Woke up to a nice perfectly calm morning again. We spent most of the morning talking to boat yards trying to find a place to take us in and hopefully replace our rudder bushings. The amount of play has been growing, and as much as I had hoped it wasn't anything, and it wasn't getting worse, it doesn't change the fact that they are.
We tried TJ's in Belhaven, which looked very hopeful, but they were booked right up. He gave me a couple of names, one being Bock Marina in Beaufort. That also looked promising, but they were also full up with work. They recommended a couple other names and so we tried Zimmerman's, who have a location in Beaufort as well. They are pretty busy but they do have a yard in Holden Beach, and so we talked to them, and that is now the plan. We'll get down there (another few days at least) and get hauled out there and see what they can do. I suspect we'll need some custom bushings fabricated, but we'll see when we get there. At least we finally have a plan to action now.
After all that calling about in the morning, taking photos to show the issues, etc, we finally got underway pretty late in the day. Light wind, then a bit of stormy wind for a short bit, then more light wind. We took the light wind to cross Pamilico River which was beautiful. Basically drifted across it at 3 to 4 knots, but beautiful silence, and I was able to do some reading on the foredeck while slicing through the calm water. Love that.
We put the sails away after coming into Goose Creek, and anchored just right off the channel at Snode Creek. An "anchorage" that is basically just right out in the middle with mostly zero protection. But just the place for us late in the evening, sun setting, and thankfully no wind. And plans to leave first thing next morning.
Funnily enough, looking at the reviews for the anchorage, we see that Fog Horn Lullaby left a review just last year when they came through here. The world is smaller than it seems sometimes.
Got to bed, and ready for a push down to Morehead City in the morning.
Also, no pictures today. Unfortunate, because there was sailing, jellyfish, rain clouds, sunsets, etc. Sometimes we just forget to take out the camera, and today was one of those days.
