May 23, 2011, Mon

We went from Joyner Marina in Carolina Beach to Casper Marina in Swansboro, N.C. It was a long day with a lot of scheduled bridge openings, two opened only on the hour, one opened on the half hour and hour and one we could scoot under. We waited 25 minutes for one, almost a full hour for one and just ten miutes for the last one. The wind started really blowing by time we got to Casper Marina, which is an exposed marina, so docking was not fun. Deep Devocean and us were blown into the dock and Dreamchaser had a skinny slip. Waves slapped the hull the whole night, not much sleep after a long day. Fred & Ginny made porks chops for us all, a very nice dinner.

May 24, 2011, Tues.

We went from Swansboro N.C. to Oriental, N.C. and stayed at River Dunes Marina, for two days and we met up with Kate & Greg. This is the marina for those of you who knew JC & Judy, is the place were JC left Oxford for. It is absolutely beautiful, the attention to detail in everything that they built is unbelievable. We all said we could live in the cottages that they rent. Check it out online. I got some laundry done, and went to the pool. JC invited us to the restaurant for a drink, again beautiful and gave us some history of the place and showed us the cottages. A nice relaxing day. We now are four trawlers traveling, so when you call on the radio it would be---Jany K to Dreamchaser, Grianin, and Deep Devocean, we shortened it -----Jany K to the Trawler Train.

May 26, 2011, Thurs.

We left River Dunes, but definitely going back, for Dowry Creek Marina, which is near Belhaven, NC. Nice marina, but again exposed and of course by time we tied up it was blowing probably 15 mph. We needed five fenders to keep us off the dock again. The marina has a cocktail party every night, and then we had dinner on Deep Devocean.

May 27, 2011, Fri.

We went from Dowry Creek to Alligator River Marina. It started really blowing, when we hit the Alligator River. The Pungo Canal was uneventful this trip, other than a 40 foot log alert. Once we went under the Alligator Bridge we had to turn west to get into the marina and boy did we all roll with the wind and waves. Thank goodness it was a short ride. We got to the fuel dock and tied up and got fuel. Grianin went right to their slip on the other side of the marina, where the wind was really blowing. They had a hard time tying up. We moved when we were done fueling, was not easy, the pilings were too high to get a line over, so I had to stand on the flybridge back deck, put the line over the piling then hand it down to Bob while keeping the boat off the other pilings. Kate and I said we just had so much fun docking. Hahaha. Deamchaser tied up fine. Deep Devocean stayed on the fuel dock aafter watching us.  

May 28, 2011, Sat.

We all got slips at the free dock in Elizabeth City, although nobody was there from town, giving instructions on slip width and inviting everyone to the cocktail party, that used to be the charm of the city. Fred, Ginny, Kate, Greg and us walked to the CVS, walked the town a little. Everybody came to our boat for cocktails. We had the generator running and the AC on. We went to dinner across the street from the marina, Cypress Creek restaurant, very good.