Wiightsville Beach to Oriental... Well we'll know when we get there

4-7-2012

We left Barefoot Landing early in the morning, around 6:30. It was a cold 36 degrees. We had a very foggy trip until we passed the Little River Swing Bridge. After that it was a beautiful day. We kept hearing about logs in Snow’s Cut at Carolina Beach, ahead of us but never saw them. Hey, maybe they floated “harmless out to sea”.

Foggy to the back



Foggy to the front. You may not believe it but there are two bridges in that fog. One is a low bridge that will have to open and the other is a tall one about 65 feet tall. Can you see them? We can't either, yet.

These nice looking boats will charge to take you out in the ocean and left you loose lots of money. Aren’t they nice?

We are back in North Carolina now. It’s been several months since we were here and even though we had a great time in the Keyes this winter, its good to be closer to family and friends.

We're not in Myrtle Beach with the huge houses anymore.



What happened to this boat?

We had done lots of planning the night before so we would be in the Cape Fear River at the correct time. Why does it matter? Well, if you get there when the wind and the current are moving in opposite directions, the water is very rough. We wanted them to be going in the same direction so we did all kinds of calculations to let us know when weshould be there. We timed it just right. Even though we were going against the current and had to use more power to do it, we timed it just right, so the trip was not as rough as it might have been.

We had been going 7 kts at 1800 rpms before we got to the Cape Fear and when we got in the wind and current we slowed to 3.8 kts. We were not going very fast and we were running 1800 rpm on both engines. We were going very slow and using lots of fuel to do it. When the current turned, we started doing 9 kts with the same rpms. It would be great if we could always travel with the current, but we can’t so we do the best we can.

Cape Fear Inlet. Looks calm today.

Bald Head Lighthouse

Ferry from Southport to Bald Head Island

We got the Carolina Beach Inlet about 3 pm and the temperature was 63 degrees. Nice day for being on the water.

Carolina Beach near the inlet

Wrightsville Beach Inlet

We got to Wrightsville Beach anchorage about 3:30. There were only a few boats so we looked around and picked out our anchorage. We were expecting windy conditions but it was calm.

Chart book showing our anchorage at Wrightsville Beach

A beautiful sunset at Wrightsville Beach.

We thought this sailboat looked like it had ran into a bridge and bent the masts. That would be bad.

Pirate boat at Wrightsville Beach

Lauren came and picked us up and we went to her dorm to see how she had decorated it. Well, when we got there she had me a surprise. She had baked me a cake and let me tell you---- it was delicious. She knew I liked coconut and looked for recipes with coconut in them. She saw one with coconut in the cake and frosting that had a raspberry filling and decided to try that. She didn’t have any cake pans, so she baked it in a saucepan, a layer at a time. She said she didn’t spray the pan when she baked the first one, so it didn’t come out very easy. Not to worry, she used that one as a practice layer to fill and ice. The finished cake was beautiful and delicious. She even toasted coconut to put on the icing. I had tasted raspberry filled cake before and forgot how good it is. Shay said it was the best cake he had ever eaten. That’s saying a lot because he’s never turns down a piece of cake. We went out to eat and came back to Lauren’s to have dessert. Of course, she lit a candle and they sang to me.

If you know Lauren, you know she is not a baker or a cake lover so that made this cake even more special. When she was little and had birthday cake, she might take one bite and that was it. Later we started having cheesecake or Oreo cookie cake for her birthday.

We had lunch with her on Easter Sunday. Then we went around to marinas. We are looking at the current and how difficult it will be to get in and out for us and other boats. We found a slip at Dockside which is right downtown Wrightsville Beach, but it is near the fuel dock and other boats will be going in and out. We sat there and watched the comings and goings and there were a lot of young drivers and there was a lot of drinking going on, so we decided to pass it up.

We are calling different marinas up the coast to see where we can get a good rate for a month. Our slip at MCYB is rented until June and we don’t want to make them move. If we can find a good deal we can make money even though we have to pay for a place to stay. We called from Southport to the Oriental area. We found some good rates, but after looking at how far out of our way we would have to travel, we decided to stay in Oriental. We are familiar with the area and can use that as a staging area for our next trip.

We didn’t get to see Lauren on Monday because she had classes and then dance practice. Her showcase is this weekend and she has practice from 7 until… every night this week. I wish we had gotten here earlier in the week, when she was out for Easter break and we could have spent more time with her.

Tuesday we stole her car and took ours to Oriental to leave. We have decided to stay there for about a month. The Ocracoke Festival is the first weekend in June. We can stay at Oriental for 4 or 5 weeks then go to Ocracoke and be there for the festival. We invited Chelle and Marty to come but she teaches class that weekend so they can’t. We called George and Pam and told them if they want to come we will give them the “Honeymoon Suite”. George is checking with Pam to see if she has any vacation she can take then. Then we called Betty and David and asked if they would like to come down. Betty sounded really excited and said she’d talk to David and let us know.

We left 4-11-2012 at 6:30. We knew if we got to the bridge before 7 am we could request an opening, so that was the plan.  We got thru the bridge with no trouble. We moved to the edge of the channel to let a boat pass, and went aground at 6:55. We hit what must have been a sandbar. With the tide falling we didn’t want to stay on it long, so we put it in reverse and easily backed off. See what you get when you try to do a good deed? Grounded. Well, it’s the first time we’ve gone aground and it was easy to get off so…

We had a windy day and ran against the current all day. We were also trying to get to a bridge opening so we were keeping a close eye on time and distance. We had it timed just right; we only had to wait a few minutes. Maybe we’re getting the hang of this.

Have the aliens landed? We never know what we'll see along the waterway.

I call it the "Pepto Bismol" house. It's a beautiful place with palm trees, dolphins on the side, and a great looking dock. BUT IT'S UGLY! Was there a 75% off sale on paint? Who knows?

We followed several boats all day long and were concerned that they would be going to Mile Hammock also. We were pleased that it was empty when we pulled in. We checked out the depths and dropped our anchor about 12:30. We hope there won’t be may other boats here tonight. It can get crowded, remember last fall? 

Helicopters around Mile Hammock

 

The Marines at Camp Lejeune use this area for maneuvers and they can force boats to leave the area. We have been lucky and have never been ran out.

We got here about 2 pm. We were pleasantly surprized since there were no other boats anchored. We ate lunch--- vegetable beef soup from the crockpot. We sat down to work on taxes and got totally upset. We had stopped at Walmart yesterday and got Turbo Tax. When Shay started using it he realized it was for 2009. Why would they still have it from 2009? Shay called the store and they told him he should be able to return it at another store. But we are anchored out and need to get them done. We called Travis and he mailed his disk to Oriental to get there Friday. We got our papers together and hope the postal service is on time.

We had several helicopters fly over. That’s a common thing at Mile Hammock, since its part of Camp Lejeune. We heard them in the distance all night long but they were not as noisy as they have been in the past.

Sunset at Mile Hammock

Sunrise the next morning

It’s cold this morning. Its 41 degrees outside and 58 degrees in our bedroom. We turned on the heat to get the chill off. It’s cold enough that we are going to drive inside part of the way. We were planning on leaving at 6:00 but thought it was still too dark to be able to see, so we waited a few minutes. When we started taking up the chain, it was covered in mud. It took longer to get it clean than we expected, so we were later getting going than we wanted. We left at 6:30 and the bridge opens on the hour and half hour. So…we had to rush to get to the next bridge opening.

Tower on the Marine base

Would this sign bother you? We have been thru this area several times and so far the lights have not been flashing. That's good. Seriously, sometimes an area of the waterway is shutdown and they are shooting real ammo.

Swanboro is a pretty town. We are getting really close to Morehead City.

I thought a good caption for this was "I just want a little place on the water". That works.

You may not be able to tell, but this sailboat is grounded. It was very near Bogue Inlet. The waterway changes constantly in this area. Someone didn't pay attention to the markers.

This is looking out at Bogue Inlet. It's not an easy inlet. 

I thought this was a beautiful place on the water. I like the spiral staircase, the rock walls, and the windows.

Well, our plan was to go to Oriental and spend a month. We were within sight of the Atlantic Beach Bridge when Shay called MCYB and asked if they had a slip we could stay in and them take the money from our slip for a month. They said ok, so we changed our plans and decided to stay in Morehead City.

One of the projects for this season is to fix the deck floors and there is a guy near here that can do that. If you are working on projects, Morehead City is a good place to be.

We were talking about our first trip north last year. We remember traveling here with Refuge and them being boarded by the Coast Guard. We were concerned that we might be, but they were gone when we got there. We talked about how concerned we were last year thinking about docking the boat since we had so little experience. And we are still concerned this year. We have not put the boat in a slip since we were at MCYB last year. Remember, we anchor or moor most of the time. The two times we were at marinas, we were at a side dock and not in a slip. We counted the number of times we’ve been on a side dock and it was 5--- counting a fuel barge in Miami, twice at Marathon to get water, and 2 marinas.

So you can see we are still very inexperienced at going into a slip. Think of parking a bus in a garage and not having breaks, just moving forwards and backwards until you are in place. There are NO brakes on a boat to stop you when you are getting ready to hit something.

We got here around 12:30 and got into the slip with no problems, except I couldn’t get the line over the top of the piling. I don’t know why I would have trouble… I was just trying to get a loop over a telephone pole standing in the water. Does that sound hard? Oh, I forgot to tell you that the pole is 7 feet taller than I am.

We are in the little square area near the "U". I forgot to mark the place on the chartbook. Look how crooked the "road" is to get to the marina. We went under the bridge and called the dockmaster and told him we were just around the corner. The wind had picked up and we were worried, but Captain Shay did ok again.

Captain Shay makes us secure.

We have plans to go to Lauren's dance showcase this weekend at UNCW. Then we are going back to Mount Airy to visit family and friends. Don't worry, we will be back to the boat soon and we are leaving it in good hands.

Bull Creek to Barefoot Landing

4-5-12
We left Bull Creek about 7:30. We started to leave earlier, but realized Shay had not done his charting last night, so he had to do it this morning. We are stopping at Osprey Marina for diesel. They are the cheapest place we have heard about. It will probably take us an hour to get fuel and we are on a tight schedule since the weather is calling for storms later today. Well, we will stop and see how things go.  

Bull Creek. Yes I know this should have been in the previous post. Hey, I'm still getting the hang of this blog-thing.

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. We love Bull Creek. It is so peaceful and quiet. The scenery is beautiful. We hope to spend more time here later. Yes, I know there are 'gators in here, but it's still beautiful. This place makes me miss Rocking B again. The last time we were here with them and Refuge. We all had dinner on our boat. Well, we didn't have flies then.
 

Meeting a barge in the Waccamaw River. We were ok here, but there are narrow places in the river that could be a problem when meeting something this long. Remember the "big boat rule"? The big boat gets his way so the small boat, us in this case, had better get out of the way or get runover.

 

Entrance to Osprey Marine. Can we get in there? Do you see that catamaran? It looks pretty narrow, doesn't it?



Turtles at the dock looking for food.


We had no problems getting to the fuel docks and had a surprise when we got there. Tom Conrad from Pacific Eagle was there. We met him in Marathon. See you never know where you will see friends again. We knew he and Drew had brought the boat to Osprey, but didn't think about him being here. He had just got back here yesterday and planned to leave tomorrow. It was just luck that we got to see him and catch up again. He has been busy getting his house ready to sell. We wish him good luck.


More beautiful Waccamaw

We kept checking the weather and decided we were not going to be able to make it to Southport today. The weather was calling for storms and high winds and we just don't like to travel in those conditions. So, we called Barefoot Landing Marina in Myrtle Beach, SC and got a dock for the night. So we slowed down and saved some of that fuel we had just bought. We'll just enjoy the scenery.


Azaleas in bloom. It must be spring.

All this is just one house, not a condo or apartment building. And I'm not sure I got it all in the picture, there are so many parts and pieces.

Easter egg hunt along the way. We never know what we'll see.

Remember these cable cars? They take the rich people across the river so they can chase golf balls.



Barefoot Landing is the highlighted spot, but its on the right side of ICW.





















Well, the weatherman was right. Just after we docked, the wind started blowing harder. We decide to grab our raincoats and eat lunch on land. We enjoyed the lunch specials at Flying Fish near our dock. When we came out it started to sprinkle, so we headed back to the boat. Shay worked on route planning and I worked on blog stuff. We had a lot of rain and thunder. Between showers, we (mostly Shay) washed off the boat. It was covered in a sticky, salty, black grime from our ocean travels.

Later we decide to walk around the shops and stopped at our favorite cheap place, McDonalds, for our cheap meal off the $1.00 menu. He had his McDouble and I had my McChicken. Hey, what can I say, we are cheapies. But we enjoyed it. Back to the boat for more charting for Shay and blogging for me. .

This yacht came into Barefoot Landing this afternoon.

"Hootie and the Blowfish" are chartering it and are here for a charity golf tournament. The guy on the dock said they have done this for several years. Shay said he had never heard of them. I recoginized the name but that's about all. Maybe I should look them up so I will recoginze them if I see them on the dock?

We checked the weather before bed and it looks bad for tomorrow. It looks like we may be here for another day. We'll check in the morning and decide.

Oh, I just wanted to tell you, I got more birthday wishes. My sister sent a text wishing me happy birthday. I texted her back and said my birthday was the 4th not the 5th. She texted back saying she thought today  was the 4th. I called her and we laughed. She said she asked her husband what the date was and he said 4th. She had lost track of the date, since she had been off work a few days. Then I got a call from Lauren and she sang "Happy Late Birthday" to me. My oldest step-son, Jason called and wished me a happy late birthday, too. He said you knew you were really old when your kids were too old to remember your birthday. I laughed and told him, he had a young wife to remind him and she did wish me happy birthday. He said she couldn't remember either, she just got notices from Facebook. He and Lauren both said they thought about it earlier in the day, then got busy and remembered it again about midnight. I'm glad they didn't call then.

Well, we are still here. The winds are supposed to be strong so we will just stay put. We are pretty protected in the ICW, but the next part of our route takes us into the Cape Fear River. Did you catch that name? Do you know why they named it that? Cause it can get rough and make you fear. Or "afeared" or afraid or something.

We looked at the weather, then the route, then the currents and decided if we leave at a certain time and get to a certain place at a certain time we should have an ok trip. So for now, the plan is to leave early in the morning and get to the middle of the Cape Fear River around 1:45. That will give us winds and current moving in the same direction. This is lots better than them moving in the opposite direction.

We are a very humid boat this morning. It was about 40 degrees, yes 40 this morning. I talked to my dad in Virginia and it was 49 there! What's going on here? So Shay has been working on getting all the humidity out of the boat before we mold. So far, so good.

Shay has worked on the heat pumps all day. He worked until almost 3, then we just barely caught the lunch specials at Flying Fish again. Then back to work on the heat pumps again. I have been working on a list of anchorages and marinas we have stayed at for future reference.

The weather has really improved. When we left the boat to go eat, it was still cloudy and dreary. While we were eating we started to see some clearing. It's 4 pm now and it looks nice. I see blue sky and fluffy white clouds. It's still a little windy but lots better than I expected it to look. We hope tomorrow will be a better day since today has improved so much so fast. But it's still only 57. Remember, I am used to it being 85 degrees all winter. It's a big change to this.

It's 8 pm and we just got back from a long walk. We met Pepper, a girl that worked in the office at Jones School when Lauren went there. We told her about our adventure and told her to come by the boat if she wanted a tour. She is easy to get seasick so she probably won't come by.

You never know what you'll see at Myrtle Beach, SC.



Escape at Barefoot Landing



It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. It's 65 degrees and clear blue sky. Looks like me might have a good day tomorrow. The water is so calm. Hope we have a calm day tomorrow

St. Augustine to Charleston on the Outside and on to Bull Creek

4-4-12

We left St. Augustine at 7 am.  We and Riverdance had checked the weather and the conditions looked good. We pulled up our anchor and made our way back to the inlet along with Riverdance. We passed by the barge working in the inlet and have to say he’s doing a great job. The water was about 30’ deep instead of the 12’ we saw coming down. It looked like a different inlet.



Dregde in the St. Augustine Inlet



Looking out the inlet

 When we came down with Rocking B in the fall, it was rough with big rolling waves crashing on the beach. This time out it was calm, no waves no surf, just calm. So… the dredge is going a great job, moving all that sand from the inlet to the beach. We turned left as we got to the sea buoy and set a course for the sea buoy at Charleston. We had a beautiful sunrise.

Riverdance in full sail

What was this little boat doing 30 miles away from land?

Beautiful calm water. If only it had lasted

We had a great day, gentle waves and calm wind. The only thing that bothered us was flies. Now, we are probably 30 miles out in the ocean and away from land. How do flies get that far out? Do they jump off a cruise ship? Do they blow out from land? We don’t know but we were covered up with them. We had a fly massacre.

We heard something jump up beside the boat and saw dolphins race to our boat. These dolphins are different than the ones we usually see. These are longer, slimmer, with a lighter color and grey spots. They are fast. They love to play with my boat. We kept seeing them for hours. We also saw lots of big sea turtles. They swim on top of the water eating the seaweed that is floating on top. They would stay up until we’d get close then they would swim away.

I know it's not a great picture, but this is a big sea turtle

Dolphins playing beside Escape

See, they love the boat

We saw a beautiful sunset with Riverdance along side us.

 Later while I was napping, I heard Shay and John talking about a distress call they had heard. A sailboat had been taking on water for a while and the pump had stopped working. The guy was alone on the boat and he was exhausted since he had been pumping out the water and trying to drive. He called USCG and told them he needed help; he couldn’t drive and man the pump at the same time any longer. A tug pulling a barge said he was near and could be there in an hour or so. John called in and told the Coast Guard that we were on a course that would take us to him but we were several miles away also. The Coast Guard told him they would send a helicopter out with a pump. When the helicopter got there it dropped the pump beside the boat and the man said he was too tired to try and get the pump, so they put someone into the water and he got the pump going. Shay and John could see the helicopter ahead of them. By the time we got to the location it was all over. Happy ending.

I had been dozing on and off….yes I was feeling bad again. I think I got too hot again, we were going with the wind and the water was calm.  I heard Shay telling me about more dolphins, and then he told me he was getting ready to take a picture of Riverdance in the sunset. I heard them talking about the sailboat and its rescue. I heard them talking around the wind quickly getting stronger and then just a quickly dropping off.

Every time I’d make a comment he’d tell me to go to sleep, I’d have to drive sooner or later. Anyway Shay woke me up around 3 am and said he needed to sleep. I got up and heard the dolphins and looked off the side of the boat and could see them in the moonlight. It was the perfect night, calm water and waves. Little did I know what was to happen next.  Shay laid down and then the excitement started. I noticed the boat rocking and bouncing more. Connie from Riverdance was taking her turn at the helm and radioed me asking if I thought the waves were rougher. I told her yes. She checked the radar and said she didn’t see bad weather so we settled down. When the boat rocked so hard it almost threw Shay off of the daybed, he asked what was going on. I told him the waves had gotten up. He rolled over and went back to sleep. Then the moonset and it was pitch dark, cause it was cloudy and we didn’t even have any starlight.

So I held on, watched the miles go down, and watched the hours go down until we would make our next turn. We did not expect the night to be like this, but the weathermen don’t always get it right. We got a call on the VHF radio from a guy on a sailboat that was about 7 miles ahead of us. He said the conditions were the same in front of us so we knew it would be a rough time. Connie looked on the radar and thought she was some storm cells off to our starboard (that’s right for you landlubbers) and some lightning in the distance too. I was hoping the storm could stay away from us. Lots of times when you hear a weatherman talk he will say a front “headed harmlessly out to sea”. Well, we were “out to sea” and we didn’t want to be in it.

Shay went down to do an engine check to make sure everything was ok and found water had come in the front hatches. I had not completely closed the latches and water was sloshing back and forth on the shelf. He cleaned it up and when he got upstairs he was sick. He laid back down and tried to sleep it off.

The guy on the sailboat radioed us that the inlet was rough and there were container ships coming in which made things more difficult. We hoped the container ships would be into port before we got in.

I woke Shay up when we got to the buoy at Charleston. We were in really rough water and we were rocking from side to side and bouncing up and down. Once we made a turn to the port (that’s left for you landlubbers) it got calmer, since the waves were behind us and actually pushing us in instead of pushing against us. Thank goodness. We were all tired of that action.

We got into the harbor at 12:10 and turned north into the ICW and all was calm. I started taking stuff downstairs to put away. We had brought up jackets, sleeping bag, a bag of crackers and snack food, and the usual charts and camera and phone and chartbooks. Once I got that up away I started straightening up and even vacuumed. It was so nice to be able to stand and walk without the floor rocking and rolling.

We anchored in Dewees Creek around 2 pm. We brought the rest of our stuff down and decided to take a nap. We were exhausted from lack of sleep and having to hold on in the rough water.

Riverdance in Dewees Creek

The red line shows the ICW which is our "road". You can see how narrow the channel is. If you get out of the channel, you run aground.  As you can see, we left the ICW at Dewees Creek and took the first right. We actually went past the yellow mark to shallower water. The numbers show how deep the water is and we want to be in shallower water. I know that may not make sense, but we prefer 6-8 foot water to anchor in. That way we can put our about 75 feet of chain and have a good hold. Of course, we need room enough to "swing around" in a circle since we will move with wind and current.

Chartbook showing Dewees Creek.

The red line shows the ICW which is our "road". You can see how narrow the channel is. If you get out of the channel, you run aground.  As you can see, we left the ICW at Dewees Creek and took the first right. We actually went past the yellow mark to shallower water. The numbers show how deep the water is and we want to be in shallower water. I know that may not make sense, but we prefer 6-8 foot water to anchor in. That way we can put our about 75 feet of chain and have a good hold. Of course, we need room enough to "swing around" in a circle since we will move with wind and current.

You can tell how confusing piloting a boat can be. You have to pay attention to the markers and stay on the correct side of them. In the area above, we have greens on our right and reds on the left. But in certain areas, it would be the opposite. The general rule is "red right returning". Which means when you are returning from the ocean, you keep the red markers on your right. When you are in the ICW traveling clockwise that is considered returning. Right now we are traveling counter-clockwise, so we are doing the opposite.

Shay plots a course for every trip and makes sure his marks is following the correct line. Sometimes its very confusing. You may have markers for several channels near each other and it can be confusing which marker is the one you should follow. That's why it's so important to have a route and make sure you follow it exactly. Now sometimes the water outside the channel is still deep enough for our boat. Other times is may be very shallow or it may be rocky. Eithter its better to be safe than sorry. If you get out of the channel sometimes nothing happens, sometimes you do a gentle or not so gently "bump" or sometimes you go hard aground or sometimes you end up being beaten against the rocks.


We have talked about "driving" the boat using the "red right returning" rule, but what in the world are you supposed to do when you see something like this? Don't worry, Shay knows what to do.

Leaving Dewees Creek

When we went by these boats last year I said they were "pitiful" and they are more so now.

We napped for about an hour then up to prepare dinner and do some trip planning for tomorrow. We were hungry since we had not eaten a lot during the outside passage. You don’t want to fill up your belly if you might get sick. After dinner we were ready to go to bed and get some rest.

We left at 6:45 heading to Bull’s Creek. We have stayed here before and think it is a great place to anchor. Riverdance will be stopping earlier at Butler Island. We enjoyed most of the trip with them and we hope to travel with them again. As John said, the last ¼ of our trip was not good, but at least the whole trip was not that bad.

We are passing thru a very rural area with few houses along the way. Guess who came to visit? BIG MAN AND WOMAN EATING HORSE FLIES! Lots of them. We only saw a few at first and them they swarmed us. We were swatting and hitting at them as fast as we could and we were still loosing, so we came inside. Now if you have kept up our blog, you know we hardly ever drive from inside. We like being up higher so we can see things better, so outside is good. But these horseflies were eating us alive. We were in the Waccamaw River so we were ok driving from the salon. When we got to Georgetown, the flies seemed to disappear. Maybe they liked the smelly paper plant better than us. At least they are gone. We talked about stopping at Georgetown for a day but decided to go on a little farther.

Georgetown, SC  maybe next time?

These birds followed us to eat what we churned up from the bottom.

Our scenery has certainly changed in the past few weeks

Captain Shay inside

Guess what happened next? More flies. These are mayflies. They have triangle shaped wings and bite. What is wrong with our boat?? Why do we attract flies? I was downstairs cooking dinner so they didn’t bother me, but they got Shay. We had closed the doors and turned on fans when we came inside from the horse flies so we didn’t have any inside. By the time we got to Bull Creek, we didn’t have too many, but they still got us while we were anchoring.

You have to be careful when in the Waccamaw River, there's lots of stuff floating in the water

Yes, I finally got my alligator picture.  He was just sunning on the log. Shay turned around so I could get some good pictures, since I've been trying to get a good picture since last year. We blew the horn, trying to get an action shot, but he just laid there.

Turtles, you'd better be careful, or you'll be an appetizer for the 'gator.

Beautiful scenery

We got anchored, ate dinner, took showers and settled down for the night watching a movie.

Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me. No, I’m not telling you how old I am. Billy, my brother called at 6 am to wish me happy birthday. Some girls I used to work with sent a phone text telling me happy birthday. My dad called and sang happy birthday to me. Holly, my daughter-in-law called and wished me happy birthday. Susan a dear friend from Mt. Airy called and sang to me too. I have lots of people wishing me a happy day. Of course Shay told me happy birthday too. But what happened to my ungreatful kids and my sister? None of them called!