After just a tick over 5 weeks in Oriental 'Bounty' slipped from her slip in Oriental Harbour Marina and headed out into the Neuse river. Once again it was very hard to say goodbye to our lovely friends in Oriental.
We now have refrigeration, our daughter and $700 dollars worth of provisions - thanks to our dear friend John's transport and patience at the supermarket. A lovely White Oak cockpit seat - thanks to Christian. Comfortable and stylist cockpit cushions and repaired sails and cockpit cover - thanks to Robin and Bob at REB sails, plus great memories of awesome food and lots of laughs. We must also mention Deaton's Yacht Service for repairing our packing gland and speedy delivery of a new salt water pump. Mark at the marina for allowing us to stay and the lovely facilities which we can highly recommend. Finally Mike and Nancy - Deaton's Yacht Sales who sold us 'their' favourite boat and have become close friends. Yes, it was very hard to leave as there were lots of other people who gave us rides, advice and entertaining conversation so much that it is impossible to name them all.
Tonight we are tucked up in Swansboro after nearly 10 hours on the ICW, almost 49.5 nautical miles. It was a bitterly cold day and we were in full sets of wet weather gear even though the sun shone brightly all day. Well, once the Skipper and I worked out that his too tight glove and my too big one were due to mismatching the pairs.
Just outside of Raleigh we encountered a pod of - I think - bottle nose Dolphins and we also saw a sea turtle. They were seriously fishing but managed a few acrobatic manoeuvres to entertain us, the Dolphins, not the turtle who just submerged quietly without fuss.
We did come to a sudden stop late in the day at marker 22 just before the bridge, an unexpected shoal caused a quick pirouette and lots of churning mud. We made Swansboro just on sunset, which was spectacular and had fun with anchoring as the anchor bit twice and popped out before finally embedding itself securely. Swansboro looks a lovely little town with a great selection of Xmas lights. It's the first time I've ever had an anchor transit point which it a fairy light shape of a crab. Speaking of Xmas we have started collecting our Xmas decorations for the boat. I know the boat theme is a little obvious but we promise to try and be more creative from now on.
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