21 April 2026
No boat travel
Our "Journey" friends had a scheduled haul out in Wilmington today which worked out as a benefit to us. They gave us the keys to their car as they pulled out of their slip to move the boat to the marina for haul out. We had the use of their car until it was time for us to drive to the marina to pick them up -- a win-win for all of us.
The first order of business for us was to go after that elusive loaf of bread I have been seeking. We found a Publix less than a mile away from the marina where we are staying. They had bread and a whole lot more. It seems it was our lucky day because multiple items I had on my list had BOGO (buy-one-get-one) deals in place. When we are on bicycles, we all too often have to leave the free one behind - not so today. I scoffed them all up except for the dill pickles. We don't eat them fast enough to warrant the extra item.
We thought we would find lunch in Wilmington but quickly realized that if we ate a quick lunch on board we would have more time to walk around Wilmington. Since we bought perishables like ice cream, we returned to the boat to stow the groceries, grabbed our quick lunch, and then set out to explore a bit of Wilmington before our friends were ready for pickup.
By the time we parked near the river walk, we only had about one hour to walk around. It took us 15 minutes to pay for an hour on the parking meter. Tick tock!! We picked a direction along the river and started our tour. We could see the USS North Carolina battleship in the distance and headed that direction for a closer look.
Our short visit took us through a portion of Wilmington's historic district.
We passed a pelican statue as we walked the trail. I had Clark pose!
Clark wanted to keep going down the river walk to see what was further on.
We came to several old buildings. Not knowing what the buildings are used, I saw a person who looked like a local and asked her about the buildings. Many had been converted into motels she told us, but among all those buildings was a railroad museum. We decided to walk around to the street side for a look.
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| Mystery buildings - mostly hotels |
Then we got to the street and found the "Atlantic Coastline Railroad Co." railroad museum.
We stepped inside to check on ticket prices ($12 per person) and had just decided we did not have time to view the museum today when we got the call from our hosts that they were ready for pickup at the marina. We told them we had to walk to the car and would be there in 30 to 40 minutes time.
Walking back to the car, we took more pictures along the way. We saw lots of old brick buildings that thankfully have been nicely repurposed as opposed to let fall apart.
The building below has shops on the bottom and apartments above.
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| Bank of America on level 1 |
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| apartment on level 2 |
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| old warehouse |
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| Clark on the walkway |
I got the 10-minute warning on my phone for the parking meter when we were about 10 minutes from the car. We quick walked up to the other direction from Market Street just because Clark was curious. He said that would have been a better direction to explore; we'll know for next time.
Near the car we saw an alternate method of seeing the area.
Even the drive to the marina was interesting. Just driving is interesting because we spend months without a car. Neither Clark nor I have driven a car since October, and other than a couple of car rides in Marathon from friends with cars, we have not ridden in a car for about the same amount of time.
Our route took us past the North Carolina Ports where we got a close up view of containers from container ships. We do not usually get this close of a look.
We passed a few railroad cars along the way.
And then we came to the marina.
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| "Journey" on the hard |
Our friends took back their car keys and drove us back to the marina where we had our boat at dock. We said our farewells at the gate because we plan on getting underway early in the morning.
As we walked into the salon, Clark saw the owner's manual for our windlass and said, "Oh! I have to look into the windlass problem. I had forgotten!" And so, instead of sitting down to "chill", we gathered some tools and the manual and went out to work on the windlass.
Step-by-step he took the windlass apart carefully laying out the parts in order to remember how to do the reassembly. My job was to hold onto the instructions so they didn't blow away in the strong wind while telling Clark step-by-step what to take off next.
When he had the windlass apart, he said, "Here's the problem! The stripper is broken." The stripper peals the chain and rope off of the capstan to prevent jamming. With that he ran off to see if he had a spare stripper on the boat. He found one in the pilot house! It's always good to have a spare stripper on board. As he reassembled the windlass, I asked, "Are you screwing the stripper now?" "Yep!"
Now that looks like a windlass!
I've put "buy a stripper" on my to-do list! It's always good to have a spare on hand.
Clark is always checking and rechecking the boat and tonight he found that the inverter/charger was not charging. It said that it was in bulk mode but the battery was discharging. When he turned off the inverter breaker, all the inverter circuits dropped rather than the inverter coming on to pick up the load. He used the bypass switch for the AC inverter circuits while he troubleshot the problem. He pointed out that if the inverter had failed, we would not have power for our refrigerator and would need a huge supply of ice to save all our food!
Fortunately, it seems, that the inverter just needed to be restarted after turning off the battery switch. He put a load (a small lightbulb) across the inverter battery terminals to manually discharge the large capacitors in the inverter to save time. When he turned the DC power back on and turned on the inverter switch, it began inverting again. Good news! When the inverter AC breaker was turned on, it switched over to charging. More good news!
When we were out in the morning grocery shopping, we passed an ugly-looking car accident. Clark speculated that it may have caused a power outage that disrupted our service and upset our inverter. Whatever happened, the inverter started working after Clark reset it. Yay!
At 4:00 this morning I was woken up by the boat making all sorts of squeaking and groaning noises. It was impossible for me to sleep through, and I was not about to wander around the boat at that time of day (in the dark) to see what was causing such a ruckus. I looked over at Clark, and he was sleeping like a baby -- no help there.
I decided to grab a pillow and a sleeping bag and go sleep on the sofa in the pilot house. I knew that the problem of the groaning was the bow line rubbing on the side of the boat. I was not so sure of the squeaking noise. I later learned from Clark that the squeaking came from the rub rail of our boat rubbing up and down the dock piling when the wind gusts stretched the rope enough for the boat to touch he pole. What a chorus it all caused!
Clark tied an extra bow line on and tightened both lines to keep the boat off the pole. Wanting to sleep in our bed tonight, I went out with "soapy water" and sprayed the two lines tying the bow to the dock. The lines are old and dried out. The groaning is because they no longer have any stretch in them. By heavily spraying soapy water on the lines for the foot or so of length that bent over the side of the boat, I was able to stop the noise!
Finally, that was the last of the excitement for the day! After a quick dinner based around the pre-cooked rotisserie chicken I bought at Publix, I called it a night and climbed into bed to be with my current novel. I didn't read for long before it was "lights out"!
22 April 2026
Depart: Carolina Beach marina, NC, 7:30
Arrive: Moorehead City, NC Sugar Loaf Island anchorage 5:10
Distance: 79 nm
Clark said we needed to get an early start today because we were going on the ocean and the morning would be kinder to us than the afternoon in terms of wave heights and wind speeds. I was up and moving by 6:45 (early for me).
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| Sunrise at the marina |
We had a lot of lines and the power cord to pull in before we could be underway. My eyes were burning as I worked on prepping the boat for departure. The air was thick with smoke. I looked for information on fires in the area and found a forest fire in progress in Myrtle Beach.
We were underway by 7:30, and I was glad to get going and eat breakfast while underway. We had an hour's travel time to get to Masonboro Inlet before we could get out into the ocean for today's travel. On our way there, we passed a group of vessels moving pipe for a dredging operation. The three boats with the pipe between them was too long to get a full picture of the setup.
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| Lead vessel |
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| long pipe with unrelated vessel in the distance |
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| Lead vessel, pipe, and middle vessel |
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| Bringing up the rear |
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| Looking back at the whole setup after passing the operation |
From the marina, it took about 90 minutes to reach the Masonboro Inlet where I took a few photos as we exited to the ocean.
After that, we spent the rest of the day on the ocean. I took some photos while we were near shore.
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| Houses along the shore |
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| Some tall buildings mixed in |
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| Water tower on the shore |
Our route took us out just over 10 nautical miles from shore. For most of the trip our only view was of the waves. The snapshot of the chart below shows our ocean path and the way it cuts off distance from our trip by taking advantage of the curvature of the shoreline.
Following the markers, we reached the Beaufort Inlet just after 4:30. As Clark predicted, the waves were only 3 - 4 footers in the morning. By the afternoon they had progressed to 5s and sometimes 6-footers. The anemometer showed the winds at around 24 knots. To go straight into the inlet, Clark had the boat pointed off to port by several degrees (known as crabbing) to compensate for the wind, etc.
Fortunately, the autopilot and the stabilizers were doing the work, so we just enjoyed the ride. On occasion the stabilizers were a bit slow to react and we found the boat tipping more than usual. Wee!
As the waves picked up, Clark noticed we had visitors playing in the water by our boat. Two dolphins were zooming around in front of our boat and jumping through the waves. They were clearly enjoying themselves immensely. They were moving so fast that I did not even bother to try to get a picture or a video.
With the waves picking us up and carrying us, we saw interesting speeds. At one point, as I watched, the display showed us going over 11 knots as we rose up on a wave and then 6 knots as it put us back down again. Who needs amusement parks?! Coming into the inlet at Beaufort, we had wind against current which always makes for an interesting ride.
With the rocking, we heard something fall down below, but I refused to go investigate. Clark ran down to make sure it wasn't the refrigerator emptying its contents onto the floor. I had not latched it closed as I did not realize just how interesting the waves would get in the afternoon. That was not the noise.
Later, when we were getting ready to anchor, I discovered that a piece of wood that is part of the bookcase had fallen to the galley floor. I am puzzled by where it came from and how it managed to land on the floor. I am also puzzled by the fact that Clark apparently did not see it lying on the floor. Thankfully it was nothing of importance, and I put it back in place.
I took some pictures as we approached the place where we planned to drop the anchor.
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| "North Carolina Ports" Moorehead City, NC |
We dropped anchor near this structure with an ominous sign next to it. Allowing for a 4-foot increase in tide over the 7 feet of water currently available, and factoring in the 20+ knot winds, we put out about 175 feet of anchor line for the night.
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| Caution Submerged Structure |
Earlier in the day, I asked Clark if I would have time to cook spaghetti after we came in the inlet and before we dropped anchor. I wanted to use electricity while the engines were running. Unfortunately, the old saying "a watched pot never boils" could not have applied more. By the time we got to the place where Clark wanted to drop anchor, the water still had not boiled, so I turned it off to go work on deploying the anchor.
As soon as the anchor was down I went back to my pot, brought the water to a boil, and since it was angel hair pasta, had it done in 4 minutes and ready to eat. Add some left over spaghetti sauce and stir-fry vegetables, and Voila dinner in record time!
At sunset, Clark noticed the sun going down, so I sent him out for a picture as I worked on the blog.
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| Sunset at Moorehead City, NC |
