Isle of Palms Marina

Saturday October 10, 2015
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Arrived the IOP right on time at 8:30 AM. Mark & Donna, Magnus and Charlotte and Stan Bell met us at the slip and helped tie us up. Was a nice welcome. We are on the same dock (D11) as Stan and Nancy so that will be fun. The trip from Wrightsville Beach had been quite pleasant and uneventful, 150 NM in 21 hours and 20 minutes. We only saw (on the radar about 6 miles distant) one other boat. I called them on the VHF and we talked to each other occasionally through the night.

The weather here at 9:00 AM is typical  - hot (80 degrees) and humid (80%) and so we have turned on the AC. Donna gave us a ride to pick up the rental, and we drove over to Kylie's. She is doing OK, plenty of bruises and some burns from the air bags, but otherwise seems to be OK. Still counting our blessings.

Calculated that we had traveled 4,373 NM in 5 and a 1/3 months since we left IOP on April 30. We plan to stay here for three months. In January we expect to head for the west coast of Florida.

For the next three months the blog will be pretty boring. Boat jobs and family and a bit of tripping around.

Sunset last night. Calm seas.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Breakfast with Kylie and Mason.
Mid afternoon walk with Magnus from Swede Dreams. Only 2 miles, but I need to get into shape.
Popped over to visit the Taylor'sand see how the clean up is progressing. They seem to be doing fine, and have been impressed by the amount of help they have received from family, friends, strangers and the various government agencies.
Ended up on Belleaire for the rest of the day with Nancy and Stan, they ordered pizza.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Another 2 miles with Magnus.
Picked up Mason from day care and took him to the beach. We had a blast. Bit of TV and an early night.

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Thursday October 15, 2015

Mason is enamored with his trains so this morning we got up early and took him to the Amtrak station. The visit was a big hit.

Friday, October 16, 2015



Saturday, October 17, 2015

Met Kylie and Mason at the beach.
Off to the movies - "Bridge of Spies" - really good!

Kylie was holding my beer.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Breakfast at IOP and ran into Magnus and Charlotte. Dinner out with Magnus, Charlotte, Mark and Donna.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Got cold today. Started stripping furniture.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Work on Tide Hiker. Mostly stripping varnish.
Looks like Kylie's car will be "written off".
Stan returned to I.O.P. and popped in for a drink and stayed for dinner. Chris and Allison called in.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Wow, how time flies. John Davy turned up today. We walked on the floor and John gave the rails a coat of varnish. I think the floor issue is resolved.

Looking into the ER from the Salon

Thursday, October 232, 2015

Car looking with Ky. More sanding and stripping. Dinner out with Bill and Laura Bender.


Friday, October 23, 2015

Lots done today:
1. Washed the ison glass and canvas and dismantled it ready to remove for repairs
2. Finish sanded the newel posts
3. Finished sanded the grog cabinet
4. Finished sanded the coffee table
5. Took Tide Hiker over to the marina and filled up with fuel and pumped out

Dinner out (pizza) with Mark and Donna. They have termites! (Our house is next door!)

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Alligator in the marina this morning

Saturday October, 2015

He did not want to be a lamb! He wanted to be Batman!

Sunday to Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Quick 2 day trip to Chicago and Indiana to wrap a 3 year lease with our largest EP tenant. Their head office is in South Bend and I enjoyed the fall scenery on the 100 mile drive from Midway airport. The area was enjoying some beautiful warm fall weather with 75 degree temps. Spent some time at the building with Don Sparks, one of the 4 partners.

Fall colors in Indiana

The office, with the west bay in the background.

Wednesday November 4, 2015

Mason had his first "real" haircut today.

He took a bit of convincing

Adam and Family visit

Wrightsville Beach Anchorage

Thursday October 8, 2015
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We were up and underway at dawn. The days are less than 12 hours now and we needed 10+ for today's 72 NM run. The weather looked good, not much wave action, just long low swells.

The Navy provided some entertainment along the way. Midway thru the day we spotted a large amphibious assault vessel offshore the Camp Lejeune marine training base. We could see a large "3" on the ship so looked it up on Google.

A few miles away the ship radioed us and told us to keep 2 miles off. We managed to keep a mile and a bit off. The ship is like an aircraft carrier and its deck was covered with Harrier VTOL jets, Osprey VTOL and helicopters. They recovered one of those hovercraft while Ospreys shuttled to and from the shore. Good entertainment.

USS Kearsarge.

Hovercraft on the way

Havercraft loads into the stern door of the mother ship. Cool!

We arrived Wrightsville Beach right on schedule and had the anchor down by 5 PM. This is a good spot, and the weather remained calm. Then receved a phone call that Kylie had been involved in a car accident and taken to hospital. We were pretty spooked, but Ryan called a couple of hours later with the news that she was OK and would be discharged.

Nevertheless we have decided to head direct for Charleston in the AM. It will be an overnight trip, we will plan to arrive at the Charleston light at dawn and be at the IOP Marina by 9 AM.

Cape Look Out - Anchorage

Wednesday October 7, 2015

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Beautiful sunny morning. The bridge did not open till 8:30 AM so we enjoyed a bit of a sleep-in. If the weather held we planned to go all the way to the Cape Lookout anchorage, one of our favorites. Our concerns about debris in the water proved to be exaggerated. We saw a few tree trunks in Adam’s Creek but otherwise the 49 NM were uneventful. The only problem with this anchorage is that we have no internet reception and so I am typing this in Word and I will paste it into the blog at a later date.

This is one of my all time favorite anchorages. It is big enough for 100 boats, but tonight we have it to ourselves.It feels totally isolated. We have seen green turtles and lots of porpoises in here. Plus there is an active lighthouse on the cape.

Tomorrow we plan to run 72 NM in the Atlantic in a straight line from the anchorage to the Wrightsville Beach entrance. The forecast looks good (or it did when we saw it last.)

New Bern "Grand Marina"

Friday October 2, 2015
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Another long day of 63 NM in poor conditions. On the final leg north up the river the wind had built to 20/25 MPH and the rain was basically horizontal. Tide Hiker handled the conditions with her usual aplomb, but Deidre and I were soaked to the skin when we were finally docked in the marina. Glad to get the day over with. Good friends (Lisa and Jeff Noyse)  met us at the slip and invited us to dinner and loaned us a car! Lisa is a great cook and dinner was great. There is no doubt that home cooking beats eating out,

Hurricane Joaquin is now heading northeast and away from the mainland. But we are happy we headed to New Bern as the weather up the mid-east coast is universally bad. Seems the hurricane has contributed to a stream of windy and wet weather that is causing heavy rain and flooding.

This morning by about 10 AM Charleston had already received 5"of rain! I called Kylie's father in law (Gene Taylor) because they live alongside French Forest Creek, north of Charleston.. Gene told me that the creek had already reached the top of the bulkhead and they were preparing for a flood. Apparently downtown Charleston is already flooded and closed off by the authorities. Kylie and Ryans house is doing OK.

Saturday October 3, 2015

This morning we walked into town for breakfast. New Bern is a delightful city. It has been raining on and off. The weather forecast warns of winds up to 40 MPH today. This marina is protected to the north (and a bit NE and NW) by the Hilton Hotel and the Convention Center and to the East by a couple of bridges. We are a bit open in the other directions,

Here is the local "live cam" of the marina:

http://www.newberngrandmarinayachtclub.com/MarinaCam.html

Sunday October 4, 2015

The Charleston area is not having a good week. Total of 10" of rain yesterday and already another 3" this morning (Its 9:30 AM) Kylie's house is OK, our IOP house is OK, but Kylie's in-laws are flooded. No end in sight for now. The weather here is gusty with scattered rain. The forecast for the next few days is bad so we will not be moving for a while.

Taylor's from the deck early Saturday. Later that day the gate was submerged.

Uncle Bill's from the creek

Taylor's later in the day. Gene moving the boat. 

Monday October 5, 2015

Rained most of the day today. Windy too.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

The sun came out today. Tomorrow's weather looks sorta decent. Thursday looks great. Maybe its time to go. Getting reports that the ICW in South Carolina is virtually impassable because of floating debris.

Belhaven

Thursday October 1st, 2015
35 32.352 N
76 37.937 W

We are taking 2 days to travel a distance that we would normally take three days. The daylight hours are a bit less than 12 now, so we were up at 6:30 AM and underway at 7:15. The anchor took some extra time as the chain was quite dirty.

It had rained most of the night and conditions in the AM were a bit bleak - reminded us of Canada. Once we had crossed Albemarle Sound and entered the Alligator River I rigged up a long hose on the salt water pump and attempted to clean up the insect mess.As well as the bodies we were still carrying a few million "flyers" and I tried to knock them out of the air with the hose. When we are at the marina in New Bern I will finish the job with the "wet and dry" vacuum.

After the Albamarle we were in sheltered water all the way and made decent time.

Received confirmation today that we have a slip in IOP.

How the decks looked

The door sill