Nocturne Photos

I have such a backlog of photos and posts to share. First, the Nocturne. On Monday morning, Adam, Julia, and I took her over to her new home at last. Adam managed the motor and the tiller. Yep, he looks like a very happy sailor.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I have photos of the boat as she was when Adam first brought her to Oriental on Saturday. She's a bit ... dirty. But here's the tiny cuddy cabin.  I'm sitting in the cabin as I take this. You're looking at the large berth. The panel of wood where the glove is, lifts up, and there's a potty under there. The ladder is for getting off the boat to swim or whatever.  But you can see the gray mildew on the walls. It covers the inside of the cabin.

Julia is such a sailing girl.

The cockpit -- it's 6 feet. The blue vinyl cushions are throughout the boat, but one or two are in terrible shape. There are 4 life vests, plus the large life preserver you see here. That brown stick you see pointing up is the tiller -- used to steer a small boat instead of a wheel.

Anyway, back to Monday morning. It was foggy. We'd borrowed an outboard motor from a friend, since ours was not working, as you know. (Since then, Adam has discovered what was wrong with our motor, and it's now working! Yay!)

Did I mention it was foggy? This is the big bridge over Smith Creek.

There's only one section under the middle of the bridge where you're supposed to take a boat. There's an indicator to show exactly how much bridge clearance there is at that time. We had 43 feet, up to the bridge above. This is crucial for some of these sailboats with tall masts. You'd be amazed at the things people don't consider, in their excitement to buy a sailboat. They buy a lovely boat. They buy a piece of property with a nice slip along Smith Creek. Then they discover that the mast only barely clears the bridge, or only on a good day, or only when the wind is blowing the water out the river. Boat slips on the Neuse side of this bridge are quite a bit more expensive. On the Smith Creek side, slips are cheaper, and smaller boats stay there generally. The Nocturne easily clears this bridge, of course.

I was so proud of Adam. He turned the boat into the slip like a pro and parked her between two other boats. Then he fiddled with the lines for quite a while, getting her situated safely so she won't bump anything.

At home.

We have friends with a lovely little establishment near Oriental, and they're letting us keep the boat there. It's an old-fashioned motor home park/marina. There are quite a few of these in the area, and people who like to boat will keep a simple second home here, for quiet vacationing purposes.

For the fishermen among them, there's a spot for cleaning fish, as you see above.
There's an old boat house/office/store that is no longer in use, I believe.

There's a small maze of docks and piers.

The trailers are tucked neatly along the water under the pines and live oaks, each with its own pier and boat slip.

We removed the sails and cushions for cleaning, and basically stripped down the boat so we could scrub her well. We got a little cleaning done on Monday. But Adam has church responsibilities, and the rest of us have family fun to do, and for right now we'll have to be patient until we have the time and the good weather to get her spick and span. I did, however, work my way into the cabin, and was laid on my back with my head up in the bow of the boat, wiping off the mildew.  I'm sure it won't be the last time!