Waterway Scenery

Predawn Moonset at Georgetown, SC

It's Monday morning in Charleston and another beautiful, unseasonably warm day here. We arrived late yesterday after a lovely weekend in Georgetown, where we celebrated our anniversary at the Rice Paddy, one of our very favorite restaurants-- it did not disappoint, although it seemed surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night.

Before Georgetown, we spent five days in Myrtle Beach at the Marina at Grande Dunes Inn and Resort-- it was rather grande and rather emptye. The nicely landscaped surrounding area is obviously awaiting buyers for condos, homes and shopkeepers in this largely golfing resort. We did errands, worked on some perpetual projects and got our flu shots!

Southbound ICW Parade

The ICW from Myrtle Beach to Georgetown is primarily through the Waccamaw River, which on an overcast day can feel like the set for Deliverance. Last Friday was bright and sunny and the scenery spectacular. As I'm feeling a little lazy and truthfully, there's little earth shattering news to report, I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves.

You can now follow us on a map. Click on the link "OUR TRACK via satellite" at the top right of this blog page.

 Waccamaw River Cypress Swamp

Development Along the ICW

Paul's Next Boat

Smells of Fall

Our friendly marina offered a courtesy car, we got lots of errands done in our allotted two hours, then made our way to Wrightsville Beach.

At Anchor, Wrightsville Beach, NC

We had a lovely couple of days in Wrightsville Beach-- for those of you not familiar with NC geography, Wrightsville is about 20 minutes by car from Wilmington, where we spent seemingly months on end while waiting for our repowering to be finished. We have been asking ourselves why we spent so little time there during our Wilmington odyssey, but I guess the answer is obvious--we were quite preoccupied with other pressing matters!

The beach there is a lovely one, typical of mid-Atlantic beaches, white sand, long unbroken expanses for walks and beachcombing, shore birds, and waves favored by the surfers in the region. Our anchorage was a short dinghy ride to a public landing and quite in the center of things. Our two days were full and we were even able to locate friends made during our Bennett Bros stay and had a lovely impromptu dinner out with them (the company far more special than the food!)

The Beach at  Wrightsville Beach

Carry On is sitting on the dock near Southport, NC in St James Plantation, where we're visiting friends we met last summer in Maine. We had stopped by to admire their Pacific Seacraft 40 in Rockland Harbor from our dinghy, which led to drinks and then dinner several evenings.

It's a beautiful November afternoon here and I took a walk around this lovely, quiet community accompanied by the Liebeslieder Waltzes on my ipod-- in the air, smells of dry leaves, pine needles and autumn.

The First Step is the Hardest

Sign at the lock at Great Bridge, VA

Right now I'm wondering just why it was that I thought Carry On needed a blog! My computer skills are definitely seeing new challenges here and I'm too stubborn to ask the captain for help-- or at least too many times.

So bear with me while I try to get this all together-- hopefully at the minimum, it will at least answer that basic question, "where r u".

So--here we are today, having just arrived in Oriental, NC on a very windy, very chilly Sunday early afternoon. We were hoping for cell coverage as we've been without since leaving Coinjock, NC early Friday morning, but no such luck. We are in a very sparsely populated part of NC, surrounded by some very big bodies of water (ie the Neuse River feels like an ocean it is so wide in places, as did the Albemarle Sound and the Alligator River).

We've had some great times since leaving Salem, although the trip down to the Chesapeake involved a lot a pitching and some rolling besides gray skies and high winds. We spent a few days in Oxford and Cambridge, MD, a week in Solomons, MD and another week in Washington, DC, which was well worth the two day trip up the Potomoc.

Crew Tours DC on Segways

Our marina had a view of the Washington monument which was well within a half hour walk. The location, plus the great public transportation system made sightseeing a pleasure. Our friend, Andre, from Tokyo, joined us in DC and travelled with us for a week. Some of you may remember that Andre was aboard for the infamous engine disaster and helped us keep our sanity in those first few days.

We're in need of firming up our plans for the winter months-- and need telephones to do it, so we're leaving Oriental tomorrow, after our shrimp feast tonight. We're in shrimp country now and expect to take full advantage! After our night in Beaufort, we're going to Cape Lookout National Seashore Park for a couple of days and then offshore to Wrightsville Beach. Over the weekend we'll be in Southport, NC visiting friends that we met in Maine last summer.

After that, we'll be in South Carolina and we are both looking forward to a week or so in one spot where we can catch up on projects and ongoing boat tasks and relax a bit. There may be a service person or two figured into the equation somewhere-- the smaller generator just won't get fixed despite the ministrations of Northern Lights dealers up and down the coast!

That's all for now (enough already, huh?) but let me just say-- I welcome your feedback-- I'm new at this!