Southport, NC

6/30/07- I woke up this morning and got underway after a breakfast of oatmeal. I had anchored a few hundred yards south of the North Carolina border so I crossed into a new state right away in the morning. In the morning, I sailed past many large and impressive houses which were very cool. There was a storm system just north of me but it seemed to be moving parallel to me. I called my roommate, Peter, to have him check on the online weather radar. He told me that it would probably miss me if it did not shift or grow. A couple of hours later, I saw some very dark clouds forming directly behind me and moving towards me. I called Peter again to get another weather update and he confirmed that there was something that looked pretty heavy moving right towards me. I decided that it might be best to pull into a marina to wait out the storm. I called the Southport Marina and reserved a slip. I pulled in and filled up my fuel tanks and then moved around the dock and tied up. The sky was looking extremely dark so I put on more lines than usual just to make sure nothing bad would happen if the storm were fierce. I bought some ice, drinks, and batteries in the marina office and went back to the boat to ride the storm out. It began drizzling after a little while and continued for about an hour. Then it abruptly stopped; that was the extent of the terrible storm that I had expected.

I decided to go into the town of Southport for dinner so I took my raincoat just in case it began raining again. I started off walking in the general direction of the downtown area. I walked by some people on the street and I asked them where the best local places to eat were. They introduced themselves as Crystal and Arthur. They told me to go to a place called Provision Co. We kept talking for a minute and they invited me to their house after I was done eating dinner. I said good bye and took their advice and went to Provision Co. It was a really neat restaurant; the seating was all outdoors and was right on the Intracoastal Waterway. I ordered a crab cake sandwich and went outside to wait for my food. There was a sailboat pulling up to the restaurant’s dock so I walked out to help them tie up. It was a nice looking hull but everything on deck was in awful condition. There were lines hanging off into the water, the mainsail was crumpled up and a single sail tie was holding only the very center of the sail to the boom. The passengers obviously had no idea what they were doing but we eventually got the boat tied up to the dock and the fenders out. I heard my name called and one of the servers was carrying my crab cake sandwich out onto the dock for me. I thanked him and went and found a seat. The sandwich was very tasty. After I was finished, I walked out to the dock and stood there as I finished my drink. A lady came by and introduced herself as Jackie. She invited me back to the table where she and her neighbors were sitting. I talked with them about everything, including accounting, industrial tool making, the civil war, religion, and nuclear war. The restaurant eventually cleared out so we got up and I began to walk back to the boat.

As I was walking past the spot where I had met Crystal and Arthur earlier, I remembered that they had invited me to their house earlier in the evening. I followed their directions and found the house that they had described. I went in and was welcomed wholeheartedly. I hung out and talked with them for a couple of hours. I learned that Crystal will be moving to Scotland in the fall to work on her PhD in early Christian studies. Another guy there was in the Navy and worked on the big nuclear submarines. He also had many stories to tell about his experiences in the military. I finally wandered back to the marina and went to bed.