Thanksgiving in Oriental

Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Thu 24 Nov 2011 22:31

35:01.363N 76:41.936W

 

Thursday 24th November 2011

 

Distance run: 41 nmiles

 

The blow began as forecast during the night on Tuesday, making for quite a lumpy night.  It continued throughout the day on Wednesday and on into the night as expected.  We spent the day on board doing odd jobs, reading etc.  I had bought some new cloth-backed vinyl for the saloon table and spent a few hours cutting it to shape and working out how to fix it in place without marking the table itself.  I am quite pleased with the result.  Although it was very windy, in the afternoon the sun came out and we spent an hour in the cockpit with books and a cup of tea.

 

The wifi connection was good and we checked the weather forecast yesterday evening which said that the front was passing through more quickly than expected, so we thought we might be able to move on today, depending on what we woke up to.

 

It was obvious as soon as we woke that the wind had died considerably, and so we made ready for sea and had the anchor up and were away by 0830.  It was blowing 10-15 knots with gusts to 20 and from behind, so it was a very comfortable ride.  We motorsailed much of the way, and arrived in Oriental mid-afternoon.  The anchorage was virtually empty so we found a spot just inside the harbour wall and dropped the anchor.

 

Today is Thanksgiving, and we didn’t expect anything ashore to be open, but needed to stretch our legs so we took the rib into town.  It turned out that the marina restaurant and bar was open and serving a Thanksgiving buffet which looked very attractive, until we found out that we would have to wait at least an hour for a table.  This wasn’t a problem except that the roast turkey was sitting under a heat lamp in the carvery and we weren’t too keen on what it would be like after it had sat there another hour!  So we stayed for a drink or two at the bar, then as we set off back to the boats Michael suggested we join them for a turkey dinner - turkey risotto!  We were happy to take up his kind invitation and so we celebrated our first Thanksgiving with a turkey dinner on Nimue.  And very good it was too!