Carolina Beach State Park
Friday 30th April 2021
Having completed a bunch of boat jobs yesterday we decided to have a fun day today so we took the dinghy to the marina dock and walked out to Carolina Beach State Park. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the entrance and about 4 hours hiking around some of the trails. It turns out to be a really nice park with a lot of pine forests and some marshy areas. It also has two sides adjacent to the water – on the west side is the Cape Fear River and on the north is Snow’s cut. We came right by here on our way over from Southport.
It was a beautiful day, mostly sunny and quite warm. We a number of birds including brown headed nuthatches, a great crested flycatcher, an eastern Kingbird and red headed woodpeckers. It was actually amazing – prior to this year we have only ever seen two red headed woodpeckers, then we saw a couple on St Catherines Island in Georgia and today we saw about six of them!
On our way back we stopped at Publix to buy a coupe of things, including some alternate sun-protective lip balm. You can get some decent ones, but we have run out and recently bought a Banana Boat product that was absolutely disgusting. We think it’s because it has a bunch of chemicals such as avobenzone in it that taste appalling and leave your mouth and throat feeling like you gargled waste engine oil. We got a couple of alternatives and we’ll see how they work out.
This morning we were delighted to find the dinghy as pumped up and solid as we had left her the night before. Thanks goodness! When we got back to the marina the starboard tube was half flat. We think it may have been bumping up against the dock or maybe squeezed by another boat. In our naïve optimism (stupidity) we had left the pump back on Cotinga so we had to motor back with one mostly flat tube. Conditions were really calm and we were relieved to make it back. This afternoon I once again pulled back the rub rail, removed the patch on the seam that is pulling apart and tried to fix it with a fresh patch, superglue for strength and 3M 4200 to seal it. I think this really worked … but I’m starting to believe that optimists are just losers!
We had a fancy dinner tonight! Fillets of "Sheepshead" (a delightful white fish) seasoned with paprika, garlic and basil and wrapped in phyllo pastry along with a little celery and carrots, then baked in the oven. We ate this with a sauce made with fresh cream, lime zest and juice and fresh basil. It was pretty good!
Tomorrow we head over to Wrightsville Beach ready to go offshore on Sunday and up to Beaufort, NC.
Mike
34 02.754 N, 77 53.382 W
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