Snow’s Cut is a scenic channel, with beautiful sandy cliffs and a weedy marsh at the end, that cuts from Carolina Beach to Cape Fear River. This will take us to Southport today for a couple of night’s while we get our inverter fixed.

Our second stop, after meeting up with the Wade’s in Morehead City was John and Judy Woody’s (above) house in Wrightsville Beach, NC. the Woody’s are friends of Louis and Diane and there was not one but two parties planned for this evening. John and Judy had three couples over for the weekend at their house and Louis and Diane had a multitude of friends over to our boats at dock for a going away party. We can tell you one thing for sure… the Wade’s sure know how to party.

The following morning we were invited up to the house for a breakfast feast with some of the most warm and wonderful people you could ever meet.

Thanks John and Judy for your warm hospitality.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

First night out brought us to Surf City Marina and found Bella Luna docked right next to the Halloween Party Boat where we met Dave and Sharon (above right) who were putting the final touches on the Belle of Topsail for a big Halloween party this weekend. Once we got settled Diane and I (Lisa) went over for a private tour. We have to tell you they had some neat decorations, many of them came alive with music, lights or scary voices as we walked through the boat.

We arrived at Coral Bay Marina, in Morehead City today, and left the boat to spend a couple of nights at the Wade’s Beach House in Cape Coral before we all hop on our boats to start heading south to Florida where we will cruise the St. John’s River together.

We enjoyed meeting Mary C. and Charles (above right) again, friends of Louis and Diane’s, we had met them a few months ago when we drove down to Morehead City to visit the Wade’s.

First night’s destination was Surf City. Diane and Louis received the Traveling Mariner’s bottle of wine before dinner which was served on their boat tonight.

After a one night anchorage just before Belhaven it was just a quick cruise over to Dowry Creek for one night. The weather was pretty dreary so we just worked on the boat and borrowed the marina’s loaner care for a quick trip into town where we passed this cotton field which was in full bloom.

We ended our day in Coinjock, North Carolina at Midway Marina. There are two marinas here right across from each other in the Virginia Cut. We wanted to get a slip at the Coinjock Marina but they were already fully reserved for the night when we called. There are an incredible number of boats heading south, normal migration activity this time of year. All day we passed by many slower sailboats and got passed by ourselves by fast, sport fishing boats.

We had heard about the amazingly good prime rib dinner served at the Coinjack Marina Restaurant so Jim said he would get the dinghy down so that we wouldn’t miss the opportunity to sample the fare. As you can see it was more than worth the extra effort. We highly recommend this stop as it was the best prime rib dinner we have had in a long time.

It just doesn’t get better than this for a boater (or a photographer). When the skies are deep blue with clouds that look like whispy cotton and fluid water that ripples more like jello just before it’s set. Reflections of sky and trees on the mirrow-like water reminded us why we love spending so much time on the water, traveling on a slow boat.

We had a lot of bridges today and one lock. It has been a while since we have had to go through a lock but this one was only three feet up and was located just before Great Bridge, our final destination for tonight.

We were hoping that there would be room at the free dock, there are two of them by this bridge, one before and one just after. The one on the north side of the bridge was full with sailboats and one trawler. We could not see the one on the other side of the bridge until we got through it and it had sailboats on it also. They were kind of spread out to fill the dock but we could see that if one of them moved forward a little there would be room for us at the back of the dock. So we called to that sailboat, Minden, to try to raise it’s inhabitants but we had to hover next to their boat awhile and call several times as, come to find out after we docked, they had some lovely music playing and just didn’t hear us. Once we were able to rouse them they were very gracious in pulling up their boat so that we could enjoy this simple dockage for the night.

We wanted to stay here for two reasons. One was that when traveling to cover water quickly we love to save the, sometimes exorbitant dockage fee by anchoring or using free docks when we can find them. The second reason was that we wanted to check out the marina just across from the free dock as a future storage possibility for Kismet as we had heard good things about it.

 This old yacht appeared to be getting some work done at the Atlantic Yacht Basin.