Up the North Carolina Coast then Inland

 We left Carolina Beach on June 12th and motored about 10 miles to Wrightsville beach. There is a bridge there that opens on the hour. We tried to make the 9:00 opening, but did not make it by about 2 minutes. We hovered for an hour and then were ready to go through at 10:00. Another sailboat was coming but it looked like they were not going to make it. The bridge tender held the opening for 5 minutes to let them go through. Oh Well, I am glad they didn't have to hover like we did. 

After getting through the bridge, it looked like a fairly straight forward day along the ICW. 

This shot shows the transition of the weather for the rest of the day. The boat out in front of us just passed us after the bridge in Wrightsville Beach.

We cruised along for a few miles and then we started seeing the storm clouds growing over the land to our north. We saw a few passing showers and then we had a big ugly one form right over us. 

The wind went from about 10 knots to over 30 in just a few seconds. The good news is we did not have any sails up, so the boat was very stable. My only problem at the helm was visibility. I could only see about 50 yards in front of us. This was an area that was not very populated and all of the pleasure boaters had taken cover. I felt it was best for us to continue on and get through it. The only problem was that we were approaching a bridge. It was a 65 foot bridge, so I just needed to find my way under it. Just after we came through, I had two adrift sailboats right in front of me in the channel. I guess they had broken free from their moorings. I did not see anyone aboard. I worked my way through and did my bet to stay in the channel. I could see some channel markers, but I had to rely on my electronic charts to confirm my location. 

After about a half hour the storm eased and all we had was a steady rain. Then we saw another one on radar just behind us. It was coming fast and hit us with a 25 knot gust. Not too bad, we just kept motoring along. It rained hard for about 30 minutes and I was soaking wet, but we were fine. We continued on to our anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay. 

Mile Hammock Bay is an interesting place. It is right on the edge of Camp Lejeune, the Marine base.  You can't go ashore here because the docks and boat ramp are part of the base. There was great protection and we were anchored for the night with 4 other boats. There is plenty of room in the small bay for many boats. We had a calm and restful night after our stormy day.  

Mile Hammock Bay

Just us and 4 other boats in this large anchorage

The following day was going to be a challenge. It was a Monday, which usually means less traffic on the ICW, but there was a very large Bill Fishing tournament at Moorhead City that was 35 miles in front of us. The plan was to arrive in the Moorhead City area around noon and get through while all of the boats were out fishing. They had over 400 boats registered for the tournament this year. Most of those were very large Sport Fishing boats that go very fast and make huge wakes. 

I looked at the tides and resulting currents and it looked like we were in luck. If we left at dawn, we could have current behind us until we hit Moorhead City, then we could get through the Beaufort, NC inlet and then we would have current against us for the rest of the day. We were hoping to make it to Oriental, NC. 

We were up at dawn and moving shortly thereafter. Right away, we had to open a bridge, but that went smoothly. We did have current with us and we were moving well over 5 knots. Kim took the helm as we entered the Bogue Sound. We had about 15 knots of breeze right on our tail, so I brought up our genoa and we were motor sailing at close to 7 knots. 

As we approached Beaufort, we had a very strong current behind us. We saw speeds approaching 8 knots over ground. At one point I did see us going 8.2 knots. 

Just as planned we cleared Beaufort at about noon. There was very little traffic. We did hit the opposing current just after we cleared the city. We slogged it out at about 4 knots for the next 4 hours. We were now heading inland directly north on Adams Creek. This is a connector canal for the ICW. We did see some large boats pass us later in the afternoon. I guess they were leaving the fishing tournament early. 

I called two different marinas looking for a place in Oriental, NC. Neither of them even called me back. I looked at our options and decided to anchor in Cedar Creek, about 5 miles short of Oriental. 

As we approached we saw about 5 boats in the anchorage. It turned out to have plenty of room and we were able to drop the hook outside of all of them. 

We had a nice sunset over Oriental while we were anchored in Cedar Creek.

As it turned out we heard them talking on the radio the next day, and think they were all part of a club or at least sailing friends from the area.

We got up the next morning and decided to bypass Oriental. We were just about 5 miles from the Neuse River. We put up the genoa right after we left the anchorage and sailed for the next 4 hours with the motor off. It was one of the best parts of the entire trip. We were able to keep sailing as we turned to port and went up the Bay river. It was only when we turned to starboard up Gale creek that we had to furl the sail and start the motor. We cruised up the creek for about an hour and came to Eastham Creek. We carefully pulled in and dropped the hook in 7 feet of water. The wind was blowing about 15 knots, but it died down over night and we had a great night in Eastham Creek. We had one of the best dolphin shows we have had in a long time. There was a pod of about 10 dolphins that stayed around the boat for about 2 hours and did tail slaps and jumped clear of the water many times. I did get one tail slap on video that I will try to publish at some point. 

It always feels so good to get the sails up and shut the engine off.

Our view in Eastham Creek

We had a great dolphin show at Eastham Creek

And a beautiful sunset

I think that is enough for this entry. We had made it 150 miles since we left Carolina Beach. We now had about 150 miles left to get to the Chesapeake Bay, but we had one major obstacle left to overcome. The Albemarle Sound is a very open and shallow body of water that we will need to cross. We have heard horror stories about this body of water. In my next entry, I will tell you how we did.