Sorry to say we still don't have much to report from the Oriental, NC area. I left my camera out in the rain a few days ago and I was hoping it would dry out and be OK. Unfortunately, I believe it is fried and I'll need to replace it. I should have a new phone in a couple of days as well.

Nancy and I took our first 1/2 day sailing lesson from an instructor here at the marina. I spent 5 hours at the helm while Nancy had to pull and tug on the lines. The Nuese River is almost 5 miles wide around here and the depths are fine for sailing. We had good winds as well, running from 12 - 18 knots. As we were heading back in, we were caught in a brief storm but we came in just fine. Part of our lessons is to practice docking in heavier winds and we are becoming more comfortable with that as well.

The sailing instructor has offered to loan us his car so we are planning a trip to the town of New Bern, NC which is about 36 miles from here. We may decide to move to that town toward the end of August since it has a little more to offer than does Oriental.

Oriental is not a bad little town. It does have just about everything one could need. However, we've noticed the water just doesn't seem to be as clear and pretty as other areas we've been though. We have even avoided swimming since we got here. There are several small, neat homes and a lot of very friendly people in the town.

 On this past Sunday, the entire town was invited to Faye Bonds house for a watermelon cutting. He family has been cutting watermelons for the town for 44 years and, of course, it's become a family tradition for them. Her sons and daughters were there cutting melons as well. I have no idea how many melons they cut, but as for me, I had two slices!!! The entire town wasn't there but there was sure a lot of people pigging out on melon.

We have accomplished fixing several more things on the boat since arriving. I think I finally believe I have the dinghy leaks stopped. Now, we can paint it and make it a little more presentable. With the help of the sailing instructor, I found the voltage regulator had a broken wire and we didn't need to replace the $385.00 regulator. We have ordered in a new hatch to replace the broken one and we should get it installed next week.Nancy has readjusted the Mack Pack lines and it should now work better. We found our main sheet line to be way to short and I found one at the local marine consignment shop to replace it. We'll put some new reefing lines on and talk with the Auto Helm company about it's problem next week and should be all set again.

We've eaten out several times since we've been in town and find our favorite, so far, to be a place called M and M's. Very nice  meals and very reasonable prices. There's also a place in town called Silos that serves meals but specializes in pizza. On Tuesday nights, it 2 for one pizzas so we eat one and bring one home for lunch.

My youngest son, Jon, is currently stationed in Colorado Springs, CO with the Air Force and will soon be going back to Shreveport, LA for 3 years. He and I have done several road trips over the past years and he has asked me to come to CO for one more before he heads to LA. I'm trying to find a flight from here to Denver so I can join him on a Jeep trip through the Rocky Mountain National Park area at the end of August.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!!