Samantha Suvak's Birthday Party

Well, it's all downhill from here. Sam turned 45 today....we celebrated her birthday at the Gazebo here in Oriental, and Peter and Gail (woooohoooo, they're back!) came all the way in from Puerto Rico and St. Maarten to bring the royal entertainment....

She was queen for the evening with her throne, royal staff, and court entertainment. The festivities included a large spread of royal food, and performances by
Dilled Okra and the Swingin' Dinghies
and special guests Huevos Rancheros Bongo Babes.....

here's a few pictures...

Black and White Fidelis

I edited this one, the shot was taken by Susan

Fidelis in Black and White

Grace Sailing Home From Ocracoke

Caught Perry and Susan's Cabo Rico on the way back....she's a beautiful boat!

Fidelis Gets A New Canvas

This is the painting Susan Cheatham did of our boat "Fidelis". She painted this while on our way back from Ocracoke this past weekend. We took a picture of the painting with our camera and then added a digital frame and her name at the bottom (like we would our photos), because after all, shouldn't a beautiful painting have a frame?

She named this "Homeward Bound"....she even put the little red C-36 triangle on the sail!

Thanks again Susan, what a wonderful gift you have!

You can learn more about Susan's fantastic creations at susancheatham.com

Memorial Day Weekend

We took our friend Josh along for the weekend, he was stationed at the same place I was while he was in the Marine Corps. We left out at around 4 pm Friday and headed to Turnagain Bay Beach.

We then left in the morning and sailed to Ocracoke Island. It was an 8 hour sail, beautiful weather and great wind. We saw a huge Sea Turtle, a large stingray, and caught a bluefish. Josh did grill duty.....some of the menu items....grilled marinated chicken quarters, hotdogs, marinated catfish, pancakes and ham......to name a few....we ate well!

Perry and Susan sailed with us on their boat Grace.... while at the island, we got together and picked a little. It was a blast.

This is a picture Bridget caught of Perry and Susan's Cabo Rico...."Grace" right after we left early morning from Turnagain Bay headed to Ocracoke...the wind was still light so the water was pretty and flat...didn't take long for it to pick up and fill out those sails.

Had a fantastic sail back from the island after a wonderful weekend with friends.

Quick Walkthrough

Had the auto-pilot set, and nothing was on the horizon for at least a mile, so I shot a quick video while sailing to South River.....here it is....

Stingray Here, Stingray There

Of course when you take out a camera to get a shot, you hardly see any, but this is a video of a few of the stingrays the boys found while out at south river. They were mating and swimming up under the boat. Some of them were four feet wide from wing tip to wing tip. You can see there little wings pop out of the water here and there.

Muffler Repair Complete

After cutting the muffler out of the bottom of the boat, and then spending a few days prepping and repairing, glassing a new neck on the intake side of the muffler box and "beefing up the exhaust side" and reinstalling, we took the boat to South River. This is our first trip out with the boat since we came back from Wrightsville Beach. The boys found hundreds of stingrays (may have been skates, I don't know the difference) near shore mating. We had a fantastic sail over and back....

Hard Times

In a place called Lowland, North Carolina, a countryside in the back coastal marshes on the inland side of the Nuese, is an old fish house where an old boat rests. The owner of this trawler said that when he purchased it in 1976 new, it was already 10 years old. The boat took several years to build and several years to sell. It has fished waters all the way up the coast to New York and back. It was last pulled into this small river next to the fish house over 10 years ago. There was an attempt many years ago to try to restore her, but when the crew got to the bottom of the inside of the bildge, they found so much rotten wood, they decided to stop immediately. It's been sitting since, and is slowly falling apart.

Another Find For Bridget

Weekend Trip In History

We went to the oldest city in North Carolina today....Bath, NC. 300 years ago Edward Teach was given a pardon from Charles Eden, the governor at the time. Teach lived in Bath for a time. Edward Teach was better known as the dreaded pirate Blackbeard. He would braid hemp rope in his beard and hair, lighting the ends on fire to give the appearance that smoke was coming from his head before boarding many a ship in the Southern Islands, and all up the east coast...even blockading the Charleston harbor in South Carolina for several days. He was finally killed in Ocracoke, and his head was hung from the sprit of the British ship that won the bloody battle that took Blackbeard's life. Some accounts say that his headless body swam around the British ship several times before finally sinking into the depths...others say his body was displayed in other harbors to help ward off other pirates. Recently, the Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's flagship for a time, was found just off the beach of Fort Macon near the Beafort Inlet, not far from here. Over 16,000 peices of that ship have been excavated from the site where it was found, still much of the ship lays on the bottom...

Bridget caught this shot in Bayview just outside of Bath, near the waterfront.