the boat; but crank up and hit the thrusters, ... he's in the bed.

and down the dock was another nice fellow.

Boat neighbors

Always wanted to see this boat.


It's on the next dock here at Morehead Yacht Basin.

Today's Pic

With high winds and more of the above, we may get to know Morehead City better than we'd previously planned.

Dinner at Floyd's last night was as good as described by the folks at the marina.
Saturday night had the place jammed so we sat at the bar and enjoyed the company of locals. The bartender was a pro and the food was good. Very friendly folks here at Morehead City.

Thanks for checkin' in on us.

Cheers,

Istaboa

Today's Pic

 

A short day with a lot of bridges...  that only open at specific times...  created a long day... that was capped off with a cluster f*#k.

A crazy night that ended with TowBoat US pulling us out of Casper's Marina at 0600 this AM. Aground at a marina and not the easy way. Swansboro, NC was not fun.

Our first time to use TowBoat and Captain Andrew was not only a good guy, he was very resourceful. 

Thankfully we put our heads together and devised a plan or we'd still be at Casper's and fused to the dock by now. The winds that kept us in the mud and up against that walkway of a dock have only gotten worse.

While we were running the boat in the comfort of the pilothouse, the weather changed. Unbeknownst to us, the wind switched direction and was blowing quite hard.

Istaboa's so stable we never noticed anything except the chop became small rollers.

Today's run to Morehead City was much less eventful. Looks like a neat little town and Morehead Yacht Basin appears to be equally as interesting. 

Thanks for checkin' in.

Cheers,

Istaboa

Today's Pics

Not much in the way of pics when trying to describe our night run up the Carolina coast.
The sunset was a non-event, a half moon doesn't spread much light -though any light is a gift when operating a boat in the dark- and the stars that flashed across the sky couldn't be photographed due to lack of light and the instability of a moving boat.
The trip was pretty much uneventful, excluding an encounter with a cargo ship coming out of Charleston and that wasn't much either... except at night we hate to deviate from our course... even for a cargo ship. But in the end, size matters and we did a zig-zag maneuver. The cargo ship received the right of way and we safely passed each other. The night's drama was over.
AIS is a wonderful thing.

The moon left us in the dark around 1 AM.

Running a boat in total darkness, without even the horizon to use as a point of reference, is a trip.
You feel like your falling or being hurled through the darkness, but we only do 9 or 10 knots. (yes, we were doing 10.5 for half the 20hrs)
You can't see anything.
This initially makes us feel powerless and out of control, but after a while we get past it and blind faith takes over... if it's not on radar or AIS, it's simply not there is the justification we use to cast off our anxiety and good judgement.

When the moon dropped below the horizon, the stars lit up.
The Milky Way was painted across the sky in all it's glory on this pitch black morning. I walked out to the bridge and just sat and stared for an hour. At around 4 AM, I woke Mel and convinced her to join me. Of course, she resisted, but once she looked up, she stopped talking, and together we sat... silently staring at this massive galaxy till our necks hurt. Even the boys joined us.
The whole crew under the stars.

A short time later, the sun finally started it's way up.

It was a welcomed sight and a beautiful one.

Finally enough light to take a few photos.

After snapping off an ample amount of photographs, I went back into the pilothouse.

There I saw the silhouette of old Don Quixote riding Rocinante. They're always at the helm, seemingly tilting at windmills somewhere out the pilothouse window.
(My old wooden Don Quixote statuette is another story completely.)
This is our favorite shot from the morning.

I love days like this.

So, all in all, it was a good run that ended better. This offshore leg of trip took 25 hrs and we traveled more than 250 miles from Savannah to Cape Fear, NC. The seas were very kind and the heavens put on quite a show for us.

We tied up at Southport, NC to get some rest and we did.

Now it's time to move north.

Cheers,

Istaboa

When The Universe Gives You A Picnic Table

Make a boat.

Hmm... I think I went to high school with these guys

What A Night

But I'm too damned tired to write about it so I'll just post a pretty pic done with my phone from the pilothouse. A great sunrise.
Got some real camera pics, but, again, I'm too tired to process them. I hope they turn out half as good as the view.

Kinda blurry... kinda like it looked to us after an all-night run up the Carolina coast.

Today's Pic — Sunrise

If things have gone accordingly, we saw one of these this morning.

Again, if you would like to see where we are this morning... http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=06aScD6fWtssB16xhhMdgYvX5hU5zzGTo

Cheers,

Istaboa

Today's Pic — Sunset

Bout to see some of this.

By the time most of you see this pic, we'll be underway and pointed toward Cape Fear, NC

One all-nighter an we'll have caught up with our earlier schedule. The seas are predicted to be okay and we'll have clear skies and half a moon till after midnight. 

I love these runs... A mixture of apprehension, a tad of anxiety, and a low level hum of excitement. Then after a while — The fizz is gone, it flattens out, and turns to boredom.

We hope.
If you want, you can follow us via this link to see our progress.  link http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=06aScD6fWtssB16xhhMdgYvX5hU5zzGTo

Cheers,

Istaboa