Thursday, April 26, 2007
Southport, NC to Swansboro (M 229), then Morehead City NC (M 205) and Emerald Isle
Monday thru Thursday, April 23-26. Bob and I are celebrating our 38th anniversary today in our much-loved beach house on Emerald Isle, NC. And celebrate we will! First, some catch up. We left Southport on Monday morning, heading out on the Cape Fear River portion of the ICW. We cruised at a fast clip past areas we’ve read about for years: Snow’s Cut, Masonboro Inlet, Wrightsville Beach, and Figure Eight Island. After that we were in familiar territory: Topsail Beach, Sneads Ferry, Camp LeJeune, Swansboro, and finally Morehead City.
The vista has definitely changed. Instead of tall oaks and pines, the trees seem shorter and windblown, having suffered through a succession of major hurricanes from 1996 – 2002. The amount of development along the shoreline still amazes me. We went through a succession of marshy sloughs and little sandy islands populated with gulls. The mosaic of sand, spartina, ocean, and sky is a sight that always thrills my soul. Each time we passed an inlet, we negotiated strong currents and watched the depth sounder closely for shoaling. There were several low bridges, but we could get through all but two of them by lowering our VHF antenna. While waiting for one of the 12-foot swing bridges to open on the hour, Bob masterfully dealt with strong currents, a narrow channel, and a bunch ‘o other boats milling about, waiting to pass through. I was impressed!
By 3:30 p.m. on Monday, we were safely tied up at Casper’s Marina in Swansboro, NC. This is home territory for us. We had kept a runabout at Casper’s in their dry stack for several years. We then found ourselves in a dilemma: the car that we were supposed to rent never came in. So here we were within a few miles of our beach house at 5:30 p.m. with no way to get there. Good hearted W.T. Casper kindly drove us “home” across the bridge to Emerald Isle, and we eventually managed to get an Enterprise car late Tuesday evening. Yesterday Bob hijacked our beach neighbor Bob Williams, and together they moved the boat on up the ICW to the Yacht Basin in Morehead City. This is a stretch of waterway that I’ve traveled a thousand times, so I stayed at the beach house and did various upkeep things. Last night we met fun Loopers, Bob and Susan Hauge on La Gaza Verde, for dinner at the Front Street Grill in Beaufort. Today we are waiting for other friends to arrive. Can’t wait to show them this stretch of Bogue Banks/Emerald Isle/Swansboro/Morehead City/Beaufort paradise. We plan to stay here for a whole week!
P.S. For those who know and love Celtic Breeze (our beach house), there are now two new mega-houses in front of us. One of them is neon orange. The photo doesn't do it justice. What were they thinking?
The vista has definitely changed. Instead of tall oaks and pines, the trees seem shorter and windblown, having suffered through a succession of major hurricanes from 1996 – 2002. The amount of development along the shoreline still amazes me. We went through a succession of marshy sloughs and little sandy islands populated with gulls. The mosaic of sand, spartina, ocean, and sky is a sight that always thrills my soul. Each time we passed an inlet, we negotiated strong currents and watched the depth sounder closely for shoaling. There were several low bridges, but we could get through all but two of them by lowering our VHF antenna. While waiting for one of the 12-foot swing bridges to open on the hour, Bob masterfully dealt with strong currents, a narrow channel, and a bunch ‘o other boats milling about, waiting to pass through. I was impressed!
By 3:30 p.m. on Monday, we were safely tied up at Casper’s Marina in Swansboro, NC. This is home territory for us. We had kept a runabout at Casper’s in their dry stack for several years. We then found ourselves in a dilemma: the car that we were supposed to rent never came in. So here we were within a few miles of our beach house at 5:30 p.m. with no way to get there. Good hearted W.T. Casper kindly drove us “home” across the bridge to Emerald Isle, and we eventually managed to get an Enterprise car late Tuesday evening. Yesterday Bob hijacked our beach neighbor Bob Williams, and together they moved the boat on up the ICW to the Yacht Basin in Morehead City. This is a stretch of waterway that I’ve traveled a thousand times, so I stayed at the beach house and did various upkeep things. Last night we met fun Loopers, Bob and Susan Hauge on La Gaza Verde, for dinner at the Front Street Grill in Beaufort. Today we are waiting for other friends to arrive. Can’t wait to show them this stretch of Bogue Banks/Emerald Isle/Swansboro/Morehead City/Beaufort paradise. We plan to stay here for a whole week!
P.S. For those who know and love Celtic Breeze (our beach house), there are now two new mega-houses in front of us. One of them is neon orange. The photo doesn't do it justice. What were they thinking?
