Osprey Marina to Free Dock at Southport, NC

Day #217; Loop Miles to Date = 2,718

Gonna try to make this one brief...we're headed out in an hour or so...

Time at Osprey was good...very isolated where we were, which made logistics a challenge, but it was peaceful and quiet. Sandy drove back to Atlanta with Lola for a few days for some tests, and arrived back at the boat late on Tuesday...only to turn around and have to leave for Southport bright and early the next morning. She had a very long couple of days!

We traveled with Act III and California Lady...Corkscrew is taking a week to head home for a visit, so we'll see them down the road when they can catch up (hopefully soon!). We only had a couple of potential trouble spots to be on the alert for, and found our way to some free docks in Southport. Robert Creech, the local harbor host greeted us and helped us into our slips. The docks are a bit rough, and directly in front of a beach restaurant, but hey...they're free.

Southport is a nice small southern beach town of sorts. Lots of history here...UBoats in WWII off the coast, Cape Fear Inlet, home base for the Pilot Boats who assist large ships up the channel to Wilmington, NC, and many TV shows and movies have used Southport as a shooting location. We might return here on our way back south...but will likely opt for the Marina that is nearby. We toured the town on foot on Thursday...saw some history, ate at a good local eatery (Loco Joes) found a great ice cream shop, and spent some time wandering around a cemetery with some history. (We even found a Newton family plot that had 25 or 30 headstones dating from the early 1800's to the 1980's.)

And now we're headed out to points north...stay tuned...we'll fill you in on where we end up...

Sometimes the chart plotter needs to be over ruled by what you see with your eyes on the waterway. This view would have you believing that we traveled out of the water and crawled over land for a bit. We were however right in the middle of the channel. It's just a weird glitch that GPS throws at you from time to time...a reminder that common sense needs to override the electronics sometimes.

As we crossed into NC (our 7th state) there is a golf course that transports golfers from one side of the ICW to the other with a tram system...makes you think you are at a ski resort...

The occasional derelict fishing boat on the ICW...

Sandy spotted this mermaid as lawn ornamentation that someone had...

And it's for sale if anyone is interested.

Pretty easy to give someone directions to your house on the ICW in this case.

Pilots tower for the Wilmington and Cape Fear Pilots Association. For TV fans, this was used as the Radio Station tower in the TV series "The Dome". Other parts of town (including the cemetery we visited) were also used for set locations. In the "old" days, the pilots would sit in this tower and look for incoming ships, and then dispatch pilots to guide the ships up the channel as they arrived.

Here's the ladder we had to climb to get off our dock. Imagine this with 2 pups...with the tide an extra 2' lower than the picture shows. Exciting times!

Beautiful old oak tree on the waterfront in Southport.