Wrightsville Beach to Morehead City Yacht Basin

Wrightsville Beach to Morehead City Yacht Basin

4-10 thru 4-14



Holly and Jason enjoying the ride to Wrightsville Beach



We got to Wrightsville Beach 4-10-11 with no problems. Lauren came to the boat that evening and we ate at Dockside. After dinner Shay and Jason took Lauren’s car to Southport to pick up Jason’s car. They took Lauren’s car back to school and then back to the boat.

We are only about 15 minutes from Lauren at UNCW, so she came back on Monday and we all ate an early lunch before her class. We ate at Tower Nine, a Tex-Mex restaurant. Lauren recommended it to us and we all enjoyed our meals. Lauren went to class, Jason and Holly went to spend time on the beach, and Shay and I walked for exercise. Shay gave Jason a quick dinghy driving lesson so they could go to shore whenever they wanted.

After her class, Lauren came back to the boat and tried out our hammock.

We had forgotten about it when the girls were at Vero Beach. You can tell from the picture that she enjoyed it. Jason and Holly met a friend of Holly’s and ate dinner with her. Lauren ate with us and then went back to school to practice for her dance show later this week. Shay and I sorted through a month of mail that Jason brought to us. We had a windy day and Shay put out an extra anchor just in case. The boats were close and we didn’t want to take any chances.



Lauren, Jason and Holly




Holly and Jason cuddling on the flybridge



 Enjoying the view



Jason showing off this piloting skills



Jason and Holly left after breakfast. We really enjoyed having them visit. We called to see what Lauren’s plans were. She had thought about coming back tonight but the forecast called for rain, so we didn’t get to see her. Just as we got the dinghy up and extra anchor in, it started raining. It’s a good thing Lauren didn’t come back to visit, she would have had a wet dinghy ride back to the dock and a wet walk back to her car. We were sad that we didn’t get to see her today, but we will see her at her dance recital at UNCW this weekend.

We left Wrightsville 4-13-11 and went to spend the night at Mile Hammock Beach. I messed up calculations for the bridges when we left Wrightsville. First of all the bridge near our anchorage opens every hour and we missed the 7 am opening, so we had to wait to leave. Then after we did get started, we realized we had miscalculated again. We called the bridge tender and told her we were on the way and she told us we had 2 minutes. We went faster through the no wake area than we should and barely made it on time. Then I miscalculated the time it would take us to get to the Surf City Bridge and we had to waste an hour. We ran on one engine to slow us down enough. I’ve got to pay more attention to times and bridge openings in the future. Other than those problems, we had a good trip with good weather with moderate wind and slightly choppy water.  When we pulled into Mile Hammock, we saw Debrief and Shay recognized the boat. It was one ww had gone to Charleston to look at several years ago. It was called Mary K then. Of course, Shay called the boat and spoke to the owner and then we went over for a visit. Several other boats came in and one group had a “raft up”. One boat dropped its anchor and the other two boats just tied up to it. Shay said they must be doing an anchor test, and we both hope they have a good one.

Mile Hammock is an anchorage in Camp Lejune Army Base and we had been told we might have planes and helicopters flying around us. And we did. The plane was very unusual, it could go straight up to take off, then the motors would change position and the plane would go forward. Of course I didn’t have my camera with me when the plane was taking off and landing. The plane stopped about dark and then the helicopters started. They must have been practicing landing and taking off in the dark, cause that’s all they did. Take off, circle around, land and then do it all again. This went on for several hours, but we were so tired it didn’t really bother us. But the “no see’ums” sure did.

We left bright and early 4-14-11. We will finally be home today. We have had a long trip getting here. We have been to some beautiful places, met some great people and learned a lot but we will be glad to get to our homeport today.