In a world of Dragons

Through a series of storms and gales, waterways and gators I find myself in the shrimping town of Oriental and deeply in love with North Carolina. I understand now why James Taylor sang “In my mind I’m going to Carolina, can you see the sunshine, can’t you just feel the moonshine…” A song written about a mental escape he took while signing his largest record deal in London, when the pressure caused him to hit his boiling point he went to his childhood home in his mind. I get it, seeing more changing beauty in the last week than some see in a life time. Its hard to write about what I have seen or done, I simply don’t have the capacity or ability to translate it to paper. Same with taking pictures, which I love to do but most of the time I don’t since the only way to capture this or share it with you would cause you to have to stand next to me. If you did, you would never regret it. Words and books can expand your world, take you places, make you feel, but remember no matter how good the picture or how powerful the words, all those thoughts are synthesized.
 

Sitting in the corner of the local coffee house, ordained with oriental dragons and standing room only I feel lucky to have a seat. Across the street the shrimp fleet sits proud on inky black water, birds sit lazily on the pilings, three dogs sit on the porch waiting for their owners to drink up and get going. Every ten minutes or so one in particular climbs up on the table at the window and knocks on the glass, gives her master a look then climbs down. I guess he isn’t moving fast enough for her this morning. The “bean” is the crossroads where cruising sailors, watermen and locals collide. A bumper sticker on the register reads, I (heart) my Barista. My guess is it was stuck there by a Seattle sailor as some sort of homage, I am sure a barista somewhere in Pikes is feeling the love but not here, barista is a foreign word. Behind the counter stands pure southern charm and humor. A man walks in an says to the girl, “darling do you have a potty mouth?”. “Sometimes” she says and smiles, “when I drink too much coffee, but I guess you’re lucky since I am the nice one”. “Well then I will have a coffee since you are being so nice” I am more than sure they know each other, heck I have been here two days and already know everyone (Proven!! As I was writing this a woman walks in and says “I have a question for everyone. Does anyone have Jessie Edwards phone number?” She had it two seconds later)  I am quickly finding that there is only 2 degrees of separation between everyone. It is a bit surprising that I was almost kidnapped last night. That story I will save for a book.

In many ways I don’t want to leave. There is a smooth pace here that is tranquil. I have been offered a free dock but don’t want to take it. Anchored up a creek that is so still you can see a leaf drop by the shore and watch the water ripples run to the bay, where my morning views are heart stopping and the night so still it takes me to the deepest parts of sleep. When I got here, I carefully made my way up the creek and picked a suitable spot in front of a nice house and dropped anchor. After getting settled I called a long time friend and Oriental resident RC Clements. “Where are you” he asked……..”oh your anchored in front of my house” . I couldn’t have picked a better spot if I tried.

No editing was done to this image. This is what I say when I woke up this morning.

For those of you who do not know, I am on the ICW (intercostal water way). Think of it as a water highway that runs inland through bays, rivers, creeks, swamps, lakes and canals, stretching and winding from New Jersey to Key West. As soon as you set adrift on the ICW you become a part of a family of transient boaters from all over the world that are there to help you in every way. Usually you meet these people in a said town or anchorage, having dinner together, coffee, cocktails or just talking. Most have no idea where they are going, some Columbia, others Australia, Panama, Key West and some have to go home soon. You make connections exchange info.  In the morning you will leave and head here or there and they go their own way, sometimes you go together. Usually you run into each other days later and get together again. In just a few weeks I have met everyone from bikers to Brits, adventurers to 20 something’s escaping corporate life and yes a ton of Canadians. It’s really cool and the stories you hear make it even more worthwhile.  From here, there are a few must see’s en route, but most of us are gunning for Charleston SC, A: because its charming as hell B: its warm. The 27*f/-3*c  nights are rough.

 

 

For additional photos please view my facebook http://www.facebook.com/james.munsey.5 

 

 

I recently read on a fellow travelers FB a post that said. Our time on this planet is limited, yet most of us live like we will be here forever. Better get cracking.  

 

 

 

And like that, I was gone.

 

Growing up my dad always fixed and maintained his own equipment, this use to boggle my mind, why would he want to crawl under the car and change the oil when he could hit Jiffy lube for a 20 spot, or get your brakes done at Wal-Mart for short change. The problem wasnt that he maintained his own stuff the problem was I had to help and would have to sit there handing him tools when he needed it, point a flash light, and read his friggin mind. After all when your dad says hand me that thing and the other whatcha~ma~call~it or shine the light you have to know what and where. Lord forbid he would actually have to ask for a tool by name or be specific about where to shine the light. This drove my brother and I crazy as kids, and oddly enough today when I am wrenching on something with my brother Dan he will say to me, “grab me a socket wrench”, but not say the size or I will say “hand me a screw driver…..”I guess the apple never falls to far from the tree, proving once again that evolution does exist, well at least with my brother and I  “progressing” over our father and being able to ask for a tool by at least its phylum versus our dads categorization by genus or telepathy. I would always complain to my dad for waisting my Saturday and his answer was always the same, “James you need to know how to fix stuff because you never know”. That never meant much to me since I had developed the skill and yes would still take my car in most of the time to have work done. In  New Jersey it was obvious who knew how to fix stuff and who didn’t. In a catastrophe it’s up to you. I saw three guys plug two holes in a tire in the middle of the street (seriously when was the last time you saw someone plug a tire?), rig a HD antenna to a roof with a rake and some ducktape, get a cranky old diesel engine started that was flooded, keep generators running around the clock, fix all areas of the home that were damaged from plumbing to electrical, to carpentry to pure demolition. Without these skills things would have been tough and comfort would have been near impossible. When all fails it doesn’t matter how well you can work it, if you don’t know how it fix it you’re in trouble. Its amazing to me how many kids now days have never changed a tire, a sparkplug or even an air filter!   

When the water killed the Rover Dan Dunn knew his his generator was next.
In the middle of a hurricane, Dan jumped on the hood and pulled the genny up
on the hood to keep it from flooding. For that I would like to dedicate, to this
Virginian, Country folk will survive by Hank Williams Jr.

I have so much to say about NJ and I would write more about it but it’s still filtering through my mind; it was a lot to processes and I am having trouble starting to write again (so forgive me since this is a bit scattered). When I got to NJ it was like candy land along the shore and when I left it was like Gulliver had step all over the game board. Everything was wrecked.

Adams street. Crossing that line would be like a scab crossing a picket
in 1930.

Saturday I was finally able to leave. Pulling out on to the river I got ahead of my guide boat, which was full of new friends and some old who were seeing me off and helping me navigate the lost channel out to sea. We were just pulling out of Adam and Terry’s canal,  I was lazily  putting on my sea boots since I thought I was in the channel and I got stuck fast in the mud. Only half complete with putting on my boots I was running around getting lines ready to get pulled off and only had one boot on. This fearless man of the sea is far from perfect. I want to take a min and thank Melanie Dunn for photographing the moment. I am sure she will be debuting those photos on FB soon….and if she does there will be no Christmas card from me to the Dunn Family this year. Not that I was going to send one anyways, lets be real thanks to FB I don’t even send B-day cards anymore….why….when I can write on your wall “Have a good one, what a “special” day .  Thinking about it, it actually works so well I don’t even have to call anymore….something’s are said better over text anyway. ;)

Happy Birthday John Beverage. I hope you read my blog or you will have no idea that I even cared enough to say happy birthday.

Hitting the open sea gave me a feeling of a parakeet who cage was left open ( I know it’s a bad analogy; feathers would be everywhere and I would have kids trying desperately to save me and put me back into captivity) Let me try again. Hitting the open sea gave me a feeling of water flowing down a stream…nope sounds like John Denver wrote that. It gave me a feeling of soaring like an eagle..ahhh (to Disney or Bet Midler; take your pick)….how about it was a relief… it was time for me to go, get down the road and continue my journey. Within about an hour of hitting the open ocean it was dark and I settled in for a night on the water. Snug in the cabin I made dinner while listening to Latin music from New York. About every 15 min I would pop my head out of the hatch check that the auto pilot was keeping the correct course,  that everything was running smooth and most importantly there were no ships. When I got tired I would sleep for 20min then wake up, make adjustments and then go back to sleep for another 20 min…..Around day break I was happy that I was making such good time with the steady wind and flat sea. In 24 hrs. I would be on mark to cross the Gulf Stream and on to Bermuda. At around 9 am I came across the largest freighter I have ever seen, having spotted him early I made course adjustments to give a wide berth. Soon I was moving away from him. I went down below and started working on a pump that needed to be rebuilt. When you are at sea for a long period of time you develop a rhythm with the boat and the ocean that is so strong that if it goes out of sync you know it, even if you are asleep it will wake you up. While working on the pump I got this feeling and popped on deck to find I was headed right back at the freighter, glancing at the compass, which was spinning like roulette wheel, I found myself turning around….my auto pilot had broken.  

 

Peters Self steering system hooked up.

This was a hard hit, it’s like losing your only other crew member over board and would now require me to sit at the helm unable to leave it until I got to port which was 20 hrs away. It took me a solid hour to come up with a solution. Last summer a friend of mine Peter showed me an old world method of self-steering a boat that uses a series of lines, bungee and pulleys connected to the sails to steer the boat to a given wind angle. (I won’t bore you here with details).The problem was that I had only some of the stuff that Peter had given me, but not all of it and I was gray on how he actually did it. With a little trial and error I had it up and running in 20 min and set a course for Ocean City Maryland. Amazingly with only 1 adjustment to this system I sailed right to the Ocean City light in just under 20 hrs.  It was one of my finest sails ever.

Ocean City MD

Today I have my new auto pilot and am ready to leave. This morning when I hit the inlet it was breaking surf 4-6 (there isn’t supposed to be any surf at all) and is simply stupid to try to cross. So here I sit, the temperature dropping and friends waiting in Bermuda for me. The forecast says I will be able to get out in the early morning….cross your fingers. Nothing I have planned on this trip has happened….but I am finding out that life simply taking me where it wants and what has made this such an amazing adventure so far.

 

It’s hard to believe that I left a month ago.

Phase II the lock down.

 

 

In the movie Casablanca the nightly curfew slowed the action at Rick Café American from escapee aristocrats holding on to their last few minutes of fame, into the dribble of Casablanca’s underworld. Casablanca’s curfew signaled the time when Victor Lazlo met and lead his free French, Bugatti bought and sold his visas. It was after “lights out” that the start of the cat and mouse games trafficking people into the free world began and the time for all the other activity that need to occur in the dark to occur. For us 7pm is the curfew which is heavily enforced as well as daytime lockdowns so stiff in some areas you need paperwork endorsed by Eisenhower himself if you are going to pass. Sadly there is looting going on. Travel in to help those in need or to see what’s around you is impossible if you don’t have ID pertaining to where you want to go or a VERY convincing reason for traveling to a destination; Jersey cops are some of the most skeptical people in the world. This poses a problem for me as I am a resident of New Hampshire; I am foreign and in question everywhere.

For a minute I ask you to close your eyes and imagine yourself in bed with your family asleep, your world around in tatters, there is no heat, no light and unsafe water.  Outside your house are stacks of carpet, furniture and junk on the lawn similar to what one may see in front of a dorm building at San Diego State on the last day of school but with mold already set in. On the hood of your car you are drying a few left over family pictures, a pair of boots, some mail and a trinket that although wasn’t your favorite survived.  To find sleep one must answer over and over in their head thousands of  questions like, when will we have power or any other basics which all seem so far out in the future it doesn’t matter, worries of how all this will be covered by insurance, getting sick or worse. You live in half dreams and as you slip and slumber you hear a car pull up, people in your yard and that generator that was running  your one light or the fridge that keeps the babies milk cold is now cut and gone. You have been hit by insurgence and its only getting worse. Looters are now coming by water like pirates sweeping your decks, by car and foot. The local pub has become the central hub for everyone, opening at 5pm and having last call by 6pm, it’s a place to get food (one of a few places open in this area), have a drink and for at least a few min share some stories. Tonight’s topic far and wide was looting….In short there is a very clear code, if you violate someone in any way you will be at the hands of the public, a public that would forever remain silent to your fate. Interestingly everyone is wide open, giving, paying it forward and paying it back, if you knocked on anyone’s door and asked for help you would not be turned away, I am 100% sure of that, these are very good people; sadly the looting is done out of greed more than survival. I say this not to make a speech about the right to bear arms, which at this point is a given for 100% of the population, but to tell what’s around me as the real story, to give light to things that we don’t deal with on a day to day that tilt our vision.  One of the things I learned from this experience…we link things to what we know in our mind and sometimes fail to stop and think with freshness. The people, who linked this storm to storms past, did the basics and lost a lot because of it (I want to be clear to say a lot of people did a lot of prep and still lost everything): “Evolve or die”. Thinking out of the box is so critical to foreseeing things before life reshapes everything.  Lessons which are hard to earn from a Toronto high rise, a cute little Cape Cod, while California dreaming, or on those rolling plains. The perspective I am showing is much more fundamental and what life at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs looks like.  A life that cannot be policed or kept under order law, there simply isn’t enough, its one that is kept together by the citizens.  Again bringing me back to how important it is to surround yourself hith good people. It’s easy to say oh they can have it I will buy another one….your linking again.

This morning was spent picking up and re-loaning a spare generator now needed at another location in order to pump out. On the way into the very hard hit neighborhood, we picked up coffee in a thermos, a luxury to the highest standards, which was more than appreciated. Creating the upward spike in emotions for me, but after 2 hours I hit the bottom again with depression setting in again, slipping back in your mind to shut down.  It’s funny how we think we are so strong, but something as simple as seeing a baby bassoon on a heap of junk followed by a beautiful morning picture from a special friend threw me over the edge, no one saw, but it was needed.  30 min later someone else mentioned in passing that they finally broke down, I can connect with that. On the way out we were stopped by an elderly lady who asked us if we could help carry some stuff out of her house, a women of means, now ragged she broke down as we carried away the contents of her house to the curb to be picked up and dragged away. It was like we were removing 30 years of memories.

 I have to give credit to Terry who seems to be the local therapist and neighborhood “Kennedy” who is ever unfailing. Tonight she has created a bon fire potluck which I am sure will turn out a crowd.  Getting prepped she bouncing back and forth from the kitchen where she is cooking on a make shift stove that I brought in off the boat and a bbq out back. Where is Martha Stewart now?

Waiting to get gas...

Right now it’s a 50/50 on whether or not I will be able to leave here by boat. Currently there is a lock down on the waterways with heavy fines.  A low pressure system passes on Thursday which will give me the window I will need for the 700mile trip to Bermuda.  Pray for me, its time to go.

I want to thank everyone for there support of my blog, although I only have 6 followers the page view count is mind blowing and growing all over the world.