tadhana: new bern, NC.

new bern is not exactly along the ICW but we stopped there because mark doyle and tom were doing presentations for the southbound cruisers rally and they just sort of combined it with the SAIL rally. or something like that. in any case, we went to new bern. this was just a short run from oriental - 22 miles or so, but the wind was right on the nose. after we finally got past the boats blocking us at the town dock, as we were leaving the harbor, the guy in front of us went the wrong way and promptly ran aground. oh well. he backed out of it easily enough though. we stayed on the lee shore and didn't get banged around too much. it was an easy cruise - one bridge opening and then we were there. except that we were on the opposite shore to town at the bridge pointe marina. i didn't realize until later that it really wasn't that long a walk across the bridge to get to town but probably because of the late nights working and the early morning consuelo awakenings, my mind was already a little fuzzy.

oh, i failed to mention that at the oriental town dock, there were two white ducks that i considered making friends with but decided against it - we were only going to be there for one night. here in new bern, we have coots!

but i digress. that first afternoon at new bern was the first of a series of seminars on the ICW for the weekend. if you looked around, everyone was looking a little ragged. i don't know if they were just tired from the early morning get up and go, the stress, or possibly partying too much the night before at oriental (probably not - i think the party ended early). in any case, we were to sit in new bern for three days and i guess folks really needed that. as usual, the priority was to get the boat cleaned up - we had gotten a little salty with all of that wind and wave action. then seminar, then dinner, then bed for some, whatever for others, and work for me. i stayed up late so i could get stuff done, planning to sleep in the next day. didn't happen. consuelo woke up at 5:48 a.m. unfortunately, when i got her off the boat (nice floating docks, by the way, easy peasy), she turned left when she should have turned right! it's a very long dock. she has gone sort of deaf so i didn't want to shout and wake everyone up so i ran after her, still dressed in my nightgown and bathrobe since my plan was to go back to sleep. as soon as she sensed that i was running, she went even faster! she may be deaf, but she can still move. i didn't have a poop bag with me because i thought we would be going the OTHER way, where the poop bags were, so i had to go back to the boat to get the bags, etc. etc. good thing no one else was awake to see all of this happening. i tried going back to sleep but it was hopeless so i just went to work instead. more seminars saturday morning which i skipped since i had attended them before at hampton. tom had his presentation at 11:15 and it was extremely well received. i think that after people finally realized who he was and what he could do, all of a sudden, he got REALLY popular! and as soon as he could get away from everyone, that afternoon, we decided to take some time off and walk to town to look around.

new bern is really a nice little town with lots of shops and historic buildings. it's also where pepsi-cola was born! i can see going back and spending a little more time there. consuelo would not let us go by a pet boutique without going in and after she gave the saleslady her best, soft, brown-eyed look... well, let's just say that she scored big time in the treat department! tom and i, unfortunately, had to pay for our own afternoon snacks. but we had a great time walking around new bern, albeit short, and as said earlier, i am sure that we will be back. let's just call it a taste.

dinner with the rally group was at 6:00 p.m. and for once, i "socialized." we had a fun table with two couples from our group, plus ben ellison, the editor of panbo.com, the marine electronics hub, who was one of the speakers at the seminars. i was looking forward to his presentation which was on iPad and iPhone apps. geeky, geeky me.

the next day, we attended more seminars and then a pizza dinner. party poopers that we are, tom and i left as soon as they gave away all the raffle prizes (no, we didn't win anything, but that's okay as we managed to win prizes at the hampton snowbird rendezvous. i can't remember now if i had mentioned it or not, but one prize was a brand new inflatable PFD and the other was a certificate for two nights' stay at the deltaville marina!). in any case, our next destination is spooners creek in morehead city, NC. and it is going to be another early morning departure to catch the 6:30 a.m. bridge opening.