Day 2-140 onward north to Swansboro, NC

 

Our marina for the past 3 days was about 150 yards from this bridge across the Intra Coastal Waterway. It connects Wrightsville Beach (right or east) to the mainland. It only opens on the hour so we cast off a few minutes before 9:00 am and had only a very short wait for it to open. It was cool at the start, but we kept shedding layers of clothing as the day progressed.

Our original plan was for a 3 hour trip up the coast to Surf City, but as with all good plans...  Just before the entrance to the marina we had to wait about 20 minutes for another bridge that only opens at the top of the hour. It turns out that the marina had gone bankrupt, but they did offer us a slip. It also turned out that with a 15+ mph cross wind it was difficult to back into the slip. The real problem was that the finger piers were only 25 feet long. Trust me. It was impossible to tie a 50 long boat to a 25 foot long dock in that cross wind. We left only slightly shaken and with only a little damage to the rotating davits that launch and retrieve the dingy. Lesson learned?

We saw three really unusual pieces of yard art today.

There was an 8 foot tall wooden swan (profile), a huge stainless steel 3-dimensional sea goddess, and finally there was the most amazing life size statue of a giraffe. It had to be at least 15 feet tall. Today, I am extremely thankful that none of those people are my neighbors...

So, we went back to the Intra Coastal and headed north again. The Admiral served up a wonderful lunch of spaghetti squash with marinara sauce (or as she calls it "spaghetti with spaghetti squash"). We had several options, but we chose to continue about 4 hours north to the town of Swansboro. That was not as easy as it sounds since we had to pass through the seaward side of Camp Lejune. At the southern end of the base there is a swing bridge that opens every half hour (the Onslow Beach Bridge, picture below). That's the good news. The bad news is that the military operates the bridge with "typical" military precision.

Reports on the web from other mariners indicate that if you are even "30 seconds" late in your approach to the bridge, they will not open it. In spite of the dire warnings, we arrived a couple of minutes early, and the bridge opened right on time. I forgot to mention that even before going through the bridge, you have to call and verify that there are no "live fire" exercises planned during our trip. After the bridge, that segment of the trip began with many warning signs like "No transit if yellow lights are flashing"," turn to 530 am for information", "warning: unexploded munitions", and so forth. It spite of the warnings, the area was very remote and beautiful.
The last picture shows me on the dock in front of Lucky Us at Casper's Marina in downtown Swansboro NC. We had planned to at least visit this marina, since they advertise "some of the lowest prices for diesel fuel on the east coast".

We plan to buy about 300 gallons so their ad was very enticing, and compared to the previous marina, we are saving $0.70 per gallon. Pretty good!!!

Swansboro is a pretty, little quaint and friendly town with lots of beautifully maintained house from the very early 20th century.

Days 2-138-9 Weather delay in Wrightsville Beach, NC

First, an explanation of the title for this year's posts. After months of thought (well, maybe more like 30 seconds), I decided to add the number "2" to signify "Year 2".

We ended up staying in Wrightsville Beach for two additional days due to cool, wet weather. Thus, there is not much to report.

All was not lost as we did manage several shopping trips since there were numerous shops, including a West Marine, Harris-Teeter grocery store and a wonderful hardware store within a half mile of our dock. Plus, the Admiral had bought a Tail  Gator satellite dish over the winter. It is intended for Recreational Vehicles (aka "Land Yachts"), and we placed it up on the flybridge where it has a clear view of the sky. It is self aligning, and it greatly expands our TV channels. It would not work while the boat is underway, but we are too busy running the boat to watch TV anyway. The boat moves around a little while tied to a dock, but in spite of this motion, the dish works very well. We already had web based options like Net Flick and over the air local channels. Soooo, bad weather is not a problem, especially with free wifi at most marinas.

BIG NEWS! Lucky Us restarts the Great Loop...

Our last post was on Day 136 just after we had arrived in Wilmington, NC in late September. We spent about a month in Wilmington getting Lucky Us ready for winter. Then we headed home for some serious Grandkid time! We chose Wilmington because it was about as far north that we could go and still leave the boat in the water over the winter. The boat celebrates her 30th birthday this year, and I am almost positive that she has never been up north for a winter.  The decks are a composite of wood encapsulated in fiberglass. The teak decks are screwed into the fiberglass and wood as well as numerous stainless steel deck fittings. The result is "lots" of water inside the wood.  If it were to freeze, we could have some serious damage... We also had to prepare the boat for hurricane season, which meant removing the canvass enclosure, chairs, etc. Also, I flew home and drove my truck back to Wilmington along with the dinghy trailer. We also took home some of the more expensive (and portable) electronics.

Don't get me wrong. This 4 week period was not all work. We enjoyed getting to know Wilmington.

 The historic downtown area is along the Cape Fear River, and it is about 25 miles upstream from the Atlantic Ocean, which makes the Cape Fear Marina a good "hurricane hole". That is boater jargon for a relatively safe place for your boat during a hurricane.

We arrived back in Wilmington about a month ago on February 26 with the dingy in tow. We spent the last 4 weeks reversing the process from last fall. We also had the boat pulled out of the water to have her bottom cleaned and three seacocks replaced. Actually, one was permanently removed and fiber glassed over. I also drove the truck and trailer home, and then I flew back to Wilmington.

As you know, spring in North America is late this year! However, we finally left Wilmington this morning to restart our voyage around the Great Loop. Last year we covered 2519 miles from home to Wilmington in 134 days. We still have about 5000 miles before we get back home so it will be a busy year. The pictures were taken this morning as we departed. They show the battleship North Carolina (first picture), which is permanently moored across the river from downtown Wilmington (second picture). The weather was near perfect with scattered clouds and a high temperature in the upper 60s.

Tonight, we are docked in Wrightsville Beach, NC. Our voyage for today was about 32.7 miles, but we are docked only about 8 miles as the crow flies from where we were docked last night in Wilmington. Sounds crazy, but we had to go back south down the Cape Fear River then cut across to the east to join the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Only then could we actually head north to Wrightsville Beach.

Our plan over the next 2 months is to slowly cruise up the east coast arriving in New York City about Memorial Day (May 30), and then we plan to spend the summer on the Great Lakes. About Labor Day (early September), we will cruise through downtown Chicago and head south to return home via the river systems.

We got here a little before Noon (third picture). What did we do to celebrate? Well, we each took short naps. Then the Admiral went a half mile to a hardware store for some parts. I replaced a leaking elbow in the CPVC water pipe for the shower, and Terry replaced some of the water hose for the ice maker and added a filter and drain valve. Doesn't sound like much of a celebration does it?  Well, we did go out for a VERY nice dinner at a waterfront restaurant next to our marina! See! We do remember how to celebrate!

Stay tuned as our adventure unfolds. I plan to post at least on every travel day. Speaking of travel days, we may remain in Wrightsville for 2 more days as the chances of rain are pretty high. So much for a fast start...