Southport NC and Swansboro NC

You know how, when you are on a good vacation, you forget what day it is?  Well, I can barely remember what month it is, much less where we've been.  All I can say is that we're having a great time and we love traveling the ICW.  I have come up with a new plan: we need two boats, one for each coast and that way we won't have to drive across the country to do this again.  Either that or we buy one of those gorgeous homes along the ICW... um well, dreaming is part of boating, isn't it?

Deep Point Marina, Cape Fear River, Southport NC

Deep Point Marina

We traveled 48 miles from Little River SC to Deep Point Marina in Southport NC.   This took most of the day as there are several "no wake" zones, especially in the Myrtle Beach area. The landscape in NC seems different... much more beachy feeling.  Deep Point Marina was both a pleasure and a disappointment.  They had a great swimming pool, but it was FREEZING cold; and free laundry but we had already done laundry the day before... and the "short walk" to the historic town was, in fact, too far to walk.  The dockmaster was really nice, though, when we said we were going to bike to the grocery store.  He said not to because it was very trafficy (is that a word?), then gave us his car key with directions to the local Walmart.


The marina itself was lovely, surrounded by pretty landscaping (are my flowers at home blooming, are they getting enough water?) with great docks and good wifi.  The night was a little "bumpy", though as we were across from a ferry to Bald Island that came and went about every 45 minutes until about 9pm or so.  On the plus side, the view from our cockpit was wonderful and I almost took a picture for you... but you'll have to use your imagination.  A large catamaran sailboat (about 50ft) with 3 strapping and tan young men without shirts were preparing their boat for a major voyage.  I had to supervise all their preparations most closely.

Today we decided to travel farther than originally planned.  We started early because the mouth of the Cape Fear river seemed very open and possibly treacherous to us.  It turned out to be easy peasy. We went about 78 miles from Southport to Swansboro NC and are docked at Casper's Marina in the tiny, historic district of Swansboro.  We were able to average about 25 miles/hour as the ICW was not so crowded with "no wake" zones.  We kept hearing radio transmissions about a bridge that was non functioning... when, at the end of our cruise, we came to that same bridge with all these gorgeous trawlers and sailboats stuck anchoring or circling the area.  We smiled and waved and proceeded under the bridge with no issue.  Our C-Dory can go faster than most boats and is not inhibited by water depths or most low bridges.  On the other hand...

The first sailboats we've seen actually sailing

Shrimp Boats are a fixture of the local economy

Well, most of them anyway

We enjoyed Swansboro very much...especially eating someone else's cooking at the Ice House Restaurant!  Caspers is a more "basic" marina, with stationary docks (only a few other transients are joining us this evening)... by the way, I hate being called a "transient"... why can't they just call us "visitors"?  Swansboro is a small town with picturesque homes and shops.

Casper's Marina, Swansboro 

Casper's launching from dry storage... so fun to watch!

Residents of Swansboro... not sure if these are ducks or some kind of swan?

We are headed to Beaufort NC tomorrow where we will be for about 3 nights and where we will eventually pull the boat.  We had originally planned to go as far as New Bern NC but discovered that Beaufort has a 2 day music festival this weekend.

Southport NC

Swansboro NC