Southport to Swansboro

We spent two extra days in Southport, North Carolina, waiting for some weather to blow through. But it gave us more time to visit with Hank and Lisa Pomeranz, attend Hank's lecture again, and look around Southport a bit. They had us over for a lovely dinner Friday night,
and I forgot to take pictures :-( We had a lot of reminiscing and stories to tell after 20 years!
It would be worth a stop in Southport, just to see the presentation Hank does every night at 6pm in the Southport Marina. He is a Meteorologist, so he shares the best ways to determine the weather, a huge deal to boaters, and he has Army Corps of Engineer surveys of the waterways north of here, showing all the shallow areas. We used them all day today.

We had some Mexican food on the boat.

All over Southport, there are old homes, built in the 1800's. They all have plaques on the front beside the door,
telling when it was built, and who it was built for.

Downtown Southport is set up for tourists, lots of shops with beachy stuff to buy.

The extra time also allowed me to start the slipcovers for the chairs that Maggie has destroyed. She was more than willing to help.

We had a great thunderstorm Friday night.

Saturday, May 14th, we left Southport and went about 75 miles to Dudley's Marina in Swansboro.
It was a very long day, beautiful weather, perfect water, but we had some delays.

Because it was Saturday, we saw many boaters, they were everywhere.

This bridge only had 17 feet of clearance, we weren't sure if we could fit under it, but if we didn't, we had to wait almost an hour for the next opening. The boat behind us radioed us and said,  "You can make it!" And he was right!

We just missed the opening of this bridge (12 ft. clearance, no way) and had to wait 45 minutes for it to open!

We had to go past the Marine base, Camp LeJeune, and called ahead as instructed, to make sure they weren't having target practice today. They shut down the waterway when they do.

Some gorgeous clouds today, I think I love them because I haven't seen them in 9 years,
Phoenix just didn't have that many cloudy days!