4-7-2012
We left Barefoot Landing early in the morning, around 6:30. It was a cold 36 degrees. We had a very foggy trip until we passed the Little River Swing Bridge. After that it was a beautiful day. We kept hearing about logs in Snow’s Cut at Carolina Beach, ahead of us but never saw them. Hey, maybe they floated “harmless out to sea”.
 |
| Foggy to the back |
 |
| Foggy to the front. You may not believe it but there are two bridges in that fog. One is a low bridge that will have to open and the other is a tall one about 65 feet tall. Can you see them? We can't either, yet. |
 |
These nice looking boats will charge to take you out in the ocean and left you loose lots of money. Aren’t they nice? |
We are back in North Carolina now. It’s been several months since we were here and even though we had a great time in the Keyes this winter, its good to be closer to family and friends.
 |
| We're not in Myrtle Beach with the huge houses anymore. |
 |
| What happened to this boat? |
We had done lots of planning the night before so we would be in the Cape Fear River at the correct time. Why does it matter? Well, if you get there when the wind and the current are moving in opposite directions, the water is very rough. We wanted them to be going in the same direction so we did all kinds of calculations to let us know when weshould be there. We timed it just right. Even though we were going against the current and had to use more power to do it, we timed it just right, so the trip was not as rough as it might have been.
We had been going 7 kts at 1800 rpms before we got to the Cape Fear and when we got in the wind and current we slowed to 3.8 kts. We were not going very fast and we were running 1800 rpm on both engines. We were going very slow and using lots of fuel to do it. When the current turned, we started doing 9 kts with the same rpms. It would be great if we could always travel with the current, but we can’t so we do the best we can.
 |
| Carolina Beach near the inlet |
 |
| Wrightsville Beach Inlet |
We got to Wrightsville Beach anchorage about 3:30. There were only a few boats so we looked around and picked out our anchorage. We were expecting windy conditions but it was calm.
 |
| Chart book showing our anchorage at Wrightsville Beach |
 |
| A beautiful sunset at Wrightsville Beach. |
 |
| We thought this sailboat looked like it had ran into a bridge and bent the masts. That would be bad. |
 |
| Pirate boat at Wrightsville Beach |
Lauren came and picked us up and we went to her dorm to see how she had decorated it. Well, when we got there she had me a surprise. She had baked me a cake and let me tell you---- it was delicious. She knew I liked coconut and looked for recipes with coconut in them. She saw one with coconut in the cake and frosting that had a raspberry filling and decided to try that. She didn’t have any cake pans, so she baked it in a saucepan, a layer at a time. She said she didn’t spray the pan when she baked the first one, so it didn’t come out very easy. Not to worry, she used that one as a practice layer to fill and ice. The finished cake was beautiful and delicious. She even toasted coconut to put on the icing. I had tasted raspberry filled cake before and forgot how good it is. Shay said it was the best cake he had ever eaten. That’s saying a lot because he’s never turns down a piece of cake. We went out to eat and came back to Lauren’s to have dessert. Of course, she lit a candle and they sang to me.
If you know Lauren, you know she is not a baker or a cake lover so that made this cake even more special. When she was little and had birthday cake, she might take one bite and that was it. Later we started having cheesecake or Oreo cookie cake for her birthday.
We had lunch with her on Easter Sunday. Then we went around to marinas. We are looking at the current and how difficult it will be to get in and out for us and other boats. We found a slip at Dockside which is right downtown Wrightsville Beach, but it is near the fuel dock and other boats will be going in and out. We sat there and watched the comings and goings and there were a lot of young drivers and there was a lot of drinking going on, so we decided to pass it up.
We are calling different marinas up the coast to see where we can get a good rate for a month. Our slip at MCYB is rented until June and we don’t want to make them move. If we can find a good deal we can make money even though we have to pay for a place to stay. We called from Southport to the Oriental area. We found some good rates, but after looking at how far out of our way we would have to travel, we decided to stay in Oriental. We are familiar with the area and can use that as a staging area for our next trip.
We didn’t get to see Lauren on Monday because she had classes and then dance practice. Her showcase is this weekend and she has practice from 7 until… every night this week. I wish we had gotten here earlier in the week, when she was out for Easter break and we could have spent more time with her.
Tuesday we stole her car and took ours to Oriental to leave. We have decided to stay there for about a month. The Ocracoke Festival is the first weekend in June. We can stay at Oriental for 4 or 5 weeks then go to Ocracoke and be there for the festival. We invited Chelle and Marty to come but she teaches class that weekend so they can’t. We called George and Pam and told them if they want to come we will give them the “Honeymoon Suite”. George is checking with Pam to see if she has any vacation she can take then. Then we called Betty and David and asked if they would like to come down. Betty sounded really excited and said she’d talk to David and let us know.
We left 4-11-2012 at 6:30. We knew if we got to the bridge before 7 am we could request an opening, so that was the plan. We got thru the bridge with no trouble. We moved to the edge of the channel to let a boat pass, and went aground at 6:55. We hit what must have been a sandbar. With the tide falling we didn’t want to stay on it long, so we put it in reverse and easily backed off. See what you get when you try to do a good deed? Grounded. Well, it’s the first time we’ve gone aground and it was easy to get off so…
We had a windy day and ran against the current all day. We were also trying to get to a bridge opening so we were keeping a close eye on time and distance. We had it timed just right; we only had to wait a few minutes. Maybe we’re getting the hang of this.
 |
| Have the aliens landed? We never know what we'll see along the waterway. |
 |
| I call it the "Pepto Bismol" house. It's a beautiful place with palm trees, dolphins on the side, and a great looking dock. BUT IT'S UGLY! Was there a 75% off sale on paint? Who knows? |
We followed several boats all day long and were concerned that they would be going to Mile Hammock also. We were pleased that it was empty when we pulled in. We checked out the depths and dropped our anchor about 12:30. We hope there won’t be may other boats here tonight. It can get crowded, remember last fall?
 |
| Helicopters around Mile Hammock |
 |
| The Marines at Camp Lejeune use this area for maneuvers and they can force boats to leave the area. We have been lucky and have never been ran out. |
We got here about 2 pm. We were pleasantly surprized since there were no other boats anchored. We ate lunch--- vegetable beef soup from the crockpot. We sat down to work on taxes and got totally upset. We had stopped at Walmart yesterday and got Turbo Tax. When Shay started using it he realized it was for 2009. Why would they still have it from 2009? Shay called the store and they told him he should be able to return it at another store. But we are anchored out and need to get them done. We called Travis and he mailed his disk to Oriental to get there Friday. We got our papers together and hope the postal service is on time.
We had several helicopters fly over. That’s a common thing at Mile Hammock, since its part of Camp Lejeune. We heard them in the distance all night long but they were not as noisy as they have been in the past.
 |
| Sunset at Mile Hammock |
 |
| Sunrise the next morning |
It’s cold this morning. Its 41 degrees outside and 58 degrees in our bedroom. We turned on the heat to get the chill off. It’s cold enough that we are going to drive inside part of the way. We were planning on leaving at 6:00 but thought it was still too dark to be able to see, so we waited a few minutes. When we started taking up the chain, it was covered in mud. It took longer to get it clean than we expected, so we were later getting going than we wanted. We left at 6:30 and the bridge opens on the hour and half hour. So…we had to rush to get to the next bridge opening.
One of the projects for this season is to fix the deck floors and there is a guy near here that can do that. If you are working on projects, Morehead City is a good place to be.
We were talking about our first trip north last year. We remember traveling here with Refuge and them being boarded by the Coast Guard. We were concerned that we might be, but they were gone when we got there. We talked about how concerned we were last year thinking about docking the boat since we had so little experience. And we are still concerned this year. We have not put the boat in a slip since we were at MCYB last year. Remember, we anchor or moor most of the time. The two times we were at marinas, we were at a side dock and not in a slip. We counted the number of times we’ve been on a side dock and it was 5--- counting a fuel barge in Miami, twice at Marathon to get water, and 2 marinas.
So you can see we are still very inexperienced at going into a slip. Think of parking a bus in a garage and not having breaks, just moving forwards and backwards until you are in place. There are NO brakes on a boat to stop you when you are getting ready to hit something.
We got here around 12:30 and got into the slip with no problems, except I couldn’t get the line over the top of the piling. I don’t know why I would have trouble… I was just trying to get a loop over a telephone pole standing in the water. Does that sound hard? Oh, I forgot to tell you that the pole is 7 feet taller than I am.
 |
| We are in the little square area near the "U". I forgot to mark the place on the chartbook. Look how crooked the "road" is to get to the marina. We went under the bridge and called the dockmaster and told him we were just around the corner. The wind had picked up and we were worried, but Captain Shay did ok again. |
 |
| Captain Shay makes us secure. |
We have plans to go to Lauren's dance showcase this weekend at UNCW. Then we are going back to Mount Airy to visit family and friends. Don't worry, we will be back to the boat soon and we are leaving it in good hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment