South Port, NC

Wednesday, June 6
33 54.973N
78 01.395W

The "Southport Provision Company"

I am sitting here feeling like a total idiot. We are docked at a free "bar-restaurant" slip. (The deal is that if you buy dinner at the place you can stay overnight. It's not what you would call "fancy" - no table cloths, plastic chairs and tables, and probably a lot of fried food.) But that is not the issue. The issue is that I totally botched the docking because I forgot to disengage the auto pilot before I started to maneuver, and so (not surprisingly) the boat just fought me every step of the way as I tried to back in, and I missed the approach every time until Deidre said "Are you sure the syncro and auto pilot are off?". Damn! But even then, I was so discombobulated that I messed it up several times in a row. Oh well, I hope Tide Hiker can forgive me.

South Port is basically at "Cape Fear", like in the movie, but on the inside. We left North Myrtle beach this morning at about 8:15AM (after a great sleep, back in our own bed) and were here by about 2PM. We had left early because if this free dock had not worked out, we would have needed to steam another 15 odd miles to get to a documented anchorage. So, after we had tied up (and I dared to show my face) we went ashore and had a couple of beers in the restaurant, and then went for a stroll around town.

The trip from North Myrtle beach had been uneventful. It basically rained all the way, and was cold. After an hour or so, Deidre convinced me to move inside and run the boat from the RPH. She immediately rewarded me with hot soup (chicken and rice), buttered bagel and coffee for lunch. Not a bad deal. We used the "remote" automatic pilot and so I could sit on the RPH bench seat and watch the rain on the windshield, and steer the boat in the warm. (Next time I have to remember to turn the bloody thing off!)