After Big Rock, the summer seemed to fly by and get hotter and hotter. The 4th of July rolled by very quickly. We basically spent the summer working our jobs and working on the SeaVeyor. No major adventures to speak of. We did get a visit from our friends, The Mullis Crew, who stayed very near to us. Dwayne took them out for the day on the SeaVeyor and toured Beaufort. We had lunch on the boat and a fun time was had by all. Not long after that, the DockMaster here, Mike, suffered a traumatic accident to his hand. It was caught between a boat and a dock piling... He ended up at Duke University Hospital for surgery.. He is on the mend and can't wait to see him back. During his absence, Dwayne helped fill the gap along with some of the other Yacht Basin crew. We could not ask for a better home base than here. It's beautiful, clean, convenient to everything, and full of some of the country's finest Sportfish Boats.. I love seeing these guys roll out in the wee hours of the morning and then make it back safe and sound in the evening..They are all near and dear to my heart. And even better, they leave me fresh wahoo,dolphin, etc from time to time... Now that is fresh fish!! We have a little crab trap that we keep in the water , tied to the dock, just in front of the bow . We did not know that Stone Crabs came through this area...We have caught lots of Blue Crabs, Stone Crabs, and believe it or not, Flounder!! One nite we pulled it up and had a 24inch flounder in it.. Can you say supper??? Not sure how he got in it, but glad he did.
We've also met new friends over the summer and had visits from others that we have met along the way. Ken and Margaret on their sailing Cat, Rocking B. We met a lovely couple on Snow White, Richard and Connie on their s/v Sea Salt, and Mark and Carol on Wiggle Room. George and Anne live on their Hatteras here at the docks also. So, lots of fun all summer. Lots of stories to tell and hear from each other. Suzanne and Danny came up on their new boat for the Beaufort Pirate Invasion. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner with them on board Idle Time.
Now for the fun: IRENE
Hurricane Irene was predicted to come ashore around Aug. 27th. We were on the haulout list for Jarrett Bay Boatyard for this storm and were hauled on Thursday the 25th.. Seeing your floating home being lifted out of the water is a somewhat Nervous Experience. I've included pics for ya... We settled on blocks over in our friend Cory's boatyard, Triton Marine. It is one of the cleanest yards over in Jarrett Bay. Once the boat was securely sitting on the blocks, the boys hooked up water/and power for us... and managed to hook up some a/c for the nite. The next day, they dismantled the a/c due to the storm coming...Irene's rain and wind were starting.. The storm lasted over 24 hours..Geez.. We did have some form of communication with the outside world. We were able to tether our laptops to our smartphones and have some internet communication.. My heart sank when I saw a few pics of the Stacy,NC area. Our cottage is not even a mile from there... They had major flooding ... So, we had no idea how our little cottage did during the storm, could only pray that it did not get water inside During the eye of the storm, Dwayne did a walk about in the boat yard and discovered one of the sailboats there was sitting in very loose jack stands. The wind had made them all come loose..He tightened them all before the wind picked up again.. and checked the rest of the boats in the yard.Thankfully he did this or it would have been a dominoe effect on the 4 sailboats there.....FINALLY, Irene left our area. We had no power Sunday and Monday, but it returned on Tuesday.. Yea... my little a/c unit could come back... On Sunday , we drove DownEast (about 25 miles) to our cottage.. We passed so many homes that already had pulled out their furniture/carpets/ etc and had them piled on the road.(Hwy 70). Not a great feeling. The couple that are leasing our cottage,Ross and Stephanie, and little Stella( their dog) had driven 5+ hours and were in front of us... They made it to the cottage first and were in the process of cutting trees that had blown down in the drive way in when we arrived. They had not seen the cottage yet either... We were all holding our breaths, once we made the turn, we saw saw a huge live oak tree uprooted and another near the pond, the willow tree was split, and of course the pond had overflowed it's banks with marsh debris everywhere...HOWEVER, the cottage was OK.. Water did flow under it, but did not affect the a/c duct systems.Thank you LORD.... We did loose several sections of the walkway over the marsh.. We lost the end of the pier with the pilings sitting at a very odd angle.... All the stuff in the shed looked like it was put in a blender, including a huge floor freezer... All in all, much to be thankful for...We could not ask for a nicer couple to be staying in our cottage.
We finally made it back to the MHCYB on Friday September 9th.. We spent 15 days on the SeaVeyor on the hard... We had not planned on being there so long, but it was not in our control... However, it did allow us to (well, mostly Dwayne) clean the hull, paint the hull, take off the props, paint them, paint the anchors, clean the seachests,drains, filters.. I mean, the list goes on and on... We are finally back, both exhausted, but the SeaVeyor looks great!!
