Thanksgiving Day...Gale Creek East ICW 160 to Spooners Creek, Morehead City, NC (ICW 210)

Scary day today on two accounts.  The first one was when we were going under the highway bridge followed immediately by the railroad bridge in Morehead City.  Since the autopilot does a fabulous job of keeping the boat in a straight line I was letting it do what it does best – drive in a straight line.  At the center of the bridge, however, it suddenly took a hard right turn towards the bridge abutment.  I immediately turned off the autopilot and corrected our course but it was good for my cardiovascular system to get revved up for a while!  The autopilot gets its heading from a magnetic compass, and the railroad bridge is made of steel.  Another lessened learned!  

We had a busy time going through Morehead City which was very confusing and busy with small fishing boats since it was a) 70^oF b) beautiful and clear with low wind and wave conditions and c) a holiday, so everyone in the city who had a boat was out on the water.  Just after going under the bridge I saw a dolphin surface once but Bob missed it.  We did not see it again. 

Thanksgiving Day

When we finally made it through the traffic we had slowed to 4 knots due to the tide running against us.  By 2:00pm we were looking for Spooners Creek Marina and tying up.  This is where scary number two comes in.  I had prepared dock lines port and starboard since we didn’t know what to expect and no one was around due to today being a holiday in the off season.  We came in port side to and I was on the dock tying up the bow with Bob on the stern when the bow line came loose from the bow.  Bob had to get it from me and retie it.  I must have done one lousy job putting it around the cleat; one good reason to have loops on the dock lines. 

New Star War Movie opens soon

After securing the boat we walked around, finding a Lowes, Walmart, Staples, Applebees, Best Buy, Panera, McDonalds, etc. but most were closed on Thanksgiving.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at Ruby Tuesday and after bought some groceries at Walmart which was preparing to open for Black Friday sales at 6pm.  They had cleared out the floor for 50 feet behind the registers to make room for all the lines of purchasers.  People were already lined up around their selected items waiting for the plastic wrap over the items to be cut and removed so the rush could begin.  We made sure to be out of there before 6pm.

Only in America

Returning to the boat we prepared for the evening.  Bob had called the marina yesterday asking about coming in today and they had given him the bathroom/shower combination so we made ourselves comfortable.  The rest of the evening was filled with family phone calls, writing, cruise planning, and catching up on wifi items and email.  There is never enough time!