Out and About.....a day at Ft Fisher Aquarium and the Ft. Fisher Civil War history sites.

While at the beach for our vacation, one day we took off to see some sites in the soutwestern coastal part of N. Carolina. We headed to Southport, a quaint beautiful little town by the seashore (A Walk to Remember and two other movies were filmed here). We got on the ferry and headed towards Ft. Fisher, NC. We all enjoyed the ferry ride and the seagulls following us hoping for a morsel or two. The ride was breesy and pleasant. Off to the side, the captian pointed out a sea funnel forming in the ocean, sort of a tornado at sea. This storm would meet us again later in the day...but we made the crossing uneventfully and set off to the Ft. Fisher aquarium

A fellow ferry boat passing us by. The boat we were riding looked just like this.

Exploring the ocean creatures....this was one very large shark! My kids would be
just a snack to it.

Pretending to be a crab

During a deep sea diver show, Brianne had fun flurting with fellow spectators.
At the hands on, touch tank, the girls explored the horseshoe crab. Just last night, (because I'm writing this about 3 weeks later), we watched a netflix video about ocean creatures and saw many horseshoe crabs in their native enviroment. Cool...little armored tanks on the move.

By this time, it was extremely muggy and hot outside. We enjoyed our time with the underwater biome and it's inhabitants, but we continued on to find a place for lunch.

Not far at all, there was a place that had many park benches lining the rocky coast of the ocean. I wish I would have gotten a picture, but you could see a storm, dark and gloomy, brewing over the ocean off on the horizon. We ate lunch and feed some ever hungry seagulls and then scurried to find an indoor place and be in an air conditioned enviroment.

In an effort to save money (at least that's what I presume) the history site wasn't well air conditioned. We saw a short video....well at least the others did, Liam was quite irritable by this time, so we left the small theathre to explore the exhibits.

Within 5 minutes the storm made landfall and unleashed it's forceful furry...so much water. I love to watch rainstorms, I wished for a chair so I could go outside and just enjoy the torrent of water pouring forth. Once the others came out fromt he movie, we realized it was cooler
outside than in and let the kids dance and play in the rain.

a very wet, yet happy child!

Barry braved to rain to bring the van closer to us, we rushed in, and were off once again for our next destination....the USS North Carolina Battleship.