Dolphins and dogs Lindsay McRory November 18, 1995 Conditions are getting a little more tropical day by day. Kita and Wesley are spending more time on the cockpit. Kita's trying her hand at navigation. She follows our route on the charts, reads out the marker numbers, and tries to determine what's coming up. It's cute. After another early-morning departure we made tracks for Wrightsville, North Carolina. A long day's travel will move us a whole 55 miles further south. Lots of time to smell the roses. Right after lunch we had to do a very quick stop to let three dogs swim across the waterway. I never dreamed that it was possible to run over a dog with a sailboat. A few hours later a pod of six or eight dolphins swam past us. It was exciting, and the kids went crazy. There were four bridges to transit today. Two of the bridges opened on the hour and on the half-hour, while the other two opened only every hour. Waiting on bridges can take a good bite out of a day, but it's one of those necessary evils. If the bridges had to open on demand for every boat, I doubt many cars would get by on a nice boating day. Now that we've pass through 20 or more bridges, everyone in the family knows the difference between a swing bridge, single bascule, double bascule, and lift bridge. In a few days we will be transiting our first pontoon bridge at Sunset Beach. Tomorrow it's off to Cape Fear. We plan on keeping the days long while the weather holds out.