Myrtle Beach, SC to Beaufort, NC

**New item: I’m using a new app called “Track my Tour” which is mapping our progress. I’ve added a link on our website home page or click on the following link and save to your favorites! https://trackmytour.com/3N4vm

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For those of you who may not have read last week’s blog, we are now traveling towards Beaufort, NC, pronounced “BOW-fert” (as in “bow” tie – not Murphy going “bow-wow”).

Our first destination was Holden Beach, NC, where we tied up at the town dock. What a lovely beach town. The town hall, police department, playground, and basketball courts are all in one place – right next to the town dock. Murphy and I enjoyed our early morning jog on the beach with lots of other jogging puppies. No real historical significance, just a really nice small beach town. Great get away vacation spot.

On to Carolina Beach, NC where we grabbed a mooring ball in the small bay and dinghied to the grocery store (I was in heaven as they had a Publix – which is my FL grocery store) and then on to the beach. The beach had the softest sand we’ve felt to date and Murphy thoroughly enjoyed his romps on the beach. We were disappointed in the town though, quite unkempt. It does have a state park, which our friends stopped at and enjoyed the park’s trails.

Due to some potential weather coming through, we chose to stay the next 2 nights at a marina in Hampstead, NC – surrounded by beautiful houses – but first, a quick stop at Wrightsville Beach, NC to pick up two folding bikes we just purchased from a local bike shop (another story with how we found this bike shop!). See the picture below. We can’t wait to use them at our various stops.

On to Swansboro, NC for another 2 nights due to a storm rolling through. We were going to stay at the town dock and were warned if we arrived and there were boats on our dock that won’t move, to call and she will reach out to the police to have them moved. We were going to dock on the end T dock which is 90 feet long, our boat being 40 feet. As we approached there were two smaller day runabout boats tied, one at each end, which did not quite give us enough room to slip in between and no one was on either boat. A boater was departing and seeing the situation yelled to us “Do you have a reservation?” I said, “Yes” and he turned his boat around, docked it, and then ran over and moved the two boats as far to each end as possible. Dave then approached the dock and I threw the spring and bow lines to the guy and another boater, while Dave expertly guided Slo Pace, fighting wind gusts and a strong current to safe dockage. There were a lot of people around and Dave nailed it. He got lots of “great job” kudos when he got off the boat. And even funnier, later that day, another boat had docked behind us and as we were leaving to go to dinner one of the guys on the boat said, “Hey, I heard you owned your docking”. Wow, word travels fast in a town of 3,200.

Swansboro is next to Camp Lejeune, a 248 square mile Marine training center. Many of the Marines enjoyed a night out at the local pub with live music, just next to the town dock. It’s great to see our military being able to relax a bit. I can only imagine what military training must entail.

Lastly, Swansboro is known for one of their natives, Capt. Otway Burns, whose exploits as commander of the privateer vessel, Snapdragon, brought early attention to Swansboro, through his success in supporting US troops in the War of 1812. He later built the steamboat, Prometheus, the first steamboat to be built in North Carolina.