celebrate - Winston-Salem, NC

4/30/18  Beaufort, NC

This beautiful woman is the reason my blog has been silent for the past several days. Kathleen, my dear aunt, is dad's sister who married my mother's brother. So her children are my double cousins. Kathleen lives in her own home on her own, cooks daily, cans tomatoes and green beans every year, has a daily spiritual practice that inspires me, has a sense of humor and this trip I helped her quilt for her third great grandchild.

What a wonderful model of compassionate humanity!

There was a gathering of about 30 family and close family friends for a burger/dog cookout. Her nieces, nephews, children, grands and great grands gathered to celebrate her, now rather than waiting for her funeral that we hope comes years from now.

She is the reason we've been pressing the throttle to get to NC by the end of this month. Success! We stay with Kathleen when in Winston-Salem.

We docked Grace on the back side of Beaufort, NC and rented a car to get inland. We stopped on the way to visit my dear friend, Stacy, and her husband, Ken. We had an easy 3 hour visit. Got to talk with mutual friend, Ann, while there via phone.

Moving onto Winston-Salem in addition to my wonderful cousins who made the cookout (Marc from SC and Nancy from FL traveled farthest) I had a visit with childhood dance buddy, Suzi, and a phone visit with the wonderful Sybil. Such a blessing to have al these lovelies in my life.

Leading up to all this family/friend stuff:

David and I left Dudley's Marina on Wednesday morning and made our way the three hours to Beaufort, NC. The motor was beautiful. Winds continued to blow and we put a sail out. (Sailed a bit on Monday, too.) I picked our way through a really skinny channel to get from Morehead City to the Town Creek Marina in Beaufort. We went under the new bridge rather than having to wait for the bascule bridge as on the way south earlier this year.

And then there was getting into our assigned slip. HMofG! (Holy Mother of God)!!! It was a narrow entry, wind was abeam, pilings rather than a dock, short short finger pier. So poor Grace got pushed into the piling, David backed up, wind pushed us farther into the slim entry, I tried unsuccessfully to lasso a piling (any piling), because of short finger piers deck hands couldn't get close enough to us to take a line and help, David tried to turn around, wind pushed us closer to retaining wall, people came out on their boats to watch and to protect their boats, forward toward the pilings for lasso-ing, nope. Finally,  a deck hand was able to get onboard and using a borrowed tool looped a line over a piling, then another piling and we pulled ourselves into the slip. It was a nasty landing but no damage beyond pride and so many sailors had experienced similar difficulties that there was little need for shame. We both worked up a sweat though and needed those delicious hot showers we took. So much for the massages we'd had the day before. All benefit now gone except the memory.

About an hour later we helped the dock crew land a sail boat in the slip beside us. Part helping, part protecting our boat from bumping damage.

These new glasses were bought in Swansboro at the Lowe's food store. We're delighted as the glasses we purchased when we got the boat are scratched and crazing.


After our long hot showers Sybil's dear friend, Holland, came to fetch us to take to his house to dinner. He climbed (literally, the short finger piers make it necessary to climb over the bow of the boat in order to get off and on) over the rail and we treated him (I think he felt treated) to his first "Dark n' Stormy" - a sailor's drink of ginger beer and dark rum. And we introduced ourselves.

Holland drove us to his sweet little house in the historic district of Beaufort, just down the street from a house my Bates colleague was selling two years ago that we vaguely considered as possible winter home...as if we could have afforded a little house in this historic district. NOT!

Holland fed us the most scrumptious left over spaghetti and meatballs dinner, treated us to wine and a couple of his friends, his art work. We discovered we have a mutual visual artist acquaintance who we both went to separate colleges with. A great evening and I'm so pleased to have met the dear friend of a dear friend. We're likely to see Holland tomorrow night. We'll bring the wine.

Getting a rental car turned out to be a challenge. Our go-to car company is Enterprise but they had no cars. David is a master of research on the internet but the result was that we left Beaufort later than planned. No worries. We got where we were going.

Quilting with Kathleen in her living room. I love the atmospheric nature of this photo. Reminds me of a t.v. western cabin...well, except for the electricity and the wicker furniture.


The long drive from W-S to Beaufort gave me time to do some writing...support letters for two residencies I may be able to do next fall winter.

The drive also gave us time for some deep thinking about whether to take Grace all the way to Maine or put her up below the Mason Dixon line. We've decided to bring her home, leave her in the water for summer fun - I hope we'll get to Penobscot Bay this summer. We definitely want to be more available in Freeport because it is Maggie's last year of high school. Don't want to miss her activities during her last year. So we've decided to not plan boating adventures on Grace this 2081/2019 school year. We'll sail this summer, put Grace in her home boat shed and do the galley renovation work this fall/early winter/spring. Of course, we'll hire the major refrigeration and cabinetry work out to pros.

This seems like a good plan and will also make it possible for me to do some artist residency work I'd like to do. And now cost as much as boarding our boat in a boat yard for the winter. Since we're not planning to be south on Grace this winter why pay a boarding fee in the south. Another year, maybe.

So now we look for a cheap car, hopefully to find one here in NC or VA. We'll need two if we're in Freeport for the year. And to start the trek onward, northward. Some decisions made.

Lovely lady fishing next to Fritha on the waterfront in Beaufort.

Love those feathery tail feathers.