Day 18 & 19
While studying the map for our route this morning I realized that there was a drawbridge about 15 miles from us that would only open on the hour. It was 7:45 am and I knew we would have to leave within 15 minutes in order to make the 9:00 am opening, otherwise it would be 10:00 am before we could get through. We hurried our departure and found ourselves in the middle of a sailboat and slow trawler southbound brigade. Since we had to slow to pass each boat we didn't keep up our usual cruising speed. We were still able to make the opening with only a minute or two to spare by spending about 15 minutes at full throttle which added about 5 mph to our usual cruising speed.
Finally, we made it to the Cape Fear River and open water again. It felt wonderful to be able to relax and use the autopilot again, which I couldn't do in "the ditch".
This is the "Old Baldy" lighthouse on Bald Head Island and is the oldest lighthouse still standing in North Carolina.
We were just cruising along and enjoying the sights and the open water. After passing Old Baldy, I mentioned to Sharon that the water was really getting wide here.
I had just been following the green markers and our cruising guide said that the turn to Southport was at Green #1, so I was looking for that. When I saw how wide the water was I double checked and realized that even though we were not at Green #1 yet we had missed the turn to Southport and were actually about a mile past the line marking the mouth of the Cape Fear River, which meant we were in the Atlantic Ocean! Here is a screen shot of our track, the red triangle is our boat at Southport, the yellow line is our track out into the ocean and back.
We walked around the town a little and found that they really like Halloween here.
We saw a number of old houses, most of the nicest ones were on the waterfront and belonged to river pilots who guided large ships into the Cape Fear River and into port. They made very good money and often would only take payment in gold, so they could afford the best properties in town.
Since the next day's weather was predicted to be thunderstorms all day we decided to stay put and not travel. We also wanted to see a little more of Southport. We took a golf cart guided tour of the town and were shown all of the sites where Under The Dome, Safe Haven, and Matlock were filmed. We were also told a number of tales of the town's history and how important is was during the civil war. We also visited the town museum and the mariner's museum where we could look through an actual submarine periscope that went through the roof of the building and view various sights around the town and on the water.
This boat was in the parking lot of our marina.
We visited an old jail house.
Saw the church that was used in filming Under the Dome - this is the church where the steeple fell into the street in the TV show.
We visited the Old Smithfield (Southport's original name) Burying Ground, apparently to check up on some possible relatives.
Our first day here we stopped at this restaurant for a lunch of shrimp and crab cakes. Today the place was jam packed. We learned that it had just reopened yesterday after it was flooded after the recent rains and Joaquin storm surge. We also learned that they don't make their crab cakes anything like we are used to in Maryland and Virginia.
We ate instead at Fishy Fishy, another place used in the filming of Safe Haven. The food was great, we had tuna and grouper.
On the way back to the boat I spotted this egret lounging in his easy chair.
Thunderstorms started about mid-afternoon and continued into the evening. We attended Mass at the local Catholic church and called it a day with dinner on the boat. Hopefully, we can move on to Myrtle Beach tomorrow.
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