Friends and Family,
We had a great Bon Voyage party on Sunday, November 30! Weather was in the 60's, we stood around snacking/drinking/talking in the gravel road and almost everyone got to tour the boat. I think it helped for people to see where we would be living and they realized the boat was less like camping...and in fact is a cozy little home w/ more ammenities than they imagined!
The next day we took our first trip on the boat in nine years. We went to Oriental (4 hour trip north on the ICW) to have radar installed and that went well. However, during the trip we realized how rusty we had become from so many years of not boating...so it was a rather stressful trip (starboard bow line not there, ran aground, crash landings, etc). Plus we still had several issues to solve...alternator, diesel heater, navigation screen that goes dark after 30 minutes. We returned to Beaufort pretty stressed but kept working on issues and provisioning the boat...hoping for a December departure...and all the while waiting for this to become more fun!
Well, at the end of the week one kind and brave friend of ours gently suggested we might consider delaying the trip south and do some local practice boating this winter. And, we need to feel secure that everything on the boat is working well...something we don't feel right now. That had been our plan for the fall...but we ran out of time so we were just going to leave and gain the skills on the way south. We both quickly agreed that that plan made sense...so we are not going away this month after all. Instead we are driving to Florida for a couple of weeks to be w/ my daughter and her family for Christmas. When we return...we'll do short trips to New Bern, the Cape, Okracoke, etc. Won't be the warm boating we'd planned on but at least we have a boat where we can be at the helm inside where it's warm. Richard...thanks for the great advice!
Disappointed? Yes...but we've endured many worse disappointments in our lives! So we'll just keep the faith and now we're looking forward to a spring trip...this time north? Haha...we really shouldn't announce any plans!
Night, Lisa and Camp
