River Forest Marina, Belhaven, NC

Our next stop was going to be Oriental, NC which is a good 50 miles from here. However, we didn't want to leave today because the winds were still gale force. Yesterday they were actually blowing steady around 20-25 knots with gusts in the 30's and this morning they were still pretty strong. Steve wanted to stay at anchor and go ashore via the dinghy. However, Michele wanted to go to the marina up the way and fill up the water tank, do laundry, and go grocery shopping before our long haul to Oriental. Long story short, Michele won :), much to Steve's chagrin. He had every right to be unhappy about the decision because it was going to be very difficult trying to get into a slip with the winds kicking up so much. But off to the marina we went - and so far on this trip going into marinas has been a problem every time. This time proved to be no exception.

Problem #1. Michele was at the helm and while rubber necking another boat that we knew, she realized that she was out of the channel and that the depth sounder was flashing 3.5 feet. We touched bottom and got stuck until Steve took the helm and rescued us! Steve kept his cool and said hopefully that will be it for this attempt. Michele was getting a sickening feeling in her stomache.

Problem #2. When we got to the marina they told us to pull into a slip after they already promised that we could pull up and dock parallel to the dock. John Ray doesn't maneuver too well in general, never mind when the wind is blowing us away from the slip at 20 knots. And when we go to back up, the stern always pulls to starboard, which brought us very close to a piling, a break wall, and very, very shallow water. Again, we touched bottom. That was attempt one. Attempt two, was even worse. We had to go back into the very narrow channel and turn around to approach again. All the while, the wind was puching the boat in the opposite direction from where we needed to go. The second time didn't work either and on the way out to turn around again, we almost got blown into a piling. Michele pushed us off in enough time to just clip the outboard, but not to destroy the davits and rip the dinghy off.

Problem #3. Since we were at a slip and he had the chance, Steve decided to check the drive shaft because the engine has been vibrating at different RPM's. After checking it out, he decided to have the Yanmar mechanic look at it because we don't have the right equipment to work on it ourselves. Long story short, we have drive train problems and may be here for at least a week. We're hoping the work can be done with the boat in the water and not have to haul it out. The wind finally died down and we are safe and sound at a marina where we will be until at least next Tuesday. (Darn, I get to take long, hot showers as often as I want.) In actuality, it is a very good thing we stopped here! Steve knew we were having problems that needed to be resolved, but was hoping to get a little more south to deal with them. I guess Belhaven, NC isn't so bad. We're glad that we have the chance to fix the problem before it got too bad and possibly left us stranded somewhere waiting for a tow. I guess things happen for a reason.

The River Forest Marina where we will be holed up for a few days is actually quite nice. There is an Inn, restaurant, laundry and showers on the premises. The town is only a short walk away. The Food Lion is little further, but the marina has electric golf carts that you can take to the store. What a trip that was. We ended up hooking up with another couple and driving the golf cart to the Food Lion. The first part of the trip wasn't too bad, but then we had to turn onto a pretty busy street where the Food Lion was about a 3/4 of a mile up. That doesn't seem like much, but this cart only goes about 4 miles an hour and there wasn't much of a shoulder for us to ride on. The fact that the cart's brakes didn't seem to work too good didn't help much either. It felt like the Flintstones mobile when we had to come to a stop as we had to stick our feet out to use as brakes. Pretty interesting experience. Anyway, all is well. Hopefully, this little stop won't cost too much! We'll keep you posted!