St. James Plantation

We treated ourselves today, and slept in. It was great. We got a chance to take our time this morning with showering, eating some breakfast and doing a few morning jobs around the boat. At about 10:30, we headed out of Wrightsville Beach.

Scott had planned a day out in the ocean tomorrow, but the wind forecast has turned bad, so we used our alternate plan, and are spending the night at St. James Plantation Marina, just past Southport, NC. It's a waterfront development with some high dollar houses. The development has it's own marina, marine store, grocery store, restaurant and tiki bar. When we went to pay for our slip, we got a coupon for two free drinks at the tiki bar. We did a quick stop at the small grocery store, to satisfy my fascination for grocery stores, and then hit the bar for our drinks. Charles, the bartender, made us some great Rumrunners, and also gave us some helpful info. on the local waters. We then headed back to our slip.

The St. James Marina turned out to be a great stop off for us. The marina is mostly made up of homeowners' boats. What that means is, no one is ever actually spending time on the boats that are in the slips, and we basically have the pier and surrounding area to ourselves. They also charge a very cheap rate, as far as marinas go, so we're tickled pink!

Gracie, our "plus sized" cat, had her first aboard bath tonight. It was a bit more challenging than normal, not having a tub(the sink in the boat's kitchen wasn't quite big enough to accommodate her), but we got it done, and now she's fresh and clean for the holidays!

Scott is pouring over the charts, planning tomorrow's route. Since we aren't going the ocean route, we have to deal with the worst shallow water yet. He's printed our charts of the channels we have to go through. Each one has a million depths listed, and he's highlighting the best way for us to manueuver through. At this point in the trip, tide and current can help or hurt us in a major way, so it's pretty stressful. I'm hoping, that, as usual up until now, his over planning will pay off, and we'll be in Myrtle Beach tomorrow with no regrets.

Keep good thoughts for us tomorrow. I'll post pictures later.