June 7th and 8th- Southport to Carolina Beach, NC

The tide came back into Pipeline Basin and Catalpa floated. We both agreed that being stuck was an unpleasant experience. We are used to the constant motion of floating.

Southport.

Maybe we’d qualify for a free meal if we brought Ollie?

We left in the morning (still floating) and caught the flood tide up the Cape Fear river. With the wind behind us and the Cape Fear pushing us along, our speed approached 8 knots. Our day was done in just over two hours.

Snow’s Cut.

We could have pushed on further but we enjoy Carolina Beach. The entrance to the harbor is tricky due to current from Snow’s Cut. Once inside, it is well protected and a no wake zone. The “no wake zone” part is nice because there are a lot of small boats and jet skis zooming around this time of year. Lynne got us a mooring for a couple of days. We relaxed on Catalpa all afternoon. In the evening we had grilled steak, pasta, and a cabernet sauvignon. Afterwards we had an impressive rain storm. We were able to collect around 5 gallons of water which we filtered and added to the tanks.

Just finished grilling the steak before this hit.

Today (Monday) we’re running out more water to Catalpa. We picked up a few things at a mini-mart. We made a stop at Blackburn Seafood for some grouper and shrimp (grouper for dinner tonight). The beaches are packed so we can only bring Ollie over late in the day. It’s hot so we think it’s better to not have him charging around in the mid day heat anyway.

No beach but still having fun.