(To view Album click here)August 2001 to August 2003
After 4 years cruising we settled down in New Bern, North Carolina for much longer then we had planned. I wasn’t planning on writing a newsletter either, who wants to hear about the Boatbumms turning into CLODS (Cruisers living on dirt). Life is full of surprises and just a little thing can turn into the biggest adventures even by just living on the dock.
We arrived August 22, 2001 and while Sid settled in, in New Bern, I flew home to visit my ailing dad in Switzerland. My flight was on September 10th and I arrived just a few hours prior the horrible 911 attack. Hard to imagine how the situation must have been in the States, as the shocking news touched everyone in Europe as well. Pain was felt everywhere and people had teary eyes just talking about it. Hundreds of people, some with American Flags, stood in front of US Embassies, bringing flowers for the victims. The Miss-Switzerland Contest was canceled, so were other Fairs, Conventions, sporting events and for the first time I saw the Swiss flag flying at half-mast. Munich was going to cancel the famous annual Oktoberfest. As sad as this tragedy was it was nice to see how it brought the world together. Everybody was suffering the loss.
With the 9/11 also came all the problems with the airlines, including Swissair, filing for chapter 11, me receiving a friendly letter from Travelocity, how sorry they were that I lost my ticket. How lucky could I be, my Swissair flight was run by American Airline, therefore no loss on my part. There was one further problem though. The insurance of Swiss airlines and Airports canceled the insurance policies ASAP. There was no air traffic to and from Switzerland for four days. That problem resolved too before I headed home and Sid didn’t have to sail to Europe to pick me up as I started to picture.
It was a stressful 4 weeks in Switzerland, not just because of the attack but also dealing with my dad’s health problem. My dad developed Multiple Infarct Syndrome; his brain was producing one mini stroke after another. The symptoms are the same as an Alzheimer’s patient and his mental state was that of a 3 year old. His short-term memory was pretty much gone. He was a very happy person though. It was hard to face the reality and even harder that my mom was not taking it well, she was in major denial. I tried to help her as much as I could but four weeks was just not enough.
Flying home was a piece of cake, the security at the Airport tight of course and the plane only 1/3 full, I had a whole row to myself. It was good to be home with Sid again, although I had just enough time to unpack and pack again, before we hit the road to Tucson, AZ. Julie and Shane’s wedding was on October 19th we couldn’t miss that. (We met them in San Blas, the fun people on Echelon I wrote about in my previous newsletter.)
Due to 911 flying was out of the question, the prices had ski rocked, besides the flight would have taken us from New Bern-Miami-Ohio or Toronto-Dallas-Vegas and then to Tucson. We decided to drive instead and stop on the way to visit some other friends.
Before I continue I have to mention that our very good friends Bob and Kari Kurth gave us one of their cars, to use as long as we were in the States. Which turned out much longer then we thought. Thanks so much you two.
Anyway, off we went to for Tucson via Houston to see friends and drove 600 miles when the car engine blew up. Instead of Houston at our friends we spend the night in Slidell, LA and missed a wonderful dinner Bonnie had worked on for two days. The following day late in the afternoon we received the bad news that the car needed a new engine. That didn’t stop us from going to the wedding, we rented a car, arrived in Houston at 10Pm, just enough time to catch up on stories with Bonnie and Peter, go to sleep and take off for Tucson the next day.
1 ½ days later we arrived in Tucson, just on time to join the family party the afternoon before the wedding. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and fun. We organized 12 cell phones to ring when the minister questioned of “to speak up if anybody is against the marriage” popped up. It was hilarious, 24 people talking on the phone, discussing whether they should get married or not and then giving the minister the OK to do so.
A few months prior to this trip we committed to a football game in Knoxville, TN, which was on the 26th of October. The wedding was on the 19th, which didn’t give us very much time to spend in Tucson, so bright and early the morning after the wedding we were on the road again, this time towards Los Angeles. Since we drove this far across the continent we decided to drive the rest of the 488 miles to Los Angeles and visit our LA friends as well and even managed to visit our best friend Kathy in Catalina Island.
To arrive on time in Knoxville we drove two days and one night straight through. Felt like cruising, but instead of the three-hour watches we did one tank of gas at a time. Bob and Kari are the best hosts; we enjoyed a most fun tailgate party and then cheered for the Volunteers team, which by the way won.
Four days later we arrived at mom’s who was baby sitting our cats and received news about the car going to be ready in two days, so we drove from mom’s back to Houston to catch up some more with Bonnie and Peter and picked up the car from there.
In Slidell, $1640 and 30 minutes later, not to mention the cost of the rental car and hotel bills, the car overheated and had be returned for unknown time. Since we had to be at a commodore’s ball the next day in New Bern, we drove overnight in our still rental and arrived at home at 5Am, very tired I have to add. The Commodores ball was nice and short, all we could handle was the food when our knees buckled, our brains screamed for a pillow and our eyes started looking for holes in our eyelids.
Early the next day we were on the road again to visit mom for a few days and also to pick up our kids. Two days at her place we finally got the news, that the car was fixed, so off we went one more time to Slidell, LA and this time the car made it home with no further problems, yeah. We picked up the cats at mom’s arrived in New Bern with major car butts. All in all we drove over 9000 miles, wow!
Before I continue I need to tell you that during the two years we borrowed the car, we had quiet some adventures with it. First, when we picked up the Nissan 300 ZX (86) in Knoxville, we drove as far as 60 miles when the Transmission went out. Two weeks later we drove back to Knoxville to pick up the now fixed car. Then of course you know about the engine blowing up, which was two months later. A few weeks after that the door handle of the driver side broke off, but since we were in NASCAR country nobody really paid any attention when Sid was climbing in and out of the window. Then I was driving and heard a loud clank on the passenger side, so I looked into the right mirror, but that one was gone. Sid replaced it according to the direction the Nissan dealer gave him. Two weeks later I heard the same clank again and the mirror was gone again. That time Sid fixed it the way he would have in the first place and it stayed on. One of the centerpieces of the wheel fell out. When Sid was driving the rear view mirror fell off and at one time the clove box fell out too. The side trims on both sides came off. Then Sid discovered that the shocks weren’t put on right, so that was fixed. He also noticed that the seal for transmission boot was missing, got that fixed too. Then for the longest time the car was doing fine until three weeks before we returned it. The muffler fell off, then the air conditioner broke and had to completely be replaced, the same day the master slave cylinder of clutch broke and two days later the speedometer cable broke as well. At least we had all three things fixed at the same time, but had to bring the car back three more times because the clutch was still sticking.
Sid added a lot of stuff to the Z, bra, tinted the windows, cover, new carpet and a bicycle rack. After two years we finally decided to use that thing and mounted our two bikes onto it. Sid drove a few feet in the parking lot when the rack broke, so did the two bikes.
When we finally drove the car back to Knoxville, that was the day after the clutch was worked on for the third time. We got as far as Raleigh, about 1 ½ into the 7 hour drive, when the car overheated. Sid noticed that the Nissan place didn’t fill up the water in the radiator and so it over heated. The rest of the trip it still ran hot, Sid drove with open windows the sun roof open and heat on full blast to Knoxville hoping it would make it. You should have seen his sizzling feet when we finally arrived, they were smoking.
It was a great car and we really enjoyed driving it. The car looks great, Sid washed and waxed it almost every week and took good care of it. The last wash Sid had tears in his eye, which was in Bob and Kari’s backyard. I can imagine that Bob and Kari must have been afraid to answer the phone whenever we called them, because every time we had a new Z story.
Bob and Kari, again thanks sooooooooo much for the car and yes, it was a pain in the you know what, but we also had more fun with it then not. Thanks you guys, you are the greatest friends.
Anyway, after the 9000 some miles, we swore not to drive any long distances for a long, long time. Until Sid's Cousin Nancy and Katie called and invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them in Islamorada, FL. Two weeks after the 9000 miles we had another 900 miles under our car butts and spent a wonderful Thanksgiving, eating, drinking, diving and having fun. Katie and Nancy, thanks again for the wonderful time, we really enjoyed it very much.
On our return trip from Islamorada we did a little detour to Naples where our long lost friends Frank and Laurie live. It was so good to see them and catch up on the last 8 years. The second night we spent in Boca Raton with Steve and Lucie on Breathless, of course always good to see them.
During November two boats pulled into our marina and surprised us. Dick and Mary on The Dorcas Hardy we had met in La Paz and met again in Mazatlan and last in Puerto Vallarta. And Art on Liberte was here as well, also met in Mexico. Both were on the way south to warmer weather and did a detour to visit with us, thanks guys, we sure appreciated it. Over the 2 years living in New Bern, numerous more cruising friends stopped by, some by boat, some by car and some by plain. Some stayed for just a few days, some for months, some are still here and some even bought property here in New Bern (Lyon Around, Sweet Dreams now Double Sweet (new catamaran), Kumbaya, Austerity, Laughing Buddha, Colonel’s Lady, Dreamer). That really shows how close the cruising community is.
After Christmas I finally had time to get to know New Bern a bit better. Swiss Baron Christopher de Graffenried founded New Bern, the second oldest town in North Carolina in 1710. One of the New Bern’s most prominent features is a large clock tower with the most beautiful Glockenspiel every Noon. Historic New Bern lists over 150 sites on the National Register of historic Places, many dating back to the 18th century. Visitors to New Bern are welcome by a year-round calendar filled with art, cultural, theatrical and festive events. Highlights include the annual Shrine ceremonial in January; the Sunday Jazz Showcase of work class musicians; the Spring Historic Homes and Gardens Tour and Tryon Palace/Neuse River Day with homemade watercraft races; regattas; Mumfest’s colorful fall chrysanthemums; Oktoberfest; and the holidays with festive decorations, exquisite Candlelight Tours, a Ghost Walk and Coastal Christmas Flotilla and much more.
New Bern is also known as a low cost retirement place and has a lot of old folks living here. We could tell, by receiving all too many wrong dialed phone calls and the slow driving (45 on the freeway).
Christmastime came along and turned this beautiful town into the prettiest Christmas village. All the houses were nicely decorate and most had a candle lit in each window. One neighborhood street about 6 blocks long had everything from houses to trees decorated with Christmas light. On the 16th all the stores stayed open until 9PM, offering cookies and drinks, school kids were singing Christmas carols, Santa Claus had his little house set up and a trio played Christmas songs with small belles that was absolutely fantastic. Everybody was out and about and showed such a Christmas spirit. We really enjoyed strolling through town and mingling with all these cheerful people. It was the perfect little Christmas Village, reminded me of the Chevy Chase movie "Funny Farm", when he moved to the country, hated it and in order to sell the house he had to buy the whole town to help him.
We spent Christmas at Sid’s moms, which was very nice. I think this was the second Christmas we ever spent with her. Then, another long drive to Knoxville, TN were we had the best New Years Party with Bob and Kari. We had a wonderful time, taught them the Mexican Train game and had everybody so hooked on it, that we barely got any sleep, we played into the wee hours. We planned on staying until the 4th, then head back to mom’s for a few more days before heading back to New Bern. But snow was in the forecast and had to leave on the second, picked up the cats, and made it home just on time before it started to snow. The last 40 miles it was snowing.
It was very exciting the next morning to find the dock and all the boats covered in 4 inches of snow. Never imagined seeing Paradise covered with that white stuff. The snow didn’t stick around for long, two days later it rained cats and dogs accompanied with heavy winds.
We didn’t have the heater on when we left the boat for moms and Knoxville, didn’t need it then, it was still pleasant, warm for shorts and T-shirts. Due to that it took forever to get the boat warmed up. It was freezing cold that we thought about changing the boat name to Para-Ice. The carpet felt like walking on ice and stayed that way for weeks to come. We both were bundled up in blankets, drinking hot toddies. I don’t think we ever drank so much tea before and we slept with socks on. (I never had to do that in Switzerland!)
We had to buy winter cloths, well I did, I think all Sid bought was a pair of jeans and a sweater and refused to wear the long jeans. The only time he wore them was when his hair froze solid after his walk back from the shower facility.
Then the time came to look for jobs. Sid was waiting on the job opening at the marina. I went to look for a job in the restaurant business. Can you believe the Outback Restaurant refused to hire me, because I hadn’t worked in the last 4 years, never heard of such a policy. Texas Steakhouse hired me and on the same day Sid was hired at the marina as assistant dock master or as he says “Assistant Director of Marina Operations”!
One month later West Marine was hiring, so we both put in an application and did the most extensive interview ever for any job. Sid ended up working two jobs and Texas Steakhouse scheduled me 9 shifts in 6 days with one day off and every two months or so we were lucky enough to get one day off together. Actually from February to July all Sid took off was four days total. The end of March I found a new job at Captain Ratty’s which was just one minute away from home, which was great then we didn’t have to fight over the car anymore, I could walk to work.
Sid and I were way to comfortable while cruising and decided that it was time to take some of the gained pounds off and started the Atkins diet and lost about 70 pounds combined. We’re still on the diet and will stay on it, since it brought Sid’s cholesterol down by a lot.
Since Sid worked at the marina, which belongs to the Sheraton Grand Hotel, we received great discounts at the hotel and had several friends come and visit and we had the luxury of placing them in the beautiful rooms of the hotel, which we called “The Paradise V-Berth”. (Frank and Laurie Domino, Alex and Sue, Pam and Jack Monroe). And for Sid’s mom’s birthday we rented the master suite for her and her boyfriend. They were in absolute heaven.
It was August when we arrived in New Bern and were a bit nervous, since we still were in the hurricane belt, but fortunately the weather cooperated and we had a beautiful summer. 2002 summer was benign too with the weather, but the heat was unbearable. Imagine the water flowing out of the faucet inside the boat was over 110 F (we were running it from the dock)! The air-conditioner could barley keep our boat cool. In the afternoon the coolest temp inside the boat was 85/86, no need to mention that I spent most afternoons in the cool hotel pool. We called it “Noodeling”, sitting in the pool, floating around with cocktails in our hands, as we did while cruising. Lyon Around, Sweet Dreams and Kumbaya joined in with the fun, it turned into a daily ritual.
June 17th I received a sad phone call that my dad was in the hospital and had a stroke, at that time they didn’t know yet how bad it was. They told me to wait for the results, but I went ahead anyway and booked a flight on the 19th. The day before my flight my brother called to tell me that it didn’t look good and that my dad was dying. I arrive on the 20. July and had just enough time to spend the last 2 ½ hours with my dad. My dad had been ill for many years and he had given up on live. In his last few days he knew I was coming home and was hanging in there until the day I arrived. My whole family was with dad in his last moments which was very comforting for us. We will miss dad but we are also relived that he is not suffering anymore. About 6 hours after my dad, my sister in law received a phone call from Italy, her dad had died of a heart attack. What are the chances of loosing both in the same day, father and father in law and for the two kids both of their grandfathers!
Fall was spent with work, work, work and more work and we were lucky if we had a day off now and then, or rather once a month.
The weather service predicted a long and cold winter, due to El Nino and indeed the weather turned much colder than last winter. On January 23rd we had a blizzard sweeping across the eastern part of North Carolina and placed us right in the middle of it. Even with dodger and bimini up our cockpit was blasted with snow and it was freezing inside the boat.
Let’s see how cold it was:
The Trent River our marina is on froze solid over night and stayed frozen until the next afternoon until 3 PM, to freeze again for two more nights.
The fridge didn't work (so what) the discharger line was frozen.
Had to buy a second heater to keep us warm inside the boat, temp didn’t go above 50 with only one heater. Should have seen our electrical bill.
Sleeping with sweater, sweatpants and socks on, even Sid. Socks didn’t do much good, took hours to get toes warm.
Our no-lap-cats were sitting in our lap’s non stop warming their little paws and Crystal was growling and complaining all day long, poor things.
Sid finally put long pants on because his hair froze on the way back from the shower and the second day the towel he wrapped around his wet hair froze solid as well, he wasn’t a happy camper. The funny thing though was, he put his shorts on to go to work at West Marine, but wore ice-pants over them. As he walked into West Marine all his co-workers gave him a hard time that he finally had to wear long pants. You should have seen their faces when Sid took the ice-pants down and stood in front of them with his shorts on.
The cold weather lasted for a whole 3 weeks with the lowest temperature of 3 F wind chill factor! The winter lasted still a lot longer and was nasty, but at least not as cold anymore. On February 24th we had 56 knots of wind (67 miles or 110 km) blasting through our marina, nasty, nasty, nasty.
Working in North Carolina can somewhat be very frustrating. North Carolina is and at will State and employers can do whatever they want with employees and get away with it, even harassment, the employee has not rights whatsoever. The Unemployment Office even fights the employee if the employer doesn't. Minimum wage in Restaurant business is 2.13 an hour and they don’t even have to pay wage, as long as the server makes 5.5o an hour in tips. They also don’t have to pay you for mandatory meetings, but can fire you for no show ups.
I don’t think there are any jobs that will pay you more then $6 per hour when starting. Sid made 6.25 at the marina and at West Marine after taking some tests $7.25. After Ratty harassed and fired me I found a great job at Harvey Mansion which was in the process of opening, so I helped the owner Gene with scraping paint of the windows, sewing curtains, laying carpet, setting up tables and, and, and. It was great fun to be part of all that and I had a lot of pride when we finally opened the restaurant. The food is fantastic and the atmosphere very classy as it is a very historical house with several rooms with no more then 6 tables each. Gene the owner is a great person to work for too, he appreciates every employee. Ratty still is nasty to his employees and all our friends don’t eat there anymore.
New Bern is a different place, we never felt that we fit in. Everything was a bit backwards for us and I don’t think we could ever settle here. It reminds me very much of Switzerland too a bit narrow minded as it is there. We made some wonderful friends, but not until the last few months.
In our two years in New Bern we visited Sid’s mom regularly to check in with her. She has beginning Stages of Alzheimer’s and her relatives thought that we needed to take care of her. We knew that eventually would happen, but didn’t think she needed somebody yet and went ahead with our plan to go cruising in May. It was hard to face the fact that we eventually had to give up cruising for a while and mentally prepared ourselves as well as we could to move in with her in October after a summer of sailing to Maine. Well, that changed, Sid went to a family reunion when all the relatives bombarded him with questions about taking care of mom. We also did receive numerous calls that mom wasn’t doing well and so we gave up cruising and moved in with her in May. All I can say is that we tried for 6 weeks but just didn’t work out and so we moved back onto the boat.
It took us quite a bit to get back into the cruising mood. Sid had tons of projects to do and it took us several weeks to get the boat ready for cruising again. Every time Sid had a project finished, some problem would show up, we started to believe that something didn’t want us to go cruising yet. Just two days before departure Sid found a leak in the fuel tank. I feel so fortunate that Sid is so handy and can fix pretty much anything.
One week before departure we organized a little going away party and provided a keg of Yuengling beer and some munchies. We had 70-80 friends show up, everybody brought some yummy appetizers and the keg of beer was emptied in a few hours. Everybody had fun, but we got dirty looks the next day from all the hung-over neighbors.
Paradise is on the move again and Sid and Manuela are as happy as popcorn farts in a windstorm.
You probably still wonder why we spent so much time in New Bern other then to visit Sid's mom. While Sid worked his little butt off at West Marine ,(not to mention at the Sheraton Marina) he did some improvements on Paradise. All I can say is that Sid spent way more money at West Marine then he ever received in his paychecks. You should see Paradise now, she is so up to date, there is nothing else she needs. Well, Sid wants to work on the dinghy now and add a bimini to that, but that's another story. Here is a boat upgrade list:
- Stainless steel anchor chain, Sid's pride and joy, although he said when the
anchor is up you can only see a couple of feet of the chain, nobody can see the
rest in the chain locker.
- New 12 volt distribution panel (AC/DC panel and rewired electrical system
- New and more batteries
- Air Marine wind generator, sure keeps all the batteries topped
- 2 1/2 horse power kicker
- New standing rigging (new Dyeform rigging wire)
- New running rigging
- new life lines
- Rebuilt mast step, old one fell apart in Sid's hands as he tried to lift it out of the
boat
- Rewired mast
- New masthead light
- TV antenna
- New computer (watch TV on computer screen)
- Flat panel screen mounted to wall
- New printer, scanner, copier
- Alpenglow cabin lights
- New flares (old ones expired in 85, oops did we go cruising with expired flares?)
- finally registered dingy in NC (after two years being back in the States)
- Sand and barrier coat and bottom paint
- Varnish (every year)
- New ice-chest, holds ice up to 5 days
- double pulley system for alternator
- New regulator for alternator
- New battery box
- New wiring harness for engine
- New water pump
- New saltwater pump
- New life vests (auto inflatable, don't wash them, a friend of ours washed hers
because they were dirty, guess what?!))
- New bilge pump
- New 12 volt fans
- New dock lines
- Hummingbird fishing depth finder
- New VHF radio with remote mic
- New galley cabinet with spice rack, no more microwave
- Cell phone, plus hooked up for email
- Shaft shark (cuts lines around your prop, like lobster and crab pots)
- New fire-extinguishers
and I probably forgot a whole bunch more!
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