South Again

We are in Swansboro, NC, a lovely small town with historic homes and (we hope) a good restaurant. I am accompanied by my friend Paul Hamilton, the "Bosun", who is on his third trip on Division Belle. I am glad to have the help and enjoying his good company.

The Bosun

We left home Tuesday morning on election day and made the seven-hour drive up to River Dunes near Oriental, NC. Wednesday was taken up with returning the rental car to New Bern about an hour away, getting our sewage tank pumped out and our water tanks filled, buying a few forgotten groceries, and various other tasks. We departed River Dunes this morning at 9 and arrived here at 4:30 this afternoon. It was an incredibly beautiful day and an uneventful trip.

We had an alternate plan to stop early today in Beaufort, NC and go to sea tomorrow for around a ten-hour trip to Wrightsville Beach. It probably would have worked, but we should be in Wrightsville Beach anyway tomorrow night with the path we chose.

We elected to travel in the waterway further today and continue inside tomorrow because of the weather. Don't get me wrong. The weather is beautiful. However, the forecasts for being at sea tomorrow were right at the margins of what I consider comfortable. I like seas of up to three feet but I get nervous when the forecast is four to five feet and the "period", or time between waves, gets shorter than a comfortable swell. It will probably be beautiful tomorrow at sea, but when you commit to a ten-hour day at sea with nowhere to stop short, it can turn into "a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad day". And who wants that? Life is short.

So we traded a really short day today and a ten-hour day at sea tomorrow for two seven or eight-hour days in the waterway, ending at the same place tomorrow night.

We are at Casper's Marina in Swansboro and I asked both the dockhand and the owner where to have dinner with outdoor service. We got the same answer from both of them (a good sign) so we plan to walk a few blocks to "The Boro", which seems to be the favorite.

Tomorrow we will head further south on the Intracoastal Waterway to Wrightsville Beach. We will keep you posted on our progress.

Heading to Charleston

I first met Captain Mike Lamson in around 2001, in my early days of having a boat at The Ford Plantation. He was a fishing guide who owned an older Bertram fishing boat that he had restored. He took some of my family members on a couple of fishing trips, and offered to help take care of my boat, primarily with periodic washing and detailing. Mike's nickname is "Lumpy", which I understand was bestowed upon him in his younger poker playing days. He won so much money one evening that a friend changed "Lamson" to "Lump Sum", and the name was further corrupted to just "Lump" or "Lumpy".

Lumpy has little time to fish these days, as his boat care business has flourished. He employs his son and stepson, and several others, and takes on cleaning, painting and varnishing projects for both individuals and various boatyards in the area. Some customers are so pleased with his work that he or his employees will travel to great distances to take care of their boats. He has maintained two previous boats for me: the big Fleming named Suladan and Steel Magnolia, now called Vector by its owners. He also maintains the lovely Laura Lee's small fishing boat "Blossom". And so it is that the varnish issue on Division Belle was turned over to Lumpy.

When teak rails (or brightwork) on a boat are properly varnished, they simply need to have a new coat or two added once or twice a year to be kept beautiful, depending on climate and where the boat is located. But on my boat, the varnish had gone for years without maintenance and then had varnish added on top of the mess that was there. Lumpy and his crew removed all of the old varnish down to bare wood, and methodically added 11 new coats, fighting love bugs that landed in the varnish whenever they added a coat. It is finished now, and is a work of art. I cannot imagine a more beautiful job. I'll do my best not to scratch it up.

We find ourselves at Thunderbolt Marina this morning, after a six-hour trip here yesterday. By car, it would have been a 30 to 40-minute drive, but we were taking our time down the Ogeechee River and the sometimes tricky passage to connect to the Intracoastal Waterway. I am with my dear friend Paul Hamilton again, helping out on his third trip with me. He calls himself the "Bosun". We could have spent the night most anywhere in the area, but Thunderbolt Marina has a tradition of delivering fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts to every transient boat docked here. So this was our first choice.

The Bosun and the doughnuts

We will shove off later this morning heading for Beaufort, SC, where Paul will head home tomorrow and the lovely Laura Lee will join me later in the week to move the boat to Charleston. I don't mind spending a couple of nights in Beaufort, as it is one of my favorite spots. To get ready for the visit, I have pulled out the classic Beaufort movie, and will watch it while there.

Update: We arrived in Beaufort at 4 pm after an uneventful six-hour trip. I decided to run our "wing engine" or "get home engine" for a couple of hours today in gear and under a load. I did everything to turn it off properly, but when we arrived at Beaufort and shut everything else off, it turned out that it was still running. Something seems to be wrong with the pilothouse shutdown button. A friendly mechanic who lives on a boat in the marina came by and showed me how to shut it down at the engine. The shutdown solenoid works at the engine, but not from the control in the pilothouse. Thankfully, I don't anticipate needing this engine at all on this trip, and if I do, it is better that it will start and not stop rather than vice versa.

It is 9 pm now, and the temperature has dropped from near 100 at our arrival to about 86 degrees now, a blessed relief. We are in a record-breaking hot spell, but the breeze on the water makes everything more bearable. It is great to be out enjoying the boat, regardless of the temperature.