11/23/15  Monday

Who ordered the COLD temperatures??? 41 this morning and I was seeing my breathe. It was really hard to get out of the warm, comfortable bed. But we did it. We did lollygag a bit, had breakfast at Giggy's where we have taken advantage of the free dock. Turns out the "free" dock cost us $50+ because we had two meals there. Enough of spending money....except tonight we're on the face dock at Ocean Isle Marina because getting to the anchorage another hour away would have put us in near dark after dealing with shoaling. No a good idea to us fair weather sailors.

Another sailboat just took advantage of the free dock at Gibby's. We'll learn from them AND from the sailboat that just dropped its hook on the other side of the ICW from the Ocean Isle Marina. Duh!
Who knew that was an option? Perhaps it is more true now at the end of the travel season that it would be earlier in the fall. I don't know.

The day was pretty uneventful. We were really attentive at the charted shoaling areas but had no problems other than nerves and sweaty armpits. We traded off helmspersonship pretty easily today. When I was at the helm and we'd just come around a difficult, shoaly bend we encountered a PARADE of tugs and their barges. Honestly, there were at least 7 tugs pulling and pushing and another at the tail end of the parade was another smaller tug keeping the tail of the line from lashing one way or the other. I was reminded of a big dragon. So much machinery on these barges. I was also thanking my sailing angels for the timing. We didn't meet this parade at the shoaly bend. We did meet the parade in a straight away with 12-15 feet of water. Thank you uncles Daryl, Delford, Bud, Jim and all other unnamed sailing angels.

The landscape today was interested in some ways. Cape Fear River was wide and deep. There was Army territory on the starboard bank. There were sections both in the river and later in the canal that were really reminiscent of my memory of the Outer Banks. Such a beautiful place with sand beaches, marsh land, ocean and inlets. We loved the width and depth of the ICW from South Port on the "other" side of the Cape Fear. There were long, long docks reaching out into the ICW's deep water (15' is deep - how did that happen in our consciousness?). Some tremendously opulent houses or condos beside some reasonably sized one family homes. Some 3-4 story, pastel-colored houses next to some campgrounds of RVs.

I saw my first Confederate flag flying this afternoon. Sigh. Supporting every one's rights but it is such an oppressive symbol to me, personally. I love my southern roots and heritage. There are so many wonderful aspects and so many unresolved hurts.

So here we are closing in on Charleston at the Thanksgiving weekend and a full moon promised as well as a FREEZE warning "after 1:00 AM tomorrow."  We'll make some more concrete plans for tomorrow's travel. Gotta get into the warmth of further south.