Day 23 - Sun 19 Apr 2015
Anchored - Wrightsville Beach, NC

[photo: a delicious shrimp salad by Diane (she does cook - sometimes)]

The music from shore was loud enough to be heard, but not so loud as to keep you awake, so we had no trouble getting our rest. I was a little concerned about how the boat would ride against the dock as the lines had to be very loose to allow for the over 6 foot tidal change with a low at 0300. I got up twice to check and thanks to the stillness of the night, all was good.

First light came not long after 0600, and we cast off at 0640, with Diane slipping 2 lines and then lying back down to catch a few more ZZZs. I was on the flybridge with a light windbreaker motoring NNE into a NE breeze off the ocean, so it was a bit chilly. My kind Admiral asked me a half hour later if I wanted my warm jacket and a hot cup of coffee. What a sweetie!

We had quite a push from the 2 kt current up the Cape Fear River and I motored along at a fuel-sipping power setting getting a speed over the ground of 10.0 kts. Once we turned into Snow's Cut, however, we had an adverse current for quite a while. Overall, our average speed was about 8 kts. As we turned northward after the cut, I missed seeing a crab pot and heard a few thumps as the buoy hit the port hull. I quickly throttled to idle, saw the buoy pass astern and thought nothing more except to pay even better attention.

Not too long later, however, we both felt a vibration that was not there before, so I tried throttling back on each engine to idle, neutral, etc. to see if it went away and whether it was definitely on one side or the other. It was not 100% conclusive, but the vibration seemed much less running just the stbd engine, so I elected to shut down the port engine as a precaution. We were in slow-speed/no wake zones the entire way, so running the one engine a bit faster gave us the maximum speed I was allowed to do anyway and it cost us no extra time.

The entire trip was only 3 hours and we had our anchor down along with what I believe is one cruising sailboat and 2 local sailboats more or less permanently anchored here. Even while anchoring, and later while lowering the dinghy, this place retains our vote for the rudest bunch of boaters we have ever encountered. They simply zip past your boat within 30-50 feet at full speed, throwing large wakes with no regard whatsoever. To be fair, we did have 2 boats pass us slowly and it appeared they did so out of deliberate courtesy.

I had previously warned Diane that I would be inspecting both engines today, so that meant disturbing all the pretty bedding and moving the pillows and shams while I folded the mattresses in half along their cloth hinges to access the top and rear of the engines. I was happy to find nothing of concern; I just added some oil to each engine and buttoned them back up.

As to the vibration issue, we both thought this would be a great opportunity to use the underwater video camera that my friend, Jack, gave to us before we left. We got it hooked up to the TV, but when placed underwater, the current was so strong that it would not let me angle the camera towards the propellers. Even when I was able to maneuver the camera to face the boat for a brief moment, the picture was way too dark. It is a great tool in the right circumstance, but it looked like I needed to go overboard to check things out. That would have to wait, however, as the current was too strong to do it safely. By the time the current went slack, there were thunderstorms in the area, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

The underwater mystery did not stop us from loading the bikes into the dinghy and going ashore to the nice dinghy dock and little plaza. This is a neat town, but absolutely not bicycle or pedestrian friendly. We rode our little bikes slowly on the sidewalks and got a few looks of disapproval but no words. Much later, I saw a sign stating that bicycles are prohibited on the sidewalk. So, the choice was disobedience or likely being run down by drivers who don't pay attention. We chose the former and were extra courteous to walkers.

Our 1.75 mile ride to the hardware and grocery stores wound up being a bit longer because I missed the side street I was looking for. When we doubled back to find it, it was an alley not wider than one car and mostly unpaved. The map didn't indicate any of that, but it served to get us the rest of the way off the main drag. I found everything on the hardware list except the RainView product that our friend, Harvey, recommended for the window glass. The Harris Teeter grocery store was exceptionally nice and we got everything we wanted there, too. In a few days, we will be in Beaufort, NC, where we'll have a courtesy car and can get more, if needed.

On the way back, who should we see again but sailor Andrew and his huge dog, Harry, out for a walk. We chatted about today's run and plans for the next few stops and then set off before the rain resumed. No sooner did we get back to the boat that it started drizzling heavily. Diane had defrosted chicken breasts for supper, so I set about preparing a new concoction, influenced as usual, by what we had available and needed to use up. The chicken medallions with sautéed onions, peppers, and mushrooms, in a lemon butter caper sauce over penne were a hit. We will add that to our 'company meal' list.

The shower after supper was warm thanks to pre-planning! The admiral was happy and the captain still retains his job. I spent some time on the flybridge listening to music on the mp3 player and found that it was actually quite chilly outside. When I came below, it felt warm although Diane was feeling chilly even inside.

I tried watching the first DVD of the cruise, only to find three-quarters of the way through that the disc was corrupted and unplayable beyond that point. Diane went to bed as normal, but I slept in the salon as we expected thunderstorms to roll through in the middle of the night and I wanted to be able to hear/feel the effects better than I could in the stateroom.

Sure enough, about 1130 the rain and wind picked up quite a bit. A check of the internet RADAR showed it should be over in an hour, so I stayed up to keep watch. We did not appear to drag anchor one bit, which was as expected with the anchor we have and the bottom here.

We plan to stay another day here at Wrightsville, NC and then move on and hope for an end to over a week of crummy weather.