November 2: Left Morehead City at 9:00am heading towards the anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay. It's about the only place to anchor between Morehead City and Wrightsville Beach, so we expect a crowd to gather this afternoon. We'll be passing thru the marine base at Camp Lejeume, and they maintain Mile Hammock Bay for water maneuvers. Boaters can anchor there but not go ashore. The best part is probably the steady parade of aircraft you can watch arriving/leaving the base.
Election Day - Flying our Minnesota State Flag!
This could be our last day of sun and 75degress for awhile!
Bogue Sound is one of the last large bodies of water that we'll have to transit on the ICW. Very wide but shallow so you must stay in a faily narrow channel down the center of the sound. It was a nasty ride on the way north, but today the wind was at our back so a smooth run with the current. We're now running south with a steady stream of the same boats that you hear on the radio and meet at the anchorages.
When entering the marine base, the sign above alerts to the possibility of live fire taking place across the ICW! When the lights are flashing, you just have to pull over and wait! Of course, pulling over a boat and waiting is no easy feat (at least for us). Fortunately for us, no live fire today ...
Mile Hammock Bay anchorage. A chance to meet up with the boats you've seen on the waterway all day. There were about 15 boats here tonight.
November 3: Today is the dreaded day of the bridge run. We have 3 bridges ahead of us that only open on a specific schedule. The first one only opens on the hour, so your timing had better be good! If you arrive too early, you have to circle among a crowd of boat also waiting for the bridge. No fun. If you arrive too late -- well, you can guess that consequence! Again, no fun.
With the pedal to the metal and the headsail up, we raced to make the 10:00 Surf City Bridge, along with 14 other boats in the channel. We arrived with 2 mintues to spare, 3rd from the end of a line.
The Figure 8 bridge opens on the half-hour so we had a little more breathing room, planning to make that bridge opening at 12:30. But then we realized that the 3rd bridge at Wrightsville Beach only opens on the hour, and we'd hit that bridge at 1:30 on our current pace. So, once again, petal to the metal and both headsails up, racing with the crowd to make the 1:00 pm opening at Wrightsville Beach.
The final bridge of the day was only 5 miles away, a piece of cake. All the boats we were travelling with were now taking their time to arrive ... instead of 7.5 knots, we were travelling 4.5 knots. We arrived 15 minutes early, in a crowd of about 18 other boats. Everyone drifted aimlessly while they waited.
Then everyone started backing up because there was too much of a crowd at the bridge. While Maja doesn't go in reverse for shit, Dan had one proud moment as the boat did indeed reverse smoothly for about 20 feet ... until we reversed out of the channel and were aground. Unbelievable! As the bridge horn sounded it's opening, we were aground (and yes, there was swearing going on!). Of course, none of the tricks other boats share with us seem to work when Maja is aground. Cannot go in reverse. Cannot drive off. Cannot do much at all when she's aground.. And, of course, we had to do this with a audience of 15 other boats that we now know by name.
The good news was that a fishing boat came by and give us a quick yank off the sand bar and we were moving again ... but in the opposite direction b/c we now had 50 minutes to wait for the next bridge opening at 2pm. So we motored back up the channel for 30 minutes and then turned around to try this one again.
Wrightsville Beach has the biggest spread of HUGE, beautiful homes that we've seen on the ICW.
2nd time's a charm, and we are thru Wrightsville Beach. The weather was getting cloudy and windy and cold (low 60s), and with a thunderstorm in the forecast, we wanted to find a more protected anchorage than what is available at Wrightsville Beach in case we needed to stayover a couple of days. So we pushed on. We planned to stop 12 miles down the ICW at Carolina Beach, but one peak into that anchorage showed that it was full of boats. So our final option was to keep going to Southport, another 3 hrs ... which included transiting the Cape Fear River. What a name! Of course we were nervous, but the current and tides were with us, so we lucked out as the day ended. We arrived at Southport at 6:30 with the choice of an anchorage that seemed too shallow now that we were in a area where the tide can drop 5 feet or a marina. Cold and tired and hungry, we pulled into South Harbor Village Marina ($1/35/ft).
66 miles today. Whew.
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