Beach House Marina at Surf City, NC - at a dock

Always nice to see a fish market with its own boat

From here to Charleston, there's very few places to anchor that also allow for Hoolie relief. Plus, we'll be traveling through some truly alligator infested areas and you always think twice about an evening visit to the local sand bar in the dark! So for the next few days we'll be using marinas.

As noted, it's not fancy - but fresh!

Today we had a very good day for motoring south with a high of 80 and fair winds. There's a storm that's almost tropical in nature headed up the coast so we're planning on ducking into St James Plantation Marina for two days to wait it out. The marina is a true hurricane hole, protected on all sides and a pleasant place for an extended stay. It's actually an upscale condo development that also rents slips to transients.



Ann is an excellent cook but she cooks a lot so I took her out tonight to Daddy Mac's, an excellent restaurant right on the water that's famous in the area for good food. We also discovered the source of the raw materials - a fish market not more than 5 minutes away from the marina! Our standard of excellence is the fishmarket at Sandwich, MA but this serves fresh fish caught from the area at outstanding prices. It's not fancy but the fish is fresh! I'll buy local bay scallops tomorrow at $5/lb and fresh tuna at $12.95/lb. They have a much broader selection but we don't want to keep fish too long.

Evidently, the pier survived Irene

On Tuesday we're headed for Federal Point YC at Carolina Beach, NC. It will be the first time we've stopped there so we're looking forward to exploring the area. The northward moving storm will pass through that area Tuesday night so we'd rather be tied up to a dock anyway.