May 12,2011 Left our dock at South Harbor Marina with only a little help.We're getting better at docking & undocking. We dumped into the Cape Fear River (& Sound) very quickly. It is one of the biggest rivers we've ever seen. Many ferries & commercial traffic. Even an navy ship. Cruised up the ICW, along Carolina Beach & past Wrightsville Beach. Saw many enertaining lawn ornaments along the way.Had to wait over a half hour for the Wrightsville Beach bridge to open (only on the hour) but was able to sneak under the Figure Eight Island Bridge without waiting for it to open. Another 15 miles later we had to (again) hang out for the hourly bridge opening at Surf City. We're getting better at sitting in traffic jams. A few miles before we had planned to turn into our anchorage we came upon a 62 foot Targa (a fast boat who had just passed us in a hurry) He was stuck in the mud (took the turn too close) & asked us to pull him out. We had no clue what to do. After two other much smaller boats tried to help we finally got a line from his bow to our stern & broke him free. He took off so fast he even forgot to thank us.We got our boat real muddy but we felt like we had done a good deed.Of course we were not very happy when he turned in very quickly where the "Cold Beer" sign was. We did arrive at our anchorage (Mile Hammock Bay ICW 244) after 6 pm but there was still room for us. This is a little basin that the military has dredged & it looks like they use it for fishing. We did find "Almost Perfect" at her anchorage so we had a chance to chat for awhile. Long day (65 miles) but a very peaceful place to anchor for the night. Keep meeting more people from New England.