Oriental, NC!!

Last I left you, the plan was to go on up the Intercoastal to Wrightsville Beach, but the weather offshore improved a bit and we decided to make a longer trip, overnight all the way to Oriental.We did a hop outside from Calabash to  Oak Island during the morning.  The forecast was for scattered storms - and boy did we run into one!  We had the sails up - and I was napping.....I heard activity on deck and found Duane had dropped the sails and we were now motoring towards a huge thunderstorm (many miles wide so we couldn't outrun it).

 

We saw true wind speeds of about 45 knots at times - we just kept the boat pointed into the waves for about 15 minutes until the system passed.  Back up with the sails and we were on our way.  At least we got a partial fresh water wash - but the windswept seawater was hitting us too so I think it was just "less salty water" in the end.

 

Passing the Oak Island Lighthouse all was calm.

 

 We went back in the Intercoastal on to Carolina Beach.  We'd decided that the weather was good for us to continue on overnight offshore - so we anchored and took a rest so that we'd arrive at Beaufort just at sunrise.  And we had a hankering for pizza (since we were unsuccessful getting it in Georgetown) - so we did an online order and took the dinghy to get some Dominos for the first time in forever!  The dinghy dock at Carolina Beach is just a 1/2 block to the Dominos.

 

This actually was our first visit to Carolina Beach in the boat - neat little area with lots of boating!

 

Sojourn anchored - we actually had another brief storm - we drug anchor a bit but we were on board and had the boat in gear to relieve the pressure on the anchor so it wasn't a problem.  2 other boats in the anchorage drug and were pulled off by TowBoat US an hour or so later.

We waited until about 6 pm to leave, timing our arrival to Beaufort Inlet about 12 hours later at sunrise.  Carolina Beach inlet - a little narrow - wouldn't want to do this in rough seas.

 
Our last sunset for this winter cruise.....

 

And our last sunrise of the cruise - beautiful!  Oh, did I mention it was cold!!  Long pants, two shirst, a jacket, socks, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket during watches.  Yikes!

 

 

Sojourn at home, waiting on Ed and Cathy to arrive in a few weeks.

 Ashore, I was happy to find a few of my irises were still blooming!  The daffodils were long wilted.  (I guess I'll have to be around some winter to see those....)

Cleaning and organizing will be the activity of the day for a while....