Wednesday, October 11

We had two good traveling days ahead. Lines were cast off  at first light for a 35-mile run to Campbell Creek, where we'd be ready for the 'Nasty Neuse' the next morning. The creek's silence was complete; not a house, car or person existed within earshot. I imagined it must have been that way 400 years ago when the first settlers dropped by.  

At seven a.m. the sunrise was as red as a sunrise gets. "Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight." I didn't want to think about it. Dolphins surrounded us, gliding up and down through the glassy water. Or maybe they were porpoise, it's hard to distinguish one from the other.  

The Neuse River turned out to be relatively peaceful this time across, bouncing us around just enough to shake up the fuel, sending sludge into the filters. Tom checked the engine room and said the gauges were starting to 'pull vacuum.' He said if we were lucky we'd make it to the anchorage before we needed new filters; if we weren't lucky, he'd have to drop a hook and change them out in the open. We were lucky. We settled in Cedar Creek and the first order of business was to change fuel filters. My part of the 'we' was to hold a plastic bag to catch the black, gooey messes.

Cedar Creek, about 10 miles from Oriental, is shallow, edged by marsh grasses, filled with crab traps, and is not the best of anchorages. We wanted to find protection from the north wind that NOAA predicted for the coming night but there was no northerly protection to be found. Tom squeezed into the only possible spot, between two floats, dropped the anchor, and called it good enough. We were too isolated to get a phone signal or internet connection. 

On a clear Saturday morning, the ICW around Morehead City is an aggregation of every sort of fishing vessel - party boats, charters, private trawlers and about a zillion runabouts ripping over the water to get to their hot spots. One captain came on the radio inviting everyone who was listening to go to channel 68 for reading of scripture. That's a new one!  The narrow channel southwest of Morehead City leaves little room for error, where surrounding water can be as little as a foot deep. With wind and current constantly pushing us to one side, I had to stay vigilant to keep afloat. In one place small fishing boats were lined up and anchored in the middle of the channel. Must've been a hot fishing spot!

Thirty miles beyond Morehead City the fishing boats thinned and scenery changed to sandy dunes, vacation homes built on stilts, pontoon boats and one kayaker dressed in a summery T-shirt. In a strong west wind with a temperature in the 50s, we were bundled up and shivering.

When you approach Camp LeJeune it's hard to ignore a sign that states 'DO NOT ENTER. LIVE FIRING IN PROGRESS when flashing.' That's the way it's written, with 'when flashing' in small letters. Fortunately, it wasn't flashing. 

We woke up to a frosty 37 degrees. Neither of us wanted to stick our nose outside so we didn't start out at our normal early hour. In a couple of hours the sun warmed things up and we went on down to New River Marina in Snead's Ferry, known for the cheapest gas on the ICW. While Tom pumped diesel into the tanks at $1.91/gallon, I took advantage of the stop and went for a 10-minute run to get my bones moving.

Today's itinerary would take us to the seaside vacation town of Wrightsville Beach. As usual, boat traffic was heavy on a Sunday afternoon and huge marinas and boatyards around Wrightsville Beach are home to thousands more, making it look a lot like south Florida. Tom dropped the hook near the bridge and we rowed ashore. The main road in town, a block off the Atlantic Ocean, is lined with picturesque cottages, many of them shingled in weathered gray cedar. Folks relaxed on porches and balconies, some were jogging, and even more were sucking up the suds at a sidewalk bar. There was one common denominator that stood out to make this town very unlike Florida: the median age looked to be about 22 - not a gray hair in sight! Our anchorage was secure but it was anything but secluded; boat traffic zipped in and out until well after dark. 

Monday was a short run to Carolina Beach State Park, which we heard about it from a Canadian sailor on his way to the Bahamas. It costs a reasonable $20/night and there's a bike path from the park to a shopping center with a Food Lion supermarket.  Rain and wind was predicted for later, through the night and all the next day, so we paid for two days. That made it worthwhile to go to the trouble of getting the bikes out and setting up the satellite dish for TV. Getting the bikes down was a bit trickier than usual but fortunately the captain has an aptitude for problem solving. We had to use a boarding ramp at this dock and there was quite a wide gap between it and Pura Vida. Instead of just handing the bikes down to me from their place up on the bridge, where I would normally catch hold of each one and set it down, he dangled them on ropes so that I could grab on with the boat hook and guide them down and over to the dock.    

We pedaled to the grocery store, loaded the baskets with provisions and made it back to the boat before the heavier rain started. Even with that, we'd forgotten a few things and had to go back again the next day. That's when I had a close encounter of the startling kind. I was pumping along the path, looking straight ahead, when suddenly a fast-moving object shot in front of my face. An involuntary shriek came out of me and I realized I'd just missed colliding with a deer by a nanosecond. I heard it's hooves hit the blacktop and it disappeared into the park before I could look sideways. 

Wednesday, October 18. We floated away from the dock in the still of dawn in a gray foggy mist, headed into Lower Midnight Channel, and then the Cape Fear River. Our destination was Calabash Creek on the South Carolina state line. The mist turned into into a steady rain. Looking through Pura Vida's soft vinyl-like windshield is never clear, those times when we have to be zipped in, and rain compounds the problem. The big power monsters didn't help matters either. At one time three of them passed, all in a row, making it impossible to cut into their wakes. Pura Vida rolled wildly to one side and then the other, up and down a half-dozen times, enough to knock some plastic drawers loose, breaking one. 

(click on pictures to enlarge)