St. James NC to Bogue Inlet (Swansboro) NC

 

yes it is a giraffe!

in Contrast to neighbors tiger (Clemson?)

March 14, 2021

Managed to time the opening almost perfectly 4 minutes before the half hour

drawbridge by Camp Lejuene, Marines are very punctual
opens on the half hour

We stayed at St. James Marina which is so calm, situated in a very large gated community with beautiful homes.  Lots of places to walk Parker and very nice people.  We had some rain during the early morning hours and we got up in the dark to take advantage of the tides again.  We left at 7:30 AM.  Daylight savings time started today so yesterday this would have been 6:30!

We have 86 miles to go today to Casper's Marina.  We have never been here but there are not many marinas functioning since the hurricanes in this area.  On the way down we went outside in the ocean due to no availability of slips, so we have not done this stretch of the ICW.  

at fuel dock  rocky during day from boat traffic

great price on fuel and many restaurants close by

We were able to go fast about half the time and slow the other half. which was very acceptable.  We arrived at 1:15.  Casper's was pretty much what we expected, we were on the ICW and several other tributaries right outside the dock.  We were rocked quite a bit during the daylight hours as this was a nice spring day, first nice day in that area for quite a while our dockhand told us.  It all calmed down at night.  Since this was a fixed dock with the pilings outside of the dock we could not get very close to the dock.  Parker has to wear his swim vest and be hauled off the boat.  Looking forward to floating docks again.

The ICW goes past Camp LeJeune firing areas as well as a large swing bridge in Onslow Beach that the marines operate.  Only opens on the 1/2 hour or hour, we were so fortunate and arrived at 12:26.  This part of the ICW is sometimes closed to mariners when they are actively using ammunition.  We passed two great sandbars along the way where you could beach the boat and walk to the ocean beach.  There were other areas that looked great but were off limits due to unexploded ordinance.

She gets a washdown or at least a rinse at the end of each travel day

Another sunrise

the dockhands wait for customers here during the day

Swansboro is a very small, sleepy town.  Everyone knows each other and all seem to be very sociable.  There were 4 restaurants  and bars and we went where the dockhand suggested.  We had really good barbeque and ate outside.  Swansboro also has a unique feature, it has Muscovy ducks.  They wander around everywhere and are extremely used to people and cars, They are a really big duck, they are almost as big as a goose.  Funny things what you find that are unique to specific areas.