North Carolina has been a lovely place to visit! We’ve seen the first palm trees of the trip, although I doubt they are native. They look transplanted, but have adapted well to the climate.
There are flocks and flocks of pelicans! People here must take them for granted as such a common sight, but I find them so exotic! Yesterday Bob saw one sitting in the water, with the sun striking him just so that he could see the silhouette of the fish inside his bill! A great big fish….just like the limerick!
Couldn’t count them all!
Almost every inlet we’ve passed going down the coast has brought in dolphins who play at the side of the boat. One dolphin kept leaping out of the water right beside me while I was at the helm. He (she?) kept switching from one side of the aft quarter to the other, and I kept flinging myself from side to side hoping to photograph him in mid air! At one point he cleared his blow hole and shot water in our cockpit! He was so close….but I did not get the photo! I did manage to run aground….. new rule: the helmsman must stay focused, no taking photos while driving!
What a lovely soft landscape down here. All low country, with pearly white sand beaches, beautiful marsh grasses that are a brilliant gold/green in the sunlight….just like the amber waves of gold in the Midwest! Only these fields of gold are cut through with shimmering estuaries in an amazing color of bright turquoise. When I look straight down at the water next to the boat it is a wonderful shade of sea green. When I look out across the water, or into the winding veins of the estuaries, it is blue-green. Lovely. And there has been sunshine all week.
We’ve seen lots of Long Leaf Pines, the wood that Bob used to make my first loom 36 years ago. We’ve seen flocks of egrets sitting in trees like big white pillows. The fish are jumping everywhere, which makes us think there are dolphins chasing them. Certainly the hunting is very good for the bird life. There are so many birds. I realized that some of the egrets I saw are really ibis. How cool!
And speaking of birds…. North Carolina is chock full of man-made birds too! We have been inundated by military aircraft in these waters. At Camp LeJeune I saw two Ospreys flying in formation for about an hour. Quite impressive. We’ve seen more of those huge troop carrying helicopters than we can count! We hear them coming long before we see them!
We are in Southport, North Carolina, today. This is a quintessential lovely southern town. Big wide boulevards, gigantic live oaks (draped in epiphytic ferns called “resurrection ferns”) shading the sidewalks, lovely historic houses dating from the early 19th century. Many of the houses have huge upper floor porches for looking out at Cape Fear. That inlet is a scary piece of water, as its name implies!
Oh, how I’d love to sit on this porch with an iced tea!
We need to get away from here pretty soon due to hurricane Sandy, which will be arriving in the Bahamas in the next day or so. We’ll continue down the coast into South Carolina, only a few miles further. From there the ICW heads inland, and that should give us good protection from the coming storm.
I always check each port we visit to see if there is a knitting store. There is one in Southport, so mark your map if you travel this way! It is called Angelwing Needle Arts and carries embroidery and quilting fabrics as well as knitting yarns. It is a pretty shop with lots of temptations. I’m sorry to report that I did not find them as friendly as Frivolous Fibers in St. Michael’s, Maryland….but hey…that’s what makes Frivolous Fibers so memorable!
As I wrote this Bob took a walk and has returned with a pound of large shrimp fresh off the boat! They still have their heads! $5.00/lb….for that price we can clean them ourselves. Should make a great shrimp cocktail
Day 42, October 22: anchored in Mile Hammock at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina
Day 43, October 23: on mooring in Carolina Beach, North Carolina
Day 44, October 24: docked at “Fishy Fishy” Restaurant inSouthport, North Carolina (Cape Fear inlet)
