We left our anchorage early on Tuesday morning and headed toward the Cape Fear River. As we headed up the Cape Fear river, we had a beneficial tidal current that was pushing us along at a good speed. We encountered a lot of LARGE commercial traffic on the river in addition to some ferries and pleasure craft.

As we left the river enroute to our second anchorage behind Carolina Beach, we entered Snows Cut. With the tide still behind us, our boat speed climbed to 9 knots. We anchored in the basin behind Carolina Beach, after the skipper managed to (briefly) put the boat aground. *ahem* "Who put that sandbar there?"

No worries, I just raised the jib and the boat healed and we were free. *whew* Anyway, we anchored between two small spoil islands and settled in for the night.

We awoke on Wednesday morning to find that it was:

A.) Raining

2.) Chilly (and)

C.) Low tide

This made for a rather long day. The significance of it being low tide has to do with the fact that there are several inlets along the North Carolina coast that are rather shallow and prone to shoaling. Somehow though, we still managed to find enough water to get through them all without touching bottom.

The rain finally stopped as we reached our third anchorage in Mile Hammock Bay which is located inside the Marine Base, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. We found ten other boats already anchored there when we arrived.

While anchored there, we were treated to a rainbow and later, to the Marines conducting some type of night manuevers that included helicopters and Ospreys landing and taking off within 300 yards of our anchorage. They were apparently simulating combat conditions so the aircraft were unlighted and they were also employing some type of explosive devices. It was pretty cool!