We departed from Swansboro, NC at 0700 hours destination... SOUTH! It appears the cold weather is following us... forecast to be in the teens again tonight.... BRRRRRRRRRRR!

No open bodies of water to cross today so even though the wind is still blowing 25-30 knots it will be a smooth trip. We did have 4 bridges to contend with today that have restricted opening times... Onslow Beach Bridge opening on the hour and half hour so it was not a real big issue and we paced our speed to arrive at the appropriate time... the second bridge was the Surf City Bridge which only opens at the top of the hour... we had current on our nose and checking the plotter we were not going to be able to make it at our full cruising speed... we would arrive 11 minutes after the hour missing the scheduled top of the hour opening... so we had to slow down and enough to add 49 minutes to our time and make the next oh the hour opening... The next bridge was the Figure Eight Island Bridge and it opens on the hour and half hour so timing was not a problem with it and we make it at it's 1430 hours opening... the problem was the next bridge only opened on the top of the hour and it was 5 miles away... we had 30 minutes to travel 5 miles in order to the make the Wrightsville Beach Bridge's next scheduled opening at 1500... that would make us have to travel at 10 knots in order to cover the 5 miles in 30 minutes... since we cruise at best 7.5 knots no way could we make it to the 1500 hours opening... so we would have to go through the Wrightsville Beach Bridge at 1600 hours... so we now had 1.5 hours to travel 5 miles... with the winds directly on our beam so we did not want to sit at the bridge and wait... the thing to do was pace your speed to cover the distance... that meant we had to slow down to approximately 3 knots in order to reach the bridge and not have to wait for it to open... 5 miles at 3 knots is really slow... LOL but that is what we did and we passed through the Wrightsville Beach Bridge at 1600 hours.

Our planned stop for the night was at Carolina Beach State Park Marina (N34°03.009', W077°55.154')... which is located at the junction of Snow's Cut and the Cape Fear River. It was recently totally redone and it is pristine marina facility and the price is right to stay overnight. It would also set us for the proper current to cruise down the Cape Fear River... the current can really slow you down if you do not have it running with you... :)

Have to change the oil and filter on the generator tonight after dinner and then a little TV and off to bed... plan to depart at daybreak.