20 May - Day 78. With "Follow the yellow brick Road! Follow the Yellow brick road!" repeating endlessly in my head we push off at 0600 hours and head up the Cape Fear River. It's much better than yesterday as the winds are down to 15kts and river relatively flat. Unlike Dorothy's road ours is pink. No kidding, the official NOAA charts actual identify the ICW with a pretty pink line. Not sure if this is a subtle commentary on sailors that use this route--but there you go. An event of almost biblical proportions occurred today. In fact, Nellie's crew is still in stunned disbelief. The Surf City bridge tender kept the bridge open 10 minutes so Nellie could make it thorough. "So what?", I hear you saying. So what! As a group tenders don't suffer pleasure boaters easily. Hell, most of the time they don't answer the VHF radio and only half the time open on schedule (yes, I jest, but not much… ). Most believe that tenders live for the opportunity to slam the door shut on a hapless cruiser. This may be true. We've heard their maniacal laughter. Anyway here we are, despite heroic efforts to arrive on time, still 10 minutes away when the bridge opens. Miss this opening and we get to cool our heels for a hour. The tender hails us. We expect to hear laughter. Instead he says, "Keep her com'in Nellie D.". Soon after we heard angels singing, and Bicki could walk on water. South of Jacksonville, NC, the ICW crosses through 10 miles of Camp LeJeune's training areas. Today we got to watch the Marine Expeditionary Forces with big helicopters, fast RIBs, etc. doing their thing. It was a little ironic though seeing several pleasure boats, in what's advertised as an idylic anchorage, completely surrounded by both surface and airborne military hardware. We run until 2300 and thus get in some more night navigation practice. At anchor in Cedar Creek, NC. 105nm today: 2445nm total. DBH
