We left Matthews Marina on Monday with a destination of New Bern - about 20 miles up the Neuse River. Matthews was a nice marina - lots of sailboats even though the depth was only about 5 feet most of the way into the marina channel. Very nice people - once again. We had multiple offers of rides to a store (there is nothing within even biking distance). Boaters are such a great group of people!
The river today was as calm as it was rough on Saturday as it just depends on the wind. There is a ferry that crosses the river about 1/2 of the way up the river as there are no bridges since the river is very wide. The amazing thing to me is it is free for cars and people because it is a part of the NC highway system.
We went right past Matt and Wendy's house as we rode up to New Bern. They have an amazing view and it is wonderful to walk into their front room and see the river view.
It's quite shallow close to the shore near their home so we stayed a respectful distance away :-)
This is a blow up of the picture above. If you can see the person standing in front of the house just to the left of the chimney with a red shirt on - that is Wendy! She waved as we went by.
What a cloud of smoke/steam from the "controlled burn" of the Croatian National Forest that sort of got out of control! The wind was predicted to be low but then you know Mother Nature!
The smoke was crazy bad in New Bern. We left the windows and doors shut (and ran the air conditioning) as it was really thick.
The New Bern marina is right in front of the Double Tree hotel. It's very nice and if we want we can take advantage of the hotel facilities like free coffee in the lobby, daily newspaper and pool. Maybe we'll do that before we leave!
Tuesday: off on a road trip! We had talked quite often about getting a small cruiser to leave in the north somewhere and decided now is the time. So travel on Yesterday's Dream for most of Sept thru May but then take the small cruiser and travel the Trent, Georgian Bay and North Channel in June, July and August - the best time of the year to be up there.
Off to Erie PA to see the first of the boats on our list. We were looking at a Bayliner similar to the 22' we had taken to the Trent for a number of years before we left on the trawler.
Checked the one at Erie - it looked to us like THE ONE! All was well until we checked the transom with a hammer. The 'thud' indicated rotted wood. Pass on that one. Next on to Buffalo. Nice boat - made an offer on it and waited to hear back. (This is now Wednesday night).
In the meantime, heard about a boat in Sylvan Falls (NY) - only 3 hours farther east! Thursday morning off we go ... only to have a call from the guy in Ashtabula (OH) about one we thought had promise. Turn around 1 1/2 hours from Sylvan Beach and drive 4 hours to OH. Guess what - bad transom :-( Back on the freeway for the 5 1/2 hour drive to Sylvan Beach arriving about 5:30.
Is it too good to be true? A good transom and the boat we were looking for? Take down that 'for sale' sign - we have a new boat :-) Of course we are just trying to keep up with our boater friends Peter and Cheryl (who have at least 4 boats that we know of) and Jim and Linda (who have at least 2)!
The perfect Canada boat.
Inside view. Not all to our liking but all cosmetic. Who knows - maybe it'll grow on us :-) We close the deal tomorrow, move the boat to Pirates Cove (where we stored Yesterday's Dream the first winter), drive back to NC, take care of some projects on the trawler, spend more time with Matt and Wendy then off north we go.
Since Yesterday's Dream is in my name, we put the new boat (yet nameless) in Steve's name. Now he has a boat too :-)
Looking good. Hoping we will see it first hand. Perhaps our wakes will cross, you returning to US and us returning to Canada.
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