social butterflying.

it's been THAT kind of week.  of course, we had dinner at chip and barbara's home after tom and chip brought "sweet pea" to the corrotoman.  the next day, our friends from the SAIL rally, david and brenda, arrived at regatta point, and we all had dinner on TADHANA.  the next day, we had dinner on their boat, L'ATTITUDE IX.  also, our friends, mike and ann of TRAVELING SOUL, arrived at regatta point.  they have a new kitty named spot (mike is a star trek fan and spot is named after lt. commander data's cat).  she is a bengal and just absolutely beautiful!  of course, we had to see her and mike and ann had to see aurora, too.  aurora was curious and wanted to play (her first cat) but it wasn't really a good idea even though spot's claws were mostly sheathed. they got to sniff each other at least.  the next day, we had dinner out with them and left the children at home. 

aurora got her shot #2 this week.  one more puppy shot to go and then the rest will be annual maintenance. 

one "normal" work day and then all of a sudden it was friday and we left in the morning for little bay.  on friday night, we were only three boats at the anchorage and all three of us were from regatta point!  we got aurora to wade by carrying her out to a sandbar a little ways away from the beach.  she wasn't particularly thrilled about the whole thing and was even more disgusted with the quick fresh water rinse when we got back to the boat, however, she was salty and sandy and i wasn't about to let her in like that. 

the next day, more boats showed up at the anchorage, including one more from our marina.  it was VERY windy the whole day, too.  we also crossed a milestone  - aurora finally went swimming!  tom was all for breaking it to her gently.  secretly, i thought the best way was to do it the way my father did with my brother and me - he threw us in and said "swim!"  but, anyway, we brought aurora back to the sandbar (tide was coming in) and walked around in ankle deep water which started getting a little deeper and then all of a sudden, she was swimming when the ground dropped out from underneath her.  she won't go in voluntarily though.  tom thought that was enough for the day but as we were leaving the sandbar, i made him walk to a little bit deeper water, picked up aurora, walked in myself and then put her down where her feet wouldn't touch the bottom and said to tom "call her."  so, there, we now have our sea beagle #2 - all that fussing around for something that comes naturally to them good grief.  then, of course, we had to do it again to get the video.   

video of aurora swimming. 

the other "first" was a REAL bath, with baby shampoo.  she smelled like a watermelon after that!  i wanted her clean though because we were having happy hour on HALCYON, our movie-star-looking neighbor's boat.  it was a big group, too, all of us from the same marina.  well, and it would have been a perfect weekend except that our generator went kaput.  after we got back from happy hour, tom worked on the generator.  the error message had said "no raw water flow" and tom changed the water pump and impeller. 

yes, tom did find all the missing pieces!

but after all of that, we were still getting an error message so it looks like it might be a sensor failure.  there was definite raw water flow!  luckily, our batteries were pretty charged up before the generator conked out so we were in good shape for the rest of the night.  we were headed home the next day anyway.  like everyone says - it's a boat, there's always something. 

back at regatta point, we cleaned the boat and then tom went out in the dinghy to drop some crab floats to mark the channel.  apparently, boats are running aground in the broad creek channel.  gee, it must be because they are OUT of the channel, no?  we have never had a problem.  the red side is clearly marked so tom dropped some fluorescent green crab floats on the other side.  while he was out doing that, i pulled out all of our rugs onto the dock and scrubbed and hosed them down.  love those l. l. bean waterhog mats - so easy to clean! 

the other "first" is that now that we know aurora can swim, i didn't bother leashing her as we walked down the dock.  in fact, we went for a long walk without a leash.  like i said to tom, so far, whipping her into boat dog shape seems to have been relatively easy!  she is really coming along and she is getting to be a big girl :) 

an "explosive" sunset at regatta point

sunset at little bay with HALCYON and KIDZ R GONE in the foreground.

aurora's grown-up pose.  she is looking decidedly beagle-y!

chilling in the cockpit, soaking up some sun

haulout and memorial day weekend.

we hauled out at norview marina on monday, may 18, 2015, to check the bottom and change the zincs.  tadhana looked really good - no barnacles on the hull but the last layer of bottom paint was looking "thin," which is a good sign - it was doing its job.  interestingly enough, the aluminum zincs were covered with barnacles!  we had switched to aluminum because we thought we were going to be in fresh water up the st. john's river for the winter - so much for THAT plan - ha!  in any case, the boat was powerwashed and blocked and we resigned ourselves to at least one night on the hard.  things were a lot easier with aurora pad-trained and not having to go out so often, not to mention that she did not have consuelo's attitude of "don't carry me," plus she is so little that i can carry her with one hand while i go up and down the ladder.  tom did all the work while i only ran errands - west marine, hardware store, food.  most of the time i was at work - it was still monday.  i don't think i'd ever seen tom quite so dirty!  however, he was really hustling to get all the bottom work done.  by late monday afternoon, we knew that we would only have to be out one night so that was encouraging.  it is just so not fun to be living aboard while on the hard. 

in the meantime, aurora had a puppy play date with CJ that afternoon where she got the crap beaten out of her once again.  one day, aurora will be bigger than CJ though.  my new dell replacement laptop also arrived in the mail - happy day!   and since i had so much practice installing software on my last laptop, this time it all went very quickly and is now just waiting for work software at IT's convenience.

the next day, tuesday, disaster struck.  tom tripped over a wooden block, smashed his left elbow on one of the stands and then sustained a puncture wound on his left hand when he fell to the ground.  i iced his elbow down with a bag of frozen lima beans from the freezer, cleaned up and bandaged his wound and gave him some ibuprofen.  he rested for a little while but he was anxious to get things finished up so that we could launch at 3:00 p.m. that same day. he decided to forego waxing the hull on the port side (starboard side already done) and proceeded to finish up, put the propeller back on the bow thruster and a few more little things before the travelift arrived.  i was still working with a minute and a half to go on a report while the slings were being put on.  launching went without a hitch and we headed back to our slip, anxious for the big cleanup - the boat was filthy like it always gets in the boatyard with all that gravel dust, coupled with spring pollen. when tom tried to run the bow thruster to bring me closer to the finger pier, we heard a strange sound and the bow did not move.  uh-oh....  now, tom prides himself in the ability to maneuver the boat without using the bow thruster and that is all very well and good, but, nevertheless, it is nice to have it when you need it.  no problem - i did a "grand jeté" from the side deck to the finger pier and got us all tied up nicely and we were fine, but there was still the matter of the bow thruster.  we dropped the dinghy to investigate the problem but tom couldn't reach it from the dinghy.  it didn't help that he was still so sore - and it was his good arm that was injured, too, so he was a bit disabled on both sides.  oh well...   we left that problem and did the cleanup instead and then another puppy play date with CJ to top off the day. 

the next day was nice and sunny so tom went deep sea diving.  miraculously, the bow thruster propeller was still there!  the pin, of course, was gone.  tom was probably so discombobulated after that painful fall the day before that he failed to install the propeller properly.  but, we still had the propeller so that was a lucky thing, and we went to the hardware store later that day and procured a stainless steel rod which tom cut and fashioned into a pin.  however, we were still going to have to be hauled out again to install it. 

thursday was a cold, rainy and miserable day in deltaville.  aurora refused to go out with tom for her usual lunchtime walk but by afternoon, she was bouncing off the walls so i dragged her out in the cold rain and howling wind.  what an unhappy puppy!  her ears were laid back and she picked up her paws off that wet grass like ewwww...  it was so funny!  her royal highness, princess aurora of tadhana, i suspect, will NOT be a water dog like consuelo was and that is okay.  if i had wanted a lab, i would have gotten one.  we still don't have her walking on the docks without a leash.  i expect that she will fall in eventually but i don't want her to be afraid of the water so we aren't forcing it down her throat - she likes the beach well enough and she's not afraid of the dinghy - that is good enough for now.  on another note, she has grown and is now able to negotiate the pilothouse steps, which means i can't keep her trapped in the salon anymore. 

friday was a busy day at the marina with everyone and their mother showing up for the memorial day weekend - the official start of summer.  we left close to noon, back to norview for a short haul where tom reinstalled the bow thruster propeller, and then back again to regatta point.  bow thruster worked like a charm - no "grand jeté" this time - i only have so many of those left in me!  although it wasn't raining anymore, it was still rather cool and very windy and not many boats left the marina that day.  our friends, dave and sandy netting, had left their car with us the sunday before while they went out sailing with friends and they all showed up at the marina that day and we joined them for dinner. 

saturday was the deltaville seafood festival which we had never attended prior because we were always gone cruising on the weekends so this time we went.  we took aurora with us and she got handled by SO MANY people, coughed on by a couple (ugh) and dropped by one (sigh) - oh well, socialization, right?  those festivals are deadly where food is concerned - we had fried shrimp and oysters for lunch, then left to run our errands, after which we returned to the festival to get pork rinds and funnel cakes to take home - SO healthy (NOT).  and then, that afternoon, we decided to leave for the corrotoman river.  every year, tom helps our friend, chip wood, bring his sailboat, "sweet pea," which is stored at zimmerman's for the winter, back to its slip on senior creek off the corrotoman and this year was no exception.  the choices were to stay at the marina and drive the car to pick tom up later at the wood's home or go by boat and anchor on the river - was there really a choice?  after all that activity on saturday morning, we were ready for a quiet, peaceful night at anchor!  we hadn't been to the corrotoman river since december of 2013 anyway - it was time to go back.  it was a very relaxing cruise up the rappahannock river and into the corrotoman to our anchorage and it was a very quiet, peaceful evening at anchor.  the only thing was an invasion by midges that night but they were all in the cockpit and none of them got inside the boat.  they don't bite but it's still annoying to have so many bugs hanging about.  i dropped tom off at the senior creek community marina this morning where he was picked up by chip and barbara wood, took aurora for a nice long walk to wear her out and then did the one-hand-on-the-tiller-and-the-other-hand-holding-wriggling-puppy dinghy ride back to the boat where i proceeded to systematically eliminate our unwelcome midge guests from the cockpit.  tom and chip should be going by in a few hours and aurora and i will join them later for dinner.  it is a gorgeous day out on the water today, celebrating the start of summer.  everywhere else is probably a zoo this weekend but where tadhana is today is good!

she has grown.  check out those long legs!

deltaville, aurora and little bay.

we spent the first two weeks back in the chesapeake at the marina, taking care of this and that, settling in, getting into a routine, going to the dentist (ugh), doctors' appointments, and all those other mundane things. 

another dell tech showed up with a new motherboard for my dead computer and you know what happened?  it all worked for one minute and then the new motherboard died!  what???  dell refused to send yet another tech and instead told me that they would send a replacement laptop with no warranty.  oh well, better than nothing.  good thing i was backed up because it was going to be a blank slate.  in the meantime, i had bought a brand new samsung solid state drive from amazon and it arrived in the mail and i proceeded to work on the other dead computer, replacing the hard drive and installing windows.  that went rather well although not as smoothly as i would have liked.  for one thing, i don't do this for a living or even often enough to make it routine.  i forgot that it was not a reformat and that i needed drivers for the hardware!  anyway, once i figured that out (and i did have the disc with the drivers), things just fell into place and so now i have a practically brand new computer that boots up in an instant.  i am very happy about that.  and i am still waiting for the replacement laptop from dell  but i got an email with a tracking number and it should arrive next week.



my mama duck has not returned and i fear the worst.  the boyfriend, however, has come around for bowl feeding. 

aurora is coming along really well as far as potty training.  we have 100% pee on the pad.  not always 100% poop but we are getting there.  i can't wait to move that pad and tray out of the salon to the cockpit.  her crate finally got moved from in front of the helm station to underneath the salon table on my side so i have to eat dinner with my legs on top of the crate for now.  not a problem.  as soon as the pad and tray move out, the crate will go in that corner of the boat.  the problem is that on a 38-foot boat, there really isn't that much floor space for all this stuff.  it would be nice if eventually we could get rid of the pad, tray and fake grass all together and she just did her business on the swim platform and we could simply hose it away with the raw water washdown.  we are working on it.  it is a LOT better system than what we had with consuelo.  now, we don't HAVE to dinghy the doggie ashore AT ALL except for fun long walks.  no more early mornings and late nights or bad weather dinghy rides good grief.  and aurora herself is growing - she really is a doll. 

on our second weekend back, we went for a short cruise to little bay.  we had missed that place and this time, NO ONE was around.  granted, it was a tad windy but nothing really alarming.  we had the whole place to ourselves.  we wanted to introduce aurora to cruising, the dinghy and the beach and the little sweetheart just took it all in.  we had a great time and it was good to be back to one of our favorite places on the chesapeake. 

 back to little bay

eagle on the beach

we did not try to force swimming on aurora.  she was leery of the wavelets but that may be because she is still so little.  she stayed away from the water.  she followed us everywhere EXCEPT into the water:  video of aurora on the beach

and back to deltaville.

we left norfolk first thing in the morning for a 6+ hour run to deltaville.  i had been fighting computers all night trying to find a machine that i could use and in the end, while underway, i ended up using tom's new one.  the trip was generally uneventful.  the weather was great and the day was gorgeous. aurora was doing wonderfully on her first day as ship's pup.  there were a LOT of crabpots out but in the chesapeake, the watermen place them in long lines that are predictable. when aurora was awake, i sometimes stepped out onto the side deck and held her in my arms so that she could familiarize herself with the sights and sounds of what is now going to be her life on the water.  when we were across from gwynn island, we received a radio call from CJ, our friends joe and claire, who were out on their shakedown cruise - these are the folks with the new jack russell puppy, also named CJ, who is going to be aurora's best friend from now on, the same claire who sent me the email about the puppies.  we said that we would see them in a little while. 

when we arrived at regatta point, we were directed to slip #G-32, two slips down from our original #G-30 where we lived for almost two years - same starboard tie to the finger pier - i even used the exact same lines we used before that i had marked so that we were held in the same position every time.  it's like we never left!  only one of our former neighbors was around but it was nice to see them.  we borrowed the courtesy car to pick up my car at norview and stopped in to see CJ and chatted for a while and compared notes on new puppies.  CJ is a week older than aurora and quite a bit bigger but then again, aurora is just so tiny.  that's basically everyone's comment when they see her - that she is so little!  anyway, after that, it was off to return the loaner and then a trip to the deltaville market. 

it is good to be "home" for a while in a familiar place, to have a car, to see old friends and to know where everything is.  we spent the next day cleaning up and sorting things out - a trip to our storage unit and west marine and then cocktails with one of our neighbors.  aurora came with us everywhere and did remarkably well although she got a bit underfoot while we were trying to clean up so she got put in the crate where she screamed until she finally wore herself out.  she is only 8 weeks old and needs constant supervision and if i can't watch her constantly, she needs to go into the crate.  potty training is going pretty well so that's a plus.  and she enjoys our little walks and, like consuelo before her, she loves grass.  the weather is wonderful - warm days and cool nights.  still quite a bit of pollen in the air though. 

spring in the chesapeake is lovely and we are glad to be back.  we were gone for seven months.  we left regatta point on september 17, 2014 and returned on may 3, 2015.  we put 455.3 hours on tadhana's engine.  a lot of miles there! 

looking forward to heading south again in the fall, but in the meantime, our chesapeake cruising season begins :)  

tom hale, proptalk magazine, may 2015, page 50.

proptalk magazine, may 2015 issue, page 50. 

See the Bay: Southern Bay

aurora in her new home and the great computer saga.

after a relatively stress-free night where i thought, "well, that wasn't too bad!" things did not go as smoothly the next day. first of all, the weather was bad - wind and rain, just an altogether nasty day out overall. aurora continued to amaze me with the amount of poop that she could generate! after initially doing her thing on the pad all the time, she started to spread it far and wide. honestly, how could i have thought that it would be THAT easy?? WHAT was i thinking??? and during the day, she was NOT happy about being locked up in the crate and made sure everyone all over the world knew it, too. when the dell tech finally showed up to look at my computer, she was screaming so loud that i finally let her out and kept her with me. that's all she wanted really, and promptly fell asleep. that afternoon, norman came and got us and we went to petco where i got a few more essential things including a cute little harness, barely small enough to fit her, and an indoor potty training system - basically, a plastic tray, an absorbent pad and fake grass - plus some things to chew on. uncle norman held her the whole time so that mommy could have two hands. tom was off with the volvo people, an appointment he had made previously. we had norman over for dinner and things were generally good at home until it was time to go to sleep. aurora screamed all night long in the crate. and  i mean, ALL NIGHT! she finally wore herself out. i have been through medical school - i can sleep through anything - but i still had to get up for her potty breaks. needless to say, i have been a bit tired and woke up late the next morning and when jim and talley powell showed up to pick tom up for an MTOA event, i was still in my bathrobe. oh well, right? same thing when norman showed up to give us the keys to his car since he was leaving for VA. i'm sure i was a sight. 

in any case, i took aurora out for a little walk that morning and wore her out so she was asleep and not in need of supervision while i tried to get the boat cleaned up. i can't tell you how many loads of laundry i did with those hopital bed pads! it was good to switch over to the fake grass which is supposed to live in the cockpit but for now, it is just inside the aft door. tom got back around 2:30 p.m. and we took her for a walk and another one at 5:00 p.m. we now have a pattern - take her for a long walk, wear her out, she goes to sleep quietly in the crate and we can go do our stuff! she has also been really good about peeing on the fake grass -  that has worked out pretty well. poop is still hit or miss though but, come on, she had been with us two days? that has to be REALLY GOOD for an 8-week-old puppy! 

the next morning, we left norfolk for deltaville and she also did fine with the engine noise, the boat movement, even wakes. and the only thing that caught her attention was when the radio came on. basically, she is sleeping through everything and that's good as i don't want cruising to be a traumatic experience for her.

okay, that was aurora's first day aboard. and now on to the next saga - my computer. the dell tech finally arrived to switch out the motherboard on my computer and.... a new problem was created. i went from a partially broken computer to a computer i could not use at all! i won't get into details - suffice it to say that on startup, it did not make it any further than the password screen. the tech put back the old motherboard and it did the same thing. he said he had other service calls to make and to call him that afternoon and he would try to fix it then. i called and he said that he had had a difficult day and so could we do it the next morning around 10:30 to 11:00.  the next day, i finally called him at 11:30 when i didn't hear from him and he said that he would be over in 15 minutes. when he finally arrived, he switched motherboards again and inserted his disc that he said would fix the problem. it did not. he checked again and said that his disc needed updating. he also said that he was very busy because his daughter was going to the prom but he PROMISED me that he would come back in 2 hours so i expected him at 2:30 p.m. i finally called him at 4:30 p.m. - it went directly to voice mail - and then again at 5:00 p.m. and he texted that he was busy with his daughter's prom preparations and that he would come at 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. if that was okay? he did not arrive until 8:30 p.m. and he did not fix the computer.  his explanation was that it had something to do with dell's datasafe software installed on the hard drive and that dell had a department dedicated to that issue and that i should call them the next morning except that the next morning was when we were leaving for deltaville! i can't even begin to say how frustrated i was with the whole situation. i had NO work computer. i don't work means i don't get paid. i tried firing up tom's old computer since i had work software installed on it but it was so messed up (which is why he bought the new one) that it was pointless. i dug up an old inspiron mini that i had and it will have to do for a while but it was so slow that while underway back to deltaville, i used tom's new machine. i called dell in the morning and guess what? we are back at mile 0 here! it was not a special number or a special department or a special anything - it is like nothing ever happened between when i first noted that my computer had issues and now! we are just back to the beginning.  anyway, that is where it stands.

i suppose that in a way, it's a blessing. i can't work so i'm going to take a vacation and spend time with aurora because this is such a critical time for her. 

link to: video of aurora

i tried to make her oversized crate smaller by using books.  oops, need more books!

tom taking a photo of the norfolk sunset

she really is tiny

the great dismal swamp and aurora

we left elizabeth city in the early morning and it was 41 degrees! brrrr..... after getting through the bridge into the dismal swamp, we immediately got boarded by the coast guard for an inspection. AGAIN? they were two very nice-looking young men who complimented us on the warmth and cleanliness of our boat. they said, "you should see some of these sailboats...!!" it reminded me of how people pack for going through customs, putting all their dirty underwear on the top so the officials would be so disgusted that they wouldn't bother going through the whole suitcase! is that what the sailboaters do? in any case, we were early for the south mills lock anyway so there was time for it and when it was over, we received our "good as gold" certificate. as the day progressed, it warmed up and turned out to be this beautiful spring day on one of the prettiest sections of the ICW. 

the pedestrian bridge opened for us at the NC dismal swamp visitor center but we kept on going instead of stopping for the night. we had to wait for the bridge at deep creek and then eventually stopped at elizabeth's dock right before the deep creek lock for the night. our intention was to leave the next morning but since we had lots of time to get to norfolk, we decided to stay an extra drop dead gorgeous day. it was very relaxing and the surroundings were beautiful, not to mention the presence of unsecured wifi. it was nice to sit for a day. a southbound PDQ sailing catamaran turned off after locking through and joined us at elizabeth's dock.

the view from my desk

same view at sunset

the next morning, as i was talking to the people on the PDQ, robert, the lockmaster, came over and invited us to the lock office for coffee and doughnuts. this was around 8:00 a.m. with the first scheduled locking for 8:30. robert kept us there until noon since no southbound or northbound boats made an appearance for either the 8:30 or 11:30 locking. it really was a special treat as robert is famous for being the authority on the dismal swamp canal and for being just a great all-around guy and a wonderful character to get to know. we really had a good time and since no one was in a hurry to be anywhere, no one bothered to look at the time. the problem was that in the early morning, i had received an email from the dell tech asking if he could fix my computer that day instead of at the scheduled appointment the next day, and i told him that we would probably be at the norfolk yacht club at noon. unfortunately, i had left my phone on the boat when we went off to the lock office with robert. by the time we got back, i had a zillion emails and three missed phone calls and a text from the dell tech. it was noon and we were still behind the deep creek lock! and robert kept us until it got good and rainy - it was pouring when we locked through with the 1:30 group! only five of us northbound, no southbound.

as i was looking through my email, i found one from my friend, claire, with a hot lead from the richmond times on nine beagle puppies at mathews, VA, available immediately. so, after locking and putting all the fenders, fenderboards and lines away, i called the phone number on the ad and confirmed that a female beagle puppy was available. i found out where they were located and said i would call back. then i called our friend, norman, who we were planning to see in norfolk to ask if we could borrow his car. he said he would drive us there. aside from the time when the dockmaster at cocoa offered to bury consuelo in his garden if that would make things "easier," i have never had a meltdown about that whole situation. i nearly lost it over the phone with norman - the power of kindness and friendship just gets you right "there" sometimes, you know?  i had been saying all along that we would wait until we got back to deltaville and settled, but dean snead, the beagle man in mathews, said that he could not guarantee the availability of puppies, etc., and i understood completely. everything just fell into place in a matter of minutes and i was completely unprepared both in practical terms and emotionally. the funny thing is that it would have been a way shorter drive from deltaville to Mathews!  as it was, with the evening traffic across hampton roads, it took us two hours one way from norfolk. norman was already waiting for us at the marina and as soon as tadhana was securely tied and plugged in, we jumped into his car and off we went to look at beagle puppies. i might mention here that norman, his wife, betsy, and long-legged-hound-something, peggy sue, another of consuelo's buddies, and i go back a long way - a few years before i had even met tom. 

when we finally pulled up at the colonial beagle club farm, mr. snead was giving the puppies their first set of shots. there were two females to choose from. i was surprised as i was expecting the usual tri-color beagles which, in fact, the mama beagle was, but all the puppies had a preponderance of black. the daddy beagle was there as well, and he was mostly brown. the bigger female had a really pretty face. the smaller female had some interesting markings. it reminded me of when i got consuelo - the same situation with only two females to choose from and the bigger one being prettier. i ended up with the littler one both times. with consuelo, it was because she made it pretty clear that she was MY dog. with aurora - that is her name - right now, i can hardly remember because everything just happened so quickly! i do remember tom saying that he liked the white tip on the beagle tail and that we "should get the one with the white flag." anyway, after all was said and done and i had written the check and handed it over to mr. snead and everyone was teary-eyed and had given everyone else a hug or a handshake, we were back in the car with aurora in my arms and peggy sue sniffing at her over my shoulder. we stopped at the tractor supply store and bought a crate, a tiny little collar, puppy chow and a stuffed toy so that aurora would have something to sleep with the first night. later, after putting aurora in her crate for the first time, we stopped for dinner before finally heading back to the boat.

back at home - and we didn't get in until past 10:00 p.m. - aurora didn't seem uncomfortable at all, hopping around playfully and sniffing everything. then she went into her crate by herself and lay down. i had to entice her out and have tom keep her busy while i made the crate smaller with a box and some books and put in a bath mat and an old pair of fleece pajama bottoms for a makeshift bed. she pooped and peed numerous times before i got around to putting down a pad. she actually did pretty well that first night even though we had to get up a few times during the night to poop and pee.

what a day it had been! between robert and aurora and everything in between, the day did not go quite as we had expected. it was exhausting but we had the best time, we now have our new little one, and everything will fall into place eventually. 

meet aurora - the newest member of tadhana's crew, ship's pup

belhaven to elizabeth city

we left belhaven before sunrise knowing that it was going to be a very long day with the wind on our nose the whole time and part of the time with no internet either. from the pungo river past dowry creek and into the pungo river-alligator river canal which is, literally, a ditch and then into the alligator river, past the alligator river bridge and marina and into the notorious albemarle sound which was not too unkind but it wasn't all that pleasant either. not to mention crabpots strewn all over in random order. it was a relief to get into the pasquotank river even though it had its share of crabpots as well - at least it wasn't as rough. we finally pulled into elizabeth city and it was very windy. we were the only boat at the free dock that night. I never even got off the boat. we were just tired and beat up after a very long day.  about the only real thing of any interest was watching some young men in the park practicing what i guess were parkour moves.  it was cold and windy and just not a good day to be outside.

when there are four or more transient boats at the free dock, elizabeth city hosts a wine and cheese party.  since we were the only boat there that night, there was no party but the next morning, one of the elizabeth city rose buddies had put a couple of roses on our forward deck.  we thought that was really sweet :)