Water Fowl and Porpoises!

On Monday we took the jet skis out for a long journey north from the marina to just outside of Wilmington. Gary REALLY wanted to get all the way to Wilmington, but we decided to do about 10 miles in the ocean which slowed us down but was 10 times as hard as taking the inside route because you're constantly fighting huge waves and strong currents. Navigating the Cape Fear River was more difficult than we anticipated it would be, also. It was really choppy and my butt could only take so much. We turned around about 8 miles from downtown Wilmington on the Cape Fear and had lunch in Southport, NC, instead. It's really a trip for the boat, that route. Open ocean is one thing, but sharing the river with ferries and other seagoing vessels was intimidating, given the water conditions. We had lunch at a waterside cafe called Fishy Fishy. The place was quaint and the food was good, but I was so exhausted from the trip up I could barely enjoy it until the end when A Flock of Seagulls dropped in for lunch.
You could say they are probably regulars at Fishy Fishy. The seem to know the routine quite well.

On the way back to the marina we stayed on the Intracoastal. Gary spotted some porpoises frolicking in the water and we stopped to watch them for several minutes. One of them came right up next to him, but it took me a minute to get my camera out -- and I have to say it's pretty tough to take pictures of multiple moving targets that are only visible when they jump out of the water for a split second - but you can see their fins and tails and whatnot on this video:


This was by far Gary's favorite moment of our two-day trip.

Just as we were turning away from the porpoises the skies clouded over and we high-tailed it back to the marina, but not before I snapped this shot of the front moving in. It was an incredible journey!