Mile Hammock anchorage to Carolina Beach mooring ball
Up early in anticipation of what thing was going to give
us fits. Fortunately, we didn’t have to
wait long to find out. As we pulled up
the anchor, I started to wash it down and found the drain hole was clogged from
our last muddy anchor. This required
much poking and frustration and some crawling around in a hole. AND, the top of the raw water faucet broke
off. Awesome…. I love when my day starts
that way.
Eventually we got under way. Much of the day was follow-the-dot driving,
as we call it; traveling down the narrow channel of the AICW and making sure to
keep red markers on the right (Red Right Returning to Texas – don’t ask…) and
green ones on the left. It’s easy enough, which is good, because you have to
keep one eye on the depth, one on the traffic in front and one on the traffic
behind. It can get exciting…
In fact, I’ve had an interesting realization. Rick and I seem to have traded the roles we
have been in for most of our married life.
He has become the worrier, and I am calm and cool. I don’t know enough to be worried about things,
and I have Rick, who I know can solve any problem. However, he doesn’t have a Rick, and he
worries about all the little things keeping us safe and headed in the right
direction. It’s a new place for us to be
and we are having lots of good conversations about it.
We had just settled down from the morning’s excitement
when we came up on a bridge and had two options: wait for it to open or hope
that our boat is exactly as tall as we think and go under it. We hadn’t had high blood pressure for almost
40 minutes, so we decided to go under. I
called the bridge tender to check the tide reading and then we c r e p t under. I stood under the tallest part to see if it
would hit. Did I think by standing near
it I could keep it from hitting? I don’t
know what I was thinking, but there I was and we passed under with plenty of
clearance. (I should, at this point,
mention that Rick had me helping him roughly measure the height of the boat last night…for just such an
occurrence. That boy.)
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| Isn't this a pretty boat? It turns out that boaters are like dogs and, after passing another boat, they turn around and look at each other's butts in order to asses the quality of the boat |
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| I thought our wake was really lovely, but I don't think this pic does it justice. |
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| You can see the wall of rain and clouds chasing us. Since we go a whopping 8 miles an hour, it eventually caught up |
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Can I just tell
you how much I love a good mooring ball…It’s the BEST! They are easy to hook up to, and totally stable so NO STUPID
ANCHOR ALARM. Why aren’t there more of
them in the world??? We hooked up to one
in Carolina Beach Harbor for the night.
Because we were not done challenging ourselves, we went
about dropping the dingy down and teaching me to start and drive it.
Super fun.
Once it gets started.
The
starting part is less fun.
(Note to self
– Rick must never fall overboard or I/he will be in trouble).
We had a little walk around ‘town’, and saw the ocean for the first time! We also stopped for some tacos (it was a
totally skater-culture joint and I am sure they were so happy to see us leave
as we were bringing down their street cred)
and were ready for bed at 6pm.
Which is ridiculous so we made ourselves stay
awake until 8pm (Rick) and 9pm (me)…
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| Our baby |
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| We finally see the ocean! |
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| Pelican at rest. Ask my dad to tell you the limerick about the pelican... |
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