Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

I rejoined the boat in Wrightsville Beach, NC.  They made really good time getting south from Maryland.  Hopefully Eric has a better idea of what they want from a cruising sailboat and lifestyle. 
Wrightsville was a nice spot with the look of a million other tourist destinations.  If that is what you want then it's great.  But I can only go to so many shops with same sort of things and bars/restaurants all trying to outdo their neighbor.  The best thing was a very lively and inspiring Catholic Mass.  They were definitely not cookie cutter tourists!   From Wrightsville we moseyed on down the ICW enjoying scenery we skipped on our way North in the spring. Everything from crazy new development to raw, natural beauty.

Unique water fountain at the park where we landed the dingy in Wrightsville.
Art with a purpose and a sense of humor, perfect!

This teeny tiny new moon was still visible just after dawn.

Sunset on the ICW.

Lots of development along Wrightsville Beach

We enjoyed seeing the change of seasonal colors along the way.

One of many, many bends along the way.

Now that is one, big fuel station!  They fuel big ships on their way to far
off places and need a lot of fuel.

A large, classic beauty slowly rusting away at anchor.  She looked
to be aground at low tide.

The new little flowering bush nests in the hollow of an old cypress trunk.

This was a very old and gnarly cypress trunk.

You can see the clouds threatening a storm but the trees made
the day better.

This was an approach to a very scary stretch of the waterway.  A narrow
waterway lined with unforgiving and sharp rocks on either side.

Just in case you can't read a chart, the sign warns you.

This guy wasn't so lucky to stay in the right place.

And this one was even worse!!

So much cheek to jowl new development along the Myrtle Beach stretch of the ICW.

This lone cypress stands up in the river.

At least the houses had really nice landscaping.

The Grand Strand Bridge.  

This house was covered with vultures.  It made us think we should call
someone and have them do a wellness checkup on the occupants.

Neighboring house, no vultures.

This was a first.  A floating bridge to get folks from one side of the waterway
to the next.  Apparently they call for the bridge and it floats across and locks in
for them to cross then is refloats back to it's waiting position.  We didn't get to see in
it action but that also meant we didn't have to wait for it to deploy.

The high dunes at Cape Fear Inlet.

Cape Fear Inlet.  It was calm when we passed but apparently it has
earned it's name on many other occasions.

We never could figure out what this was built for but we could tell
that it was a massive tent over something.

And the AIS starts to be installed.  It will be a multi-step process as
he figures out all the bits and pieces required to integrate it with our
current spaces and systems.