We awoke this morning in the anchorage at Mile Hammock to discover that 3 of the 4 other boats had already departed, and the 4th was leaving. The 4th called us to let us know that the Marines were closing down the next 5 mile stretch of the ICW from starting at 8am for live artillery fire practice. We got the anchor up and were underway in time to make the 8 am opening of the bridge just north of our anchorage. After we got through, we came to a military patrol boat with a red flag and a sign that indicated that the ICW was closed. We hailed them on the radio and they advised that the ICW was still open for passage at that time. We thanked them and proceeded through to the other end of the restricted area where we passed another patrol boat which was stopping boats coming in from that end. We waved to them and went happily on our way. Later we did hear military warships on the radio so we were glad to be out of the target practice area. The rest of the day was spent traveling through the back side of the North Carolina barrier islands. The west side of the ICW was pretty much developed with a wide variety of house styles from new mansions to very modest houses. The majority of the houses that had boats at their docks had small to medium outboard motorboats including a number of Carolina Skiff brand and similar shallow water fishing boats. We arrived at and went under a bridge just before Morehead City and had to pool the collective brain power of The Admiral, The Captain, and the guest Crewmember, Gary, to sort out which channel to take of two very similarly marked channels that went in different directions on the other side of the bridge. The one we collectively picked did turn out to be the correct choice, and we motored through the Morehead City big ship terminal area and out the channel towards the ocean until we arrived at the turn that led us into Beaufort City harbor and the Beaufort Town Docks Marina. The picture above is our view of this nice little city from Dreamboat. Tomorrow we plan to head up Adams Creek into the Neuse River and up to the city of New Bern, NC. The Captain