Hitchhiker, hammerhead and humpback

2016 May 14

by Greg & Lyn

We left the Bahamas with a fun dolphin escort and we flew north to St Augustine riding the fastest part of the Gulf Stream hitting 11 1/2 to 12 1/2 kts! We usually sail at 6 1/2 to 7 kts and the Gulf Stream flows north at 4 to 4 1/2 kts at the center. That’s the fastest ride we’ve ever had in our boat!!

Last sunset to blow the conch horn in the Bahamas.

Dolphin on the bow as we leave the Bahamas.

We caught two barracuda while still on the Bahama banks. Barracuda aren’t good to eat and they tend to bite through the lines, so we reeled in the lines to wait for deep water the next day.

Reeling in the first fish!!

The first of 2 barracuda that we put back.

Sunset heading toward the US.

The next day we caught two black fin tuna!! They were SO delicious!

Lots of yummy fish in our fridge.

We had some GOOD fish tacos!! And still have tuna in our freezer!!

Beautiful St Augustine.

St Augustine lighthouse.

Summer flowers everywhere.

Horse drawn carriage in a city filled with history.

An archeological dig site where artifacts were found in the historic part of town.

El Galleon. A Spanish ship.

Greg getting ready to check and clean the prop.

Sunset

A queen that’s seen better days.

Shrimp boat at the dock.

Sunrise

Lots of huge Pelicans.

A tank with turtles

And some huge gold fish.

Shrimpers off shore at work.

We picked up a hitchhiker when we were 20 miles off shore. This little bird was soaking wet when it first came into our cockpit. He flitted around the boat from the bow to the stern for half the day before he finally took off for land.

Our little hitchhiker.

We watched a shark fin moving toward our boat when we were off shore too. Just as it passed our boat it jumped and we could see that it was a hammerhead shark! Wow! That was cool to see!!

Click on the picture to make it bigger to see the hammerhead.

Sunrise after our first night off shore.

Sunrise after our second night off shore. Heading into the Cape Fear River.

When we anchored at Wrightsville Beach NC there were lots of people and stand up paddle (SUP) boards in town. We found out that it was the weekend of the annual Carolina Cup, the big annual SUP race. Then we remembered that we were in Wrightsville Beach last year on the exact same weekend! We enjoyed watching hundreds of SUPs go past our boat.

Lots of people watching the SUP race from the bridge.

SUP racers going past our boat. Note how they all line up and “draft” each other just like bicycles.

We had a great visit with Bill and Mary Lou!!

After we left Wrightsville Beach, we sailed to Cape Lookout Bight just outside the Morehead City inlet along the shore of NC. It is so beautiful! You can only get there by boat so not much of a crowd. We spent our time there watching huge turtles, walking the beach, watching sea birds, touring the grounds of the Cape Lookout lighthouse and riding in the dinghy along the shore to look at the wild ponies. BUT, the most amazing experience was having a humpback whale surface right next to our boat. It was as big as our boat! We never had the camera out so no pictures but we saw it surface multiple times a day for several days! Everybody in the anchorage was excited about seeing it.