Going south…..one step at a time……

Going from Annapolis to Miami can be defined as one long trip or a lot of small steps and I think that is the way one can describe it best…….. "one step at a time".  Every day and night means something else as nothing stays the same, it is always changing.  If you don't acknowledge that you can really have a lousy time at running the east coast of the US.  I think we are realists, we enjoy our life each day and acknowledge there is work and fun.  We don't think we are on some sort of vacation.  We're retired so that means we don't have to work for the "man", but it doesn't mean we play each and every day.

Right now we are in Port Royal, SC and it feels like we are in the arctic.  Wind chill is 31 degrees, the wind is howling and the rain is blowing sideways.  What the heck??!!   Two days ago shorts and t-shirts were the norm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Go figure.

To back track after Bath, NC we did our 3 nights at Oriental, now one of our favorite stops.  On the way we stopped at RE Mayo's warf and picked up some shrimp.  And a great price!  How about $7.99/lb.  3 pounds for around $25 bucks!

The boy's and the girl's rooms at RE Mayo

R.E Mayo dockside

Mmm, mmm Good!

In Oriental we timed it to be there for the weekend and met a number of new folks on the docks.  It was the along with annual chili cook-off!  We tried around 13 different chills, our pick only came in second but I still have to give Anne the 1st prize as her chili (if we had ambition) would have won hands down!

Let the sampling begin

Where's our chile?

Chefs "Rigor & Mortis" with their entry

Shrimp boat work horses

From Oriental we went to see Reiner & Renate near New Bern.   We wanted to hang out for a couple of days and also to get our fix at "Spunky McDuggles", a small cool pub nearby.  The dock at their home is tight but Nati just fits in and she is perfectly safe from the elements.

Good Times

Nati's replacement

Go Reiner, Go!!!

From there we had a good window to make our first run out to Cape Lookout.  It is really pretty in the anchorage with dolphins and sea turtles.  The anchorage is deep but the holding is good so we had our chance to see the wildlife, including the wild horses.

The wild horses of Cape Lookout

We saw many of them

Cape Lookout light

Almost deserted beaches

The tides are a little high here

At the last second we thought we had a good window to make a run on the outside so we left in mid day and decided to see how far we could go before the weather shut down.  It was a great run.  We were able to go all the way to the Little River inlet, 155nm over the course of 1 1/2 days.  We found another great anchorage right at the mouth of the river and nobody goes there!  Don't tell a soul..…  Leaving the next morning for Osprey Marina turned out to be a little slower though as we fogged in right after raising the hook.  When the fog arrived we were right next to the red marker so we moved out of the channel and dropped anchor again.  No problem, just 2 hours of hanging out.

Our morning at Little River

things are looking rather interesting

at least we have the buoy to see

From Osprey we elected to run inside and make tracks as there was the big front coming that is in fact right on us at the moment.  But……we are tied to a dock and have the heater running.  It's a nice 70 degrees inside Nati!