One of those days when it all goes wrong...

Below is the log I wrote just before we came in to the New Bern Grand Marina, plugged into some very welcome A/C and started a nice two-week rest, filled with old friends. Fortunately, days like the one I detail below are not that common!

[Hilde’s log]

As I write this, we are at anchor under driving rain in Goose Creek, about seven miles from New Bern where we have a slip a week from now. We are desperately hoping they can squeeze us in earlier. We have enough food for a day before we started eating really weird combinations of things, and I have no more clean underwear. It’s getting urgent.

It's always a good idea to avoid expectations when you travel, and that rule holds true even more so when you are cruising. However, when I've been out 12 days and am hot and sticky and smelly, I tend to romanticize coming ashore. I have visions of hot showers, food I did not cook, a dry boat, and maybe a bit of conversation with other boaters over a hot cup of something.

I certainly had all these expectations for our planned stop at Oriental, a tiny town on the banks of the Neuse River, well known among boaters in this area. We met some nice folks in Georgetown who waxed lyrical about the free town docks we could tie up to for 48 hours, and get water and a pumpout. We were looking forward to connecting with them again, and looking forward to those services. Our cruising book advised that we could anchor out if the docks were full. No problem!

This morning, all looked promising. The NOAA forecast was for thunderstorms in the afternoon, and we certainly didn’t want to cross the Neuse River in that. The Neuse is extremely wide, and is more like a bay than a river. The fetch is long and when the wind blows, it can work itself up into quite a froth.

So about 8 a.m. we pulled out of our anchorage at Cedar Creek and eased into the channel. Unlike in Texas, thunderstorms in this part of the world can lower the overall temperature about 15 degrees. Because we’d had rain all day yesterday, it was downright chilly, and as we began our crossing the wind piped up and it was downright cold. The waves were all over the place, and Raven bucked along throwing spray to one side and then the next. No problem! We were only an hour from civilization and hot coffee at The Bean (a local coffee shop we visited once, many moons ago, by car).

Well. We did get there in an hour, only to discover that the “free town docks” we’d been told about were at the end of a long, narrow channel and were occupied; docks to the right of us hosted a boat that had taken the “middle half” and left no room for us. Other possible places to anchor were very shallow or had been taken over by new dockage. If you draw 5’ or more, do not plan to anchor in Oriental. Ok, problem.

After our aborted attempt to anchor in shallow water, David went below to start the washdown pump to wash off the mucky anchor and chain (the switch is in the head). To his extreme frustration, he discovered the door to the head had locked itself (because I had inadvertently bumped the lock in our lumpy crossing). Dangling her mucky anchor and chain, Raven waddled over to the main channel and we dropped the muddy hook a second time. David went below to dismantle the door lock (read: take the lock completely off the door). Meantime, as he steamed and banged around below searching for tools and trying to see what he was doing, a small skiff with two older men motored by, pulling a fishing net, and the older of the two, a prune-faced fellow whose wife is no doubt thrilled that he spends all his time wandering around the creek, yelled at us to “Get out of the channel!”

So much for the "friendly" part of my daydream. Sheesh.

On top of all the rest, there is no T-Mobile phone service in Oriental, so any hope of getting weather or any other information we needed was quashed.

Once the door lock was removed and the anchor chain washed and in its locker, we “turned on our heel” and motored back out into the river. So much for daydreams of friendly, quaint little villages and hot coffee and showers and potato chips (that last is especially painful).

Cold, smelly, tired, frustrated, and chipless, we turned north and huffed our way up the river for about four hours, pulling into Goose Creek in the middle of one of those thunderstorms I wanted to avoid. We just caught the edge of it before setting the hook and diving below, getting drenched in the process. Shedding wet clothes, we have applied baby powder to our bodies and are drinking tea and have not been electrocuted, so I guess all is well that ends well.

[Here are photos we took of our anchorage, which we would have missed altogether if Oriental had worked out. Far better than my feeble daydreams!]

Our view from the Goose Creek anchorage once the rain stopped.

Sunset on Goose Creek. Dear Lord, it was beautiful!

Sunrise the next morning. Were we glad to be at anchor and not at a dock!

Summertime

[Hilde’s log]

We’re beach weanies. I’m not much on sand (it’s hard to walk through and gets everywhere) and David doesn’t like the heat. Neither of us has much urge to swim in opaque water and be nibbled by anonymous critters. So we wandered out on Wrightsville Beach, took a couple of snaps, and wandered right back into town.

Wrightsville Beach - gorgeous white sand and hot white sun.

Then we found out that the only attractions at Wrightsville Beach are the water and the beach. David solved that problem by fitting out the sailing kit for the dinghy, and we spent a couple of hours sailing up and down the anchorage. He sails; I’m ballast; we both have fun!

Sunset at Wrightsville Beach.

A long, 40-mile day found us at anchor off Camp LeJeune at Mile Hammock Bay. We were so bushed, the occasional ordnance fire didn’t keep us awake at all. Early in the morning, smoke from fires set off by the “war games” woke us. It’s a nice anchorage, despite the army activity, and it was a relief to be able to stop for the night.

Our next stop was Swansboro, where the anchorage was shallow, but gave us a good view of the town, the highway, and various restaurants. We spend three nights there. Our second day, we dinghied in for breakfast at Yanna’s, which was spilling over with customers. A walking tour of the town took up the rest of the morning. That evening we dinghied in the opposite direction and treated ourselves to a fine Mediterranean meal. 

We admired this house's beautiful garden.

One of the streets in the historic district, Swansboro.

Stormy skies over Swansboro. This one blew past us without even a sprinkle.

Swansboro - view from the water.

Here we are in the anchorage...before I ran us aground.

Our third day was not planned. As we were leaving the anchorage, I managed to ground us (again – this is my third time, I think; I am losing count) and we spend the entire frustrating day on board sweating and waiting for the shallow tide to rise and lift us off, which it did about 4 p.m. We went into the fuel dock for diesel and turned back to the anchorage for another night. Fortunately, David has a program on his phone that shows the contours of the bottom (sonar charts), so he downloaded this anchorage and we were able to leave without further ado the next morning.

The next day was another long trek, from Swansboro through Bogue Sound, past Moorehead City, and up Adams Creek. I remembered the anchorage at Moorehead City and was glad we didn’t have to stop there. It’s narrow and crowded and bad holding. We zipped past the town like a cat with its tail on fire: the current was running at 2.2+ knots with us and Raven flashed along at over 7 knots. That’s fast for us.

Underway from Swansboro under a beautiful summer sky. We have the jib out to give our speed a boost.

One of the huge working ships at the dock at Moorehead City. Check out the "little" boat (probably 20 feet long)  running along beside for a size comparison.

I love Bogue Sound. It’s a wide, wide expanse of water which is a delight in mild wind. We passed numerous pockets of tiny silver fish that flittered and leaped about on the surface of the water, creating water-borne glitter. I fantasized they were playing in the sun, but I’m pretty sure they were trying to avoid being lunch for the dolphins that surrounded us. 

Along Bogue Sound 

The sound is broken up by islands and sand bars and coves. Houses line the shores, but they are so far away it doesn’t feel crowded. We passed one couple who had pulled their runabout up on a sandbar and debarked a couple of folding chairs and two excited dogs who ran back and forth on the bar, splashing and snapping at the water. Great idea! Pull up to your own little island and let the dogs run while you read the paper.

Neither of us remembered the views on Adams Creek, except we are both pretty sure it wasn’t built up ten years ago. Now there are three story houses on both sides of the Creek for quite a way. They finally peter out near the Neuse River. Cedar Creek is just a little south of the Neuse; Oriental is just across the Neuse River.

Arriving about 4 p.m., we anchored in 7 feet of water and spent a pleasant evening watching the world chug down the ICW. Fishing trawlers motored up and down with their nets out, and at one point two barges converged, one from either end of the channel. We were very glad to be anchored and not playing tag with those behemoths. When we came in, a lone catamaran was anchored near the shore. One other sailboat came in about an hour after we arrived, and then all was quiet.

Nose to nose barges on the ICW off Cedar Creek.

We ended up sharing space with an entire commercial fishing fleet. They were the fishing trawlers we had been watching - seven boats that went in and out of their marina all afternoon and well into the evening, followed by a cloud of squawking gulls. In addition to the lone sailboat that anchored near us, the morning light revealed four more sailboats rafted up near us, flags flying gaily in the breeze. They took off later in the morning, but were replaced in the rainy afternoon by another three sailboats and a catamaran. We saw more sailboats at Cedar Creek than we’ve seen in the last two months!

We broke out the dinghy again and sailed all over the little bay. About eleven a.m. we heard thunder, and about noon a huge mass of black clouds appeared and roared through the anchorage bringing heavy rain and blessedly cool temperatures. The storm whooshed past, but left gray skies and constant rain for the rest of the day. It was a blessing – it was finally cool enough for me to cook something in the galley.

Rainy day on Cedar Creek.

It feels good to be back in North Carolina. It’s like East Texas with a lot of water. A lot of water. Last night I lay awake and listened to whip-poor-wills call in the trees; the air smells like wet pines. I am excited to be on the way to Oriental for a few days and then on to New Bern. We lived in New Bern for a year and we are both anxious to see how it has fared and whether we still feel at home there.

Glorious Summer v Too Many People

[Hilde's log]

The unparalled beauty of the Waccamaw River in summer

Being of the opinion that there is just so much natural beauty a person can stand, we have decided to enjoy civilization here at Wrightsville Beach for a couple of days. Just a barrier island away from the Atlantic, Wrightsville Beach is one of the vacation destinations here in North Carolina. After a week of soggy, stormy weather, we have been blessed with blue skies, dry air, and cool temperatures for the last two days. Both sides of the waterway and the Atlantic beach are lined with vacation homes and rentals full of happy vacationers, and the waterway bustles with watercraft of all kinds.

This afternoon we spent a delightful hour or so watching a sailing class made up of four optimist prams, two lasers, and a sunfish, with kids from age 8 to about 14 skimming across the anchorage, just off Raven’s port side, tacking, jibing, racing, and occasionally turning over their boats. They were having a blast. What a great experience and what a confidence builder! 

Watch the kids! 

The colored sail is the Sunfish, the boxy little boats are the Optimist Prams, and the other two flat boats are lasers. David used to sail lasers and really enjoyed the show!

We had a ringside seat for the races. Watch the video above for the action!

The trip up from Georgetown, SC took us up a path we traveled down in the dead of winter ten years ago. I must say, I like the summer better! For better or worse, so do the inhabitants of North and South Carolina, who flocked to the coast this past weekend by the thousands. We were swarmed with jet skis, fishing boats, air boats, trawlers, power boats...all going along as fast as they could, swamping us with wake. We saw about three sailboats along the way. Probably everyone else headed for the Atlantic and sailed up on the outside.

After a particularly irksome afternoon at a beautiful anchorage beside the Waccamaw River, where a power boat with two middle aged people dropped the hook near us, cranked up their loudspeakers to earsplitting volume, and capped off three hours of togetherness by prancing about on the deck shrieking along to their favorite tunes before weaving away in the dusk, and after a long, hard day coming up the Waccamaw River through Myrtle Beach dodging hundreds of watercraft and suffocating from waterside development, we almost bailed out to the ocean ourselves. In fact, we got rigged to do just that, but a look at the map showed that we would have to backtrack almost a day to avoid troublesome shallows near the coat. So we took a deep breath and kept on going. Fortunately today is a weekday, so a lot (by no means all) of the rowdy vacationers have gone home.

Our anchorage, without the sound effects.

We spent last night in Pipeline Canal, where we spent a very cold week in December a decade ago. Like everything else, it improves in the summer. It’s a very shallow anchorage, though, really only easily accessible at high tide. We left as the tide was rising, but David still had to power through the soft mud through 4 and 5 foot depths (we draw 5 feet). Fortunately, the ground was soft. In fact, it’s kind of like tar. I remember we had a hard time getting the anchor set that week in December – we literally had to reset it about four times. I guess the “tar” gets hard in the winter. Yuck.

Pipeline Creek, in the early hours of the morning.

Pipeline Canal is just south of Southport, NC, which looks like a lovely place from the water. Hopefully we will stop there for a week on our way back south later in the summer.

The next couple of hours we spent on the Cape Fear River. A strong current kept us moving against a brisk wind, a combination sure to churn up the water. The good news was the 40 foot depth. I get tired of watching the depth meter…

We did have to dodge a couple of car ferries (above) and a barge tow, but otherwise it was just us and the wind. So cool!!

Braving another bevy of water-born vacationers along the coast, we dropped the hook here at Wrightsville Beach, where, rumor has it, there is a grocery and a seafood market not too far away.

Wrightsville Beach anchorage.