Moving North up the Ditch

It was a bumpy overnight ride from Charleston to Carolina Beach, NC.  We slipped by Cape Fear into the intracoastal, through Snows Cut and down Masonburo Sound to find our destination.  Carolina Beach is a nice town with the ocean on one side and the calm sound on the other with cottages lined up between.  We were greeted at a really nice dingy dock where they had individual slips for each dingy with proper cleats.  We tied up and enjoyed strolling the town. 

We found a nice place serving local fried oyster Po-Boys that were really good.  As we walked near the beach we saw a line of not less than 60 people lined up at Britts.  We found out that they only serve one thing…hot, fresh glazed doughnuts!  Since the locals promised that they were famous “round these parts”, we joined the line and chowed down.  They were, in fact, good.

44 miles up the ditch, we pulled into Mike Hammock Bay for the night, which is a part of Camp Lejune.  We enjoyed watching the Marines playing war around us in the sea and air.

 

Another 40 miles up the ditch brought us to Beaufort, NC.  We visited the North Carolina Maritime Museum were they had all kinds of artifacts from Blackbeards ship Queen Anne’s Revenge that was recently found nearby.  We stocked up at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store (I just love that name) and moved on.

 

Two more anchorages in the Nuese and Alligator Rivers allowed us to rest for two nights tied up at the free Elizabeth City docks.  Kim spotted turtles all along the rivers and even saw one alligator. We even found a free electrical plug in Elizabeth City that I could reach with two 100 foot extension cords I had aboard.  It was enjoyable being able to step ashore and not running the generator to keep the batteries happy was also nice.

Another two nights and we crossed into Virginia and pulled into a dock at Atlantic Yacht Basin.  They are known for quality work and I needed a second opinion on a transmission problem.  Unfortunately they confirmed that I will need to pull it out of the boat (as I did in Africa 2 years ago) and change some seals.  Their quote was too high so we made arrangements to have this work done while we visit with my mother in Ocean City, Maryland.

We moved 10 miles to the north and found ourselves in Norfolk, Va.  Here we found the Chrysler Museum and Glassworks to be extraordinary and, even better, both were free to enter.  

 

 

The car magnate opened his collection to the public and we all enjoyed the artwork and artifacts from around the world.   

 

 

The blown glass, cameos and paintings were breathtaking and this statues face really captured my emotion as I discovered that my transmission needed to be repaired again!

We visited the Glassworks and saw a presentation where a glass vase was created and blown from liquid glass to the finished product.

We had one more day to wait for weather to move up in the Atlantic Ocean to Ocean City Maryland, so we went ashore again.  This day we visited the Nauticus museum. We spent 2 hours in the morning just going through the museum and had lunch out side and came back to see the ship.  Berthed at Nauticus, the Wisconsin is one of the largest and last battleships ever built by the U.S. Navy. It was impressive and Emily liked seeing the oversized equipment like anchors and windlass compared to our little ship.

The weather report finally said go and we headed out to sea again.  It was another overnight passage to Ocean City and we slipped into the marina at 8:30 AM.  Once hooked up to power and water and rinsed off, we called my mother who lives in nearby Berlin.  We will get our transmission and generator all fixed up while we visit for 2 weeks.  My mother has a short list of handyman items that I can help with and the whole crew is looking forward to long baths and beds that don’t move!

Tom