We decided to get up at 6am today and get an early start. When we finally got outside there was ice on the decks but we pulled up the anchor and went anyhow. Boy are we glad we did! The ICW goes through Camp LeJeune – the Marine training base. Today was the day we were going on that stretch of the waterway. The Marines reserve the right to close the ICW when they are doing live firing exercises. It can be for hours at a time. They have a sign as you enter their base, if it’s flashing the ICW is closed. There is also a Navy guard boat sitting there to make sure you pay attention to the sign. Well, it was flashing, but they let us and the boat in front of us through anyway and told us to go as fast we could until we saw the other Navy guard boat. Our friends on Peregrine didn’t want to deal with the ice this morning so they were a bit behind us. At 9am the Navy guard boat told them they had to anchor until the ICW opened again at noon!

The next bit of luck hit us when we were late getting to the first bridge that opened on a schedule. We were not going to make the opening but the bridge was having mechanical difficulties and had just been fixed when we got there. We were able to go through even though it wasn’t the scheduled time to open. The ICW has a number of different types of bridges. This one, pictured above, was a swing bridge. The middle of the bridge rotates 90 degrees and the boats drive through the opening.
As we proceeded down the ICW we saw a sailboat sitting ahead of us and not moving. Uh oh! He had missed a mark and was hard aground – deep outside the channel. It was one of the single handers that had joined us for Thanksgiving. Lucky for him there was a small powerboat ahead of us who helped him get off. We would not have been able to get close to him with our boat.

We were making great mileage today. Our goal was Wrightsville Beach, a little over 50 miles from our anchorage. If we hadn’t gotten up early and gotten through that bridge it would have been hard to make it. We had two more bridges to go through that opened on set schedules. We really had to rush to make the first bridge, but the second bridge schedule was not as easy. We couldn’t make the opening we wanted to make because Moonraker doesn’t go that fast. The only option was to have to slow down and be forced to appreciate the beautiful nature and opulent houses that were on either side of us.

On our way today we made water with our watermaker. After we got through the last bridge we pulled into a yacht club and filled up our fuel tank and pumped out our holding tank. We are anchored in Wrightsville Beach and looking forward to a day on land. Bill has already scoped out some restaurants, and I am looking forward to seeing the Atlantic Ocean again. We are almost all the way through North Carolina. At least it wasn’t terribly cold today. In fact today was the first time this trip that we were able to sit in the cockpit at anchor and have appetizers before dinner!