Tag Archives: boating

5/23/2025 Running in Circles

Sometimes life feels like a traffic circle: a roundabout where you’re stuck on the inside lane. I’m not sure that analogy holds up with Oriental’s tiny yellow traffic circle, but you get the idea. It has been that kind of twenty-four hours. I think Pete and Katie felt it, too. It began with yesterday’s highContinue reading “5/23/2025 Running in Circles”

5/19/2025 Wrong Turn

The day started at 0520. Katie needed to go ashore. Pete and I wanted to reach the Onslow Bridge before the 0700 opening. The anchorage was quiet when we dinghied to the Mile Hammock boat ramp, where we found friends on the same mission. Katie ran around for a few minutes. We all caught up.Continue reading “5/19/2025 Wrong Turn”

5/18/2025 The Most Important Thing

12/24/2003 ”Give him the line!” Pete had yelled this to me at least five times. I stood on deck holding the ever-important forward spring line, confused because the dockmaster I was eye to eye with was a clearly a her, not a him. ”Who!?” I shouted back for the fifth time. ”HIM!” He pointed toContinue reading “5/18/2025 The Most Important Thing”

5/15/2025 Flags

I’m not excited about walking Katie. It’s hot. I don’t do well in heat. I think about black flag days, terminology the military uses to indicate people are at risk for heat exhaustion. Someone told Pete it’s ten degrees hotter than it should be this time of year. Fortunately, there’s a stiff, cooling, southwestern breeze.Continue reading “5/15/2025 Flags”

5/14/2025 Auto Helm

“I’m not going to hand-steer six thousand miles,” Pete said five years ago. Meaning, he wanted autohelm. The installation required him to snake NEMA 2000 cables from rudders to bridge via small holes through inaccessible bulkheads. A lot of sailor mouth was involved. However, now Irish Hurricane can auto-steer a heading or course to makeContinue reading “5/14/2025 Auto Helm”

5/13/2025 Current Reverses

The first half of today’s 45-mile transit was in the Waccamaw River a few miles west of and parallel to the coast between Georgetown and Myrtle Beach. The second part of the trip was in a dredged channel heading northeast toward South Carolina’s Grand Strand. Five miles south of where the dredged channel and WaccamawContinue reading “5/13/2025 Current Reverses”

5/12/2025 Somewhere Out There

Today Katie ran, off the leash, after her ball, in a park big enough to satisfy her need for speed. She hasn’t gotten to do this for weeks. She reminds us of this fact by sitting on the boat and staring into the distance — the far distance — where, she’d like us to know,Continue reading “5/12/2025 Somewhere Out There”