One of our favorite stops so far.  They call themselves the City of Hospitality, and it couldn’t be more true.  It is a lovely old City, at the southern edge of the Dismal Swamp. The City provides free dockage, the people are friendly and inviting, and the ex-Mayor and folks from the Visitors Center host a wine and cheese reception several times a week to great cruiser who have stopped.  Sadly, many of the local businesses are no longer open and the downtown, while filled with many lovely older buildings, has lost many businesses and restaurants.  We truly hope that the downtown area turns around soon.  See below for the story of the Rose Buddies, a story we have been hearing for years and we are grateful to have come and experienced it for ourselves.

Traffic through the Alligator Pungo Canal; a mile marker along the way; walk near Morehead City, NC, our dock mate at Dudley’s Marina.

This was a big guy, who often turned on his side to look back up at us.

There are crab pots to be encountered almost constantly from the Delaware down to the Keys.   It would be nice if they were easy to see, set up in lines, and never in the channel, but that is never the case.  It seems that the choppier the water, the darker they are in color.  Can you spot the pot in this photo?  This was crossing the Albermarle in a pretty good chop.  This guy decided to save money by cutting most of his floats in half, making them even harder to see.  Helped a catamaran to tie up at our current dock in Elizabeth City, who had to then dive on the bottom of his boat to remove two of them that wrapped around his running gear, stopping one engine.

It is as ominous as it sound.  There is a stretch of the ICW known as the Rock Pile, which was carved out of a stone bottom, and which is so narrow that you cannot pass another boat and must make what is known as a securitae call to alert oncoming vessels that you are proceeding through. Add to that the occasional, large commercial vessel and it makes for an interesting transit.  Here are some photos at low tide.

Still pretty cool to call the bridge tender on the radio and request a bridge opening so that you may pass through.  Our air draft allows us to pass under many of the bridges; sometimes we will need to drop the taller antennas and sometimes we have to have them open the bridge.  This is a swing bridge on the ICW just north of Osprey Marina in South Carolina.

On the way north, we tried not to duplicate too many of the stops we made on the way down.  This time around, we stopped at St. James marina in Southport.  Then on to Bridge Tender marina in Wrightsville Beach where we met up with good friends Tony and Eve.  Off to Swansboro at Dudley’s Marina (cheap at 75 cents a foot, but lots of wake action, Navy style piers and a rough but usable loaner car).  Then in to Morehead City, where we stayed instead of Beaufort, NC.  We were able to grab a spot at the Sanitary Fish restaurant dock, $25 plus cost of the meal.  Headed north to Whitticar Creek marina in Oriental NC and River Forest marina in Bel; we stayed at both last time and would return to both again.  We are now at a small marina behind a gas station and off a highway in the Alligator River, after a long days’ slog through the Alligator-Pungo canal.  Off to Elizabeth City tomorrow.

Osprey are coming back — there were quite a few in and around the ICW on the way through South Carolina. Skipper was fascinated by the small turtles near the boat at Osprey Marina.  Another shout-out for a very good marina.  Osprey Marina is not near a lot, but it is a lovely stop just off the ICW.

Another stop that we duplicated from the trip down was Brunswick Georgia.  Well known as a destination for those of us cruisers that have to move the boat out of Florida off-season for insurance purposes, it also has a large live aboard/ cruiser community, wonderful amenities (including a keg of beer put out every day and a three-times a week wine and cheese party, as well as a pot-luck each Sunday).  It is walking distance to the town of Brunswick and well worth the visit.  After leaving Brunswick, however, there are few choices for marinas in the usual cruiser fifty-mile day.  Anchoring out in Georgia can be challenging, with large tidal changes and fierce current.

On the border between Florida and Georgia is the small, charming town of St. Marys.  We stayed at Lang’s Marina and took the National Park Service ferry over to Cumberland Island.  The Carnegie family built a large home there, and eventually the island was given over to the National Park service.  There are wild horses now on the island, and the remains of the home. In the photo of the boat below, you can see a large mooring ball to the right; this is the border between Florida and Georgia.

We’ve been travelling north from Florida and heading to the AGLCA (Loopers) rendezvous in Norfolk the first week of May.  We covered most of the same ground on the way down, so I will share just a few of the highlights.  We are now about to head out of North Carolina, and this time we will actually try to go through Elizabeth City and the Great Dismal Swamp (see our prior posts, where we were way-laid by a bridge under repair and a large barge on our way south and wound up in Coinjock and the Virginia cut). All is well with us, and with the boat.  We have been meeting some other Loopers, finally, and look forward to meeting more of our travelling “class” of 2016- 2017.

We stayed at one of three free docks set up by the City of Jacksonville and decided to take a ride up the St.John’s river.  We got as far as Green Cove Springs.  Many of our fellow cruisers are aware of St Brendan’s Isle, on Walnut Street.  Surprisingly, 411 Walnut Street does not really exist.  The building at that location has instructions for tracking down SBI, which is really a car ride away.  Oh well, we will catch up with them on another day. We’ve been told that the St. John’s becomes much more picturesque and nature filled further on south, but we did not really have the time to spend to get much further in, on this trip.  We will give it another chance in the future.   At Green Cove Springs, there is another inexpensive municipal dock.  Good depth at the dock, but a bit difficult to find and some skinny water on the way in to the dock.  Once in, we searched for quite a while in the local municipal park  for a place to pay; we discovered the next day on the way out that there is a small post box behind the gate on the steps leading up to the fishing pier to leave your payment.   Very nice park area near the dock, but not much to do in town.