Miss Betty's Amazing One Day Diet! Don't try this at home!!

So we bought the boat in Topsail Island, NC.  From there we traveled down the Intra-coastal Waterway to Wilmington, NC.  We tied up next to a huge barge that had a strong crane attached to it.  We had big plans for that monster crane.

   While in Topsail, (pronounced top sul, just fyi), we were able to get the massive outriggers removed, but there still remained tons (literally tons, about 12 tons of steel) we needed taken off the boat.  The crane couldn't lift with the necessary power or strength when it was stretched so far from us.  See, the crane was on shore, the boat was in the water.  We could get the boat closest to shore at high tide, closer to shore meant closer to the mobile crane. But we were not close enough much to our chagrin (& the crane operator's chagrin, they got to keep the steel as payment. Ah, bartering at it's finest!).  We called countless crane companies, to no avail.  No one had a crane with both a long enough reach and the strength to lift the A-frame (it had to do with the crane overstretching to get to the A-frame, thereby weakening it's lift capacity).  So, if we couldn't get Muhammad to come to the mountain, we'd have to take the mountain to Muhammad.  And away we went to search out the assistance we required.

   We found the crane/barge guys in Wilmington, NC, through sheer determination. Doggedly pursuing one lead after another, like jacked up kids looking for their next candy fix.  We drove around the city, stopping at marinas, boatyards, scrapyards, industrial docks- searching... searching.  We put a little gravel in our travel, since we usually get around by way of water, it was a long time for us to be riding around in the truck.  So it went, we found this random guy underneath a deck at some offices on the water, tying his shoes.  He gave us the name of some man down the dirt path, under the bridge & across the yellow brick road.  This next man in turn gave us another guy's name, and lo! this would be our guy!  He had the barge with the badmamajama crane, the crane that would lift away the rest of Betty's extra weight from all her shrimping days.  We set sail the next day at sunrise on a falling tide for Wilmington.

   We enjoyed the cruise, it was mostly an uneventful ride, which is sometimes all a mariner can ask for. It was warm for early spring, so I was able to participate in one of my favorite activities on a boat- laying out in the sun!  Threw on some tunes, cracked a spiked lemonade or two, & kicked back... those are all my other favorite things to do on a boat, just in case you were wondering.

   We had to go under a handful of bridges, maybe 5 or more. And remember, we still had a good portion of our rigging up, so we got access through the bridges without having to wait for bridge openings because technically we were still a commercial fishing vessel.  Over the VHF radio we would say, for example, "Surf City Swing Bridge, this is fishing vessel Miss Betty, requesting a bridge opening, please."  We are nothing if not polite, pretend fishermen.  The bridge operator in turn would reply something to the effect of, "All clear, Captain. Have a safe trip."  Captain! We were eating that up! Love it!

Figure Eight Island Bridge, NC.  You can wait for up to an hour sometimes for a bridge opening on a pleasure boat.

   We made it to Wilmington in seven and a half hours.  We tied up next to the barge/crane, all by ourselves, no one was there at the barge to help.  Not that we needed it, Jay nailed it!  It was our first solo trip out on Miss Betty, mind you, and he rocked it.  Anyway, the barge was part of a scrapyard, right across from downtown Wilmington.  The scrapyard is where old metal goes to die.  We saw old, old boats, a few ancient trucks, just mountains and mountains of dilapidated junk metal (or so it appeared to my unlearned eye).  Well, the saving grace to being tied up for a week next to a big, ol' ugly barge with a cesspool of junk as our backyard was that we got to dingy over to downtown Wilmington every day and play!  Wilmington is a great, old town, very pretty and quirky.  We would have enjoyed staying longer, but our southward travel was calling our name like a siren song... and we answered.



One man's junk is another man's treasure

Pic Below: the A-frame is loose!



The Skipper & some heavy duty rust



the steel A-frame joining the
ranks of unwanted metal

He is using a cutting torch to remove the winch, same technique
used to loosen the A-frame & pretty much everything else we
were having removed. Please note the bucket of water next to
the torch man, also Jay & I both have fire extinguishers at the ready

Winch is ready for take-off.
After her dramatic weight loss,
Betty rose out of the water
about a foot, changed her
 entire water line.