I'm back. New Bern stinks.
No, no, Sequoyah the Boat is fine but for a prow a bit damaged by an intimate encounter with a dock. I can fix that with a little fiberglass work. I may even put on a steel rub plate in case it ever happens again.
New Bern stinks literally. The streets, and many other spots of ground, are covered with a festering mud filled with leaves, twigs, seaweed, grass, and things I don't even want to think about considering I had to walk on it. I opened the doorway to the dockmaster's office to see if anyone was there, and that stinks, too. The water was three feet high in the building. I didn't go in. If anyone's there he's on his own.
The Grand came through well enough. Three boats sank, the end of A Dock was lost, some of the access ramps are missing, the gates are all bent out of shape, but the marina's still there. I was able to replace broken dock lines and otherwise tidy up Sequoyah. Some fenders are gone. Unlike some of the other boats her well rubbed prow is not holed, so there's no leak. The batteries are strong, so the bilge pump is working. Good thing. It may be several weeks before shore power is restored. If I have to I'll get some 6V golf cart batteries and wire them up in series as a backup.
Bridge Point Marina, just across the Trent River, is almost a wipeout. There's no telling where all those missing boats are. My guess is they're now navigation hazards in the channel, or some of them. Others fetched up with their masts, which are all that's showing, at crazy angles on the shores, the railroad trestle, and Heaven knows where else.
I'll return every few days until things are back to normal. In the meantime I'm ordering a few new fenders and looking for a hunk of stainless steel I can use as a battering ram on the prow.
But New Bern still stinks.