Now We Own a Sailboat!!!!

   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.

Dark, dirty and damp she was! We fixed that!

    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

Here I am bringing Salacia and crew into Oriental

One happy sailor making us some eggs!

   We did it! We did it! We were now beginning our journey. Yes, we were and still are a long way from setting off, but we now were one very big step closer! We owned a cruising sailboat and had just spent our first night at anchor.