HAPPY TIMES

Manteo, NC 35º54.636N | 75º40.145W

The happiest of reunions with Wendy and Lily.

No matter how hard we tried, it was impossible to see everyone we love in the Outer Banks. After the first few days, we adopted a new policy of seeing only those we ran into naturally, a plan that slowed the pace and somehow made the reunions even richer.

The joyful reunions started with our kids, who are in the Outer Banks for the summer. We had last seen Dylan in Miami in January, Casey in the Exumas in February. Soon it will be harder to get us all in the same locale. We, of course, are constantly on the move. Dylan will go back to Raleigh and North Carolina State. Casey (we hope) will be going to Paris to start her master's degree in French.

Our circle complete: now our son Dylan drives us around.

Our home waters were graced with a visit from two of our cruising friends. Dale and Karen on Jessie Marie, and Christie and Matt on Kaleo followed us to Manteo where we became tour guides, doing the tourist things we would have never done otherwise -- and enjoying them.

Pre-theater cocktails with Dale and Karen, Matt and Christie.

One of those tourist attractions is the outdoor drama, The Lost Colony, about the first English settlement in North America in the late 1500s. As you might garner from the title, it does not have a happy ending. The English ships bringing supplies to the colonists were waylaid by the Anglo-Spanish War, and when they turned up three years later, the colonists were gone. Not dead, just gone. Missing -- a mystery still.

Cruisers found at the Lost Colony.

Baseball!

It is with much sadness and total exhaustion that we leave Manteo tomorrow, but we have an appointment with The Ship's Tailor in Deltaville, Virginia, to replace Cara Mia's canvas, the beginning of giving back to this boat that has given us so much in the last year.

Duane and June, blog readers and soon-to-be cruisers,
accosted us on the docks -- and bought us lunch!