There be dragons...

New Years in Oriental wouldn't be complete without a few dragons. We went down on Friday with our friends the Stepnoskis (sans Allison, who decided that 15 year old girls were more fun than 50+ year olds) for dinner, a dragon run and yes, the croaker drop at midnight. As Bob wanted to finish the TV installation, including the antenna, the 'girls' headed off to town to go shopping. Ok, my version of shopping, which usually entails a stop at the Bean, and drive-by of the rest of the town, but at least we got it out of the way.

We returned to the boat to find the installation proceeding, as do all things on a boat, in fits and starts, but at last Lydia and I were instructed to raise the antenna. We had purchased an amplified RV antenna, a white disk about 15 in across. The plan was to hang it from the main halyard, tied off to keep it from banging on the mast, and let the antenna wire hang down thru the main hatch.

It was remarkable. We watched a little football, not because we cared about it, but because it really worked. By turning off the amplifier, we learned that this was an important feature. The channel search returned 16 channels! One thing about this digital over-the-air is that you either get, or don't get, channels. None of this fuzzy, rolling, stripey stuff I remember from my childhood.

Now on to the celebration. On our earlier shopping trip, we had stopped at M&Ms to see if we could get reservations, but they only took reservations for parties of 8 or more, and we were only 6. They said we shouldn't have any problem if we got there before six.

But the TV held us up until about 6:15 and so we waited an hour and a half for a table. Next year we'll make the res and then invite two strangers to eat with us! Our late seating meant that we (a) spent WAAAAYYY too long in the bar and (b) missed the 830 dragon run. But I had promised Abby I would stay up until the midnight run anyway. And those poor souls at the early run didn't get to see the croaker drop.

At 1130, Ed, Kevin, Abby and I drove back downtown and walked over to Town Dock. There was a band of drummers in front of the Bean, a 3' long wooden croaker tied to the mast of a boat at the dock, and some not-too-bad karaoke from the Tiki Bar. We walked over to listen for a while, then wandered back to huddle in the middle of the street with a hundred or so other brave orientalites to wait on the dragon.

The drumming and banging continued.

At last, the dragon appeared on the poorly lit street, and wandered sort of aimlessly toward the knot of people. Many reached out to touch the dragon for good luck.

The drumming and banging continued.

After the dragon had passed we still had about 10 minutes before the croaker would drop, so what else would responsible parents do but take their kids back to the tiki bar.

But then the dragon made a reappearance, heading the other way, heading home I guess. And Ed took off running toward the dragon. We all looked at each other, shrugged and ran after Ed. Ed ran right up to the dragon, and under it. While shouting "what the heck are you doing?", we nevertheless joined Ed, and had the honor of bringing in the New Year from under the dragon's butt. Truly.

But what happened next, now that was the highlight. The countdown to midnight began, although the time had to be estimated as there was no big Times Square mega-TV to mark the seconds. And the now lighted croaker began the drop to the water. From an astonishing height of, oh, maybe 60', the little croaker was lowered on his halyard, although he, too, had to be tied off to keep from banging on the rigging. It was hard to stretch the drop to more than, say, 5 seconds, so maybe it's a good thing we didn't have a clock. And perhaps next year we could bring our new TV over to act as the billboard for the crowd (!) Then the Bean played Auld Lang Syne and, after winding our way through the crowds (not) and fighting the traffic (not), we got back to the boat about 12:05.

Approaching the boat, we could see the similarities between the antenna, and a flying saucer. As the waves rocked the boat, the antenna would sway and spin and the orangey dock lights gave the antenna an unearthly glow. A dragon, a croaker and a UFO. Not bad for just a few minutes into 2011.

Happy New Year.

Almost a year later...

Lots has happened since we moved our boat into her new home in slip W-2. First, we slipped a line and, as our dockmaster said, "rubbed paint" with our next door neighbor. The president of our yacht club. What a way to meet.

Once that was cleaned up, we decided to install air conditioning. Well, I decided I wanted AC, and Bob decided he was willing to install it. I thought the installation was a breeze--but then I spent most of the installation at home in the REAL AC. Bob thought, who was on the boat doing the actual work, didn't think it was so easy. It was awful, but he did it anyway.

The AC made staying at the dock a reasonable idea--all through the summer. We spent a week aboard with our friends the Stepnoskis, including some time in Ocracoke during the worst of the heat last summer, and we weren't miserable! In Ocracoke we did the usual--rented bikes, ate slushies, went to the beach. Then we did something new--we let the kids go parasailing. Oh, and I went too. Abby and Allison went up first, then Kevin and I. It was fun, but maybe a bit dull. Great view, though.



After a blisteringly hot sail over, the trip back to Oriental was...just as hot. At first it was blowing and rolly and bumpy. And, of course, on the nose. After an hour of this joyride, Kevin was feeling quesy and asked how much longer. When Bob replied "Eight hours" I thought Kevin was going to faint. But he cheered up when we started playing word games. Then the wind died a bit and we hid behind Point of Marsh for some more settled sailing.





The next day we began the odyssey to Cape Lookout--motoring down the ICW, braving the Beaufort Inlet, then anchoring in windy conditions. Oddly, that night we were cold, no kidding, c-o-l-d. The next day we saw the lighthouse (Bob is still convinced that was bad idea), the wild horses, and sailed into Beaufort.


Later in the summer we spent a week at the dock working while Abby and her friend Bethany took sailing lessons in Oriental.We also learned that the AC intake can suck up all sorts of things. Bob whistled taps over this little guy.



We bought a new dinghy from some retiring cruisers in Charleston. Abby and Bob sailed her on the initial voyage around the harbor. Bob wants to name the boat "Swallow", but we have temporarily named it "Timeout" after an infamous picture in our family photo album. Here is the new photo:




Here's the iconic photo from New Zealand.




This fall we spent two lovely weeekends on the South River. Bob used the snorkel-doodle to replace the zincs while dolphins frolicked MUCH too close.The next morning we took the dinghy up a small creek off the south shore of the river and saw an alligator. This is NOT a picture of the alligator.

A New Home

We finally decided to buy our boat a home. We bought a slip on the west dock of Whittaker Creek Yacht Harbor. And on Saturday, we braved the cold and moved our boat from it's old home on the east dock over to the west dock.


Our new slip has a great view of the river, and is closer to the showerhouse. It was terribly cold, but beautiful.

Small sailing

The last few months we have spent only the occassional weekend at the boat. We've taken two trips to Ocracoke--one was a simple overnight, the other was a lovely 3 day trip which ended in a dreary, rainy, but not too cold, sail home.

We've also taken a few day sails from the dock at Whittaker Creek Yacht Harbor. We like our new home, and decided to look into buying a slip (a dockominium). We gathered information from the web on sales prices for the 80 or so slips at WCYH, along with information on the slip location, and year, and we ran a regression. Except for the anomaly of very low prices in the early 2000's and very high prices from 2005 to 2007, the nominal prices for these slips are fairly flat. So, maybe we won't buy a slip just yet...

Moving...boat

Well, the composter is composting and the wind is blowing, but we are not on the boat. We moved Aquila from Boonedocks to the Whittaker Creek Yacht Harbor (a fancy name for a funky place). WC has a pool, an airconditioned lounge with a TV and wireless, lots of AC toilets and showers and...other boaters! We've had fun so far just talking to our neighbors. The downside is that our slip is somewhat more exposed than we are used to. The upside is that we are only 10 minutes (rather than 40) from sailing on the Neuse.

Abtnoski Adventure in the BVI: Day 12

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas USVI to Holly Springs, NC

We were up at the crack of dawn, again, for one last trip to a caribbean beach. Lydia called Norwood, but got bumped to the company instead, so Feather came to pick us up. He had the nicest cab we’d been in and seemed to be the dispatcher for the company as well. Or at least he was at 730 in the morning.

We told him we’d like to stop somewhere we could pick up some breakfast, half hoping he’d come up with something other than McDonalds. He suggested…McDonalds and we stopped for a quick take-out.

We’d been to Sapphire Beach before and thought it special. First snorkel wasn’t all that exciting, but later Bob and I went out further and rediscovered why we like this place. Kids built sand castles. Ed and Lydia read books in the shade (see picture).

Showers, shopping, up and down the 147 steps. Then it was time to leave. Uneventful flights and a long drive home.


DETAILS
Footloose Charter in Road Town, Tortola
“Lis” Beneteau 505
Approximate cost (airfare, taxis, provisions—everything BUT souvenirs) = $1620 per person
Suggestions: take along the chartplotter and card, the handhelf vhf, more sunscreen, use the insect repellent before going ashore and anytime the anchorage gets un-windy. If it’s summer don’t sleepaboard and think twice about the catamaran. Buy everything you think you might need in Tortola, as the provisions elsewhere are…limited. Unless you want rum, which is plentiful (and cheap) everywhere.

Abtnoski Adventure in the BVI: Day 11

Great Harbour, Peter Island to Moorings Base, Tortola to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Only Bob and I did the usual morning snorkel, and it was pretty. A lot like the other places, but still nice enough to get wet for.

We then started packing up and got mostly ready before we set off for our last sail. Allison sailed some, and Ed too, and we took a longer route back than we needed to but the wind was good and we couldn’t see much value in getting back early.

We called Footloose as we passed the cruise ship dock, and they directed us to the fuel dock, the ‘C’ dock, with the big Shell sign. As we approached we realized that again two of their employees intended to board and dock the boat. While this was great, I wish we had known this earlier, as it would have saved a lot of anxiety.

It took our two guys quite a while to actually get the 50’ boat in a slip just barely wide enough, and with LESS than 50’ of turning room, for the boat. A little issue with the wind (where WAS that wind when we were sleeping aboard?) pushing the bow off forced them to back in from the other direction (turning around in the narrow channel was an issue as well). And then the boat next to our spot wasn’t tied to stay OUT of our boats space and we had a little tussle with the anchor (no harm done to either boat). In about ½ hour we were unloaded and hotter than ever and headed for lunch over by the swimming pool (see picture of bob with junk).

On our way out, the taxi took Bob by the First Caribbean Bank to get back his ATM card while the rest of us luxuriated in the air conditioning.

Road Town is a British-inspired version of Charlotte Amalie. The downtown shopping area looks nicer, somehow, but there is, on the whole, less order to the development- which can be good or bad depending on your personal tastes.

When we left the Moorings Base, we took with us some food that I thought we could snack on during the ferry ride or at the hotel on St. Thomas. I had forgotten that we were going thru immigration, and they ALWAYS ask about food (funny, they never ask us about guns or bombs, I guess the machines can find these things). So I decided to dump the food in Road Town. And while I didn't mean literally 'dump' the food, I did manage to drop a jar of mayonaise (don't ask), spewing broken glass and mayo all over the tidy floor of the ferry terminal. The security agents were only too glad to take the rest of the food off our hands, telling me to just back away from the food and they would take care of it.

The ferry ride was uneventful, though a little sad as we all knew that our adventure was almost over.

After another customs line, we called Budget Rental Cars for a ride. Once there, however, we were told they had no cars for 7 people, but we could have two jeeps for the same price. But the idea of navigating two jeeps on the wrong side of the road was just too much, so they gave us a ride to the Green Iguana, and we resorted to 'calling norwood' for our last day in St. Thomas.

Dinner at Mafolie was wonderful, augmented by the fabulous view of the city lights, and the rooms were air conditioned.