Swansboro

Our evening last night ended with a trip to the local Methodist Church where they were holding a bluegrass/Gospel concert with a local well known group, it was a packed house and the music was fantastic!

We were up at the crack of dawn again this morning (retirement is rough!) and heading out of the harbour by 715. It was a chilly morning, so much so that I even had to put socks on! We thought that we were the early birds but once out there we saw several boats ahead of us and at least 5 or 6 behind us, not hard to tell that it is migration time!

As we headed across the river to the next canal we could see numerous Dolphins up ahead. I (Heather) took the camera up to the bow to try to get a decent picture of them and got quite a start as 3 of them popped up below me at our bow! They followed along for a few minutes darting ahead and under the boat.

We entered thick fog as we approached the canal but we could see several other boats ahead of us plus 2 shrimp trawlers just before the fog engulfed us… thank goodness for radar and that the fog was short lived.

Approaching one of the bridges we could see this was an anchoring area for the many large barges that we see been pushed by tug boats along the waterways. Not sure what they transport in these but there are lots of them.

Richard spotted a really cool lime green house along the way, how could you not be happy in such a cheerful looking house :) Funny thing was when we arrived at our destination today I was telling Deb who is on one of our buddy boats about it and she knew exactly what house it was, it’s a favourite of hers as well!

 Our last 20 miles today was along Bogue Sound from Morehead City to Swansboro it is quite a wide area (about 2 miles across) but only about 1-3 feet deep except for a narrow dredged channel, thankfully there weren’t any fishing bouys but there were LOTS of fishing boats, in this one little area I counted 21 of them!

Approaching Swansboro we got a little taste of what we are in for tomorrow… a few miles past here lies Camp Lejeune, an army base where the live firing can be heard for miles. Seems that we must sail right through this area and may have to stop to wait for a break in the firing before we can proceed… interesting.

We arrived in Swansboro around 3pm well behind Deb and Shep on High ZZZ’z and just ahead of Steve on Slow Flight, perfect timing for Deb and I to hit a few stores and then join the men on the local deck to watch the other boats arrive, it just doesn’t get much better !

Note: pictures to follow when we get better service!