We departed from Carolina Beach State park Marina this morning at 0655 hours and headed south on the ICW. Not going far today...destination for the day/night is Southport, SC. We had a FREE night stay for Deep Point Marina given to us by Bill and Laura Bender... fellow MTOA members.... they had won it at the MTOA Northern Rendezvous and were not going to be able to use it. Thanks Bill and Laura!

We had tried to make reservations at Deep Point Marina yesterday and they were full up and unable to accommodate us but said we were welcome to go to Indigo Plantation Marina a little farther south on the ICW... No problem!

As we headed down the Cape Fear River we had a 2.0-2.5 knot current pushing us along at 7.8-8.0 knots and I was running the engines at half normal cruising RPM... we only had about 12 miles to travel so why rush... save some fuel!

I normally cut the corners of the ship channel on the Cape Fear River... keeps us out of the way of any ship traffic and also is a more direct path down the river. This morning I was approached hailed by a Harbor Patrol boat to turn to port and stay in the ship channel... as the area outside the channel where we were was restricted water... of course I acknowledged and move to port back into the ship channel as instructed... not going to argue with a patrol boat than has man with a 50 caliber machine gun on the bow. Never have had this happen in this area before... was a little surprised... the charts do not show the area as a restricted zone... shrug.

Soon we were turning to starboard out of the Cape Fear River into the ICW... had about one mile to go and we would arrive to Indigo Plantation Marina. As we pass Southport I was hailed by "C-Life" on the VHF... great friends and fellow MTOA members Robert and Kay Creech... He saw us passing by and hailed... we chatted for a minute or two... told him where we were headed... I'm sure we will get together today with them and Charles and Miffi Willaims and other MTOA members that are in this area. Southport is always a great place to stop.

We arrived to Indigo Plantation Marina at approximately 0825 hours and proceeded to "D" dock as we had been instructed. I took a look and it looked pretty tight.... I had told them we had an 18 foot beam and this is where they told us to go... floating docks with finger piers and a piling separating each slip... so we had to slip between the piling and the finger pier... I made an attempt and got about 10-15 feet in and we were tight to the piling and the finger pier... we were not docking on "D" dock... directly across form this dock was a large face dock at the end of I believe was "B" dock... we fit there easily... and were securely docked at approximately 0840 hours Location: N33°55.106’, W078°’02.174'.

We traveled today for 1 hours and 45 minutes covering 11.21 nautical miles averaging 6.4 knots.