We went out into the Atlantic for a cruise from Beaufort, NC to Cape Lookout at the bottom of the Outer Banks so we could anchor in a kind of a large natural harbor formed by the cape enclosing calm waters protected from the wind and waves.

I now have a new favorite anchorage spot! This is a spectacularly beautiful spot. It's part of the National Seashore and has the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, which is a major operating navigational beacon. The cape is hook shaped, almost completely enclosing calm interior waters. There are miles of beaches both on the inside waters and the Atlantic Ocean side. Daisy loved the beaches and water too, particularly when I threw a stick in the surf on the Atlantic side for her to chase. I had to hose her off with fresh water back on the boat to get rid of all the salt and sand.

At low tide, wide expanses of beach are exposed. At high tide there's still about 20 yards of sand beach and then grassy sand dunes between the interior and the Atlantic beaches. Daisy is standing about where we anchored the dinghy when we came in at high tide around 1 PM.

Since this cape is an island, you can only get to it by boat, so there are not nearly as many shell hunters and beach walkers. In fact, this was a beautiful, warm Sunday and the beaches were practically deserted. Therefore, the shelling on these beaches is the best we have ever seen, anywhere. Kathy's sorting out some of the shells we kept. We probably kept too many again.

And just to close out a really nice day, there was an excellent sunset. Yes...I do have too many pictures of sunsets, but what makes this one special is that from our flybridge you can see the interior beach and the sun going down in the Atlantic Ocean on the other side of the cape.