Morehead City, North Carolina

November 22, 2006

We've been spending the last couple days in Morehead City, North Carolina as some bad weather passes through the area. We're tied up at the Portside Marina--nothing fancy, but it does have hot showers and free laundry. Today an older man walked up to us on the dock and asked us if we were the owners of "Whisper". We responded in the affirmative and it turns out that he lives in the condo complex that overlooks the marina and he had been admiring Whisper and eventually got out his guide to classic sailboats and guessed that she is an Albin Vega. So he came down to meet us and compliment us on how beautiful she is and how well maintained she is for a boat that is 31 years old. We obviously can't take much credit for her inherent beauty, but it is always nice to receive praise for all the hard work we've done over the past year.

Speaking of beautiful boats, there is a 1922 John Alden schooner tied up at the end of the pier. It takes at least 6 crew to sail her, but she is so beautiful that I almost volunteered to become crew member #7. The decks were actually white pine, not teak, she only has 3 winches on the whole boat, butterfly hatches, and all of the bunks (8, I think) have homemade quilts on them!

Yesterday the weather was miserable. We spent the morning tidying up on the boat and going through paperwork, then we went to Ruppert & Dorrie's boat to cook swedish meatballs. We all went to the local bar for some .99 Yuenglings and then walked back to our respective boats precisely when the torrential downpour hit us. It poured all night long, but the wind abated so we were able to get a good night's sleep, until the wind completely changed direction and the massive tugboat which was tied up next to us began to drift threateningly close. We quickly jumped out of our (very warm and cozy) sleeping bags and, with the help of a boat neighbor Alan, we added 4 more lines to the 3 they had tied off with. (Yes, professional tug boat operators tied off their tug in a gale with only 3 lines.) So, needless to say, we moved down a couple slips to put some distance between us!

This afternoon we biked a couple miles over to the beach, watched some people surf, went for a walk and played with a little 3 month old puppy. It's been calm and sunny all day but the ominous clouds on the horizon just won't go away so we're staying put for another night until all the gale & small craft advisories are lifted (hopefully on Friday morning). Sorry there aren't any pictures on this post, I guess we've been lazy the past couple days.