Enjoying our stay at Cherry Point and the last leg of the trip back

We got into Cherry Point and tied up just before a squall moved through with heavy wind and rain. The weather was deteriorating as we came up the ICW and ushered in another frontal passage that set up the pattern for the next couple weeks. While we were at Cherry Point we had rain almost every day.

Sunday evening after we got secured my son and his kids came by. The next day we picked up a rental car and were driving to West Marine when my son called and told me there would be a promotion ceremony for him that afternoon and we were very happy to see him promoted to Captain and went out for dinner to celebrate.

While we were at Cherry Point during the day we worked on boat chores and then spent the evenings with my son's family. On Tuesday we drove over to River Dunes and met our friend Dave Sikes for lunch in Oriental.

Wednesday my sister called to tell us that her husband died and we discussed the timing of the funeral. It didn't come as a surprise although we hoped he would hold out until we got back to the Bay. He faced death squarely and through his faith celebrated his homecoming.

As planned we left early Thursday morning under miserable skies. As we got down the river the wnd built and when we crossed the Pamlico Sound we were facing wind and swells on our nose until we turned and motor sailedto the channel. From then on we made good progress and got through the Alligator River - Pungo River Canal before 1700 where we dropped the hook.

Sailing through Pamlico Sound.

After dropping the hook we went to turn on the generator and found it had no power. I soon found that our starter battery was dead and wouldn't start the genset so we would be without heat. Fortunately, our boat has a parallel switch so we could restart the engine in the morning and then the engine would recharge the batteries as they seemed to be fully charged. This began an entire string of power failures resulting in the total panel failure when we got back to Oxford. Analysis revealed a broken charging wire off the alternator to the starting battery. Hopefully that will prove to be the total extent of damage.

After a very quiet night with lots of rain we left early in fog and made our way to Coinjock where we met up with our friend Dave Sikes again and had him onboard for dinner and drinks.

Our view at Coinjock.

We left Coinjock early morning Saturday uncertain about the weather. Forecasts were for heavy winds to come up the next morning possibly before we got into our slip. We considered a possible bailout at Norfolk but pressed on. The night was uneventful with lots of commercial traffic on the Bay and we got into our slip in Oxford about 0630 almost exactly 24 hours after we left Coinjock. The wind was very light as we got the boat secured and had breakfast. Later in the morning while we were sleeping the wind came up ferociously for the remainder of the day.

Our last sunset as we headed up the Bay.

An ominous sunrise on our last day before getting back to Oxford.

We completed our trip back to the point from whence we started back in October. Now time to do boat work, visit family and enjoy the summer. The trip from Cherry Point was about 400 miles and we did it pretty much in 3 days through the Intracoastal and finally up the Bay.