It's Always Something

We finally made Manteo to visit friends and pick up packages. Our much anticipated new genoa (head sail) also arrived Friday! Yipeee!
Not so fast; in trying to take down the old head sail, we discovered a pin in the furling foil has worked its way out and is blocking the slider from coming down. We can't lower the old sail! That will require me to go up the mast, swing over to the headstay foil and perform some aerial surgery. We tried early this morning but the winds got going pretty early. Not too bad for going aloft except that the headsail has to be unfurled to do this repair. The winds catch the sail and flog it all around. We need calm. It did calm down a bit, right at dusk. So we'll get underway with the old sail, looking for a calm morning to finish this task.
It's always something.

Headin North

We survived hurricane Sandy just fine. So now we're underway again after loosing a week to the weather. And if you follow our track on the spot tracker, you'll see we're headed north. Yes, it's November and we're headed north!
We had a lot of mail & packages sent to Manteo, NC. But it's pretty close to the outer banks which received quite a bit of wind from Sandy. We headed inland, and south, to get away from the 'cane. So now we must backtrack northeast to Manteo to pick up all our loot. Oh well, such is the vague scheduling of a cruising boat.
Like many on the east coast, Sandy forced open our pocketbook too. Certainly not like many who got whacked hard, but we did have to spend about $500 on dockage and extra fuel. Consider it a boost to the economy!
Our bigger concern is weather, specifically temps. It's gettin chilly, nights in the low 40's will soon turn to the 30's; and we don't really have a 'heater'. We do have various ways of generating heat. The engine makes a fair bit while underway, we have a few oil lamps that do pretty well and there's always the stove. But we'd just as soon avoid all that nonsense and get the hell south!

This is the way to do a hurricane

Friday night after arriving at the marina we chose to sit out the hurricane, we were invited to happy hour at the marina club house. Yesterday I went with some other ladies to the Food Lion to stock up on provisions. We took the courtesy car for the six mile trip. Dinner was a pot luck at the clubhouse, some really great food was prepared and eaten.

We are having a good time, we are tied up nicely and will not get a direct hit from Sandy. It is a little disconcerting to listen to the howling wind and my shoes and foul weather gear may never get dry (it is raining and raining and raining). But Seriously, it looks like we really got lucky and we are thankful for that and pray for those that will be more in the path of Sandy.