When I downloaded my Sony camera every picture included at least one or more of the items in the title.  I wanted to include donuts, but although a “d” is a flipped around “b”, one donut stop wasn’t enough to earn a title spot.

All along the way from Florida we’ve spotted curious dolphins, sometimes in places we didn’t expect. Been lovely as always to see these intelligent creatures. Many are youngsters with mom and dad showing them the ways of the life aquatic. I haven’t mentioned them, but I wanted you to know they are there!

Whenever I mention places in NC we like to stop at; and there’s quite a few, Russ often remarks, “I thought you didn’t like North Carolina?”  Sigh. Yes, I still have not-so-fond memories of severe thunderstorms, very nearby tornadoes, hiding out from hurricane Sandy, going aground and fog, fog. But those are in the past- maybe the most recent event was 2013, and memories fade faster after age 50!

North Carolina has a great deal to offer boaters and cruisers and that’s just along the many miles of shoreline. Looks like this post might turn out longer than I first imagined!

First off a close encounter with a dredge. It would swing back and forth across the channel, doing a good job of allowing room for boats to pass by as they came along. We would be proceeding between the dredge and the red marker.

Compare and contrast the dredging method above with the laborious dredge method below. Also note the smooth waters of the ICW versus the rougher Cape Fear River. We didn’t choose the best day to go up the Cape Fear River from Southport, NC to Carolina Beach, but the next two days looked worse and Britts is only open Friday through Sunday until Memorial Weekend. So there you have it.

We reserved and paid for a mooring ball at Carolina Beach using Dockwa but not everyone does, so Randy comes out to collect your $20, chat and offer to take trash.

Others love them too!

Mothers’ Day was warm and mostly sunny, unlike the dreary rainy day before. We had to use the dinghy dock a stone’s throw from our mooring because the small boat/dinghy dock at the south “dead end” was completely dismantled. This makes for a longer walk down to Britts and the boardwalk shops but we needed the exercise.

A stop at Britts- surprise!- but hey, these have to last us an entire year because they aren’t open when we come by in October. We walked back on the beach with smiling faces, full bellies and “happy in the sand” toes.

Monday brought an offshore day of 80 miles to Cape Lookout which is six miles past the Beaufort, NC inlet and a pristine paradise. Some compare the water and beaches to the Bahamas, but take it from one who knows; the beaches are wide and loaded with shells, the dunes picturesque, but the water no way.

Still, the Cape has a lot to offer and if you are there during the week, you can avoid the weekend craziness.

 

 

Over by the lighthouse which opens to visitors/climbers every May 16, is a ferry dock. The ferries bring people in from Beaufort using the inside route which gets regular dredging to keep it usable by the large pontoon ferries, small local boats and smaller shrimpers.

 

Russ took an hour in the late afternoon to gently scrub the moss-y stuff off the bottoms and scrape away the few barnacles that had attached themselves. Maybe this place is more like the Bahamas than I thought!

I’m also certain I saw a huge loggerhead turtle as we headed back from the beach. They are fairly common in here but other than that one sighting we didn’t spot any others.

 

I’m sure you have all heard the red sky saying, and if you are like me you may not know exactly what conditions are being predicted by the night or morning red. Read on and you too will be all the wiser:

Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning’? In general in mid latitudes because the prevailing winds are westerlies, storms move in from the west. A red sky at night means that the setting sun is sending its light through a high concentration of dust particles. This usually indicates high pressure and stable air coming in from the west. Basically good weather will follow. A red sunrise can mean that a high pressure system (good weather) has already passed, thus indicating that a storm system (low pressure) may be moving to the east. A morning sky that is a deep, fiery red can indicate that there is high water content in the atmosphere. So, rain could be on its way.

Interesting uh?

Our next stop was close by, six miles back the way we came; head in the Beaufort inlet, catch the 10:30 Beaufort Bascule Bridge opening, hang a right and nose into a slip at Homer Smith’s Docks. You may recall this is the shrimp place. 🙂  Tony lends you his truck for errands and this baby was a new white Ford pickup; very comfy but as usual many of the bells & whistles left us baffled. We returned to find a new neighbor; Captain Bob: swordfish vessel.

 

Could we purchase any swordfish? Why sure! One of the guys pulled out a partial and cut us two thick fillets. Mahi had also come in, so we bought an entire four-pounder and watched an expert filet job. That and three pounds of cleaned shrimp all for much less than we’d pay anywhere else.

Traveling Soul recommended the bus tour of historic Beaufort and it was excellent Sunny and hot though, but most wanted to sit up top anyway.

 

 

Continuing north as we do this time of year, Belhaven would be our next stop. Anchor in the protected harbor, dinghy in to the public floating dinghy dock, walk one block and well what do you know? If it isn’t Spoon River.

The day we left Belhaven would be a great travel day, except for one event; a cold front was due to sweep by and that meant chilly winds out of the north.The tricky part was that we’d be crossing the Albemarle Sound; 15 miles of water shallow enough to get rough and choppy in just a moderate wind. Foolish nomads we are, we believed the forecast which had the front coming around 3pm. Our plan was to depart early and pick up speed in the Alligator River so as to be across the Sound in time. Twenty miles in the Alligator-Pungo Canal, twenty miles in the Alligator River, fifteen across the Sound. Plus 6-8 miles on either end; very doable assuming the front doesn’t come early. Ha.

I must say we could not have timed it better, had we wanted to do the last five miles of the Alligator River and the entire Albemarle Sound in strong northerly headwinds that gave us the roughest trip, pounding like no tomorrow. Spray flew up over the flybridge but Russ couldn’t retreat to the inside helm because then he couldn’t see the pot floats which lay scattered about. Miserable I tell you. And I was down below, much warmer and drier. I haven’t felt so happy to drop the hook as I did that day.

Our final bird photo to round out North Carolina is one we’d been hoping to spot but couldn’t recall ever seeing in this area. We crossed Currituck Sound without a pounding repeat and crossed the line into Virginia by noon.

 

 

We (me and all of you!) have arrived at a milestone- my 500^th post! Can you imagine? I can’t and I’ve been dreading this one. How to make it worthy of such a lofty accomplishment. Where would we be? What topic would grab your attention? And now as I sit here, with 499 posts under my fingers, I acknowledge that I’ve said it all before. Sure, the photos are different but the trip is much the same. I look back to older posts and wonder who penned such witty prose, so clever and at times mildly informative? Frankly dear Followers, I’m losing steam.

So my friends, to those of you who’ve read every damn post, I raise my glass, offer up a donut and salute you for following along on this nomadic life Russ and I have led for seven years!!  Even if you haven’t read them all (you are the more normal ones) 🙂 I’m still happy and blessed you are here. Without further preamble, let’s get to this!

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than… well not much, but hey we crossed into South Carolina the morning of May 8 and greeted North Carolina in the early afternoon of May 11.  AND, we stopped in Charleston for one night.

The weather dictates so much of how and when we travel, as I may have mentioned a time or two; thus Plan A and B are usually readily available. Two nights at St John’s Yacht Harbor was the plan, but when we did the long view, which included being at Carolina Beach for Britts Donuts (only open Friday-Sunday for now), one night in Charleston would have to suffice.

You can get the most out of a day if you arrive early, and with a favorable current push the entire way- a minor miracle- Twins was secured to the dock by 11am. Fantastic dockhands and we were glad to give the marina our business. You may recall that last fall we anchored across the river because due to Matthew the docks required repairs, but the marina offered their amenities free to anchored boats. We’d stayed there twice before and always use the loaner car (always in good shape) for the two hours allotted.

This time we used Uber to get into downtown Charleston.  Later, at 6pm we took the last slot for the car and shopped at Publix, picked up some of Melvin’s famous pulled pork and slaw for dinner. The liquor shops close at 7pm, which we forgot and so no chance for a bottle of Firefly’s Southern Lemonade Vodka. A one night stay meant no time to get to the Firefly Distillery.

 

Wed, May 10 we pushed on, finally beginning to see a few more sailboats; namely the ones who skipped GA and southern South Carolina. The big question of the day was, “could we all get through McClellanville without going aground?” We had almost five feet of tide but the tide would be falling, not rising.

This five-mile stretch spells trouble if you move more than 20ft off the “magenta line” in some spots when the tide is lower than mid-ish.  I made sure Russ knew that through this stretch he was not to veer off the magenta line and certainly he wasn’t to move off it toward the “green” side; since we were headed north, that would be our starboard or right side. Practically the last thing any boat wants on the ICW is to go aground on a falling tide, so be careful here.

We could hear several boats ahead of us- chatter on the VHF was the clue. We caught up to a sailing cat and Russ hailed them that we’d like to pass on their starboard/right/green side. Hey- what did I tell you???? You guys know- see above- do not go toward green side!!  So he moves maybe 20ft over and changes his mind. Yes, I do serve a purpose other than galley-slave :-).

Then we get to a short stretch where the advice is to absolutely be on the magenta line, it’s about one –half mile south of Jeremy Creek… and I see the sail cat move slightly toward the green side-uh oh- honey don’t follow.  Captain announces, “we grounded.” We pass very slowly favoring the red side of the magenta line and call off depths- 7ft, 7.4ft- so yes, more water here. I mean how much does this cat draw? Couldn’t be much more than 4 ft. Yikes. This wouldn’t be so bad except the tide was just past mid falling tide- so not even low yet. They got themselves unstuck after a few minutes and turned into Jeremy Creek.

Our day ended at Bucksport Marina and RV Park- yep we felt right at home :-). Fueled up with diesel at $1.96/gal that had just been delivered that day and at a lower price. Over the last seven years we have watched this place (upper Waccamaw apprx 4 miles south of Osprey Marina) slowly become a viable marina. Recent favorable reviews enticed us as did the .75/ft dockage.  Reviews also spoke of this yummy country sausage they sold; some of you may know we really like sausage and try to keep a variety in our freezer.

In the North Myrtle Beach area are two marinas opposite each other; both with Barefoot in their name. These cool water pedal-board gizmos came from Barefoot Landing Marina which is a long face dock right next to the Barefoot Landing Shops & dining complex. Not sure what they are or how they operate but I’d be willing to find out!

An hour later we crossed into North Carolina; our nights’ destination South Harbor Village Marina and …..