Pisces the Catamaran - Day 18

January 10, 2025

0830 Captn OhNo calls crew meeting to discuss upciming weather events. He recommends tying up at the Beaufort Docks for the night to weather the storm with heavy winds forecasted overnight. The crew agrees.

1000 Crew raises Little Baby Pisces and prepares Pisces for raising the anchor and docking. This means stowing all items that could fall over down below and preparing fenders and lines on the docking side of the boat.

1045 Anchor is raised and Pisces is docked at the verrrryyyyy end of the Beaufort Dock.

1115 Crew disembarks the boat to explore the town and locate the bath house for taking showers. Capt OhNo walks to a marine chandlery (marine shop where hardcore people shop). Popcorn and Swabs explore the shops and historic district.

1230 Crew convenes at Pisces for lunch.

1400 Capt OhNo and Popcorn get back in the dinghy and work on projects from the water: anchor bridle chaffing protection (this is where the ropes that hold the anchor rub against a very intense, very thick steel cable that spans the front of the boat causing damage to the ropes that could, over time, cause the ropes to fail). They come up with a fun name for their project “Chaffety Saftey” which spirals into several jingles and a fictional company called Chaffety Safety with a slogan of “Chaffing Safely since 1970'”. They then move on to cleaning the ENTER HERE which is an incredible transformation (see pictures below) and finally Capt OhNo bolts down the life raft case (see Day 6 to hear more about the life raft).

1500 Lt. Swabs showers, OhNo and Popcorn go shopping at the little boutiques on main street in Beaufort. Popcorn purchases a “Duck Camp” shirt in honor of her brother Jacob (who loved to duck hunt).

1600 Lt. Swabs and Capt OhNo chat on the phone with loved ones. Popcorn sets out on foot to find the Library with only a general idea of where it might be but leaves her phone behind. She never does find it (later she discovers the Library has moved outside of downtown so this mission was never going to succeed) but she does find two Little Free Libraries!!!

1730 Crew order pizza and mac n cheese from Black Sheep and settle into Pisces for a movie night with Pirates of the Caribbean.

2030 Lights out!

Pisces the Catamaran - Day 17

January 9, 2025

0630 Capt OhNo and Popcorn watch the sunrise with hot chai

0800 Popcorn spots brown lump on the shore. Upon investigation with binoculars, she realizes that there are wild horses on the island! Popcorn alerts the crew, rousing Swabs from her cabin. So cool!

0900 Crew settles in to catch up on “desk” work using their respective ipads and laptops and taking advantage of the strong cell signal.

1200 Crew enjoys a gluten free pot pot pie luncheon purchased the day before from Beaudega in Beaufort! So yummy!

1400 Crew sets out on the dinghy to explore Carrot Island, located just to the south of the boat and where the horses were spotted earlier in the day. Winds are still gusting to 20+ knots so it’s sold to the crew by Popcorn as “an adventure of a lifetime”.

1420 Crew lands the dinghy on Carrot Island, secures the dinghy to a signpost, locates a trailhead and starts hiking along the island

1435 Crew takes a detour on Popcorns suggestion, to get a closer look at a smaller marsh area full of birds. Swabs leads the way and the crew ends up on the beach next to the ocean!

1445 Popcorn spots horses!!!!! Maybe .5 miles further up the beach - the crew sets out, blazing their own trail across the sand dunes and beach to get a closer look.

1500 The crew is able to get within the prescribed 50’ of the 4 horses and spend about 20 minutes watching them graze

1520 The crew sets off to return to Pisces. While walking, the crew discusses names for the dinghy and settle on “Little Baby Pisces”. They spend much time bushwhacking and eventually find a real trail again that takes them back to the dinghy

1600 The crew reaches LBP (Little Baby Pisces) and heads back to the mothership

Rest of day is spent relaxing on the boat!

We boarded Pisces The Catamaran on December 24, 2024 and pointed her south in a part shakedown, part healing and grieving trip.    Notes are pulled from our handwritten, on board log book.  Crew are:

Captain Clay (captain and owner of Sail & Surf Adventures, married to Ally); call sign Captain OhNo

First Mate Ally (head chef & lead investigator of all maritime mysteries, married to Clay); call sign Popcorn

Second Mate Carly (Ally’s mom, Clay’s mother-in-law, one-woman cleaning crew of Pisces); call sign Lieutenant Swabs

Dahlia (the cutest ship cat); call sign DD

*there is a very important and traumatic and magical process of getting Pisces that we are working on sharing here.  We figured if we waited to start updating until we figured out those words though, we might never start updating at all.  Know that there was a before and an after and this trip is part of our grieving process for our brother/son/friend Jacob.*

Pisces the Catamaran - Day 16

January 8, 2025

1000 Crew moves Pisces from the Oriental Free Dock one slip over to the fuel dock of the marina to take on 25 gallons of fuel (in both tanks and in our diesel heater). Captain OhNo had some trouble maneuvering Pisces, not realizing the rudders were hard over. Important lesson learned.

1030 Pisces departs Oriental. Sun is shining and the Nuese River is calm.

1045 Capt OhNo raises the sails and large chunks of ice come crashing onto the decks! Popcorn is at the helm. Pisces does a combination of sailing and motoring across the Nuese River and into Adam’s Creek, bound for Beaufort!

1330 Dolphins!

1400 Pisces arrives at Beaufort (with more dolphin sightings!) and anchors in Taylors Creek, just along the Beaufort waterfront. The new anchor bridle is easier to manage.

1420 The crew launches the dinghy for the very first time! The small outboard dinghy engine did not want to run properly but Capt OhNo fiddled with it and eventually got it to run decently. From on board the boat, Popcorn held onto a rope that was also attached to the dinghy so that Capt OhNo could tentatively test the dinghy with the safety of still being tethered to the boat. With sufficient confidence in the dinghy, Capt OhNo and Popcorn venture away from Pisces and across the creek to the town dinghy dock where they land the dinghy for free and go ashore. They were having so much fun looking at the stores and walking around that they called Swabs in hopes that she would join them, having initially stayed behind because they dinghy seemed kind of scary. She agreed to come out and Capt OhNo went back out to Pisces to get her. The whole crew enjoys an wonderful afternoon ashore!

We boarded Pisces The Catamaran on December 24, 2024 and pointed her south in a part shakedown, part healing and grieving trip.    Notes are pulled from our handwritten, on board log book.  Crew are:

Captain Clay (captain and owner of Sail & Surf Adventures, married to Ally); call sign Captain OhNo

First Mate Ally (head chef & lead investigator of all maritime mysteries, married to Clay); call sign Popcorn

Second Mate Carly (Ally’s mom, Clay’s mother-in-law, one-woman cleaning crew of Pisces); call sign Lieutenant Swabs

Dahlia (the cutest ship cat); call sign DD

*there is a very important and traumatic and magical process of getting Pisces that we are working on sharing here.  We figured if we waited to start updating until we figured out those words though, we might never start updating at all.  Know that there was a before and an after and this trip is part of our grieving process for our brother/son/friend Jacob.*

Pisces the Catamaran - Day 14 & 15

No logbook entities for these days. General notes of interest:

• A tiny 26’ sailboat docked next to us also looking for protection from the gale winds forecasted. The sailboat had hailing port of a town in Poland and the captain was named Peter. He had sailed his boat from Poland and had been sailing and living aboard for 1.5 years! He was super fun.

• We also made friends with a couple from Canada who were also docked for the approaching weather. We caught up with them later down in Beaufort.

• The crew discovered a bike for transient boaters to use; it was an old Schwin trike and you had to pretty much steer it using your entire body.

• Popcorn found all of the Little Free Libraries in Oriental and picked up a book called “Wool” which she became obsessed with reading for the next 3 days.

• The crew found a small annex called The Visitors Center which was an excellent little temperature controlled space for charging our devices, making phone calls and otherwise hanging out somewhere else besides the boat.