We got underway early in the morning in good weather for Holden Beach and suddenly a cloud bank rolled in as cold wind blew in over the warm water. Normally we don't travel on the ICW in the fog as there is too much traffic and radar is ineffective with all the land clutter. I wished we had waited a couple more hours before leaving.
Fortunately, the fog wasn't pea soup thick. We had about 1000ft visibility which was just enough to be safe. Within 30 minutes or so the fog had lifted and we could resume cruising speed.
Several hours later, the fog had cleared, we had made it through the Shallotte Inlet shallow waters and we had arrived at the Holden Beach town dock. We plan to stay here for 3 days which will provide Sue lots of time to collect shells on the beach, get all our laundry done and take some showers, and fill our water tank up. Meanwhile another cold front is coming through with strong thunderstorms. Plus, Sue's sisters and families are down from New York spending their Spring Break week at the beach.
Yes, there were lots of shells on the beach at Holden. Sue and Rivah spent a lot of time at the beach checking out the high tide and low tide treasures. Rivah enjoyed all the time off the boat.
Some of the collected treasures. These are in addition to the buckets full.
There are other wildlife animals at the beach besides the normal fish and birds. Sue encountered this guy early one morning.
Conveniently, right across the ICW from the town dock was the Provision Company. with the standard beer and fish sandwich options. We dinghied across a couple happy hour evenings.
Then it was time for the cold front to roll through. We had a few close lightning strikes on Saturday night but otherwise no problems. It rained but no dangerous winds.
On Sunday, the forecast was for rain all day and it did rain throughout the morning, then cleared enough for us to walk down to see Sue's sisters, then the rain was back along with the cold weather.
Now we were glad we had shore power to plug into as we had to turn on the heat for the first time since last January
Sue loves to play games with the kids. She actually won the first couple hands of "Trash". We had a great visit with all.
The next morning the kids were able to come see the boat before we had to get underway to keep moving north. They were excited and very impressed. Maybe some future sailors?
