It was now late Feb '11 and we had chosen our sailboat for our adventures. We signed all the paperwork and gave the check to the broker
. We were now the proud owners of a 1971
Alberg 30. We were excited, to say the least. Our journey was beginning. The boat was still located in Oriental, NC so
that meant we would have to get her ready and make the 200+ mile journey up the
Intracoastal Waterway(ICW) to Norfolk.
Getting her ready
required us to make a few trips to Oriental over the first few weekends of March ’11.
Salacia had been closed up for about 10 months or longer. While she was in good
physical condition and well equipped, she was a bit dirty and damp inside. There was dust, dirt, mold
and moisture to now deal with before we made our journey. We found Sal to be very wet inside, water
beading from overheads and everything else just felt damp. I am guessing she
got like this from being closed up, the lack of maintenance and just not caring
about her anymore. Our plan of attack
was to get her habitable and fast. We did not want to pay dock fees in North
Carolina nor did we want our Sal 3 ½ hours away.
As you can see, she was wet inside! And her chainplates hardware was orginial.
We traveled down
to Sal for the first 2 weekends we owned her. We cleaned, scrubbed and cleaned some
more. We removed all the cushions and set them on the dock to dry. We were very
lucky during the initial visits the weather was just outstanding. The skies were clear and the temps were in
the upper 60’s to lower 70’s. We were able to open her up and let everything air
and dry out. She was starting to become
a sailboat to be proud of.
All of our
research, travel and efforts had paid off. In just a few short weeks we were
able to take her out and spend the night anchored out in the Oriental Town
anchorage. Our Journey had begun. We were overjoyed. We had set our
mind to something and accomplished it. We had an idea and we turned it into our
reality. We were spending the night at anchor on our cruising sailboat!
Sal was all clean now and Crystal was a proud happy owner!!
We got a late start to the anchorage, but here we are headed out of the channel on our way over to Oriental Harbor
So here's the funny story about the first time we ever saw Sal: The night before we went to view her to consider purchasing her, we'd gone to a hockey game and out for sushi with friends. Well I ended up with the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had and spent the entire night in the bathroom. Ever had one of those nights where it doesn't make sense to get back in bed since you'll be back in the bathroom in minutes anyway? Yeah, it was like that. Needless to say that the next morning, a 3.5 hour drive to NC was the LAST thing I needed...but we had an appointment with the broker and couldn't miss out on the opportunity to start our adventures! The sickness was passed, but I was a dried out and exhausted shell and needed to rehydrate and SLEEP...but it was going to have to be done on the road to Oriental. I tried my best to recoup as Jason drove but a moving car isn't really the best place for it. When we arrived in Oriental I was no better off and wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere and crash. I could barely keep my eyes open. It was a beautiful day out, and I squeaked my greetings to the broker and Sal's previous owner, climbed aboard, laid out on her cockpit bench...and slept. That was me and Sal's first meeting. I'm certain the broker and seller both thought I was completely hung over; Jason's lame explanation of food poisoning easily looked like an excuse for one too many. He tried valiantly to engage me in the inspection/buying process, but I couldn't hold my head up for more than a cursory "Uh-huh, it's very nice" before falling asleep again. It was a very memorable first meeting to say the least.
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