July 25th, Morehead City

We travelled from Surf City to Morehead City.

Another great day on the water. Winds from the SW 10 to 15, quite hot. Heat warning again today, humidex 105 to 109. They take heat very seriously here. Weather station has all kinds of warnings, and tell you to stay in shade, drink lots of water, and state that heat stroke is an emergency and get to a hospital immediately.

This was a most unusual sight. A great location, and a beautiful home and landscaping, but why PINK??? 

The first half of the trip we were running against the tide, so our average speed was about 6.5 knots. then after the New River Inlet out speed running with the tide was up to 8.2 knots for the second half. We travelled 55 miles in 7 hours.

Starboard side view going by Camp LeJune  Live Fire Area

We had an hour layover at the Camp Lejune Live Firing Area. The Navy Guard boat sits in the channel, and there is a huge sign on the shore warning that when the yellow lights are flashing you are not to enter area.  They told us to anchor till around 1 pm and they would let us know when we could proceed.

When we got to Morehead City the winds suddenly picked up tremendously a storm was moving in. Just when you are coming into an unknown marina and trying to dock !!!! Made things a little exciting, but Denard, a 70 year old gentleman who owns and operates Portside Marina and one of his staff had stayed to get us onto the docks and fueled up were excellent. They got both boats onto there dock quite easily. Denard was so relaxed and made a difficult landing seem easy and as if he did it everyday. He probably does.

It was late in the day, about 5:30pm, and we asked if we could stay on their fuel dock for the night. Not wanting to have to move in the high winds. Denard said yes. We could stay right where we were. YEAH!

Earlier they had wanted us to go to Morehead City Docks for the night, but they had some cancellations during the day and we were able to spend the night.

Denard gave us a beer when we registered. What a wonderful experience.

Today is going to be a short run to Oriental, only about 20 miles. Otherwise it would be a 70 mile run, and that is just too long a day, too much like work.

Peter wants to change the oil in the rebuilt port engine. We have travelled about 280 miles on the rebuilt engine and used about 100 gallons of fuel.

This building is new as hurricane Irene wiped them out last year. He stores about 130 boats inside. 3 stories of boats.