This 'n' That

Since the blog about Gullah Geechee culture which I posted from Georgetown, SC, we've cruised three days out of four with stops in North Myrtle Beach, SC, Southport, NC, and now Wilmington, NC. North Carolina marks our 11th state and we have cruised 3,260 miles. If we're not there yet, we are certainly closing in rapidly on half way around our loop.

The cruises from Georgetown to North Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle to Southport had many similarities. Both started in beautiful, undevelooped settings with lots of bird life but quickly gave way to heavy residential development--mile after mile of homes on postage stamp lots barely a few feet apart, each with its own dock and boat lift. The development occupied both sides of the ICW--the barrier island and the mainland. It's truly hard to believe how much building there has been. We saw workers repairing countless docks and some homes damaged in last year's hurricanes. And the amount of dredging we encountered reminded us of nature's relentless march to entropy.

Both days we saw lots of bird life early on and then not much in the heavily developed stretches. But, what we did see was always amazing. Not to be a peeping Tom but the Osprey are definitely incubating eggs on their nests (often situated on aids to navigation aka buoys) while one spouse fishes to feed the other--kinda like the admiral making me lunch while I'm at the helm? The terns and brown pelicans are fishing aggressively too--both diving into the water with significant splashes although the pelicans win the big splash prize. We also saw bald eagle, both great blue and white morph great herons, great egret, white egret, kingfisher, and laughing gull.

We encountered a couple of swing bridges that opened for us; it's always fun to chat up the bridge operators on vhf radio a surprising number of whom are women and some of whom are African American. They are always courteous and helpful.

And, I should mention that the Admiral is becoming more and more confident handling Katahdin. She's become adept at the helm while departing from face docks; she no longer asks me to take over when we are about to pass under a bridge; and she's more and more comfortable meeting and passing other boats. She's building helm time which of course not only aids in the above but also increasingly enables her to spell me for a while.

At North Myrtle Beach, we stayed at Barefoot Marina on the west side of the ICW. While the marina was fine, there was nothing in walking distance so we took an Uber to Myrtle Beach where we walked the board walk and paid our dollar each to walk out onto Pier 14.

The beach itself was gorgeous and, even on a breezy barely 60 degree day, the nearly naked determined were sunning themselves, swimming, and body surfing. However, mile after mile of high rise condos and hotels lined the beaches with only occasional space in between providing access over the dunes to the beach.

Sadly, I don't have pictures from Southport where we spent just one night at Morningstar Marina. The America's Great Loop Cruisers Association Harbor Host, Robert Creech, saw us arrive on NEBO (a cool electronic tool that allows "Loopers" to keep track of and communicate with each other) and came down to the marina to introduce himself. Apparently in his eighties, he has cruised more than 32,000 miles and was a font of knowledge about this part of the loop. He loaned the Admiral his car to go grocery shopping and later he and his wife, Kay, entertained us on their porch overlooking a beautiful stretch of the ICW. That evening, we dined at the Edgewater, a surprisingly upscale small town restaurant.

Today we entered the Cape Fear River just inland from the Cape, itself. We raced up the wide expanse of water in 10-15 knots of wind and an incoming tide (both moving in the same direction thank goodness) to get docked before the brunt of the front came through. Good thing too because now it's blowing 20-25 with gusts to 30 and more which would likely over power our thrusters. It was the only time on our Loop other than crossing the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Michigan that we have been able to run at a consistent 20 knots--very fun. We did encounter a huge container ship heading out to sea and put an island between us and it to avoid its wake.

And then we arrived in Wilmington, North Carolina's largest port. We traveled past a half dozen container ships being loaded or unloaded and various other large industrial vessels before arriving at Port City Marina.

The Admiral is a bit under the weather today. I went out for an hour and a half walk around the city which is roughly the population of Portland, Maine. Without the Admiral, I didn't learn as much as I typically would but I did enjoy seeing the cotton exchange (we are at the northerly reach of where the cotton trade was).

With our two year old granddaughter named, Grace, I couldn't resist a picture of the Grace Methodist Church building. The church itself was organized in 1797. It has lost four sanctuaries to fire--the last of which occurred in 1947. The church below was dedicated in 1955.

'Til next time.

Cap