Sailboats Fair and Fine # 32 : read oldest posts first

Oct.31 Halloween!

Were still in Swansboro. Doug has the engine all apart in the cockpit and we've been waiting and we've been waiting on parts all week. A place in Moorehead city is supposed to bring them this morning.

Last Friday Doug rigged a boom and a pully and lifted the engine up into the cockpit while we were still at anchorage. Saturday he took the thing apart to make sure what was wrong and what was needed to fix it. We explored a little in the afternoon and Sunday. Sunday. We found the Grocery store a couple miles away and stocked up a little. Monday morning we sailed into the marina ( Casper's ) and tied up. Doug called Moorhead city to order parts and we've been waiting since then. We walked into town and enjoyed our stay but we are ready to get going now

Yesterday morning we saw another boat from Deltaville. Lynn and Smokey Slater on the “Saugeen Witch” pulled up to the dock across from us. They used to have a Ruarks Marina years ago when we had our first boat there. That's been close to twenty years. Hope we meet up with them again farther South.

The “Saugeen Witch” at one time was Tom Colvins boat. He designed and built her and I think as best I remember may have sailed her around the world. I think his first trip was in a schooner of his design and construction.

I had a good time at Casper's Marina they had a little limited machine shop there and I did a little work for them, did a little welding for myself. The place was a hangout for the retired crowd there in town and a place where tall tales abound. There was one fellow that spent his winters way up the rivers fishing from a shanty boat. One of the other men would run up there in a small cabin boat pick up his catch and carry him supples and in the spring tow hem back to Swansboro He had a spare bunk on board and from time to time some of those fellows would go up the river and spend a couple days away from their wives.

There was another fellow that lived across the street from the marina who made both muzzel loading and cartridge rifles though the later were illegal rifles. He was careful who he made them for. Mostly he made guns for family that his family had been making guns for from a time before the revolutionary war. Story was that the federal firearms people came after him and were so impressed with his guns the got a congressman to but through a special bill that was attached to something else that allowed him to get a license free of charge. He made several rifles for the agents in the years following.

He was looking for someone to take over in his place and offered to teach me with the expectation that I would teach his uninterested son if he ever wanted to learn. My interest at the time was going sailing though I regret not learning the gun making I've never regretted the sailing trip so there you go.