A chance encounter with fog

I have been scooting off to Southport NC to paddle with my coach whenever possible. His family has been quite accommodating. Southport is a lovely town. The water around there can be flat, or challenging, depending on where one paddles.

We got a good dose of fog last Wednesday. It was a total white out. I have very little experience with paddling in fog and am just learning navigation. The fog gave me its own peculiar challenge, trying to discern where waves were breaking or land might be.

Most of my photos from the day appear to be black and white. But I assure my dear reader that the color was missing due to conditions, rather than editing.

A break on the shore of Oak Island, not much to see in the fog

Lighthouse? Nah, wait, really? We could NOT see the light at all

Finally, after all this time I get a photo of a dolphin, kind of.

Then for a brief moment the fog lifted and everything turned blue

Another view of the lighthouse, before the fog descended to white out again

The weather man had told us that morning that the fog would burn off by 10 am. This did not happen. Instead, it hung around all day making our planned attempt on Frying Pan Shoals unsafe. We hand railed along a set of small islands until we made the tip of Oak Island out through the fog. After an abortive attempt on crossing to Bald Head Island we decided to stick near Oak Island. We had found good quality rollers on the ocean side of the island and we ended up playing in those as the fog wafted around us. Coach had me practicing turns and I had some challenges not getting knocked over broach by the waves.

When we get off the water there is a coffee shop with this incredible crumb cake just waiting for us. Hot decaf with cream and 1/2 a slice of crumb cake...nom...

The fog lifted as we were packing up at the marina. Rearing up behind the water front, the fog waits only a few minutes before descending again.

I can not express clearly enough how well Coach chose his locale. Dolphins, birds, wind, pop corn water, big big rollers...and somewhere in there flat calm water, all just waiting to be paddled.  This was yet another magical day in Southport. I think I am in love.