Depart: Duck Creek Anchorage near Georgetown, South Carolina 7:55
Arrive: Tina's Pocket Anchorage, Cape Fear River, NC 6:15
Distance: 89 nm
Clark said we would have a long day on the water today and needed to get an earlier start than usual. Fortunately, it was a short distance from the anchorage to the inlet and quickly we were out in the ocean at South Carolina and on our way to North Carolina.
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| Floating Swing Bridge closing |
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| Floating Swing Bridge Closed |
As we traveled the inlet, the sea gulls chased us. It felt like a remake of the Hitchcock thriller "The Birds" as they shrieked and swooped down at us. I was happy when I saw a trawling vessel coming into the inlet as the sea gulls decided to abandon us to see what the other boat had to offer.
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| Sea Gull Storm at Sea |
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| Our savior! |
Once we were out in the ocean, we took a path that took us to the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. The orange in the picture is the SC / NC coast. The line connecting the two points shows our planned course. A travel time for the course line showed as just under 7 hours. Fortunately, we found a good Myrtle Beach radio station to listen to along the way.
At our furthest point on our path, Clark measured our distance to be 16 miles offshore. Near that point I noticed that a very distinctive line crossed the water where the color of the water was brown on one side and blue on the other.
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| Color change of the ocean water |
Being so far offshore, we motored out there for hours and saw nothing but water. Clark got so excited when he saw another boat, he took a picture for proof!
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| A boat! A boat! |
Early afternoon, after lunch, Clark got the "sleepies". I stretched out on the bench seat on the upper helm and Clark cried, "Foul! No Fair! I can hardly stay awake and you get to take a nap?!" Since I was not tired, I offered to swap. He took me up on that offer!
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| Nap time for Clark! |
Around 2:30 we crossed the state line into North Carolina. We would never have known had it not shown as a dotted line on the chart.
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| Making progress - only 3 hours to go to inlet entrance |
Finally, at 5:00, we arrived at the inlet with Southport on the south side and Bald Head Island on the north.
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| Bald Head Island ahead |
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| Bald Head Island |
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| Southport, NC |
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| Southport, NC |
We had some wave action coming into North Carolina.
As we came in, we saw the Bald Head Island Ferry.
Even though we got to the inlet entrance around 5:00, it took over an hour to get to our chosen anchorage and get settled for the night. The majority of that time was spent traveling the length of the inlet. We anchored on the Cape Fear River near the Ferry terminal across from a plant with a very long dock.
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| North Carolina - home of extra long docks |
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| Long Dock for the Plant across from our chosen anchorage on Cape Fear River |
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| Sunset on Cape Fear River |
12 May 2020
Depart: Tina's Pocket Anchorage - Cape Fear River NC 8:25
Arrive: Beaufort, NC 7:20
Distance: 91 nm
When Clark read the reviews for our chosen anchorage, he saw that wakes from the ferry could be an issue, but the ferries stopped running at 11:00 p.m. Well, something waked our boat at 2:00 a.m. and it was a wild ride like a bucking horse. I thought I would be thrown out of bed and wondered that the anchor held us. After that the wind and boat motion kept me awake for quite a while before I finally drifted off again.
We woke to 47 degrees outside. As we move north, we see colder temperatures every morning. We started in Florida needing no covers and now are up to a sheet and two blankets.
At night, when I go to bed, I ask Clark what time he wants to leave in the morning. Last night, he said he did not want to rush out because he did not want to fight the current in Cape Fear. Given that, I was surprised when he asked at 8:15 if I was ready to go. He studied the charts last night and came up with a plan to go on the outside, which meant another long day on the ocean. We had to get going! We cut ten minutes off our trip when the anchor came up clean and did not require wash-down time.
We traveled through Snow's Cut at 9:30 and arrived at Masonboro Inlet near Willmington, NC at 11:00. Some sights on the ICW ...
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| Rocks not visible at high tide! |
Clark said the marine forecast said 5-foot waves at a 5 second period. Yikes! This inlet is short. As we transited the inlet, I said, "So where are these 5-foot seas?" "Ha ha, not here!", Clark replied. We had more like two-foot rollers.
Pictures of the Masonboro inlet ...
I groaned when Clark said we had 7 hours on the water again today. At least today we could see the shoreline albeit barely when we got to 9 miles off.
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| Leaving Masonboro Inlet and starting our ocean travel |
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| Like yesterday we got excited to see another boat |
Waves hit on our bow today and caused the boat to rock like a wild rocking horse. Eventually things settled down a bit to reduce the up and down action. We never did see any 5-foot waves.
When we arrived at the Beaufort inlet, we had following seas with opposing current. It caused quite a lot of "chop" and considerable strife for the autopilot.
Beaufort, North Carolina dead ahead!
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| Coming into Beaufort, NC |
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| Pretty sailboats docked in Beaufort |
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| Black boat docked in Beaufort |
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| Duke University Marine Lab docked in Beaufort |
Clark spoke to our friend Dave on Amelie, who lives near Beaufort, about anchorages. The only problem with the one Dave recommended was the number of sailboats who beat us to it. After surveying the situation and considering our limited options, we finally dropped our anchor near the inlet and hoped for the best. We felt exposed, and Clark left extra lights and the AIS on to let folks know we are sitting here overnight.
After searching for a spot to drop our anchor, dropping it and then pulling it up and resetting it, we finally called ourselves done with today's travel at close to 7:30 at night. I had no idea at 8:00 this morning that I would be traveling for almost 12 hours today. Fortunately I had some leftovers in the fridge. Those, in conjunction with a couple of steaks I thawed out as we traveled, became our quick dinner.
I even managed to capture a sunset picture to include in today's blog update.
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