Jos Fall has arrived, and with it some hurricane activity.
Oriental
We docked at Whittaker Pointe Marina in Oriental on September 26. If you are cruising, this marina is most definitely worth a visit. Matt, the dockmaster, is amazingly knowledgeable and helpful. The lounge and bathrooms are fantastic, and there is a courtesy car!
After we arrived, David went back to NY to pick up our car (thank you, Luftigs!). While he was gone Hurricane Ian was in full swing. Luckily, we were on the outside of the cone, but the wind and waves were still, uh, exciting. I had everything I needed on board, because with the way we had to tie Tocino into the middle of the slip (many, many lines) there was no way I was going to be able to get off until the wind and waves died down.
David got back from NY and I had to keep him updated on the height of the water on the docks before he could come back onboard.
Beaufort
A first run to SC to our storage unit to begin the process of moving our things to a new storage unit in New Bern. Then, we headed to Bock Marine (with an awesome dolphin escort! I am a goofball every.damn.time!) for our scheduled haul-out to sand and paint the bottom, do some routine maintenance, and basically sit out hurricane season.
Let me tell you, Bock Marine has got to be the best boatyard on the East Coast! They are serious professionals. The haul-out and splash processes are well-choreographed ballets. They are helpful, prompt, and thorough. Can’t say that about many marine services! You can do work yourself (except sanding the bottom-they have to do that) or go through them for any of your needs. They do the work themselves or have any number of vetted vendors come into the yard for your projects. They have an awesome lounge, showers, courtesy car, and an amazingly inventoried ships’ store. There are yard cats, and an office dog, so basically, heaven!
We purchased Tocino from here in 2019, when we spent a month on the hard before we splashed, so it was nice to see everyone again. This time we dragged out our projects for 2 months! That’s just how we roll. Every time. Lol! But it worked out fine since we were avoiding hurricane season anyway.
We spent our time driving around, getting road ice, looking at houses, having car picnics, checking out new towns, emptying our SC storage, emptying the boat into our new storage, hitting our favorite town, New Bern, multiple times. Had a visit from my sister and her friend, turned 50, searched for clients, and in between we slowly did our projects:
- Re-bed salon starboard hatch lens
- Remove stainless rub rails, polish, re-bed
- Sand and seal teak cap rail (Semco Teak Sealer (I used Goldtone) is the SHIT! I will never varnish again!)
- Lube thru-hulls
- New prop zinc
- Paint bottom
- Paint lower boot stripe
- Clean hull (Starbrite Instant Hull Cleaner got the ICW ‘stache off. Whatever Starbrite didn’t get off, acetone did)
- Change oil and filter
Click here for next post
