19 April 2026
Depart: Cox Ferry anchorage near Conway, SC 8:05 a.m.
Arrive: Tina's Pocket anchorage near Southport, NC 6:00 p.m.
Distance: ~ 70 nm
Conditions: Mostly cloudy, windy at times, ~ 70 degrees
Considering how hot it was in Conway yesterday, today's weather was a remarkable change with cloud cover obliterating any signs of the sun. It certainly felt a lot colder today than yesterday, and we ended up with long-sleeved shirts and jackets with a towel draped over our bare knees for warmth against the chilly breeze.
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| Bundled up against the chill in the air |
As we departed the anchorage, I noticed a platform in the woods which I assume is used during hunting season. I have not seen any ducks around here but that is what came to mind when I saw the platform here and all the camouflage boats yesterday.
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| Wooden platform hidden in the trees |
What little sun we did see today shown brightly on these plants in / next to the waterway as we motored by.
And what do we find around one of the bends but a dead tree taking up most of the width of the already narrow water.
So, how did we go around this??? Looking at the picture, one would expect to go to the right, but more water was on the left.
I could practically reach out and touch the tree trunk if I hadn't been taking a picture at the time!
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I told Clark, "Boating with you sure isn't dull!" The adventures he takes me on get the adrenaline flowing!
The end of this detour dropped us into the ICW at around 9:35 or so. Then it was back to familiar scenery like the Osprey Marina where they have a sign on the waterway advertising their fuel prices.
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| Gas - $4.899 Diesel - $5.189 |
Soon we came to tall, highway bridge where I decided to get some "under the bridge" shots.
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| Socastee Swing Bridge |
Since we were passing through the Myrtle Beach area, we were not surprised to see a golf course.
The tow had done of bit of maneuvering as it came towards us, and later, after we had passed the tow, we found out why. A sailboat was anchored in the middle of the ICW. We speculate that the sailboat broke down and had to drop anchor to await help, but what a place to drop anchor!!
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| Anchored sailboat spinning around in ICW from the wake of the tow! |
Also, due to us passing through the Myrtle Beach area, we were not really surprised to see private jets roaring into a nearby airport. What we did find surprising was how low they came in over the ICW as they approached the airport.
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| Third one, in a short time, coming in to land |
Then, later we saw this cute, lonesome tree that decided to grow in the ICW all by itself!
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| Brave tree standing alone in the river |
Sometimes I see things on the water that worry me. Today I had one of those occasions to see something that caused me great concern. I was piloting our boat as Clark was down below briefly. I looked back to see what was coming up behind me and was horrified by what I saw.
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| Dangerous boating! |
My camera was not cooperating, so I did not get a good picture. But on the boat shown in the picture above sat 3 children, sitting on the very front of the boat, with their feet hanging over the bow without any life jackets on. They were laughing and having a good old time, and all I could think about was how very dangerous that was and how deadly it could become. Never mind the US Coast Guard would have some harsh words to say about this negligent behavior. It is so very dangerous and deadly should one fall in, be swept under the boat, and be chopped into pieces by the props!
As we continued down the waterway, we noticed that the winds were picking up. We saw a construction site up ahead and noticed that they had a dust storm going on. As we approached we started to notice dust particles interfering with our breathing, so we rapidly closed up the full enclosure to keep as much dust out as possible. Dust was flying on both sides of the ICW.
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| Cough cough!!! |
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| Sneeze sneeze!! |
Today seemed to be our lucky day for bridges as we came to another bridge that stayed open for us to pass, so once again, we did not have to wait for an opening.
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| Little River Swing Bridge, SC |
Given that, we must be quickly approaching the SC / NC borderline.
I never know what will catch my attention - will it be the underside of a bridge, a pretty house, or boats of all different types and sizes?
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| "Starship" Charter Boat |
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| "SHRIMP" (only thing written on stern) Fishing Trawler |
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| "Sea Thunder" Racing boat |
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| "The Big M Casino" Offshore Gambling Cruise boat |
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| No Name Boat St. Johns River, NY, NY |
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| "Sea Racer" Tourist Boat |
We passed a new development just beginning to be under construction.
and a couple of restaurants on the river's edge.
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| Crab Catchers Restaurant |
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| Seabrisa's Seafood Restaurant |
And then, we came to the Calabash River that basically divides SC from NC. For years a wrecked trawler sat on the side of the ICW. Finally, it was removed. The waterway was clear of wrecks for less than a year when another grounded trawler appeared around the corner on the Calabash River's edge. That's somebody's livelihood sitting there! Its been here a couple of years, so it's not going anywhere fast.
When we entered North Carolina, we found it to be not very welcoming. We heard security warnings over the VHF radio from the US Coast Guard for dredge pipes in the ICW. Up ahead we could see dredging equipment, currently not under operation due to it being a Sunday.
The first dredging operation we came to was at the Shalotte Inlet, where we found very skinny water. We were passing through here two hours off low tide, and we had only one foot of water under the keel! As we navigated through here, Clark had his eyes glued to his charts with one that is color-coded to show depths. I called out the depths shown on our two depth sounders. We made it through but it was exciting.
We passed the Sea Mist Camping Resort (what a name),
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| Interesting contraption! |
We were still wondering where those dredging pipes were that the USCG kept saying were across the ICW. We never did figure out exactly where that hazard was hiding. Fortunately, we did not find it here either. What we did find was places with little-to-no-water under our keel.
Clark's chart showed red on our starboard side, so he kept moving to port. Meanwhile, I was calling out numbers on the port side that showed less water than on the starboard side. Clearly the chart and reality did not agree. Finally, I got through to Clark that we were out of water when the depth finder showed -0.1 feet under the keel. With that, he decided he better move to starboard regardless of the chart's display!
Given the above, we did touch bottom but not hard and other than the depth finder saying so, I would never have known. Looking at pictures of the area, it is clearly a low tide!
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| Mud Flats! |
Docks sitting on the bottom in mud ...
Birds strolling along the water's edge that will be a few feet deep at high tide.
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| Crane wading through the mud |
As we came through here, it was approaching 5:00 p.m. and we had a decision to make on our destination for the night. Clark had talked with our friends on "Journey" in Carolina Beach and had an invitation to stay at their marina tonight. If we get the Cape Fear River running in a favorable direction, we had time to get there from here. If not, it would be around sunset when we would arrive there.
Our other choice, Clark's original plan, would be to drop anchor at Tina's Pocket to the side of the Cape Fear River. To make the decision more interesting, we had the weather to consider. As we traveled this afternoon, the wind picked up and was currently gusting to around 20 knots. Should we anchor where we are more exposed than we would be in a marina, or should we attempt to dock at an unknown dock, near dark, in 20 knot winds with no help since no one would be at the docks to assist us? Tough choice.
Tina's Pocket would put us shut down for the night around 6:00. The marina would have us done for the night around 7:45 or so. I had not planned on chewing off my fingernails through the mud flats. My hope was that I would be able to prepare dinner for us while underway. That did not happen and I had to make a quick change of menu for tonight's dinner, i.e. pull something easy to cook out of the freezer to thaw out by the time we shut off the engines. Either anchoring / docking solution would not allow for cooking underway.
Two things happened to force our hand into anchoring in Tina's Pocket. First, the Cape Fear River would not be cooperating, and we would be fighting current as we made our way to Carolina Beach thus adding a lot of time to our travel. Second, the wind teased us into thinking it was dropping. It went from showing 20 knots gusts to a mere 10 knots.
As soon as we made the decision to anchor, the winds came back up again, but the decision had been made. Anchoring in wind felt safer than backing into a strange slip, near dark, in the wind!
By the time we had the boat "put to bed", i.e. anchor down and engines off, the steaks I pulled out had thawed. I was able to start on dinner right away, and we could eat dinner at a reasonable time of day.
So, when we would have been pulling into a slip had we continued on, we were instead admiring the sunset we could see from the bow of our boat. It just kept getting better and better.
Clark got to watch the tv shows he likes on Sunday nights, and I got to write up a blog entry. We put out a lot of line for the wind and had no issues with the anchor all night. It was the right decision to stop. The temperature when we went to bed was around 48 degrees. We put a blanket on the bed and wore our cold-weather nightwear.
20 April 2026
Depart: Tina's Pocket anchorage near Southport, NC 9:15
Arrive: Carolina Beach Marina sometime around 10:30 or so (unclear)
Distance: ~ 11 nm
Conditions: cloudy and around 50 degrees or so
Clark said that we had time to wait this morning for the current to be in our favor on the Cape Fear River. I ate a leisurely breakfast while working on the NY Times daily puzzles, Wordle and such. I had written the blog update last night but waited until this morning to post it. No one really wants a text at midnight so I try to avoid doing that. As we prepared to leave, Clark got a phone call from a boating friend, which he completed before he started up the engines.
As I waited for Clark to be ready to bring the anchor up, I was checking out the charts to see where we needed to go. In the lower center portion of the chart picture, one can see the boat icon for our boat sitting in "Tina's Pocket".
In this chart display our boat appears more in the center of the chart with the red line coming from the bow showing the line of travel to the Cape Fear River far away from the red zones.
After studying the charts, I looked up and saw a Cape Fear Ferry going by on the river.
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| Ferry "Fort Fisher" at Southport, NC |
Finally all was ready, we had the anchor up and were on our way. We had a relatively short day today, only 11 nautical miles. As we turned into Snow's Cut from Cape Fear, I noticed a double-masted sailboat up ahead. The boat was from Toronto and was called something that might be "What Knot" but only a portion of the name was showing on the stern, so the actual name could be quite different.
A bit further on, we saw another sailboat way off to the side of Snow's Cut. Clark was going to hale the vessel for passing until I pointed out that the boat was anchored, the ladder in the stern was down in the water, and the dinghy was missing. Nobody's home!
The sun was out and the landscape made interesting reflections on the water, so I got busy with the camera.
As I turned back to the starboard side of the boat from the port, I was surprised to see two people standing in the woods waving to me.
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| Woman and Man just left of center |
A little further on I saw further proof of civilization as two folks were sitting in chairs with their fishing poles in the water.
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| Two fishermen on Snow's Cut |
Because it was just over 10 nm to the marina, we arrived there quickly. Before I knew it Clark was sending me down to prep lines and fenders for coming into the marina. He had directions from our friend, Steve, where to find the slip. He told us it would be a port side tie. He was wrong!
Steve said we should pull into the slip four down from his. As we came in we passed a couple of boats we had seen here on our last visit.
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| "Nice Aft" Try saying that 3 times fast on the radio! |
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| Our friend's boat "Journey" |
When we arrived at the designated slip, I had lines and fenders in place on the port side, but as Clark was backing into the slip, I yelled, "Stop! It's not a port side tie and I have no lines in place!"
Sadly, Clark had to abort his near-perfect approach coming into the slip to loop around and give me time to move my lines. As we pulled into the slip, I realized that all the cleats were "full" with the slip-owner's lines. I quickly yanked my lines out of the way to use his. We had just finished getting the lines tied and adjusted to our comfort level when we got the news that we could not stay in this slip.
Normally, it would not be a problem but workmen were expected to come today to remove a damaged pole next to that slip. They did not want our boat to be in danger of getting damaged. So, we had to start the engines, throw off the lines here and move to another slip, where, we had to tie on the port side! All my lines were now on the starboard side and had to be moved over as Clark wiggled his way one slip over!
Nothing makes me so crazy as setting up my lines for port and finding the slip needs starboard or vice versa. Something that can be done without stress when given good upfront knowledge becomes a rushed, last-minute fire drill! Grrr! Steve arrived after we tied up the first time but before we had to move, so thankfully, I got help from him releasing and tying lines after that.
We had a lovely offer from Tricia to come to their house with our laundry for the afternoon. Since my pile of laundry was about ready to take over the boat, it was a much-appreciated offer. We have never been to their house, which is lovely and like visiting a nature park. She is a naturalist and has many native plants in her yard and no grass to mow at all.
She was busy taking advantage of the cool weather to work in the garden today.
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| Tricia and Ev |
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| side path |
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| nature trail in backyard |
Flowers in bloom!
Garden decorations!
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| "Hidden" gems on the ground |
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| Bird Feeders in the trees |
Everywhere we looked there was something of interest to see - inside the house and in the yard.
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| Lap Pool |
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| Chimes hanging from tree near the pool |
Just like a place one would pay to tour, many of the plants are labeled making the setting look very professional.
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| "Magnolia Grandiflora" |
Decorations on the outside sitting area...
As we watched the pool, we saw a solar-powered device by "Betta" that skims debris off the top of the pool. I told Clark we should take bets on whether it would scoop up a leaf or miss it. It was a fun "game" to watch for a while.
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| Betta chasing leaves in the pool |
During our visit we walked down to the end of their street to look at the boat slips owned by some of the residents. The water was at low tide and, as such, was not so pretty to look at. All those black lumps in the water are oysters. Unfortunately, the water quality is such that they are not edible.
Mounds of oysters produce navigation hazards with much of the water unusable at lower tides. A path is marked by white poles as aids to navigation through here.
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| closer up view of the oysters |
Tricia and Steve took us out to dinner at a local restaurant tonight. Friends of theirs that we met in the past joined us - Mary Kay and James (boat "Merry K"). We went to Fish Bites.
The food was great. We decided to pass on the giant cakes they offered for dessert and went to Boombalatti's for ice cream instead.
After dinner and dessert, Steve dropped us, and our now clean laundry, off at the marina for the night. We will see them again in the morning!
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