What an adventure this turned out to be! We planned to stay here for one night. We ended up paying for an entire week. The storm that blew through was a serious one, with gale warnings for the whole area, and USCG travel advisories that said things like 'maritime travel strongly discouraged'. Remain in port. OK. Seems reasonable to me. It was another 3 hour day, which it turns out is perfect. I remember talking to Crystal about the very real fear of burn-out on this marathon trip. She suggested we use the same plan they (and many others) used. 4-3-2. Don't travel more than 4 hours a day. Don't arrive later than 3 pm. and stay for 2 days. We use a modified version of that plan. Some stops there is really nothing to do, so we don't stay, but the 4 and the 3 are great planning ideas. :-)

When we turned off the ICW onto the river, the path on the Navionics app was a crazy pattern through the water. Look at the map on this leg of the trip. It really looked odd. We were in a giant bay, on a wide river, (think the wide part of Pueblo Reservoir) and the navigational beacons were 40 ft apart. We decided to just split that difference. We were cruising along at 9 knots or so. I keep am eye on the gauges, and alert my captain to anything out of the ordinary. The depth reading went from 10 ft (we used to think that was shallow), to 8 ft (hhmmm....) to 6 ft (starting to get concerned), and I started saying aloud .... '4 ft. 3 ft. 2 ft....oh hell. What are we into., 1 ft!!!! Danger danger! This giant boat is literally sitting on less than 2 ft of water. Its something you have to be there for, because we are in the middle of a very large body of water, sitting on no water. Not knowing whether to turn around (sketchy idea) or go forward (equally sketchy) we decided that - at least for a moment or two - doing nothing was best. The charts indicated we were in a dangerously shallow area, but it recommended the path. It was on a rising tide, but it only had a foot left to go up. If we went ahead and it got shallower, (not sure how that is even possible) we were stuck. If we turned around, we have no place to stay. Did I mention, ..... Oh hell.

We opted to tip-toe forward.... George with his hand on the throttle to kill both props if we got stuck (rather than ruin a prop) the whole way. We could see the marina, so only a mile or so of this, but it took a very long time to get there. We scraped bottom several times before we got into a 5 foot deep area. We continued tip-toeing all the way to the entrance to the marina, asking each other the whole way whether we had made a very bad choice or not. We entered, and backed out of, the mouth of the marina a couple of times because we hit bottom. Apparently there is a very skinny channel that has water in it. We found it, and made it into the marina area, which is a consistent 5 ft deep. We were late, so everybody was gone, but a friendly neighbor helped us find a place to tie til we could officially check in the next day. She let us stay where we tied, cuz ..... why not? Turned out to be one of my favorites places. I could go there again and again. Alynn and Ashley run the marina. Its a family affair. There are a couple of people who live on their boats, and a couple of families that come down for weekends, but mostly its full of shrimp boats and crabbers. George made friends with several of them, and they shared the secrets of dealing with the outrageous shoaling that happens in that bay. They said the CG attempts to keep a channel clear, but they shoal over so quickly that its difficult to do. Keep close to the right side .... the green channel markers ... they said. You'll do better. Good to know!

The storm had us pinned down for 5 days. It worked out for me because I could work on taxes every day! hahaha.... We got invited to several breakfasts, and dinners, and an Easter Sunday service on the point. I got invited to ride along to town to get groceries, and we got invited to share in their crab pot catch. All in all a terrific stop. If I had read this post before we went, we probably would not take that trip, but if the destination is worth it.

We wanted to make it all the way to Beaufort, but that would be a 6 hr day. I opted to stop in Swansboro for the night to cut it in half. The 5 days (maybe even 6) in Old Ferry really set us back from my schedule, but that's probably why they recommend not paying too much attention to schedules, because storm will laugh at them.

Next stop, Caspers Marina in Swansboro!