One last frigid night

Yes, it was.   17!  But it's over.  And we stayed warm. The low tonight is a sizzling 29!  We actually saw temperatures above freezing today into the mid 40s -  yahoo!!!!!  The enclosure got so warm that we resorted to non-flannel jeans and no sweatshirts!  Smoke was basking in the shade instead of the sun.

Luke caught this fabulous picture of the "Little Bridge that Couldn't"....couldn't open, that is.  This is the Figure Eight Island Bridge, the one that drove us back 10 miles to find a marina.  What a beautiful picture this morning.  It's hard to tell the sky from the water.  I love it.

We motored slowly through the tea colored ICW. This is Snows Cut, from Wrightsville Beach to the Cape Fear River





A couple more bridges before we reached the Cape Fear River.

As we motored slowly down the ICW, Smokey decided we needed a guide, a navigator.  She complied.  Gladly... (protected from the wind from the rear). She loves watching the waterway go by.

ahh...through North Carolina..... a local RV/trailer park....(can't say much - it's where I grew up)

This afternoon we struggled (and I mean STRUGGLED) through the evil Shallotte Inlet. As the ICW runs through ocean inlets, strong currents and storms can move shoals and channels so the buoys and markers may not reflect reality. We ran aground 3 times, struggling to find a channel we could sail through. Always an anxiety, especially on a falling tide, because we never know if we can get off until we do so. A heavy dose of reverse usually does the trick. And sometimes, a call to Boat US for guidance.

Tonight we are outside of Emerald Isle, NC, at a marina one more time, plugged in to 30 Amps, heat pumps running, waiting out the cold. The next few days should be warm enough to anchor out.