Carolina Beach State Park

Carolina Beach State Park is located on Snow’s Cut between the Cape Fear River and Carolina Beach. It’s 90+ campsites were full on Friday and Saturday nights, but, except for one houseboat, the Marina docks designated for larger boats only had us. For four days we explored the pathways looping through the carnivorous plants...Venus Flytraps, Pitcher Plants, Butterworts, etc., we hiked the longer Sugarloaf Trail, we biked the short distance to town, and created a steadying sail for “Summertime”. (A wind surfer sail was left at the “Take it or Leave It” table back at the Transfer Station in Lakeville, Maine and we claimed it, modifying the shape for our use.) Our trawler tends to skate around her anchor or mooring ball, so we hope the stern-mounted sail will keep us headed into the wind. Time will tell.

Sunrises, sunsets and moonbeams

The sunrises and the sunsets in the past week have been sensational. A pod of dolphins spent at least an hour frolicking around us as we sat on anchor in Wrightsville Beach Bank’s Channel at sunrise. Two out of the eight dolphins kept leaping completely out of the water, slapping their tales on re-entry. We could just hear them chuckling! A big front moved through last night and today. What a change even an hour can make!

Swansboro's 60th Mullett Fest, Swansboro,NC October 2014

Swansboro was going to be an intermediate stop on the way to Beaufort and Oriental, NC. Our plans changed as soon as we checked into Casper’s Docks and Dry Stack Marina. We learned that the 60th Annual Mullet Festival was about to begin, complete with a parade, fireworks, streets lined with craft and food venders, and live music on the Festival Stage all weekend. A town of 2,000 residents was ready to welcome more than 20,000 guests! We tabled our plans to continue up the ICW and adopted Swansboro as our new home for the next four days. We walked, we biked, we danced to NC Beach Music, we ate mullet, flounder and hush puppies, we had front row seats on “Summertime” for fabulous fireworks, we marveled at locally-made handicrafts and we enjoyed the company of our neighbors on the docks. Our very own W.T. Casper was the 60th Mullet Festival Parade Grand Marshall. It was all good,y’all!

On the water to Swansboro

It’s been two weeks since we splashed over. Where did the time go? Over the past week we made our way from Wrightsville Beach up to Swansboro, NC and back. Within those 54 miles were three swing bridges and one bascule... all of which had scheduled opening times that did not particularly fit into our 7 mile an hour top speed. Timing is everything, especially when two of the bridges only open on the hour! We spent our first night in the Mile Hammock Anchorage at Camp Lejeune Marine Base. Helicopter training sessions held our attention up to and even after sunset...very impressive!

Back to Cruising

The rhythm of life at our cabin on a lake in Maine is very different from our cruising on “Summertime”. The pace picks up dramatically! We’ve been welcoming our daughter Erin and her girls Emily(7) and Bailey(41/2) for a month of good family fun for many years now. It’s always a treat when Brett can join them. This summer's big project was fabricating an earth oven (horno)... adobe clay dug from San Pedro River Wash in St. David, AZ! My dad Oric(96 1/2) lives next door and Wally’s mother June (95) is just down the road 40 miles. Our brothers and their families live in the general area. Our sisters live further away, but they plan a trip each summer to re-connect. Gathering is what we do throughout July and August. In between visits, we jumped on the Harley and cruised the iconic backroads to the very most northern town in Maine, Ft. Kent, and loved every minute of our three-day get-away. Each summer we usually host friends from our 16 years of on-the-road RVing, too. This year was no exception. Jil and Tom Mohr came to us after spending the summer in Newfoundland. Opening up our cabin and Dad’s camp takes about 3 days; closing up takes at least three weeks... how can that be? On the 10th of September we moved back on “Summertime”. After 3 months of sitting on “the hard”, she was pretty gritty...inside and out. For the next week we carried out deep cleaning. Since Wally had such great success over the summer replacing the boat’s screens, he unpacked his new Sailrite sewing machine and got to work. By the time we put our Kadey Krogen back in the water, the zippers and frames around the ‘back porch” screens and eisenglass on the steering station were all new. Boat bottoms periodically need to be scraped and painted to prevent the growth of algae and barnacles. This year was our year. Once the surface was stripped clean, Wally and I proceeded to roll on two coats of the barrier paint and then another two coats of the anti-fouling paint. The resulting surface is very tough and good-looking. With all the fluids fresh and sacrificial anodes replaced, “Summertime” was ready to be splashed over. On October 2, the Cape Fear Boat Works Travelift delivered her to the river just above the port city of Wilmington, NC and we returned to our cruising lifestyle. Within the first hour we steered ourselves clear of a huge approaching container ship and talked with the captain of an overtaking container ship with the hailing port of Dammam, Saudi Arabia. When we lived in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia from 1978-82, we shopped in Dammam... small world! Our first day of travel took us back to the Atlantic Ocean at Carolina Beach, NC. We chose to attach ourselves to a mooring ball provided by the city and paid $20 per night for the privilege. It’s an easy dinghy ride to the beach or to town. What a pretty spot!