Not a flake to be seen

We didn't see any snow, not even a flake, but lots of rain - for when it rains in North Carolina - it pours. The wind seems tamer here, not as heavy.  It could be that it doesn't come with a bite below 32*. Today it will warm to 40 and by Tuesday it will be 60. Not bad and since we are trying to avoid the bitterness of winter, I guess we are doing just fine. Maybe next year we will go further south, but that's for summer planning. For this winter we plan to stay here on the Neuse River. We walk every day, spend time reading, writing, visiting with friends and sometimes go out for supper. That's our day in a nutshell. The news around Oriental is all about the only grocery store closing. That would be the WallMart, the small size that was suppose to be the super market for the area. They've been here one year, put the only local grocery store out of business and now they are pulling up stakes, leaving the community scratching their heads and looking for rides to the nearest supermarket which is in Grantsboro about a half hour ride. Like driving to Orleans to buy a loaf of bread. Good old WallMart took the only pharmacy with them as well, after putting the only pharmacy out of business as well.  If you need a prescription filled you drive 20 minutes. Many of the town's elderly are looking for rides. There is no bus service here. This also doesn't bode well for the sailing transients who were able to purchase supplies by walking or biking the mile to the now defunct market. Dave and I have been blessed to have friends like Ellen and Randy who have loaned us their old truck to do the big shopping. We stocked up before we left home so there is plenty in the freezer and in the cabinets. We pick up fresh farmed eggs at the farmers market on Saturdays and purchase milk and a few other essentials at the Inland Water Ways Provisions Co, just feet from the boat. We buy water for drinking and cooking by the gallon, I have a week's supply left so we will have to make a trip to the closest supermarket next week. We will lay in 10 gallons of drinking water and I'll stock up on paper products at that time. I admit it was convenient having Wall Mart close by,  but I swear I'll never set foot in one again. It is my belief that their experiment in the grocery business was a way for them to get some kind of a tax break, or earn points for credit or some other scheme to put more profit in the pockets of the Waltons. They had to have had this planned out to the penny. There's no way that they could just close up after only one year and then say it didn't work out. They didn't even try. So screw them, just like they screwed this community. I'd never been in one before I came here and I don't think I'll ever need anything from them again. So that's my rant for today. Stay out of Wall Mart if you can. I know they are cheaper, but sometimes cheaper isn't better.

I'm glad to be able to use FaceBook.  Keep snapping those pics of Provincetown with snow on the streets, the wind howling a gale. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Miss the people, but not the weather. 

Fair Winds my friends. Stay safe, warm and dry.

I Have a Dream

Brrrrrr. It does get cold in North Carolina. There was frost on the dock this morning, but the sun is out and the temp will rise to almost 50* We can live with that. Our little cabin is warm and dry with just one small electric heater. We had a late breakfast after Dave returned from the 'Bean' - that's the local coffee shop, the only one in town I might add. He's just left to help load ice for the local draggers. They are getting ready to go out. The boats are bigger here, more like New Bedford, but fishermen are the same no matter where you go. They just want to make a living and are struggling to make sense of the rules and regulations. The talk on the dock is about flounder. Seems N. Carolina fish are not as abundant as they once were, just like at home. The politicians, scientists, environmentalist, and fishermen are speaking about what they each believe are the problems. So far I've not heard one solution. It's like Henny-penny running around shouting the sky is falling. She gets everyone worked up and they all believe her, so they are easily led to the cave where the fox who started the rumor, is waiting to eat them all up. So is everyone running around shouting the sky is falling. Yes. Should we all be led to that dark cave, No. Oh ye of little faith.  There is evidence that the fish, their habitat and our oceans are changing. Isn't that what life is all about, change! If we could all just stop pointing fingers, running around in circles, and start working together then maybe we can begin to talk about solutions. How about we start building hatcheries, We did it with lobsters in New England. How about catching wild spat for sea scallops, We did it in Cape Cod Bay. How about for every pound of fish landed one penny is put aside for producing fingerlings. How about letting fishermen do the survey work, after all they are the ones affected, they know where the fish should be. And let's have less finger pointing at the draggers, that's not a solution and frankly they've been fishing the same way for over a hundred years, maybe it's not dragging that is the problem, maybe it's gill nets in the estuaries, maybe it's hooks by the billions, maybe it's the crap that has been dumped in the ocean, and maybe it is greed (those who wish to control all the fish populations), or maybe it's zealots who just want everyone to think the way they do (like some of the environmentalists that I've met). The fishermen I know love the ocean, profoundly. They are the watchdogs. They're the ones who know what's going on out there. We landlubbers, and I include myself in that category, we just listen to Henny-penny running around shouting and try to make sense of it all.
I thought Dave and I could take the winter off, I mean really get away from all the fishing rhetoric, all the notices from NOAA, all the heartbreaking rules that have been foisted on us over the years, but we've found there is no getting away from it. Dave is now talking about getting out of fishing, hanging up his boots. It's time and I think that this winter has helped him see that there is life after fishing. We will always love the fishermen's ways, the boats, the fish, the oceans, but it is so hard to watch some of the senseless things going on, like putting a lock on someones fishhold, letting the fish rot rather that allow the fish to be trucked out of state. There's no common sense left and we're frustrated by it. I have a dream, to see fishermen as the valuable men and women they are. Fair winds, stay safe, warm and dry.

God Bless the dreams of Martin Luther King, Let's hope his spirit lives on and that all men will live as brothers, in peace.

January at the dock in Oriental

January and it's chilly but not freezing. When the sun is out it's down right lovely and it's lovely today. We've had some wonderful visits these past couple of days. Met new friends and old friends here at the dock in Oriental. Yesterday we had five visitors in the foc'sle before 10 AM. Everyone talking about their adventures on the water. It's music to our ears. Jay and Sarah live aboard the Sea Angel and are salty to be sure. They have crewed and cooked aboard schooners, Roseway and others, They have sailed from West Coast through the Panama Canal and up the east coast to Maine and now they are on their own private sailing adventure. Then surprise / surprise we hear someone calling out across the dock, "Hey Dave, It's Brad Pease from Chatham." He and his wife C. Louise Moye (a fine artist) are sailing the Sea Chanty to Florida and hopefully to the Bahamas. We visited their boat. It has that WOW factor, wood, traditional, classic. A real beauty. We had a delightful visit with them first at lunch at the M & M's and then along with Randy & Ellen for BOGO Pizza at Silo's. This place has been terrific to and for us. Our days fly by, we get to visit with great people and most of them are sailors. Dave also gets to talk with the fishermen from the shrimp boats that surround us. This small wharf is a place where if you take out your fish here - you can get your ice and tie up here at no cost. There is a steady coming and going of boats, shrimpers and draggers. When the shrimp season is over, they go for flounder and/ or fluke. When the flounder leave, they change over to sea scallops. Just like it used to be at home in Provincetown.
    In the North east we have the Gulf of Maine closed, sector allocations, days-at-sea, and now the National Marine Fisheries has added a cost to the boat of $710. per day that you go out for ground fish - if an observer goes with you. And you have no choice, you have to take the observer, after you notify big-brother 48 hours in advance of going fishing, they decide if you have to take an observer and if you do, the boat has to pay $710 to NMF to take him/her. For us that means we will never be able to go fishing, we only make about $1000 for the day, then take out expenses (fuel etc) add in the new observer cost and you are left with nothing. If we are lucky we may break even. There is a law suit going on, many many Congressmen and women, senators, scientists, and fishermen have asked that NMFS not put this burden on an already overly regulated industry. All pleas have fallen on deaf ears- thus the law suit. Dave and I both agree that this is another tactic of NMFS to get rid of fishermen and their boats. No small boat owner will survive. The bigger boats will pay, maybe not like it, but they'll cough up the 710 bucks. We are definitely a changing industry, a changing country and a changing world. It's just that I don't particularly like how it is shaping up. I don't even recognize it as the America I grew up in. I've never been very political, but I may have to start shouting, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Remember that line, I keep hearing it said and it worries me. We do need to rethink where we want this country to be in 5 or 10 years. Will only the biggest corporations be allowed to own the water, the land and the businesses? It seems to be where we are heading.
    I'm so glad Dave and I got to take the Richard & Arnold south this year. No freezing lines to deal with, no severe storms causing the boat to be pitched against the wharf and no filling out the daily log books for NMFS. We had to keep our tracking device turned on at all times even though we are not fishing, not even in the northeast. We had to put a new device onboard (cost $3000) because we are considered transiting. Oh and it costs us $69. a month to track us. We're not fishing so we are paying  for absolutely nothing. We'd like to get the federal permits off the boat, but there are so many rules about that, that we're afraid to make a move. We would most likely end up with no permits, no money and no retirement.
    Thanks for letting me vent. Fair winds, stay safe, warm and dry.

A first time for everything

Life is full of first's. The first time you kissed someone not your parent, the first dance you attended, your first car, first apartment, house, husband or child. Then the firsts slow down and life becomes routine. You don't see as many firsts as you get older, but they don't stop. This is the first time I've spent Christmas away from home, the first time I didn't make cookies, decorate the house, and the first time I have not had Christmas breakfast with the family. But on the other side of the coin, this is the first time I didn't feel rushed, the first time I didn't spend more money than I had in my checking account and the first time I wore a tee shirt on Christmas day. Some firsts are good, some not so good, but they don't stop, it gives us something to look forward to. Dave and I have had a different holiday, calm, peaceful and yet happy. Friends filled our day. Randy and Ellen, family in our hearts, visited while I was putting up the hammock. We laughed about how our lives have crossed and brought us to this place. It's because of them that we stopped in Oriental for what was supposed to be a night or two. Now it's going on two months and we are still enjoying it as much as the first week. Melinda and Keith stopped by to say Merry Christmas. He's a computer wizard, hooked me up with wifi, Melinda is a love who has a great garden full of herbs, blue bottles and bricks. They brought us a bobble-head dog for the wheelhouse, a pair of poka-dot socks and Snow in a Can. Our afternoon was spent with Billy and Donna. She made a great Christmas dinner, ham, roasted veggies and corn pudding. What a treat. It's not like Christmas in Truro, it's the first one while living on a boat, but it was a good one. So what's next? I'm looking forward to First Night, where here in Oriental they have the running of the Dragon, a sixty foot monster with many people under it. I'll get out a pot to bang on and join others in the street to make lots of noise and keep the dragon moving. It will surely be a first.  We wish you the joy of many firsts, may they all be blessings.  Fair winds.

The Christmas Spirit

Let me give you an example of why Dave and I have decided to stay in Oriental. They have the Spirit of Christmas here. It begins today. Cookies, cider, refreshments, open houses this afternoon and then an evening of luminary delight. Candles in paper bags lining the streets. The town is decorated with lights, wreaths and signs, Joy Joy Joy. There will be two boat parades beginning at 5pm,
 one for decorated kayaks, canoes and paddle boats and a second flotilla for larger boats, all decorated with lights from stem to stern. Then there is the Pamlico High School Choir who will lead the citizens in caroling while the star at the head of the harbor is lit. There is a Chorale of Christmas music at the Methodist Church and a Christmas pageant at the local theater. That's just today. Tomorrow there is more. A parade on Broad Street, open houses serving a variety of food, wine tasting, book signings and if you missed it the first time there is more music scheduled for Saturday evening. Now this is what I call Christmas Spirit and its just one reason for us to stay.

Reason number 2- at noon today a gentleman named Keith showed up at the boat with a box of wires, antenna, routers, and other paraphernalia. He proceeded to set up a WIFI system for me. Now it should be explained that I didn't ask or mention it at the coffee shop, he just came by and said, "Since you are staying the winter I thought it may be easier for you to have WIFI on the boat." No charge. I can now post on my blogger site, pick up email, pay bills and check out FB without leaving the Richard & Arnold. A couple of days ago I traveled three miles to the Yacht Club to use their internet to pay some bills, but then it got late and I didn't get to write to my friends. So now - watch out- you'll be hearing from me on a regular basis.

Oh, I paid Keith with reason # 3.
This morning some local fishermen were unloading their catch and Dave being who he is, went over to the boat to help with the offloading. The fisherman gave him a bag of shrimp, about four pounds. I cleaned them and put three bags in the freezer and one in the fridge for supper. Keith got one of the bags. Its the least I could do. Thank you Keith, it works like a charm!
I'm sure that the Spirit of Christmas is in all your hearts whether you know it or not, but here in Oriental there seems to be real effort to show it. God Bless you all,  now, during the holidays and always.  Fair Winds.

it is a wonderful life

I am so pleased to announce that Publishers Weekly has rewiewed "the Fishermen's Ball". Check it out at PW.com. November 30. I wish I could figure out how to form a link to it but I'm still learning how to use this iPad.  As many of you can guess we are still in Oriental, looks like we have found our winter place, but nothing is written in stone when it comes to water. All I can tell you is that we are looking forward to the Spirit of Christmas on the 12th of December. It was described to me as similar to the movie 'It's a Wonderful Life' staring Jimmy Stewart. People open their homes, there's a parade, and boats get decorated. Now how could we miss that.
My sister, Susie said she thinks we have found our spot. We will see after the parade how we feel, especially if the temperature drops below 40. So far it's been safe, warm, and dry. Shopping this year will be strictly Internet, I don't know if there is a mall within 100 miles. I hope you are all filled with the spirit of Christmas even if you are not in Oriental.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. This is a very different holiday for Dave and me. The family is far away and I miss them as I do everyday. I can picture everyone preparing for the feast, baking, cooking, cleaning, but this year we won't be a part of it. We have every reason to give thanks and we do everyday. I am thankful for my family and their understanding our wanting to go away for the winter. I am thankful for our health and the health of our loved ones. I am thankful for my husband, his uniqueness, his love of boats and his support of me. I think I'm the one who talked him into leaving our home and hitting the waterways. If I'd said, "No way" we never would have left. So this Thanksgiving I am cooking shrimp and fluke along with veggies from my garden: squash, tomatoes and potatoes. My oven is too small to roast a turkey and since we wanted to do something different this year, why not go all the way. I bought local fresh shrimp yesterday and my oh my aren't they just wonderful. We've had them a number of times since we landed in Oriental. One of the local fishermen gave us a pound right from his boat and we've eaten them at local restaurants. I had coconut shrimp the other night, wow was that something. I've got to find the receipt. As you may have guessed we are still in Oriental, NC. We've studied the charts and it seems because our boat draws 7 feet we may not be able to get through the ICW without going aground. That may not seem like a big deal to some but it can be an awful experience for a 50 ton vessel like ours. And even if we stay in the channel and never touch bottom while in the Inter-Coastal Waterway, there are almost no places to anchor where the water is deep enough for us. That means we'd be looking for marinas all along the way and that can get very expensive. For us to tie up it costs about $100 / night. That would drastically cut our winter budget. It has been explained to us that the Army Corp of Engineers was responsible for the ICW, dug most of it, and maintained it up until a few years ago when federal budget cuts put the control into the hands of individual states. NC mostly keeps up with dredging because many parts of it are used commercially. But in places where commercial use is non-existent such as portions of South Carolina and Georgia there is little or no dredging. The waterway fills in and is left to currents, winds and tides. Vessels with less than 6 feet are said to pass without difficulty. And so the conundrum: stay here where we are safe warm and dry or risk no anchoring areas for us and the eventuality of going aground.  Whatever we decide will be ok with me. I'm back writing, love the town and have almost everything I need. Just need a grandkids fix.
Still I'm thankful, I guess I'd have to say I'm thankful for life itself and all the goodness it contains.
If you have the time check out towndock.net there is a great shot of the Richard & Arnold