Cape Lookout

Saturday, June 09, 2012
34 37.489 N
76 32.822W

Now this is what I signed up for! We are out of the ICW with its brown water and muddy bottoms, and now looking at calm blue water and sandy beaches in this wonderful anchorage. Deidre has the crock pot on with dinner simmering and filling the boat with wonderful aromas. We just had a couple "pop over" from another boat and spent an hour or so telling stories. In a few minutes we will drop our dinghy in the water and go exploring the beach, maybe walk over to the Atlantic side or visit the lighthouse. We think we will stay till Monday. This is IT! We are going to stay for two nights, and return to Morehead on Monday afternoon to pick up mail.

The anchorage is "inside" the tip of Cape Lookout, which is the most southerly tip of the Cape Hatteras peninsula. It seems the prevailing winds and currents have curled the sandy tip of the cape into an almost complete circle, and the anchorage is in the "eye" of that circle. The water is about 15' deep and the bottom is heavy sand - just perfect.

That afternoon we launched the dinghy and went ashore. As usual I was not thinking, so when we approached the shore Deidre asks "What now?" I responded "When its about 2' deep you jump over the side and pull us in, so that I can attend to the motor". This seemed to take her a bit by surprise, and she had a few points to make such as "I am not in my swimmers" and "I have the camera and phone in my pocket" and etc. But she did, and we pulled the dinghy onto the sand. Then she asks "What if the tide goes out while we are walking?" and "Do we have an anchor?" and "How are we going to get back into the dinghy?" I must admit, I really do not like complications, but I promised to do better next time. We went for a walk along the beach (And I spent the whole time worrying about the tide going out and not being able to drag the beast back into the water. But it all worked fine.

Saturday night we watched TV. We only get broadcast TV, and as we drift around we gain and lose channels, which can be frustrating. So we see 1/2 of a lot of shows (but we have seen most of them before, so we know the beginning or the end, as needed.)

Sunday we had visitors again (boy, these cruisers can talk) and then took the dinghy over to the beach near the lighthouse. This time we had a procedure, and we looked like champs (Who was watching?) but I did not get thru unscathed. When Deidre attempted to take some photos of the lighthouse, I had to confess that I had removed the memory chip and it was back at the boat......

After having a look at the lighthouse we walked over to the ocean side (the "back beach")

Back at the boat, we spent an hour or so getting all 225 feet of chain out of the chain locker, and giving the chain locker a hose out. That night we slept well, with 200 plus feet of chain in 20' of water.