And despite the gloom of Wittys potential demise, or perhaps because of it (and after his return) work on the boat (and life) went on.
Our friends, Bill and Sando,
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I saw that Oriental has a dealer for AB Inflatable dinghys and scored a valve cover for ours and I used electrical tape to enlarge the washer and thereby make a better fit for the air pump nozzle to inflate our dink. I tried to change the zinc in the refrigerator unit but needed the yards help when the old zinc twisted off in its holder (a new brass holder at $7.50 was a lot cheaper than the labor needed to melt the zinc out of the old one). Lene ordered the electronic versions of Waterways Cruising Guides to the Intercoastal by Mark Doyle. I polished and waxed the stainless steel of the bowsprit and bow pulpit and cleaned out the bilge. This in addition to overseeing/assisting the yards workers who hauled the boat two more times, replaced the lip of the Strong Seal (dripless stuffing box) in an attempt to stop the leak, aligned the prop shaft with the engine by shifting the engine on its mounts, and took ILENE out for a test drive which shows that we have good alignment --but we still have a leak, The cause this time is believed to be a distorted plastic disc bolted with four bolts to the transmission and four more to the shaft. It is plastic so it will shatter to prevent harm to the transmission if we hit something. Our choices were to get a replacement disc, or one of steel to take up the space, or get a new longer propeller shaft so no such spacer would be needed. We chose option A, and it is being sent to friends in Florida for me to try to install there.
But it was not all boat work and Witty worry. We had a tour of Bill and Sandos big new 45 foot dual engine DeFever trawler, named Lucille, like her predecessor, their Saga.
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Bill loves that it has easy access at dock level from the stern, does not have an open fly bridge (which he would not use), and has wide, safe, covered, exterior passageways. He is a perfectionist about his boats, keeping them pristine and making many improvements for comfort, safety and convenience. A minor example of these is the port side rear view mirror shown in the first photograph. M/V Lucille was in Maine this past summer and we hope to join Bill and Sando there in the summer of 16. I continue to very much admire Bills gentle, intelligent advice over the years and Lene says he has the best sense of humor. He prefers to make longer off-shore passages to get to the desired cruising grounds more quickly, a very useful philosophy as we head south trying to get where it is warm before it gets too cold up here after a delay of a week.
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which in turn is five feet more above sea level, with a commanding view of the Neuse River and all the boats that necessarily traverse it on the ICW. All told we enjoyed three dinners out with them, at half the local eateries, "M and Ms," "The Silos" which is built in two connected silos and "Toucan", and two breakfasts with them aboard ILENE.
And I played with the blog and determined that on the ten separate days that we made passages in October since we left Annapolis on October 12, we totaled 351 miles -- compared to the 268 we made in less than 48 hours from the Harlem to Annapolis on October 8-10. We went shopping for groceries several times and took Witty to the vet. Lene has a cold and visited a local emergency medical place and the Walmarts pharmacy. I try to not patronize Walmart whose owners get rich by paying their staff so little that we taxpayers subsidize them through food stamps etc. But here we shopped at their store which was one of the places that put up a the lost kitty poster.
People in Orient are friendly and honest. The Yard leaves the keys to two of its old vehicles with a signup sheet for use by residents. I put some gas in the tank. I asked the man in the chandlery if I could return the valve cover if it didnt fit. He said: "Dont pay me now: come back and pay me if it fits". When I took our propane tank for a refill, the hardware store man said it was a flat service fee for filling, that the tank seemed 3/4 full and he couldnt charge me $12 for only $3 worth of gas. While walking around on the afternoon after the big storm, I saw folks gathering pecans that had fallen off of trees during the storm. Later I stooped to pick one up and Lee gave me a bag of them from her tree and invited me into her house to meet her husband Billy and their family, who were eating their dinner. They relocated here about a month ago from Orange County, NY. See, it doesnt take long here for the friendliness habit to set in.
I visited the Oriental Historical Museum and took most of one of their walking tours, past the towns historic houses. Oriental was a poor town founded in the late 1870s by hard working fishermen and farmers. This house, with its metal roof, like many of them, was the home of a prominent citizen in its day and is still very well maintained.
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There are several marinas on this side, the upstream side of the bridge, but not for us, because the bridge height is 55 feet.
We plan to stop here again on our return trip back home.
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