We  headed
up the Cape Fear River to Wilmington on a beautiful sunny
morning but little by little, north winds increased and
the mercury fell. I wore fleece pants, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt
and another hooded sweatshirt over that. When we entered a
protected channel leading to the marina, it was like closing a
window. Once out of the biting wind, it wasn’t a bad day.
Wilmington Marine Center is a
perfectly good marina but it’s out in the boonies. It’s
situated next to a two-lane highway with heavy truck traffic
that leads to an industrial area but we decided to do errands on
our bikes anyway.
Monday morning we set out to
get a propane tank refilled. Tom attached square plastic crates
to the backs of the bicycles and placed the tank in my crate.
Halfway there we stopped at a shopping center to figure out
which way to turn when a pedestrian eyed the tank on the back of
my bike. He stopped to ask me, “Does your bicycle run on
propane?”
We
finally got the gas and by the time we got back to the boat
we’d pedaled nine miles. My sore butt got together with
Tom’s aching knees and decided we’d rent a car for the rest
of the errands. We picked up tachometers at West Marine, bought
groceries, did laundry, went downtown for a walk around the
historic waterfront, and I kept my dermatologist appointment to
get a spot of skin cancer removed from my leg. Tom was happy,
not only because he finally had new tachometers, but also
because he discovered a Chinese buffet restaurant within biking
distance (we went twice). Weather was wonderful, warm sunny days and cool nights.
May 4 – We pulled out of
Wilmington with a full refrigerator, plenty of propane, clean
clothes and a patched up leg. The whole day was an easy
run.
The only annoyance was the Surf City Bridge that opens only on
the hour so we had to idle and wait for 45 minutes to go under
it. We made it to New River Marina in Snead’s Ferry, North
Carolina to refuel shortly before they closed at 5:00. We paid
$2.41/gal for diesel, the same place we filled up three years
ago for $1.15/gal.
We were close to Camp LeJeune
and could hear the rapid fire of military maneuvers in the
distance.
On the way to our anchorage in Mile Hammock Bay, a sailboat was
being towed off the bottom by TowBoatU.S., so Tom was being
extra careful to stay in the marked channel. As we approached,
they began waving their arms and yelling, “Get over, it’s
shallow there.” We were in eight feet of water but I watched
the depth gauge drop rapidly to three feet. The channel had
shoaled. Tom got over to the red side and made it through
without incident, only to meet our next challenge a few minutes
later.
At Mile Hammock Bay we saw
what looked like a couple of fishermen in an inflatable tied to
the channel marker. One of them was waving his arms, which I
mistook for doing something with his fishing line. As we got
closer I could see they were waving at us. Four boats were
already anchored so we had no idea what they were waving about.
When we got within shouting distance we heard, “Get out, you
can’t come in here. Get out.” By then we could tell they
were with the military and Tom called back to them that he had
to go in far enough to turn around. The reply was, “No, you
can’t turn around. You can’t come in. Get out.”
At that point he kicked it in reverse, backed out and
backtracked to Swan Point Marina, where we tied up and spent the
night. We heard from another boater that they had divers in the
water so boats weren’t allowed to enter. He wondered why the
military didn’t provide them with VHF radios for better
communication.
|
