Day 226: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Port to Port: Swansboro to Morehead City, North Carolina
Underway: 8:45 am Motor Off: 1:33 pm Miles Traveled: 23 Stayed At: Marina
First Things First: First time a harbormaster laughed at us when we said we were 22’ long (in a nice way); first time a harbormaster has greeted us as we came in and shook our hands; first time sharing a dock with a 154’ luxury yacht.
Mile 228 to Mile 205: Finally, a leisurely day. We only had to travel 23 miles to our planned destination – Morehead City, North Carolina – just across the river from Beaufort, NC. We are going to camp out here for a few days waiting for a strong cold to pass through so we can continue on across a couple large open water passages as we head north. We had a wonderful motorsail up Bogue Sound on a warm, sunny day. We learned soon after we were docked that 7” of new snow had fallen in Mound, MN with more on the way and that they had even closed the schools – in late April. We are lucky to be here.
We have two small world stories. The harbormaster, Denard, noticed our Minnesota Gopher hats and commented that the new athletic director for the University of Minnesota – Norwood Teague – has a boat at this marina – he is originally from this area. I would bet money that he knows Cindy’s brother Scott and sister-in-law Sue really well since they have both been actively involved in the new football stadium and other University programs. Even more amazing is our neighbor – Beowulf. Mary – who expertly backed her boat into their slip in a stiff current and wind – noticed our MN boat stickers and we started chatting. It turns out she graduated from Mound High School in 1959 (I graduated in 1975) – she was back to Mound for their 50th High School Reunion a few years ago. She sailed on Minnetonka as a kid, has been to Al and Alma’s and grew up on the lake by the Narrows Bridge where my Dad used to love to fish. What an amazingly small world.
We have another interesting neighbor here at Portside Marina. Her name is Cherosa. She is a beautiful, blue hulled, 154’ long, Swiftsure luxury yacht owned by the Chase family. She had to be towed (by Sea Tow, believe it or not) onto the end dock after experiencing a problem with her fuel system that caused seawater to get into the diesel fuel which led to problems with the generators and engines. That’s a bad thing. I don’t know how full her fuel tanks were but she holds 15,500 gallons – all contaminated. Yikes. They have had to pump all the fuel off and are now cleaning the tanks and testing all the other systems for damage. It is interesting to juxtapose Aurora and Cherosa – we hold about 20 gallons of fuel versus 15,500; we have a 120 mile range versus 3,000; we sleeps 2 (barely) versus 10 plus 7 crew in luxury accomadations; we carry about 15 gallons of water versus 18,550; we cruise at 5.5 mph versus 21; we have 8 hp versus 4,500 hp; we don’t carry a car onboard – Cherosa has room for a Smart Car – her “dinghy” is bigger than Aurora. She makes a good neighbor – she is quiet, beautiful and makes a good wind break. And we have Chase credit cards.
