We're anchored in the White Oak River next to Swansboro, NC this evening.

ON the way up the ICW today from Wrightsville, we passed "Camp LeJune", which is a military amphibious assault training camp. They can come "attack" this mock shorline from the Atlantic Ocean beach, cross the ICW and "land" here. The only problem with that for boaters is that when they do those practice landings, they shut down the ICW sometimes for hours, sometimes for a day or more. I'm glad nothiung was going on there today. They have signs with flashing lights that operate if there's an exercise or "live fire" in the area.

We anchored at Swansboro because it's a quaint little town. In fact, this "main street" along the waterfront appears to be the only shopping in town, but it has a few cute art stores and knicknack stores. We responded appropriately, and bought fudge.

The other end of the street sports this "gourmet" cafe, beyond which you can see Nonchalance anchored in the river. We took the dinghy to a town "welcome dock" which is in ruins and dangerously unusable, so we docked it at a broken concrete seawall which had water just deep enough for the dinghy. So much for welcoming boaters to their town dock! However, there is a restaurant here that's written up as a good one here, which was closed when we went in, but is supposed to open up at 5 PM for dinner. We'll give it a try.

We'd love to go to Cape Lookout National Park to anchor tomorrow, but the forecast is for high wind and 3 to 5 ft seas, so we probably won't go the 9 miles in the Atlantic Ocean to get there. Maybe we'll go to Beaufort. NC and stay a couple days and then come back to Cape Lookout.