Wrightsville Beach and Wilmington

Well, we finally did it! We took off the lines and started our journey south. Our first destination is Wrightsville Beach. The weather is beautiful, so we are going outside. If we did an inside trip down the ICW, it would take us two days. A day to Mile Hammock anchorage and then the next day down to Wrightsville Beach.

Oh, My, our dock buddies. See you down the waterway!

Bye, Bill!

Cassandra, from Cameron Bennett, on her way to school. See you next year!

They live here full time. For the time being.

We decided to go outside since its so much easier than inside. We can set the autopilot and go back to bed. No, just kidding! We are still at the helm keeping watch, but its so much easier out there. No "no wake zones", no slowing down for shoaling, no being passed by go fast boats. Oh, there are boats out here and some are go fast boat, but they aren't usually close to us, so the wake is less.

As  we are getting ready to leave, we notice other boats with their lights on. We won't be the only boat leaving today, as a matter of fact, we weren't the first boat to leave. One boat snuck out about 6:30. I guess he was the "early bird trying to catch the worm".

aCapella following us out of the marina.

One of our caravan.

Sunset on the ocean

He went to work early.

Everybody speeding up in the inlet!

The lighthouse, with the light on!

See you later, Jeff and Karen!

We left in the middle of a caravan of Kathy Krogens,  DeFevers, and others. We all stayed in our places until we got to the inlet and then they all left us. That's ok, we'll get there with more fuel in our tank.

One of the boats. aCapella, is owned by Jeff and Karen. They have an online "interactive cruising guide" that is a wonderful resource for anyone with a boat. It has loads of current, up-to-date information. Cruising books are ok, but most of the time the information is months old or older. The information on Active Captain is entered daily, so it is current. We use AC constantly and it makes our travels so much easier. So if you are a boater and don't know about AC, you are missing out on a great resource.

We had a beautiful sunrise and calm water. Not as calm as some outside passages and not as rough as others. They can't all be perfect, if they were we wouldn't appreciate them as much!

We left MCYB at 6:55 and got to Wrightsville Beach at 5:05. We traveled 69.52nm in 10 hours and 10 minutes. Our moving average was 6.8 kts. We traveled a little faster than our normal 6.25-6.5kts, so we would get to the anchorage and get anchored before dark. It was 52 degrees when we left Morehead. Yes, its time to head south!

Looking at Masonboro Inlet, Wrightsville Beach.

Rock jetty leading into the inlet.

Our anchorage

Coast Guard Station Wrightsville Beach.



As you can see. we were anchored very close to the inlet.

Shay researched the tides and current for our next leg and decided if we left Wrightsville Beach at about 9:15, we'd get a good push from Snow's Cut all the way to Wilmington. We'll take it!

We left at 9:20 and had a great trip. No problems in Snow's Cut, an area that can cause problems if the wind and current are against you. We had a push from the incoming tide all the way to Wilmington. We got to the dock at about 2:30, just as we planned. Yes, I said dock. If you know us, you know that we are not dock people once we start south. We prefer to anchor or take a mooring. We only go to a dock if we have no other choice. Well, Lauren lives 4 blocks up from the Wilmington waterfront and we wanted to spend time with her, so we docked. We usually anchor at Wrightsville Beach for a few days and she comes to visit us, but since we planned to stay longer this time, we went to her.

The infamous Snow's Cut. It can be tricky!

Fishing in the cut.

Dolphin in the tea stained water!

Ferry boat that lets you off right on the beach!

Fishermen at Carolina Beach Inlet

Pretty houses along the way

Carolina Beach

  

We headed up the Cape Fear River toward Wilmington. Escape hasn't been up here before, but we have in our other boat. We met a hug cargo ship in the river. It was 738' long and 108' wide with a draft of 24'. It was traveling 7.9 kts when we met it! You definitely want to stay out of his way!

 

 This bridges lifts up the green section for boats to pass under. Not us.

We traveled a little over 5 hours at 5.2 kts and traveled 26.36nm. We went slow, took our time and got all we could out of the current. We weren't in a hurry, Lauren was teaching.

USS Wilmington

 

Us and the USS Wilmington. Dock buddies!

This shows our travels since leaving Morehead City.

Beautiful sunset for our back deck dinner.

Row, row, row your boat!

Our dockmates, Harry and Leslie heading back home! Nice meeting you!

We had a great visit. The weather was beautiful; temperature mid 70's, blue skies and gentle breeze. We docked behind the Hilton in downtown Wilmington. Lots of restaurants and shops close by. And Lauren was just up the hill. We had a great visit with her on the boat and at her place. We helped her with some chores at her place, took her out to eat, and had her, Roux. Emily and Maggie to the boat for dinner one night. Shay got special treats for Roux, big flavored bones. She loved them! We borrowed Lauren's car and did lots of errands while we were there. It's always nice have a car, once you start traveling.

We are leaving in the morning. It's been fun, but we have places to go and people and things to see. Shay did more research and we don't have to leave until about 10 in the morning. That will get us a nice push down the river. And its nice to not have to get up and crack dawn every morning!

Getting Ready to Leave Morehead City and Head South, Finally

This has been a  busy time. We have finished lots of projects, not all of them were on the check-off list. Got ready for a hurricane haulout that thank goodness didn't happen.  Had a last visit back to Mt Airy to see family and friends.

 

The following pictures show some of the projects we've completed.

 

Our old windshield was cracked and hard to see thru. So we decided to replace it and are pleased with the results.

Old windshield

Consult about a new windshield

More discussions about windshield

And the new one gets installed

With more discussion



And here it is!

We had a very, very low tide this fall

We had three teak inserts in the swim platform that had given us problems for years. We had one section that kept coming apart and we'd put in screws and glue it but it wouldn't hold. So Shay decided we'd replace it with starboard. They look really good.

We replace the old teak sections in the swim platform.

We had our cushions covered this year. You may not be able to tell the difference, since we covered them with the same color, but they look very clean. We also painted some areas on the flybridge like the area between these seats. It all looks good.

We recovered the flybridge cushions. Even though they look the same, these are much cleaner!

We had about 20" of rain and found a leak!

We had about two weeks of rain with over 20" total and of course had a leak. This shows us drying the area at the bottom of our steps going into our bedroom. Still looking for where the leak is, although he has narrowed it down.

Shay demonstrates the new screen door.

We had made screen doors for the boat, but took them down when we refinished the teak around the doors. Shay did hours of research and finally found a screen for a window that would work on the boat. He liked the window screen better than a door screen since it took up less room on the sides and rolled up from the bottom. We only ordered one since we didn't know how it would work, but will order others soon. We like it very much.

 

Shay removed lots of caulk cleaned the decks and replaced the caulk.

Another project was to remove and replace caulk in several places. Well, after you scrap up the old caulk, you have to clean up before you replace. He replaced caulk around the back deck, around the flybridge door, and put new caulk around the new chocks for the dingy.

 

 

Our new dingy didn't really fit in the old chocks, so we took them off and moved them. Shay covered the old holes with a piece of starboard and mounted the chocks on it. I think it looks very professional and the dingy has a great new resting place.

The salon without our table. Our neighbor, Galen, is refinishing the old table top. It makes the salon feel really big, but limits our dinner plans.

We moved our old grill from the side rail to the back of the cockpit and then had to remove it again to put on our new grill, It looks great and cooks great too!

We got new fenders this year and had covers made to protect them. Hopefully the fenders will stay clean and won't get sticky like our old ones. We also had shade screens made and them we installed them. They will block some of the wind and give us shade.

 

 

 The boat is looking good. It's been cleaned and waxed. Got lots of new stuff added. She's ready to go.

During this time we also had a hurricane scare by Joaquin. It was a very bad hurricane for some areas of the Bahamas and forecasted to come ashore at Morehead City. The marina ordered an evacuation, so we scheduled a haulout and started getting ready. That means taking down outside curtains, bimini top, cushions, and anything else loose and moving it inside the boat. That may not sound like a big job, but remember its been raining for two weeks and everything is wet! We put plastic on the salon floor, brought in the cushions, put cans under them and let them dry out so we can move them to the v-berth. We removed all the electronics from the upper helm, taped up the wiring and all the cabinets and brought the electronics down to the v-berth. About this time NOAA started predicting that the hurricane was turning more easterly and would "head harmlessly out to sea". We've talked about that expression before. There's always something out there!

We and two other trawlers in the marina, had haulout times for Friday morning. One at 8:30, us at 11:00 and another at 12:00. We all got together Thursday night and decided to call the boatyard early the next morning and cancel our times and monitor the hurricane. We made the correct call and it saved us at least $1000.00. We also saved ourselves lots of work finishing getting ready to haulout, being at the yard and then coming back and undoing everything we had done. Most of the boats at the marina were hauled and I bet some of them were not happy about all the expense and work. But the hurricane could have kept on its original course and come to Morehead City. You never know what they'll do. Luckily, it went offshore.

This shows how high the water got after all the rain we had.

You can't see it, but there's a dock under all that water.

The ramp is usually angled down, not level.

Empty docks mean a hurricane has been predicted to head our way.

 

 

I like the cheap gas prices!

We went back to Mt Airy for a last visit before heading south. We were lucky, it was Autumn Leaves Festival time and Lauren was there too. I visited with Daddy for a few day and had a great time with him. Lauren visited him and he always enjoys spending time with his grandkids.

 

 

 Lauren was very excited when her grandmother said she was going to make fried apples pies. She was ready to learn how to do that. They had a great time and Lauren says she's ready to do it on her own. She and I took a ride to an orchard owned by her third cousin to get apples for her to take back with her. She loves to do apples pies and apple cobblers. Oh, the rest of use were glad to help eat the fried apple pies!

 

Roux visited her great grandmother for the first time. It was a new place with lots of new things to see and smell. There were two cats there, but they stayed hidden most of the time. Jason and his dog came to visit and Roux was concerned when the other dog played with her new toy. Who did she thing she was?

My babies!

Lauren and Haley

Jean is blessed with beautiful grandgirls! All of them! OK, and handsome grandsons, too!

Our last MCYC sunset for a while. Bye!