You never know what you'll see out here. Many years ago, when we first came down the waterway, our email reports contained a simple sentence: "Yesterday we saw a giraffe." And no one questioned it! Not one single comment! Maybe nobody was reading the emails. Anyway, we really did see a giraffe. It's on the west bank of the ICW south of the Surf City Bridge. The house is for sale; we don't know whether the giraffe is included.
We've crossed Albemarle Sound in calm weather once, maybe twice, but not this time. Wind forecast said North 5-10, so of course we got West 15-20 with higher gusts. Wasn't too bad, waves three feet on the starboard bow. When the wind meter hit 25 Nancy went below and slept through the whole thing.
As the day went on the winds diminished. We anchored in Belhaven, near the bridge; very peaceful there. Next day we crossed the Neuse River, which can be worse than Albemarle but wasn't, made it to Morehead City and tied up to the free-with-dinner dock at the Ruddy Duck Tavern. That's a good place!
South and west of Swansboro the ICW passes through Camp Lejeune firing range, and the waterway was closed for live fire exercises. Among the boats waiting to get through was Knot So Swift with our friends Peter & Sandy Swift aboard, headed for Florida. Eventually (after a fuel stop and a very long day waiting for bridges to open) we arrived in Wrightsville Beach, tied up safely in strong current in the dark, and joined Peter & Sandy for dinner at the Bridgetender. Check out the beautiful jacket Nancy made!
This is the metropolis of Coinjock. That's pretty much all of it; two marinas and a few houses on the banks of the ICW, south of Currituck Sound and north of the dreaded Albemarle. The boat behind ours is A Capella, the beautiful DeFever owned and occupied by Jeff and Karen Seigel of Active Captain, who shared the stage with Peter at the Old Bay Coffee House in Crisfield..
In Hampton, VA, Debbie deposited Nancy and took Cy away. Before Nancy and Debbie arrived, Cy and Peter watched a most excellent parade celebrating Homecoming at Hampton University. HU is perhaps the oldest of the "Historically Black Colleges." In addition to a fine marching band, the parade featured a dozen or more new and classic Corvettes, buffalo soldiers aboard colorful motorcycles, and a fleet of customized cars. Imagine Chryslers, Mercedes, Pontiacs, and Chevvies with gull-wing doors and oversize chrome wheels, drivers sitting on the window ledges and somehow operating the pedals. Long legs? Why didn't Peter have the camera? Hampton is very nice, with a rejuvenated waterfront district. The picture is Sea Angel in front of the Air and Space Center.
