Along the Waccamaw river

We cast off from Barefoot Landing Marina at 7:30am, waved goodby to the many outlet shops, and were off to Georgetown, SC. Our plan is to stay there till sunday and so hide from a tremendous gale forming off Cape Hatteras with winds of 30 knots or more extending down to our area. A very good plan!

The initial part of the trip took us past a golf course that had a unique feature in that the clubhouse was on one side of the ICW and the course on the other side. Gondolas passing over the ICW ferried golfers back and forth.

Gondolas carrying golfers over the ICW

We passed under numerous fixed bridges and encountered one swing bridge, the Socastee swing bridge which opens on request (which it very graciously did). The curious thing about this bridge is that just beyond it is a fixed  bridge arching over the waterway and the initial plan was to retire and remove the swing bridge, except the local townsfolk objected and got it named as an historic site, and so it remains...till the next budget cut I"m sure.

Soon after we came to the Waccamaw river, which becomes part of the ICW for about 20 miles, carrying us to Georgetown. The river is the center of a very large wildlife preserve, with almost no inhabitants and a glorious abundance of trees, swamps and other vegetation. I saw plenty of birds but no animals along the wayd. The river is  wide, deep and curvy and was a treat to pass down

It was absolutely gorgeous! I took dozens of pictures, and I share just a small sample here

It took us nearly 3 hours to pass through the Waccamaw river valley and I"d look forward to doing it again. There are many places to anchor in the many creeks that open into the river, very well protected,  and I think it would be fun to spend some time at anchor here...it would surely be peaceful

After yet another fixed bridge, the Lafayette bridge, we came to Georgetown and in particular to the Harborwalk Marina, our home for the next two days. After tying up we went for a walk into town (the main street - Front street - is one block away. It is Halloween and the custom of this town is for all the kids (and many adults) to dress up in costume and parade up and down Front street...staring and being stared at. The shopkeepers all sit out side their stores with lots of candies, giving it to anyone in costume..sadly we weren't prepared and got no candies

A view looking up Front street..crowded with people of all ages, many in costume

There are many fine restaurants on Front Street and so while we got no candy, we did have a fine dinner.

Finally, the sunset view, which I love taking as we travel down the waterway

Looking out from the dock, over Priority's bow, to the sunset

As always, the map of the voyage is available by "Clicking here" under the MAP heading at the upper right of the blog.

Tomorrow I plan to tour the Rice museum and the Maritime Museum (this will be the third one I've seen this trip).

We cast off from the docks at the Provisioning Company at 8am sharp..or at least we tried. Rich, who you remember was in the slip next to mine was hard aground...there is a 5 foot tide in Southport and at low tide, which it was at 8am, his keel was in the mud. My depth meter, which is set to be zero at the keel, was reading 0.0! Happily I was able to back out without a problem. Rich, after a few tries, was able to gun the engine and effectively plow his way out..no harm to his keel from the soft mud.

It had rained during the night and it was cold, with on and off rain, and the wind was blowing, and it was cold!. I dressed in full foul weather gear,  with boots, a bib (sort of a farmer jones outfit with straps over the shoulders), a warm jacket and hood, a wool hat (the one I bought in Madison to support the Badgers) and mittens...did I say it was cold?

It stayed cold for the next 3 hours as we worked out way south on the ICW, but happily by 11am the sun came out and it warmed up enough that I could take off much of the foul weather gear and replace the boots with real shoes..I did keep the wool hat on. I would have taken pictures but couldn't work the camera with the mittens on..and I wasn't about to take them off.

The views were much the same as before, although there more houses, and some were grander.

It got interesting several miles before we came to North Myrtle beach (our destination for today) as we passed through the "rock pile". This is a 3 mile section of the ICW that appears to have been blasted through solid rock. It is narrow, with rocky walls and rocks strewn just below the water on both sides. Warning signs are posted just before this section begins

Warning sign entering the "Rock Pile"

Rock Walls along the "Rock Pile"

Soon we had passed through, luckily without hitting any rocks and soon came to Barefoot Landing Marina, our destination for today. The Marina is a long face dock and we had berths all in a line.

Looking back..Rich's boat "Chris-Lea" is just behind me

Looking forward, we're all in a line

The main feature of this marina is that it abuts an outlet mall, full of hundreds of shops, ranging from Izod and Van Heusen and other name brand outlets to small "Tchotske" shops such as "Purpleology" (a store selling only purple clothes and such). Luckily there are at least 3 ice cream stores and several restaurants as well.

The view from the deck of my boat to the outlets shops

We took a tour through the mall...I was able to resist the clothes, but not the ice cream!

I don't have the obligatory sunset view (trees blocked the view) so I have a picture from last nights dinner at the restaurant in Southport

Hayden on the left, Bob in the middle, me on the right.

Tomorrow we are off to Georgetown where we will stay for two days, hiding from a large gale building over Hatteras. That gale is predicted to have hurricane force winds at its center, with 30 knot winds extending down to our area, but we'll be tied up in what is reputed to be a real nice town...

As always, the map of our voyage is available by clicking on the link at the top right area of the blog (where it says "click here"

On to Southport

We raised anchor at 9:45 in Wrightsville Beach, timed to make Snow's cut at 11:30 when the current would be in our favor. This is a narrow, short canal that connects Carolina Beacn with the Cape Fear river and can be difficult to traverse against the current...we made it just fine.

We traversed Masonboro Sound and then Myrtle Grove sound, both shallow bodies of water bordered on  the eastern portion by barrier reefs on the eastern side and  beachfront homes on the western (inland) side, each with its own dock and lifts to hold their boats out of the water when they aren't being used. The ICW is dredged along the western (inland) side and the stuff that was dredged was piled up to make a line of little islands (spoils) along the eastern border of the iCW. These spols are now wooded and look quite nice. (thats some spoils on the left of this image..houses on the right.

Houses to the right, Spoils to the left

As mentioned we made Snows cut just fine and then out into the Cape Fear river. Apparently this river, which is broad and with currents that can run as high as 6 knots can be boistrous, but was calm today as we went along it for several miles before rejoining the ICW

the entrance to Carolina Beach, at the junction with Snow's cut

Entering Snow's cut, with the Carolina Beach (fixed) bridge arching over it

Just after getting back on the ICW we turned off into Southport and docked in the Southport provisioning plant, a very nice restaurant with an arrangement that if you eat dinner there the slip is free...a very good deal.

As I was about to maneuver into my slip i looked up and saw Rich Fieldhouse on the dock...he had come in a few hours ago and I dragooned him into heloing me dock.

Rich Fieldhouse in the slip next to mine in Sourthport

Rich had the slip next to mine at Harborview until he retired several years ago and now single-hands up and down the east coast..we had several dinners over the summer (he was back in Baltiimore to get his annual medical checkups) during which I plied him with questions about the details of single-handing on the ICW...it was great seeing him here in Southport.

In my slip in Southport, in front of the restaurant

He joined us all for dinner at the restaurant and in fact he will be joining our litlle flotilla at least as far as the next stop (Landing Bridge Marina in Myrtle Grove).

I had a chance to walk around the town...its very nice, with a wonderfull Maritime museum, an old fashioned candy store, and many very nice looking older homes...It seems to be quite prosperous, unlike Elizabeth City for example. 

The really neat candy store

A sign post in back of the museum (the other two sides were in spanish and arabic)

And of course the obligatory sunset views

Tomorrow on to Myrtle Beach and the outlet stores

On to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

Afteer a quiet night we raised anchor promptly at 7:30am, getting an early start because we had to pass four bridges. The bridges on the ICW are of two types...fixed and moveable. 

The fixed bridges on the ICW are all a minimum of 64 feet high (excepting one bridge, the Marie Tuttle bridge just north of Miami) and since my mast is only 54 feet high these are of no consequence.

The moveable bridges (swing, draw, lift) are 12 - 20 feet high in their closed position and so have to be opened to allow sailboats to pass. Some bridges open on request but most operate on a fixed schedule of either every hour or every half-hour. Timing the opening is critical because if you are not within 1/2 mile of the bridge when it opens you have to wait for the next opening.Three of the bridges we passed today were the moveable type: the Surf City bridge, the Figure 8 Island Beach bridge that's really the name of the island the bridge connects to) and the Wrightsville Beach bridge Through careful planning (Hayden and Radeen worked their computers hard) we were at each bridge within 10 minutes of its opening

 Moondance just passing the only fixed bridge of today's passage

 Island Spirit approaching the Surf City swing bridge. It pivots around its center, opening passges to right and left. 

Today's portion of the ICW was a bit more built  up than previous parts.Some stretches were lined with beach type houses, looking a lot like the Rockaway's of our youth

But there was several far more grand houses, and then there was this most unusual house (unusual for North Carolina)

Pink house, grand entrance, ringed with palm trees...fantastic!

There were the many beautiful stretches along the waterway

Looking across the dunes towards the ocean (which you can't quite see)

Passing the last bridge - the Wrightsville  Beach bridge we found the waterway full of boats off all types  and sizes docked at marina's packed cheek to jowl on both sides of us..we picked our way through the crowd and took a cut-off towards the beach and to an anchorage (Mott's Channel Anchorage) which is large with lines of houses on both sides and al low fixed bridge at one end. Anchoring was a bit tricky asthere was a large(1knot) current flowing south and a moderate wind (10-15 knots) flowing the opposite direction. Following Hayden's advice I quickly lowered the anchor and 75 feet of chain, then decided to lower another 25 feet off chain (I have 250 feet of chain in the chain locker) and then backed up hard to evercome the wind and tide and set the anchor. ..So far so good!..love that new anchor!

View of the anchorage, looking towards the bridge which forms the northern end off the ield

View from the bridge..Priority is the one in back, second from the left.

Afteer a brief rest to tidy up, Hayden and Raydeen came by on their dinghy to pick me up. We went over to Bob and Nina's boat, but they decided not tojoin us.

We went to the dinghy dock that the town provides, walked one block to the beach and was suitably impressed

Looking South on this very large, very clean, mostly empty, beautiul beach

Hayden and Radeen

As always you can view a map of our voyage by clicking on the link to the map at the to right of this blog.  By default it shows the past 24 hours, but you can see previous days, or all days, by choosing one of the options to the left of the map.

Tomorrow we are on to Southport where we'll tie up behind a restaurant (the dock is free if we have dinner at the restaurant)...what could be better!

Moving South again

I cast off at 8:30 this morning, waited till my fellow travelers raised anchor and we left Beaufort, heading towards and anchorage called Mile Hammock Bay. It is at the southern margin of Camp Lejsune, the marine training camp, of which more later

I am constantly impressed by how beautiful the ICW is..the canals and rivers are tree-lined, with occasional houses and large areas that are fields of sawgrass, cattails and such. 

The firest part of our trip was through t he Bogue Sound, which is a large, shallow body of water protected from  the Atlantic Ocean by  chain of barier reafs. The ICW itself is a narrow canal (about 100 feet wide, dredged through the western (inland) portion of the Sound. We could occasionally see the ocean, but mostly saw the dunes and trees on either side of us. 

Towards the end of the sound we were joined by a pod of Dolphins who played around our boats, jumping over the bow wakes. This time I got a few pictures

We negotiated a swing bridge - The Onslow Beach Swing Bridge - which hapilly opens every helf hour so we only had to wai 25 minutes (poor planning on our part). Its a bit challenging to wait for a bridge opening..boats millilng around, current flowing, wind blowing..but finally the bridge opens and we scoot through

To pass through camp lejeune, you first have to ascertain that they are not doing live ammunition firing excercises (which you can check on the web,, or by VHF, or just look at an arrngment of flashing lights that is posted at the entrance to the range

We lucked out...no firing today!

The Mile Hammock Anchorage was dredged out some time ago and has a narrow entrance into a perfectly square area that can accomodate lots of boats...tonight there were only about 10.

A quiet, peaceful, reasonbly well protected, anchorage just off the ICW

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of my new anchore...it just digs in and gives me a nice secure feeling. I still back down on it to help set it, and confirm that it is holding, but then I relax.

Finally, the obligatory sunset views

Another nice day, capped with a dinner of chicken (which Molli had cooked and then we froze), steamed vegetables from a frozen package, salad (lettuce stays fresh if you bang out the core,  rinse and then put it in a ziplock bag with a damp paper towel and put itin the fridge)..so far its two weeks and is perfect!)...and of course some wine

Quiet day in Beaufort

Spent the day not doing much of anything here in Beaufort. Did the wash at the machines in the marina. Borrowed the Courtesy car to drive with Bob to the West Marine in Morehead city (the neighboring town) to pick up a pump for his house water to replace the one the has been intermittent. While there picked up some oill for Hayden to replace the oil from his windlass that leaked out as he was trying to repair the brushes on the electric motor (his windlass has been intermittent as well).
Spent the rest of the day just reading and relaxing.
At sundown,

Island Spirit on left, Moondance on the right

Greg and Kate came by to pick us up to go to a nice fish restaurant nearby..good, but not as good as the meal last night at their home

Tomorrow we continue the voyage, heading south to an anchorage, Mile Hammock Bay, just within the borders of Camp Lejeune.

Through Adam's Creek to Beaufort

After a slow morning we cast off promptly at 10am and headed out into the Neuse River. It was a clear, calm, warm morning with almost no wind. The surface of the river was smooth as glass..like the Chesapeake gets in July and August

Leaving River Dunes and heading out into the Neurse River

We motored across the Neuse and entered the Adam's Creek/Canal which would take us to Beaufort. 

Passing a tug as we crossed the Neuse

Oriental as seen from the Neuse

Adam's creek is tree lined with occasional houses along its bank, some small and unpretentious, some large and would fit nicely in a community of MacMansions. But mostly the creek was empty and peaceful and very pretty

Entering Adam's Creek

An Adam's Creek scene

Looking down Adam's Creek

Shoreline view

It took about 4 hours to traverse Adam's Creek and just before the end we pulled into a fuel dock. I"m using 0.8 - 1 gallon per hour (we motor at about 6 knots - so  I"m getting a bit over 6 miles to the gallon) and its been about 35 hours since we last refueled.

The Dock attendant was a nice fellow who talked and sounded exactly like "Mader" in the Car's movies. The kids would have loved him.

Just as I was pulling into the fuel dock I noticed two Dolphins along my starboard bow, but I was too occupied with docking that I didn't get a chance to grab a picture...I"ll get some pictures eventually!

In about another hour we pulled into Town Creek. The other two boats decided to anchor out but I"m not yet enough of a cruiser to forgo the pleasures of the boat's electrically driven heat pump and the comfort of being tied to a dock....but I'm getting there.

So I pulled into the Town Creek Marina that is adjacent to the anchorage

An hour later Greg Kerlin, a former IP350 owner who lives in Beaufort picked us up and drove us to his home. He and his wife Kate have a habit of befriending Island Packet owners and hosting them for wonderful dinners...Kate is a marvelous cook - this night she made chicken and eggplant parmigiano and Greg provided some very nice Italian wines to go with it. I was initially concerned that I might lose weight on this trip....not gonna happen!

After a very nice dinner and conversation they loaned us his car and we drove back to the marina...and so to bed