On Wednesday, May 5, we left Myrtle Beach and had a long day of travel after sitting because of rain, wind, or fog. We went all the way to Wrightsville Beach as the forecast for Cape Fear was good with the tide coming in combined with a south wind. We flew up the river. On Thursday, May 6, we cruised even further and docked at Morehead City. All three of us were exhausted and thrilled that we only had 25 miles to go to Oriental the next day.

On Friday, May 7, we arrived at Sailcraft at 11:40 AM, and by 4 PM, we were on the hard between their two buildings as shown here. We were industrious immediately -- Jim compounded and waxed the hull, and Su cleaned all the dirty fenders. We did have time for fun and socialized with the boaters who live there and renewed friendships with Jim & Laurie and Peter & Gail -- all working hard on their boats. On Monday, May 17, we celebrated our eighth anniversary by having leftover pizza on Palmetto Moon and falling asleep early!

On Thursday, May 20, we cruised 2.4 miles from one creek in Oriental to another to spend time at the Oriental Marina & Inn. Alex loves these short cruising days. Our timing couldn't have been better as we had a "first" in our almost five years of cruising. In fact, we don't know any other cruising couple who has had this happen to them.

So, here it goes.....

Linda Khan and Juan Davila were on S/V The Last Mango docked next to us, and we had talked off and on since our arrival the day before. In fact, Linda and Su talked while doing laundry. Juan asked Jim if he could come up to the flybridge to ask him something. Well, Jim wondered why Juan looked so serious. He told Jim that they had hitchhiked to Bayboro to get their marriage license and engaged a magistrate to appear around 6:30PM to perform the ceremony. Juan asked if we would be their witnesses!!

Here we are after the ceremony on the deck by the Tiki Bar. Su and Jim had several people come up and say how nice it was that their friends were here at the same time and we could participate in their ceremony. We had to explain we were just docked next to them and had met the day before!! We do hope we will stay in touch. They had bought their boat in Charleston, SC and were on their way back to their homeport of Groton, CT. Both of Linda and Juan are still working, but one never knows when we will end up in the same marina again. After sharing several rounds of drinks at the Tiki Bar, the four of us walked over to Toucan Grill for dinner.

Our plans to head north were delayed by windy/rainy weather so we decided to stay on and wait for our friends Bob & Lynn on M/V Legrace to arrive. We had not spent time with them since early December when they came into Fort Pierce.

So, May ends with Palmetto Moon sitting in Oriental......a nice, quiet, restful place to be.