Friday, May 31, 2013

Progress



We left Bull Creek at 8:45 on Tuesday.  We should have left at dawn!  We had to stop and get fuel at Osprey Marina (which is where we sat out hurricane Irene 2 years ago) in south Myrtle Beach.  That took forty-five minutes.  Then the trip through Myrtle Beach!!  It took over 4 hours for us to get to north Myrtle Beach, talk about spread out.  We saw mansions, small older houses (not many) and life from the 'backside', not impressive. 

We ended up staying in a marina in Little River because we just couldn't make it to our destination which was Southport N.C.  I am always trying to save $$ by not staying at a marina but sometimes it is the prudent way to go.  If Gary had had his way, we would have stayed in Osprey Monday, and been to Southport by Tuesday night.  So my payback was having to get up at 5:30 Wednesday morning to hoof it to Southport from Little River which took four hours!!  The reason for all of this was getting through the Cape Fear River before the tide went out.  We have been fighting the tide most of the trip which pulls our speed from 8+ to 7 MPH.  Makes a big difference in time and fuel.



The beautiful Waccamaw River in S.C.  

Gary and Bob fueling up at Osprey

Along the ICW Myrtle Beach

Older Places like these in Little River are few and far between, most are being replaced by......


A favorite way to spend vacation $$$ in Myrtle Beach, rent a jet ski, and speed up and down the narrow waterway.  Watching them you must remember that you too were once young and crazy instead of old and cautious!



Myrtle Beach from the 'backdoor'







Now THIS is camping!!!!!

Her shrimping days are definitely over.




Sunrise on the waterway Little River, S.C.


Wednesday we pulled into Wrightsville Beach at 2:30.  It has been dubbed "where the wealthy go for the weekend" and believe me looking at the 'beach shacks' here, that is an understatement.  We had thought the anchorage was too small for us but after friends telling us that wasn't the case we thought we'd try it.  It was plenty big enough, but very busy with small boats piloted by, I'll be politically correct here, "younger adults" who only know one speed, WIDE OPEN. So we headed for shore to check it out.  Nice beach, wall to wall houses and lots of rentals.





Just a little "getaway"

Hauled anchor and got to the bridge about a quarter to eight.  They only open on the hour between 7 and 7 due to the heavy traffic.  It is a very congested bridge with a narrow channel with a strong current and sport fish boats tied up everywhere.  We were one of two boats waiting to go through and just as we got there a barge decided to move and tie up to the bridge for some work, making the narrow passage even narrower.  We were both like, "seriously??"  they couldn't have waited for 15 minutes for the boat traffic to be through?


We passed "RA" after leaving Wrightsville Beach at about 9 am.  It is an electric boat powered by solar.  Note the solar panels on the side (both sides) above the cabin and on the front deck.  At 6:00 after we had been in Mile Hammock Bay since 1:15 it glided on by.  So it was about 5 hours behind us and we were travelling at 7 miles per hour.  They go really slow!  This morning they were anchored off the channel, I guess they must travel from sun up to sun down via solar power.  COOL

The bridge opened on time and we made it through with no problems and continued our journey to  Mile Hammock Bay at Camp LeJeune where we were treated (??) to eleven hours of helicopters doing touch down maneuvers. At one point during the night I thought they were trying to land on our solar panels!   This small basin used to host amphibian maneuvers but after last night I think they've turned it into a helo tactical strip. The positive side is they are obviously training on getting our troops out of harms way very quickly and practice makes perfect.

We left at daybreak this morning, headed for Cape Lookout on the Outer Banks.  It is supposed to be a great weekend with very low winds so we are taking our chance now to go outside to the banks.

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Early morning start picture taken by my not so I-Phone  :-) 



That's all the good news,  the bad news is......I broke my camera yesterday. I know, that is not an option....but alas, I dropped it and it didn't like it. That was an "oh, #&%*, can't believe I did that moment!!  SOOOOO....it may be a while before I have more pictures to entertain you with.  I don't think there is anywhere to get a camera before Norfolk and I am very ticked off at myself because now I won't be able to take pictures at Cape Lookout.  Couldn't have happened at a worse time!








  

  









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