What a couple of days it has been. Yesterday we went through a couple of dicey inlets but lucked out and didn't touch bottom. New River Inlet had a dredge operating in the middle of it and depending on how you went around him you either touched or didn't. We were lucky and didn't
Our anchorage for the evening was in Camp LeJeune with several of the boats we have been traveling with. We invited them over for drinks and spent a nice couple of hours swapping stories and getting to know each other. Good thing.
The next morning Jim went ashore for another pre-dawn stealth landing in Camp LeJeune with Murphy. Well, he didn't come back and he didn't come back and I was starting to get very nervous. Finally dawn broke and I went up on deck to see if I could see him. About that time I hear him shouting from the shore that the dinghy has blown away!!! I quickly radioed one of our traveling companions, Adriana, a lovely Nordic Tug and he put his dinghy down and sped off to the rescue. Our dinghy was soon spotted across the bay and retrieved with no harm done, other than to Jim's dignity. Knot tying lessons were planned for the remainder of the day and I don't think he'll hear the end of it from our fellow travelers for a while.
So an hour later than planned, we all pulled our anchors and went on to the Onslow bridge. As we pulled up to the bridge, 3 navy boats sped by. At first I was sure they were after us, but they went on by and not long after the caravan of boats was through the bridge, they radioed back and told us to drop anchors. A live firing exercise was planned and we would have to wait. Can the day get any better? Did I mention that it was foggy and drizzling. Fortunately the fog was in our favor and the exercise was canceled. After only an hour delay we were off again.
Well the rest of the day went well enough though it never warmed up and by the time we dropped anchor everyone was quite chilled. Murphy is once again wearing his blanket and has assumed the dog ball position.