[Rhodes22-list] the Crawford adventure begins (for a change of pace)

[stan]

Rose picked Frone and Andrea Crawford up at the bus depot in Edenton.  It stops here once a year following leap year. Then loaned them her car so they could go get breakfast followed by a little gas(oline) and other supplies in case they should see another sunrise.

Meantime, back at the plant, the American crew (South) were all over the boat trying to get it finished on time.  (The definition of 'on time' in Spanish is manana.) 

By afternoon everything was as good as it was going to get.  The priest said a few words and there were a few flowers tossed to soothe Neptune but no bashing of Rum across the bow since the hull was freshly painted and besides the boat was not a virgin.

After the formal farewells they shoved off the Midway Drive ramp dock taking part of the breakwater timbers to port as they made the sharp turn into sly Albemarle Sound and headed East by Noreast.  At this point I would be adding, "and we never head from then again".  But a funny thing happened to us on our way home from Norfolk.

Costco had gotten in a batch of Magnolia trees (hard to buy in this part of the South) for $70 and I thought that was a bargain and was going to buy a few to put outside the plant since Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have become my neighbors across the street and Brunswick my new neighbor to the south.  I was toying with the idea of changing the company name to Glass Magnolias Boat Works.  By the time we got there Costco had marked these trees down twice, all the way down to $29 - very hard for a kid from the real depression, to resist.  So I bought out the entire supply and was moving half of them down to Edenton.   

Those of you who know US 17 in this area of the country know it thinks it is an Interstate.  It has a beautiful rest area - probably the country's most unique rest area in that it rests both cars and boats. We can never resist stopping there each time we make the Virginia Beach shopping trip, to admire the boats, this time rafted three deep with all bows pointing north, and to feed the stray cats.

At this age I am no longer a womanizer (well not as much) and only have eyes for Rhodes.  So I instantly woke Rose up with. "You are not going to believe this."  Beyond the monster sailing yachts my rhodes trained eyes saw a pop top enclosure and a Bimini and Red self cover furling sails.

The Crawfords were dumbfounded and promised to pay the balance due as soon as they made it home.  We explained it was a chance encounter and gave them what little ice was left in our van ice box.

They said they were sailing along the Sound like pros when the wind suddenly made a 180 degree turn and all hell broke loose.  And they got drenched as the boat performed like Mario Fiori's former submarine and they made it to Elizabeth City that first day without a rudder failure. With the late start they had had, the only way I figured they could have gotten to Elizabeth City the first day was to have done what the lady who did so well at the NY Marathon did - take the subway. By the second night they had made it to the Rt. 17 Rest area and it was hard for us to believe their horror story because the boat looked absolutely beautiful sitting there in its outside rafting dockage, the pop top enclosure looked beautiful, the Bimini looked beautiful, beaming Andrea looked beautiful, even Frone looked beautiful.  So you will have to wait for the whole truth of their full adventure from their own report.   As we drove away looking back at that neat Rhodes strutting its stuff amongst the likes of an O'Day 36 and all those other big guys, it made me almost want to give up the sailboat business and go cruising. (But I recalled Nixon's haunting words to the press and wondered who would the List have to kick around if I gave up the ship.)

stan/ec