The bass singer is always my favorite. Can you guess which one is the bass?

Paul and Sharon are still with us. I should mention that Paul is doing most of the picture taking now, and a number of pictures appearing here are his.

Our repairs to our inverter, along with a little rewiring, will last at least through Tuesday 23. Washington, NC is a pretty good place to be stuck. The whole town seems behind the revitalization of the downtown and waterfront. A lot of people come down to use the long boardwalk and to sit on the benches and the “porch swing” that is right in front of us. All are friendly. Another hangout is the catwalk around the 2^nd floor of the marina office.

Yesterday after breakfast on the boat we lowered the dinghy and went west under the low swing bridge as far as the newer highway 17 bridge. Washington has the nicest waterfront homes I have ever seen. Not some of the nicest. The nicest. Many sit way back from the waterfront with deep yards with huge old trees. With no cameras we missed pictures of some of the best until we realized the iPad I use for nav (I don’t leave home without it) could take pictures also.

After the ride on the water we all took the rental car and drove 38 miles to New Bern, at the end of the large inlet just below the Pamlico River inlet where we docked. We toured the Tryon Palace, the office and residence of the original English colonial rulers of the Carolina area before independence. There were two historic homes we toured close by the palace. Well worth seeing. New Bern is the birthplace of Pepsi Cola, but we didn’t have time to see that.

We had to get back to Washington in time for “Music in the Street”, which turned out better than we expected as they shut down Main Street a block away from our boat. You can’t have street musicians without at least one gospel quartet. Remember, this is the South. Some locals from about 30 miles away (everything that isn’t in Washington is about 30 miles away) new how to do it right. Not the best we’ve heard, but pretty close. They sang in front of a furniture store, and the furniture store across the street put out rocking chairs for the audience.

Classic cars were parked on the main cross street. Among others there was an Avanti to die for and the 12^th 1955 Corvette off the assembly line. So far we’ve had good luck with the downtown restaurants, and the Grub Brothers was another good one last night. If you’re here you should take in Music in the Street. Monthly every third Friday.

Today the dinghy was still down from our yesterday trip, so Paul commandeered it to wash down the hull on the side away from the dock. Paul’s habits are different from mine, and one is that he keeps things quite a bit cleaner than I do. Good to have the boat clean if the local TV station wants to feature us again. We were on the weathercam yesterday.