Adventures of Dragon Lady

We left Swansboro at 7:00 under cold, cloudy ,breezy conditions.  It was not pleasant and seemed to get colder as the day progressed.  We had a long day ahead of us and bridges that opened on the hour or half hour.  Poor Bryce stood at the wheel steering for nearly nine hours!  We finally arrived at Carolina Beach Yacht Club and Marina at 3:45 . Exhausted but happy, we tied up on the fuel dock.  In the picture you can see Snow’s Cut which connects the Intercoastal Waterway with the Cape Fear River.  We will be taking that on Thursday.  Tomorrow we sit tight as bad weather passes through the area- and Bryce tries to sleuth out where we may have a fresh water leak ( our pump keeps turning on every 20 seconds).  What fun!!

When we could not get a marina reservation yesterday, we decided to stay here in Swansboro another day.  It is a long day to our next stop, Carolina Beach, and we didn’t want to chance a full marina and a full anchorage.  We have a very long history with this town; we have been coming here since the early 80’s with first our little O’Day 22 and then our O’Day 272.  Today we enjoyed walking through the town reminiscing about the restaurants and shops.  One of our favorites is Yana’s, a ‘50’s style restaurant with Elvis greeting customers at the door.  The food is delicious but heavy- 2 inch thick chicken salad sandwiches, milk shakes, onion rings and strawberry fritters covered in powered sugar! Tomorrow it’s off to Carolina Beach bright and early as a cold front comes through- but today was the last of the summer-like temps!

 Up very early and left at first light.  Weather could not have been nicer!  Warm temps and light breeze-everyone was out on the water!  Lots of people fishing and just enjoying the last warm weekend of the year!  We have been debating all day about whether to stay here at Casper’s Marina for a few nights or move on to Carolina Beach tomorrow .  I have tried all day to make reservations at Carolina Beach Yacht Club and Marina but nobody answers the phone on a Sunday.  Nasty weather is predicted for Tuesday and we don’t want to be stuck at anchor for several days.  So I guess we will stay put for awhile. We arrived here at 2:00 and got lots of help getting snug into the inside of a T-dock.  We stayed here two years ago so everything was familiar.  Suzy was anxious to visit the grass and enjoyed the new sights and smells, especially all the Muscovy ducks that have taken over the town.  S...

 We left Cary early morning, saying good-bye to our house and hoping we did not leave anything important behind.  We spent the better part of the day putting items away, cleaning the deck from bird droppings, and doing minor repairs to our A/C system.  I guess we are ready for the big trek to Key West!