Fish Master Flash and the Buddy Fred

October 8, 2004
By Tom

Friday - October 1, 2004 - Tuckahoe Point, Alligator River, North Carolina

We had breakfast on board before casting off from the free dock in Elizabeth City. We got a late start of about 10 am, but we were waiting on the wind to fill in. The lying bastards at NOAA said 10 - 15 out of the north by noon, so we hoped against hope that they'd hit it right.

I lowered one engine and backed us out of our slip. I had the main up about 20 seconds later and we proceeded to tack out of the Elizabeth river with the wind out of the south, right on the nose. NOAA blows goats.

It took us 3 hours to go 10 miles as the crow flies, during which time we covered 16 miles. Near the end of the Elizabeth river we past a durgible breeding center.

I did not know this, but after seeing them in the wild, apparently, durgibles (blimps) gather in secret facilities like the one show at right and under cover of large hanger breed. I was not able to determine what the gestation period of said durgible babies are, or for that matter how many are in a litter, but I am pretty sure that this is where they come from. Ah, the miracles of nature.

At the mouth of the Elizabeth, we entered the Abermarle Sound. We had planned on taking the Abermarle out to the outer banks and then head south, but miracle of miracles, the wind shifted to the north east (within 100 degrees of where NOAA said it would go) and we couldn't hold the line. Instead, we sailed hard on the port tack at 9 - 10 knots across the Abermarle and down the Alligator River.

The ride was a little rough, but the boat was flying. We ended up covering 48 miles in just over 5 hours. Just as we reached the Alligator River swing bridge, we managed to catch up with the Puffins, who had left motoring, 2 plus hours before us. They are in fact the slowest boat in the sailing universe.

We dropped the anchor just above the Alligator River Cut in a pretty exposed area. Fortunately, the cat sat into the wind all night and minimized the effect of the 2 foot swell running through the anchorage. Dinner was jerk shrimp and rice and we had Ferret Wrestling as after dinner entertainment.

FYI - I kicked ferret's ass.

Saturday - October 2, 2004 - Belhaven, North Carolina

We had to motor through the 120 foot wide, 23 miles long Alligator River cut first thing this morning. The ICW is one of those things everyone should see once, but no more. We had to squeeze the mother ship into the weeds twice to let passing tug boat/barge combinations motor by.

When we cleared the cut, we put up the head sail and sailed the remaining 14 miles to Belhaven at a speed between 7 and 8 knots.

The guide book lists Belhaven as a must see, but the author is on crack. The city is completely dead and the anchorage is extremely open to the south and the east. We landed at the partially submerged public dinghy dock and proceeded into town. We went to 6 different stores and restaurants and could not find one open at 2 pm on a Saturday. Can you say lame?

We ended up hiking 1 mile each way out of town to a gas station just to get a bag of ice cubes. We took them back to the mother ship and had happy hour aboard and cooked up the four crabs I convinced to join us.

Around 5:30 pm the Puffins (Steve and Kathy) joined us on board for a few cocktails and some home made bread. The rainstorms showed up and threatened to ruin happy hour, so we moved inside and hung out telling stories til about 9. Then the Puffins went home and we went to bed.

The feeble collective intelligence at NOAA is calling for 15 - 20 out of the north for tomorrow by noon, so we are hoping to ride that all the way to the Buddy Fred's place in Oriental.

Sunday - October 3, 2004 - Tar Creek, Oriental, North Carolina

NOAA blows goats and pokes badgers with spoons. We saw a high of 8 knots today in a monsoon like gust that lasted all of 20 minutes and the rest of the day the wind was non existant.

Except for a 90 minute period of drifting/sailing, we motored the entire 40 miles to the Buddy Fred's. The auto pilot drove most of the day under ferret supervision while Amy read and I fished.

On the fishing front, I managed to catch and land 4 blue fish today. They ranged in size from 9 up to about 20 inches in length. 3 of the 4 made it for dinner, the 4th however, managed to escape while Maggie was standing guard. Amy was down below getting me my fillet knife and a cutting board and I had my back turned to Maggie who was suppose to watch the fish. I'm not sure what happened, but when I turned around, Maggie was laying upside down on her head and the fish was gone. In her defense, the fish outweighed Maggie 3 to 1.

We arrived at the Buddy Fred's house around 5 pm and managed to feel our way in to the uncharted creek without running aground. In fact we were in time to listen to the last 40 laps of the Nascar race on the shortwave. Later, a neighbor brought us over a house key that the Buddy Fred left for us and we have now temporarily relocated inside the house with unlimited running hot water and air conditioning. The ferret took the upstairs master bedroom for her and her stuffed animal friends and phoned in breakfast room service for 8am.

Monday - October 4, 2004 - Tar Creek, Oriental, North Carolina

Had a lousy night of sleeping in the house. I couldn't get used to the bed not moving. We also kind of felt a little lost with all of this space. We ended up spending most of the day with me, Amy and Maggie sitting in the living room looking at each other. We may never again be a house family.

I made a list of some of the boat projects I want to tackle while we are here and then I mostly played Doom 3 for the rest of the day. During one of my breaks in the killing, I did manage to throw together a loaf of homemade bread.

Around 5:30 or so, Steve and Sally came over for happy hour. We met Steve and Sally earlier this year when we came down here by truck to say goodbye to the Buddy Fred family before heading to Alaska.

Steve and Sally have aspirations of cruising too, but they've had a few health related setbacks with Steve requiring a by-pass operation a year or two ago. Anyway, we enjoyed there company and as such invited them over for happy hour. Happy hour lasted until 7 and then Steve and Sally left and I made tacos for dinner. We love tacos.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the grocery store in the little Honda that Sally loaned us. I'm not sure it's safe to let me drive something that goes over 15 miles an hour, but then again, the Honda may not qualify for that category, so we'll give it a try.

Tuesday - October 5, 2004 - Tar Creek, Oriental, North Carolina

It seems our plans here are changing once again. First, it sounds like my family won't be coming by to visit us here, and now it seems as if the Buddy Fred will not be making an appearance either. The net result of this is that we will probably just re provision, make the few repairs we had discussed and be on our way by the weekend.

Today I built a secondary anchor light, one that although only mounts 12 feet off the water, is exponentially easier to work on (i.e. I don't have to go up the mast). Pictures of it will follow shortly.

I also broke out the sewing machine and made a few repairs/alterations to some of our canvas. The eye patches we place over the saloon windows were getting a little ragged, so I brought them under the needle (like under the knife but not as bloody). I also added a zipper to our screen door so that we do not have to keep velcro-ing it up and down every time we come in or out of the boat.

We also produced our first edible loaf of banana bread today and it was quite tasty. I think I may add a recipe section somewhere on the web site to share our recipes that don't suck. I also managed to catch another four crabs which we had as an early afternoon appetizer before a dinner of steak fajitas.

We walked our wicky before turning in around 9. Tomorrow we hope to make a trip out the big city of New Bern to finish our resupplying efforts.

Wednesday - October 6, 2004 - Tar Creek, Oriental, North Carolina

We ventured into the big city today and got our shopping done. We were back at the boat unpacking by 2pm. One of our bigger purchases was a new printer for the boat.

I have been working on a ships log/inventory/maintenance program for the last two months or so and it is finally ready to test. Amy has been recording our logs with it and has helped me get most of the bugs out and now we are testing the report functions with the printer.

Right now, the program is tentatively named Flotsom (version 0.9) and I will be making it available for free on our web site as soon as it is stable enough to do so. In addition to daily logs, it also tracks things like recipes, engine usage and maintenance, weather conditions, miles covered, etc.

Flotsom's counter part, Jetsom, is in the works as well. Jetsom is a PDA version of the application that will be able to run on Windows based PDA's and Smart Phones. It links up with the master program when you synchronize your PDA. Realistically, I don't expect this part to be ready before Christmas.

If anyone is interested in helping us beta test, drop me a line and let me know.

Anyhow, life continues at the Buddy Fred's. I have been tackling small boat projects mixed in between the eternal crab quest. Crab production is down slightly and I am only able to find between 4 and 6 a day, but with a proper house refrigerator I can keep the little bastards alive for the 48 hours it is taking to collect enough of them to eat.

It looks like we will be ready to leave Saturday.

Thursday - October 7, 2004 - Tar Creek, Oriental, North Carolina

We washed the boat today. It took most of the day because either we are lazy or the boat was exceptionally dirty.

I also pulled the dinghy up onto the dock and scrubbed her out as well. The work took too much out of me and as a result, I took the rest of the day off. Mostly I layed around inside reading and playing Doom 3 with the ferret. She is a big video game fan.

We had steamed crabs appetizers(2 each for me and Amy, 1 claw only for Maggie) followed by Steak Fajitas and homemade french fries. After dinner we watched the Four Feathers with Heath Ledger and it was good. Still planning on leaving Saturday.

More to follow, end of line.