When you travel north too early in the year you have to face some
colder weather. Perhaps that is why we haven't had to fight for a
dock space or an anchoring spot so far as we have progressed on
our return trip. Anchoring in Georgia and South Carolina we had
the places to ourselves, which was special in its own way. It's great
to meet people but it's also nice to be immersed in the wilderness
experience sometimes.
Guess what? We got to experience another grounding, this time in
South Carolina. It was a period of extra low tides, making for very
shallow passageways. Boat US is not going to be happy with us but
the tow boat operator was extremely busy that day running from one
grounded boat to the next, fielding calls the whole time. He gets paid
handsomely for his time though. He stays busy policing a short stretch
of the Waterway. The lack of dredging has been good for his business.
This time while we waited for higher tides to refloat us we laid way over
on our side precariously due to him trying to pull us to the side initially.
Most everything on the boat shifted to the low side while we leaned
over for a couple of hours waiting. At least we provided entertainment
to all the passing boats as they stopped to gawk and take pictures of
our exposed bottom (we had no decency).
Our next stop was Southport, a charming town that was the
site of a movie made last summer and has an interesting free museum we
enjoyed. We stayed at Indigo Plantation Marina and had a nice two mile
bile ride into town. We found out we could have stayed at the Provisioning
Company dock overnight with the purchase of dinner but we had been
warned ahead of time by a local that it being the first nice Saturday of the
year the dock spaces (2) would be already taken. We ate at the restaurant
anyways. It was good and reasonably priced too. The boaters were out in
force with the nice weather that day and the next at Wrightsville Beach,
where we stayed at the Dockside Restaurant dock, which wasn't free with
the purchase of a meal but was handy.
Heading out the next day we traveled through a thirty mile stretch with
bridges with restricted opening schedules that kept us bunched up with
five other boats, The last bridge of the group was experiencing mechanical
difficulties and we were forced to anchor for two hours waiting for the
repair crew to get it working. Thankfully they were successful and we
were able to continue on. That was the first time that has happened to us
on this trip and we've gone through lots of opening bridges.
We are presently at Coinjock, NC, mile marker 50 of the ICW. This
place is famous for its prime rib dinner at the marina restaurant. It was
a 32 ounce prime rib that was wonderful. I think Carol was more thrilled
with the baked potato, which she loves but has not had for ages. Afterward
we enjoyed a really good local band at the restaurant at our marina over
on the opposite side of the canal. We are staying at the Midway Marina
but most boats stay at the Coinjock Marina.
We are staying at many different places from the ones we visited on the
way down, meeting new people and enjoying the new adventures.
We will be in the Chesapeake Bay this next week and are aiming to be
in Annapolis next weekend if the weather cooperates. We hope to visit
with some family while there and also some friends we've met.
Sitting on the high side so we don't slide off
while the boat lays on its side in the mud.
We shared this prime rib and still had leftovers.
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