One More Week to Go

 It has been a relatively quiet week here.  The weather has been cloudy, but no real rain.  The wind was a bit blustery as well.  This meant it was not exactly beach or fishing weather.  The dredge finally showed up the other day and dredged the channel.  Now the ferries are back to a regular schedule (until the next wind storm shoals in the channel again).  

Dredge going out to work on the ferry channel.  You can see the ferry just in front and to the left of the dredge also going out the channel.

There have been some beautiful sunsets even with the cloudy days this past week.  

Here is a view out the channel from the dock one evening.

In this one the evening ferry is just coming in at sunset.

We did get some boat projects done this week.  There was a leaky seal on our port steering ram that Keith had to fix.  After taking it off, he had to take it across to Hatteras on the ferry and leave it in Buxton.  From there it was picked up and taken to Wanchese, NC to be fixed.  Then the reverse trip sent it from Wanchese back to Buxton where we were to pick it back up.  There was a little confusion until we finally got it back to Ocracoke (it comes with living on an island); but we did get it back.  Keith installed it back on the boat and all is working well.  Keith also replaced a water tank sensor and I put some UV protection on the teak deck this week.  

I have also been making a good bit of smoked fish dip.  Giving some away to friends and some to the marina staff.  I told Keith we just have to catch more fish to smoke.  We are also considering purchasing a small, lightweight, fish smoker.  We are liking the smoked fish so much we figured, why not?

Gail's Most Excellent Smoked Fish Dip

Our friend Josh (first mate on "Dream Girl"  charters) has come by to visit and talk fishing with Keith.  It is killing Keith that we cannot get back out to the Gulf Stream to fish right now due to windy conditions.

Here are Keith and Josh from earlier in the summer at the fish cleaning station (one of their favorite places to be other than on a boat fishing).

I continue to work on my diamond star quilt.  This has been quite a learning experience for me.  I love the pattern and will do it again, but it is a tricky pattern to do.  With very small strip sets (1 inch wide) and multiple set-in-seams, it has been challenging.

Here is the diamond star top layered onto the batting.  I still have q good amount of work to do on it, but I am getting there.

And here is a small lap quilt I made with the scraps I just could not bring myself to throw out from the diamond star quilt.

At the end of the month when we leave Ocracoke; I will be heading to Pennsylvania for a few weeks.  I cannot wait to replenish my fabric stash.  I will probably have one more post from Ocracoke as we are looking at leaving next weekend.