Flying Through North Carolina

Days on Cruise: 26

Miles Traveled Today:  52.6

Hours Underway:  6hrs 41 minutes

Total Odometer:  791 statute miles

OK, maybe at 50 to 60 miles a day, “flying” overstates our speed. For those who think of traveling at highway speeds, having spent 4 days in one state and still being 200 miles south of the border doesn’t seem fast.  But for those who think in “trawler speed”, we’re moving right along. Our mission tonight, as part of our normal after dinner “charting time” is to figure out how to slow it down, perhaps by taking a side trip off the actual Loop sometime in the next few weeks. Ideas anyone? Outer Banks? Potomac River?

North Carolina redeemed itself in our minds today.  Yesterday we thought the scenery was not very interesting, but today made up for it:  gorgeous!  For much of the ICW in Florida, George and South Carolina, we rarely or never saw the ocean, being further inland. Today we saw the Atlantic Ocean repeatedly, either at inlets from ocean to ICW, or else by looking over the marshes and sand dunes, where we could see the ocean just beyond.

As we’ve said before, we aren’t big restaurant aficionados, and if there is not something specific we need right now, we do NOT like to shop.  So as we move up the ICW, we see lots of beautiful scenery but have not yet found a town that causes us to want to stop and tarry.

We’ve seen lots of folk who erect inventive signs to slow boaters down (to reduce their wake, limiting damage to the shoreline or boats moored along the shoreline), but it’s not clear they really work for the boaters that just don’t care. We passed one marina yesterday at the same time a fast boat passed.  The folks at the marina started out politely asking them via VHF radio to slow down, then over about 4 steps, escalated to shouting.  At the end, the folks at the marina plaintively asked. “Can’t you hear us”? The answer: “Loud and clear”, but they didn’t slow down.

We have at least two places that may slow us down before we leave North Carolina:  Beaufort, NC (pronounced Bo-furt), not to be confused with Beaufort, SC (pronounced Byoo-fert)) and the Dismal Swamp. If any readers have any local knowledge of “must-sees” that don’t include restaurants or shopping, let us know.

 

Interesting yard art today.  We think the huge giraffe is a real estate gimmick: the sign next to it says “for sale”.

We’re spending tonight anchored in Mile Hammock Bay at the southern edge of Marine Base Camp LeJeune.   After two nights in which we were unable to get our anchor to set, we succeeded tonight. Yea! Camp LeJeune is a Marine training facility, training 40,000 Marines each year!  Interesting place: we hear artillery fire in the distance fairly constantly, see lots of Osprey (a vertical lift aircraft) and a variety of helicopters. Hope they’ll take the night off!

We’ve read that 10 miles of the ICW (tomorrow’s territory for us) travels through Camp LeJeune, and at times they close the ICW for an hour or two, occasionally for a whole day, because of firing practice that makes ICW travel unsafe. We’ll be listening on the appropriate radio channel tomorrow morning before we leave to learn whether tomorrow’s travel will be impacted.