13 Oct 13

Forecast for today was not good yesterday afternoon, but this morning it is not too bad, so we decided to move on up the coast a bit; destination - Carolina Beach. We waited until 14:30 to catch the flood up the Cape Fear River, to Snows Cut and then into Carolina Beach, where we picked up a mooring ball for the night. We crossed the 34th parallel today and have now logged more than 2250 N-miles since leaving Houston in February. Supposed to be wet and windy tomorrow, but we will see; we are planning to spend two nights here in any event. Salmon and veggies for dinner aboard.

14 Oct 13

The wind howled all last night - gusts in excess of 30 kn, so our sleep was a bit fitful. It was still blowing hard in the morning, so we hung out preparing to leave the boat in a few days. I called Anchors Away Boatyard and agreed to haul the boat next Monday, 21 Oct. We will spend the two nights before at Harbour Village Marina, which is just a couple of miles away. I have a car rented locally from Saturday till Monday afternoon, then another one to take one way from Wilmington to Raleigh-Durham on Tuesday. I talked to a canvas guy to see about getting an Isenglas enclosure around the cockpit, which will improve the comfort of our cool/cold weather and rainy weather cruising; we are meeting a guy on Wednesday in Wrightsville. I also talked to the sailmaker at JSI in St. Petersburg; we have agreed that we will send him our genoa and he will look at it and give an opinion on whether it makes sense to cut it down from a 140% overlap to a 110% overlap with less draft (which would improve our ability to go to weather in high winds) or just get a new 110% genoa.  

In the afternoon, we ventured ashore and got in a bit of grocery shopping, thanks to Randy (who runs the mooring balls and a couple of the local marinas), who kindly gave us a ride to the grocery store and back. Pork chops and grilled veggies for dinner. I turned on the instruments after dinner and the wind was still NNE 20-25 kn, with several gusts to 32 kn. I finished “Roses are Red” and started reading another Jack Reacher novel, “Bad Luck and Trouble”.

15 Oct 13

The wind finally dropped off about 04:00, then it was so quiet I could not get back to sleep. We spent the morning sorting through clothes and figuring out what to take home or get rid of and recording where stuff is, so we can find it when we get back in Feb or Mar next year. After lunch, we took the dinghy to town and had a long walk around Carolina Beach, but, truth to tell, there ain’t much going on in town. It is just a seedy little beach town that must get flattened every time a hurricane comes through; several streets flood at high water during spring tides, so no telling how bad it gets with a decent storm surge. But the last time they had a good hurricane here was apparently 1999, so very few of the current residents have any recollection of it.