Most folks don’t know this, but we’ve been waiting on a letter from the government letting Reinhart know when his biometrics appointment with the INS in Charlotte will be. He had requested Oct 23-25 hoping that we could leave the boat at the dock here in Annapolis, rent a car, and drive to Charlotte for a couple of days, then come back and resume our trip. We haven’t received the letter yet, or more accurately, Emily hasn’t received it in Greensboro, and now we are trying to make up our minds what we are going to do over the next few weeks.
The best thing for us would be if that letter shows up by Saturday…but that is looking doubtful. If the letter hasn’t surfaced, we’ll just go ahead and start heading south in the next several days, depending on the weather. It turns out there is a large meeting called the Southbound Cruisers Rendezvous in New Bern, NC from Oct 25-29; it looks like it presents a wealth of info for us; we probably couldn’t get there by Wednesday, but maybe Thursday or Friday. It would be fun to hang out in our home waters for a few days. Of course, we’d been hoping to go to Charleston before we stopped for the holidays and maybe we should just head straight there and get a little more offshore experience under our belts…heck, maybe we should just leave the boat down there for the holidays. We could even stop at Southport on the way down and see if anyone in the family would like to meet up there. We are also looking for someone to install an enclosure for our cockpit (so we can stay warm and dry no matter where we are) and if we find someone to do it, that will dictate where we are for a week or so.
We aren’t getting any better at making decisions; can you imagine how indecisive we are going to be when it comes to making up our minds about which islands we are going to visit. A little info on that: every cruiser we meet says we shouldn’t bother too much with the Caribbean and should just go to the Bahamas because they think it’s cheaper, the water is nicer, and the snorkeling is better. But most of this crowd doesn’t like long overnight passages either, so it makes sense they would prefer the areas that don’t require days at sea. We’d been pretty much in agreement that we didn’t want to go to the Bahamas, but now that we’ve looked at the charts a little closer and seen how many islands and cays there are, it is starting to look more attractive. There are so many other pros and cons to doing one or the other, or both; we just have to make up our minds by New Years!
I believe this is our last post from Annapolis (unless the weather keeps us here a few more days than expected); so I guess you'll all find out where we decided to go the next time we post.
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Reinhart, good luck with the INS. Last time I checked, the education level with their people did not go further than maybe kindergarden.....After receiving green cards with birth countries ranging from French Polynesia to Australia, I don't have great faith in that department. I am just so happy that they can decide who comes into this country and who can't, even though they don't even know where I am really from - LOL. Good luck, maybe you get Africa as a birth country this time around, would make it easier to sail there-smile.
ReplyDeleteI will probably be in Charleston the first weekend in November, want to meet?