Room With A View

Last night was a rather difficult one for sleeping.  It was warm and quite humid and we were boondocking so we did not have use of air conditioning.  The ceiling vent fan that we use almost constantly suddenly closed up and shut off somewhere around 2am, so now there was no air movement.  When I got up at 6am I disassembled the fan far enough to reach the rain sensor and scrubbed it off as dirt plus humidity looks just like rain.  It did seem to improve the operation.  Another one of those things that pop up, needing to be fixed on the road.

After making breakfast we decided to head south to Fort Fisher Recreation Reserve.  I suppose it would have been more time-efficient to just camp out at the state park we were at yesterday and not drive this far north, but we didn’t know where we were going to end up.

Fort Fisher is the location of one of the largest battles of the Civil War, so there are historical markers galore, particularly around the trail that circles the site of the original fort and gun battery.  This area is also a major recreation area, popular with fishermen, boaters, and people who like to drive their 4-wheel-drive vehicles on the beach.  We came there to kayak.

We put in at the boat launch and spent nearly three hours paddling about the salt marshes and to a couple of beach landings, one on Zeke’s Island, and the other on the back of the dune facing the ocean.  Since it was now a weekend, the boat ramp was busy and there were a few other groups of people out on kayaks.  Nearly everywhere we looked as we paddled the salt marshes, there was someone in a boat or in waders, casting their fishing lines.  There were also quite a few people fishing with nets.  Usually these guys would stand waist deep in the water and fling their nets into the water, but some of them were casting the nets from boats.  I’m sure it took some practice to get the net to fan out properly when casting.  They just make it look easy.

Fantastic weather for kayaking although it appeared we were paddling against the wind.  Just like bicycling, where the ride is always uphill and against the wind, so kayaking is always up-current and against the wind.  As we were making for the beach on Zeke’s Island, we had to make a detour around a whole flock of birds, not because we didn’t want to scare the birds, but because the birds were standing in about an inch of water and we would have grounded our kayaks on the sandbar.  It was low tide at the time so there was several sandbars to avoid, and they could be seen by the different color of the water.

It was fun to watch the pelicans do their thing, flying low over the water, then suddenly nosing over and splashing into the water.  They would take off and do it all over again.  I never actually saw one catch anything, they just appeared to be dive-bombing the water at random.  Also cool were the little fiddler crabs that scurried away across the beach when we landed at Zeke’s Island. They are about the size of a dime and are the only creature that appears to run sideways.

We beached the kayaks on the dune by the ocean and walked the short distance to the Atlantic.  This area allows vehicle traffic on the beach, so there were 4x4 vehicles parked as far as the eye could see in either direction.  Most of the people had several fishing lines in the water, and a few looked like they were just there for the day.  We waded around in the surf for a while, enjoying the roar of the water and the warmth of the day.

The wind was becoming a bit stronger on the way back, still seemed to be against us.  Little bit more chop to the water also.  Time for lunch.  We made lunch in the beach parking lot, then took a walk, first down the beach, and then ending up at the Civil War historical sites.  We perused these for a while then moved the RV to the parking lot right along the coast to make dinner.

Many people were leaving for the day, which left a lot of space for an RV, particularly right along the water.  So we had a great room with a view while preparing and eating dinner, looking out over the Atlantic and hearing the surf pound on the rocks just a few feet outside the window.  Probably one of the more memorable meals in terms of the location and the view.  And the ocean breeze blowing through the open windows added to the pleasant ambiance.

Making fresh salsa with the Atlantic as a backdrop

Taco bowls enjoyed with the sound of the Atlantic surf

We weren’t the only ones enjoying the ocean view.  We saw this couple earlier, paddleboarding the same salt marshes we were.  And here they were, enjoying the same views as us, although perhaps in a more creative fashion.  We’ll have to try it like that sometime.

Kind of tough to leave this, but leave we must, so we took off towards “home”, arriving in Lake Waccamaw after dark.