Graham's River trip Day 1
15 miles and a big thank you!
I’ve decided to send out daily updates on Graham’s Trip. If you don’t want to get these you can simply ignore them or you can unsubscribe just to the “ships log” trip updates and stay subscribed to the B&B newsletter (instructions at the bottom). I’m also posting these to our Messabout Forum which Graham will be following so if you want to ask him questions feel free to post there.
First off, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has donated. We’ve raised over 800 bucks in the fist day for the Rock Steady Boxing Program thanks to you!!! Incredible.
Day 1 Update: Graham anchored in the Neuse night before last and got underway yesterday morning around 7am. I spoke to him just before noon as he was just passing Seymour Johnson AFB. Jets were taking off overhead as he passed the end of the runway. He is getting about a knot of current and rowing to keep centered in the river. The weather has been unseasonably warm here. in the upper 70s during the day. The kids at daycare the other day were outside on the playground eating popsicles! The skies were clear with a slight N NE breeze. He was occasionally hitting bottom with the centerboard down so it’s pretty shallow. He spooked a deer along the river bank but otherwise he’s had the river all to himself thus far.
He’s towing his micro nesting dinghy (a custom nesting Minipaw) so that he can scope out any difficult spots or row ashore to explore. Below is a show of the “micro” nesting dinghy and Carita from the 2018 Messabout. Despite how large it appears here, it actually nests and mounts on Carlita’s foredeck when it’s too rough to tow though i couldn’t find a shot of it. It weighs a mere 45lbs.
He did 15 miles on the first day with a bit more help from the river than my estimate of a half a knot. Unless he wants to get back to his honey-do-list he’d better slow down a bit (just kidding Carla). He’s anchored around 4pm just a mile or so from Cliffs of the Neuse State park in Wayne County. Here is his progress so far.
The Park is about 1,000 acres and features cliffs (yes cliffs) rising 90 feet, formed by ancient fault shifts and river erosion. The park has a nice campground and a museum showcases its unique geology and natural history. Once a ceremonial ground for Native tribes, the park’s land was preserved in 1945 thanks to donations by Lionel Weil and others.
You can google what the cliffs look like but i don’t want to spoil it for Graham in case he reads this before he gets there lol.
In case you think Graham is roughing it, he’s got you fooled. His cabin is quite spacious as evidenced from this shot from this year’s Everglades Challenge. My mom AKA SandyBottom and I borrowed Graham’s boat for the race in March. Crawling down into a warm dry bunk whenever you like is quite a luxury.
Ok, so in case you don’t want to get these updates….
Just scroll to the bottom of this email and click “unsubscribe” then you’ll be given this screen and you can unselect the “ships log” section of our newsletter and you’ll still get all our other updates but not trip report posts. Here is how that looks.
