Paul Griffin,
The Commodore's Log Buckle Up for a Busy April!! April is shaping up to be a busy and exciting month full of sailing and activities for both Oriental and our club! We have the Oriental In Water Boat Show coming up next weekend, April 12-14. Please connect with Donna Crothers to sign up for a volunteer spot at the NSA booth meeting and greeting potential new members. We hope all current members stop by to show the crowd why the NSA is THE preeminent sailing and social club in town! Please don’t forget to sign up for safety vessel examinations next weekend as well to get prepped for the cruising season. New member social and Easter Cruise also taking place this month! We had a productive Bridge meeting following the Shrimperoo. Please join us in welcoming Kathy Kenny as the Vice Commodore of Social Media! Kathy also stepped up to volunteer to run the club t-shirt order, so keep an eye out for some exciting new NSA swag that you won’t want to miss. Lastly, please mark your calendars for the upcoming NSA Anniversary on Saturday May 4th - more details to follow! Paul Griffin s/v Blue Mind Commodore
Cruising Outlook Let the cruising begin! Shortly the cruising season will be here with the NSA Easter Cruise to River Dunes. 37 members have signed up and NSA will have 30 boats in the marina. We are looking forward to an historic kickoff to the 2019 season! If you are attending – Be on the lookout for a note requesting your dinner party guests. With over 70 people intending to eat at the restaurant, we’ll need to come in smaller groups. Since we are eating off the menu, the plan is to have set arrival times for groups, so the restaurant is not overwhelmed with everyone arriving at the same time. Memorial Day Cruise Next up will be the Memorial Day cruise, with 23 boats already signed up. Besides our usual fun at the beach, we are planning a special activity to “pay if forward”. On Sunday we will gather for a beach cleanup brigade to leave this special place just a little cleaner than when we arrived. We are working with the park service to make this an official group activity. Thanks to board member Buck O’Neil for the excellent suggestion and to motivate NSA to take on this worthwhile activity! Weeklong Cruises While it is still early, we are encouraging members to sign up now for either the North or South cruise so we can lock in slips with marinas along the way. We are planning around 15 boats on both cruises but aren’t (yet) seeing those numbers. If it is on your “to do” list, please go to the NSA site and sign up so we are not holding space that NSA won’t need. 2018 Cruise Planning Calendar April 20 – 21 Easter Cruise, River Dunes We are hoping for a great 2019 season, and with the interest so far, it sure looks like it will be. AND we are still looking for cruise captains for the Weeklong North, Lazy Days, Labor Day, and Fall Cruise. Step up – you will be glad you did! Just contact your Vice Commodore of Cruising, Jeff Kenyon! Jeff Kenyon s/v Calitri Vice Commodore Cruising Welcome to Our New Members The Shrimperoo brought us not only mounds of delectable shrimp but plenty of new NSA members! Some have boats and some do not, as the NSA has so many fun land-based activities. Speaking of land-based activities -- coming up after the Oriental Boat Show is the New Members Social – more on that below. Please welcome these new members to the NSA: Dan and Lesley Allen of Oriental, with S/V Alacrity at Whittaker Creek Marina Robert Austin and Lynda Edwards of Williamsburg, Va., with S/V Orion Tony and Stacey Baumguard of Clayton, with S/V Zoetic at Pecan Grove Marina Richard and Elaine Broadstone of Oriental (currently no boat) Iain and Sarah Bruce of Nags Head, with S/V Blue at Wayfarers Cove Marina Joe and Janet Draper of New Bern, with S/V Breeze at Northwest Creek Marina Howard Gutzeit and Margo Fesperman of New Bern, with S/V L’Chaim at Northwest Creek Marina Tom and Kim Howell of Pinehurst, with S/V Strong Medicine at Hilton Grand Marina Mike and Billie Hutchins of Oriental (currently no boat) Scott and Julie Ingham of Wake Forest, with S/V Chloe Brighid at Hilton Grand Marina Donald and Chris Oakley of Oriental, with S/V Old School at Whittaker Creek Marina Fred and Cindy Rampey of Oriental, with S/V Magnolia at Sea Harbour Yacht Club Rich and Shirley Righter of Oriental, with M/V The Olive at Pecan Grove Marina With so many new members, we wanted to offer an opportunity for them to meet the NSA’s bridge and directors one-on-one and gain more information about the club and its upcoming cruises and events. We will hold a New Members Social from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 27. Invitations will be emailed to all our 2019 new members with more details and a chance to RSVP. We hope to see many of you there! Looking forward to getting out on the water with the club! Looking forward to a great sailing season! Donna Crothers s/v Sanctuary Vice Commodore Membership
Beautiful Day for this year’s Shrimperoo!  Shrimp, shrimp and more shrimp! This year’s Shrimperoo served over 100 pounds of shrimp! Thanks to our great NSA cooks Buster, Tom and Kevin the shrimp was fantastic! Cara and Tammy did a super job welcoming members and guests at the registration table. The Shrimperoo is a great member recruitment event and this year was no exception. Donna and her membership team stayed busy the entire 2 hours. Through their efforts we had 16 new members join (8 new memberships)! Diane Carbone did a great job with the 50/50 raffle and raised $160.00 for the Whittaker Creek Restoration Project. The best part of the afternoon was the opportunity for members and guests to share their stories of fun and adventure on the water while listening to music provided by Bob Laverty. Thanks to all the great members of NSA that contributed to making the Shrimperoo such a great success.
Kevin and Mary Guilfoyle V/C Special Events “Meridian” Albin 36 vcspecialevents@neusesailingassociation.org Dinghy Poker Run The Dinghy Poker Run will be Saturday July 27 at the Oriental Marina & Tiki Bar. Hands will go on sale at 9:30 & the run will start at 11:00. Proceeds from this year’s DPR will go to the Pamlico Coastal Activity Council, earmarked for scholarships to Pamlico County kids for sailing school. The 1st planning meeting for this year’s Dinghy Poker Run took place March 30. We had a good turn out of interested volunteers, with all 3 sailing clubs in Oriental represented. Work has started on making food arrangements, lining up docks, advertising & soliciting items for auction & prizes. We would love to have any items or services you would like to donate for auction & prizes. There is still lots of room for volunteers, especially for the day of the event. More specific details will be forthcoming. And, of course, anyone who would like to help in the preparation phase is welcome. Just let me know – srstephenson1420@gmail.com or 919-414-7719. Sharon Stephenson S/V Pelican There has been a human outcry for name tags just like the ones that the Bridge have and I have risen to the challenge! Please let me know via email (jmesser@mindspring.com) if you would like to purchase one of these nametags. Include each name and associated boat name. It will be metal with a magnetic backing that really works well – however if you have a heart pacemaker do not order or use one of these because the magnet has been known to interfere with a pacemaker. I can make arrangements for a pin type backing if you let me know in your email. The cost will be somewhere around 6 dollars each depending on how many we order, but we are well below one yacht-unit of cost! The name tag will be white with black lettering and the same red NSA logo as used on the Bridge name tags. We will include your boat name along with the designation of S/V or M/V. The lead time will be about two weeks after I have the list of who wants them, so let’s set the boat show date of April 13 as the drop dead date to let me know if you want one. Regards and Fair Winds, John Messer, Director NSA 919-740-9421 Many thanks to Kathy Kenny who is taking on not only managing our social medial presence but also picking up responsibility for managing our association merchandise! Please be sure to join our closed Facebook Group and be on the lookout for information on ordering NSA merchandise in the near future! Vessel Safety Exam The Vessel Safety Check event will be on Saturday April 13th.
Many of you have signed up for the Vessel Safety Check on April 13th being conducted by our local power squadron (Cape Lookout Sail & Power Squadron). If you are not familiar with the process you may find the following address of interest; usps.org/door/vsc/2018-vsc-form.pdf This is a copy of the form used by the examiner during their visit. It should give you an overview of the categories and items they will look for and inquire about as they meet with you. NOTE: vessel length/type may require some additional items, but this is an excellent starting place for us as we prepare for their visit. If you were unable to sign up for any reason, we hope you'll flag down examiners as they work through the marinas so see if they have time to add you to their list. Here is to a safe sailing season! Brian McLamb s/v Serenity
Misto on World Arc
From Brazil to the Caribbean
Safely in the Port Louis Marina, we rented a car to explore the island, taking our lives in our hands because of the other drivers on the roads, and were also able to get some boat repairs done. We replaced the lead block on our jib furler, which had failed because of all the use it had on the last leg, and we got our gennaker repaired, although the parasailor was deemed irreparable by the sailmaker. There were several great parties to celebrate this leg, with the local Westerhall rum, being prominent at all of them! After the parties were done we moved around the south coast of Grenada to Grenada Marine to get some engine work done - the cone clutches on our saildrives had to be lapped and the water pump on the generator was leaking. While in the marina we dropped our dinghy which then rubbed against sharp shells on the dock and developed a leak. So the dinghy now has a couple of temporary patches on it, until we can get the dinghy out of the water and do a proper job. Our intention was to spend a lot of time cruising Grenada, however we decided that the southern anchorages were too crowded for our liking and so we moved on up north to Carriacou, a small island which is part of Grenada. Here we enjoyed a couple of nights on Sandy Island, a stereotypical tropical island with a white sand beach, and a night in Tyrrel Bay where we ate lobster and Conch at a local restaurant. We also enjoyed a taxi tour around the island.
After departing Tobago Cays we had a brief morning stop on Canouan, really just to let the wind die down a bit and swing a little to the south as it was forecast to do in the afternoon. Then we had a roller coaster upwind sail in 25 knots against current and into the seas up to Mustique. This private island is the haunt of the rich and famous - it was made notable in the 1960’s and 70’s because of Princess Margaret’s love of the place. It is a wonderful little haven, where crime is pretty much non-existent, prices are high and the vibe at Basil’s bar, famous for Jazz and Blues, is really great. It’s strange to think that our circumnavigation is almost over. If you measure this by longitude, then we are already complete having done more than 360 degrees. But most official measures of a circumnavigation include crossing the equator twice and starting and finishing from the same place, so we still need to get back to St Lucia, where we started in 2017, before we can really celebrate! Ros and Howard Cheetham
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Misto has spent the last month moving from Brazil to the Windward Islands in the Caribbean. On the way we made a 24 hour stop in Iles du Salut, often known as Devil’s Island, although that is the name of the one island in the group that you cannot visit! 
From here we moved up into the Grenadines, stopping at Union Island, for a lumpy night on a mooring ball, and then to two anchorages on Mayreau, Saline Bay and Saltwhistle Bay. At the latter we ate a huge lobster for dinner at a beach barbecue. Then it was on to the Tobago Cays. This beautiful marine Park did not yield the great snorkeling we have enjoyed there in the past as the wind and waves were stirring up the sandy bottom. But it is still an idyllic place where there is nothing between you and Africa, across the Atlantic, except a coral reef.