North Carolina - We're in Shrimp Country

No more crab pots from Chesapeake Bay, we are in shrimp country now. It is said that at anchor you can hear the shrimp cleaning the bottom of the boat at night, however are hull is too thick to hear anything. We lift anchor north of Belhaven and continue our route through the Pamilco River and Sound to anchor in Oriental NC. During the day we start to see the many "Shrimpers" along the route.

Then we spot this fisherman in this unusal boat along the canal in Hobucken, NC. We are not sure what he is fishing for but you see many of these boats along the waterway.

The weather is turning in the afternoon so everyone is up and out early to reach anchorage before the winds and rain. A nice cruise and we reach our anchorage at Broad Creek off the Neuse River, at statute mile 173 of the ICW. It just starts to blow and rain as we enter this new anchorage.  We find a safe spot and drop the anchor but the water depths drop off right away so we pull up anchor and move to a new location. Within a few minutes we drop the anchor a second time and this time we are happy that we have a good hold in good water. We are ready for the SW 20 - 25 winds that will clock to the NE then NW over night. The river is true to its name, it is broad. We are 300 feet off shore so that when the winds clock around we are still in safe waters 150 from shore. Friends on Saber Tooth make it through the opening that looks distressing on the charts but in actual fact it is wide. They decide to brave the winds and rain in the dinghy to enjoy captain Ted's grilled chicken, sundried tomato pizza made from scratch (one of the captains many talents).