tadhana: southport, NC

it was a short run from the carolina beach state park marina to the southport marina in southport, NC. we left early in the morning to ride the ebb tide on the cape fear river. the weather was calling for some high winds in the afternoon and we did not particularly care to find ourselves in a situation of wind against tide - the cape fear river is actually kind of notorious and aptly named. the rest of the fleet also managed to catch mostly ebb tide as it was also a relatively short run for them from the wrightsville beach anchorage as well. it was a cold day and the temperature just kept dropping. the city of southport had a wine and cheese (and hot chocolate and croissants!) reception for us that afternoon which was held outdoors. they kept apologizing for the weather, which is unusual for this part of the country this time of year. the truth is, most of this group is from up north and some are from canada and a little more tolerant of the cold, but everyone was asking, "are we south yet?" it got down to 30 degrees that night.

for some reason, we were assigned a slip far away from the rest of the group, at R dock. i thought R meant "ramp," but it actually stood for "recreation." it's where they had the tour boats and kayak and paddle board rentals, besides the boat ramp, of course. we were on floating docks and what was strange was that you had to go up a ramp to a short fixed dock then down another ramp back to the floating dock and then up one more ramp to the fixed dock that led to shore! i still haven't quite figured out what the short high fixed dock was for.

we had dinner in town with another couple and they had made reservations at ports of call bistro and bakery. well, barbara and i thought the men had it under control so we just followed them. steve had a paper map and tom had google maps open on his cell phone but after several minutes of wandering around in the dark, i confiscated steve's map and got us to the restaurant in time for the reservation. on the way back to the marina, the guys still argued with me about which direction was back to the marina, good grief! i worked late into the night fully expecting to sleep in the next morning but, unfortunately, consuelo had other plans. i guess i could have gone back to bed but decided not to. i wanted to get some work done and then have the rest of the day off to explore the town but just when i was good and ready, tom's computer crashed and the navigational software that he was using to plan the routes for the next few days would not open so i had to fix that first and then we got going.

southport is a neat little town with lots of civil war history and fine old homes and lovely old live oaks. you only have to walk a few blocks to get to downtown and it is bustling with activity. however, since tom had lost all the routes that he had made for the next few days when the computer crashed, he agitated about going home early and recreating them again so after lunch and walking around only a little bit, that is what we did. later, we just wandered around the marina before the 5:00 meeting and dinner at mr. p's bistro back downtown. i always like to see what the bathrooms and laundry facilities look like even though i never use them. usually, the first thing i ask for is the wifi password.

the funny thing is the mixed responses from SAIL rally members. some want to get south NOW and just keep moving, especially the ones on a tight budget who want to anchor ALL the time and skip the marina fees even though our group gets a lot of discounts. i can't say i blame them. it gets COLD at night and quite frankly, it has been the kind of cold where you really need to be tied up at a slip and plugged in with the heaters running. the sooner we get south, the warmer it will be. some think we don't spend enough time at our stops to do a little exploring. this is true, too. but we are under time constraints and have to get these people down to miami by december 15, 2014. in any case, there are little dramas here and there. one guy ran hard aground in a trouble spot after we left spooners creek and had to wait for a rising tide to extricate himself. someone dragged anchor at the mile hammock anchorage. another actually LOST his anchor. thank goodness we were ahead of this group and missed all of that and just heard the stories instead of being participants in them! these are all first-timers on the ICW with varying degrees of cruising experience so a few problems are expected but for the most part, it's a happy group. they are all thrilled to be doing what they're doing. what WE are doing.