As is often the case our schedule is subject to change on short notice. The original plan was to spend two days in Belhaven then head down to Beaufort NC for a short offshore jump to Wrightsville Beach NC. We wanted to avoid the ICW section south of Beaufort, it is one of our least favorite sections plus it would be closed from Monday to Thursday due to bridge construction. Unfortunately, the offshore weather deteriorated so we left Belhaven ahead of schedule giving us time to transit the ugly section on Sunday before the bridge closed.

This is our fourth trip south and from past experiences we knew things would change. The first thing to go was the patience and politeness of our fellow boaters as everyone pushed to beat the bridge closure. Radio telephone decorum was the first to go, foul language is forbidden on any radio broadcast but it was obvious lots of people didn't get the memo. One particular radio exchange included at least 5 of George Carlin's 7 words you can't say on tv. Finally after 2 days of listening to and dealing with nonsense we arrived in Wrightville Beach where we WILL take a couple of days off.

The second thing to go was our record of keeping Dagny's keel off the sometimes shallow mud of the ICW. Bev and I are always vigilant of where we are and of any up coming trouble areas. However, we had a navigational error that wasn't caused by an auto pilot failure but by a pilot error. After fuelling in Beaufort we moved around to the town anchorage for the night. There's a shoal that runs beside the channel but the captain cut the corner too soon and planted Dagny on the mudbank. Fortunately, the soft mud didn't do any harm other then to my pride, but we were truly stuck. Luckily our TowBoat US membership covers unlimited towing. Since this is a known bad spot the tow boats hang around like tow truck drivers in Montreal. Within 10 minutes of my call work was underway to get us off. The twin 250 hp outboards roared away for almost 10 minutes before we were finally free. Luckily no harm, no foul and we proceeded to find a quiet corner in the anchorage for the night.

Today's picture is of the sunset at Buck Island.