6/17/15
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

We first visited Southport, NC years ago when we did a side trip on a business trip in Raleigh. We spent a few days after the business trip at Carolina Beach and took the Fort Fischer ferry over to check out the town. At that time it was getting a reputation for a quaint seaport that was becoming a prime retirement location. We really liked the town, the waterfront, the proximity to beaches and proximity to Wilmington. We liked it so much that we talked to a realtor the next day and checked out some of what was available. Most of the downtown area is comprised of early 1900s homes that have been restored, maintaining the charm of the old seaport. New construction has been consistent with the surrounding architecture, and most of what comprises the town of Southport is within walking distance to the waterfront and the downtown shops and galleries. Here are some pictures of the downtown residential area:






The movie industry has used Southport to do filming, most recently Safe Haven. This is the house that was used for the main character’s house:

The waterfront along the yacht basin consists of several restaurants and a couple of bars, with a fish monger thrown in. The fish monger sells only to retail customers. There are also a couple of sailing and fishing charters that are based there on the docks. Here are some pics to give you the idea:

The waterfront along the river features stunning views, a fishing pier, several areas to picnic or relax, and a yard in front of the Maritime Museum where events are held, including concerts and a weekly open market (shown in pics below). Pics:
Market:

Views:

Picnic area:

Southport also has a highly regarded marina at the southern end of the town that is within walking distance. The marina is situated at the intersection of the Cape Fear River and the Intracoastal Waterway, which makes it very convenient to travel from there, or stop there while traveling. Pics, including some of our boat Island Bound:

Our dock neighbors, John and Maryann, have a crab trap at the end of our dock. They told us to go ahead and use it and baited it with fish heads. After a few days we had some keepers:

We will harvest them in the next few days so Tricia can make some of her now famous Jalapeno Poppers stuffed with crab cheese!

6/14/15
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

The heat index here is over 100 degrees for the next 5 days. Thank god our boat has air conditioning…the heat hits you like a hammer when you climb out of the boat! We were thinking we needed to borrow our friend Matt’s truck and spend the day shopping at Walmart (desperation) so we could be in cool air outside of the boat, but our dock neighbors John and Maryann asked if we wanted to take a boat ride with them to “the sandbar” to swim for the afternoon…needless to say, they are the bomb! We borrowed Matt and Shirley’s beach chairs (they are also the bomb) and jumped in the boat. The “sandbar” is an area in the Cape Fear river that is just east, or behind from Southport, Battery Island. It is almost completely submerged at high tide, but at low tide emerges as and island of sand. Lots of boats will beach there on the weekends and everyone hangs out at “the beach”.

Here is the route we took. It doesn’t even exist on Google maps:

You can see it in green on the nautical charts:

We swam and hung out on the beach, which was a welcome relief from the heat. The current was really strong! It was also great to hang out with John and Maryann and get to know them better. They are long time residents of Southport and gave us a ton of local knowledge about fishing and the waters in the area. After some wallowing, we motored over to Bald Head Island and they gave us a quick harbor tour of the area. We will take Island Bound over there for a long weekend and check that place out for sure.

John and Maryann are “salt of the earth” people and it was great to get to know them better. We have been so fortunate to meet such great people here, especially Matt and Shirley on Sofia Jeanne. It was a stroke of luck to meet them in Marathon and have the opportunity to travel the Bahamas and ICW with them. They have introduced us to Kurt and Sharon on Byrd Ketcher whom we also traveled with and now consider very close friends, and all of the people on D dock. D dock is a great group of people and we are happy to be here.

6/10/15
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

We are back in Southport mode after spending the week with family at the beach. No more spacious living conditions, with a flushing commode, ice and water in the door of the refrigerator, etc..etc…etc… You fellow live-a-boards know what I’m talking about. We are also back to boat maintenance, and the project of the day is cleaning out the anchor locker.

We have 2 anchors on the bow of our boat with a locker for each one. Actually, it is one locker with a big divider in the middle which does a great job of keeping the chain and rope for each anchor separate. We have a wash down pump and hose at the deck that allows me to wash the chain as the anchor is raised, but to be honest, it is hard to get all of the muck off of the chain, especially when anchoring in the ICW (aka…rivers). Island Packet (the type of boat we have) makes a great yacht, but one of the things I don’t like about the design is that the anchor locker drains into the bilge of the boat. This means that the muck left on the anchor chain eventually ends up in the bilge, and in the case of river mud, will eventually stink the boat up as the associated marine life breaks down. Then the bilge has to be cleaned out and treated to kill the crap that is decaying.

The primary anchor was used everywhere but the Bahamas. It is a Delta Quick Set plow anchor and does not do well on sea beds like the Bahamas. In the Bahamas we used our Bruce anchor, claw type, which was easier to clean as the Bahamas is mostly sand bottom. So we set out to clean the primary anchor locker first. We pulled the 180 feet of chain and 120 feet of rope out onto the dock and cleaned it good with fresh water. Then we attacked the locker. The pictures are not the best but this is what we saw in the bottom…a couple of inches of nasty muck!

We scooped it out into a bucket:

And then hosed it out. Then all of the chain and rope went back in after it dried out. No wonder we had a stinky bilge!

We will attack the other locker after the weekenders leave this weekend.

6/6/15
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

This was a week that we have been waiting for for a long time. We planned it late last year and was one of the reasons we decided to keep the boat in Southport. We rented a house on Kure Beach, NC, big enough for both daughters, their husbands and all 7 of the grandkids. The youngest daughter was unable to make it and we missed them all badly.

We decided to rent a car as we needed to catch the Southport-Fort Fisher ferry to get across the Cape Fear River. We get to the rental place and there it sat…the only car that was clearly available…a Fiat 500, or as we affectionately call it…The Clown Car. Our first thought was, “We’ll never get all of the stuff we need to take in this thing!”, but there were no other options. We took it, stopped at the grocery store to get the first few days worth of stuff, and stopped back at the marina to get our other stuff off of the boat. We got everything crammed in:

We had one day of rain and went to the aquarium, which was really cool, and the kids loved it! The rest of the week was spent mostly at the beach. It went so fast, as it always does, and we miss everyone already! Here are some pics:

5/29/15
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

It has been hot and humid most of the last week here, especially during the day. The sun is very hot. Consequently, we have been running our air conditioners full bore. If you recall from previous posts, we have 2, a larger one and a smaller one. They are set up to service different parts of the boat. We haven’t used the air conditioners very much since we were in heat mode last last fall. When in cooling mode, the moisture in the air condenses on the coils and drips into a collection pan. There is a hose connected to the pan that sucks the water out and pumps it overboard. As we are packing for the beach, we are pulling stuff out of the storage locker below the larger AC unit, and I notice that the hose is not connected to the collection pan….rut row! The storage locker ended up having about 1 1/2 gallons of water in the bottom along with all of the canned goods stored there. So…pull out the several dozen canned goods, wipe them off, wipe out the storage locker and put a fan to dry it out. Did I mention…these lockers are not easy to get to, and oh, we don’t have a lot of room to spread out dozens of canned goods inside the salon, and oh, we need to pack!

After dealing with that surprise (which I am glad we found before leaving the boat for a week), as we are packing, we smell something electrical burning…very much NOT COOL! So now, a mad dash examining everything in the boat…sniffing and searching…nothing. I finally narrowed it down to something in the back of the galley, but couldn’t determine the source. I asked my buddy Matt to see if he smelled it, and together we found the culprit…the shore power connection for the air conditioners. One of the wires (the black one) had melted, destroying the connector in the boat, and the shore power chord.

Matt dropped me off at the local marine store and thankfully they had a replacement part. It was even on sale! Matt loaned us a shore power chord so we could order one cheaper on the internet (thanks again Matt), and we were back in business. We couldn’t figure out what caused the problem to begin with, and everything ran fine until we were ready to head to the beach, so we dodged a bullet (and a potential fire while we were gone). Several people told us they had similar thing happen and it was a single event, so fingers crossed!!! In spite of the fire drills (no pun intended), we are ready to meet the kids at the beach!