Sunday, May 15, 2011 11:16:42 AM
Location: Wrightsville Beach, NC
Latitude is 34 degrees 12.438 minutes north.
Longitude is 77 degrees 47.98 minutes west.
No recent weather observation is available.
Well, we finally got out of Charleston. We left last Tuesday and went over to Ross Marine to have some repair work done on Jenny. She needed some gel coat scratches fixed, a new salon window and a cabinet door made. We caught the tide perfectly and covered the short seven miles in less than an hour. The folks at Ross were ready for us and went to work right away. We wanted to be back in Charleston, at anchor by Wednesday night so we could catch a favorable tide and weather for an outside passage up to Georgetown, SC.
Since we had been over the week before, the glass was ready and the cabinet panel was too. They just had to be fitted in. The gel coat worker started right away. By 16:00 Wednesday, they were all done and the work was excellent. Better yet, the price was about half what I expected. Big smile.
We went back over to Charlestown and anchored by the city marina. In fact, we anchored three times. The first time we were too close to the channel, and the coast guard asked us to move. Then we moved and because the tidal current opposed the wind, ended up too close to some other boats as we all danced with the fates. We hauled anchor again and went down by the bridge where there were only a few boats. I was a little concerned about being so close to the bridge, but our Rocna held as usual. In the morning I found the bottom was nice gooy clay. No worries.
We headed out a 06:00 to catch the outgoing tide and saw 9 knots all the way out. The channel was very choppy, almost like rapids from the current. Outside was choppy too so we ended up with the birds in the water, all the way. It was necessary to go out because of ICW shoaling. We got into Georgetown around 15:00 and fell in line behind six other boats coming out of the ICW. The Georgetown anchorage was replaced by a floating dock, we we headed further up the ICS to Butler Island, which turned out to be a wonderful anchorage in a wild, quiet spot. We had it to ourselves.
Friday, we headed up the ICW. This section, along South Carolina's coast is pretty wild, just marsh grass and cypress swamps. It was beatiful. At the end of the day we entered a little creek for the evening. It was very shallow and we had to drive Jenny off the bottom twice as the tide fell. We won't go there again. There was a potentially better spot just about a mile up the ICW. Maybe next time.
Saturday we went along the ICW in North Carolina, on up to Cape Fear. Some spots were very shallow and tight with rock walls. While ICW travel is really comfortable, it can be a high anxiety experience. The further north we went, the more mansions showed up along the shore. We arrived at Cape Fear river around noon and found an outgoing 4 knot tidal current. So, we threw the anchor down and had lunch and a nap. Melinda connected to an open WiFi spot and got on FaceBook. We waited there for the tide to change to flood (incoming) and around 13:30 we raised the anchor and headed on up the river.
Little did we know, there was another source of water ahead of us. The Snow cut is a narrow channel that connects Cape Fear river to the next portion of the ICW heading north. There was another inlet on the other side, and water was rushing in rapids through the cut, against us. Another sailboat was ahead of us and they came almost to a stop. We slowly caught up, but there was no room to pass, so we also had to slow down, which gave us less stearage in the swirling currents. The worst was under the bridge, as usual and I brought Jenny's RPM up to 1800 RPM to get through safely. Whew! Now I know to look ahead to see what inlets are along the way and do a better timing job.
We arrived at Wrightsville beach and anchored in a nice spot with other cruisers. We decided to take today off to rest and plan our next steps. I did some calling around and found a new marina in Oriental with a slip for us at only $375 / month!!! Wow. It is new and right downtown. What a deal. We should be there on Thursday, and get settled in. We'll rent a car there for the trip back to Florida for my daughter Laura's wedding. Tomorrow night we stop by Camp Lejeune. I hope they are not having any live fire exercises!
David
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