Bill and Isobel prepare the boat to get underway... who knows what they are working on, but you can see it takes all of both of them to get it in order.

I figure it is remarkable that we are out of Oriental, NC!! We ran 60 miles down the ICW as the wind was not favorable to go off shore. For those of you who think differently, the ICW is much more stressful than offshore... There is shoaling at almost every inlet and there were a couple that took us a couple tries to get past... probing for a deep spot with our bow! The charts are useless and the buoys and marks might have been handy a couple years ago. For one inlet we had 5 way-points out of a book that lead us on a zig zag course and past the shoals... crazy! At least the Marines were happy to have us anchor here... or at least they haven't kicked us out yet. There are 8 other boats in here with us...

We did pass Sea Turtle headed north near Swansboro. They are from Charlotte VT and friends of my brother. We have seen them before on lake Champlain, in Oriental and hope to see them again...

34 33.095'n 077 19.523'w