Pete Lipton

Monday, May 11, 2015 7:30AM

Woke to clear skies, slack S wind. Ana is but a memory. No significant wind but lots of rain. Leaving today northbound. Not much prospect of an off shore run from Wrightsville Beach. By the time we get there the wind is forecast to come from the NNE, right on our nose of course. So we will continue slogging our way north on the ICW.

Underway at 8:00AM from Bucksport (Mile 377 ICW) after a three night stay. Very pleasant and getting to know Jeff Weeks was fun. Passed through the Socastee Swing Bridge with two other boats and continued north past Myrtle Beach. This is my least favorite section of the ICW, long, straight, narrow and alarmingly shallow in spots, and for the most part lined with houses, docks and businesses. Not much natural setting. One has to be on one’s toes all the while because of some torturous spots, like The Rock Pile, which goes on for some miles (ICW 347-365).

 

 

Shrimping Fleet

 

 

What you do with an old shrimp boat!

 

We slogged ever onward, past the decadent golfer’s cable car, a tram across the ICW, past North Myrtle Beach, into the Little River, past the Little River Inlet, past Ocean Isle Beach. All these Atlantic beaches are lined with condos, hotels, restaurants, all manner of businesses, golf courses and lots and lots of people and their toys. Pasted Shallotte Inlet and Lockwoods Folly Inlet and finally, after a sixty-eight mile run, anchored in a delightful embayment just off the docks of Southport, NC, a hamlet of working fishing, tow and pilot boats, and your usual set of marinas. Just to the north and east is the Cape Fear River and Inlet, A class “A” ocean inlet (lots of commercial traffic).

 

 

Golfer's Tram

 

We anchored beside Palasso, a 27 foot Pacific Seacraft. In short order, the owner showed up in his dinghy returning from his job as a janitor at a local Walmart, one of about a thousand jobs he had had in his sixty years on this planet. After being talked at by this guy for a while I suspect he had probably inhabited a number of other planets also.  He took the time to tell us all about his various jobs and lots of other stuff, nonstop for about an hour, without taking more than two breaths. This guy was a pro talker and story teller. Some of them sounded a little fantastic, but who knows?

 

 

Pete's "Palasso"

 

 

Pete Lipton

 

His name was Pete Lipton. He grew up in Watts, California during the riots there, learned how to fight at a young age, admitted to having a “Napoleon complex”, says he was “less than honorably” discharged from the army for fighting, and has lived on Palasso for five years, having sailed her throughout the Gulf of Mexico and ended up here where he bought another boat (A Prairie) that he is restoring. He has made a few solo ocean cruises and says he survived a hurricane at sea.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Another character for my book.

So, we are anchored in a great spot. Beautiful evening capped off by a cocktail and a parade of white ibis, a veritable convention of white ibis, flying across the bay, in groups of twenty to probably two hundred. Lots of individual flocks, amounting no doubt to at least a thousand and probably many more than that, all heading east.

Add in a bunch of purple martins zipping around over the bay snatching mosquitoes up and you have the makings of a first run movie.

Good night to you.