Rescue practice on the Bay River

Broad Creek Sunset


Awoke to a cloudy sky and, shortly thereafter, rain. Odd to have showers in the morning. Waited around until almost 9:00, checking the storm activity on radar. Finally decided to pull up the anchor and inch our way out Broad Creek. The channel in here is not marked very well and apparently differs from what the charts show, but we made it out without incident.

Good wind except in Goose Creek so we sailed most of the day. Came across some Coast Guard activity on the Bay River. They seemed to be practicing a helicopter rescue right next to the mark we were headed toward. Couldn't raise them on the radio so we took down the sail (what will helicopter wind do to a sail, anyway?) and motored way around them to be safe.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we made it to the creek by 1:45. And so our journey came to an end when we ran aground in Jordan Creek trying to tie up to the dock at Old Mill Landing. Just a little soft grounding. We docked in a little different position than usual but all is well.

It's almost the 4th of July

Thought we would have a short day today. Wanted to take it easy and not be so tired by the time we anchored. Left Mile Hammock at twenty after 7 and made it to the Onslow Beach bridge on time for the 8:00 opening. Lots of military stuff happening (great water toys they have!) but they just waved and smiled and we did the same and it was all good in spite of the warning lights saying live munition activity was happening.

Had pretty good wind so had the jib out most of the day. Cruised through Morehead at over 8 knots. Slowed down a bit in Adams Creek but still not so bad. Nice sail across the Neuse. Thought we would anchor at Oriental. The best laid plans..... No room to anchor or dock except at a face dock with wind gusting to 23 knots right into it. So we moved on to Broad Creek, another 1 1/2 hours further. We are anchored and hoping the wind will calm down which it seems to be. There are a lot of fishermen in Broad Creek.

Look on the bright side, right? Now we just have 30 miles to go before we can say we are home. Jordan Creek here we come.

Military base?

I can't believe we found internet here, miles from town. Kudos to our home made antenna.

Who sets up these opening schedules for bridges on the ICW? It sure isn't arranged for sailing vessels. One bridge opens on the hour, another on the half hour. But you have to be able to do about 10 knots to make the openings in the least amount of time. Unless we have 20 knots of wind on our beam, a 3 knot current, and the engines wide open we can't do that. (OK, that might be an exaggeration.) Many of them open on demand but today we ran into two that were really off our schedule, and we didn't have the favorable current we had yesterday. So we have been having to go really slow to kill time, or else turn circles in front of the bridge forever while we wait. Then (after we had passed it, fortunately) we heard the pontoon bridge was not opening this afternoon because of low tide. Go figure.

Left about 8:00 this morning and have been motor sailing for much of the day. Stopped for fuel in Wrightsville, after having a little friendly contact with another boat already at the fuel dock. There was a pretty swift current that caught us off guard. Couldn't get the fender in between the opposing bows quick enough, but no damage done fortunately.

We've seen tons of osprey with young and some baby geese swimming all in a row. Not much else. No alligators. Lots of people and boat/waverunner traffic. We're currently anchored in Mile Hammock, spying on the guys in uniform that have all sorts of water toys parked across the bay from us. There appears to be a group of Brits over there - with a British flag flying. Only one other boat anchored here besides us.

Maybe the last chance we get to go through the Sunset Beach pontoon bridge