Cruising Update

To say 2020 has been a challenge for the NSA would an understatement. It’s been tough, but I’m proud to say that we nevertheless got out on the water and cruised to some of our favorite destinations, albeit with many last-minute changes, and enjoyed ourselves while being responsible and respectful to one another. As far as we know, no one has contracted Covid-19 at an NSA event.

The weather once again impacted last weekend’s Fall Cruise, but our intrepid cruise captains, Scott Westwood and Sandra Emerson, sailed to West Bay on Friday and anchored inside. Others headed to South River. We regretfully decided to skip the cruise, not so much because of the weather but because of some work we’re trying to get done at our house in advance of a planned trip to the beach for a week.

The destination for our final cruise of the season, the Halloween Cruise, Oct. 30-Nov. 1, has been changed to Beaufort Docks from New Bern. We ran into some space issues in New Bern, and new management at Galley Stores is requiring each boat pay a non-refundable deposit of 50 percent of their stay. We thought that was unreasonable and risky, considering the fickle nature of the weather in late October.

Our Halloween Cruise captains, John Messer and Pat Thomaier, are coordinating our trip to Beaufort. Stay tuned for more details. So far, we have 17 boats registered. If you haven’t registered but plan to, ignore the reference to Galley Stores Marina on the registration form and indicate the days you want dockage at Beaufort Docks.

I hope to see you in Beaufort. We’ll raise a toast to our perseverance this year and make wish for a better 2021.

The picture below is a reminder of our 2019 Halloween Cruise in pre-covid days.

Fall Cruise

Cruise Captains:  Scott Westwood and Sandy Emerson

The Fall Cruise turned out to be an adhoc assortment. We started with 11 registered boats and the day before we were down to 3 boats "known" to be going.  At the last minute more boats decided to join in. Most boats went to South River to be about 3 hours closer to Oriental.  The forecast said increasing winds and rains on Sunday afternoon.  Two decided to go to West Bay and take their chances.  The rest canceled all together.  It does sound like everybody had a good time no matter what they did.  That, after all, is much of what NSA is really all about.  Whatever floats your boat.

At West Bay (Assuming the same at South River), Friday night was calm and cool with no rain.  Saturday had mild winds until the afternoon then it jumped up to 15kts until just before sundown.  Then it calmed down to a beautiful calm night with no rain to put out the bonfire(s).  Sunday morning brought mild winds and mild spotty rain in the morning along with very comfortable temps.  Not ideal but not unpleasant.  Couldn't sail home though, dang it. 

Eight boats ended up in Southwest Creek.  The weekend started with a dinghy raft up happy hour on Friday night.  They spent a delightful Saturday hanging on the beach, socially distanced, catching fish, and cooking hot dogs, fish and marshmallows over a fire.

Overall I think everybody had a good time.