Tuesday 3-17-09
It’s St. Patrick’s Day and also the third anniversary of our purchase settlement for FLIGHT. The weather is supposed to begin an improving trend today, so we are underway at 07:30 in cool and overcast conditions with a noticeable wind out of the NNE. Even with the wind blowing directly on the bow, the sea state allowed a comfortable ride but we were soon chilled to the point we closed up the bridge enclosure.
On the north end of Myrtle Beach (actually called North Myrtle Beach) there are several dock-side restaurants and near one of them there were two small casino ships tied up. As we passed, one of the gambling boats made a security broadcast indicating they were getting underway – “outbound for sea”. We began to watch astern and sure enough the “BIG M” was following us at about ¼ mile in the fairly narrow ICW so I gave her a call and arranged a spot for us to allow her to pass. We watched as the mini liner turned off the waterway and threaded its way to a nearby inlet leading to the ocean – have fun suckers. 
Later that morning we approached Shallotte Inlet, which is notorious for shoaling, there was a large dredging rig working on the north side but there were no buoys or markers to be seen anywhere around the dredge. Even some of the navigation buoys were lying in the shallows near the shore. When we finally got a response to our radio call we were advised to stay close to the dredge and leave him on our starboard side. That was good advice because as we went by, we could see the steel 12” pipe floating about 30 feet along the side of our boat and it continued about 300 yards.
The only other interesting thing for the day was our good luck with the floating pontoon bridge at Sunset Beach. The bridge only opens to recreational boat traffic once an hour – on the hour. We measured our distance to the bridge and did some time-distance-speed calculations (actually the GPS did it) and the results were that we would be at the bridge about 30 minutes before the hour so we slowed the boat down a bit to kill some time. We were listening to the bridge frequency on the VHF radio and just after we slowed down we heard a shrimper call the bridge and since all commercial vessels can get an opening at any time, the bridge was going to be opened at about half past the hour.
We called the bridge tender to be sure we could transit with the shrimper and then hit the throttle. We arrived at the bridge just as the opening process began and slipped through with the shrimp boat.
We arrived at Southport, NC, our planned stop for the day, at about 3:00 PM and took a 1 hour walk about the town. A landmark restaurant that we were told about called The Provisions Co., was not yet open for the season so PMB whipped us up a nice chicken & rice skillet dish. We hit the sack early in prep for another early start in the morning.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day and also the third anniversary of our purchase settlement for FLIGHT. The weather is supposed to begin an improving trend today, so we are underway at 07:30 in cool and overcast conditions with a noticeable wind out of the NNE. Even with the wind blowing directly on the bow, the sea state allowed a comfortable ride but we were soon chilled to the point we closed up the bridge enclosure.
On the north end of Myrtle Beach (actually called North Myrtle Beach) there are several dock-side restaurants and near one of them there were two small casino ships tied up. As we passed, one of the gambling boats made a security broadcast indicating they were getting underway – “outbound for sea”. We began to watch astern and sure enough the “BIG M” was following us at about ¼ mile in the fairly narrow ICW so I gave her a call and arranged a spot for us to allow her to pass. We watched as the mini liner turned off the waterway and threaded its way to a nearby inlet leading to the ocean – have fun suckers. 
Later that morning we approached Shallotte Inlet, which is notorious for shoaling, there was a large dredging rig working on the north side but there were no buoys or markers to be seen anywhere around the dredge. Even some of the navigation buoys were lying in the shallows near the shore. When we finally got a response to our radio call we were advised to stay close to the dredge and leave him on our starboard side. That was good advice because as we went by, we could see the steel 12” pipe floating about 30 feet along the side of our boat and it continued about 300 yards.
The only other interesting thing for the day was our good luck with the floating pontoon bridge at Sunset Beach. The bridge only opens to recreational boat traffic once an hour – on the hour. We measured our distance to the bridge and did some time-distance-speed calculations (actually the GPS did it) and the results were that we would be at the bridge about 30 minutes before the hour so we slowed the boat down a bit to kill some time. We were listening to the bridge frequency on the VHF radio and just after we slowed down we heard a shrimper call the bridge and since all commercial vessels can get an opening at any time, the bridge was going to be opened at about half past the hour.
We called the bridge tender to be sure we could transit with the shrimper and then hit the throttle. We arrived at the bridge just as the opening process began and slipped through with the shrimp boat.We arrived at Southport, NC, our planned stop for the day, at about 3:00 PM and took a 1 hour walk about the town. A landmark restaurant that we were told about called The Provisions Co., was not yet open for the season so PMB whipped us up a nice chicken & rice skillet dish. We hit the sack early in prep for another early start in the morning.
Bridge tender on Pontoon
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