11/17/2007, Coinjock, NC

Friday morning we woke up at Pungo Ferry Marina to crystal clear skies and a very windy day. The sun shining on the river banks made for some gorgeous sights!

We took our time getting out knowing that we only had to travel about 20 miles to our next stop and that we had no bridge openings or canals to worry about. We tidied up the cabin some as it had gotten rather messy over our days of sailing. Things get wet, they get thrown around, water gets in them and then it all becomes a great big mess. When we were able to pick up some both Paul and I felt some relief, order calms us both down, as OCD as that might sound. We planned to get going around noon: plotted the course, called the marina to make a reservation and decided on an exit from our current location.

Leaving docks is a challenging part of this business. With the wind and the tide and the current and the position of the docks, the way we need to maneuver our boat changes every single time we come in and out of slips. So before we do anything with the boat, we go on the dock and think about what will happen once we start untying our lines. There is a lot of hypothesizing and questioning one another to make sure that we come to agreement on what will happen and how we should react to what the boat does. After all, we cannot make her do anything that she does not want to do (hmm, whose boat is she?)

Today the wind was blowing us onto the dock and doing a pretty good job at that. So we figured that when we let our stern line go, our stern would start to drift away from the dock and our bow would start driving to the dock. We started to experiment to make sure. I let the stern line go slack and sure enough the boat started drifting away. I kept letting the line go far enough that we were about 75 degrees to the dock. We had Bob from the marina give us a hand and push our bow off the dock when Paul jumped on board to get steerage. Once he got control of the boat and started backing out, I jumped on the boat, pulled the bowline with me and out of that dock we went.

This was a proud moment. We had full control of the boat and were able to predict how she’d behave and did react correctly. We both felt good about that departure!

Today’s sail was a short one where Paul was in the cockpit sailing with the autopilot and chartplotter as if playing a video game and I spent time down below uploading pictures and blog entries that had been backed up over the last week.

We pulled into the Coinjock Marina around 3:30pm just in front of Sirena of Oare. Eric and Dee waved us in as we fastened Leander at her dock. After taking extra-long hot showers at the marina, we went to dinner with Eric and Dee of Sirena and Guy and Lorraine of Kerguelen at the marina restaurant. Guy and Lorraine are French-Canadian and taking a year to sail south to the Bahamas. The conversation was extremely fun and enjoyable. Everyone but I got great food, which was nice for them. Somehow I managed to find a terrible dish on the menu and ate most of Paul’s food instead. They also had a pretty good pecan pie and vanilla ice cream that I did not resist, which kept me happy.

After dinner we retired to our boat to pack up. Paul’s friend Marty and his wife Joey have been wonderful enough to offer to pick us up on their way to their beach house in Southern Shores, NC in the outer banks. They came to get us around 11:30pm and drove us home to a warm bed, a hot shower and laundry.

I write from the comfort of their couch as we are well fed after a scrumptious breakfast, our laundry drying downstairs and Paul is upstairs watching college football. We plan a trip around the beach in a bit followed by a grocery store run for me and a Home Depot visit for Paul. We are ever grateful to Marty and Joey for going out of their way to be so hospitable.

We plan to return to Leander this afternoon and get ready to get moving again in the morning.