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| Well, the rain storm moved on and we had a great trip ashore to Fish Tales for a delicious dinner out. From the dinner deck you can see Priority anchored in Town Creek behind me, the closest boat to me. Little did we know that the evening would end so differently. |
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| By 9PM the winds were blowing 20-25kts with gusts higher. At midnight we decided to reduce our windage by removing the window in the dodger, the side weather cloths and the transition piece between the dodger and bimini. However, we kept getting closer to the boat anchored behind us which meant our anchor was slowly dragging through the soft mud bottom. Everything is a little more dramatic in the dark of the night! We reset the anchor twice about 1AM and again at 3AM. Being positive, we must say that it was not raining, we did have warm clothes and we did have our "marriage saver" headphones to help us. Captain Jay surprised me with this camera shot or I would have mustered up a more photogenic smile. By 5AM Thursday we were confidant that our anchor was holding again and the adrenaline had decreased enough that we did sleep for a few hours. The highest gusts of the night registered at 38 kts. We stayed for the day to recover and let the winds blow through. |
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| Friday morning brought calmer winds and a beautiful day so we headed on down the ICW past Morehead City. We did get a good look at the other boats headed south because they all travel faster than Priority. The ICW is really like a I-95 highway for marine vessels and at this time of year the southbound lanes are full. The western shore is lined with beautiful waterfront homes with no two alike, all interesting with architectural differences and landscaping designs. The eastern side is the shallow waters of the sounds with birds and sand islands. We passed through Camp LaJeune, the US Marines military reservation. The osprey helicopters were flying about and the Marines were carrying out exercises ashore when we anchored below in Mile Hammock Bay for the night. |
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| Mile Hammock Bay is a dredged basin belonging to the US Marines at Mile Marker 245 of the ICW. It is available as an anchorage if not being used by the Marines but we could not go ashore. All of the 20 boats anchored here with us tonight will be headed on down the ICW with us tomorrow morning. |
