Safe and sound in New Bern

On Tuesday, the drive from DC back to the marina in New Bern was, thankfully, uneventful. It rained most of the way down I-95, but the rain stopped before we got to the marina. Highway 95 was closed, but not until south of where we turned off. None of the secondary roads we needed were closed, and it wasn’t until about 30 miles from the marina that we started seeing evidence of storm damage – trees down, yards that looked like ponds, that sort of thing.

The only water we saw on roadways was about half a mile from the marina, and even that was just a little section less than 6” deep – easily forded by the Chevy.

Back at Northwest Creek Marina the scene was more dire. The water level during the storm rose to above 6’ in the marina buildings. That’s probably 9 or 10’ at the docks. So all the buildings and pools flooded, many of the cars flooded, all of the machinery like ice machines, washing machines, fuel pumps were destroyed. There is no electricity, wifi, or potable water at the marina and it’s not expected to be restored for weeks or months.

Dozens of boats were utterly destroyed – they were thrown about, landing on top of one another, on top of the docks, upside down in the water. Utter chaos on D-dock.

Cupcake is just fine. Not a scratch. Not a leak. One of our stern lines chafed through (but we doubled all the lines in case one failed), another line tore the cleat out of the dock (and appears to have torn the little finger-pier off the main dock too). That’s it.

On Tuesday, once we got over our amazement at our good fortune, we set to work reinstalling the sun canvas, the solar panels, the boom. Got everything pretty much back in place in about an hour and a half. Down below, Cupcake was not the wet, moldy mess we anticipated. There was water in the bilge, but not more than I could dry out with a sponge (wasn’t enough for the bilge pumps to move). Maybe a gallon and a half in total (and some of that was beer – Budweiser cans will corrode through in the bilge, it appears). It’s not clear if there ever was enough water to activate the pumps. Remarkable. This boat is lucky, stout, and dry.

Today we went grocery shopping to replace the perishables we brought to DC for Simon. While Ellen returned the rental car, Moss went up the mast (in a safety harness or course) to rig the lines we took down for the storm. Then we did a little boat school. Tomorrow we will bend on the sails (that means install the sails, you landlubbers) do some more boat school, move the boat to the next slip over because that one hasn’t been beaten up like ours, and maybe get the dinghy from the storage unit.

Karen and Paul, the friendly neighbors on the next dock over, stored Mr. Flowerpot and the outboard at their storage unit. Paul is a little upset about that deal because now he wants a dinghy just like ours (we sang Mr. F’s praises: she is a great little boat). Karen and Paul put all their stored gear in their dinghy and our dinghy. That way, when the storage unit flooded everything floated and was fine.

So things with Cupcake and crew are returning to normal. We will probably stay at the marina through the weekend. Just placed an order for some boat gear including 150’ of dock line because even the good lines are showing their age. Once that delivery arrives, we will head back down the river. We want to take some time to visit Oriental a little longer than before. We also want to get out to the barrier islands to see what they are like and to get back in to water where we can swim.

Moss is appreciating the Baselitz upside-down paintings we enjoyed.

Ellen is about to return the rental car. Good riddance (to the car, not the girl.)

Carnage photo 3. This is the fuel dock. It’s going to be closed for a while.

Carnage photo 4. This is D-dock. Thank goodness we were put on C-dock.

And this is the view we enjoyed as I typed this post. Idyllic. (Also hot, of course.)