We were up bright and early this morning to head from Carolina Beach to Swansboro. It’s about 60 miles so that will take us the majority of the day. Keep in mind we go about 5 miles per hour so that’s about a 12 hour day today. We were up at sunrise. Yes, that photo is the sunrise, not a sunset. We left Carolina Beach at about 6 am. There was a heavy dew this morning but no fog thankfully. Part of our morning routine includes wiping off the plastic/glass of our dodger which is the canvas on the front part of the cockpit. This is our equivalent of our windshield and we don’t have windshield wipers, so if we want to see where we are going we have to wipe it down. Seeing where we are going is pretty important!

My favorite time of the morning is right after we get going and Mark goes below to make coffee while I take the helm. He will come up about 10 mins later with a nice hot cup of coffee for me (makes me smile!) and I enjoy my time at the helm steering the boat as the morning evolves enjoying my nice hot cup of coffee. There is nothing more peaceful!

We are trying to put on some miles now because we have a goal to get to Albermarle Plantation Marina by April 29th for a pig roast that is being put on by the marina for cruising who stop by. We have a few friends we have met along the way that are headed there as well. We have a bit over 200 miles to go to get to Albermarle Plantation in the next 4 – 5 days, so have to get a move on if we want to get to the pig roast.

I previously talked about the inlets that come from the ocean into the Intercoastal Waterway in a perpendicular fashion. This photo does a good job of demonstrating the current effects of incoming water from an inlet and the switching of the tide due to the inlet. I drew in the direction of the current with the red arrow. This is currently a flood tide; the tide is coming inland from the ocean. As we were traveling up from Pleasure Island to where the arrows converge at Carolina Beach inlet we suddenly had a strong cross current coming from the right that was coming in from the Carolina Beach inlet with a strong current behind us as well.

Here is a great photo that captures what that looks like on the water. You can see the calm water on the top part of the photo with a very distinct line and then the water gets more turbulent. This photo was take from the stern of our boat as we pasted through this area. The distinct line and the turbulent water is the strong cross current effecting us as it came in from the Carolina Beach inlet.

We saw this pretty boat along the way today.

We arrived in Swansboro at Casper’s Marina and pulled up to the fuel dock to top off our tank after a long day of motoring. The wind and current were strong in the afternoon in Swansboro as it typically is so we made the decision to stay on their fuel dock overnight since we would be leaving first thing in the morning. Tomorrow we are off to one of our favorite places – Oriental, NC.