Learning to throw a cast net

My friend Cindy from the Oriental Consignment shop loaned me a cast net to catch shrimp with, and I have been learning how to use it. Funny thing about cast nets, you can watch 10 youtube vids on them, and see 10 ways to throw it that works perfect in the video. Then when you try all 10 ways to cast it, not one of them work. I did catch 1 shrimp with it so I know the little guys are out there just waiting to come to my boat for dinner. I just need to learn how to cast it better. So every day I am out there for a few hours casting it and pulling it back in. I know at some point I will learn the throw that works for me.

My time here in Oriental is growing shorter by the day. Right now I am waiting for a check to clear and then I will be getting my final provisions to put out to sea. So my excitement level is pretty high.

I leave you this time with a quote from Homer's Odyssey 

'Odysseus spread his sail to the wind with joy, and steered the raft cleverly with the oar as he sat there. At night he never closed his eyes in sleep, but watched the Pleiades, late-setting Bootes, and the Great Bear that men call the Wain, that circles in place opposite Orion, and never bathes in the sea.'

My time in Oriental is finely growing short.

Well now I am counting down the days to my hard target date of Sept. 1^st when I will be pulling out of Oriental NC. It's a feeling of excitement to know this will finely be the end of my tenure here in this town. With the motor all picked out and finding a great deal on a used porta bote with the sail kit included I am really truly psyched. I am also getting better batteries, an inverter, a charger, and a small gas powered generator. I am also going to lay out a little for a better camera. Actually two better cameras

  One will be a Liquid Image HD and 5mp still camera that is waterproof up to 65 feet

The other is a Kodak PlaySport pocket HD video 5mp still camera that is water proof up to 10 feet.

Originally I was going to just buy one better camera with better quality but when I saw the liquid image camera I knew that for my adventure I needed one. The up side is that I can get both of them together for less then my camera budget of $300.00

I have made some great friends down here in Oriental Jeff who run's the Oriental Steamer (a great place to eat) and Cindy who runs the Consignment shop are both great people. So if you ever find yourself pulling in to this harbor make sure to visit both and tell them Brad says Hi. Pretty much all the people here are very friendly and a joy to be around. But my journey doesn't end here, there is so much world ,and I have to see as much of it as I can.

I have to keep going because I want to walk on deserted beaches in the rain, climb mountains, swim the oceans, and meet people in the smallest of villages, in as many places as I can. The world is a huge place and my house moves. So as I ready my boat to put out to sea I remind myself that a rolling stone gathers no moss.

My parting thought today as I get ready to work on some rigging is something that Sir Francis Drake once said, and I quote

"It isn't that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better."

I roller coaster week

This week has been full of some ups and downs. The motor thats being rebuilt for the boat is going to take longer then planned. So now I am looking local for a motor that will not cost to much. The other day I found a little work that netted me $50.00 and all the beer I could drink. I am friends with one of the owners of The Oriental Steamer, and he need the grease trap mucked out so I went to work and got er done. It felt good to spend the day working and 6 hours later I had a little more money in my pocket and all the beer I could drink that night. Another great thing was the owner Jeff had also found a crab pot for me 

So life is good I am eating fresh crab in almost everything I cook now:):):) You just can't beat fresh crab is it so good. Here in NC it is the blue crab that you catch and they are very very very tasty. Heck I am eating rice with dried peppers and crab in it as I write this.

This is what I look like when i am happy.

Life is good these days But today I had a bit of a reminder that On a boat we live by the will of Mother Nature, and she can be a very tough task master when she wants to be. A gale force storm blew in with more lightning that you can shake a stick at. So being tied up to the dock I could hear the clicking, creeks and moans as the wind put a lot of stress on my mooring lines. I had to pee sitting down do to the boat leaning about 12 Degrees to starboard, as it was rocking and rolling against the lines holding it to the dock. I should knows when all the ships started pulling in around the harbor. All and all I have to say every day is a new experience and I can't be happier that I chose this life. 

A view from my port hatch as the wind was howling at me reminding me Poseidon knows I'm home.

Fun things that can burn your home down

The other day  found out my fire extinguisher worked well. When the stove says use denatured alcohol they in effect are saying Rubbing alcohol is not the same thing. But with a clam head and quick thinking I was able to spray it down before there was any real danger. The white powder is from the type AB extinguisher, water would of also worked for for an alcohol fire, but as always when testing out a new used stove,,, I had the extinguisher in my hand before starting it. In the end with the right kind of Alcohol the stove does work fine but the pieces fit into my counter top stove so I just took what I needed to fix the built in one.

Tomarrow I am going to play with my dinghy

This is the the Zodiac that was shipped to me from New York. If your wondering about the shape I have to keep it partly deflated when it is sitting on top of my Boat. 

Charts are fun

A little showing my location right now I am the grey boat shape.

and

in this one I am the red dot on the Neuse River

Iceland geology at war.

Never let it be said that I am not excited about my journey through life. I think about the millions who have never really seen the world outside of their home town, and wonder do they look at life like a journey, or just a string of unfortunate events fallowed by death (You know I am I'm just kidding right?). I know some people are happy being in one place, and I can understand the enjoyment of feeling grounded. But I have never been that person. For me being in one place too long feels like being stuck. There is just to much world, and a finite amount of time to see it all. I also am not big on tourist traps. I want to see the beach that only 3 other people have ever walked on, or the small village with people that think seeing a new person is an event worth telling their friends about. I know when I start sailing south and pick up a job in Texas the first thing I will save for is a slightly bigger blue water sailboat. One that I can sail to Europe and around the globe. This pearson 30 is a great island hopper/shore cruiser, but not the choice I would make to head 2000 miles from land in all directions. 

I think when I get that boat the first place I will go is Iceland That is one of those places that the planet really shows off what it can do. Iceland is many different effects happening at the same time. One effect is that it sits on top of the line between two tectonic plates. At the center of the Mid Atlantic ridge it pushes apart by about an inch every year. Another real cool fact and the reason it is not at the bottom of the Atlantic is that it is on top of what is called a “Hot spot” that pushes the land up, and is why it is very active volcanically. It is the only place that you can stand on the Mid Atlantic ridge that's on dry land. As if that wasn't ample reason to go there, you also have fire meeting ice. Glaciers mixing with Volcanic activity in a war that has been going on for millions of years. It is just as if someone took all the coolest geographic activity and threw it all together in one place.  So as the ridge and volcanic activity make new land the glaciers are working their magic to slowly erode it away. 

Iceland's Geology

Iceland's Glaciers