Little River, SC and Southport, NC

We spent 3 nights at the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club in Little River, SC. We enjoyed several great meals with friends Andy and Julie and Hot Tomato, Crab Catchers, and the Flying Fish restaurants. The Myrtle Beach area has sooo many restaurants- I think it's possible to eat in a different one every night of the year! We took advantage of this stopover to retrieve our van from Andy and Julie and drive it to New Bern, where we are headed.

We had a great meal here with friends Andy and Julie in Little River

Our friends have a great view of the ICW from their condo

We moved on to Southport, NC, and met up with more Looper buddies- Robert and Kay, and Patsy. We met some new friends, Harry and Karen. Good times!

Lighthouse near Southport

Southport

Sunrise

Early morning shrimping

The shoaling at New River Inlet was the worst that we have seen so far in our travels. We were within about 45 minutes of low tide and saw 2 boats that had just run aground. Mark radioed a boat that we knew was half an hour ahead of us for advice. We made it through the Inlet with no problem but there was some nail biting involved. 

Our next stop was the anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay near Camp LeJeune.  This was our first day of brand new territory on the Loop- from here on, it's a new path for us!

Still Waiting But Having Fun

There is not much new from Wilmington since our boatyard friends don't work on weekends. Our Looper friends Julie and Andy (Fruitcakes), invited us to stay with them at their home in Little River, SC, for the weekend. Little River is an hour's drive from Wilmington, and we were more than happy to accept their generous invitation. We arrived at their place Friday afternoon and then went to a house-warming party at Dave's and Di's (Phat Cat) lovely new condo.

On Saturday Julie and Andy drove us around nearby Cherry Grove, North Myrtle Beach, and Myrtle Beach to show us the sights. Luckily the main tourist season is over. We had a delicious dinner at Flying Fish at Barefoot Landing- a restaurant we loved when we were here in the spring.

Today we were treated to a cruise on Fruitcakes along with 2 other couples. The 8 of us nosed out of Little River inlet into the open sea to check out a shrimper and a few dolphins before eating a picnic lunch while anchored off Bird Island. It was a great afternoon!

If all goes as promised, our pump will arrive from Raleigh tomorrow morning and be installed in the afternoon, and Mara Beel will go into the water on Tuesday. We will then need a  couple of days to clean and re-provision before getting underway. Keeping our fingers crossed!

Kids playing

Dinghy on Bird Island

Shrimp boat 

North Myrtle Beach

Casting a seine net to catch bait