We're in North Carolina

Southport is another quaint southern town with lots of pretty old homes. This was one of the newer ones built in 1910. I thought the trim was lovely but I sure wouldn't want to paint it .

Something about this home doesn’t seem to fit; maybe it’s the two satellite TV dishes on the porch roof!

The marina at Southport is a really nice new facility. We got a kick out of this sign on one of the boats there.

Leaving Southport we were on the Cape Fear River and went past Bald Island and Oak Island. There was a rising tide and we didn’t see any depths less than 10 feet, so the Captain was happy; this can be a tricky area with shoaling. We took the Snow’s Cut across Pleasure Island into Myrtle Grove Sound. This picture in Snow’s Cut shows how deeply they had to cut through to make the waterway.

There were a lot of nice homes along Carolina Beach and LOTS of Sunday boat traffic. Everybody seems to be in a really big rush to get somewhere. I say "slow down" and enjoy the scenery!

I think these two boats are about at their maximum capacity for passengers.

Upon arrival at Wrightsville Beach we’d had enough of the traffic and decided to join the large group of boats anchored off the town. There’s a free dinghy dock to tie to, we wanted to get off the boat as it was a bit rocky at anchor with all the little powerboats buzzing around. It looked like spring break all over again at the beach. It doesn't seem that it can be Memorial Day weekend to us, our seasons are very confused this year. We would just be starting our boating season in Wisconsin and we've been living aboard for 8 months already.

These flowers were growing wild on the walk to the beach:

We met people on two sailboats from Appleton here: the Ariel and Another Adventure. They’re heading up to Maine after wintering in the Bahamas.

On Monday we headed back out in the ICW but the traffic wasn’t nearly as bad as on Sunday. We had to open three bridges that only open on the hour. We had to wait a bit for two but hit the Surf City one just right. We were on Stump Sound most of the day; very scenic and wide enough that we could motor-sail. We anchored in Mile Hammock Bay with about ten other sailboats and two trawlers off Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base. There was no going to shore here as it’s a restricted military area. Tied up at the dock was an old looking military transport or landing craft. It had a good sized gun on the bow looking down at us. We were a bit disappointed that we didn’t see any Marines training.

The next day we headed on to the "other Beaufort". We saw this sign along the way but no shots were fired.All for now from the Carteret County Library in Beaufort, NC.