Marina moves ahead, Cape Lookout weekend
Wednesday June 18, 2008
If any photo can define a lifestyle, I think this nails it. This family had a traditional North Carolina beach buggy, loaded down with rod holders, fishing tackle and gear out at the Cape this weekend. A car ferry runs from Harkers Island daily and large portions of Cape Lookout National Seashore are still accessible by 4-wheel drive.
A playful sea turtle!
Our nasty but short lived squall.
Cooler temperatures have graced Vandemere today, its only 76 degrees currently at noontime. I would be out enjoying the nice weather but the fires up in and around the Great Dismal Swamp and the peat fires around Columbia are sending smoke our way due to the NE winds. Those transiting the ICW are having a rough go of it passing through those areas I’m told. Our own sailing club the NSA was scheduled to go to Edenton on our annual week long cruise, but that too was shifted a bit. We decided to head to Cape Lookout for just a short weekend get-a-way. More on that in a minute….
The good news: I’ve heard through the ‘grapevine’ that our marina permit has gone to the next step, and passed its 1st. review. Hurrah!
The office have been busy with calls and several upcoming closings. We are putting together a schedule with the power company and getting lined up to start paving roads. Check back soon, the club house design has been tweaked as well as the layout for the whole area that will be our ‘recreation area, marina, and pool’. I expect to have some renderings by next week to post.
In the mailbox today was my new issue of Sail, the small one. On the first few pages I was pleasantly suprised to see an article about sailing to Cape Lookout and Beaufort and the next page is an article about Ocracoke by our local cruising guru Clayborne Young. Seems the word is out. Everytime we go there, I kick myself for not going more often. If you read your blog, it had been since Labor Day last year since we’d been out. Summer cruising in the south can be sticky sometimes but at Lookout i’ve never been uncomfortable. Again, when the temps at Oriental were in the mid-90’s and jelly fish plagued the Neuse, Lookout was breezy, comfortable and no jellies. We left the dock at 6pm on Friday, after work and sailed into Lookout around 11pm under an almost full moon. Saturday was spent swimming and watching the Lagerhead sea turtles and walking on the beach with Sunday much the same. The water was almost torquoise like in the Caribbean but we were only 5 hours from home. Except for the squall that ripped through Sunday with over 40knts winds but lasting less than an hour, it was a perfect weekend.
That is just a little taste of what your weekends can be like here in Coastal NC.
