We left Matthews Point Marina on Tuesday, May 31, with winds on the nose and 2 foot seas. The plan was to go as far as Broad Creek and anchor for the night and continue on in the morning. After a bumpy ride we dropped the anchor in the calm waters of the creek and settled in for the night. By sunrise the mosquitoes had found us and we elected to pull anchor and move on. By 6:30 am we were on our way. The winds had dropped considerably and the seas were much calmer but it was still a motorboat ride. Breaking the trip into two segments allows us to arrive at Ocracoke early. We were able to get a spot on the park service dock and paid, using my senior discount (half off), for a week. Just after we got tied up the rain came. This was the remnants of tropical storm Bonnie that had been hanging out in the Carolina's for the last week. Thursday was almost a complete rain-out. The music festival was scheduled to start Friday and there was water everywhere, at least eight inches flooded the area of the main stage.
Friday morning dawned with partly cloudy skies but the rain had mostly moved on. The festival crew did a great job of pumping the standing water and setting up for the event. By noon when it started there was just some areas of mud that had to be avoided. This is the first year that they had music on Friday and it seemed a big hit. There were a lot more people then expected with the weather. We took in the performances, especially by one of our favorite duos, Beleza. They did not perform the previous year so it was good to see them again. After the music we checked out some of the other activities and caught the music prior to the fundraising auction. After the auction Madeline and Berto of Beleza stopped by the boat for a visit.
After an overnight rain just to keep everything wet the festival continued and I started celebrating my birthday. As far as I am concerned the entire festival is all about celebrating my birthday. I was disappointed that I could not find another t-shirt pointing out how I am getting old but Cori found one for me with an acceptable sentiment.
We caught a lot of the music at the various venues going into the late night. We finally made it home about 1:00 in the morning. We were able to reconnect with many old and new friends, even some we had met over the winter while in the Bahamas.
Sundays highlight of the festival is the final all star jam that we would miss by leaving Sunday morning so we could be back to work on Monday. Having solved that problem we are able to stay for the full festival.
Most of the boats left early on Sunday or Monday to be home before tropical storm Colin arrived. The rain started mid afternoon on Monday and continued off and on through the night. The main brunt of it arriving early Tuesday morning with winds in the upper 20's. Our only problem was a fender moving out of position letting the rail hit against the dock post. By pushing hard when the gusts let up we were able to get it back into place and retreat belowdeck. Fortunately this storm is very fast moving and is moving offshore quickly with a much improved forecast for the rest of the week.
We will be leaving here on Wednesday and plan on spending another week at the marina to finish off some projects then begin out trip north.
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