Morehead City to Wilmington 2016

We left Morehead City at 7:20 heading down the ICW.

Bye Kay!

Bye Galen, Kirsten, and of course Daisy! We'll miss our dock neighbors!

Our first of many bridges this cruising season.

Our first of many sunrises this cruising season.

 Our first stop will be Mile Hammock. We have not been on this area of the ICW in a while and are concerned at what we will find. Hurricane Matthew came up the east coast in October and did a lot of damage. There was extensive flooding in NC, which means higher than normal water levels, shoaling and sometimes missing or moved markers. We have talked to other boaters that have gone down since the hurricane and shouldn't have any problems the next few days. We just have to pay attention.

Shrimp boats along the ICW

 

Very unusual boat

We are usually traveling on this bridge not in the waterway in this area.

We have not traveled in the ICW here for a while. We have been going on the outside back and forth to Wrightsville Beach the last few times. The town in the pictures above is Swansboro and is a cute little town. We used to stop there when we had our other boat, but not with Escape.

Not a good angle for a boat. Shay said it probably had some water in it. Ya think?

Targets along the ICW in Camp LeJeune.

Marines fishing

Southern Star at Mile Hammock. We traveled with them today.

We didn't have any problems, but did see one boat that was grounded and heard several others on the VHF. The boat we saw had not paid attention and did not follow the markers. He was out of the marked channel. What did he expect?

We traveled a little over 5 hours, at 7.0kts, went almost 40nm. Our average speed was lots higher than our normal 6.25nm because we got a big push from the current.

We were welcomed to the anchorage by a dolphin and saw a small ray as we were anchoring. We had a peaceful start at our anchorage, but about dark planes started circling overhead. That's not unusual here. Or helicopters either. After all it is a marine base.

Escape at Mile Hammock

 

 

Today's trip

 

 Today, 11-1-2016 we have owned Escape 6 years. We bought her in 2010. We took several long weekend trips down to Niceville FL to work on her from November until the middle of January. We moved on-board in the middle of January and continued to get her ready for a long trip to NC. We also had to wait for the water to be deep enough for us to get her out of the bayou she was in. We left the middle of February and have been on her very since. We are living our dream!

We left our anchorage about 7:30 heading to fuel up. As I have said many times, every time we have gotten fuel we have paid less than we did the previous time. Well, that stopped today. Our last fuel was $1.87 a gallon. We paid $1.89 a gallon. Not bad at all. We paid $3.03 a gallon the first time and we thought then, we would never get it that cheap again. We figured it would probably go up to $5-$6. Thank goodness we were wrong. We took on 128.9 gallons. We didn't need much but hated to pass up that price. We had checked around and they were the cheapest place we found. And they were right on the side of the ICW, but a shrimp boat pulled in right in front of us and it took him about 20 minutes to fuel up. Yes, I know, we have all day to get to Wrightsville Beach.

Sunrise at we left Mile Hammock

Poor boat

The above boat goes with this house. I think its a little much to have your boat and house color coordinated.

I like shrimp boats

We were anchored with a Nordhaven and Shay talked to Robby and Jojo on Southern Star a few times during our trip today. We had several low bridges to get by today and didn't do a great job of it. We didn't realize it, but we could go under one of them without opening it. Hey, its my second day of this season as navigator, give me a break.

Love this island with its flag, palm tree and parking meter! Oh, the tide is up so the island is underwater.

We got to our Wrightsville Beach anchorage at 1:30. We traveled almost 6 hours at 6.2kts and covered about 36nm. We had a good trip with no real problem areas. Southern Star is anchored near us and we may go over later to visit. That's a big part of this life, meeting new boaters everywhere we go!

Escape at Wrightsville Beach

Our trip today

Yeah, we are at Wrightsville Beach and Lauren is close by! She came over our first night and we ate dinner at Tower 7, a Tex-Mex restaurant. We always like to eat here. Wednesday Lauren and Roux came to the boat and we had dinner here. Shay grilled pork and we had smashed potatoes, salad and apple pie. I made the pies and made a mess in the oven when they overflowed. Thanks for the cleanup, Shay. Then Thursday we borrowed Lauren's car while she was at school, did errands, picked her up, ran more errands and then at dinner with her at Cracker Barrel. She and I got together again our last night in town. Always good to spend time with her!

Escape and Southern Star crews

 

Robby and Jojo with Southern Star in the background

We visited Southern Star and they visited us. They have sold their boat and going back to Australia soon. They enjoyed seeing Escape since they are thinking of buying a DeFever when they get back home. Robby and JoJo are a great couple and we are going to travel together for a while.

We had a stayed in Wrightsville an extra day or two because we knew we had some messy weather coming our way on Friday. We had cool weather, heavy rain and 35kts winds for a short time Friday morning then it cleared up and the weather was great.

Wind gauge showing 34.7kts

Southern Star and some dark clouds

 

It's definitely feeling like fall now. Cooler temperatures and winds. Better hurry "souther". That's what I call it when we are moving farther south down the coast. makes sense to me.

Shay and I enjoyed a looong walk along the beach and waterfront while at Wrightsville. It's a beautiful place to stay!

We are leaving early in the morning for a long day to the NC/SC line. We will travel about 60nm and  be fighting some current so it might take us about 10 hours. That's a long day, especially when the temperatures will be in the upper 40's when we start out in the dark.