Moving South again

I cast off at 8:30 this morning, waited till my fellow travelers raised anchor and we left Beaufort, heading towards and anchorage called Mile Hammock Bay. It is at the southern margin of Camp Lejsune, the marine training camp, of which more later

I am constantly impressed by how beautiful the ICW is..the canals and rivers are tree-lined, with occasional houses and large areas that are fields of sawgrass, cattails and such. 

The firest part of our trip was through t he Bogue Sound, which is a large, shallow body of water protected from  the Atlantic Ocean by  chain of barier reafs. The ICW itself is a narrow canal (about 100 feet wide, dredged through the western (inland) portion of the Sound. We could occasionally see the ocean, but mostly saw the dunes and trees on either side of us. 

Towards the end of the sound we were joined by a pod of Dolphins who played around our boats, jumping over the bow wakes. This time I got a few pictures

We negotiated a swing bridge - The Onslow Beach Swing Bridge - which hapilly opens every helf hour so we only had to wai 25 minutes (poor planning on our part). Its a bit challenging to wait for a bridge opening..boats millilng around, current flowing, wind blowing..but finally the bridge opens and we scoot through

To pass through camp lejeune, you first have to ascertain that they are not doing live ammunition firing excercises (which you can check on the web,, or by VHF, or just look at an arrngment of flashing lights that is posted at the entrance to the range

We lucked out...no firing today!

The Mile Hammock Anchorage was dredged out some time ago and has a narrow entrance into a perfectly square area that can accomodate lots of boats...tonight there were only about 10.

A quiet, peaceful, reasonbly well protected, anchorage just off the ICW

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of my new anchore...it just digs in and gives me a nice secure feeling. I still back down on it to help set it, and confirm that it is holding, but then I relax.

Finally, the obligatory sunset views

Another nice day, capped with a dinner of chicken (which Molli had cooked and then we froze), steamed vegetables from a frozen package, salad (lettuce stays fresh if you bang out the core,  rinse and then put it in a ziplock bag with a damp paper towel and put itin the fridge)..so far its two weeks and is perfect!)...and of course some wine