Tieing A Knot...: Over the Angst....for now

Remember the cardinal rule of cruising?? NO PLANS!!.....for all of us sometimes there is no other option a plan has to be made and as usual you end up with plan C or D.
When news came of Gary's dads passing we were on our way to a Marina in New Bern, N.C. and a rental car to drive to Michigan for a month. We ran for 11 hours on Saturday when we were stopped by an approaching storm. It was 5pm, we new, unlike most of the day we were not going to dodge this one and Bonner Bay (just above our highlighted anchor) looked like a good spot for the night and it may have been if not for the winds that came after the rain.
We spent the night in 25 to 30 mph N.E. winds. I didn't sleep all night listening to the creaking groaning and waves on the hull and felt like I was alternately riding the mechanical bull at Gilley's and being rocked by a REALLY mean nanny!! It was not one of the "joys of boating nights"! We moved first thing the next morning to a more protected spot and have been sitting since Sunday with lots of wind and 4 foot waves in the Neuse River and behind us in the big shallow rivers and sounds we had just traversed.
The Neuse is a shallow river that runs North and South. It gets rough with little notice and believe me it was VERY ROUGH Sun. Mon. Tue. Yesterday morning the winds had died to 10 to 15 so we decided to stick our neck out into it to see if it was a go. It was not!! So we headed back to our anchoring spot.
Another plan that went awry was provisions. We knew we were going to be leaving the boat in N.C. for a month when we left Solomons and we shopped accordingly just enough for a week. What you buy for a week is probably not going to last for two weeks, duh! Milk, bread, meat and sandwich fixings are a distant memory, wine gone.
Gary said couple of more day and Bob might be thinking of eating us!!!!! Lesson learned? Plan for the unexpected especially where the wine is concerned :-)

Then there is the other "issue".....
We found out through a friend who contacted us with condolences that we might want to check with the marina we were headed for about their hurricane procedures. We found out that if there was a Cat 1 hurricane coming the boat would have to be moved out of the marina into the Neuse River!!! Funny that was never mentioned when we were there 5 weeks ago and talked to them about leaving it the month of September! So......as I said Angst!!
After numerous phone calls to marinas and helpful input from our local boater friends from Marathon and the Loop trips,we have to change yet another plan . Changing plans is not my strong suit....I should not be a boater.
We of course had to cancel yesterday's Enterprise rental since we knew Tuesday it was not going to happen, got plane tickets instead and found another marina where the boat can stay at the dock. Things just NEVER seem to go as planned but in this crazy world you can't do anything without a plan either.....go figure!!

So, what happens when you are marooned in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go for 5 days???

This would be Gary's 2nd favorite thing to do....

Then there is the boaters' recreation.....This is Gary's first choice....read, read, read. Funny I gave him the option to do some more varnishing and there was no reply only "the look".

This is definitely NOT Gary's favorite thing to do....but even he was affected this time. Turns out we have a faulty vent part on the holding tank. Not having a Home Depot handy 'McGiver' has temporarily fixed it with a "blue solo cup"....I can almost hear Toby Keith changing his lyrics! Things are MUCH more pleasant now.
Another "joy of boating" ......riiigghhhtttt!

Being a Type A boater and being turned down cold on the idea to sand and varnish ( heartbreak, we could have accomplished so much in five days!!) I turned to my sewing machine, which has sat pretty much unused since February.