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The
Wayfarer Midwinters of 2005 |
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SHADES
being
awakened
from
hibernation in |
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Late on
Friday afternoon,
Marc Bennett (l) and Uncle Al are ready for warmer
climes,
but first ... |
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... a
fill-up
at the local Starbucks. |
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Good
driving
weather - no
precipitation - and we reach our Days Inn
in ...
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Saturday,
the
29th: Marc and I tend
to have similar sleep patterns:
at |
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Presto!
Mid-afternoon finds
us rainless, happy and checked into a nice
beachfront hotel in Nags
Head. |
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| Already we
feel better, even though the temperature is just into
the 40's
Fahrenheit. ... |
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SHADES is
left
to guard our hotel room, while Marc and I head off
to
a fine
dinner at the Outer Banx Steakhouse where we
revisit with the
owners
and with other friends we had made in 2003. We
tuck ourselves into bed early (10 p.m.) and plot
strategy
for Sunday. With a day of heavy, cold rains
forecast, we decide to make
this our only night on the Banks, and to head
south as quickly as we
can -
perhaps to an overnight stop in Beaufort, South
Carolina, which so
impressed Lee Hughes during his Wayfarer voyage up
the US East Coast as
chronicled in The
Biggest Boat I Could Afford.
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Sunday,
the 30th:
It was
still dark as we left Nags Head in rain, heavy at
times, but no
freezing rain, on Sunday morning. By the time we
stopped for gas in the
lowlands halfway to Rocky Mount and I-95, the rain
had washed the salt
off both car and boat (see photo below!!). Marc
and I felt
great, and even the lousy gas station coffee
couldn't dim that feeling
of joy. By early afternoon, we were in ...
...
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| ...
Beaufort,
South Carolina. A lovely town, even on a ... ... |
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| ... fairly
cool and breezy afternoon. ... |
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| After the
long day's driving, the cold $1.00 beer at Kathleen's
on the
main drag was doubly welcome. Always the gentleman, Marc helped our lovely bartender to put the bar's Lego Kathleen who had had a great fall ... ... |
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| ... back
together again. A lovely place, Kathleen's
- with great food
and
very nice prices, which we thoroughly tried out ... ... |
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| ... after
getting another waterfront room for the night. ... |
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| They even
gave us a parking spot that would let us ... ... |
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| ... leave SHADES
hooked
up to the car while we
walked back down the main street to Kathleen's. ... |
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| Monday,
Jan. 31st: Marc and I had no trouble picturing Lee Hughes and Wanderer in this fine setting on the Beaufort waterfront. ... |
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But even
the lovely early morning coffee from Common
Ground (above -
note the nice harbour area reflected in the
windows), could not keep
us there. We wanted more warmth than the coffee
was providing. Today's
ambitious plan was to get as far south as we could
(comfortably!)
manage, hopefully to Lake Eustis and beyond, to
Treasure Island south
of St. Petersburg. Our charmed life, weather-wise,
continued as we saw
hardly any more rain while the radio was full of
tales of snowy and icy
woe
from the areas we had passed through unscathed
only a couple of days
ago. By mid-afternoon we had zipped through
Jacksonville and its
frantic pre-Super Bowl preparations and were at
the Lake Eustis Sailing
Club where we quickly dropped off and rigged SHADES
before
...
...
|
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| ... continuing on towards Tampa/St.Petersburg. Lots of hurricane damage still in evidence here on the Gulf Coast. Our Ramada Inn from last year was gone but we found another waterfront room for the night. And fortunately, our fond memories restaurant from last year, Sculley's, had survived, and we had another great meal there. Later, we discovered that it was not the hurricanes that had done in the Ramada, but rather developers who wanted beachfront condos space. |
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