Wednesday 3-18-09
We were both up early and it was still dark so we had our usual breakfast cereal and coffee and still had plenty of time to get underway by 07:30. Southport is located right where the ICW joins the Cape Fear River and the first 2 hours of today’s trip would require going up-stream on the river before turning off at a short land cut to Carolina Beach. From the bridge of our boat while still in the marina there appeared to be a glob of fog hanging over the river so I made a radio call to one of the many ferries that run between Southport and Bald Head Island, and requested a report on the visibility. A ferry captain came right back and said there was 4-5 miles on the river, so off we went. Indeed the conditions on the river were pretty good except the outgoing tide held our ground speed to about 6 knots all the way to Snows Cut. After we cleared the cut and turned north on the ICW the visibility began to lower and after about 30 minutes we had only about ¼ mile and that condition stayed with us for about 2 hours. It was pretty much IFR with the radar pointing out the major obstacles in our way about 3 minutes before we could actually see them – our GPS / chart plotter is worth 10 times what it cost in conditions like this.
The fog lifted and we could see it drift off the coast and just hang there, but we were enjoying a bright blue and sunny sky a half mile in shore from the beach. In the early afternoon we came upon some boating friends that we had met in the Bay last summer – Kay and Jim White aboard their Grand Banks trawler named BENCH REST. Jim is a retired judge and they live in Alabama which is pretty evident when you hear Jim call on the radio. They were headed south with another boat planning to go to the Bahamas before returning back north for the summer. Unfortunately, when we came upon them, they were hard aground about 100 feet outside of the channel. We stopped our boat (remaining in the channel) chatted with them across the water for 10 minutes or so before moving on. They were awaiting the arrival of Tow Boat U.S. to help them get afloat again.
We pushed on north of our originally planned stop, to Swansboro, NC and
anchored in the little harbor for the night. For about an hour and half before reaching Swansboro we traveled through the Marine Corps base, Camp LeJeune and we could hear the sound of artillery and were entertained by multiple passes of a flight of 3 Osprey aircraft passing over our boat numerous times on practice approaches.
We were anchored by 5:00 and had a simple dinner of grilled burgers with nice boiled red skin potatoes. After that, an hour of DVD entertainment and into the bunk.
We were both up early and it was still dark so we had our usual breakfast cereal and coffee and still had plenty of time to get underway by 07:30. Southport is located right where the ICW joins the Cape Fear River and the first 2 hours of today’s trip would require going up-stream on the river before turning off at a short land cut to Carolina Beach. From the bridge of our boat while still in the marina there appeared to be a glob of fog hanging over the river so I made a radio call to one of the many ferries that run between Southport and Bald Head Island, and requested a report on the visibility. A ferry captain came right back and said there was 4-5 miles on the river, so off we went. Indeed the conditions on the river were pretty good except the outgoing tide held our ground speed to about 6 knots all the way to Snows Cut. After we cleared the cut and turned north on the ICW the visibility began to lower and after about 30 minutes we had only about ¼ mile and that condition stayed with us for about 2 hours. It was pretty much IFR with the radar pointing out the major obstacles in our way about 3 minutes before we could actually see them – our GPS / chart plotter is worth 10 times what it cost in conditions like this.
The fog lifted and we could see it drift off the coast and just hang there, but we were enjoying a bright blue and sunny sky a half mile in shore from the beach. In the early afternoon we came upon some boating friends that we had met in the Bay last summer – Kay and Jim White aboard their Grand Banks trawler named BENCH REST. Jim is a retired judge and they live in Alabama which is pretty evident when you hear Jim call on the radio. They were headed south with another boat planning to go to the Bahamas before returning back north for the summer. Unfortunately, when we came upon them, they were hard aground about 100 feet outside of the channel. We stopped our boat (remaining in the channel) chatted with them across the water for 10 minutes or so before moving on. They were awaiting the arrival of Tow Boat U.S. to help them get afloat again.
We pushed on north of our originally planned stop, to Swansboro, NC and
anchored in the little harbor for the night. For about an hour and half before reaching Swansboro we traveled through the Marine Corps base, Camp LeJeune and we could hear the sound of artillery and were entertained by multiple passes of a flight of 3 Osprey aircraft passing over our boat numerous times on practice approaches.
We were anchored by 5:00 and had a simple dinner of grilled burgers with nice boiled red skin potatoes. After that, an hour of DVD entertainment and into the bunk.
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