We threw the lines a bit late in the morning around 10am.  Another short day is planned.  38 miles which should take us 4-5 hours.  On the map below, we will be going from the area around “Top Sail” to the blue dot.

Today’s Travel

A continual combination of homes on the ICW toward the west side of the channel and swamp or little islands to the east.  These strips of land help protect the travelers on the ICW but blocking some of the wind and waves from the Atlantic.

The first bridge that we will come to only opens on the hour.  We figured it would take about an hour from here to there.  That was confirmed by “Mike” as he helped us leave the dock.  Again, on his day off.  We really appreciated his help.

A family of ducks near the marina entrance – 2 baby chicks

Harbour Village Marina sign as we were leaving

Surf City Swing Bridge only opens “on the hour”.  If you miss the opening some boats have had to anchor or idle for that hour and just wait. The information we read is that this swing bridge is 12 ft tall.  We must have traveled at low tide.  There is a whopping 13 ft!!  Of course, we still had to wait for the top of the hour.  We only had to wait 10 -15 minutes, luckily.

Surf City Swing Bridge open

Water level at the Surf City Bridge

Around midday, we saw this wowza house.  It is PINK.  It even has a pink little light house.  It is adorable.  Then I noticed a “for sale” sign.  You can own this little jewel!!  It looks like it is on an island.  More of a peninsula with water on 3 sides.

For Sale – the house on the ICW that is PINK!!

The big excitement for the day is driving by the “Camp Lejeune Live Firing Area”.  See the area on the map above?  When you approach this area, the sign will be flashing red and multiple guard boats will keep the area closed if actual live fire was occurring.  Cruisers are prohibited from traveling along the ICW during those live firing times.  What?  Live fire??  Not so much excitement then.  No live fire today.  I called yesterday and talked to a young man on the phone and it was confirmed that No Live Firing today.  We saw old equipment strewn along the islands.  Orange range markers or targets.

Warning Signal sign for “live fire”

There were an occasional supersonic plane going over.  Too fast for a photo.  These “Osprey” were hovering back and forth.  At first I thought they were helicopters.  I wasn’t really wrong.  These guys have 2 rotors.

The second bridge we had to wait for opening on the Hour and Half Hour was the Onslow Bridge.  As we approached the bridge there were already 2 boats.  So, we thought we would only have another 10 minutes until the bridge opening.  Okay.  We slowed down and tried it idle in the current.  No problem.  Boy, were we wrong.

When the bridge didn’t open on time at the bottom of the hours, we became concerned.  It didn’t open for another 1.5 hours!!  Why??  It is a bizarre story.   We got the story from the bridge manager and the other boats.

Tank finally being pulled from the right to the left

Apparently, a USMC tank started to go over the bridge and the transmission failed on it.  Another tank was brought in to retrieve the first one.  From my binoculars, I saw a dozen men standing around watching one or two men actually moving around.  A cable from the orange tank on the left was being pulled to the right.   We just couldn’t figure out what was going in.  I figured with all the men, why couldn’t they just pick the tank up and push it off the bridge?  Call Superman?  Captain America?  Get a bulldozer and push it off the bridge.  We thought the yellow tank was the tank in trouble.  We couldn’t see the tank behind the trees.  Why were all these men just standing around and not doing anything.  ugh!

Then, I saw a woman walk from the trees on the right across the bridge briskly to the yellow tank.  I told Wayne… “Now that a woman has showed up, we will finally see some action.”  Darned if we didn’t!  hahaha  The cable became taunt.  People moved out of the way.  Finally, we saw a brown camouflaged tank slowly being pulled across the bridge from right to left.

Tank almost all the way across

Just what did we do during that 1.5 hour?  More boats came up the river.  Soon there were over 10 boats idling, going in circles around each other, or going down stream turning around and doing it all over again.  The water depth in the perfect middle was 10ft.  On either side the depth go a bit shallow to 6 ft.  We draw 4.5 ft so having just 1 foot or so below our keel made us nervous.   Wayne had to move our boat from shore to shore, back and forth to keep Always Home in deep enough water, away from the other boats, and not get too close to the bridge.  So we all idled.  No where to go.

The bridge manager then let cars go across the bridge first.  Can you imagine having to wait for a couple of hours in your car?  I am sure the car drivers were as frustrated as we boaters.  The bridge manager then opened the bridge… not on the hour …. to let us all go through!  What a nice guy!

The wind was blowing pretty well 10 – 15 mph when we arrived at our destination.  An older marina with wooden fixed docks.  We were put on the face right along the ICW so we figured docking would be relatively easy.  There was a bit of a struggle to get us tied up due to the wind gusts and current flow. Three dock hands and plenty of lines helped get our Always Home docked safe and sound.  Whew.  Two sail boats that docked after us also had a difficult time.  The wind did die down and with less boaters on the water, the waves also became flatter.  We had a pretty peaceful night.

Somehow, I missed the sunset picture.  BUT, I did get this photo….

A woman walking her cat on a leash!!