Thursday, May 23, 2019

Finally able to get underway again with our repair plan in place, we left Southport, NC, by 8:30 Thursday morning. Within the hour we were waked immensely by a ferry (things fell over on the flybridge and below decks - we hadn’t expected the boat to be rolled so much on a calm water day!) but nothing broken – whew! Just a little later, we encountered a giant container ship going the opposite direction which took up the entire ICW channel. Thankfully, there was enough depth for us to pass it by outside of the channel.

Again we passed by some military property with warning signs to stay away. It looked like docks of some sort and though empty of ships, there were 2 armed guard boats near the beginning and end of the area. We later figured out that it was the water front of the 85-acre Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point (MOTSP), one of the largest military terminals in the world. It is the key ammunition shipping point on the east coast and a transfer point for many army supplies between water vessel shipments and land (rail & truck) shipments.

We arrived at the very charming Harbor Village Marina in Hampstead, NC, about 2:15 pm and tied up to the gas dock. There were new-looking docks surrounded by a marsh on one side and pleasant (some expensive) homes on the other three sides. We were six miles from anything, so it was a grill-out night. A “gold” looper (already completed the loop – their AGLCA burgee is gold instead of white like ours) pulled in shortly after us and tied up on the gas dock too. We had docktails on their beautiful boat, Ocean Dancer, and found many similarities between Bill and Brian, both in background and career. After saying good-bye, we grilled hot dogs and called it an early night knowing that we’d be heading out in the morning.