marine being dumped into the watoer with weapon, shoes!

 

Last time I updated everybody, we had just entered North Carolina and had visited Elizabeth City and Edenton. We left Edenton and headed up to Belhaven to see Lida and Roger, my friend Melissa’s parents. I had heard about Belhaven, Lida’s hometown for years and wanted to visit them and their lovely town. We docked up, shopped the town…got lots of goodies, had dinner with Lida and Roger, visited their beautifully restored home, had some homemade apple cake, met their son, Chip and took a picture as we left town the next day. Great visit

We needed to change our plans to go to Manteo and Ocradoke out on the barrier islands because their was an expected nor’easter for 2-3 days which would have been dangerous. So, we decided to go to the River Dunes Marina early. I had a coupon for a BOGO night and it came highly recommended. So, we left Belhaven and I recharted our course.

We stayed there 3 days and met some great people. I hitched a ride into Oriental with a group of them and we ran errands…the smallest Walmart you have ever seen…craft show, hardware store, seafood shack, west marine, and a sports bar…all in a couple of hours. David and I borrowed the van next morning and went in to oriental. And a couple of surrounding towns. Oriental is where we met Dog! And, saw a lot of the pretty shrimp boats.

From Oriental, we went over to Beaufort, NC. Another picturesque Watertown…with loads of history, great food, beautiful landscape

and sailing. The picture of the wild horses is directly opposite the downtown. We met up with a couple who were at River Dunes with us and docked next to each other….really nice and fun, even if they were trawler folks! We will see them again along the way. While in Beaufort, we visited the NC Maritime Museum….which has an exhibition of the “booty”recently brought up from Queen Anne’s Revenge….the mother ship of Blackbeard the pirate. Blackbeard was captured by the British in Beaufort and was decapitated and had his head hung from the bowsprit of the avenging officers ship.

The rest of the town had a lot of interesting shops, restaurants, but, we were more interested in the free drinks and music at our marinas bar.

The day we left Beaufort, was a long one. We had heard the day before that you needed to pass Camp LeJeune early, because they were doing maneuvers
And firing off ordinance and you would have to stop and wait a couple of hours.
Luckily they were not shooting anything off while we were sailing by, but they were still doing maneuvers. One of the pictures is when the soldiers were pushed off the inflatable craft into the water with their combat boots, weapons, full dress and then expected to lift themselves up out of the water back into the boat. We had our coats on watching them. There were planes that take off and land totally vertical, helicopters dragging payloads as they skirted around the areas, huge landing crafts like the d-day invasion, Coast Guard and Navy gunboats…an interesting array of military action. Then, we anchored in their staging area overnight and as it was the only anchoring area around watched as more sail boats, catamarans, and trawlers vied for enough room to feel comfortable for the night. There were a couple of boat squabbles, we just listened, but in the morning, everybody was fine.

After the military day on the ICW, we decided to make a long day and head down to Southport. I love Southport…it is another lovely, picturesque town And, it is 30 minutes from my condo on Ocean Isle beach…which meant a bed that doesn’t rock and a shower that has a lot of hot water and walking on the beach…incredible sunsets over the channel from the deck and, no else around. We took advantage, rented a car and ran all our errands,etc.

It was so cool going through the ICW around islands that I know from the beachside…a totally different and beautiful view. Lots more wildlife…we’ve seen so many different birds, had Dolphins beside the boat, fish jumping and of course those fishermen!

We are now in Myrtle Beach and David is meeting so many interesting boat people. He is so excited by the level of interest in the Bristol…people actually come over to the boat to see it, and of course other Bristol owners are very proud. He has promised to go over and see a guy’s Bristol tomorrow morning before we leave. I am going to walk with the resident Marina group at 6:30 if it isn’t too cold!

We are still having fun, meeting interesting and enjoying nature!

Katie & Dave

 

 

 

Captain Dave

 

 

Ocean Isle bEACH AT THE CONDO

Souhport

 

This is the beach outside my condo in Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Pelican

Marines in amphibious boats…

this blog is a hot mess…still trying to get it right!