Not as many miles as we would have liked we covered today..We woke up the wind still blowing at a dreadfully high rate. We pulled anchor and left anyway. As we arrived in the ICW the cool winds remained so high they persisted in making us heel over from port to starboard depending on which way it blew.It was so cool outside so Bella was covered in a blanket in the cockpit. She's not spoiled is she... As we entered a large river( I mean big it is bigger than Tampa Bay) called the Neuse River the waves began to grow with the wind. Carl fought the 4ft waves and strong winds 18mph gusting to 25mph. Using our Skipper Bob's book( Thanks Jimbo and Mary Francis) an anchorage was found a few miles across the river, that had a used marine store, so we headed for that, Oriental N.C.  We had been looking for anchor chain since we left Florida , so this seemed like a good stop. Happy to be out of the wind , we dropped anchor and planned to stay and figure out our weather window,so it would be smooth sailing when we left. Once anchored we  hopped in our dingy and headed for town. What a cool quaint little shrimping village it is...It reminds me of  Madeira Beach years ago, only we had bandit and long line boats.  The town provides a dingy dock at no charge, even has poop bags as you entered,( never can have to many of those) we were off to a good start! I called the used marine store got directions , only the guy misunderstood where we were so we took the scenic route through town. OK by me and Bella! The store didn't have what we needed so we just kept walking . Had lunch at a local cafe, (spinach soup and spinach salad yummy) then stopped to share an ice cream.While there we asked a lady if she knew where there was a hardware maybe they would have chain(we are getting close to the Chesapeake Bay so we will need it) she said yes but what did we need. Carl told her and she says her husband is taking chain off their boat and replacing it , we could have it if it would work for us... Are you kidding chain for FREE.. Oh happy day...She called her husband but he didn't answer, so we gave her our card, and Mike called back in 10 minutes..The chain was a little larger than we would have bought but if its free it will work. Mike took the chain to the dingy dock, all 125 ft of 3/8's chain, more than what we needed. Carl took me and Bella back to the boat, while he got a hack saw, chisel and hammer and went back to take what we needed. The chain was brought aboard and stored till tomorrow when Carl will attach it. After dinner Carl found a great radio station that played the blues mixed with real old oldies and we danced in the cabin out of the cool weather until time for bed.. What a marvelous stop...Hurray for us...

The day began at 6:30 am. I know for some of you your thinking no big deal. I'm always up at that hour and maybe at work. But for me this is a big deal. I'm a night girl not early morning. None the less I persevered. We were gonna put down some serious miles today and we had to make the first bridge opening by 7am and make it we did.. We were moving right along until about an hour up the channel we were told by a bridge tender that he would be happy to open the bridge for us , however we could only go a 1/2 mile past him. The military was doing target practice and the ICW was closed.  That's right shooting...  I think 30mm guns at targets on the other side of the channel ..It would make a big hole in the boat and that would not be good.!!! So we had to sit and wait for 2 hours till they gave the all clear to pass .Carl tried his hand at fishing and we all know how that turned out.. Then we were given the all clear.  They did say to move it along as fast as your boat could go...The base we passed was Camp LeJeune, I think it's training base for the navy as they had Navy gun boats out..The rest of the day was overcast and grey with the winds hollowing at about 15 to 20 mph and gust up to 28 mph!! .On the Atlantic it had winds at 28 mph plus gusts and waves at 6 to 9 feet .You know we couldn't even think of that... but we are just inside the Outer Banks of  N.C .It was a battle all day  and we were blown wickedly every way you could think of.. We fought the wind for as long as we could and anchored in a channel just off of Morehead City. We still made 50 miles...The winds continued  all night long. Luckily we were in a pretty small area so the water was pretty mellow, but the current  was very strong.  One side was docks and the other a small island.. It wasn't awful . Not much time was spent in the cockpit as we had had enough wind.. A pot of black eyed peas was had for dinner, while we listened to the band at a bar across the inlet all night long.. And I mean all night long....Thank  God they were pretty good..Today began with the wind blowing dreadfully strong so we will see how far we get today...

Talk about your late starts, it sure took us a long time to get moving this morning.. Carl had stayed up late listening to that radio station that Megan turned us onto so it was all he could do to roll out of bed.  We had heard there might be good morning surf but it turned out to be ankle to knee with gray overcast skies so we just got busy packing everything up. While picking up all the wet clothes hanging in all quarters I noticed that the dingy was hanging funny, when checked it was full of water.It had about 3 or 4 inches in it, I told you all we had was rain!! Quickly Carl got to the back and opened the plug . Water came streaming out.. Luck was on our side, as it didn't break the davits or pulleys that hold it up. .. Hurrah for us...Then it was time to hang the surfboards and find a place for all those wet clothes, so we didn't look like the Clampet's rolling up stream..We finally left the mooring ball at about noon, that's right noon, I told we were slow...We stopped for a top off of fuel, water and a pump out and headed due north, we saw some pretty strange things today. First we say Neptune's wife, this 10 to 15 ft high metal statue that looked like Neptune only it had on a bikini. I tried to take a picture but it was to far away for my camera. Then a few houses down from there was a life size giraffi.  it most have stood about 15 ft high and a for sale sign was right next to it. That's one way to get a buyers attention.Carl called his sister as we were planing to visit with her on the way up north, but it turned out she would have met us at the beach next to Megan's. Since we had already left we decided to meet on the way back down.. We are so sorry we missed her, but we thought she lived farther north. .Being I complained about the rain, it stayed at bay all day.. Super...We are so close to the Atlantic that we could see the waves breaking from the ICW, we checked the weather and all that rain and storms that we had we now in the ocean, so still in the ditch.We only put in about 5 or 6 hours today and anchored off  Topsail Beach, we would have gone farther but no where to anchor for quite a while after that.  Sitting in the cockpit earlier than most evening we saw a young guy being pulled on skies by a flats boat. That's a new one on us. I made grilled fish with spinach for dinner and we played Crazy 8's and let just say that game makes me crazy. Or should I say crazier....We called it a early night as we were getting up early so we could put down some miles today.A cold front went by during the night so its sweats this morning...

Rain, rain go away come again another day!! If the south was in a drought I'm pretty sure its not so bad now! I swear it has rained everyday since St. Augustine...It was raining when we got up and the surf report was chest high and choppy. Since I'm not to good on that short board and it was yucky outside I decided to spend the day with Megan while Carl went to check out the surf. We had breakfast and Megan and Ethan came by to pick me up so they could show me the island and Icould get a few postcards. We had a great time even though it was raining and we really couldn't get out of the car. But Ethan gave us a fine commentary of the area as we drove along and talked. When we returned to the dock Carl was back on the boat so he came to pick us up. It took two trips cause we all can't get in the dingy at once. Once on the boat Megan and I made sushi. She had never done it before, and I had only done it once before so it was big fun and very good. We used sushi grade tuna... Yummy...After that Megan had to go as she had to be to work by 4pm. We said our goodbye's as  I wouldn't see her anymore before we left. I had a great time with her and will see her on the way back.It rained all day so we just hung around the boat. I had given Bella a new toy that I thought she wouldn't tear up very easily, my mistake. She wrecked the toy in no time and has eaten the plastic that the  toy was made of,  not good!!  We needed to make her vomit to get it out so onto the Internet I went..You can find anything u need there. It said to give her a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide with a syringe  down her throat, we didn't have either...Oh No... So Carl went to the boat next to us and asked if they had any and they gave us the peroxide. We had a squirt gun that Shelia gave us so we used that..To bad we didn't get a picture of that.. We didn't want to stay on  the boat so we went for a walk on the beach. It took 2 times of giving her it and lots of running around but we got all the plastic back...So if your dog swallows something it should other than poison, be assured this works..  We had a wonderful walk on the beach, and Bella got to chase her new ball . We were out there till after the sunset...Megan had turned us on to a great radio station, so we listened to that till it was time for bed