Starjewel with Christmas lights I returned from another trip to Florida the 22nd of December and the next day Lisa and I were in the car heading East for the long Christmas weekend. This constant travelling is starting to wear me out a little, but going to the boat makes up for it. I just wish it wasn't three hours away.
While I was in Florida Lisa had been compiling recipes out of The Boat Galley Cookbook to make on the boat. We had Cajun Chicken Pasta, Shrimp Scampi, and a full Turkey Dinner with homemade pecan pie for dessert. Lisa is really getting a handle on how to provision and store lots of good meals on the boat. It takes a little more ingenuity and work when you're trying to do full, fresh meals in a kitchen that has 10 square feet of floor space, a two burner stove, and an oven that is the size of some large microwaves. She worked her magic and made everything taste like it came out of a gourmet kitchen.
We stayed in Pecan Grove Friday night as we got the boat loaded, and settled in. Saturday morning we were up with the sun and set out for Broad Creek. It's only about 8 miles away from Oriental, but motoring at 5 knots out and in the channels and down the river it took about 2.5 hours until we had the anchor set. Speaking of the anchor. We were lucky enough to get a few practice turns in at anchoring this trip. We could not get the anchor to dig in and ended up dropping 4 times before we found a nice spot for our Delta to grab hold. The first three times we drug when we were setting in reverse and the anchor came up clean like it never went into the ground. There wasn't any mud, grass, or anything on it when I pulled it up. We've never really had that problem before so, I'm not sure if it was the seafloor or if I was dropping the chain to quickly and it piled on the anchor before it had a chance to set. Either way, we finally got it right and we stayed put for the next 3 days.
We took Sophia with us, and that meant many trips in the dingy to let her run around. There weren't many places to drive the dingy to the beach around Broad creek, unless you wanted to get wet getting out of the dingy. Since it was December in North Carolina we opted to not get wet. We used Paradise Cove and River Dunes marinas to take Sophia to run around. Now that the days are shorter, that meant driving around at night in the dingy. We both took turns taking Sophia at night alone which gave us experience on several aspects; not running aground at night, navigating up and around the creeks, and docking at night. I think Lisa had a fantastic time with it and it was a great confidence booster to load Sophia into the dingy, find her way around the creeks, tie up at the marina and make it back to the boat by just the starlight. She didn't even have a full moon to guide her.
After our two nights and three days working and relaxing in Broad Creek were up, we hauled anchor and headed back to Pecan Grove. Along the way I removed the Christmas lights from Starjewel and Lisa cleaned up the cabin a little so it doesn't look like a wreck when we go back down again. We tied up to our slip, unpacked the boat and headed back home to get ready for work. Sophia must have had an amazing time because she slept the entire 3 hour drive home and almost straight through until we got up for work the next day. I think she might be getting old, or at least really tired.
While I was in Florida Lisa had been compiling recipes out of The Boat Galley Cookbook to make on the boat. We had Cajun Chicken Pasta, Shrimp Scampi, and a full Turkey Dinner with homemade pecan pie for dessert. Lisa is really getting a handle on how to provision and store lots of good meals on the boat. It takes a little more ingenuity and work when you're trying to do full, fresh meals in a kitchen that has 10 square feet of floor space, a two burner stove, and an oven that is the size of some large microwaves. She worked her magic and made everything taste like it came out of a gourmet kitchen.
We stayed in Pecan Grove Friday night as we got the boat loaded, and settled in. Saturday morning we were up with the sun and set out for Broad Creek. It's only about 8 miles away from Oriental, but motoring at 5 knots out and in the channels and down the river it took about 2.5 hours until we had the anchor set. Speaking of the anchor. We were lucky enough to get a few practice turns in at anchoring this trip. We could not get the anchor to dig in and ended up dropping 4 times before we found a nice spot for our Delta to grab hold. The first three times we drug when we were setting in reverse and the anchor came up clean like it never went into the ground. There wasn't any mud, grass, or anything on it when I pulled it up. We've never really had that problem before so, I'm not sure if it was the seafloor or if I was dropping the chain to quickly and it piled on the anchor before it had a chance to set. Either way, we finally got it right and we stayed put for the next 3 days.
We took Sophia with us, and that meant many trips in the dingy to let her run around. There weren't many places to drive the dingy to the beach around Broad creek, unless you wanted to get wet getting out of the dingy. Since it was December in North Carolina we opted to not get wet. We used Paradise Cove and River Dunes marinas to take Sophia to run around. Now that the days are shorter, that meant driving around at night in the dingy. We both took turns taking Sophia at night alone which gave us experience on several aspects; not running aground at night, navigating up and around the creeks, and docking at night. I think Lisa had a fantastic time with it and it was a great confidence booster to load Sophia into the dingy, find her way around the creeks, tie up at the marina and make it back to the boat by just the starlight. She didn't even have a full moon to guide her.
After our two nights and three days working and relaxing in Broad Creek were up, we hauled anchor and headed back to Pecan Grove. Along the way I removed the Christmas lights from Starjewel and Lisa cleaned up the cabin a little so it doesn't look like a wreck when we go back down again. We tied up to our slip, unpacked the boat and headed back home to get ready for work. Sophia must have had an amazing time because she slept the entire 3 hour drive home and almost straight through until we got up for work the next day. I think she might be getting old, or at least really tired.
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