Free laundry and a courtesy car!! Woo woo!

Ben at the helm doing his captain thing!

Crocket taking an afternoon rest all snuggled in with my sweatshirt.

Today was another great travel day only moving 41 miles to a marina called, Dowry Creek in Belhaven, NC.

This marina was not much to speak of, but the free laundry helped. As soon as we were tied to our spot, I started doing laundry and prepared some chicken for Ben to grill (this will be used for lunch underway). Then Liz stopped by to let us know they are taking the courtesy car (the free car also helped) into town.
"Wait!, we wanna go!" I exclaim.
We all headed into town, not much of a town, seems a bit run down with lots of empty or abandoned homes and businesses. We were on a mission for the grocery store until we got side tracked at the local ACE Hardward, then a stop by the free dock in town and spotted several Loopers docked there. We made it to the Food Lion parking lot (I have never been in a Food Lion) when we saw a Chinese restaurant in the same complex so we had to see what they have. Next thing I know we were ordering Chinese for dinner. We grocery shopped while our food was being prepared.
Back to the boat so I could finish the laundry. We ate our dinner on board and met up on Bob and Liz's boat for some cards before calling it a night.

Two more stops before we go through the Dismal Swamp!!

Dowry Creek pool and boat house. Every night at 5:30 is cocktail hour for the locals, Ben stopped by but no one spoke to him so he left. 

Jammin Jane and Knot Sew Easy docked in Belhaven, NC

View from the laundry room

We found another POOL!!!

River Dunes Marina and Resort, Oriental, NC
Traveled 36 miles in 4 hours.

If I had my way, everyday we would only travel 30-40 miles. Which can take us anywhere from 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 hours. That, to me, is the ideal situation. I know if Crocket could talk, he would agree! In my ideal world, we sleep in a bit, Crocket gets to go out more than once, we eat eggs for breakfast not just fruit, and take a shower all before throwing lines. We then arrive at our destination with enough daytime to explore our new port of call.

Sometimes the exploring takes us into town and sometimes we never leave the marina.

We never left this marina! It was a beautiful new facility with a restaurant (a wedding took over the restaurant so we didn't get to try it out), a cute store for snacks and homemade frozen meals, breakfast pastries, coffee/tea/sodas and, need I say more...the marina had a POOL AND HOT TUB!!! We made it to the pool (not heated and a bit cold) and ended up in the hot tub. Then appetizers on Knot Sew Easy (Bob and Liz), ending our evening with dinner on board. It was a great short visit.

This was us leaving the channel that takes you to the marina. It was serene as we turned into the channel before catching sight of the marina. 

This is the store for some snacking.

This is the restaurant on site. Also housed here is the marina office.
The resort had a workout facility and tiki bar...amenities we are not used to seeing.

If you look close you can see Jammin Jane docked.

What do you do when you are bored...braid Bob's hair! Oh my!
When Ben and I met Bob he had his hair much shorter, he is not cutting it until they cross their wake...

Looks good! I still can't believe he let us do this to him!

We will be moving/traveling every day for the next five days...We have learned to only travel during the week (easier to get slips and less boat traffic) and spend the weekend docked in one spot. This usually works in our favor for festivals/concerts/farmers markets. So, we will stick to it!

Our engine drama...

Since the install of our new remaned Caterpillar 3116 turbo engine (starboard side), she has had a hard start. Everything runs great, temperatures are perfect, idle is good and no shake or noise. BUT, it was taking about 5-8 seconds of cranking the engine before it would start. Not ideal and not how it should be.

We have had Caterpillar mechanics on our boat in three different locations. Which is great that they can come to us and do the work, but it is inconvenient for us as well. We (well mostly Ben) have to stay at the boat when we would rather be touring, our floor is open so the mechanics can come and go. The opening to our engine room happens to be in our living room/kitchen so that makes it awkward to lay on the couch and watch TV. A bigger issue is they seem to send their lesser experienced mechanics and everyone has "their" idea of what is causing the hard start. Except not one of them was able to figure out the problem. They ended up making things worse because they all touched and removed parts to assess the problem. It was getting to be an extreme annoyance!

While we were in New Bern we had yet another mechanic on the boat. This guy suggested a rack adjustment (which another mechanic adjusted and gave the engine a bit of a knock that was not there before), and needed to go back to the shop to get the kit. At that Ben asked him if he's done these a lot and comfortable with this. His reply was simply NO! These particular engines can be a bit tricky to adjust. If we were only using our boat on the weekends we would have time to dilly dally. BUT we live on our boat and we move almost daily. Ben very kindly says he does not want him doing the work and would like someone who is experienced and has done the adjustment on our particular type of engine. YOU GO BEN! I was totally thinking the same thing!

Next day (we are now one day past our plans) the head mechanic arrives and narrows it down to a possible problem with our governor. The governor restricts the speed of the engine by managing the rate of fuel into the engine. 

Problem, the part is in Miami, we are in New Bern, NC and it will cost $200 to ship. 

The mechanics leave (since they can't do anything without the part) and within an hour we have a call from Caterpillar. They will pay the shipping if we can stay ANOTHER day.

Our priority is to fix our boat, Ben felt comfortable with these mechanics. By the time the part arrived, it was mid afternoon. Caterpillar finally left the boat at 8:00pm. 

Things have been running great! Our Jammin Jane is finally feeling good! The hard start is gone, the rack adjustment is spot on. We are very pleased now that we have all things running great. Our confidence is building and we will continue our travels knowing we are all healthy!  

23 miles out of the way...New Bern, NC

Enjoying a cold, crisp fountain Pepsi in the store it originated!

New Bern, NC...We came here to visit with our Looper friends, Ralph and Linda on Mazel Tug. We met them 2-weeks into our trip and have enjoyed every time we found ourselves in the same location. Together we conquered the 24-hour Gulf of Mexico crossing (Panama City, FL to Clearwater, FL) and they came to see us (out of their way) while we were in Anna Maria, FL. Ralph and Linda crossed their wake (completed the Loop) a few months ago. 

What we didn't look into (poor planning on our part) is that the marina is 23 miles off the ICW. 23 miles, no big deal right? Well when you only travel at 9 knots, it takes a good 2.5 hours. This was an additional 2.5 hours we didn't factor into our travels. Top it off, it was raining with possible thunderstorms approaching. Of course it gets even better (sarcasm)...there is a bridge 200 yards from the marina that we needed to have opened AND guess what???? It stops opening from 4:00-6:00 for rush hour traffic. I look at my watch, 3:25! Thankfully, the boat Gods were helping us this day. We arrived with 15 minutes to spare! PHEW!!!

Our plan was to stay two-nights but that changed quickly. The price is right ($1/foot), and we needed to have Caterpillar (maker of our diesel engines) do some work on our boat. (Next post I will give details of what's been going on) Bob and Liz, our faithful buddies, stayed with us while we added 2 extra days. So, we made the most of it!

Ralph became our personal Uber driver taking us grocery shopping. Then they had all of us to their beautiful home for a delicious pasta dinner prepared by Linda... yummy!! When they found out we were staying the extra days, they brought us all pizza for a pizza party at the marina! Our stay was wonderful! 

New Bern is the birth place of Pepsi!

Store full of everything Pepsi Product

Beautiful home in town.

What a treat!! Live music on our walk around town. These young men were only 16 years old!

The town in decorated with Bears everywhere...Liz and I posing with this big guy! Notice we have ICE CREAM!!! 

My fabulous friend Liz (Knot Sew Easy) helping me clean our rugs...here we are wringing out her rug. 

We toured the Tryon Palace. This is a replica of the government house that was built in 1760 for the royal governor of North Carolina. New Bern used to be the capital of NC, shortly after the capital was moved to Raleigh, NC, the building burned down. It was rebuilt in the 1950's and is used as a tourist attraction today.  

This is where all the official meetings took place...of course the governor sits at the big table.

The stables are the only original part of the building that remains.

This here is a privy...bathroom/out house...

This is what it looks like inside...there are four seats in this privy. That means in order to get to the back toilet you have to walk around everyone else! EWWW! Glad to have a private privy on our boat!

All the gardens were recreated as well, simply beautiful!

Our little tour group.

Swansboro, NC...

Our travels to Swansboro was 55 miles and we did this in 6 hours. We needed a place to dock and Casper's was exactly what we were looking for and more!

I knew we were heading to a marina that supplied a dock and power but beyond that it was unknown. So, to our surprise, within walking distance was an adorable residential neighborhood, an even cuter town complete with restaurants, ice cream and candy and lots of unique stores. Liz and I shopped a bit while Bob and Ben found a bar to wait until we finished. I had my first she-crab soup (much like a new england clam chowder only crab) here and loved it! We arrived early afternoon and toured the town before heading to the boat. Ben and I decided to enjoy dinner out while Bob and Liz ate on their boat. 

Not much more to do other than relax for another day on the water.  

swing bridge

Casper's Marina, really nice people here!

Wrightsville Beach, NC...never heard of it...

We traveled only 30 miles to Seapath Yacht Club in Wrightsville Beach, NC. This was the first time in months that we knew it was a weekend because of how many boaters were on the water. We had several spots with some shoaling to watch out and with all the other traffic I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. It felt like we were back home on the small chain of lakes in Illinois. Lots of boaters!!

Arriving at the yacht club (which was very nice) we needed to take on fuel and pump out. We were waiting for our turn on the dock, actually waiting for the deck hand to give us the OK, when a small go-fast boat totally cut in front and starting fueling up. I was ready to jump off the boat and kick some you-know-what...but he was much bigger than me! 

Once we were docked, I made lunch and we took the dinghy down and went sight seeing. What a great little spot we found. Lots of boats to check out, several restaurants/bars, and most important...a seafood market!! We bought our dinner and headed back to the boat to relax and have dinner. I did some laundry and we went over our route for the next day. It should be an interesting one as we have several bridges that only open on either the half hour or the hour, and lots of shoaling to worry about. Not my ideal way to boat but this is the ICW...bridge restrictions, other boaters and shallow water to contend with. Ben and I would prefer to boat on the outside (the Atlantic Ocean) with none of these worries but our buddy boat does not want to do that so we will grin and bear it!

Until then, we are enjoying our time here in Wrightsville Beach. Next time around I would like to check this town out.  

Random palm tree and parking meter in the channel

Took a dinghy ride to the seafood market...

We enjoyed fresh Halibut for dinner!

Checking out boats on our dinghy ride

Jammin Jane docked at Seapath Yacht Club

We survived boating the Cape Fear River!!!

Look close and you might be able to see Jammin Jane!

Our travels to Wilmington, NC were a bit interesting from goat sightings to abandoned shrimp boats. One portion of the ICW (Lockwood Folly's) was on our radar as being a section to be cautious with lots of shoaling. We did great and benefited by having our buddy boats go through first and report on depths.

Cute goat getting a sun tan. Ben spoke goat to him and got nothing but a bit of a head turn! 

Haven't seen this before.

Lockwood Folly's, pretty shallow here.

We (along with Kevin, Jill, Bob and Liz and our new buddies Dave and Nancy) resolved to spend three nights in downtown Wilmington, NC. We only traveled 14 miles on Cape Fear, which technically is 14 miles out of the way as we were off the ICW. The Cape Fear River is 202 miles long and is a black water river. Which is a river that is deep and slow moving traveling through swamp and wetlands. Decaying vegetation release tannins in the water causing it to be acidic and have the color of tea or coffee. It also can leave stains on the hull of the boat. The Cape Fear River was not what I was expecting, I did not hear any banjo's playing nor did it resemble the rivers we traveled down months ago. Turns out it is very industrial, at least on this stretch, with quite a bit of military fly-bys and ship traffic. We even had to wait while a couple tugs were turning a massive ship around so we could pass by them. It was a sight to see!

We even got to tour a tall ship!

But even more surprising was that Wilmington is one happening college town!!

What do you do in a college town????... Act like a college kid, of course!!

Wilmington, NC is a very fun spot!! We were docked right downtown and within walking distance to all the fun. Three nights here pretending we were in our twenties was a blast! We had amazing oysters, shopped the farmers market, worked our way to almost every bar in town (trust me there are A LOT), hit the taco food truck late night and did a bit of shopping (and made purchases at the Cotton Exchange). It was very hard not to shop as every corner had a great boutique loaded with the perfect outfits!

Kevin had a birthday while here and we celebrated in style. We tested all the local watering holes, AND found a table with six stools, at the roof top bar. Lucky us!

Me and Jill

Bob and Jill late night

The Crew (L to R) Jill, Nancy, Kevin, Dave, Liz, Jane, Ben and Bob. We were in the basement of an old hotel that was haunted. No ghost visits while we were visiting...sad face. 

The girls  

late night

I almost forgot to mention, Ben bought a banjo!!! Bob bought a ukulele!! Neither of them know how to play, YET! I LOVE the banjo and he already sounds good. Bob does too! Rock on! I'm on the hunt for a fiddle...

This will be our last stop (until we catch back up) traveling with Kevin and Jill on Chasing 80. They need to have some boat work done in Annapolis and will begin their travels north, moving daily. We will be moving north just not as fast so we will take our time until we reach them in the near future.