… having crashed out so completely and for so long yesterday afternoon, it was well into the small hours this morning and I was still awake.
But I heard the alarms go off at 05:00 and 05:15 respectively but somehow it was gone 08:00 when I was up and about.
My first thought was that I can’t go anywhere in the state that I was in, so I staggered off down to the office to see about staying for an extra day. But we couldn’t thrash out a suitable deal and so I took that as my cue to be moving on.
After breakfast we hit the road, and back through familiar territory from 2005.
When we were up here back then, I pointed out to you that most of the houses along the seafront are up on stilts.
We’re smack in the hurricane belt here and while they might not be as devastating as elsewhere, the fact that it’s so low-lying around here means that there can be some impressive tidal surges.
Just inland from the coast is what they call the “Atlantic Coastal Waterway”.
It’s like a canal that’s made up of rivers, lagoons behind the sandbanks and canalised sections to join everything up, and its purpose is to allow the “snowbirds” to sail their yachts and cabin cruisers down to Florida from Washington DC and Manhattan without having to do anything dangerous like going out into the open sea.
They aren’t really “salt-water mariners” here.
I mentioned yesterday that North Myrtle Beach is probably one of the most exclusive places in the USA.
Here, the “second homes” of the rich and famous are built around little marinas branching off the Atlantic Coastal Waterway so that they can sail down here and drop anchor in their own back gardens
You can’t do that at Rhyl or New Brighton.
I’m never in a very good mood when I see a car ferry. As you know, it always makes me cross.
And so being in the vicinity of the ferry across Cape Fear River, I decide to head that way instead of taking Highway 17 North-Eastwards.
And just by way of a change, I don’t have to wait too long as they don’t go on to winter hours until Saturday. That’s not something that happens to me every day.
There’s another ferry from here that goes out to Bald Head Island.
Bald Head Island is really nothing more than an endless succession of sandbanks, a couple of which have been stabilised by a healthy plant growth, and is the home to a mainly-seasonal population.
Its chief claim to fame, if it was one, is that it’s an important turtle-breeding and nesting area. And that I’ve yet to find the time to visit it.
Don’t let anyone ever tell you that it was the Union Army that won the Civil War. When things were on an even basis, the South could hold its own quite comfortably.
What did for the South was the naval blockade that stopped supplies of arms and munitions reaching the fighting armies and preventing the South from exporting its produce to gain foreign exchange.
Wilmington was just about the last open port remaining, protected by Fort Fisher which was just over there to the left of the crane and which we visited in 2005.
When Fort Fisher fell to the Union forces in January 1865, the Union Army controlled the entrance to the port.
They took Wilmington a couple of weeks later and in the absence of any supplies at all, the Confederacy collapsed in a matter of days.
By now though, the heat was ridiculous. 98°F, whatever that is in real money.
Luckily a Home Depot loomed up so I could take refuge in there and see if they had Terry’s batteries, but no joy – although the aircon was welcome.
Back on the road again, I stopped for some fuel and some of that iced slush as the heat really was oppressive, and then round about Jacksonville, found the first of the “Outer Banks Islands” – the sandbanks that protect the North Carolina Shore.
Some of them are inhabited, some connected by bridges, and some of them even have roads.
Emerald Isle is one such, and that’s my destination for tonight. There’s bound to be a motel or two along here and I eventually come across the Oak Grove Motel in Salter Path.
I’ve stayed in better places than this, but not many for $60 with kitchen and air conditioning.
First thing is to sit on my bed and … errr … relax.
Second thing is to notice the time – 21:00. Was I that relaxed?
So no tea again tonight. I just curl up down the bed and make the most of it.
And quite right too.
