Iced In ... Thawing Out

Holden Beach 

When I last logged in on Wednesday night, we (and my cactus) had moved aboard My Cat in Southport while Crossroads was in the yard for a through-hull replacement. Following a good night's sleep, we were up at our regular time knowing that the day would turn warm and sunny. We were ready to knock out more items on our To-Do list. While Barry went over some anchoring pointers with the My Cat crew, I unexpectedly spent most of the morning on the phone. More on that later. 

We had lunch aboard My Cat then drove the half hour back to Holden Beach to check on Crossroads. We pulled in, but there was no Crossroads. She wasn't were we left her. She's not that easy to hide. We were both puzzled ... "what's wrong now?" raced through our minds. After a survey of the yard, and to our surprise, we found her back in the water and plugged in. The Zimmerman crew had completed all projects and put her back in the water prior to both the low tide and impending ice storm. What great service! We would be able to move back onboard that night and turn on the heat to keep her plumbing warm. The sun came out, literally and figuratively, and I enjoyed a few moments on Fiberglass Beach. Oh, how I've missed that time. So far on this trip, I've been in five layers of clothes every time I've gone to the foredeck. Back to Southport we went. Barry installed safety wire on four anchor shackles as the sun set. Another project done.

We enjoyed dinner onboard, then loaded up the truck with our bags and cactus. Not knowing how long Crossroads would be out of the water, we had purposely worked down all of our perishable food items. The Walmart sign beckoned us in to pick up a few things. We were too late. The store had been picked clean by all of the storm-preppers. We left with a few items, but no milk, yogurt, or chicken. We'll try one more time before we leave and hope they restocked. Rain began to fall as we unloaded the truck.

Rain continued all day Friday and we kept waiting for it to start freezing. I kept myself busy in the galley, preparing a few meals to keep on hand. We changed out the starting battery on the generator that Barry had picked up in Wilmington a few days ago. It went in easier than anticipated, which is always a good thing. Low tide arrived in late afternoon to provide us a good view of the pilings supporting the travel lift tracks. Sometime before 10:00 the freezing rain began and little icicles were growing from our upper deck as we turned off the lights. 

Today's morning light revealed that were were encased in a layer of ice, much like a 43-foot long sausage. As the sun rose, melting began, and the icicles grew longer. We cleaned as much ice off as we could. The temperature will drop to 20 degrees tonight and everything will refreeze. We will wait for the melting process to start anew tomorrow then see if the grocery stores have been restocked. 

On Thursday morning, I got word that my Uncle Olon had passed away ... only 12 days after his wife Sydney had passed. They were inseparable in life and now too in death. There were phone calls with family and a lot of internet searching to read the many online tributes. He was a successful high school basketball coach and teacher in Winston-Salem, NC. His death made the front page of the Journal. My love of basketball came from watching Uncle Olon on the sidelines. The final buzzer has sounded. Good game, Coach.