spooners creek (morehead city, NC).

so much for the 6:30 bridge opening.  tom decided that we would do the 7:30 bridge opening instead and let me sleep in except that i woke up early anyway.  at 7:00 a.m., just as we were getting everything ready and about to start the engine, his phone rang.  one of the boats was having trouble getting started!  wonderful.  tom ran off to the other dock and i got stuff ready and agitated.  at 7:12 a.m., tom came back and we got going and got in line with the other boats waiting for the bridge.  but then we sidled up to wally's boat and they talked and to make a long story short, we got ourselves tied up again and tom ran off to help these people.  i won't get into the details but suffice it to say that this was an owner-maintained boat, or as a friend put it, a non-maintained boat, i.e. a disaster!  one wonders how they manage not to break down more often.  in any case,  tom (my hero) got them going again but he did mention that there were live wires in that engine room AND sparks!  OMG...  do i really want to know??? as i told tom the other day in front of wally when i was being cranky and tired from all the noise, regimentation, working and lack of sleep, we are NOT doing this again next year!  anyway, that's how our day started. 

we managed the 8:30 bridge.  the sun was in our eyes going through the neuse river and then the wind kicked up but thankfully we were making the turn into adams creek.  and then we had to deal with asshole sportsfishermen and large fast cruisers who don't know either HOW or WHEN to slow down in a narrow channel where there is quite a bit of boat traffic.  picture us smaller , slower boats getting tossed around like bathtub toys.  very annoying.  the current was hard against us the whole way, too.  remember, EARLY is best!  some parts of the trip were interesting and some were boring but i probably wouldn't have said that if i wasn't already in a bad mood. i hate it when other people don't have their shit together and i'm the one waiting which invariably happens when you are in a group.  did i mention i don't do groups well?  

as we passed jarrett bay boatworks on the adams creek canal, we saw a sailing cat we recognized -  LO SPIRITO DI STELLA - and turned around hoping we'd see someone.  we met andrea stella while he was visiting tangier island.  he is an italian in a wheelchair.  the boat is set up with ramps and elevators for wheelchair-bounds.  he was an interesting guy.  he was going to leave tangier island when we arrived and we convinced him to stay one more day and he did and had a fabulous time.  anyway, it's hard to forget a guy like that.  too bad we didn't see him. 

coming out of the adams creek canal into the newport river and the channels to both beaufort and morehead city, we encountered dolphins and the area reminded us of our salt marshes in the chesapeake.  i have to say, we do miss our chesapeake bay.  anyway, it was beautiful and it's too bad that it was yet another grey day because the sunlight would have made it look so much better.  well, we will come back.  we took the channel to morehead city and then into spooners creek - the second to the last boat in the fleet to arrive (wally is always the last boat).  anyway, we are staying here at spooners creek marina a couple of nights.  we arrived too late to do our grocery shopping and tom was helping yet another boat with an inverter issue.  consuelo and i just went off exploring by ourselves.  spooners creek marina is actually a very nice marina.  the whole area reminded me of pirate's cove in manteo, roanoke island, where we lived for a little while back in 2008.  it had that outer banks "look." there were just some odd things though like each finger pier had its own ramp - so, if you wanted to visit your neighbor boat beside you that wasn't on the same finger pier, you'd had to go up the ramp walk across to his slip and then go down his ramp.  and could they make these ramps any steeper?

steeep ramp!

we'll do our grocery shopping first thing tomorrow morning and then i can go back to work and tom can help all the people he wants to help.  he actually wants to do cursory engine room inspections in all the other boats - sort of like preventative medicine.  he really is a nice person.  if it were me, i'd escape in the middle of the night  :)

sunset at spooners creek