Rain, Rain Go Away...

We are sorry that we have been derelict about updating the blog. We left Nassau on May 25 and we have been running very long 8-10 hour days. So we are pretty exhausted when we arrive to our days destination. In addition we have been traveling with the rain and thunderstorms most of the way. We did have two days off but on one of them Rick worked on replacing the fuel pump with our friend Steve and on the other Rick changed the oil in both engines and both generators which is about a 6 hour job...so we haven't had much down time.

We have stayed in marinas every night except two because of the thunderstorms. Normally, we anchor out more than we do stay in marinas but the thunderstorms have been coming up usually in the late afternoons and during the nights and we don't enjoy anchoring out in those conditions. Three or four times we have just hooked up in the marina before the thunderstorms hit, and some of them have been doosies.

The good news (GREAT news) is that we are now in a marina just 3 miles south of the North Carolina border. We expect to stay in Wrightsville Beach tomorrow night then we will be in Morehead City, our home port, late Friday afternoon. We will rent a car on Saturday, do boat chores then leave for our home in Cary on Sunday. After that we will do a lot of nothing for several days to catch our breaths. We have been so lucky to have our friends, Nell and Jim, watch our house while we were gone. What gems they have been. Of course, Jim tells us that he has to get the tenants out of the house before Sunday and the goat out of the guest bathroom but I'm sure he will get that done!

The bad news is that tonight is the last night that we were able to have dinner aboard Tide Hiker, our buddy boat. Vicki and Norm will be anchoring out tomorrow night then we will part company on Friday as they will head towards their home port in Delaware. What would we have done without our buddy friends? To say that the trip would have been vastly different is an understatement. We all relied on each other for technical issues, swapping cooking questions (and ingredients), advice on any number of things, laughter and most of all friendship. We will miss them terribly but we look forward to more adventures on our boats together in the future.

In the meantime, we have many boat projects to take care of. Six months in Rickshaw is showing some wear and tear so we will need to put her in order.

We will update the blog when we get home and get settled. It has been fun to share our adventures with all of you and we are glad that you enjoyed them and the pictures.

Love to you all. Rick and Lynnie