Yeah, I stole that line from NPR the news quiz we so loved and miss. However that is exactly where we’re at. A close sailing friend has on his note on Skype “Scheiss Wetter”, and he’s right. We’ve been waiting now for almost three weeks. The Lows and Fronts seem to like hanging out in this area (and they weren’t invited - at least not by us). So as my 83,683 readers know (that’s only my best guess LOL) we’ve moved to Beaufort, NC. If we move farther S we get farther away from Bermuda or the VI’s, either place is currently acceptable.
Beaufort is an interesting place. Some places think quite highly of themselves; like Beaufort Docks (the most expensive docking around and they don’t have a web site), and others are quite boater friendly like Town Creek Marina. We pulled into the marina when we got here to take on fuel and since the anchorages were less then what we expect if we would be spending time here in a blow we bit the bullet and signed up a week. The weekly rate was acceptable for us. Now the week is up and we need to stay another day or two. 
But the time hasn’t been a total waste and yet has had it’s frustrating moments. Our new (well it’s not the original on this boat) battery charger / inverter has acted up. Either it doesn’t like something on the current side of the circuit or it’s reached the end of it’s rope. In either case it’s been frustrating. I’ve called Xantrex once and the company rep seemed to say simply reset it and move on (now on most of the cruising boards Xantrex is not the charger to get- damn). Reseting as worked twice and the rest of the time we’ve not received any charge out of it. Thankfully for other cruisers (Equinox loaned us a 20 amp charger and Carpe’ Diem loaned us a short extension cord) we’ve got a work horse 20 amp charger going. The batteries are charged up and we’re back keeping everything cool and bacteria free.
Also we’ve been in constant communication with Lison Life, wavering between analysis and paralysis in looking at weather info, listening on the HF radio to Chris Parker and looking at the weather outside. Hurricane Ida fell apart as it reached the Pan Handle of Florida but it didn’t fall apart in our book. She slid up the coast (not reading or doing what the forecasters said she would do) and for the last two days has been dropping all amounts of liquid sunshine on us (the official version is 6.5″ but our bucket rain gauge said more like 10″) and blowing like stink. So we wait.
42 Hombres
While we’ve been waiting we were able to have a Westsail 42 gathering with our sisterships in the area. It’s rare on this coast to even see a sistership but we met these two in the Bahamas last winter and we’ve been staying in touch. We’ve run across Viking Rose already a couple of times but this is the first time since the Bahamas we’ve caught up with Consort (one of my lobster hunting buddies from the islands). We ate at Floyds a grand restaurant out of the beaten path in Morehead City and as all cruises do shared more lies and tall tales. You can tell how comfortable we are as Russ (Consort) and Penny (Viking Rose) are into their typical childish pranks. I had assumed it was Russ giving me the horns but alas it was dear sweet Penny. Shame on you Penny. LOL.
So with the boat loaded and no place to go we still found something to do. As the charger was getting a weird AC reading (not that the data would show but what the error message in the charger said) I felt that because I never replaced the 30 year old circuit breakers in the boat I should do that. Off to the store to buy new ones (too old to replace) so I bought new ones and a new circuit breaker box and spent all day installing it. That didn’t really change anything except the one error message seemed to disappear. However it still wouldn’t run a full cycle, thus the good sailing friends coming to the rescue.
At this point we still wait. We’re making a last run to the store, then laundry, then we wait and hopefully Mother Nature will smile upon us with sunshine and ….
Fair Winds