The Adventures of Little Rosie

After spending many weeks working hard to get Rosie ready to cruise, I took a break. I had a great time visiting family and friends while Eric and crew sailed Rosie south. I started my trip by visiting my niece, Nancy, her husband Cory, and their daughter, Sumer, in Clarkesville, TN. The big event of the trip was Nancy’s baby shower. After the shower I spent a few days hanging out with Nancy and little Sumer, while Cory went to a job interview in North Carolina. We shopped, played, and just rested. It would have been nice to stay through December to attend Cory’s Purple Heart Award ceremony for his service in Iraq, and a few days later, his college graduation. I would loved to have been there, but I needed to move on if I was going to make it back to the Caribbean where Eric was waiting, unsupervised.

Cory receives his Purple Heart

My neice, Sumer

Next Stop – Michigan. Since my brother-in-law Mark was out sailing the Atlantic with Eric, I had a chance to spend some time with my sister Beth. I also had the use of Mark’s car. Thank you Mark.

Beth and I spent a day at the Detroit Institute of Arts to see a special exhibit “Rembrandt and the Faces of Jesus”. The exhibit follows the evolution Rembrandt’s portrayal of Jesus in the 1600′s as well as some paintings of events described in the bible. In the 1640s Rembrandt became the first western artist to portray Jesus as Jewish, using a model from the neighborhood in which he lived at the time. It was really fascinating to see the transition of the face of Jesus based ancient Greek sculpture and Renaissance imagery to the Jewish face of Jesus. They also looked at how the events in Rembrandt’s life paralleled the scenes he chose for his paintings of Jesus. It was very interesting.

Many years ago, I was maid of honor at the wedding of my good friends, Tom and Maureen. Their daughter, Colleen was married on November 19th. Yeah I was in town! I was there to attend the rehearsal dinner and help them celebrate Colleen and Michaels wedding, eating fabulous foods and deserts, imbibing on fine wine, seeing old friends, and dancing the night away.  They still throw a great party.

My friend, Maureen and her son, David

Tom and Colleen

Some time between the wedding and Thanksgiving, Beth and I were able to get in a sauna. I just love taking saunas at their house. We keep it as hot as we can stand it and stay as long as we dare before taking a cold shower and sitting in the cool November air until we are cold. Then we do it again, and again, thats three times, according to Finnish custom.  Its a lot of fun,  amazingly relaxing and does wonders for your skin.

The next big event was Thanksgiving. For many years my brother, John, and his wife, Kay, have hosted our family at their farm. We all brought a dish, and as usual, Kay had a fabulous spread. The gathering was small this year, but it brought back so many good memories of all my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews getting together. We were warmed by the wood stove, and ate delicious food from their vegetable garden. John gave hayrides behind his tractor, pulling us past the garden, through the Christmas trees he was selling, and around the barns. John and Kay are selling the farm, so perhaps next year Thanksgiving will be at the new house they are building on the lake?

It was a busy weekend. The following Saturday Beth and Marks daughter Kristy (the 17th of my 19 nieces and nephews) turned 21. Are we getting old or what? And I was there for her first legal drink, a mojito. We celebrated at a vegetarian restaurant in Ann Arbor, absolutely fabulous. She continued the celebration, with her friends while we older folks, that would be me and Beth, wereearly to bed.

21 st birthday dinner

Kristy sips her first legal drink

On Sunday afternoon my family went to a golf lodge in Howell, Michigan celebrated the 40th wedding anniversary for my brother Mike and his wife Pat. They were married on November 27, 1971. That would be when they were 21.

Forty years of wedded bliss

I also had a chance to spend some time with my brother-in-law Steve and my sister Margie, who has been struggling with an aggressive form of MS for 20 years. I’m thankful for Steve who has taken care of Margie and has been there for her the whole way. They met in college and were married young. He is still her number 1 fan. Any time I get to spend with her is time I cherish. Its always difficult to see another person, much less one you love so much, suffer with such a terrible disease.

And finally, on the Monday before I left, the girls from the old neighborhood got together to celebrate yet another decade. I am so blessed in my life that I have known these women since we were very young children. These are my oldest friends and they are so much fun. It’s great to get together.

(l to r) Kathy, Terry, Maureen, Celia, Me and new friend Dina

 Next: Back to the Caribbean

So what’s happened since we got back to the Virgin Islands? Too much for one blog entry, so here’s the story of the guys’ post-cruise activities…..

Vacation (aka Geographic Bachelors Do the Virgins)

Having read the last post, you know the trip from NC to the USVI was challenging. Great crew work made it happen. Dave and Mark made travel plans to allow for a delayed start and a slow passage, but the weather cooperated so we got started on time and had a fast trip. That put us in the Virgin Islands with over a week to kill. We recuperated for a day in Christmas Cove, St. James Island (between St Thomas and St John) and started chilling down into Island Time. All that is there is a reef/rock pile to snorkle around, so this was a good start.

Haven From Tourists

The next day we motored upwind to Coral Bay and anchored in Coral Harbor. The settlement is populated with a lot of people who have escaped from pressures of everyday society. Love City (more like Love intersection) is just around the bend. The only Bee Gees music you will hear here is before they degenerated into disco. If you were born in the 40s or 50s you might have a clue. If you are younger try St Thomas.

The hub of activity is Skinney Legs bar/restaurant and the ajoining gift shops and mail/shipping outfit. We visited Skinney Legs and then took a bus across the island to the main town – Cruz Bay. It’s an amazing journey. $1 US buys you an amusement park ride with an incredible view.

The next day was Thanksgiving. A local fellow borrows the restaurant and hosts Thankspigging. It’s mostly a big potluck although someone cooked a whole pig in the middle of the yard behind the restaurant. There is an amazing amount of excellent food. By pure luck we were there in time to collect some fixin’s and Dave put together a nice salad complete with his secret dressing. It turned out this was the only regular salad, so it was a great addition to the buffet.

And how did they signal the buffet was open? Arlo Guthrie and Alice’s Restaurant came on the PA system.

Thankspigging buffet at Skinney Legs

We pigged out.

As the feed wound down and people started to drift away, a few folks pulled out some instruments and put on a little jam session on the back steps. What a nice way to end the day.

On the Road Again

Once we finished digesting we decided to move on. Dave had a hankering to go to the Baths on Virgin Gorda – one of the British Virgin Islands. We asked around and found that you could loose your boat if you got caught doing a daytrip to the BVI without checking in, so our first stop was Road Town, Tortola, just north of St. John. We picked up a mooring and I left the crew on board while I checked in with Customs and Immigration. Except for having to wait while they processed in a bunch of ferry passengers, the check in process went smoothly. We planned to stay no more the three days, so we could check out at the same time we checked in. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Road Town, but didn’t find too much of interest.

The next morning we headed for Virgin Gorda and the Baths. We motored upwind to the Baths and grabbed a mooring. Then we dropped the dink in the water and headed in. There is a dinghy mooring line a little way off the beach, so we tied up there and swam in. .

The Baths at Virgin Gorda

The Baths are a couple beaches separated by lots of BIG rocks. You can snorkle around the rocks off the beach and wander through the rocks from one beach to the other. Other than being overcast and crowded with cruise ship passengers, it was all pretty cool.

View of Compass Rose from the path through the rocks between the beaches

You can’t stay overnight at the Baths, so we headed back west. The plan was to go as far as we could and still find a spot to stay the night before it got dark. We ended up in Great Harbor, Peter Island.

The next day we headed back to St John. Our first stop was Cruz Bay to check back in, then we headed around the north side of the Island to Francis Bay. We were interested in doing the snorkling trail at nearby Trunk Bay, but when we dinghyied over we found the trail was closed because the waves were too rough. Back we went to Francis Bay. Mark snorkled a little along the rocks at the edge of the bay, but the overcast took a lot of interest out of the swim.

The next morning we had a favorable wind and sailed to Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas – just about the only sailing we did. We cruised the harbor and saw lots of interesting vessels.  One of the more interesting ones, was the replica of the HMS Bounty.

HMS Bounty in Charlotte Amalie harbor

We later get up close and personal with the Bounty, but that will be covered in a subsequent post.

Tired of boat food, we dinked in to Crown Bay Marina and had dinner at the restaurant. The next day was Mark’s last day on the island, we took a cab into Charlotte Amalie, the main town on St Thomas. Normally we would take a safari bus, but we needed to make sure Mark would get to the airport on time. This is a Duty Free port and the waterfront is full of tourist shops, jewelry stores, and liquor stores. We spent the morning doing the tourist thing, and then headed back. Yogi, the taxi driver, dropped Dave and I at the marina and took Mark to the airport. He also promised to pick Dave up at the marina at 6AM the next morning, which he did.

Watching a cruise ship pass Honeymoon Bay as it leaves St. Thomas

I then had half a day to convert the boat from the boys’ dormitory to a comfy home before Jackie arrived….

Jackie flew in yesterday. It’s truly paradise now.

Old Business

Here are a couple pictures of the marina during Irene and again after the storm.   But first a shot from the marina looking out toward the Neuse River, which is just beyond the clump of trees in the center of the picture.  That’s where the storm surge came from.

Looking down the creek at the Neuse River

 The next picture shows the canal.  In the left picture the boardwalk goes between the gray building and the sailboat in the center of the picture with the dark blue sail cover.  Compass Rose is directly ahead of that boat.

The Canal during and after Irene

The next picture shows the docks in the creek.

Boat slips during and after Irene

Road Trip

We barely got settled after Irene passed through before it was time to hit the road again. Six states in three weeks, including stopping in both Ohio and Virginia going and coming. The impetus was a gathering of my family (Eric) near Cleveland and a doctor’s appointment for Jackie, but once we had gone that far we might as well hop over to Detroit to visit Jackie’s family and we needed to stop at our house in Virginia to check on it and mow the lawn.

What are these strange devices?

Events

 When we visited my family (Eric) we had a birthday party for my sister Katie and our nephew Reid.  Unbeknownst to us, the family also celebrated Jackie and my birthdays, since we were out of the country when they actually occurred.  Our neice, Sarah, made individual cakes, so we had lots to eat.

(l to r) my sister Katie, niece Sarah, Jackie and me

Nephew Reid got lots of presents.   He also got a lot of help playing with them.

Some of us never grow up (Eric, nephew Reid, brother Dave)

Reid supplies siren sound effects

 The other big event was a get together of the clan in the Cleveland area. 

Lots of relatives

We eventually headed back to the Washington, DC area where we attended the Dickerson boat owners Western Shore Roundup.  Jackie and I were guests of Dave and Siobhane on their Dickerson 41, Down Home.  It’s always good to see the Dickerson sailors and it was fun to be back in Galesville again after being gone for nearly two years.

The big event on Saturday was a race.  As we headed out we found a stowaway on board.

Dickerson 37 ketch and the only Dickerson 39

Down Home crew. (l to r) Jackie, Siobhane, Dave. Eric in back.

We made it back to Oriental.  I moved aboard Compass Rose and Jackie returned to Virginia so she would have some space to do some sewing and be able to move some of the last odds and ends out of the house.  We were treated to a long, rainy spell and then a big drop in temperatures.  Luckily I was able to get some interior finish work done.  As you can see, it looks better than when I started the project.

The aft cabin during and after repairs

Next:  Counting down to shoving off.

Watching Irene approach was scary.  Last year in Grenada we were threatened by Tomas.  We didn’t know what to expect because we didn’t know whether the storm would hit us.  With Irene, we knew we would get hit – just not how hard or for how long.

This was just one of many forecasts we saw.

By Wednesday preparations were in full swing.  Boats were being hauled as fast as the yards could move them.  Everyone was stripping off their canvas and sails, removing or securing everything on deck. 

We had the additional problem of knowing that our apartment would probably flood – it did when Isabel came through and Irene was expected to be worse.  Compass Rose was already a mess inside because of all the tools and materials out for the repairs, so moving back in would have been nearly impossible.  Luckily our friends Don and D had a spare bedroom so we moved everything out of the apartment and into their house.

Don and D had their preparations to make, too. They had both a house and a boat to prepare for the storm.

Don ties off the wind generator on Southern Cross

At this point Jackie, being the brighter one, decided to get out of town.  The wife of another couple was going to visit friends in western NC and invited Jackie along. 

Boats staying in slips added lines.  Compass Rose was side tied to a bulkhead on a canal off the main creek.  There are a pair of pilings on the outside, but too close to properly tie a boat for the rising waters.  The solution was to move the boats from the bulkhead into the middle of the canal and tie lines to either shore. 

We had to wait for all the boats to get hauled before we could block the channel, so the process wasn’t finished until about 5 pm on Friday.  By then it had been raining for four hours and the wind was gusting, but Little Rosie was trussed up like a fly in the middle of a spider web.

I had the dinghy in the water to get people off the boats after they were tied in the middle of the canal.  When finished I had to motor to Don and D’s at the head of the canal so I could secure the dink.  It was quite a trip because every boat along the canal had a line or two across the water to hold if off the dock.

I don’t know the official landfall point, but I think it was a bit east of Beaufort/Morehead City.  They eye passed over us in Oriental.

Saturday morning was an interesting time.  The storm was going pretty well, but we were protected by a lot of trees so we didn’t feel the gusts as much as other places in the area. Eventually the wind died down and D and I decided to walk around a little and see what was happening. It turned out the drop in wind was because the eye of the hurricane was passing through.

We walked down one side of the canal to Deaton’s boatyard. On the way we could look across the canal and see Southern Cross behind Don and D’s house.

Southern Cross sits about nine feet higher than normal

We didn’t have to go far before we found the street covered with water. The farther we went, the deeper it got. There were a couple small trees down along with lots of small branches, pine needles, and random floating debris.

High water in the neighborhood

Finally we reached the canal and could see Compass Rose. There was a log up against her lines, but she was doing fine.

Compass Rose floats quietly in the canal

We walked back past the house and then down the other side of the canal to Sailcraft Marina where we were keeping Compass Rose. As we started down the last stretch to the marina we could see a little red Miata mostly covered with water.

The road to the boatyard. The Miata's owner fell asleep on his boat and woke up too late to move his car

The marina had done well. A few boats had floated off their stands, but had been coralled and secured. Someone had already removed the tree from Compass Rose’s lines.

Wading in the boatyard - Compass Rose in the background

Walking the dock. Boats on right are still in their slips, but the pilings are under water

We walked back to the house and hung out for a while. The storm picked up after the eye went through, but it never got as strong as during the first half. Late in the afternoon we all hopped in the van and toured around Oriental. We mostly saw more of what we had seen in the morning. The exceptions where some big trees down and a lot of damage to houses along the Neuse River.

And as we expected our apartment had flooded.

The floor of our apartment was about a foot under water

As we crossed the bridge in downtown Oriental we could look down and see a large powerboat on its side. We later found out that as the water receded, the boat came down with one side on the dock and tipped over.

The marina by Oriental Harbor

Another amazing thing was that the waves crashing ashore washed rocks from the seawalls up into people’s yards.

The waves washed sea wall rocks into yards

Here are a few pictures taken after the hurricane.

Strange things happen in hurricanes

Boat shed is destroyed, but the cool steel boat survived

Blue heron goes on with life

As a final note, our house in Alexandria, VA, came through with only a few small branches and leaves in the yard.

Driving over the Potomac into downtown Washington, DC

Mingling with the tourists on the Mall

Right-click on the picture and open in a new window to get the full effect

 It actually worked out a lot better when we had someone take our picture.

You can always get someone to take your picture

All the rotton wood is cut away.

The new cabin side is fitted into place.

Remains of the underside of the deck

Hey Fred, come over here. I hear Jackie and Eric's house is going up for sale.

Wow, looks like a nice place, but I hope that woodpecker doesn't live near by. They are so noisy!

Bluejays! There goes the neighborhood!

Silly birds. Little do they know that I was here ahead of them.

Next:  Irene

Native Oriental ritual known as the Dragon Dance

The dancers perform an intricate dance that threatens to tie the dragon into a knot.  A drummer provides the beat.

Dragon Dance Drummer

They then weave their way down the street to lead the Dragon Boat Parade.   (they seem to be big on parades here) The eighteen teams followed one by one.

Dragon Festival Parade

You can see much of the parade on YouTube Dragon Boat Parade  Watch carefully and y0u will see someone familiar walk by at about 47 seconds into the movie.

The dragon boats are long, narrow, tippy, and have little freeboard.  They were to have a practice the evening before the race, but there was too much wind and chop on the river, so everyone sat in the boats on the beach and practiced paddling.  Many paddlers left for the race without ever having been in one of the boats on the water.

Dragon boats on the beach waiting for launch

Each boat has twenty paddlers, a drummer sitting in the bow (and facing aft) to provide a beat for the paddlers to follow, and helmsman in the stern.  The first race began and one boat pulled out to a lead.  The boat’s dragon tail fell off soon after the start. 

Dragon boats racing. Boat on left going faster after it shed its tail

Then the tail fell off the other boat and it moved into the lead.

Retrieving a dragon tail

The races went on all day.  By the afternoon the wind and waves kicked up, so four paddlers were removed from each boat to increase bouyancy and freeboard.  Team Raleigh Dragons paddle together regularly and unsurprisingly took first place. The PCS Fossil Floaters finished second and Pirates for PAWS came in third.  You can see some video of a race on YouTube.  Dragon Boat Race

BOAT WORK

But it’s not all play here, the boat work continues.  The port side of the aft cabin has been glassed and sanded.  There is more work to do to prep the cockpit coaming, but it’s nearly ready for priming.

Port side is glassed and ready for sanding and priming

The starboard side also leaks, so it has been taken apart and there are a few spots with rot.  There was a board at the aft end of the cockpit coaming that literally crumbled as I tried to remove it.

Pile of pulp in foreground is the remains of a board

The fairing block is also shows rot and the leak seems to have gone past it.

Fairing block is rotted on the top and left (aft) edge

The good news is that this side of the boat is much better.  Part of the side of the house needs to come out, but at least the front part of the cabin is OK.  The bad news is that because it is in better shape and has been repaired before, it’s a lot harder to get apart.

Next: Road Trip

The water soaked into the plywood on the side of the house

Front of aft house fitted in place

Test fitting the repair

Jackie strives to achieve a Zen meditation state as she sands the huge amount of wood on the boat.

The pieces on the right are ones that Jackie has sanded

 

Sanded cockpit combing

  Finally after much measuring, cutting, planing, and sanding, the panels are ready to install.  Mix epoxy and coat the wood then thicken epoxy and put it on the edges, then put the panels in place, screw them down, and add epoxy to make sure all the joints are sealed.

No turning back, the panels are screwed and glued

Now we just have to sand it all smooth, fill the gaps with epoxy, cover with fiberglass, sand some more, and paint.

Next:  We get to do the other side.

Atlantic Croaker - looks pretty festive to me

Looking at half the festival from a public dock

John Deere powered ice cream maker

Did I mention there was food?

Right Click and open in a new window to see parade slideshow

After the parade we wandered back to the festival for cheap food.  The other big event was the Croakerfest Regatta which took place just offshore of the park, so everyone could watch.  It was the biggest regatta ever, with 66 sailors in 51 sailboats. 

The sunfish fleet had very close finishes for first-second and fourth-fifth

  It was also the smokiest thanks to the wildfires that have been burning since we got here.  Luckily we are upwind most of the time.

The last big event of the weekend was fireworks.  The town closes off the bridge and shoots the display from a point in the river.  It was a great show and best of all it was a five minute walk from the apartment.

Next:  More Oriental