Monday, October 22 (Miles Markers 173 – 205) – I can’t believe that in little less than a month (about three weeks) we’ll be in Cocoa Village Marina in Florida.   We have travelled a little more than 400 miles since we left the Corsica River.  We are a little more than a third of the way.  I can’t say that I am totally comfortable yet, especially as we have currents and tides ahead of us that we haven’t dealt with before, but today was one of the best and also one of the most annoying.  But – I want to go back to River Dunes for a bit.  This is a wonderful place to stop.  It looks like a southern style old house (except it is relatively new), the amenities are fabulous – like the shower for instance.  It’s a “party shower” meaning that you could have about 10 people in the shower with you, but why would you ever do anything like that.  Plus, it had 5 water jets!  And then I found this little control on the wall which when I pressed it, turned the shower into a sauna!!  I wondered how long I could actually stay in there before they would come and drag me out, which wouldn’t have been a pretty picture.   But dinner in the restaurant was waiting, and after that giant glass of wine, I thought about suggesting to Bob that we just stay there!  That was a good day!  The next morning (Sunday), I decided to make a really nice breakfast – sausage, poached eggs, English muffins and coffee, but found out the electrical capacity of the boat (even with being hooked up to shore power) couldn’t handle that kind of cooking!  So after we figured out how to fool the boat into letting me use the coffee maker, toaster, and stove (ok – I could only use one burner) all at once, we had breakfast, then borrowed the courtesy car and went into Oriental.  Sorry – no funny stories about the car – it was a dark blue, Ford mini-van and looked and ran respectably.  We had lunch at a cute little place, which served delicious organic sandwiches and then went grocery shopping.  Life was almost normal.  When we got back to the boat, I actually cooked chicken cacciatore for dinner and then promptly fell asleep on the couch.  Maybe it was that other glass of wine…

            Ok, so now it’s Monday morning, and we have to get going.  I’m really going to miss River Dunes.  I doubt that I will get another shower like that one!  We start up the engines. I think it makes weird grumbling noises, but Bob just rolls his eyes at me.  Actually, the whole boat makes weird grumbling noises all the time as far as I’m concerned.  The Neuse River is beautiful, and again, we have gorgeous warm, weather.   We follow the “magenta line” to Adams Creek.  The “magenta line” is actually magenta, and it’s on the chart, and it’s the ICW route, so you really don’t have to do much navigating (that’s a joke) other than follow the line.  We actually have three chart plotters on the boat plus a handheld plotter in addition to three paper charts, so you would think it would be practically impossible to get lost or run aground.  Ha Ha,  Well, one time we were in one of the canals (which are very narrow) and the chart plotter said we were in the WOODS!  Yikes, there was water all around us, so I knew the chart plotter was wrong, and it straightened itself out in due time.  That was a “heart failure” moment though!  On this particular day, the charts indicated “submerged pilings” outside the channel, so we were very careful.  The current happened to be with us so we flew down the waterway here.  One thing that I can’t believe I see from time to time, is a “billboard” advertising some marina or other.  That sort of ruins the landscape!  I was really getting bummed about not seeing any wildlife (I even heard other boaters commenting on the radio about seeing dolphins), and then we saw some eagles – and then – Bob yells, “Dolphins!” and all of a sudden there must have been about fifty of them playing alongside the boat and swimming everywhere (for several miles).  We were by Mile 200.  It was really exciting!  It was nerve-wracking, too, because it appeared that they would swim right under the boat, and I don’t know how we kept from hitting them.  That was truly an awesome sight!  And then, unfortunately, we ran into two Sport Fisherman boaters, who got the “jerks of the year” award.  The boats were huge, and they sped past us in a narrow channel, knowing full well that their wake would swamp us; our boat rolled around, and I frantically grabbed everything I could to keep it from flying off the bridge, but down below was not so lucky.  We made reservations at the Port Side Marina, and when we got there, the current was running pretty strong, and we did a planned “slam” into the dock.  There was someone to help us, and he knew what was going to happen, and just kept saying, “C’mon Capt’n, just bring her in”.  He managed to hold the boat off and we got tied up, but then we went down below to find the dishes in the cupboard had slammed against the doors (from the wake of the Sport Fisherman) and the doors had come open and all the dishes were on the floor.  Unfortunately, I had brought (well, it’s not china, but I can’t remember the correct name – but it breaks) three plates, and they were smashed to smithereens all over the floor.  I vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed, and hope that neither we nor the cat step onto any shards I missed.  Well, we are in for the night and will leave tomorrow.  We have to pass Brown’s Inlet tomorrow, and have been listening to many stories about how it has shoaled in and several boats have had to be towed off.  So the next blog could be very interesting…