At Sea and Underway!

Saturday was spent shuttling the Pickup to Edenton and a good day was had. Young Shannon kindly ferried me back from up there. While we were having a quick tour of Edenton, we had a very nice lunch and found a bar that had live music one night a week so there is in fact some night life in that booming metropolis.

The Electronics guy never showed on Friday but the Chart plotter and Radar works fine so long as the fish finder is disconnected from the system.

Pulled out of Wilmington at 0930....after shanghai'ing poor Frady. He smelled a rat when he discovered the pickup missing and no amount of treats was going to get him inside the boat. A quick Habeas Grabus on him on deck and down below he went definitely in protest.

I let him out of the lower decks when safely underway on the Cape Fear.....and after a bit of hyperventilating and a whole lot of petting, scratching behind the ears, and hugging.....he settled down and enjoyed the ride.

After getting to the Masonboro Inlet, I took the boat out and scouted out the channel.....no problem getting out of there. Lots of deep water....fairly straight channel....just a zillion boats.

Passing by the Coastie Station at the end of the channel.....I noticed a Coastie using a huge telescope....and probably an NVG scope there as well. He was looking for drinking boaters from the look of it. The State Fish Cops were going gangbusters in the narrowest part of Banks Channel.

The anchorage has about a dozen boats anchored here.....a very nice Canadian boat pulled in just after I anchored. Well actually it was an average boat but the helmsperson was beautiful. Here I sit with just my buddy George Raymarine for a helmsperson. Life can be so unfair at times!

Weather is forecast to stay good for the next few days thus will still do the outside run. I talked to Joe Earl and he is near GeorgeTown, SC. and making good time. He said for about four hours yesterday he had a speed over the ground of Zero Knots.....he said it was a very strong current.....but I reckon it more like some very shallow water. He and Jim can find those shallow spots....that is why I always defer to their experience and follow them!

Sundowners will be great tonight.....pretty place this anchorage.

Update!

After posting the blog....and making sure the boat was secure....I elected to take a wee siesta. I awoke to the sound of someone breaking into the boat....yelling something about his anchor was dragging. I jumped out of bed....grabbed me spectacles....to confront this evil fellow. As it turned out...Luna had toured the flotilla moored in the Wrightsville Anchorage while I had my eyes closed.

It was me that was dragging and not the insane guy pounding on the side of my boat. He made like Blackbeard and boarded Luna jabbering away with some Indian greeting and offering Yoga lessons and demanding cold beer while he made comfy watching me man handle the anchor. Despite his ignoring the hard work and my newly broken toe he finally got bored and made off with a bottle of Duplin's finest grape.

That's my story and I am sticking to it.

You do meet the nicest people at the worst of times!