Wednesday November 9: North Myrtle Beach, SOUTH Carolina

Yes - truly making our way south :-) In fact we even had the air conditioner running for a while today it was so warm!

Yesterday we left Wrightsville Beach at the leisurely hour of 11:30 due to the currents. This gave us time to ride (me)/walk (Steve) across the bridge to a great place for breakfast. Steve's favorite: seafood omelet. The best he's ever had - so he says. It was only 24 miles to Southport, NC so we were still in and tied up relatively early in the day.

This part of the coast on North Carolina is very protect with many small inlets leading to the ocean - not that we could go in or out them as they are shallow with often changing sand bars. Still fun to be able to see the waves hitting the shoreline.

We spent last night at the free docks provided by the Provision Company in Southport. The deal is the dock is free if you eat a meal at the restaurant - so once again we had to eat out. Some days you just do what you have to do, right?! Anyway, the best seafood chowder ever. And I totally agreed :-) This is the dock as we left this morning. Added note: the additional battery worked GREAT as we watched TV, ran the generator maybe 30 minutes and still was able to have the frig run all night -- with enough battery power to start the engine in the morning! Good score with the new battery charger and additional battery (should have done that a few years ago :-))

As we traveled to North Myrtle Beach I saw this house with a crazy stairway up to the top of the roof. I guess this is what you do when you want to be able to see the ocean don't have a house that is actually on the ocean. Bet it gets windy up there. I also saw a marina with 'dry storage' which means your boat is lifted out of the water and stored in a rack until you want to use it again. We see these lots of places but I don't believe I have ever seen one that stacks the boats 6 high. Seems a little shaky to me - especially in high winds.

Regardless, we arrived at the Lightkeeper's Marina in North Myrtle Beach about 2 pm. We are able to stay here (free again - I love free :-)) because the people who own the dock are on their way to Marathon for the winter and he offered his dock for any MTOA members who were going south also. How nice of them :-) It was sunny and warm - just the kind of day I have been waiting for to scrub down the boat. It is unbelievable how dirty it got sitting around Baltimore for 2 months - kind of like when the boat sat in Cleveland. Just junk floating around in the air. You can see in the second picture what I was taking off. Fortunately the Brightside that we used to paint the walkaround deck made quick work of the grime. A little boat soap and elbow grease and we were like new! Steve's arm needs to get better :-)

The evening was finished up with Harold and Alice joining us for dinner. They brought a salad from Olive Garden (complete with hot bread sticks!!) - what a treat! They have a trawler docked here (just bought it this past spring) and are looking to do the loop next year. It's always fun to talk to other boaters!