Some more . . . Trips and Travails

Get this

Our anchorage on Thursday night.   We read that this is the prettiest part of the waterway and now we agree.  It's in a long natural area along the coast of South Carolina.   The water was fresh and tea colored with all the vegetative matter.  We know - I swam in it and leaves floated by me.  It was like in Shangri La.  

 

Ospreys were everywhere along the way, talking to themselves and maybe to us.

 

While I swam, Tom fished.  He advisedly uses the term "fishes" rather than "catches."   We're waiting for that.  Maybe in North Carolina.

 

It gently rained most of the evening and night.  Welcome, because it would have been too warm otherwise.

 

I couldn't stop taking pictures along the way.  See if you can notice differences.

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I was trying here to show the tea-colored water  - fresh (not salty) and clean.

 

Along the way, near Myrtle Beach, cable cars cross the waterway.

 

When we made it to the North Carolina border, we anchored at a place where we noticed the sweeping lights from the Cape Fear lighthouse - two miles away on the ocean.   By day, it didn't look so dramatic.

 

We didn't stop at Southport, N.C. but caught a glimpse as we went by.

 

Somehow, passing into North Carolina, the terrain was different.  More white sand, clear, greener water, more grasses mixed with trees.  We like it, too!

 

 

And more fisherman, Jason, if you're reading, looking. . . . .

 

We meant to anchor just near Top Sails beach, but couldn't find a place we felt safe in. Eventually we called ahead and found someone who would give us a dock for a fee.   It was low tide when we arrived and it took the man, his wife and a neighboring boat owner to pull us into the dock, over a bit of time while the tide rose.

 

But when we settled in re realized that once again, the setting was lovely.

 

 

After a bit, we walked  a couple of blocks over to the ocean and hung out on the deck while waiting for a table.   Very nice there, too.  We don't really see the ocean that much from the waterway, so it was a treat.

 

Now, we're a couple of days from Oriental.  We're told we have to stop in Beaufort, North Carolina and that will take a couple of days to get to.  Then we'll be within four hours of Oriental.  As usual, you (and we) will soon see if this all works out as hoped.

 

Oh yes, the travails part.    Our autopilot isn't working right so we have to steer the whole way; we have to monitor our electricity usage because the voltage regulator on the alternator needs to be replaced and the chartplotter would have had us go through the end of a swinging bridge if we had stayed the course it showed and, and, and.  So needless to say, we still wonder if we will ever get to the end of things to do for this boat.