After a peaceful night in Mile Hammock Bay we were up at sunrise this morning, pulled anchor and set off down the waterway. It turned into a beautiful day and we enjoyed the scenery as we made good progress. There was a lovely pine scent to the air, there were pelicans, blue herons and skimmers flying around and to crown it all - many dolphins accompanying us along the way. We timed the first bridge perfectly and eased through with no fuss. However, an increasing procession of boats gathered and by the second bridge there was a whole mess of us lining up for the opening. Add in a bit of current, a jot of impatience and a lot of anxiety about reaching the next anchorage in time to get a good spot and there is a recipe for a stressful time. By the third bridge it was a zoo! At this point we left the mad crowd and headed back up stream and did not turn back again until it was time for the bridge to open. By now we are at the back of the line for the left hand turn into the Wrightsville Beach anchorage. As we make the turn our fellow boaters are already out of sight and we realise we did not "brief" our approach into the channel. Before we know it the alarm on our new depth sounder is beeping and we are aground!!!! Instinct led us to turn towards the docks where there are many large power boats tied up, sadly the channel lay to the opposite side and as it was low tide we ended up on the shoal, which is uncharted but common knowledge amongst the locals who passed by as we sat waiting for the tide to come in. Before too long we were able to wiggle free and we gingerly made our way to the anchorage. We were dismayed to see that it was jam packed and far too crowded for our liking. There was, however, plenty of room on the other side of the channel. Here we had a lot of difficulty getting the anchor down satisfactorily mainly beause the current and wind were opposing so we were lying at a weird angle to the anchor. To crown off the whole day, Tom got poohed on by a seagull! Somehow it ended up in his shoe! At this point we both burst out laughing and realized that things could only get better from here.
We have had a lovely supper, the wind is picking up and it is drizzling a bit - Oh the joys of cruising. Tomorrow, with any luck, we will be headed out onto the ocean via the Cape Fear River, we are hoping to make it to Charleston by Tuesday morning but may even press on further if things look good and we are not too tired.
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Comments [2]
" Eating up the miles "
and
" Hanging a(g)round in Wrightsville " variety is just what you are getting.
You lucky things.
Love
Dad XXX
We had a good day today, pulling up anchor at first light and finally dropping it again some 57 miles later in Mile Hammock Bay. We were fairly late into the anchorage and as we would expect it was fairly full as peak migration season for cruisers is in full flow. Fortunately we managed to squeeze into a corner and then watched the even later boats try to squeeze themselves in as well. Thankfully it is forecast to be a settled night, I would be worried we are all too close if the winds get up. We passed straight through Beaufort again (we never have stopped there) and were a little frustrated the weather won't allow us to head outside for a few more days. We had warm southerly winds today, no good for sailing south! Tomorrow the winds are supposed to switch to the North so we think we may be able to jump outside at Cape Fear on either Monday or Tuesday. We would aim to get down to Charleston or perhaps even further. If the forecast doesn't hold then we will just keep on trucking down the ICW.
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Phew! All went well today and we are off again. About 10.30am we got the word to bring Osprey over to the travel lift and without further ado we were plucked out of the water. We got to inspect the bottom - not too bad, flick off a few barnacles here and there and change the prop-shaft zinc. In the meantime one of the yard guys switched out the faulty transducer which seemed to have deteriorated at the face - no one could figure out why. Thankfully the new transducer slid right back into the existing hole which was a good thing as it is positioned right at the forefront of the keel and would be very difficult if not impossible to modify. Once the new transducer was in we asked them to leave us in the sling whilst we ran the new cable and hooked everything up to the new control unit that was installed yesterday. It was nice to be able to do this ourselves and save a bit on the labor charge. Once the guys got back from lunch we were plopped back in, calibrated the sounder, paid the bill and left. Ahh! it was good to be underway again. We didn't come far because of the time of day. Pretty much the only anchorage within striking distance was here in Cedar Creek off of Adams Creek. So here we are, all is well and we feel lucky to have got this issue sorted without too much of a delay. The only painful part is the expense - over one big boat buck - Ouch! Thankfully my wonderful Dad has offered to help out with the cost as an early Christmas present - thank you Santa!!!
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Well a bit of progress was made today - but sadly we are not done yet. It would seem that our electronics man got tied up on another job and didn't show up here until later in the afternoon. Once he got here he made very short work of getting the new control head installed. But, by the time that was done it was too late to be hauled out to get the transducer put in. The latest plan is that we will get hauled tomorrow morning, the yards guys will install the transducer and we will do the rest of the wiring. Hopefully all will go to plan and we can leave the boat yard tomorrow. We do actually quite like it here as it is very quiet and peaceful but we really want to get on our way again. Of course we have missed the window to jump offshore at Beaufort so rather than wait for the next window we will start trucking on down the ICW.
I have been remiss in not taking any photos lately - this one shows Tom in full offshore garb. Note the headlamp which we switch to the red lamp to preserve our night vision.
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