It's days like today....

Location: Mile Hammock Bay, NC
Location: 34 33.1 N 077 19.4

We need to play a little catch up.

Oriental to Swansboro - we spend an extra day in Swansboro doing laundry, etc. - what a lovely little town. Old, pretty houses and Yana's has the best breakfast we've had out for a long time!!

We get up at 6:00 am so we can be on our way by 7:00. It's cold!! Our breath frosts in the air as we don our foul weather gear, haul anchor and get on our way.

There's a tricky bit at an inlet about 8 miles ahead of us and we want to get there at high tide. We've heard lots of stories of groundings there, and we want to give ourselves every advantage. Mark chatted up the Tow Boat US guy yesterday and got the inside skinny on how to negotiate it, so we're feeling pretty confident.

We time our arrival for high tide and make it through without any problems and with plenty of room to spare, exactly as presented by our new friend. Then we only have to wait about 10 minutes for a bridge to open. We pass through and make our destination. It's a really short day (only about 15 miles after we left) and we're done at 10:30 am with plenty of time left to relax! Snow geese fly by to welcome us, it's Veteran's Day, and we're anchored in a US Marine base - how cool is that?

It's 60 degrees F and the wind is blowing between 0 and 10 mph. It's clear and sunny and we sit in the cockpit in the lee of the dodger (the windshield thingy) letting the sun warm us, napping, watching the dolphins swim by, and finally begin to thaw out after our cold morning on the water.

We listen to kids play on the shore as their parents fish off the docks, watch the wildlife, relax, and nap. We're the only boat here, it's beautiful, and we're really, really satisfied. How much better can it possibly get?