Day 271, May 11th, 2010
We thought we had about 41 nautical miles to do today to Belhaven, NC so decided we didn't have to leave at the crack of dawn. We walked into town to have breakfast somewhere first!
However, the marina was all locked up, we walked several blocks but couldn't find a cafe that was open. We were just too early! By the time we got back to the marina I tried the door again to the little store and sure enough they had a little cafe in there! Great! We were greeted by a very nice young lady and sat down with orange juice and a cup of coffee to wait for breakfast. As we sat there, a gentleman arrived and ordered breakfast too. Having established he was alone, we invited him to sit with us. We had a lovely chat with "Larry" over the eggs and bacon! He had an appointment with the yacht brokerage. Having sold his boat sometime ago, he felt it was time to buy another! He lives about 3 hours inland and will keep his boat here inOriental again. (We are so lucky in Collingwood to have our boat just 10 minutes from the house.)
John approached one of the marina staff about the night's stay. Apparently we had tied up on the wall of a private marina and they don't deal with transients. There was no charge. That was a very pleasant surprise!
We returned to the boat, got ourselves organized and set off at 9:30. We didn't get very far. There was a stiff wind, on the nose, and choppy water. We put the sails up but it was very apparent we had an engine problem. It didn't take us long to decide to turn back and get a mechanic to have a look. The book showed "Sailcraft Services, Inc." to be the right yard to go so we called them on the radio and they gave us instructions to get there. We turned up Whittaker's Creek and ended up rafted onto another boat outside the yard. Lots and Lots of boat here - kind of reminds me of Back Creek in Annapolis! Very busy yard with lots of boats in various states of togetherness or not.
Its taken all day, but the mechanic just left. He recommends we have the fuel tank polished which he'll try to push through tomorrow. John is going to change all the fuel filters himself and the water impeller. Lets hope we have only 2 days delay. We were congratulating ourselves on making such good progress. Not to worry, we still hope to be back in Canada for June 10th.
We thought we had about 41 nautical miles to do today to Belhaven, NC so decided we didn't have to leave at the crack of dawn. We walked into town to have breakfast somewhere first!
However, the marina was all locked up, we walked several blocks but couldn't find a cafe that was open. We were just too early! By the time we got back to the marina I tried the door again to the little store and sure enough they had a little cafe in there! Great! We were greeted by a very nice young lady and sat down with orange juice and a cup of coffee to wait for breakfast. As we sat there, a gentleman arrived and ordered breakfast too. Having established he was alone, we invited him to sit with us. We had a lovely chat with "Larry" over the eggs and bacon! He had an appointment with the yacht brokerage. Having sold his boat sometime ago, he felt it was time to buy another! He lives about 3 hours inland and will keep his boat here inOriental again. (We are so lucky in Collingwood to have our boat just 10 minutes from the house.)
John approached one of the marina staff about the night's stay. Apparently we had tied up on the wall of a private marina and they don't deal with transients. There was no charge. That was a very pleasant surprise!
We returned to the boat, got ourselves organized and set off at 9:30. We didn't get very far. There was a stiff wind, on the nose, and choppy water. We put the sails up but it was very apparent we had an engine problem. It didn't take us long to decide to turn back and get a mechanic to have a look. The book showed "Sailcraft Services, Inc." to be the right yard to go so we called them on the radio and they gave us instructions to get there. We turned up Whittaker's Creek and ended up rafted onto another boat outside the yard. Lots and Lots of boat here - kind of reminds me of Back Creek in Annapolis! Very busy yard with lots of boats in various states of togetherness or not.
Its taken all day, but the mechanic just left. He recommends we have the fuel tank polished which he'll try to push through tomorrow. John is going to change all the fuel filters himself and the water impeller. Lets hope we have only 2 days delay. We were congratulating ourselves on making such good progress. Not to worry, we still hope to be back in Canada for June 10th.
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