NC - WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH, CAROLINA BEACH, SOUTHPORT

He Said:  Hello Again.  We are trying our best to catch up on our blog, this is the reason for 2 within such a short time.  We are about a week in front of where we say we are so we would like to catch up.  It’s too hard to remember where we were a week or so ago.  How pathetic is that??

 

We ended up staying 2 more nites in Oriental on the free city dock.  We really enjoy the area and the price on the dock is very attractive to us.  We also met some fun people who were also traveling south to either Florida or the Bahamas and it is always fun comparing notes and learning from more experienced boaters, mostly sail boats, but all heading the same direction.  Lots of the sailors go outside (into the ocean) instead of choosing the Intra Coastal which is our route.  Most sail boats need about 7 to 8 ft. of water and their height is about 65 feet - this makes most bridges very challenging for clearance.  Also the fact that the ICW is much shallower than the 7 feet they need makes the ocean waters much easier to navigate.

 

We very much enjoyed our last 2 days in Oriental and headed South on Monday AM.  We departed on time and headed to Beaufort where we spent just 1 nite.  This town was very cute but a pretty long hike in to town.  We found a cute little pub on the water and enjoyed some bargain tacos and a couple of cold ones.  When we arrived at the bar there were only 8 people sitting outside, and we knew 4 of them from a few weeks prior.  We mentioned in an earlier blog that most of the people we run into are doing pretty much what we are doing including the 4 at the bar.

 

We left Beaufort and headed towards Camp Lejeune (Marine Corp) searching for an anchorage with good success. This area was doing lots of military maneuvers - pretty cool, but not so quiet.  At times we felt like we were being fired at.  We are certain that our distance away was fine but every now and then you wondered about it.  We spent 1 nite in this area with no problems.  There was no town nearby so pretty much stayed close to the boat.  

 

Watch tower in Ft. Lejeune

 

We headed out the following morning and headed to Wrightsville Beach to also anchor.  Here we could dingy into the town in about 5 minutes.  Since we are into November the town was not jumping but was very cool.  The locals say that in the summer it is jamming. The ICW and the Atlantic are pretty much next to each other - maybe ½ mile apart at the most.  We went into town both nites and found a cool Mexican cantina and also a sports bar.  The cantina had terrific food along with terrific prices on both food specials and cocktails.  On Wednesday we packed up our beach stuff and spent a couple of hours that afternoon just hanging on the beach - nice to see the surfer dudes and the waves again - but we really are enjoying the calmness of traveling the ICW.

 

Some of the bigger houses along the ICW

 

We have been seeing a far amount of dolphins here in North Carolina.  We had a few about 20 ft. from the bow of the boat -  way too cool.  I think if they had any idea how excited we get every time we see them sliding thru the water maybe they would show-off a little more.

 

Little Pink House - check out the sunken boat and shed alongside house.  You see it all along the ICW

 

We left Wrightsville Beach on Friday morning and headed to Carolina Beach, just about a 2.5 hour trip.  We arrived before lunch time with no issues. The marina we stayed at was very, very peaceful (maybe the Eagles were singing about this place with Peaceful Easy Feeling).  The bigger issue was I found a really cool sports bar in town to watch the OSU/Purdue Game. This game was pretty much over at halftime like the Penn State Game was the week before.  I think in the combined first halves we outscored both teams something like 100 to nuttin.  Not complaining, but also not too exciting.  Carolina Beach was very cute but the hike from our marina, which was operated by the state of North Carolina, was a fair distance.  We spent 2 peaceful evenings on boat and then headed to Southport. 

 

Lazy Parrot, Carolina Beach where Jack watched OSU game

This also was a pretty short travel day for us - we arrived on Sunday at about lunch time.  This is a cute little marina with just 1 little bar for mostly boaters.  We are planning on having our batteries tested again.  We are pretty certain we have a slight battery issue and need to take care of it.  When we are plugged in to our 50AMP it is no big deal.  When we are anchoring it becomes an issue.  We run our generator for a few hours when we are anchoring, but feel that we are having to run our generator way too often. We will have these checked out again and it is important we take care of this issue, whatever it is.

 

Sunset from MTB in Carolina Beach

 

We are planning on leaving on Tuesday and arriving about 5 hours later in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  We hope to visit Dana and Richie Bungert while in Myrtle Beach.  Richie had a little restaurant in Phoenix before heading to the Carolinas.  A few exciting things for us: on the 5^th I will be celebrating my 1 year anniversary of being filleted (I’m feeling good), and the 7^th will be our 10 year anniversary.  Holy cow how time flies when you’re having fun - I actually mean that. We should be in Charleston, SC in about a week.  We’re going to spend a week there.  After that we’re heading to Georgia then still hoping for Florida the first part of December.

 

That’s about it for now. 

 

Take Care, Jack     

 

 

 

 

She Said:  The good news is we’re still in Oriental – we got the free dock for 2 nights.  The bad news is the weather is freezing cold.  There were frost warnings, and in the morning some of the sailboats had frost on their sails.  Temps on MTB were in the mid-50s when we woke up in the morning.  Good thing the heater works well.  We knew we would have some cold weather, but we’ve had more than expected.  I’m getting tired of the few sweaters and long pants that I have on board.

 

The pig roast was such a huge success that we couldn’t get tickets, but we were able to get into the Halloween party.  There was a live band (they were great) and lots of costume.  It was fun night.  The next day we were hanging out at the marina visiting with other boaters when a boat pulled into the marina, honked, and was waving.  It turned out to be our friends John and Debbie.  With a little maneuvering we were able to get them into the other free dock alongside us.  We did a little pot luck aboard MTB.  They are a great couple and we enjoy their company.

 

MTB on the left with Debbie & John and their boat Bonnie Blue
 

 

We left the next morning for Beaufort, NC.  Because of the treacherous waters around Beaufort, there are lots of sunken wrecks including Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge (discovered a few years ago).  Blackbeard did his pillaging and plundering in these waters in the early 1700s. As we exited the ICW for the town of Beaufort, we encountered dolphins.  Jack is a great dolphin spotter.  They are so much fun to watch and travel with.  I have not gotten a picture yet – I’m too busy watching them.   We made the short walk into town and hoped to see the wild Shackelford horses.  These horses were brought to area by early explorers.  It’s unknown whether the horses survived a shipwreck or were left behind from an abandoned colony.  They roamed the area until the 1940s.  At that time they were rounded up and brought to Shackelford Island to protect them.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see the horses.  But we did see lots of boaters from earlier ports.  It was fun catching up with them and their adventures.  I’ve been looking for North Carolina barbeque and there was a good barbeque restaurant in town, but it was closed.  We settled for the “best” burger in Beaufort.

 

Leaving Beaufort we planned to travel about 45 miles and then anchor for the night (it’s about time we tried out the new anchor and windlass).  We transited a lot of bridges that only opened on the hour so we had to time our travel to avoid waiting around for the bridge opening.  We were also transiting the Fort Lejeune Marine Corps Base Firing Range and maneuvers were planned for the day – that meant more possible delays.  What we didn’t expect was our first barge.  It was traveling really slowly and we wanted to pass.  Every time we tried to pass our depth finder alarm went off.  We eventually got around.  Another first to check off the list.

 

That's our wake as we made our first tug/barge passing.
 

 

Along the way we once again ran into John and Debbie (and more dolphins).  We decided to anchor in Fort Lejuene in a manmade harbor created for marines to practice amphibious landings.  It took us two tries to set the anchor, but once it was set everything was good.  We had happy hour with John and Debbie and then went back to MTB for dinner. 

 

The firing went on until dark.  There were also a lot of helicopter landings on the shores of the harbor

 

 

We left the next morning for Wrightsville Beach.  With a successful anchorage behind us, we decided to anchor in Wrightsville Beach.  It was a nice area to anchor because everything was a short dinghy ride away.  This small town is busy “in season” but pretty quiet this time of year.  We found a great Tex-Mex restaurant (with $1 PBRs for Jack) with homemade chips and salsa – yum!  The next day the weather was great and we spent a couple hours on the beach (Atlantic Ocean).   The wind picked up so we headed back to MTB.  Good thing we went back when we did, because within an hour we started drifting.  A neighboring boat thought that something must have attached to our anchor.  He was right – there was a big piece of wire net hooked to the anchor.  We removed the net, reset the anchor and kept our fingers crossed.  The wind picked up that night, and I have to tell you I didn’t sleep very soundly.  I kept getting up to be sure we were still holding – and we were.  It’s good to have a really successful anchoring under the belt.

 

Jack on the beach in Wrightsville Beach, NC

 

The winds were predicted to be strong the next few days so we decided to get a slip and wait out the wind.  We traveled about 15 miles to Carolina Beach and stayed at the State Park Marina.  It was really windy coming in and we were thrilled to have a dockside tie-up.  (This is where you tie-up alongside a dock and don’t have to pull into a U-shaped slip.)  The marina had very little activity, and I really enjoyed the quiet time.  We stayed on board Friday night and enjoyed some down time.  We were woken up Saturday morning by a big thump.  It was a sailboat leaving the dock that lost control in the wind and current and slammed (maybe bumped is a better word) into MTB.  The captain was able to get the boat under control without doing any damage to either boat.  Whew!    

 

Looking out of the marine onto the ICW in Carolina Beach

 

The winds were strong, but the temps were in the 70s.  We walked into Carolina Beach – bigger and more spread out than Wrightsville Beach, but very similar – where we had lunch, Jack watched Ohio State football and I checked out the local stores.  We stopped into the local Food Lion grocery store for a couple things and ended up with 8 bags (which we had to carry on the 1.5 mile walk back to MTB).  

 

After living without shore power for several nights, we decided that we really needed to replace our four “house” batteries.  We made several phone calls before finding the right batteries and then several more to find someone to install them.  We made arrangements to have the work done about 15 miles away in Southport.  The ICW route to Southport takes us down the Cape Fear River – a major shipping channel that leads into the Atlantic.  The currents can run 6 miles per hour so it’s important from a fuel perspective to time our trip on the “ebb.”  Another consideration is the wind direction.  When the current and wind oppose one another the trip is very rough.  Fortunately, the wind and current were going the same direction so we had not only a quick trip, but a comfortable one. 

 

As soon as the batteries are installed, we’re off for North Myrtle Beach, SC.  Hopefully the winds will subside and the temps will go back into the 70s.