100 Days on the Happy Destiny
Today is Monday, June 11, 2018. It is 6:30 am. It’s very cloudy outside, slight breeze, muggy! Chance of rain? Yep! I can’t see in front of us this morning because there is a 120 foot megayacht in the way. What I’d like to be seeing, is the little island straight across, that from what I’ve heard, has wild horses living on it. This would make me happy!
100 days ago, Jim and I moved all of our belongings from our car onto the Happy Destiny. What a journey it has been! It blows my mind all that we have done and all that we have seen in the last 100 days. Remember all of the backside pictures of Jim? The countless trips to the hardware stores? The 231 Amazon deliveries! Me being a contortionist, folding myself into the bilges under our bed! The beach, the amazing Florida sunsets, picnics, and long evenings on our beautiful sundeck.
Then finally, 21 days ago, we threw our lines and began our Great Loop Adventure.
Cruising the waterways on the Intracoastal has been quite amazing. We have traversed countless lakes, rivers, canals and inlets. We have been under many bridges, some very tall and some that we have had to have opened for us. Yesterday, we needed to get through a swing bridge that only opens on the hour. We arrived a bit too early and just had to wait the 35 minutes before it was opened to boat traffic. We enjoyed our breakfast as we waited. We have encountered very shallow waters! We went through an area, we were to find out after the fact, that is called the “Rock Pile” It is located on the Pine Island Cut on the Waccama River. It was low tide and yep! We banged the rocks! I thought I was going to throw up! Captain Jim kept his wits about him and gently guided us out of trouble. I then ran to the hatch openings inside to look and listen for any water intrusion. None was noted and we proceeded with extreme caution. In our defense, we were in the channel and we had 4 feet of water below our keel. Shit happens!
Clearly
The scenery in this area was beautiful.
I have read many blogs of others doing the Great Loop. It sometimes overwhelms me with the amount of knowledge and expertise these writers have. They write about every river, every city, every state and everything else they encounter. They give detailed history about each of these things or places. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy these people’s blogs. They are informative and accurate. But really y’all, I’m having a hard enough time remembering where I was yesterday! On the water you travel at a pretty slow speed. 9 or 10 miles per hour. Most of the time I don’t know where I am or what I’m looking at. I know I should work on this, but I might miss something if I’m constantly looking up landmarks on my iPad. I don’t want to be like that. Jim and I wanted our blog to be a very personal adaptation of our life on this boat. I want to be able to share this lifestyle in a way that makes me happy. I want to tell you about how I feel when I see a rainbow, or how we hunted down an AA meeting. I want to tell you how I sit out on the bow of the boat and talk to my God, out loud, because I do this now. If I tell you about the history of Beaufort, North Carolina, which by the way is super cool and very old, I might miss my opportunity to to just take it all in and absorb the sights into my memory. I’m not a good historian. You get that information from the World Wide Web. I think when Jim and I stay put longer, in one place, and can get off the boat and wander the cities we are in, I might have a better idea of what is happening around me and the history of where we are.
As of today we have traveled 1,074 miles! We’ve covered Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and most of North Carolina. Today we are in Oriental North Carolina. We had a short trip, 35 miles from Beaufort. It was very hot and muggy trip across Adams Creek and the Neuse River and up the Broad creek. See, there, I told you where we were! 😂. As soon as we turned up the creek to get to our marina, a huge storm appeared. Out of nowhere! The winds picked up, the sky turned black, the clouds swelled. We got tied up in our dock and I kid you not, the thunder and lightning storm began and then- rain!
Let me tell you, I’m intrigued by these storms. The sound and the force of nature is awesome! I’m a little sad it’s raining though. The River Dunes Marina is so beautiful. There amenities are incredible. There is a beautiful pool and spa area, which as soon as the rain settles down, we will go swimming. It is 85 degrees out, in the pouring rain with 100% humidity. I am grateful for our air conditioning on board! This marina offers a buy one night get another one free deal! How cool is that! Jim and I will stay here until Wednesday morning. Hopefully, we will be able to enjoy a rain free day tomorrow.
FYI- later in the evening I went up to the pool. In was sprinkling and the sound of frogs was deafening! I was all alone in this amazing setting and I sat in a jacuzzi ( insert big smiling face) and looked up in the sky and thanked My God for my life. I find myself saying quite often, “are you kidding me right now”! I felt like I was in a fairytale story book and I was a princess. Jim didn’t want to go out in the rain. I went and got him. Made him go back to the pool with me. He was glad I did. It was like heaven.
Our week has been very cool! Lots of travel and lots of beautiful scenery. A new adventure every single day. Thank you for peeking in on us. Know we are happy, healthy and very tan! I’ll end this with photos from the past week. The first couple of pictures are from Southport North Carolina. The fishing village has been in many feature films like Weekend at Bernie’s and Nicolas Spark’s Safe Haven. It was beautiful. Everything is beautiful! The group photo is a group of Loopers who have already completed their journey. Robert and Kay Creech are Harbor Hosts in Southport North Carolina. They are the nicest couple ever and they accepted our mail for us. Jim and Peg Healy are avid boaters. They are liveaboards and travel up and down the East Coast continually. These 4 people have a plethora of knowledge. They spent several hours of their time helping us by going over charts, telling us their stories and basically offering us their well wishes for our safe and thrilling adventure. We thank them with all our hearts.
I’ll end this story for now. The sun is out in Oriental. It’s 7:25 pm. I’ve had a hell of a time getting this blog together because we have had very spotty cell and WiFi service. The pictures finally downloaded and I’m off to the pool.
Peace and love,
❤️
P.S. I never did see the wild horses.
