On the road again ...

We left Wrightsville Beach this morning at about 9:30am after getting gas and pumping out. We are finally moving again. The forecast is for isolated thunderstorms, warm and sunny. By noon we spotted some ominous clouds to the west and we slowed to put up canvas in case it rained. Shortly after that we were baking under the canvas - so we took it down and hoped for the best. We got north of the storm - but not by much. Today was a day of easy cruising. The waters were shallow outside of the channel, but in the channel they were fine. We traveled on an incoming tide - so the depths kept getting better. We put 80 miles behind us and are now safely tied up to the Morehead City Marina. After landing, Linda went exploring with Cory and I washed the boat down. We plan on walking to town this evening for dinner. They have a car here for transients but they want $10.00 for 2 hours - we're too cheap, we'll walk. We got gas again - only 50 gallons between the 2 fillups today! We're ready to go tomorrow. We have decided to keep moving whenever the weather allows us to do so. We have about 11 days of traveling to get home. Today we passed a milestone - 900 miles. Lots of pictures are below - Ken

Linda here- What Ken didn't tell you- that the photos might- is how close we were to being taken over by a HUGE thunder/rain storm. Someone was watching over us as we just skirted the bad weather.- Happy to be moving again & making progress! Love to all- Linda

Cory tried to escape once again in the courtesy van-but we kept the keys from him!!!


The view from the Wrightsville Beach marina where we were stuck thru storm "Andrea". Not a bad place to be stuck!


We are still seeing palm trees (and pelicans) but no dolphins this far North today!

Another view os Wrightsville Beach (Sea Path Yacht Club is where we stayed)

Funky statue (Neptune? Mermaid? Buddha?) along the NC ICW

Oslow Beach swing bridge- we went under 2 bridges today that have 12' clearance. (One had FOUR feet of clearance, but it was open!!)Ken has me look over the windshield to see if we'll make it as we approach these "close calls" Of course, we have to put our VHF antenna down. It's one of the benefits of being small - there are always several boats milling around in front of the bridges waiting for the bridge to open (some only open on the hour) - we slalom through them all and go under!

Thankfully, today was not a day of shooting training for Camp Lejeunne! The ICW goes right through the middle of Camp LeJeune - we saw lots of marines fishing and boating. The live fire range happens to be across the ICW - for that they stop the boat traffic.

We assume the marines use this as one of their targets. I felt a little uncomfortable taking photos- I thought they may arrest me! There were several pieces of destroyed equipment in various parts of the marshes bordering the river we were in.

Here is the storm that we narrowly escaped. Notice the downward action of the clouds on the right side of the photo.

This huge vessel is very near our marina for the night. Notice on the stern, the slanted stairways. This is the tallest ship I've ever seen outside of a cruise ship.

Guess whice boat is ours? This is tonight's slip. Goodnight!