Under Sail

Adam and I had the wonderful opportunity to go sailing yesterday afternoon on the Neuse with friends. What a relaxing adventure! The water was shimmering and glorious.

On the way out of the marina we passed an old dock full of gulls.

And a few little strips of land.

Here's our group. The fellow in the hat owns the boat. Adam is in the blue shirt, enjoying the ride. The other couple are visiting from Raleigh.

The lady in the gray shirt is the owner's wife. We barely knew them, and I felt it was such a generous gesture to ask us out for the whole afternoon. We had lots of fun chatting. I found out that 2 of them are also writers. I guess you might say we talked a little "shop."

I got to see sails and sheets and all manner of other things, up close. They even let me help a little, which was brave of them.

I love boats. The only thing I love more is the water itself. I enjoyed walking around on the boat and balancing myself as it pitched a bit. I stood out there and thought about doing the silly Titanic pose :)

Looking back over the deck:

Adam now says we need to live on a boat. He's watched what they do and he thinks he can do it. I've learned when to safely ignore him - haha!

Soothing views:

Coming back into Oriental, we could watch all the Croaker Festival events going on. This colorful area, however, is Fulcher's fish yard.

You can probably only barely see them, but the line of white along the shore are the tents for the vendors at Croaker Festival. (A croaker is a small, ugly fish.) It was rather a relief to know that while all those people were over there sweltering in 98º heat, we were enjoying a nice crisp breeze while clipping along on a sailboat. I don't like crowds, especially in the heat.

The boat, she's 33 feet. I'm sorry to say that I failed to ask her name.

This was something cute at Croaker Fest -- a John Deere homemade ice cream churner!

Soon I'll have pics from the Croaker Festival Parade, which passed by while I was at the farmer's market today. Keep cool this weekend! Our hot weather is set to break early this week, thankfully.